Snow Business, Mar/Apr 2014

ACH Automated Clearing House An electronic network for financial transactions in the United States ACH processes large volumes of credit and debit transactions ACH credit transfers include direct deposit payroll and vendor payments Be prepared to hand out your companys account and routing numbers monitor remittance advice emails and enter amounts into your accounting software at the proper times since you will not receive a paper check Low Training only Apps Applications Apps are programs optimized to run on smart devices You may be required to report every service performed through an app created specifically for the company youre working for To comply you may have to supply a smart device to employees that do not have one Medium Cost dependent on type of equipment and software purchased csv Comma Separated Value csv is a file format commonly used in spreadsheet software to move tabular data between programs that natively operate on incompatible often proprietary and or undocumented formats You may be required to submit data in a format including csv defined by the client for validation and payment Low Cloud cloud computing Software and data is stored on a remote network of computers making it accessible to many computers at one time in multiple locations Low Many cloud processes are free e g Google or Dropbox apps although very expensive cloud systems are available Dashboard Typically developed and hosted by the client this is the home page of its Web portal which normally shows quick links to common functions compliance items and reports Low Digital signature Signing on the proverbial dotted line isnt always possible in our mobile workforce Instead clients may require a valid digital signature which holds the same weight in terms of authenticity integrity and non repudiation Digital signatures are commonly used for software distribution financial transactions and in cases Fax is dead New technology requires a broader business vernacular By michael merrill Contributor I loathe the sound of a fax ringing in the ofice Like it or not we have entered an age where a career in snow ice management requires a certain level of tech savvy to be regarded as a professional Im almost offended when a document as important as a contract or scope of work arrives via fax I have to spend more time trying to look past the black streaks from the senders use of Wite Out instead of reviewing the indemnification clause for undesirable language More and more of our clients however are turning to technology to manage their vendors Snow ice professionals who are looking to break into commercial work or want to partner with national service providers or multiunit clients directly will find that doing so may come with technological requirements Taking the time to become familiar with the basic terms technology and digital tools that youll be expected to utilize will help you decide whether your company can follow the clients required processes throughout the contract term Can you cover the overhead required to comply with these new systems hardware software training Can the team understand and work within the processes Do you have the administrative staff to complete these functions within the defined time frame Working with these clients can result in an alphabet soup of acronyms and terms that must be understood to ensure youre speaking the same language and everyone is on the same page Following are some of those terms and related expenses that may come with them Most carry no hard costs but there will be an investment of time for education and training so youre comfortable with the processes Ive divided them into low medium and high costs to invest