Leasing vs. Buying: What You Need to Know

It’s just a good sound business practice to keep a healthy cushion of cash on hand at all times. And with credit markets tight, you need to keep what credit reserves you have for real emergencies.

At the same time you’re attending to cash flow issues, you’ve also got to keep on top of your computers and IT infrastructure in order to keep your business running smoothly. So how do you meet technology demands while keeping cash on hand? Leasing presents one good financing option for many small businesses.

When you buy equipment, it’s yours forever. But when it comes to computers, the pace of innovation is so rapid that owning equipment “forever” doesn’t always make sense. Leasing lets you acquire equipment at a fixed, affordable monthly cost, leaving bank credit and cash reserves free for other expenses. You can upgrade or refresh technology whenever you need to, instead of trying to extract value from old or out-of-date equipment. And some providers will finance not only the lease but also installation and configuration, so that you can roll up all the costs of a technology refresh into a single payment.

	Leasing	Buying
Initial investment	Lower	Higher
Soft costs (taxes, shipping, installation)	Payable over time	Payable immediately
Predictability of expenses	Very predictable	Variable
Risk of obsolescence	Low	High
Preserves bank credit	Yes	No
Preserves available cash	Yes	No

A potential down side of leasing is that, depending on the length of the lease, you may ultimately pay more for an item than you would if you paid for it outright. This is particularly true of longer-term leases. You should also consider the residual value of the equipment at the end of the lease. Equipment value declines over time, so a shorter-term lease results in fewer payments with a higher-value asset at the end, as well as lower risk of obsolescence.

Remember, there may be tax implications to consider for either option. You may want to consult with your accountant to determine the best fit for you.

If you want to learn more about financing options available through CMIT Solutions, give us a call at 408-217-6600.

more info - http://cmitsolutions.com/centralsv

Every Remote Office Needs an Online Conference Room

Online conferencing allows people to meet, collaborate, and exchange ideas without having to be in the same place – which comes in handy when corporate travel budgets take a hit.

Combine reduced travel allowances with many smaller businesses’ decision to downsize or even eliminate their physical offices to save on rental costs, and you can see why online conferencing is getting popular again. Not only does it allow for realtime collaboration, it can also allow you to record and replay meetings and presentations for people who couldn’t make it to the original event. You may not have all your employees in the same place at the same time anymore, but you can make it easier for them to communicate like they are.

So how do you evaluate a Web conferencing service? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Determine your needs and priorities. Do you need a bare-bones service that offers basic desktop sharing, or do you need something more elaborate, with bells and whistles like polling, streaming audio, and document sharing?
2. Determine what platforms it needs to run on: Windows, Mac, Linux, or all of the above.
3. Watch providers’ online demos. You can read all the white papers and datasheets you want, but you won’t know what a product really feels like until you see it in action.
4. Pay attention to customer service. If they don’t respond quickly to your concerns as a potential customer, they might not respond any faster once you’ve signed up.
5. Compare pricing. Most services charge by the month and offer a discounted annual plan.

If you've got questions about how to set up a remote office, call us at 408-217-6600. We can help with virtual private networks, remote access, security, and more.

more info - http://cmitsolutions.com/centralsv

Plain Text, Rich Text, or HTML? You Decide

When you’re sending out email to new recipients who haven’t heard from you and who may be using a variety of mail programs to view your message, it’s best to go the simplest route possible and stick with a plain text format. You won’t get any fancy formatting bells and whistles – no crazy fonts, no pictures or backgrounds – but it’s your best hope of keeping the email from landing in a spam filter or rendering as unreadable gobbledygook on the other end.

HTML, on the other hand, works great for newsletters like this one: where you’re sending to a known subscriber list and you have images, headers, and a variety of styles to manage. HTML is also a very widely recognized format, and the default for Outlook.

Rich Text is another formatting option offered by Outlook, but it’s only useful in very limited circumstances. (For example, if you're sending email within a company that uses Outlook on a Microsoft Exchange Server and want to include an attachment in the body of the message instead of up near the subject line.) Plain text and HTML are really all you’ll need to send attractive, readable emails to recipients using everything from Thunderbird to mobile phone browsers.

To alter the format of a single email, take the following steps:

Go to Actions > New Mail Message Using > And then select the format you want. (The default in Outlook is HTML.)

To change the default format for all outgoing mail:

Go to Tools > Options > And then click the Mail Format tab. A drop-down menu gives you a choice of HTML, Plain Text, or Rich Text.

more info - http://cmitsolutions.com/centralsv

Make Your Internal IT Department More Productive, Efficient, and Effective – Without Adding Headcount or New Vendors

If you’ve got an in-house IT staff, you know how hard it is to coordinate all of the many tasks regularly assigned to your technical gurus. More often than not, techs deal with problems on a first-come, first-served basis — or according to the “squeaky wheel” principle, where whoever yells the loudest gets the most attention.

This can result in unhappy employees, an overworked and harried IT staff, and a feeling that everybody’s struggling to keep up with IT demands instead of actually getting ahead and concentrating on projects that can really help out the whole business instead of a few individuals.

What you need is a way to prioritize tasks, also known as “tickets,” and coordinate schedules so that technicians, non-technical employees, and management all have a clear picture of who’s working on what.

Well, we’ve finally found a way – and we wanted you to be the first to know about it. Today we’re announcing the release of CMIT Service Center, a new add-on product to the award-winning external IT service desk management software that’s already available when you sign up for CMIT Marathon. CMIT Service Center lets you log and track internal IT service requests, distribute those requests to the most appropriate person (whether it’s in-house staff or CMIT technicians), and create custom follow-on questions and workflow rules to suit the unique demands and structure of your business. In essence, it takes all those coordination and scheduling capabilities you enjoy when you work with CMIT technicians and brings them in-house.

CMIT Service Center lets you streamline and formalize the internal service ticket process — resulting in real accountability, better service, and more efficient use of your IT staff and resources. Sounds pretty good, right? Call 408-217-6600 or visit www.cmitsolutions.com/centralsv/servicecenter to learn more.

more info - http://cmitsolutions.com/centralsv

When (and How) to Use Linked vs. Embedded Worksheets

Sometimes when you use a worksheet in a Microsoft PowerPoint or Word presentation, you want it to be as up-to-date as possible. Other times, it doesn't matter if the information is current or not - you can just use a static copy of an old worksheet.

In the first instance, you’ll want to use a linked worksheet. In other words, your presentation will look for its source data in the original Excel file. In the second instance, you can use an embedded worksheet – basically, a copy that you can modify without it affecting the original. Embedded worksheets are handy when you’re sharing your presentation with others, because it means you won’t have to send the original Excel file along with the presentation.

Linked Worksheets

So let’s say you’ve got a PowerPoint presentation that includes a slide showing the most current quarter’s sales figures. That will change from quarter to quarter, of course, so you should use a linked worksheet. If you choose this option, remember that your machine will look for the source data in the original Excel file every time you open the PowerPoint presentation.

Here’s how to insert a linked Excel 2007 worksheet in PowerPoint 2007:

1. Open up your PowerPoint presentation to the relevant slide.
2. Open up your Excel file to the relevant chart.
3. Select the portion of the worksheet you want to include.
4. Press Ctrl+C.
5. Switch over to PowerPoint and click on the slide.
6. Go to the Home tab, find the Clipboard group, click the arrow under Paste, and then click Paste Special.
   
7. In the As list, select Microsoft Office Excel object.
8. Click Paste link.

To perform the same operation using Excel and PowerPoint 2003:

1. Open up your PowerPoint presentation to the relevant slide.
2. Open up your Excel file to the relevant chart.
3. Select the portion of the worksheet you want to include.
4. Press Ctrl+C.
5. Switch over to PowerPoint and click on the slide.
6. Go to Edit/Paste Special.
7. Select the Paste link toggle and select Microsoft Office Excel Worksheet Object.

Embedded Worksheets

If you’re using information that will not be updated, or if you don’t want changes to a worksheet to be reflected in your presentation, you can simply embed a copy of the worksheet in the presentation. (This also makes the presentation more portable, because it won’t automatically “look” for the source data in Excel every time you open it.)

Here’s how to insert an embedded Excel 2007 worksheet in PowerPoint 2007:

1. Open up your PowerPoint presentation to the relevant slide.
2. Open up your Excel file to the relevant chart.
3. Select the portion of the worksheet you want to include.
4. Press Ctrl+C.
5. Switch over to PowerPoint and click on the slide.
6. Go to the Home tab, find the Clipboard group, click the arrow under Paste, and then click Paste Special.
   
7. In the As list, select Microsoft Office Excel object.
8. Click Paste.

To perform the same operation using Excel and PowerPoint 2003:

1. Open up your PowerPoint presentation to the relevant slide.
2. Open up your Excel file to the relevant chart.
3. Select the portion of the worksheet of the worksheet you want to include.
4. Press Ctrl+C.
5. Switch over to PowerPoint and click on the slide.
6. Go to Edit/Paste Special.
7. Select the Paste toggle and select Microsoft Office Excel Worksheet Object.

If you’ve got a question about Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or other Office programs, CMIT Solutions can help. Give us a call at 408-217-6600.

more info - http://cmitsolutions.com/centralsv

It's Easy to Set Up a Signature File - Here's How

A signature file appears at the end of an email message and usually contains some or all of the following:

• A sign-off phrase like “Best regards” or “Thank you”
• The writer’s name, job title, and contact information
• The company name and web address

Signature files, also known as “sig files,” can also contain quotes and graphics. A successful sig file is like a little business card – it tells you everything you need to know about a business contact, and nothing you don’t. If you’re not currently using a signature file, you might consider it as an easy, nonaggressive way of promoting your business or web page. It also makes it easy for email recipients to access your contact information directly from their Inbox.

To set up a signature file in Outlook 2003, do the following:

1. Go to Tools > Options.
2. Go to the Mail Format tab.
3. At the bottom, in the “Signatures” section, click the button titled Signatures.
4. Click New.
5. Enter a name for your new signature and click Next.
6. Type in your text and modify as needed.
7. Click Finish.

To set up a signature file in Outlook 2007, do the following:

1. In a new message, on the Message tab, in the Include group, click Signature, and then click Signatures.
2. On the E-mail Signature tab, click New.
3. Enter a name for your new signature and click OK.
4. Type in your text and modify as needed.
5. Click OK.

more info - http://cmitsolutions.com/centralsv

How to Access Files at the Office - Even When You're Away

Remote office access lets you log on to a computer or server from a separate location and use it as if you were actually on-site. Many businesses now rely on the ability to give employees remote office access, whether it’s for mobile workers, as a response to the increased price of commuting or the need for flexible work schedules.

There are two main categories of remote access: remote desktop connection and virtual private networks (VPN). Each one of these types of remote access has its own merits and even some challenges.

Remote Desktop Connection

In simple terms, “remote desktop” refers to the ability to access your computer from another remote computer. You can either do this using Microsoft’s Remote Desktop (a standard feature of Windows XP Professional that can connect you to another XP Professional machine), or through Web-based services such as GoToMyPC and LogMeIn, or you can use one of the most popular features of Microsoft Small Business Server, Remote Web Workplace, which provides free remote access to all designated employees via a secure web site.

Remote desktop offers quick, easy and inexpensive access that, if set up correctly, requires nothing more than Internet service no matter where you are. The downside to using remote desktop is that only one person at a time can access the remote machine, and it requires someone who is tech savvy to complete the initial set up.

VPN (Virtual Private Network)

A VPN emulates a direct, secure point-to-point connection, allowing data to be securely transmitted across unsecured public or private networks. Because a VPN is secure, it eliminates the need for pricey point-to-point options such as leased lines and dial-up connections. The remote office or computer naturally becomes part of the network. Additionally, a VPN allows for the sharing of network resources such as printers, servers, files and databases.

On the minus side, a VPN can be difficult to set up and requires a high degree of technical skills in the area of public network security. Additional software for the VPN client must be installed on remote computers. Finally, the performance of some applications, such as QuickBooks, suffers over a VPN connection.

Not sure which remote access solution is right for your business? Give the experts at CMIT Solutions a call: 408-217-6600. We’re here to help!

more info - http://cmitsolutions.com/centralsv

Flag Sensitive, Urgent, and Draft Documents with Watermarks

When you’re circulating a document for group review, you sometimes want to make it absolutely clear what the purpose or the status of the document is. Watermarks such as “CONFIDENTIAL” or “DRAFT’ help get the point across.

Watermarks are easy to insert in Word 2007. Just follow these steps:

1. Click Page Layout on the Office ribbon.
2. Go to the Page Background group and click Watermark.
3. Select the watermark you’d like to use.
4. To create a custom text watermark, first remove the existing one by going to the Page Background group, clicking Watermark, and clicking Remove Watermark. Click Custom Watermark, then Text Watermark, and type in your custom watermark. Click Apply.

The process is slightly different with Word 2000 and 2003:

1. Go to the Format menu, then select Background, and click Printed Watermark.
2. To insert a picture as a watermark, click Picture Watermark. Then click Select Picture. Select the picture you want, and then click Insert.
   To insert text as a watermark, click Text Watermark. Then select an existing watermark or enter your own custom text.
3. Use the Print Layout view to see how it will appear on the printed page.

If you’ve got a question about using Microsoft Word or other Office products, CMIT Solutions can help. Give us a call at 408-217-6600.

more info - http://cmitsolutions.com/centralsv