Newsletter, August 2006

Dear SBBA Members,

I would like to thank everybody that has volunteered their time over the years to make SBBA what it is today. I volunteer my time because I love this organization and what it is doing for bookkeepers and the community. This organization has literally changed my life because of the education and guidance I have received, the friends I have met, the employees I have met, and of course, the jobs.

I recently sent out an email asking for volunteers for a few items we need help with, and have not gotten much of a response, which is disappointing. Many of you eagerly offer advice on what we should be doing, but never step up to help. Please contact me if you have a little spare time for SBBA, and Vicki also still needs volunteers to help put together an email list for the CPA firms.

September is the month when we hold elections at our annual meeting. A Nominating Committee consisting of one regular member and one or two board members will choose the slate of officers and directors, which will be presented to the members for a vote at the September general meeting. Only members present at the September meeting can vote for the slate of officers and directors. If you are interested in serving on the board, please contact me or any board member, and we will put you in touch with the nominating committee chairperson.

I hope to see everybody at this month’s meeting!

Karen Ziegler-Mora

Please email your RSVP for the August 15^th Monthly Meeting by Sunday, August 13^th to Karen Mora at: scubaz@cox.net

SECRETARY’S MINUTES

The July meeting of the Santa Barbara Bookkeepers’ Association was held at Milligan’s Café on Tuesday, July 18, 2006.

Meeting was called to order by Karen Mora, President.

Guest and New Members introduced themselves.

Karen Mora reminded everybody about the upcoming meeting for our local chapter of the American Payroll Association July 27^th at Mulligan’s. There was also a reminder about the next QB Users group meeting August 7^th at S.B. City College with Sandra O’Meara speaking about non-profits.

The guest speaker at the meeting was Gail Anikouchine, CPA speaking about Sarbanes-Oxley regulations.

Paula Mauro won the free lunch drawing.

Rosemary Chidester, SBBA Secretary

Our speaker this month will be Michelle White from Paychex, and the topic is Human Resources for Small Businesses

SBBA Non-Profit Seminar

Mark your calendars now for Saturday, October 28^th from 9AM to 1PM for an SBBA seminar on non-profit organizations. We will be emailing specific details later this month.

Note from Karen Mora

Please remember the Job Postings that are posted through SBBA are for the benefit of our members. When you forward this information to non-members, it lessens our chances of getting the jobs. These non-members may also say they heard about the job through SBBA, falsely leading potential clients to believe they are SBBA members.

Please also remember that out list server and newsletter is for bookkeeping related content, and not for personal postings or advertisements of any kind.

QuickBooks Users Group Meeting

Monday, September 11,2006

Santa Barbara City College.

West Campus – Business & Communications Building

721 Cliff Drive, Santa Barbara

Room BC214 – Conference Room

6:00 – 8:00 p.m. - $20.00 (Dinner included)

To reserve a seat, send check payable to:

QB Users Group, P.O. Box 3302, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

The Group is for ALL levels of QuickBooks users and is open forum to share experience, knowledge and support. PLEASE COME JOIN US!

For further information, please email: Bonna Hamilton at Bonna@silcom.com

Santa Barbara Area Chapter

American Payroll Association

Please join us for our next lunch meeting

Thursday, August 24th at 11:30am

Mulligan’s Café – 3500 McCaw Avenue

RSVP required by August 21^stplease

Please RSVP by email to LHarris@SBcourts.org or by calling 805-884-8070

Speaker: Michele Jackman, Organizational Effectiveness Coach, www.MJBizWiz.com

"Getting it Done! Getting it Right! Getting Along with Others: Adventures in Payroll Processing"

What are the tricks and traps of payroll processing these days? Join speaker and facilitator Michele Jackman in a lively group discussion of ways to remain motivated, sane, and competent

Critical Success Factors and Key Performance Indicators – Mystery Solved

By Brenda Richter, CPA

A Member of the Principal Alliance

Critical Success Factors (CSF) are based on those processes that are necessary to fulfil the governing commercial purpose of the business.

For the business as a whole, these will be those processes necessary to implement the strategies that have been or are being put in place to allow the organization to achieve its vision.

These are the processes we must absolutely get right.

A great place to start is by looking at those processes that have the greatest and most direct impact on ROI and cash flow. Some examples are Marketing & Sales, Product Creation & Distribution, Customer Service, Cash Flow and so on.

CSF Based KPIs:

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are a quantitative measure of the CSFs in a business. Here's a way for you to determine some of your KPIs. Once you have identified your CSFs, you'll need to determine what KPIs you will use to measure those processes, eg. Cash Flow will inevitably be one of your CSFs.

Some KPIs for Cash Flow may be ‘days in receivables’ or ‘receivables turnover’. You may balance this with a KPI for the number of clients lost due to aggressive collections polices. Gross Sales will inevitably be another. In this case you may want to balance this KPI with your KPI that measures gross and net margins.

Sub-System KPIs:

For each of the processes you have identified as CSFs and determined appropriate KPIs for, there will be sub-systems. For instance, a sub-system to your sales process may be generation and conversion of leads. For each of these sub-systems that directly impact the CSF system, you will invariably develop KPIs. In this example, your sub-system KPIs might be ‘leads generated’, ‘conversion ratio’, or ‘average cost per sale’.

You will want to go through the same scrutinizing process with KPIs as you did with the CSFs, as there’s no point in doing well that which shouldn’t be done at all!

This month's Newsletter was edited by Patricia Mayer, with many thanks to everyone who submitted items!!!