NMONIK Data Tracking
Over the past 20 years, as a business owner, I've noticed that what gets measured seems to turn out better in business. For example, when you measure your productivity, it improves. When you measure your consumables used, you use less of them. All other costs, like electricity, gas, cleaning supplies, etc...when measured, seem to be conserved or just last longer.
Everything that gets measured, just naturally (although it isn't natural) seems to improve, when a focus is put on it. One very good activity to measure is project costs. Sometimes project costs just get away on you, like a runaway train. How often have you started a project with a small budget, believing that this is truly the proper amount? only to realize many months later after you've performed a true job cost or cost analysis on the project to realize the costs have ballooned out of proportion.
When this happens, you wish you had tracked and monitored those costs more diligently. One of the stumbling blocks that everyone has of course to monitoring projects is the time to do so. It seems to take a lot of time to do this and then put everything together at the end of the project as well as to keep all of that data together in some location that is accessible easily to people besides just the project owner. People keep various folders with copies of various types of receipts, including gas, meals, travel, hotels, travel charges, pens, paper, staples, taxes charged, and all the other miscellaneous costs. Add to this internal purchase orders, time entries, rentals of some equipment, capital purchases that are wasted, materials consumed and pretty soon, there is just a large amount of data that can't really be properly handled by spreadsheets. Spreadsheets are o.k. for small projects, but the one thing they don't allow for is secure access across multiple departments and people. In addition, cells in the spreadsheets can be changed by people and formulas can easily be changed. These are all reasons that many people choose to not track costs and expenditures in projects. The time of doing so, truly does not warrant tracking the costs, i.e. when the time to track, outweighs the benefit of really knowing the true cost.
We have found that tracking costs in projects can be beneficial, especially in instances where those costs are related to some form of cost recovery. In Canada, there is one Federal government sponsored program, called SR and ED, short form for Scientific Research and Experimental Development. Effectively, a company or individual, in business, needs to track all of the costs involved in a project that is Technologically uncertain. As well as tracking those costs, they need to also track what they did and when. The requirement to do this is can be time consuming, especially, during the day to day delivery of regular work activities. It needs to become a process that is fluid and easy to implement across departments and multiple divisions if necessary, while not accessing accounting records, for security reasons.
Nmonik Data tracking is a versatile Project management data tracking tool. It allows companies and individuals to track their time invested into projects as well as the expenditures and notes surrounding what they did, separate from an internal accounting system. This is really a great way for companies and individuals to monitor their time and expenditures into an accounting type system that is really a standalone project management tool. In this way, Nmonik, allows users to be able to remotely access the tracking, add the proper comments in real time if necessary with a Blackberry or iPhone interface and track the expenditures made.
In a situation where companies need simplified data tracking for projects along with remote access and rules for who can access what, Nmonik, is a great solution. It is inexpensive and versatile, can be used for the SRED program as well as internal or external projects. This way, you can monitor them all and really understand what is happening. In a small or medium sized business environment, even a large business, this is a tool that can save a lot of time and help you to capture the necessary data to make successful SR and ED claims. The tool is cloud based, runs in a secure data centre, and is available anywhere that you have an internet connection that is fast enough to accommodate the data transfer. You can add multiple file formats, including, .wav, .doc, .xls, pdf, notes, and time entries for various individuals.
If you are interested in adding Nmonik's data tracking service, please feel free to contact us via email and we would be pleased to see how we could set you up.