Business « Dataserv's Blog IT Tips from Sydney Australia

Is your office network safe from power surges?

September 26th, 2011

Australia has its fair share of thunderstorms but did you know that if your office is not properly fitted or wired, an unfortunate power surge could damage your computers?

A few years ago, I was called to an educational institute to implement a disaster recovery plan for they had just experienced a severe thunderstorm the night before and a surge of power had damaged a few floors of networked computers. The surge wasn’t through the power plugs but it was through the network cables!

It was a sad sight but moreover, it was sad to get the management team to plan for business continuity After a disaster. Fortunately their servers were protected but they didn’t implement surge protection for the network devices. What were all those students going to work on during lectures? How long would it take to replace and configure the damaged computers? How much will it cost to replace the equipment and implement protection for the future?

Those are terrible questions to have to face and I felt sorry for the IT staff at that institute. We can only advice you to spend and invest in suitable surge protection. Bigger companies shouldn’t be thrifty about this! APC is a leading brand of UPS devices and if you don’t have one, this is a start! Certainly there are a whole range of vendors but we like to deal with the best, and APC would be our recommendation.

Contact us if you need some advice or if you haven’t got a Business Continuity Plan in place. Hopefully you will never have to use it, but if you do, it can save you thousands of $$$!

Posted in Business, IT

Free Payroll Applications for Micro Businesses

August 2nd, 2011

The two most popular Accounting software packages for Micro and Small businesses are Quickbooks and MYOB. They are easy to use, provide a range of features, have a great support team, and are generally quite affordable.

However, when it is time to grow and you’ve got some employees to pay, adding a Payroll module seems to increase the costs by several fold! The above providers seem to milk companies with their annual support fees just to receive the annual patch for the updated Tax Tables.

So what are Micro businesses to do? With limited funds and probably one or two employees, is it really worth paying all that extra dough for a Payroll module? As IT consultants, it is our job to introduce software that can be of value. Interestingly enough, there are some vendors that introduce Micro businesses to the Payroll Application world for FREE! They allow free usage of their Payroll software if you’ve just got a handful of employees. After reviewing several packages, the two that stood out on top are:

1) www.e-payday.com
e-PayDay is somewhat unheard of even in the Accounting world but word about them is spreading quickly. The User Interface (UI) is modern and it was easy to setup and learn. It looks rigid (which a good Payroll System should be) but I think it would be a pain using this software if you have a large employee base. For a Micro Business though, it is very good and will save you several hundreds of dollars.

2) www.kwikpay.com.au
Kwikpay seems to have a much older UI and has probably been around for a while as they’ve established their presence in a few countries. The features were more than sufficient but it was difficult to use and learn. I suspect these guys may not exist too much longer unless they update their UI! Still, this is worth checking out!

Yes both of these applications are up-to-date with the current tax tables and the vendors will provide the patch every year to keep you compliant. Once you create the right account types within your Accounting software, these freebie Payroll systems will provide the rest of the relevant information that you need.

Posted in Business