TARI for Business™ - FAQ

These Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) are updates from time to time. If the question you wish to ask is not here, please click here to send an email seeking an answer.

 

1.Why TARI™?

When you buy MYOB or Quicken or any of the commercial software you get financial statements. You may even get them within a week or two of the end of the period to which the data refers. The process is known as historical accounting and it unlikely the information will be of any direct help in boosting the bottom line. More than likely, the statements will be filed away unread.

With TARI for Business™, you have immediate feedback on where the business is at and what is necessary - given existing resources and without any additional expense – what to do to boost the bottom line. TARI™ maintains focus on what really matters and tracks results individually and accumulatively, step by step day by day and week by week.

Whether engaged in retail, trade, manufacturing or service sectors, few know their bottom line when quoting or pricing. Those with TARI™ do. That’s why they win time after time.

TARI for Business™ does not replace commercial accounting software. Rather it complements it by using the financial data to reveal where the rubber meets the road when it comes to boosting the bottom line.

2. Does TARI for Business™ replace my accounting software?

No. TARI for Business™ uses financial statements to obtain past trend data and to check that current expense levels are close to those used when producing performance targets so maintaining financial transactions should be up to date to allow summary information to be gathered.

The most important information TARI for Business™ requires comes from the invoicing done by your business. By gathering the details behind the amounts on an invoice, TARI™ brings into focus and ranks the achievements made by each invoice towards the targets set by your financial goals while offering alternatives to ensure you meet those goals.

3. How much data entry is required to make TARI for Business™ work?

For each past year, about 20 numbers from your financial statements, 6-10 invoices and numbers of staff is all that is required.

For targeting, you may wish to input details of all projected expenses, however we have found that any performance targets initially tend to be refined within the first month of tracking.

Tracking within TARI for Business™ is based on invoice data which can be summarised to reduce the quantity of input. Expenses are inputted on a monthly or quarterly basis and may only consist of those larger expenses that require attention.

Any extra work required to collect this vital information will be rewarded with improved profit and cashflow.

4. Isn’t the price too cheap?

Yes. Whatever price is quoted to you will be cheap considering a "one man" jobbing/repair type business charging by the hour including profit on parts for say $70 and working at 50% productivity would only need to lift productivity by a couple of percent or one hour a week to pay for TARI™. As matters stand, the proprietor has no idea what his productivity is or what his average charge out rate is (inclusive of profit on parts). Using TARI™ he could easily lift output by a minimum of 6 hours a week, gaining a bottom line increase of $20,000 for the year without blinking.

But currently he certainly has no TARI™ to guide him.

At any point in time, TARI™ will show him where his business is ‘at’, highlighting the status of the two key drivers (fundamental to all business) and if need be, guiding him back on track towards the targeted bottom line. (See the Diesel Repair case study in the TARI™ parables).

A similar story can be told of the retail and restaurant sectors – see the Jeweller and Café case studies in the TARI™ Parables.

5. TARI for Business™ is oriented to results in the future. Shouldn’t there be more emphasis on analysing and identifying existing problems?

Analysis can be both time consuming and time wasting and likely to be an expensive and fruitless exercise. Available information is invariably compliance oriented, lacking in relevant detail, fragmented and unreliable.

TARI for Business™ calls for the regular input of data at invoice level for comparison with a TARI™, which has been based on projections of unanalysed existing data. As the ongoing input and comparison process continues, a clear picture of the true situation emerges.

In other words, a process of analysis is taking place in a continuum. It is a process that proves to be far more accurate and far less intrusive to normal business activities.

Given this approach, whatever the client’s stated perception of such things as ‘average sale’ or 'hours sold’ and so forth, is really immaterial. Once the process of tracking results commences, the true picture will emerge, at which point, it may be necessary to adjust the projections of activity and contribution on which TARI™ is based.

6. What are the technical requirements for installing TARI for Business™ software?

TARI for Business™ is Windows (WIN32) application software running on any Microsoft Windows version Win 98 onwards, in standalone, network or notebook modes.

The software requires about 25mb of disk space and we recommend 128MB of RAM.

TARI for Business™ is built on the open source, publicly available database system called Firebird SQL. With millions of users worldwide, Firebird delivers secure data storage, built in backup and restore functions, true client / server architecture, small disk space and a single database for each business that can be compressed and forwarded over the internet via email.

For normal operation, TARI for Business™ does not reply on third party software. However, TARI for Business™ can import Accounting Data from Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and can export some selected data to spreadsheets.

All reports can optionally produce separate PDF files for each type of report.

On-going development for future technologies will see TARI for Business™ made available on such systems as Apple and Linux systems using .Net Framework technology.

TARI for Business™ requires annual software support to gain access to data. Support is essential to maintain existing functionality on future systems thus protecting the investment in data that TARI for Business gathers.