Reconfiguration of Invoices and Payment Methods Essay Example for Free

Reconfiguration of Invoices and Payment Methods Essay This proposal lays out the benefits and impact of applying technology in order to reconfigure invoicing and payment method acceptance at Sunny’s Landscaping. The company suffers from low collection rates and long collection times. Its traditional method of work and invoicing is both ineffective and costly. Additional staff is required just to attempt to collect past due bills which are oftentimes erroneous and outdated. Moreover, the company would further benefit from a customer database that would compile all work orders and reduce or eliminate redundancy. The lack of technology use has put the company at a disadvantage in the industry. Problem The issues to be addressed are to lessen collection time of payments while simultaneously reduce overhead costs, create a customer database that can be accessed through marketing, finance, and customer service departments, and greatly improve upon operational processes. Approach Establish if implementing a handheld credit card acceptance method at the point-of-sale will effectively reduce payment collection time and give the company a competitive advantage. Further determine if electronic invoicing and database creation will eliminate redundancy and reduce costs. Methodology Meet with appropriate department heads—finance, customer service, operations, marketing—to determine how each will benefit by the reconfiguration and how to maximize profits from those benefits. Decide which database program would be most compatible for meeting the needs of the organization. Additionally, establish the costs and time associated with educating and training staff on the products and software being introduced. Allocate the time and expense and determine the best quarter to implement the changes. Company expenses, due to lack of payment collection and overhead, severely cut into profits. Immediate payment by way of a mobile credit card processing adapter at time of service will help increase company profitability and efficiency. Each program will tie into the next. The credit card processor will automatically generate electronic invoices to be emailed to the customer. These invoices will be housed in a database that will collect and store releva nt customer information. The impact on the company as a whole will be positive as departments will have the ability to share information and collaborate for optimal efficiency. Milestone 1 Problem The issues to be addressed are to lessen collection time of payments while simultaneously reduce overhead costs, create a customer database that can be accessed through marketing, finance, and customer service departments, and greatly improve upon operational processes. Company Background Sunny’s Landscaping was formed in 1976 by one man in Pennsylvania and started operations with only two additional employees. Sunny’s provides construction of ponds rock walls, irrigation, lawn maintenance, flowerbed design, and all landscaping needs to its customers. It has grown to employ as many as seventy-five people and has net revenues of almost one million dollars per year. Sunny’s (The Company) services both residential and commercial properties with commercial generating nearly 75% of its annual revenues. In the early 1990’s the Company began providing additional services, such as snow removal and ice buildup prevention that would allow it to stay operational year-round. With these additional services came an increase in new accounts; most of which have been residential. The profit increase with respect to the new accounts has been mediocre at best. The Company’s inability to collect payment on the new residential account s has begun to severely decrease profits and it has been proposed to reduce services. In an effort to continue all service and grow, the Company has begun to seek solutions. Approach Internal financial research has shown that decreased profits are due to a multitude of issues including the high number of delinquent or late accounts, excessive staffing expenses, and a general lack of sufficient and effective use of technology. Determine if introducing a new method of point-of-sale payment collection will reduce expenses related to residential accounts. Further determine if an electronic invoicing process will enable the Company reduce staffing costs while simultaneously creating a customer database. Methodology Convene with all the appropriate departments—finance, customer service, operations, marketing—to determine how a database should be constructed so it is cross functional for each department. The company currently uses Microsoft Access for its customer list. Information pulled from this list is oftentimes outdated and erroneous. It is inappropriate software to use in order to transfer customer information to an invoice. This process increases work hours and is redundant. As work orders are issued and workers are dispatched, each should be provided with the ability to adjust the invoice electronically onsite for immediate customer payment. The method used now is to issue the order, perform the work, adjust the invoice if necessary, and then mail it out in the traditional fashion. The increase in new residential customers has also caused an increase in non-payment. The use of a mobile credit card processor could help reduce this payment delinquency. Options/Solutions Sunny’s Landscaping has very little collaboration amongst its departments and few tools to work with. Each department is independently operated from the others and has not yet adapted to the influx of residential accounts. Whereas, the larger commercial accounts are well known and recognized, the smaller residential accounts are given very little customer service. The Company must find a solution that will reconcile both the residential and commercial accounts with company’s overall needs and each department’s ability to operate. One centralized system would allow the Company to function as a whole. The Company has a need for a system that can accomplish three goals: 1. Generate invoices 2. Allow for point-of-sale credit card processing 3. Create a database that is cross functional All three systems must work in tandem and allow information to flow from one process to the next. For example, as work is completed a foreman requires the ability to generate an invoice on the spot. Then they must also have the ability to accept payment from the customer. Lastly, the customer’s information and work performed must be electronically transferred into the database where other departments will be able to access it for a follow-up service. Marketing could use the information for promotional mailers, customer service could use it to obtain feedback, finance would use it for records, and operations could use it to find out the type of service performed. If one system can be constructed that will support all three functions, it will reduce costs company wide, allow for customer informat ion to be used effectively throughout all departments, and increase profits while reducing delinquent accounts. Milestone 2 Sunny’s Landscaping will need to research further to determine if and what additional resources will be required to reconfigure its invoicing and payment methods. It must also determine how much training will be required for frontline workers and supporting staff. Sunny’s Landscaping should consider the following questions prior to making a decision about which software and hardware to use: 1. What point-of-sale device will allow for data to be stored in a database and extracted for invoicing? a. Is there one device that is superior over the other in price and performance? b. Will this device need any additional in-house hardware to function? c. Will customer’s financial and personal information be stored and processed securely; how can we ensure customers that it is? 2. How long, if at all, will funds be held for before deposit? 3. Will one database be able to support all the functions that each department requires? 4. Can prior customer’s information be easily entered into the new database? 5. Will a lack of mobile or internet connection affect point-of-sale processing; and if so, how are payments accepted otherwise? Point-of Sale Device The two most compatible devices with Sunny’s Landscaping needs are SquareUp and Intuit GoPayment. Each device works similar to one another. Research has shown the greatest differences are in payment deposit time and customer service. SquareUp appears to have a longer slower deposit time of funds, especially with new accounts. Moreover, the first few months of service do not allow new customers to withdraw entire deposit amounts. According to the SquareUp website, this payment hold is to reduce fraud. GoPayment by Intuit seems to have the greatest customer satisfaction. GoPayments device hardware also seems to be of a better, more secure design as can be seen in the figure below.

Eleanor Roosevelt Essay examples -- essays research papers fc

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Although she won much respect as the first lady Eleanor Roosevelt gained a lot of her international esteem as a civil rights activist long before that. Eleanor’s interest in politics did not begin when her husband began his career in politics. Once he was named to the Democratic ticket, as Vice President Eleanor became interested in politics. While Franklin was becoming governor of New York she was campaigning for him unknowing that she was advancing her political career as well. Once Eleanor became first lady it was already done she had made a name for herself politically.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Eleanor’s background in politics goes back to her Uncle Teddy who was once the President of the U.S. Eleanor married a young amiable Harvard student by the name of Franklin Roosevelt. But soon Franklin became bored with Business Law and Eleanor pushed him to go into politics. Aided by a Democratic landslide and his mom’s money he won State Senator from the Hyde Park District. But Eleanor hated Albany and was soon very happy to leave. Franklin liked his newfound success in politics and his career prospered swiftly. He soon became an early backer of Woodrow Wilson as he ran for president, for his efforts he was awarded the job of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the same job that propelled Eleanor’s Uncle Teddy to presidency. Eleanor liked Washington about as much as she liked Albany and spent little time there.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the years after that Franklin contacted polio and it was now up to Eleanor to keep his name before the public. Aided by Louis Howe she went on a mission to salvage her husband’s career. Louis went to meetings that she spoke at and though it took much criticism he managed to get rid of her nervous giggle. Soon Eleanor gained confidence and accepted offers to write in magazines and appear on radio talk shows. She had joined many groups including the Women’s Trade Union League and was also the chair of the Finance Committee of the Women’s Division of the Democratic State Committee. She was fast becoming a prominent public figure, much to her amazement.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In 1928 at the Democratic National Convention Governor Al Smith asked Eleanor to run the entire national Women’s activities in his national campaign for president. Smith soon requested more as he asked Fra... .... (UDHR50)†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Clearly Eleanor Roosevelt had a well-known political career without the fame her husband gained. When her husband started out in politics she disliked it but the more she was exposed she soon realized her role was to be useful and politics was the key to this. Her husband Franklin saw her as a great asset to his career and she also made a name for herself that lived on after he died. Works Cited â€Å"Eleanor Roosevelt†, Eleanor Roosevelt Letter, March, 1996, National   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Archives and Records Administration, 21 November 2000,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   â€Å"Eleanor on Human Rights†, Eleanor Roosevelt Biography, August, 05 1998,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  National Coordinating Committee for UDHR50, 18 November 2000,   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Roosevelt, Eleanor, This I Remember, ed., New York, Harper, 1949. Weinstein, Allen, and Frank Otto Gattell, Freedom and Crisis:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  An American History, 3rd ed., New York, Random, 1981.

Information and political engagement in America: The search for effects of information technology at the individual level Essay

Activism (Coffee Party). Introduction                  Many onlookers doubt the ability of digital media to revolutionize the political game. The Internet is associated in the new global activism far beyond just reducing the costs of communication, or surpassing the geographical and temporal barriers accompanying with other message media. Innumerable uses of the Internet and digital media expedite the loosely designed networks, the weak character ties, and the patterns of issue and protest organizing that define a new global demonstration politics. Scrutiny of various cases shows how digital network patterns can facilitate: perpetual campaigns of the Coffee Party Movement, the evolution of broad networks despite comparatively weak social identity and ideology ties, alteration of individual member organizations and whole networks, and the capacity to link messages from personal computers to television screens. The same merits that make these communication-based politics resilient, and also make them vulnerable to hitches of control, policymaking and collective identity. This essay uses the realization and fruition of the Coffee Party, a political association in the US that inaugurated as a Facebook Group, to see the upsurge of a transnational activism that is aimed past states and directly at corporations, trade and development organizations bargains a fruitful area for indulging how communication practices can help in creation of new politics. Documentary filmmaker Annabel Park formed the political party as a forward leaning rejoinder to the Tea Party movement in the US. As a tryout, Park setup a Facebook group called, â€Å"Join the Coffee Party Movement,† conjecturing that the way to instigate political participation in the general inhabitants was to create a public spere for civil discourse. The fame and critical mass involvement on Facebook offered a new, and well-suited podium for Park’s experiment (Bimber, 2007). The public spheres created by the Internet and the Web are more than just parallel information universes that exist independently of the traditional mass media. A growing conventional wisdom among communication scholars is that the Internet is changing the way in which news is made (Boeder, n.d.). New media provide substitute communication spaces in which information can develop and be sociable widely with fewer conventions or editorial filters than in the mainstream media. The gate-keeping capacity of the traditional press is weakened when information appears on the Internet, presenting new material that may prove irresistible to competitors in the sphere of 24/7 cable news channels that now occupy important niches in the press food chain. Moreover, journalists may actively seek story ideas and information from Web sources, thus creating many pathways for information to flow from micro to mass media (Boeder, n.d.). New forms of virtual political organization are changing public discourse by broadening and altering participation. Issue entrepreneurship, first conceptualized by Jà ¼rgen to explain the effects of the Internet’s openness and immensity on political discourse is shown here to be at once prescient and insufficient (An encyclopedia). The anticipation of the issue entrepreneur as a central player in Internet enabled political discourse, before it really existed, is prescient (Edward & Chomsky, n.d.). We see issue entrepreneurs emerge from Coffee Party Leadership, from amongst the members and in a few different types of dissent. Jà ¼rgen’s lattice structure, however, fails to anticipate the one-dimensional nature of the political context studied here. Ideology is dominant, and nation, geography and organizational dimensions are nearly absent. Mass media framing of movements clearly varies from case to case, depending on how activist communication strategies interact with media gatekeeping (Habermas, 2003). A global activist movement that is committed to inclusiveness and diversity over central leadership and issue simplicity should have low expectations of news coverage of demonstrations that display the movement’s leaderless diversity in chaotic settings. Why has a movement that has learned to secure good publicity for particular issue campaigns and organizations not developed more effective media communication strategies for mass demonstrations? I think that the answer here returns us to the opening discussion of the social and personal context in which this activism takes place. Not only are many activists in these broadly distributed protest networks opposed to central leadership and simple collective identity frames, but they may accurately perceive that the interdependence of global politics defies the degree of simplification demanded by most mass media discourse. While issue campaign networks tend to focus on dramatic charges against familiar targets, most of the demonstration organizing networks celebrate the diversity of the movement and resist strategic communication based on core issues or identity frames (Bimber, 2007). For instance, discourse enabled by social and participatory media reduce physical barriers, but in this case also make traditional boundaries nearly invisible. The theoretical, design and practical implications of this for socio-technical citizenship are immense. The social and economic interests of citizens are more closely related to nation, geography and institutional dimensions; yet, for the Coffee Party, discourse is not focused there. Self-interest is, in some ways, marginalized by the socio-technical system from which Coffee Party discourse emerges. One important dimension of deliberative discourse on the Coffee Party Facebook page is the presence of both official leadership and leadership that emerges from members. Members lead in two ways; by joining in the discussion for a compelling topic (low frequency posters), or by sparking discourse across a range of topics (high frequency posters).One caution about the discourse we analyzed is the disappearance of user 4283’s comments on the Coffee Party Facebook page (Agre, 2008). Beyond the characterizations of the Coffee Party activists, the predominant news framing of the overall protest movement is also negative, as in â€Å"anti-globalization.† This is clearly a news construction that is at odds with how many of the activists think of their common cause. If movement media framing could be put to a vote among activists, â€Å"democratic globalization† would win over â€Å"anti-globalization† by a wide margin. For example, here is how American labor John Sweeney put it: â€Å"It’s clear that globalization is here to stay. We have to admit that and work on having a seat at the bench when the rules are written about how globalization works.† It is apprehensive with the world: omnipresence of corporate decree, the rampages of monetary markets, environmental destruction, maldistribution of power and wealth, international institutions persistently overstepping their mandates and lack of international democracy.† (Habermas , 2003). The elimination of contributions of dissenters, for whatever reason, would not be commensurate of Dahlberg’s criteria. In a socio-technical space, however, they demonstrate rudimentary gardening of content similar to what occurs on Wikipedia. Future designs of political discourse oriented social and participatory media ought to consider tools and practices for maintaining awareness of editing and what some might view as censorship. Finally, the network structure of this emergent, virtual organization reveals that, although the Coffee Party Administrators are responsible for the parent post content, they avoid participation in discourse regarding controversial ones. Advocates show up as central figures in the discussions that they lead, as do dissenters. Dissenters, however, draw a more diffuse, less centralized network around them. This phenomenon warrants future study focused on understanding how dissent that limits discourse might be separated from dissent that engages discourse. An interesting contrast to focus on here is between user 4283, who dissented without discourse and user 4080, who dissented with reason and direct references to other discussants. Designers of social and participatory media for political discourse might consider incorporating more sophisticated social cues for identifying and managing both dissent and advocacy. Social and participatory media has the potential to engage citizens. The Internet is mixed up in the new global activism far beyond plummeting the costs of communication, or outdoing the geographical and temporal barricades found in other communication broadcasting. Different uses of the Internet and other digital media facilitate the loosely structured networks, the puny identity ties, and the question and demonstration campaign unifying that define a new overall politics (Richard & Douglas, n.d). In specific, we have seen how certain configurations of digital networks enable: Cofee Party campaigns, the growth of extensive networks despite (or because of) comparatively weak social identity and ideology ties, the transformation of both discrete member organizations and the growing patterns of whole networks, and the aptitude to communicate messages from desktops to TV screens. The same qualities that make these communication based politics sturdy also make them vulnerable to problems of control, decision-making and collective identity (Ancu & Cozma, 2 009). The Coffee Party is an illustrative example of how this type of technology begins to realize deliberative discourse through technology; and also a study of how this discourse is constrained. Future research should consider both what we learned, and how new social and practice oriented designs can lead to greater citizen engagement. The rise of circulated electronic public domains may ultimately become the model for public facts in many areas of politics, whether launch or oppositional. It is clear that conventional news is disdainful from the attrition of audiences (more in commercial than in public service structures), and from the shattering of remaining audiences as channels increase. Perhaps the next step is a meticulously personalized information system in which the precincts of different issues and different political tactics become more permeable, enabling ordinary citizens to join campaigns, demonstrations, and virtual communities with few philosophical or partisan divisions. In this apparition, the current organizational weaknesses of Internet conscription may become a core resource for the growth of new global publics. References. Richard K. & Douglas MK. n.d. Oppositional Politics and the Internet: A Critical/ Reconstructive Approach. 704-725. Habermas, J. (2003). The theory of communicative action (1). Boston: Beacon Press. Agre, P. E. (2008). The Practical Republic: Social Skills and the Progress of Citizenship. In A. Feenberg (Ed.), Community in the Digital Age (pp. 201-224). Rowman and Littlefield. Ancu, M., & Cozma, R. (2009). MySpace Politics: Uses and Gratifications of Befriending Candidates. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53(4), 567-583. Bimber, B. (2007). Information and political engagement in America: The search for effects of information technology at the individual level. Political Research Quarterly, 54(1), 53-67 Boeder P., n.d,‘Habermas’ heritage’: The future of the public sphere in the Network society. Volume 10, no. 9 – 5 September 2005. pp. 1-13[28th Nov. 2014]. Edward H, & Chomsky N., n.d. A propaganda Model p. 256-283 Source document

A Research Study Of Two Conceptual And One Pedagogical...

This experiment was considered a notorious psychology experiment that was conducted for the study of two conceptual and one pedagogical types of research. The Stanford prison experiment was conceived by Dr. Philip G Zimbardo then conducted at Stamford University in Palo Alto, Calif on Au6 14 1971. This was a research experiment using ordinary college students that applied for $15.00 a day for 14 days. The intent was to explore the volatile dynamic between prisoners and prison officers that exist as well provide reform to the real world of officers training in correction (Blaas, 2000). Starting out the experiment was a setup prison setting to use volunteers by way of a newspaper posting for the Experiment. College students replied to the newspaper ad that was asking for volunteers for the study of what is known as the psychological effects of prison life. In the controlled experiment that was designed by Philip Zimbardo, a psychology professor at Stanford. The 24 males that was int erviewed and personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological problems out of more than 70 applicants was given diagnostic, medical disabilities, or a history of crime. Both groups completed the informed-consent forms which indicating that some of their civil rights could be violated in the research (Blaas, 2000). What started out as a make-believe prison setting experiment quickly evolved into a real prison situation with the inmates and officers. The guards were giving theShow MoreRelatedInnovation And Change Of Jesuit School System1538 Words   |  7 PagesInnovation and Change in Jesuit Education: Horizon 2020, a case study in the Jesuit school system in Catalonia. Research Methodology 1. 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