Today the Wall Street Journal published a great article by Angus Loten about a critical issue in successfully building a small business – getting paid.  The article goes into great detail, but in a nut shell it says that companies are getting slower and slower when it comes to paying invoices.  Small businesses typically have to wait 45 days for payment and in the article, they give one example of a business that waited 404 days.  Over the years working at Intuit I spoke to thousands of small businesses and this was a frequent topic.  Very small businesses struggled to stay on top of paperwork and invoice promptly.  Once they did invoice, often companies wouldn’t pay on time and they had to remember to follow up (often several times) to get payment.

What the article doesn’t hit is that not only is slow payment a problem, bad debt is also a problem.  As a small company, you can expect that some percent of your invoices will never get paid.  This is a huge issue when you factor in the sunk cost in time, materials, payroll, and missed opportunities (customers you didn’t work for).

What really struck me when I read this article is that this issue never comes up when I talk to OnForce Pros… at least about the part of their business that they get from OnForce.  This is a problem that dates back to the invention of credit.  I love that the OnForce business model has solved this.  Here’s some data on how OnForce compares to the typical experience that the WSJ describes:

• Zero unpaid work orders! During the last few years of economic turmoil several of OnForce’s customers have gone out of business.  During that time not a single work order went unpaid due to lack of funds.
• Paid in 54 hours! Last check, on average, OnForce Pros get funds credited to their account 54 hours after they mark a job as complete.  That certainly beats 45 days or 404 days.
• 99.97% of work orders paid in 30 days! As of right now, we have about 1.2% of completed work orders that haven’t been paid within 5 days.  Looking out to 30 days, we have 0.035% of completed work orders not paid.  That’s less than 4 work orders for every 10,000 completed.  Each of these is actively monitored as we help the two parties work through the dispute.

We constantly hear stories in the press and on TV about small business lending and access to capital.  While this is a critical issue, imagine how much easier it would get if businesses weren’t investing funds up front to pay workers, buy materials, and do work, only to wait for weeks/months after completion to get the revenue associated with that outlay of capital.  Small business success will be critical to reviving our economy and cash flow is at the heart of how small businesses start, grow, and thrive.  I’m happy that we can help in the IT industry.

Related: ZDNet covers the OnForce index of economic confidence

Guest Blog: Scott Epple, OnForce Product Manager

We’re living in pretty exciting times.  Most of us carry around small computers with us everywhere we go.  The same computing power that used to take up the size of a large room, now fits handily in our pockets.  Smartphones are connecting us to the people and places we care about, helping us be productive anywhere, and making our lives easier in ways we never imagined.

Advances in technology are also changing the game in field services, and OnForce is playing center field.  We believe the smartphone is the new must-have tool for field service pros, and we’re leveraging mobile platforms to advance what’s possible for technicians on the go.

We launched our iPhone app at the end of 2011 and quickly followed with a beta release of our Android app in February.  Our technicians are now equipped with powerful, responsive mobile apps running on their iOS and Android devices.  It’s enabling them to work better and smarter than ever before.

As a service buyer, the benefits of this innovation for you are huge.  You need pros who are responsive, timely, efficient, and productive.  OnForce’s mobile apps are helping field service technicians make impressive gains across all of these attributes.

We’ve seen amazing adoption so far, with over a quarter of a million actions being completed through our apps.  Here are just a few ways OnForce Pros are taking advantage of our mobile apps to improve their level of service:

* Faster response:  Pros are reacting to new opportunities 68% faster through OnForce mobile apps compared to other methods.

* Improved efficiency: Pros report saving an average of 12 minutes per work order on administrative tasks.

* Greater reliability: OnForce mobile users have seen 200% greater year-to-date improvement in their on-time arrival performance compared to their competition.

Service buyers have long come to OnForce for our trusted network of field service pros.  This network just got a lot more powerful.  And we don’t plan to slow down: our Android app will be available publicly in the Google Play store Spring-Summer 2012.  We’re going to continue to push the bounds of innovation in field services and we’re glad you’ve chosen to join us for the ride!

Guest blog post by Kevin Kay, founder, Willows of Easley

When it comes to technology, I just want it to work.

Technology is essential for every small business – but we’re not in a position to have an ‘IT Department’ dedicated to helping us manage our network, set up a workstation or troubleshoot a technical problem.

Every day it seems like there’s a need to upgrade our software, or there’s a new gadget that’s critical for running our business. I see value every time we invest in technology, but we can’t afford to jump on every new tech trend as soon as it enters the market.

Just recently we took a leap. We decided that we wanted several new Apple products (I’ve been a happy MacBook owner for a while now) and I went to the Apple Retail store to talk to them about it. Apple has in-store associates just for SMBs (who knew?) and I spoke with them about what I was looking to do and they outlined a plan to make it happen.

• Phase 1: Data Transfer – We were an all PC business and we had nearly a decade of data that we needed to transfer over to new Apple workstations. I brought in our old PC’s and had Apple transfer everything over to our new iMacs.
• Phase 2: Configure QuickBooks – This was the biggest hurdle that we had to overcome and it wasn’t something that Apple could help us with at the retail location. We needed to update our QuickBooks software without losing our data. The software was so old, that we had to upgrade to QuickBooks 2009, before we could update to QuickBooks 2012. We needed an outside expert that could help us – and Apple referred us to OnForce Services – who worked closely with us to help solve our problem.
• Phase 3: Time Capsule – Once everything was set up, we wanted to be sure that it was backed up so that we wouldn’t lose anything. We purchased an Apple Time Capsule and tapped OnForce Services again to help with set up and configuration.

Our data transition in-store went great and we were equally impressed by the quality of service delivery from OnForce Services. The technician who came on-site was able to diagnose the problem and get our new and improved QuickBooks system up and running – and set up our Time Capsule so that we were covered in the event of a system failure.

If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I have a business to run and I’m not interested in setting up work stations or researching how to correct a computer or network problem. The process through Apple Retail and OnForce Services was quality all the way; it was quick; and it fit my budget.

I’m confident in Apple products and, because of the quality experience that I had with the service delivery, I’m confident about OnForce Services. I plan on working with Apple Retail and OnForce Services again in the future.

Guest blog post by Dan Shedd, President of Taylor Box Company

The only way that companies get to stick around in a competitive industry like ours is to evolve quickly with emerging customer needs and to never settle for second best. We’ve been in business for 126 years and counting and a key to our success is staying ahead of the curve and delivering quality customized boxes that make our customers’ products stand out.

Technology is a core component that supports all facets of our business. Our challenge is that we manage a mixed environment of PCs and Macs. Our PCs (8-10 of them) manage our ERP system and our design studio uses MacPro Laptops (3) and a MacPro tower. We’re growing (up more than 20% last year) which means that we’re bringing in more designers – and more Apple workstations to field new customer demand.

Back in December of 2011, I visited our local Apple Store retail location to talk to them about our company; the best way we could  keep our current Mac systems on the cutting edge and what new hardware we should bring in house as our team expands. Based on the input I received from an in-store Apple associate, this is what we did:

• Purchased a new Mac Pro tower, with enough horsepower (Dual 2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon) and features to arm our design team with leading edge technology and capabilities that would keep us ahead of the curve and last us for years.
• Purchased a new Mac Pro laptop, also with abundant processing power and features.
• Found an Apple Certified technician through OnForce Services, who would help us set up, configure and integrate our new Apple technology into our environment and ensure that all our Apple systems (and software) were up-to-date and properly configured for top performance.

We managed our last Apple upgrade internally and it was a mistake – it took staff away from client work; the process took forever and the install wasn’t optimal. The process was incredibly complicated and challenging – especially considering our mixed PC-Apple network environment, legacy peripherals and software apps. This time we couldn’t afford to make the same mistake and risk a delayed update process and possible system outages. It was crucial to reduce the implementation time window as much as possible. The answer was to bring in an Apple expert to handle it for us. I was happy (and relieved) that the Apple store staff could now put me directly in touch with a technician through OnForce Services – at the same time they were writing up my order. The technician from OnForce Services was extremely knowledgeable and delivered tremendous value. He arrived on time, with the necessary tools and was able to manage our upgrade and implementation quickly and effectively.

We’re always looking ahead in our business, and I absolutely plan to tap Apple Retail and OnForce Services for our next upgrade. (In fact, I’ve already recommended the service to several colleagues and highly recommend OnForce to you). Simply put: get the right technology for the job (Apple); get a quick, optimal installation (OnForce Services) and get back to work for your clients (us – Taylor Box).

I’m having a great day here at OnForce today — why, you ask? Our iPhone app for OnForce Pros just hit the app store!

The app is designed to be a hyper-efficient way for OnForce Pros to access OnForce while on-the-go, and it fully supports all the activities needed to review and accept new work orders as well as to handle open work orders.

In a way, today is both an end and a new beginning for us. It’s the culmination of months and months of extreme effort and a lot of impressive teamwork. And this is the beginning of some big new things for OnForce.

As field services is a mobile activity by its nature, an app for our Pros is a very natural extension of our offering. And I believe, at my core, that there are still huge opportunities to leverage technology to make field services dramatically more efficient. Today is a big deal not only because our mobile app is a vastly improved way for Pros to access OnForce while in the field, but also native apps and the smartphones they run on represent a new platform upon which we’re able to build some fundamentally innovative and valuable new things. Things that will help our service buyers and OnForce Pros connect, engage and work in new and better ways that weren’t possible just a few years ago.

This (and caffeine) is the kind of stuff that inspires and energizes us and gets us excited about coming to work in the morning! We’re really proud and want to sincerely thank everyone inside OnForce and in our community who helped get this app designed, built, tested (and beta tested) and launched.

The app is now available in Apple’s App Store and is compatible with iPhones running iOS 4.2 and above — more details about the app are here.

Android users, don’t fret! We definitely didn’t forget you. In fact, our team has already made great progress on the Android version and we hope to have a beta available very early next year. If you’d like to help test the Android version, just reply to this blog post with your email address or user ID and we’ll get in contact with you.

Thanks for listening and stay tuned – we have a lot of great stuff in the works that I think you’ll love.