Meeting with Cory and Shari O. Going over projects and priorities. Small updates on where each of the current projects stand. We talked quite a bit about the need for more special line items and maybe even making them more dynamic. Special line items are things that our clients get by default (things like labor, part number other, fee, shipping, freight, discount, supplies, etc.). They also have some special functionality that nothing else has as far as how they play, how they show up for roll call, and special grouping on certain reports. The other feature that Cory has been using recently is the percentage add-on feature that takes the cart total and then figures out a percentage to make that number stick and pass through the cart as a fee or whatever. We may end up doing a project to help with these features (dynamic special line items).

Toward the end of the meeting, we were talking about yearend payroll updates and changes that are needed (taxes, rules, forms, new rates and formulas). That comes up every year. One of our constant maintenance items for the adilas application.

Emails, research, and prep work on some digital storytelling talk outline stuff for an upcoming conference. As I was doing some of the research, we have a concept that we call "roll call accounting". It seems like AI accounting is another name or synonymous term with roll call accounting. Basically, asking the data questions based on dates, flags, checkpoints, states, and status. Fun little insight.

Light research on a possible disconnect between transactional dates (effectual dates or when it shows up for roll call) and historical dates (when it really happened). Sent an email to Eric with some questions. Listed the issue on the known issues page. This is a running list of things that we know that we need to watch out for. At some point, we'll have to fix all of those things, but at least we are recording what we know and are learning. That's part of the game.

Meeting with Hamid. He was showing me the progress on the business zipper website that he is building (small side project). I gave him the URL for our old site and told him to read the bottom portion that talked about the concepts of the business zipper. Here is the link and some of the text (you have to scroll down to the bottom portion of the page to get to this info).

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Older website text

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Many people over the years have asked us, what do you guys do? Why do you do that? Where are you trying to go? How long does that take? How can you do such and such and others can't? And what makes you so different? Those are some great questions. The answers vary depending on the time someone is willing to listen. :) This is somewhat of an inside joke, but sometimes we feel like saying "Did you pack a lunch?", meaning it can get pretty deep pretty quick.

To answer plain and simply, we are in the business of tracking people's data. We are a virtual data portal. The word "data" means different things to different people. The word "adilas" also means different things to different people. To some it may be CRM functionality (Customer Relationship Management). To others it might be inventory, sales and POS information (Point Of Sale). To others it might be ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) or backend office functions. To others; general operations tracking, JIT inventory tracking (Just In Time), manufacturing, online expense tracking, business intelligence (BI), paperless office, document management, a CMS (Content Management System), financial data and reports, paperwork, payroll, timecards, scheduling, etc. Because we say we track "data", we need to be as deep and diverse as the term itself.

Our goal is to help you, as a user or a company, get in, get out, and be happy. Along the way, and depending on what you consider to be data, we try to help show you the whole picture of what is going on. If what we have helps you out, great! If not, that's ok. We enjoy sharing what we have learned. The adilas.biz business platform is a huge integrated tool set that allows you to play in multiple different areas. It is very scaleable and caters to custom settings and different permission levels. Your use of the system, depends on you and your needs.

The words "system" or "platform" denote more than one piece working together in harmony. A full system allows you to do things that others can't do, simply because everything may not be there.

One of our biggest strengths is helping you get your data into the system. Once in, it becomes part of the big picture. Data coming in usually means some form of "operations" or the day-to-day business that happens. We love this and have a strong focus on helping on the operation side of the equation. We try very hard to follow a logical or linear model in helping you to get your data in and out of the system as quickly and easily as possible.

We also offer some great backend office tools and accounting features. If truth be known, the reason we are able to offer you accounting-type features is directly related to how we track your data and help you do your operations. We, at adilas.biz, are actively working on a new and more modern model for accounting as compared to the current, somewhat antiquated, double entry accounting system embraced by most companies. We can run your operations regardless if you use adilas for your accounting needs or not. If you are looking for a traditional credits and debits accounting system, we may not be your product other than for your operational needs. However, if you are willing to try a more modern and nontraditional approach to accounting, you will love what we do and where we are headed. Straight up, it is new and different and we are still pioneering on a daily basis.

Here is a little background on the traditional double entry accounting model that dates back to the fifteenth century (500+ years old). Luca Pacioli, an Italian monk (friar) wrote one of the first math text books called "Summa de Arithmetica". In that book he explained about how the Italian merchants kept track of their sales which we now call "double entry accounting". This guy was a genius and a math wizard for his time. Here is the kicker, this text book came out in 1494. Two years prior to that, Christopher Columbus, in 1492 sailed the ocean blue to show people that the world was round. People were just coming out of the dark ages and entering into the age of the Renaissance. The only way that businesses could track their "data" was in giant notebooks called journals and ledgers. They had large rooms with tons of paper copies and went through different processes of recording, adjusting, and posting their data between the different journals and ledgers. Sound familiar?

Basically, they were trying to track different states and statuses of the data. Some of the processes that they used to track these changes and states of the data were called "debits" (negatives) and "credits" (positives). These debits and credits were added to things called "T Accounts". The different T Accounts made up a bigger thing called the "Chart of Accounts". The Chart of Accounts usually had a numeric value and a name associated with it. This is how they tracked things, on paper and in different notebooks. These Chart of Accounts were then added up and used in financial documents called the "Income Statement" (profit and loss statement or P&L) and the "Balance Sheet". The goal was to make sure that everything got recorded and accounted for. In order to make things balance, they had to do one entry on one side and then a matching entry on the other side of the T Accounts. Thus the term "double entry accounting". This standard has been followed for years and is currently the accepted way to do accounting. As a mater of fact, most computer systems that do some form of accounting, have basically computerized the 500 year old model and added their own little tweaks to the process.

So what makes us so different? Well, we spent the first five years working on operations. The original goal had nothing to do with accounting. The goal was to start tracking inventory and other data. We wanted to be able to quickly view things, pull reports, and even be able to show where that data was or what had happened to it over time. Through a step-by-step approach to solving our own business problems, we stumbled upon a new way of doing accounting. Basically, once we had the operations in place (this is a big key), we just kept asking the question, what happens next? We would then build the system out to that level. As we kept going, the path began to be rolled out and we just kept taking the next logical steps. This process took years and years and was only possible because we kept working at it. Concepts that were only a dream or a wish started to be right in front of us and we simply reached out and grabbed them.

Adilas can virtually track objects and data over time without using the old double entry accounting model. We still simulate some of the pieces of that model, but we do not have any journals, legers, T Accounts, Chart of Accounts, and other standard accounting features that are considered traditional requirements. We don't use the words debit or credit and we try to use as few adjustments as possible. We use technology, good data, flags, dates, checkpoints, approvals, permissions, and business mapping to run things in a linear fashion. Every entry or data object has a life-cycle and we simply track it. We are then able to go back in time and virtually ask the objects or items questions. What's your story? Who created you? Where have you been? Where are you headed? Who are your buddies? Where do you belong? When did you finish? What is your value? And the list goes on. We call it "roll call accounting". At the end of the day, we still produce an Income Statement (profit and loss or P&L) and Balance Sheet. We just arrived there through mapping data and running objects over time.

We are still pioneering and developing steps to the roll call accounting process. We've had a blast creating it and we can't wait to share it with you! Although our accounting system is not completely finished (fully automated to the highest level), we have had many companies happily use it for years. We just keep adding new pieces that make it better and better. Remember, our main goal in providing the adilas.biz system or platform is to help you track your data. Adilas can help you with your operations, accounting, or both. The model is open and flexible.

We invite you to check it out. We would be happy to meet with you in person or give you a live online demo. Give us a call TODAY! Call 719.439.1761 and ask for Steve or email us at sales@adilas.biz.

If you want more information, there is a brief history document of the making of adilas at the bottom of the page. It is a short 6 page read that tells the story of what happened when and who was involved. It has been a wonderful journey thus far and we're still going!

Just for fun, we wanted to list a few of the core concepts if you don't want to read the history document. This is just for fun... :)

When we first started, back in 2001, our original goal was inventory tracking. As things progressed, one of our main goals was to figure out a way to help fill the gap or create a "bridge" between operations and accounting. There seemed to be a very large and visible disconnect between what was happening in the field (operations) and what the final output was (accounting and final numbers). In one of our brainstorming meetings, we came up with the analogy of a "zipper". One side of the zipper was operations and the other side was accounting. Our goal was to start bringing them together one cog at a time, like a zipper being pulled upwards until it came together.

We came up with the theory "track every penny in and track every penny out". With this thought in mind, we started to track each penny from start to finish. What we found was that every transaction had a life-cycle that it went through. We decided to enter the items and data as easily as possible on the operations side and then track it through a number of steps until it found itself finished or completed. Along the way, we started time-stamping each step with a flag and a date. Each flag and date combo became what we called a "checkpoint". As each new flag was added, we would lock the prior steps below that based on permissions.

This process of passing data from checkpoint to checkpoint, based on permissions, is how we track your data. A great analogy of this process is if you imagine what it takes for water to turn into ice. This process doesn't happen all at once, it needs to go through different phases, states, or status levels. As your data passes through these different phases, called checkpoints, we simply help you flag and date the data as it runs over time. Just like the ice analogy, the water droplets are very loose at first "operations" and slowly become crystals, then slush, and finally become completely frozen or ice "final numbers and accounting".

We then use a process called "roll call accounting" to virtually map backwards in time to where the data was at a given date or time. Another synonymous term for roll call accounting is data mapping. The reason we use the term roll call accounting is because that is what we ask the computer to do. Imagine data that is flagged and dated as it goes through certain checkpoints. Pretend that the computer is an army General giving out a roll call or a flag/status report. The computer says, "I need all of the invoices that were not fully paid at such and such a date to step forward". Only these invoices would then be counted - based on flags and dates. You could then use the computer to do the math and give you the totals you need. Each time you want more information, you simply tell the computer what criteria to use for the roll call and eventually it will tell you the story of what is going on.

To sum things up "literally", by keeping track of your normal day-to-day operations, we can get very complex results like aging, histories, usage, reports, final numbers, and accounting. Thus the accounting becomes the date sensitive sum of the details. These values are what make up your "Business Intelligence (BI)" or "Big Data" concepts. It all comes back to managing and tracking your data. Because every piece of the puzzle still exists in the database, you are able to virtually go back in time and see what was where and when it moved out of each checkpoint. If the data is correct, let it flow. If a modification is needed, make the correction, lock it down, and let it keep flowing. The accounting becomes more of a check and stamp of approval rather than entering numbers from different journals or locations. When you put it all together, what do you know... All Data Is Live And Searchable.

Working with Danny, Sean, and Shari O. on the rafting site (demo site). They, especially Danny, were requesting and wanting some kind of SOP's (standard operating procedures) or some kind of a quick start guide. See attached for our notes. New notes are at the bottom. Mostly the session was just checking in and some light communications for today.

One of my observations is we have things all over the place. We have things inside elements of time, in physical notebooks, in emails, on adilas university, on YouTube, in help files, on different google drives, and the list goes on. We have a ton of resources, but they are not yet linked, cataloged, and organized for use. It's too spread out. That would be an awesome project to get all of that together and available to the public. That could be a future fracture type project. Training and education are huge spokes that we need in our wheel. There is a whole other side to this thing and it's on the education and training level.

Totally random, but a fun side note or thought - Think how cool it would be to go through the different system players (all 12), all of the different system business functions (12 of those as well), and the underlying core concepts. That would be awesome. Beginner, intermediate, advanced, and deep dive or backend levels. Show how things act, cause and effect relationships, where they show up for roll call, how things happened historically, how they effectually show up for roll call, and even how they financially affect inventories, banks, P&L's, balance sheets, and other financial relationships. That would be sooooo cool! I would love to work on that project.

I would love to get into the how, why, and what we are doing. The how and why really seem like fun topics. The "what" is pretty normal but allow us to do the other parts of the puzzle or passing the data along the virtual data assembly line. Getting into 3D world building and all kinds of cool stuff. So many things that we want to do and build. We just need help getting to that next level.

Good meeting this morning. Steve had just come off of a multi hour demo yesterday afternoon. He was reporting in and going over things that he had learned. Both Sean and I were listening as Steve was explaining and teaching us. Good stuff.

We talked a lot about solving pain points and how that helps make our product a viable solution. Steve got into some financial training and where things come and go (ways that monies move or track) and how that creates a cause and effect type relationship. As he was talking, I was plugging in numbers on the financial flow calculator to illustrate the flow of the monies. Steve had me build that page to help with just such trainings. The real goal is capturing and recording the story. The numbers then play into and through the story vs just being a standalone number (plugged or adjusted value). That is super important.

As a part of the financial flow, Steve was talking about being able to mix and bled while in the same system. If you run your operations on one platform and then try to do your accounting on another, you will always have disconnects. If you run things as they happen and then report back (roll call) then you can capture the story and thus get the financials or accounting (what really happened). That is where we are heading.

They were talking about software and different releases. With what we do, we release new things and features all of the time. Constant releases and constant refinement. That lead to a discussion on what are called "mash-ups" or "mashups". This is where a software company takes a number of different tools and applications and basically mashes them together to get a whole. There are pros and cons to that, but that type of business is also prone to major disconnects and paid points. We are striving to make a fully integrated system that lives and breathes on its own.

As the guys were talking, Steve was telling Sean how Kelly (adilas rep) was doing the demo. He brought up how well Kelly will say something like "We will help you and here is what that will cost." Both assurance, help, and tying it to cost, in the same sentence. Sadly, I'm not very good at that. It usually comes out something like, "Yes, we can help you do X and Y. And, oh, by the way, we should probably give you a quote." Or something like, "Great idea, I'll build that in and/or make a note of that (assuming all costs or taking it on internally)." Anyways, I'm not very good at the monetizing thing. Light discussions about styles and goals.

The discussion extended into talks about promises, expectations, and what those things really cost. We also talked about how much prep work and knowledge is needed to do certain things, tasks, or jobs. Sometimes those things are a barrier to entry. One of the things that we have found, mini gold mines, is getting first-hand knowledge by helping customers solve their problems. If you can afford it, those clients help by transferring real-life knowledge of what it takes and what is needed to get the jobs done. Invaluable, hard to put a price tag on those things. We love doing that when we can. It ends up in a net benefit. We tend to do what we call piggybacking. We build something for one client and get to pass that on for free or as part of the system to the next client. Then that client will help push something else forward that the other clients get to benefit from. It becomes a form of piggybacking. Kinda fun!

Custom work! That is one of the things that sets us apart from the rest of the software solutions out there. We love and are willing to do custom work. That may not sound that big, but it's huge. As we were talking, we were reminded of our elevator pitch (condensed sales pitch). It talks about us offering a standard package and then being willing to customize on top of that. That's pretty cool. Here's a link to our mini elevator pitch (also one to Sean's expanded elevator pitch). We really do offer a lot of options.

We will just keep working on sharing what we have and how it can help people solve their business problems and needs. As a small side note, Steve was talking about ecommerce and how that little solution is actually becoming a way to sell and interact with clients without even using the main internal tools. It's so simple and connects everything together, we actually have some companies that help people use the ecommerce options and solutions vs using our internal shopping cart tools. It keeps it simple yet limited in options. I just find it interesting that some companies are using that tool vs the internal tools. I don't think that I could have anticipated that. Interesting.

The morning meeting started out normally and then sort of morphed into a multi hour long meeting with no real stop or start between the different topics and sections. We started out and Sean was checking in and lightly going over some of the BioTrack API socket questions. We got into a discussion on promises made and client and user expectations and how deep we want to go into those areas. Some of our clients expect an easy button for every possible wish or desire. It just doesn't work like that. Yet those expectations are real and valid based on user requirements and user demands. That puts tons of pressure on us as a software system. There just is no physical way to make it do everything, for every person.

Wayne joined the meeting and the conversation moved over to slow queries, database indexes, record counts, volume of data, and all kinds of other topics. We spent some major time going over potential problems with our flexible "LIKE" searches on the parts homepage (flexible wildcard searches across multiple database fields and columns). We need the flexibility, and we have trained our people to rely on that, but because it is so open, it is causing issues when put under a huge data load (not thousands but millions or multiple millions of records). We can handle quite a bit with no problem. When you really overload it, it starts groaning and squeaking under intense pressure. Technically, that is called scale.

The amount of data that some of our clients are generating and recording is causing a volume or scale issue. We got into deep logic and how we could speed things up if we were able to use indexes, exact searches, and get rid of huge list look-ups (using the SQL IN clause) or super flexible text searches using like commands (SQL LIKE clauses with wildcards). Basically, when doing some of these functions, the databases skip the indexes and end up looping over millions and millions of records. We spent some time talking about a number of possible solutions.

We had a break where Wayne had to go pick up his kid from school. In the meantime, John and I were talking about some of his projects. He was showing me a bunch of stuff that he has on a Jira board for the discount engine. I was kinda getting overwhelmed and depressed. So much stuff to do and manage. Sometimes it feels like it is all over the place and it never ends.

Wayne got back and we flipped back over to database queries possible options to help speed things up and handle a huge scale or a huge load of data. We talked about a combo type approach where we have to include tweaks to the database, code changes, UI and UX (user interface and user experience) changes, and other backend management changes. It may end up being a combo type package or approach to fix some of these problems.

That topic and discussion lead us to talk about prior or earlier decisions that were made years ago. We talked about why certain things were decided upon and implemented. It is very interesting and the story keeps rolling out in front of us. What we have now is a combination of history, situations, decisions, and even future wants and needs. It all mixes together and makes a complex solution. Some of the why and what we did is super important.

Having said that, things keep changing and morphing. We talked about building things for a non-static environment. Dealing with scale (up or down). That lead us to possible daily or real time mini aggregates on quantities and other key points and factors. Basically, ways of summarizing data and getting to more of a business intelligence type level - quick counts, sums, totals, averages, mins, maxes, etc.

Talking about the aggregation processes lead to talks about database triggers, update routines, scheduling, clean-ups, automation, manual checks and overrides, and the list goes on. Along the way, we kept talking about how important the inventory pipeline and tracking the ins and outs is so critical to these values, stats, and numbers. Steve joined us and we got into update functions, methods, table row locking, more manual updates, and reconciliation options to make sure all is well. You basically need the transactions (what happens and when - this is the details or the historical record). You also need the sums or totals (these are the running or current aggregates). These two pieces, transactions and aggregates play different roles.

As part of our discussion, we were looking at one-to-many database table and column relationships and how things are handled currently. It gets deep quickly. We then started talking about breaking shared tables into corp-specific tables and building smaller corp-specific aggregation type tables. This lead us to a small discussion on sizes of tables and when ones are already broken down into corp-specific tables and which ones may be up for review.

On the mini aggregate tables (quick sums, counts, and totals) we could go different ways. Do we want a historical record of the aggregates or do we just want to keep current (now) sums, counts, and totals? If you add historical, you start adding dates and get new records every day (assuming things are changing) or if you skip the dates, then there are less records, things may be quicker for the current but could take longer if going back in time. Maybe both... one to hold the historical aggregates over time and one to hold the quick and dirty (real-time current look or roll call report).

The deeper we got, the more that settings and database options came into play. We have a future project called fracture in the planning. We need to be able to have and use settings on what our users and corporations (worlds) want to see and use. We have tons of data and tons of records. Okay, great, what do you, as a user or end user, want to see, show, display, sort, etc.? How does that need to be organized? It goes deep and gets into advanced settings, display options, and being able to save layout and configuration options per person, per page, per corporation. That all needs to be included in the fracture stuff, along with the other transactional and mini aggregate database options listed on this page.

Once you know where you want to go... You can get there (hopefully). If you plan on being the only one to get there, the trail doesn't have to be very good. If you plan on repeating the journey, the trail needs to be even better. If you want a bunch of people and/or companies to complete the journey, you will need a road, not a trail. All part of the process.

Going back to tables, we talked about two big corp-specific tables in the system that will need a buddy mini aggregate table (or more). The big transactional tables are the po/invoice line items and the time sub inventory tables. Those two tables (that are already corp-specific) will need helper tables to keep track of both transactional aggregates per date (semi historical summaries) and also current non-historical mini aggregates for the quick and current view (no dates). Another way of putting this is making location specific pre math calculations vs having to go and re-sum things up or count things based on complex look-ups. You virtually do the known math per item, per package, and per location before it is needed. Then those numbers and values are quickly ready and available as mini aggregates. If you need more details or the blow by blow, you just go back to the transactional tables or records (different tables).

Some of our current pain is in the sales and POS (point of sale) systems such as carts and inventory tracking. We can do it, but if it gets into hundreds of thousands or millions upon millions of records, you run into the scale factor and issues.

Just for our notes, a couple key pieces are corporations and locations. If everybody just had a single location, some of this would be really easy. If you have more than one location, the solution needs to scale and keep track of mini aggregates based off of corporation and locations. That is a huge key that often gets overlooked. Plan for multiple (unlimited) locations. Here are some possible columns that may be needed for some of these mini aggregate tables for mini aggregate quantities - auto id, corp id, store id, part id, sub reference id (sub id), part count, and maybe a date if doing historical.

Switching subjects again, we need to charge more to clients for harder tasks and functions. I had a friend that was talking about software. He said, you tend to get two different types. You get cheap software or custom software. Hardly ever do you get cheap custom software. Custom does cost time and money. That is the way it is.

After Wayne left, Steve and I stayed on for a bit to go over some other things. We talked about gift cards, coupons, and other upcoming projects. I showed him a PO rounding demo and what I have done so far. The next question was... how deep are we going to dive per subject? Lots of options.

Meeting with Cory and Eric. We started out with a question that Cory had from an email from a client. Eric and Cory were following logic for wholesale carts and a bypass switch and logic for not sending wholesale data to the state compliance tracking system. Cory and Eric spent close to 45 minutes looking around, checking code, following variables, and comparing old and new code. Randomly enough, some of the changes were done by Eric, some by Wayne, and some by Alan. Also, to add to it, we couldn't tell if it was a user error or really a small bug in the code. We went over and talked a bout a number of possible scenarios, including users changing things after the fact.

We then switched over and went over some of the sales tax aggregate code and processes. Cory had a small list of questions and she and Eric were going through things and discussing options, flow, logic, and processes. It got pretty deep. Tons of moving pieces.

These were some of my observations while they were going over things:

- Possible problems with hidden database triggers. Hard to check the code you can't see. We talked about pros and cons for triggers and clean-up routines.

- Code and version control - branches - Possible problems with certain code branches overwriting other branches - who has the last cookie?

- Maybe make our own visual code based triggers, clean-up routines, and scheduled processes. We may even want to record histories of what happens, where, and when. If certain things need to go through a full process. Can we monitor and track it through the different pieces, phases, states, and statuses.

- One nice thing about a database trigger is watches for any change to the database record regardless of where it comes from. If we do our own, more visual and controllable version, we need to make sure and cover the different scenarios such as add, edit, delete, void, bulk updates, API sockets, backend updates (direct database activity), etc. Just make sure we cover all of the possible tweaks and scenarios.

- There seems to be a need for ways of doing a manual override and or a manual update. It may need to be flagged if updated manually or modified in any way, but sometimes the automated processes fail or have issues.

- Real-time vs a delayed type actions - Is the data being pulled in real-time or is there daily or nightly process that aggregates or cleans something up. Some outside schedule or routine. We have a lot of future aggregates that we want to build out for our fracture project. We may need ways of flagging and tagging the data and tracking it through phases and activity paths help us know where things are and what processes that they have gone through. Flags and tags (a flag and date or a checkbox and a date or phase and a date) are huge. they really help us track what is going on and what has already gone on. If the data is correct, let it pass. If not, correct it and then flag it. Once it is good, let it pass. The history part of it is important for what happened, when, how, and by whom. Basically, a roll call - where are you? What is your status? Where have you been? Who were you with? When did you finish? etc., etc.

At the end of the meeting, cory and I briefly went over some budgeting and funding values.

Tim with Herbo met with Steve, Cory, and I to go over his vision of an fully automated enterprise type system. We met and talked, drew pictures, took notes, and chatted about scenarios, requirements, and flow of goods and services as compared with the flow of money, funds, and financials. Lots of top down controls and bottom up mirrors, mapping, and roll call type situations.

Here are some other small notes:

- Holding companies, nesting corporations and locations going down, trickle down effect, rolling up effect.

- Id's becoming standardized through mappings. Helping to automate parts and processes.

- Attaching additional intel, info, or instructions to certain key transactions that start and/or process other steps of the transaction. For example: A new PO is brought in, a sub routine (recipe/build or assembly) is done on the items and then automatically distributed out to sub companies with instructions on how to pay either the holding company or direct to the vendor. All of this done through a single screen where the product is brought in through the master holding company and then distributed to the sub or affiliate corporations. Think of it as a process that gets started and the rest of the process is defined and setup by the info added to the starting piece in that process.

- How the holding company (higher level company or summary or aggregated company) could process things, cascade info down, get values passed back up, and controlling flow of monies, accounts receivables, accounts payables, bank balances, etc. Full control top down or bottom up. Plus, be able to stack the model as needed. It got pretty deep.

- We went over a number of scenarios and talked through flow and possible processes. Just talking and chatting at this point. Build on what we have. We already have PO's tied to vendors, tied to items, tied to locations... what if we could also tell it to distribute those items to other companies and those transactions could be run based on info in the first corporation. Instructions on how to account for things, how to pay for things, or how to differ payments or liabilities. Pretty flexible but with clear instruction on how the transaction or family of transactions needs to work. I like the word family transactions... multiple, with varied yet specific outcomes. Kinda fun.

See attached for one of the drawings that we were doing and talking about.

Lots of new brainstorming on the business function of reporting and what that means and does. Working on the outline for the presentation gallery. See attached.

Here were some of the main topics we are working on under reporting:

define the needs
catch the data
secure and store data
transform and progress
show and filter
reporting uses
quick search
dealing with time

simplify - one place to get your reports
you've been waiting for this
bridge the gap - between your business operations and your accounting
roll call - when you need them
live and searchable
remote access
onsite data entry points
cloudbased - access any time
real-time as it happens
always up-to-date
empower the people
customized for each user
hidden features based on permission
permission levels
enter once - use many
enter at the point of action
pass to the next step
if data is correct, let it flow
data assembly line principle
no limits
no data caps
unlimited
different corps within the same login
view at a glance
recent activity and history
automated reports with aging

Just for fun, here is another link to an older what is adilas.biz? flyer - It has some fun concepts that still hold true.

https://data0.adilas.biz/what_is_adilas.pdf - What is adilas.biz? flyer

Shannon and I were working on the presentation gallery outline. Our topic for the day was accounting. We got to a certain point and basically said "plus, plus, plus" meaning and it just keeps going. I was ready to stop and Shannon kept asking some great questions. Before long, we had more than double what we started with and were still going. I'm really glad that she kept asking questions and having us talk about things.

As a fun takeaway from our meeting, we talked about making conscience decisions and then sticking to those decisions. For example, we often say to people, sorry, but we do it this way vs that way (fill in the blanks). As Shannon and I were talking, we decided that we are not doing this because we have to or we got forced into something. This, what we do and why we do it, is a conscience decision and that's what makes us who we are.

See attached for our brainstorming document. You may have to scroll down to page 18-19 to get to the new brainstorming stuff on the business function of accounting. Just for fun, here are some of the ideas...

- We started out with basic stuff like: balance sheets, P&L's, user-maintained items, system maintained items, accounts receivable, accounts payable, aging, reimbursements, expenses, banks, inventory tracking, layaways, work in progress, loans, etc.

- Next we got into photos, media content, custom documents and ways of connecting with other outside file assets (documentation).

- Natural flow, flex grid tie-ins, payroll, people, deposits, invoices, customers, users, stock/units, floorplan, tons of reports and exports, bank reconciliation, etc.

- Slight switch to more concepts such as: operational lead accounting, mapping, roll calling, translating, where do the numbers come from (relationships and cause and effect options)

- Loyalty points, taxes, sales tax, withholdings, PO's, manufacturing, inventory tracking and manipulation, life cycles, going backwards and forward, and automation.

- Traditional vs non-traditional accounting

- System and how that makes a difference - everything is there and you can start to interconnect the pieces - digital storytelling

- We do accounting because we have good data - the accounting comes from the data

- Tons of permission levels and who gets to see what

- Accounts, ledgers, glossary, terms, and concepts

- Data assembly line, digital story telling, cause & effect, characters interact to solve trouble and problems, more relationships and building, maintaining, and in some cases destroying those relationships. Processes.

- Time - time is a huge piece of the puzzle

- How do we zipper operations and accounting together to close the gap between the two?

- How does the system handle roll call technology, who, how, what, and why???

- If someone can do their accounting by their own design and take it to their accountant (shoe box, spreadsheets, random records) - then why can't I create something that automates and maps out that process.

- We play according to the standards and the rules but we on purpose create the processes to get to those data points.

- Tradition - our biggest competition

- This is daily, real-time, sharing, no batching/waiting, managers and admin can look at things real-time, cloud based, editable, full history, audit trail, cause and effect, cart and horse, data drill-downs, proof behind your numbers.

- Why we chose to build in a non-traditional manner - because we see all the benefits and we want to keep going in this direction - conscience choice

- We are pioneering and we are on purpose creating tools that are proof of concept

- Crazy accounting things like phantom costs, funny money, slush funds, etc.

- Sub inventory and cost controls - perfect costing vs other costing models

- Normal revenue, COGS (cost of goods sold), gross profit, expenses, net profit, assets, liabilities, equity, retained earnings, etc.

- Future - we have a challenge and we build to solve that challenge that is before us - this is part of our accounting model

- Some people expect us to be completely done but we are not done - we are going to keep building and breaking, building and breaking. That is part of our model.

- You really need human input at certain places - decisions have to be made - you really can't automate some pieces.

- Ongoing development - bring your ideas - stone soup "Bring what you've got, throw it in the pot. We are making stone soup."

- Open to suggestions and new growth

- Things that drive change: pain, brick walls, burning platforms - all these pain points help to bring about change and new solutions

- Static vs dynamic - both flow and environment - things are built differently based on the conditions (static vs dynamic)

- Allow for updating inventory counts - how do you deal with theft, shrinkage, expiration dates, spoiling, and other inventory reconciliation stuff.

- In-store credit, accounts, discounts for terms, bonuses, games, vendor credits, etc.

- We give you the tools to play the game

- Accounts, sub accounts, locations, sub locations, phases, sub phases, etc. - details, layering, and stacking (aka space)

- Add notes to anything, able to add log notes and tie things together

- Track the story - the story is powerful - telling the story is your audit protection

- We can and do deal with multi-locational stacked models. We also deal with cross corp stuff and multi-worlds rolling up or down into the respective holding containers. It can get really deep and complex.

- We don't require you to do this... this, meaning how we do and track accounting, is optional.

- From Russell Moore back in 2016 - We can be a good companion with any other software package. Run any part of our application without using the pieces you don't want. We can feed information to any other software package you want to use. Adilas is a great companion software package for ANY business.

- Conflict management - it is okay to stand your ground. Be confident in what you have built and why you have built it that way. We are going in this direction! If you like what we are doing, great! If not, great, feel free to use some of our other products, services, or pieces if you would like. You do not need to apologize for things that are in line with your values and your vision. The vision helps us all work and succeed.

Anyways, fun brainstorming session. We will take these ideas and refine them into a section in the presentation gallery that deals with the business function of accounting. Great session and fun stuff.

11.2 - P&L - Income Statement (logic and flow)

-P&L stands for Profit & Loss Statement, it can also be called an Income Statement, it can also be referred to sometimes as the bottom line.

 -The Income Statement is fully automated. We pull reports from all of the known areas in the system that have the necessary numbers.

 -This particular report is time based so it usually has some sort of window of time - whether that is a day, a week, month, a fiscal year. Some sort of time range is associated with this report.

-There are 5 main sections of this report. They are Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold (COGS), Gross Profit, Expenses, and Net Profit. Three of those are actually areas that you can attribute values to, the other two are just math (gross profit and net profit).

 -The revenue portion usually includes invoice sales, labor, outsides monies not tied to invoices, commissions, refunds, sometimes there are also adjustments to revenue such as bad debt, credit card fees, etc.

 -This is the basic search form for generating an income statement or profit and loss statement (P&L). The actual report (results) will show up on a different printer friendly page. Use your back button to go back and forth between search criteria and results to get the amount of detail you need. You will need to re-submit the search form or refresh the results to get the actual values.

The only required fields are the to and from date range. The rest of the fields are optional or set to a system default. If you need more control over your reports, use the advanced link at the top of the page.

One of the most important search form values is the "Report Type" field (bottom most field). This is where you tell the results page how much detail to return. There are four different levels of detail the results page can display. Each one is progressively more expanded and categorized.

Below is a basic overview of the break-down of possible sections on the income statement (P&L) and how things are grouped. Each corporation and location are different. This is a general overview and may or may not reflect what you see on your income statement. Please understand that the income statement is a very dynamic report and is setup to only show sections that fit your search criteria.

The P&L is broken up into 5 main parts. They are:

Revenue (income or sales)
COGS (cost of goods sold)
Gross Profit (revenue minus cogs)
Expenses (money spent to do business)
Net Profit (gross profit minus expenses)

Here is a more detailed break-down of what each section contains.

Revenue

Invoice Sales - This is a sub section of revenue and is taken from invoices entered into the system. This section has a number of sub elements, taken from the invoice line items, that help provide a picture of what was invoiced or sold. All sub elements are grouped according to what we call inventory types. It starts with invoice sales that include specific units (stock numbers), then invoices with general inventory (parts), then invoices with system parts or special line items (labor, supplies, etc.). It is possible for a single invoice to show up (just the individual line items) in each section without creating a double booking. Basically, it is grouped invoice line items that show up for roll call.

Normal Deposit - This is a sub section of revenue and will show all deposit line items that have the deposit type of normal deposit and don't have an invoice number tied to it. Invoices carry more information than deposits and are encouraged (see above). Most of this information, if applicable, will be shown in the invoice sales section above. This section, if present, is a deposit catch-all and will show only items that are deposited but not tied to a specific invoice. This section should only be used for deposit line items that have somehow fallen through the cracks and are not shown above in the invoice section.

Other Revenue - This is a sub section of revenue and will only include special deposit line items that are assigned to a deposit type of other revenue (not from sales). This is the correct way to show revenue that is not tied to an invoice. Warning: It is possible that this deposit type may be double booked. The way to check, if present, is to drill-down and look for items that have an active invoice number tie-in. If yes, it is possible that the item is double booked (shown in the invoice section and in the other revenue section). If the line items do not have an invoice tie-in, you should be okay. Once again, this is the correct place to show other revenue that got deposited but is not on an invoice.

Revenue Adjustment - This is a sub section of revenue and deals with adjustments to invoice sales, bad debt, and certain deposit line items. If you do trade-ins, they will show up here as adjustments (ACV - allowance). ACV stands for actual cash value. If you want to write off "bad debt", all you need to do is satisfy the correct invoice with a payment and assign it to a money type of "bad debt". Once that is done, the invoice will be removed from the accounts receivable section (A/R's) and it will show up here in the revenue adjustments (just the bad debt portion). There is also a possible section that deals with special deposit line items that are assigned to the deposit type of revenue adjustments. These are things like credit card fees, etc.

COGS

COGS (Cost Of Goods Sold taken from invoice line items) - This section will follow a similar format to the invoice sales section described above. The top part, if present, will show the costs of the invoice line items from specific units (stock numbers), general inventory (parts), and system parts or special line items (labor, supplies, etc.).

Depending on corp-wide settings, it is possible to have certain special line items (system parts or hard-coded values) show up as a negative cost of good sold. This is somewhat rare, but an option from the corp-wide settings page. This might be things like freight or shipping charges.

COGS (special expense type category) - There is also a sub section for special expense types that are pointed to the COGS section. Most normal expense types (expense/receipt line items) show up under the main expense section (below gross profit). However, the system allows for expense types to be pointed up here in the COGS section if needed. Basically, this is a way to increase the COGS before gross profit is calculated. Somewhat of an advanced option.

Gross Profit

Gross Profit - Revenue (plus or minus any adjustments) minus COGS. This is calculated for you.

Expenses

Expenses - These are normal expenses that are taken out after gross profit is figured. Almost all expenses, values, and categories come from expense/receipt line items and the associated expense types that are assigned. The one exception to that rule is if your corporation sets up special roll call/handling for special line items (done through corp-wide settings). These are hard-coded parts and by default are assigned to the revenue portion of the P&L. Without making a big deal about it, these are invoice line items that get special treatment and have been told to show up under expenses as a negative expense (somewhat of an advanced setting). Most corporations will get their expenses directly from the expense/receipt line items.

Net Profit

Net Profit - Gross Profit minus Expenses. This value is calculated for you. This value is also passed on to the balance sheet as part of the equity account. This is how the income statement or P&L play into the actual balance sheet.

Estimated Taxes & Depreciation - Optional line item that shows taxes and depreciation. Set at 45% of net. Once this is taken out, a new adjusted net will be shown.

 -https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/help.cfm?id=192&pwd=income

11.3 - Balance Sheet (logic and flow)

-The balance sheet is a financial document that is very commonly used for high level financials, I.e. banks loans, investors, taxes, etc. The balance sheet has 3 main categories that the details get divided into. They are assets, liability, and equity accounts. Sometimes people will use the acronym “ALE” to quickly remember those 3 categories.

-Assets are things that you own. Monies in the bank, inventory on hand, and other things that have a significant value that you need to track. It could also include monies owed to you for good and services previously invoices (accounts receivables). There are chapters and chapters of all the things that could possibly be assets, this is just a quick list for an idea.

-Liabilities are things that you still owe or may owe on. This could be things like loans, taxes, coupons, loyalty points, gift cards that you have already collected on, accounts payable, bills that are still due, etc. Once again this is just a short list to give a general idea.

-Equity or owner’s equity is more of earnings over time, investments, your net profit that comes from your P&L, distributions, all kinds of long term holding accounts. Equity usually derives some sort of value that has accumulated over time.

-The balance sheet is a "Snap Shot" in time and only applies to a single day. Basically, it is a roll call of who was where and what happened at that exact time (according to the system).

-Both the income statement (P&L or profit and loss statement) and the balance sheet usually end up being quite in-depth in real life and may contain multiple layers in order to tell the real story of what is going on or what has been done.

-The P&L is a time based report of buying and selling and basic operating expenses. By time based we mean that there is a date range associated with it. It could be a day, a week, a month, a quarter, a fiscal year, etc.

-The connection between the two is what is called the "Net Profit" or "Bottom Line". This value is first figured on the P&L and then passed to the equity portion of the balance sheet. The ending date range on the P&L is the balance sheet look-back date or balance sheet date.

-One of the hardest things for people to figure out is what goes on the income statement and what goes one the balance sheet. There are chapters and chapters that cover the in and outs of both reports. For basic purposes, the P&L is the day to day buying and selling of items and services. It also includes basic expenses that are required to run your business. The balance sheet deals more with who owes who, and how things get classified or grouped. Do we own it (or trying to own it), these are the assets. Do we owe for it (or trying to pay for it), these are the liabilities. The last piece of the puzzle is the equity or distribution of wealth (who are the players and what is their piece of the pie).

11.6 - Roll Call Accounting Principles

-Roll Call Accounting is the ability to track objects and data over time using a series of dates and flags. Imagine the web server or computer asking the objects and data to return and report. What's your story? Who created you? Where have you been? Where are you headed? Who are your buddies? Where do you belong? When did you finish? etc, etc, etc. Virtually require each piece of data to hold its own luggage.

-The concept of a roll call is what you learn back in kindergarten/first grade when the teacher is asking, “Where is Johnny?” or “Is so & so here?”. So basically what we do is track the life cycle of data. All data has a life-cycle and goes through different processes in that life-cycle. The roll call comes into play by asking the data questions such as where the data was at a given time, where it is now, who touched it or performed certain actions, etc.

-There are 3 main groups of history tracked in Adilas: Effectual – what shows up for roll call (where is an object at, with date & time stamps), Historical – who touched what (actions/histories), & Financial – what & where does this show up on the financials.

-We have determined that there are 12 main players in the system. Some of the roll call is talking to those individual players or groups and asking them questions based off of the state or status they are in, what point in their life-cycle they are at, where they need to go next, etc. That might sound random to keep it that broad, but each individual player performs certain tasks. Many of those tasks can be mapped directly back to the financials such as sales, quantity - inventory tracking, expenses, COGS, payroll, taxes, etc. Everything has a date/time stamp along with what phase or step it is in. We simply map to that. That is roll call accounting.

-Here is a small example. Let’s say a customer comes in and wants to buy something. Before the sale happens your product is in inventory and no monies are owed by that person. Once the sale is complete we now have a reduction in inventory, we have new sales money that either needs to be deposited or is still owed based on payments made. We have a tax liability, we have COGS, and we know a profit that was made. All of those pieces can be mapped back to physical spots on the P&L or balance sheet. The important part is progressing that data through the data assembly process where you are flagging, dating, stamping, etc. The data if it’s ran through the assembly line process actually allows us to do the roll call accounting.

-A huge part of the roll call accounting piece deals with allowing your data to flex. Disclaimer: certain accounting people may start freaking out at this point but if you don’t allow your data to flex or go into virtual waiting spots while the data is waiting for some of its other pieces you have to do all sorts of adjustments to keep everything picture perfect. Our concept is that things often flex. We hold them in that flex state until they can pass that next checkpoint which is where they are flagged, stamped, and then can get passed on to the next step.

-Some people say, “Okay I see how that can happen once”, meaning a flex point,  but what we see is that it happens over and over and over again. This is why we treat it like the data assembly line. Some data might go through 3, 4, or multiple steps until it has completed its entire life-cycle. But if there is any data that has an issue or has a need to allow for time to pass before completing its life-cycle it needs to stay in that flex zone until it is ready to be advanced. This could be waiting for another process to happen to the data, another person to perform a certain task with the data, waiting for something to happen physically before the data can be advanced, etc. There are endless scenarios that cause this circumstance where the data needs to flex or get held in a waiting area of sorts before it is ready to progress down the data assembly line.

-The link below is an entry from 2014 where we were expanding our vision of how we have seen things start rolling in this roll call/data assembly line type concept. The entry shows a number of small drawings as well as information. If you are interested in this concept it might be a fun read for you. https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=2894

-Here is some additional content on roll call accounting.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/developers_notebook_home.cfm?q=roll%20call

11.7 - Old School Accounting vs. New School Accounting

-Similar to a movie that says the views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and creators and do not necessarily reflect traditional views on accounting. We acknowledge that this could be a very controversial topic and do not mean to make any sort of inference or offense. Having said that we are trying to stir the pot a little and challenge tradition.

OLD SCHOOL ACCOUNTING

-Old school accounting, or traditional accounting, or double entry accounting, are some terms that are used to talk about classic ways of keeping books. Books meaning a company’s financials. Interestingly enough, originally things really were kept in books or notebooks. These are often referred to as journals and ledgers.  

-By way of a little history a couple of very important events happened. The father of accounting is a guy by the name of Luca Pacioli. He was an Italian monk that lived at the same period of time as Leonardo DaVinci. He is credited as the father of accounting due to a textbook he published called, "Summa de Arithmetica" (the summation of arithmetic). Here is the kicker, this book was published in 1494. To put this date in perspective, Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. Many of the modern day accounting systems have just digitized and sped up these 500+ year old concepts. This is potentially why we would call it old school accounting. 

-Going way back, before computers, company’s would keep track of their records on paper. The word “paper trail”goes back to this method of accounting. In order to keep things separated and organized they put things into accounts or T-accounts. A T-account was almost like a miniature bank balance which you could add to it or take away from it so that you could know the balance in that account. These pluses and minuses are called credits and debits. Normally a credit is a plus and a debit is a minus, there are some exceptions.  

-These processes may be different per company but this is a general overview. A company would have something that they wanted to track. Often this was something that was either important to the company or something the government said they had to track due to taxes. Where they would start is to create a list of categories that they called a chart of accounts. Each category or piece that they were going to track got a number. These numbers have all sorts of levels and specific categories that have been defined over time. There are certain numbers for cash, accounts receivable, accounts payable, long-term loans, etc.

-A journal entry was a debit or credit to one of these chart of accounts. This is where your T-account comes in, meaning credits on one side of the T and debits on the other. These journal entries are the small transactions or day by day activity. The sum of these journal entries would then be passed on to a more stable spot called a ledger. Back in the day, depending on the time period between things, the journal entries would be kept daily or as often as they could. When the time period came that they wanted to get the totals, they then summed up those totals and put them into the ledgers. This helped them save space and kept the ledgers clean so that they weren’t showing all the daily ups and downs and fluidity of business. Often these final posts to the ledger were done weekly, monthly , quarterly, annually, or some other period of time. This is where the word post comes into accounting - moving from a general journal to a ledger - aka summing things up and stamping it into the more final record.

-As part of the journal entry system businesses would do what is called double entry, meaning if something happened it may have effected more than one account. Technically this is how they were tracking cause and effects. For example if I got some new monies from a sale I would have to record those monies coming in and the other side of that would be that I got to deposit that money and my bank account increased. Some of these double entries can get very deep.

-To help businesses keep track of their financials there have been some helpful documents or reports created that we still use today. These reports helped them to know the vitality of the business. These are things like cash flow statement, income statement (P&L or Profit & Loss), balance sheet, etc. These documents are wonderful tools that were created. Most business owners will recognize these names as standard financial documents. Business owners use these documents to get business loans, submit taxes, track business operations, buy and sell businesses, make business decisions, receive other financial reports/requests, etc.   

-There are a number of other things that are associated with old school accounting or traditional double entry accounting. There are chapters upon chapters and textbooks upon textbooks that go over all of the ins and outs of double entry accounting. In general, most of the existing accounting software packages literally emulate the same 500+ year old accounting concepts and flow. They use the same names, the same flow, same mentality, it is just digitized and has some technology enhancements that help it to go faster but it is based on the traditional accounting practices. We may address some of these traditional accounting aspects further as we discuss new school accounting.

NEW SCHOOL ACCOUTING

-New school accounting, roll call accounting, time stamp accounting, tracking objects and data over time, data assembly line, world building, these are all some terms that could be used for modern and/or progressive ways of tracking your data and doing your books. As a note, some of the terms and concepts that exist in old school accounting will be mimicked or copied in new school accounting but some of the names have been changed. This is really important because if you keep some of the traditional names, people expect it to follow the same process as the traditional method does.  

-In old school accounting we added a history section that showed sort of where things came from. Before we jump into new school accounting we feel like it is important that you have an idea where some of these things came from before we start right into ideas and concepts. Right up front we didn’t set out to make a new accounting system. Our business problems were all on the operations, day to day tracking, side of the equation. If you would like a story type format here is a great document below that tells the unfolding of what happened with Adilas.

https://data0.adilas.biz/adilas_history_bio.pdf - (Tons of fun concepts as they developed. This document shows lots of the problems we encountered as a business and how our solutions evolved into the Adilas system.)

-As humans we love to use tools because they help us accomplish our tasks more efficiently. In old school accounting some of the tools used at its roots go clear back to paper and pencil, which are some great tools. Each tool has pros and cons and at some point if the task keeps evolving it can break the efficiency of the tool being used. (If you are interested in seeing a fun document exploring tools and where they excel and break click here.) 

-All data actually has a life cycle, meaning it gets started or created and ends and/or finishes. Usually that means that there is some sort of time frame between these different phases or stages in how data fulfills it’s life-cycle. In our quest for tracking things we started on the operations side. We really wanted to see where every penny went from beginning to end. The missing pieces for our business were on the operations side of tracking inventories, selling inventories, counting inventories, building new things, etc., etc. Basically we needed to get more details on what was happening in the day to day transactions and activities. Step 1 is catch the data at the source.

-As you try to catch data at, or from, the source you have to have tools in the hands of those who are doing it to allow them to capture the data. This can be a problem due to technologies, permissions, or trust issues between departments and employees. As part of this discussion we need to acknowledge that there is a known gap between operations and accounting. Operations, or sometimes the sales department, tries to make things happen to make the deals go. Sometimes accounting doesn’t like all of the decisions made by the operations department and/or doesn’t want to give all of the control for decisions to the operations department. This is where permissions come in. A permission is basically a thumbs up or a thumbs down on being able to add, edit, delete, modify, and so on to all kinds of elements. 

-At this point we want to introduce a few analogies. One of them deals with this life cycle of data. What we want to introduce is the idea of water becoming more solid or the process of water freezing into ice. At first when the water is very flexible this is like the sales - things are still happening and moving, deals might still be in process and negotiation, promises may be being made potentially on both sides of the equation. As the deals solidifies it is almost like that liquid water starts becoming snow or slush. At this point we now have fixed numbers, maybe we have monies, a transaction could have been completed, or we need to further build or fulfill something.  As the time goes on those values, numbers, monies, product transactions, and data become more firm and stable like ice. They become fixed and a piece of the history. We call this analogy the water, snow, to ice analogy. 

-The next analogy we want to introduce is a cart and a horse analogy. We propose that the horse is the thing that is moving things along which is your operation or sales side of the equation. If you don't sell anything you don't have anything to account for.  WORKING....

-The other analogy is the data assembly line

-WORKING, CONCPETS, IDEAS:

-Comparison between operations and accounting with static, parallel, perfect lines - everything is perfectly static.

-How we actually need flex bubbles and periods of time/waiting, etc.

-Difference between operations and accounting and the gap between those. Batches, things get batched, missing time, lack of communication, non-centralized data,

-Horse & cart analogy

-3D data assembly line and 3D world building models

4:17 PM

Brandon Moore

/// notes from the adilas history bio

- corps, locations, users, permissions

- web-based

- tools >> head, paper/pencil, computer tools, software, database, web solutions

- Internet came into play mid 90's

- gathering information into a centeral location

- limiting duplicate work - collecting data and allowing it to flow (start a process)

- start with your pain points

- enter once, use many, and empower the users at the point of action

- letting operations lead

- with the right tools, productivity increased and sales increased, and that drove the need for better accounting

- pain - load and stress

- zipper analogy and using the system as the common element (even the bad guy - saying no)

- permissions and opening and closing virtual windows

- solving problems and then going to the next logical step - keep solving bigger and bigger problems (cogs of the zipper)

- one-to-many relationship model

- dreaming up a super system (what if we could do this... or that... or maybe both...)

4:17 PM

Brandon Moore

- maybe grab the paragraph about no road maps and we were just going off of ideas, concepts, and needs... shannon liked that section.

- we are still doing the same things today as we were back then. where is the pain and how can we possibly fix that (more zipper cogs coming together).

-From here maybe start looking at the post-it note list and see if we can transition into some of those other pieces. We’d like to describe that there is gap, horse/cart, time, batching - and just how this gap keeps getting wider and wider with the real time effects of these things, using computers and technology to create logic that can perform these accounting operations (conversation with Brandon & Steve --- WORKING….  

-IDEAS: We are going to start defining terms, concepts, start typing up pieces and ideas and we will probably need to come back and sew it all together, smooth things out, and make transitions.

-Another Note: On 6/25/19 as Brandon and Steve were talking Steve was saying how old school accounting used to have post after post and entries and different journal entires - lots of time and inputs, whereas roll call accounting can use technology to create logic and teach the computer to look for certain patterns and use logic to map to what is actually happening. Because it uses the logic and mapping, it can do that process over and over again and allows the data to flow more on its own, it just tracks where everything is at and puts numbers where they need to go. Computers are really good at doing repetitive tasks.

-Ideas/Concepts from History Bio Article:

These concepts are enter once, use many, and empower the users at the point of action.

The entire development process was as follows: 1. Find a specific need 2. Figure out what pieces came from where 3. Take a step in that direction by releasing a new tool, feature, or report. The natural consequence of the user actions would then present the next logical step and management would be able to see where they wanted to go. In a way, the horse began leading the cart instead of the other way around.

-If you would like some additional research from the developer’s notebook on new school accounting look here.  https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/developers_notebook_home.cfm?q=new%20school

-Some entries from the developer’s notebook on Christopher Columbus and Lucas Pacioli. Christopher Columbus - 1492 sailed the ocean blue. Luca Pacioli - the father of accounting - in 1494 published a work on the double-entry system of book-keeping and accounting called "Summa de Arithmetica".

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/developers_notebook_home.cfm?q=columbus%2Bpacioli

-This is a 6 page document that has a publish date of 2011 and deals with the start of the Adilas system. It discusses where Adilas came from and how we even started on this journey. Lots of fun concepts of roll call accounting and tracking objects and data over time.

https://data0.adilas.biz/adilas_history_bio.pdf

-The link below is a photo gallery but has some interesting accounting concepts to check out especially in the second picture.

https://data0.adilas.biz/adilas_for_business/photo_gallery_full.cfm 

11.8 - Vision for the Future 

BRANDON’S POST-IT NOTES

-Some of these are terms and some are concepts:

-Debits & Credits, Chart of Accounts, T-Accounts, journals, ledgers, reconciliation, posting, adjustments, batching, Carts/Horses

-Time, gaps, batching, delayed reporting, super detailed (searching for pennies) - but plugging huge numbers, adjustments, power and control, process of discovery, changing names, user report requests, hand written tickets, separate systems, double and triple manual entry, shipping and batching, different locations and departments, cycle time, centralized location for the data, real time connections from the source, enter once - use many, empower the users at the point of action, catching the details on the operations side, communications, problems (stress and load), specific dates, data and totals, minimal cross over, the commonality becomes the system, make the system the bad guy, open and close virtual doors, permissions, real time problems and solutions, operations feeding accounting, seeing both sides, cause and effect cycles, next logical steps, maintenance and upkeep, one to many relationships, cogs of a zipper, the gap, taking data from day to day tasks and having them show up for roll call or the accounting side, tracking life cycles, tracking every penny from start to end, water droplets forming into ice crystals, key dates and status changes are flagged, permissions locks, objects and data over time, the forming need, providing feedback and ideas, find a hole or problem and try to fix it, community effort, training, opening doors and options, changes over time, legacy changes and dealing with old code and legacy code, advancing needs, advancing technology, unfolding needs, learn as you go, can’t stop operations and make changes and then say go, expanding user requests, details and histories, drunk on data,

-WORKING

-Notes from reading:

On 6/27/19, Brandon and Shannon were working on some content for the adilas user's guide. As part of that, they went over a PDF document that was created back in 2011. See attached for the full document. Below is the basic text from the PDF flyer. This is the virtual road map of what happened and why... fun story!

SUBJECT: Start-Up History of the "adilas.biz" Business Platform Quick Overview

Adilas, LLC was officially created in January of 2008. The original partners were Stephen Berkenkotter, Brandon Moore, and a corporation called Morning Star Automotive, Inc. The Morning Star Corporation has since been dissolved (2010) in order to more fully focus on the adilas platform. The actual project began in 2001 as a custom write-up system for Morning Star. Originally, the application was created for the used vehicle and trailer dealership industry.

In 2006, the application went through some major changes when Stephen (Steve) came up with the concepts for adilas. At that point, it started to change from servicing just the dealership industry into a more general or open business model. By the end of 2008 adilas was servicing a number of new clients (besides dealerships) with the following business types: self storage, modular homes, construction, manufacturing, professional services, and retail. As of 2011, adilas has added other businesses such as: virtual finance companies, real estate companies, transportation, GPS tracking, computer services, alternative healthcare providers, fasteners (nuts and bolts), catering, consulting, personal accounts, home-based businesses, etc.

The application or platform is set up for future growth and is very scaleable. It is currently geared towards small to medium-sized businesses. The application is in a constant state of improvement. This includes adding and upgrading features and tools, building reports, and automating existing functionality. Each new tool and/or feature is developed and tested locally before being deployed to live servers. All new tools and features are assigned to a permission on a per user and per corporation basis. This makes it so that only persons and/or businesses that need the new tools turn them on and use them. All unassigned permissions and features are dynamically hidden until assigned. The existing core of the application has been developed and tested over a number of years and is currently on its seventh full version.

The adilas platform is web-based and set up on a series of commercially hosted environments with state of the art data centers and 24/7 support techs that monitor all servers and databases. The application is completely "cloud" based and only requires a computer or a device that can access the Internet. All application pages and web service calls are done over a secure socket layer (SSL) with many other security features in place. Daily back-ups are done from within the hosted environments. Current adilas clients may export their own data and save local back-up files at any time. Adilas also performs its own weekly back-ups and then securely stores files offsite. For more information about adilas, please visit - www.adilas.biz

Going back to the beginning…

Morning Star Automotive, Inc., one of the original partners in adilas, was founded in 1989 by Stephen Berkenkotter and his brother David Berkenkotter. It was a used vehicle and trailer dealership. Over the years, they did well over $100,000,000+ (hundred million) in sales. By 2001, Steve and David had been in business for about 12 years and had 5-6 locations in Colorado. Things were going well and they were quite successful. They were managing their used vehicle and new trailer inventories on a spreadsheet that Steve had created. All of their accounting was done on a separate software system called Peachtree Accounting. All sales were done on hand written tickets and then given to the accounting office for data entry. The accounting department entered all sales and inventory items into the PeachTree Software after the fact. The outlying store locations would save all paperwork and invoices and then send a weekly batch via FedEx or UPS to the accounting department. Morning Star's primary headquarters and accounting office was located in Salida, a small mountain town in central Colorado.

Brandon Moore, another original adilas partner, had just graduated from Utah State University in Logan, UT, in December of 2000. He moved with his small family to Salida, CO in the summer of 2001. He originally moved to Salida to be a professional raft guide and kayak instructor on the Arkansas River that ran through the Salida area. As the summer progressed, work was slim and Brandon was scrambling to make ends meet and to keep he and his family afloat. He found a job listing in the newspaper doing data entry work for Morning Star in August of 2001. Brandon interviewed with Steve and his head accounting person for the data entry job. They offered him the job and he offered to help build the Morning Star website.

Brandon had graduated with a BA in Business Information Systems with an emphasis in Office System Management. Prior to that, Brandon had created a couple of small websites in college and worked as a computer instructor for a local technical college. The accounting staff began using Brandon to do data entry work for the parts department.

Soon after starting to work in the accounting department, the company website became part of Brandon's main job. He began gathering information on inventory levels and items for sale. With so many locations and inventory items being sold on a constant basis, it became almost impossible to keep up with the changes. To make matters worse, the company was constantly transferring a large floppy disk (100 MB zip disk) from store to store to make sure that each location had updated information. The process took about two weeks to make a full circle and then it would go around again. Each time a store would get the disk; they would update their files, add any new items, and send it via FedEx or UPS to the next location. This was a never ending loop with time being one of the biggest variables. Talk about a money pit and literally chasing your tail…

The first step in changing this process was to create a centralized location for the data. One of the sales managers in the Salida office would keep the inventory file relatively up to date by making phone calls and trying to record the data. Every couple of days, Brandon would post the file online with a date to let the other managers know how current the file was. Having the data centrally located sped up the time frame from a two week cycle to just a day or two and totally cut out the next day FexEx charges. Even with these changes, work and efforts were being duplicated. Different salespersons were selling items without others knowing about it and new web page files were being made for items that had already been sold. It became very frustrating as a salesperson would have a good deal on the table just to find out that the item was already committed and/or sold. Deals also went the other way. A customer would ask for something and according to the spreadsheet, it didn't exist, even if it was physically available at another location. Eventually, the need was great enough to drive both Steve and Brandon to come up with a plan to create a dynamic web driven application to track the main big ticket items called stock/units (vehicles, trailers, and toppers).

Brandon went back to Utah on a family vacation and was able to take a dynamic webpage class from the technical college where he previously worked. After the class, he returned to Salida and began working on his very first database web driven mini-application. Its only functions were to track the stock/units (big ticket items), stock items in/out, and mark them as sold (basic inventory tracking). Once completed, the timeline for doing a transaction went from the two days between updates to each salesperson making real-time connections and totally eliminating the old spreadsheet of inventory items. At that point, a number of concepts that are built into adilas started to form. These concepts are enter once, use many, and empower the users at the point of action.

Once the first mini-application was complete, Brandon terminated his full-time employment with Morning Star and became a sub contractor and independent web developer. He started working from home and started his own web-based business and began seeking new clients. Morning Star was still one of his biggest clients, but he no longer worked full-time for them.

As things progressed, more and more options, tools, and features were added to the system. It wasn't long before the operations side (sales) was walking circles around the accounting department. Communications improved, sales went up, and the sales staff loved their new tools. Meanwhile, the accounting department was getting buried and management was looking to add new locations because of improved sales.

Because of the load and stress, the accounting department began to ask for reports with specific dates, data, and totals. Prior to that point, the accounting department had had nothing to do with the inventory tracking system other than the fact that they could login and look at individual stock/units and their histories. A very distinct line was in place and operations could not touch and/or see any of the accounting pieces or functions. Each department only dealt with or played in their department and minimal crossover took place.

As the accounting department slowly began to ask for more and more reports, new tools and new features, the two departments slowly began to interact better. Communications, procedures, and flow started to develop. The commonality became the system. As a matter of fact, they even made the system be the "bad guy" to help spell out the rules and say "No" when needed. If management didn't like what the sales staff was doing, they had Brandon open and close virtual doors to accommodate the correct flow process. More and more permissions where developed to accommodate needs on both sides of the transaction. Real time problems and solutions were beginning to be addressed as they happened.

The operational interface began to lightly feed the accounting department certain values and date sensitive reports. Managers and operations folks began to see numbers and reporting that they had never seen before. A cause and effect cycle began to emerge. This may not seem very big, but it was the start of a huge paradigm shift for the entire company. Managers began watching expenses and taking pride in running a tight store and location. Inventory levels were being tracked, purchases made accordingly and accounting was getting their numbers. Things were starting to flow more smoothly. The entire development process was as follows: 1. Find a specific need 2. Figure out what pieces came from where 3. Take a step in that direction by releasing a new tool, feature, or report. The natural consequence of the user actions would then present the next logical step and management would be able to see where they wanted to go. In a way, the horse began leading the cart instead of the other way around.

The next phase of growth was changing from one corporation into multiple corporations. As the dealership grew, they took on different businesses and acquired others. Steve went to Brandon and asked for the exact same web application for some of his other companies. Each new system needed to be independent so as not to mix numbers and items between corporations. All that needed to be changed were names, locations, tax settings, colors, logos, permissions, and a few other minor tweaks. After adding a number of independent systems, Brandon told Steve that it was getting too hard to keep up with all of the different systems. A single update or change had to be tested in multiple places in order to make sure that it worked with all systems. Users were getting multiple logins to be able to work in different corporations (no cross over existed between the systems). An additional load was added because certain users needed certain functionality in one corporation but not in the other corporations. The current system permissions and roles began to morph into user-specific custom code and began to split the application. More functionality was added but upkeep and maintenance became much harder.

Brandon proposed that they pull back and try to put everything under one roof and build with growth and expansion in mind. This new system could include: multiple permissions that could be assigned to different users by corporation, any number of different corporations, unlimited locations within a corporation, and each corporation could have their own settings and virtual sandbox to play in. To top that off, a bridge or interface could be built to allow a user to switch or cross over between corporations without having to login under that corporation. The entire system would be built on a one-to-many relationship model. Steve liked these ideas and began to think on a more global scale. All of the existing systems continued with minimal enhancements for a number of months.

At this time, Brandon was very involved in a business he had started to teach people how to do snowboarding freestyle tricks and moves through an interactive CD-ROM. Most of his time was devoted to building his own business. He was spending very little time working for Morning Star other than minor special requests. Brandon was looking to have someone take over the work he had been doing for Morning Star as their web developer.

Morning Star needed help with Brandon heading out the door so they hired a new computer guy. Brandon agreed to stay on long enough to train the new guy until he could take over. This required Brandon to dive back into what was going on at Morning Star. About this same time, Steve was dreaming up the concept of creating a "super system" – a web application that could track all of the data for different businesses. He could see the potential of selling this web application as a service to businesses with a reoccurring revenue stream. Steve grabbed the bull by the horns and set up several meetings with Brandon and the new computer guy to share his dream and vision.

It was Steve's idea to begin pulling the operation side and accounting side together like the cogs of a zipper being zipped up until each piece fit in perfectly with the other pieces. Some of the functionality was already in place in a very loose sort of way. Steve had many business ventures (besides his dealerships) in real estate, transportation, small investments, etc. Steve was also in the process of finishing his degree with a dual major in business management and accounting from the University of Phoenix out of Denver. Because of his business knowledge, his entrepreneurial spirit, and experience, he knew that a large gap existed between operations and accounting.

He could envision a way that as he did his day-to-day tasks (operations) that they would automatically show up for roll call on the accounting side of the application. Data would be entered once and then passed along until all of its activity was complete. He wanted to track every penny from start to finish. He also came up with the theory of entering pieces on the operations side and then slowly having them become more firm values, solid dates, and eventually final numbers. He used the analogy of water droplets forming into ice crystals. The droplets start fairly loose (sales) and slowly become crystals, then slush, and then finally becoming completely frozen or iced down. This final output would end up being the actual accounting for the organization. Basically, this was the start of tracking a transaction from beginning to end through its life-cycle. Each key date or status change was flagged and dated and all prior steps were locked down according to user permissions. This became a running history of the objects and data as they moved over time.

About this time, Brandon had a small business loan or note that required a significant payment and funds were tight between trying to push his own products and make the note payment. He began to supplement his normal income by helping to train the new guy and diving in on Steve's idea of this business accounting and operations system (accopps). Within a year, the new part-time computer guy had some family problems and was unable to continue. By this point, Brandon had caught the vision from Steve and both were working almost full time on the project.

All of the existing online systems for the other corporations continued with minimal new enhancements as Steve and Brandon developed a brand new system from the ground up. The new system required a major rework and was purposely built with growth and expansion in mind. Every single page was built from scratch to incorporate the new fields and settings. Scripting and database platforms were changed, servers were added, and the goal began to move toward an open business model instead of just a dealership industry business model. Each new development step opened the vision even further. Ideas and concepts that weren't even possible began to become a reality as the process continued. Cogs of the zipper were slowly coming together from the bottom up.

It wasn't long and the new "Morning Star System" was created. All existing companies migrated from older standalone web applications and started to use the new system. Additional companies and corporations were added under the "Morning Star System" name. No marketing was done and all of the new companies were referrals from current system users. Brandon and Steve were working hard to come up with the next steps and still trying to figure out how to keep pulling the zipper cogs closer and closer together. There were no road maps for doing this. They were truly pioneering ideas and concepts with only a vision, brainstorming, and trystorming (planned experiments) to guide them. The deeper they got, the more they started to see that other companies had the same problems and frustrations that they had already worked through. New companies were ready to pay even though the entire application was not yet finished. A definite "need" was forming.

Steve and Brandon knew that the new system would need a name and would need to become its own company and entity. Over a lunch meeting in Salida, Steve proposed the name of "adilas" which is actually the name Salida spelled backwards. Up to that point, the entire application had been created there in the small mountain town of Salida, CO. The name stuck and an acronym was developed – "all data is live and searchable". As time went on and as each new development step was added to the system, the more this acronym became a living part of the application.

Adilas, LLC was officially created in January of 2008 with the first paying customers in June of that year. Shortly after that, the first paying international customers were added. All in all, there were close to 20 corporations using adilas before it even became an actual entity. All of these companies, from the various industries, had asked to be a part of the process. They were all using the service free of charge up to that point. Each company helped tremendously by providing feedback and ideas that were incorporated into the development process.

The feedback and suggestions from their clients became one of adilas' biggest assets (and still is today). The size and depth of the live test bed was another huge asset that they harnessed virtually for free. It would be nearly impossible for a small company to pay for a test bed of that magnitude. It would have cost millions in research, development, and staff salaries alone. Similar to the cream rising to the top analogy, the ideas and suggestions began paving the way to new features and functions. Over the years, hundreds and hundreds of people have chimed in and made a contribution in one way or another. When asked, Brandon said that "Even our most adamant critics have helped formulate our direction and plans. We are very grateful to one and all. The more holes they would find and point out, the more we just keep trying to fix the problems. It has been awesome!" People from all different walks of life from CPA's, attorneys, bankers, accountants, owners, managers, salespersons, data entry folks, entrepreneurs, and friends have all added their suggestions, ideas, and feedback. Literally hundreds of thousands of hours and millions of dollars have been put into this project. In a way it has become somewhat of a community effort or project.

In seven short years, from 2001 to 2008, adilas went from a mini custom write-up system to a multilevel business platform that is capable of bridging the gap between operations and accounting. The adilas guys have continued to pioneer the way and haven't stopped building. They are working on a master plan that includes a new way of doing accounting called "roll call accounting". This deals with tracking objects and data over time. Operations lead the way and the system is set up to catch and show cause and effect relationships of what was done and how the pieces are tied together. Along the way, each step is dated, flagged, and recorded. The entire story is being captured, mapped, and laid out for users to see. The "roll call" then happens when the user asks the objects and data where they were at any given point in time. The objects and data then virtually respond or report back to the user.

Clients currently use the system to track inventory, manage customers, showcase their products on the web, sell their items and services in an online point of sale system, run retail store fronts, pay bills, track receivables and payables, do their entire backend accounting processes, do payroll, scan and file documents (paperless office), schedule calendar events, run their business, and much more. New features and tools are released almost weekly and the system is gaining momentum and direction. A future training ground called Adilas University (adilasuniversity.biz) is in the works. This will be a dedicated place for training, video tutorials, step-by-step instruction, newsletters, upcoming events, new feature releases, along with a number of other different topics.

The entire application development process is fully paid for and has been through a number of full working releases. It has had hundreds and hundreds of people from different businesses pushing it to see what and where it will go. The story is still unfolding at an incredible rate. The adilas team is still adding new things every couple of days. With each new release, the vision opens up new doors and more options emerge. When asked, Brandon said, "You should see our tick list of where we want to go with this. I can see better training, faster reports, more automation, new custom settings, user defined preferences, and a more visual-type interface. I'm pretty excited about it!" So, it continues… as long as their users keep asking for the next logical step, they will keep building it better and better! The future looks very bright!

For more information about adilas, please visit - www.adilas.biz - If you would like to learn more about adilas, the system, the tools, the theory, the people, please get a hold of them for a free live demo. They welcome questions and love ideas! Contact them at: sales@adilas.biz or 719.439.1761 and ask for Steve.

--- additional contact info: support@adilas.biz - tech support line: 719.966.7102

--- as a fun side note... this document (text above) was created in 2011. Tons of new chapters have been added since then. Today's date is 6/27/19. And so it continues...

See attached for a small work document that Steve and I were using for some brainstorming on the QTI (between a quote, transition invoice, and a real invoice) tracking and process. Here are a few of the notes:

- We may need to go to a line item level on the dates (po/invoice line items)… Currently, we try really hard to match the main (PO's and invoices) with the line items. There is some built-in code to help with this process.

- We may need to pull some data... and see what to do with it - For example: you stand in this line, you stand in this line. (analogy between parallel lines and diverging lines and the bubble analgoy - small flex zones or small flex bubbles)

- We would love to see the ice-down date, aggregated data, watchers, feeders, tiggers, 3D calendars, taking things clear out to minutes and seconds vs just 24hour dates (June 1st, June 2nd, etc.).

- Steve and I were talking about "display only" pieces on the balance sheet... The future potential from QTI invoices may be a display piece, not a real book piece. Just like the liabiltlty for loyalty points. Just ideas.

- Small talks about posting (old school accounting and posting to differnet accounts) vs a computer just running logic to figure out where things were at (roll call accounting) - a computer can figure it out and repeat those actions every time so that it just flows through vs having to post and post and repost. Basically, make it show up for roll call vs doing different journal entries every time.

- To make the current QTI process work, we skipped the tax stuff until the very end... We also need to track both lists of invoices that are still in transition and those that are done. This is really true if you are going back in time.

- We briefly talked about using aggregated data to show daily break-downs in the full P&L and balance sheet levels - even to the 3D calendar level
- different categories go down the left side.
- dates go across the top.
- totals show up below (per column per date), they also show up per section (far right per row or per record).
- it would be so cool if we could put all of the known P&L and balance sheets categories on a single report and then pull from special daily totals (aggregated data) to populate thos values.
- see this element of time in the adilas university site for some sketches of a similar idea
https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/time_web_gallery.cfm?corp=371&id=1797

- What has been changed and what has been iced down?  - Evaluate those values as we move across time on a report and/or calendar?

- What about using ajax (asynchronous calls to get the data) to figure out the aggregated totals as they show up.

- It would be really cool to see the known issues and be able to drill-down to those values easily... even through the aggregated totals.

Adding new user guide content for adilas theory, roll call accounting principles, and other account concepts.

4.51 - Parts/Items (general inventory pool)

-What is your product? Is it actual product? Is it services? What are you putting on your invoices?

-Parts are generally tied with PO's (incoming - the way to get something into the system) & invoices (the way to get them out of the system) sold to customers

-A place holder is created in the system for the parts by bringing it in on the PO, (so the pipe analogy to track incoming and outgoing) by tracking this, then you can roll call on the pipe at any given time, this place holder holds your name & cost (which can also be adjusted) it becomes the unit, so that you can track and roll call the outgoing and incoming pieces

-This has a number of corp-wide settings attached so that you can name what you want to call these - parts, services, widgets, etc. name it what you want it

-Parts & inventory are eCommerce ready

4.7 - Balance Sheet

-A snapshot in time.... where are things at right now

-It's buddy is the P&L (P&L - is over time), the P&L (the income statement) feeds into the balance sheet through net profit, which ends up being an equity item

-Roll call, ask the items where are you, where have you been, where are things at

-Tells you your story (kind of a day by day specific)

-3 main pieces: assets (have), liabilities (owe), & equity (gained over time)

-System maintained pieces (about 75% automated) & user-maintained pieces (specialized things you need to track)

4.7 Balance Sheet

Drafting…

Understanding the Basics:

The balance sheet is like a snapshot in time, a summary of where things stand at a particular point in time. The Balance Sheet has 3 main pieces: assets (what you have), liabilities (what you owe), and equity(what is gained over time).

It is fed by the P&L (income statement) page, through net profit.

Capital – financial assets, or the financial value of assets owned – wealth in the form of money or assets  contributed for a specific purpose like to start a company or to invest

1. A financial statement that summarizes a company's assets, liabilities and shareholders' equity at a specific point in time. These three balance sheet segments ...

2. 

3. a statement of the assets, liabilities, and capital of a business or other organization at a particular point in time, detailing the balance of income and expenditure over the preceding period.

Equity: The term's meaning depends very much on the context. In finance, in general, you can think of equity as ownership in any asset after all debts associated with that asset are paid off. For example, a car or house with no outstanding debt is considered the owner's equity because he or she can readily sell the item for cash. Stocks are equity because they represent ownership in a company.

Assets, liabilities and equity

Concept-

Use- The Balance Sheet is used as a roll call, a report on where each item is and where it has been. It tells the overall story of what has been happening, broken down into day by day specifics. It is 75% automated, but requires several user-maintained pieces (specialized things you need to track)

Getting Started:

Suggested Permission and Settings:

Permissions:

Basic Use:

Section: Permission

Admin Use:

Related Pages & Help File Links:

Title of Page:

Link: https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/help.cfm?id=318&pwd=log

Additional Content:

 -Graphics

-Screen Shots

-Etc.

Adilas is what we call a "business platform". What that means is there are tons of tools, functions, permissions, settings, and processes to help you run your business. This guide or manual will take you on a step by step journey in exploring and explaining some of the functions and tools that are available to you and your company. Not every tool or function will be used and that's ok. We want you to match the right tools with the right job. Some of the goals in providing this manual are helping you learn the system, apply the concepts in your own specific manner, help you track all your operational and accounting data, and help make you even more successful than you currently are! Let's get started!

Basic Outline - Feel Free to Jump to a Specific Section or Area
 
1 - Understanding The Basics
1.1 - What is adilas?
1.2 - How Does It Work?
1.3 - Enter Once - Use Many
1.4 - Database Basics
1.5 - Web Basics
1.6 - Standard Page Elements
1.7 - Navigation Tips & Tricks
1.8 - Vocabulary
1.9 - Adilas Theory

2 - Logins, Passwords & Permissions
2.1 - Main Website Features
2.2 - Username & Password
2.3 - Creating An Adilas Bookmark or Favorite
2.4 - User Permissions

3 - General System Settings
3.1 - Main Corporation Info & Settings
3.2 - Locations
3.3 - Sales Tax Settings
3.4 - Payroll Tax Settings
3.5 - Departments (tied to payroll)
3.6 - Assigning Employees to Departments
3.7 - Timecards (clock in/out)
3.8 - Master Time Templates (calendar & scheduling)
3.9 - Flex Grid Tie-Ins (custom data fields)

4 - Meet The Players
4.1 - General Overview
4.2 - Admin
4.3 - API Sockets & Communications (application programming interface - send & receive data remotely)
4.4 - A/P - Accounts Payable (vendor waiting room)
4.5 - A/R - Accounts Receivable (customer waiting room)
4.6 - Attributes (parent & child inventory flags and tags)
4.7 - Balance Sheet
4.8 - Banks
4.9 - Barcodes & QR Codes
4.10 - Black Box Page Technology (custom code options)
4.11 - Check Requests (sub type of the normal expense/receipts)
4.12 - Check Writing
4.13 - Chooser (custom interface chooser)
4.14 - Corporations (worlds)
4.15 - Coupons & Sales Campaigns
4.16 - Customers/Clients
4.17 - Customer Logs
4.18 - Customer Queue (check in/out)
4.19 - Data Imports & Exports
4.20 - Departments
4.21 - Deposits (monies coming in)
4.22 - Discounts & Discount Rules
4.23 - Display Options & Interface Choices
4.24 - eCommerce & Web Presence
4.25 - Elements of Time (calendar & scheduling)
4.26 - Email Settings
4.27 - Employee/Users
4.28 - Expense/Receipts (monies going out)
4.29 - Exports - MS Excel/CSV/PDF
4.30 - Flex Grid Tie-Ins
4.31 - Floorplan
4.32 - Gift Cards, Rewards, & Loyalty Points
4.33 - GPS & RFID Tag Tracking
4.34 - History & Reports
4.35 - Ideas & Sharing
4.36 - Interface Options, Dashboards & Choices
4.37 - Invoices
4.38 - Labels & Custom Paperwork
4.39 - Locations & Tax Settings
4.40 - Look & Feel (custom colors & navigation)
4.41 - Manufacturing (changing or modifying inventory)
4.42 - Marketing
4.43 - Media/Content/Files (physical file uploads and referencing)
4.44 - Merchant Processing - Credit Cards & Financial Solutions
4.45 - Mini Conversions (buying, selling, & tracking inventory - units of measure)
4.46 - My Cart Favorite Buttons
4.47 - My Stuff (personal settings & options)
4.48 - Objects & Data Over Time (theory & concepts)
4.49 - Orders
4.50 - P&L - Income Statement
4.51 - Parts/Items (general inventory pool)
4.52 - Payroll, Commissions, & Time Clocks
4.53 - Permissions
4.54 - Photos & Scans
4.55 - Purchase Orders (PO's)
4.56 - Quick Search
4.57 - Quotes
4.58 - Recipe/Builds
4.59 - Reimbursements (REI's)
4.60 - Reoccurring & Automated Options
4.61 - Sales & Promotions (see coupons & sales campaigns)
4.62 - Saved Reports (custom report favorites)
4.63 - Settings - Corp-Wide
4.64 - Settings - Group Level
4.65 - Settings - Page Level
4.66 - Settings - Personal
4.67 - Shopping Cart
4.68 - Special Line Items (system parts)
4.69 - Splits (payments made on account)
4.70 - Statements
4.71 - Stock/Units (serialized inventory)
4.72 - Sub Inventory (parent/child inventory)
4.73 - Support
4.74 - Texts, Emails, Reminders, & Communications
4.75 - Third Party Solutions
4.76 - Tiered Pricing & Pricing Engine
4.77 - Timecards (digital clock in/out)
4.78 - Tools & Maintenance

5 - Customers (in depth)
5.1 - Customer Settings (general)
5.2 - Customer Types
5.3 - Customer Logs
5.4 - Customer Additional Contacts
5.5 - Customers to Invoices & Quotes
5.6 - Customer To Elements of Time (scheduling)
5.7 - Customer Photos & Scans

6 - Inventory (in depth)
6.1 - General Inventory vs. Serialized Inventory
6.2 - Parts, Services, & General Inventories
6.3 - Vendor/Payees
6.4 - Part Categories
6.5 - Use PO's to Add Inventory
6.6 - Updating Inventory Counts
6.7 - Light Manufacturing
6.8 - Recipe/Builds
6.9 - Stock/Units (serialized inventory)
6.10 - Makes
6.11 - Models

7 - Sales (in depth)
7.1 - Shopping Cart
7.2 - Advanced Add To Cart
7.3 - My Cart Favorites & Smart Group Buttons
7.4 - Quotes
7.5 - Invoices
7.6 - Invoice Payments
7.7 - Transitional Invoices
7.8 - Reoccurring Invoices
7.9 - Discounts, Returns, Trades, & Refunds
7.10 - Statements
7.11 - Sales & Profit Reports
7.12 - Sales Tax Reports
7.13 - Merchant Processing (credit card payments)
7.14 - Transfer Invoices

8 - Deposits (monies coming in)
8.1 - Banks
8.2 - Deposits
8.3 - Deposit Types
8.4 - Deposits on Merchandise
8.5 - Depositing Invoice Payments
8.6 - Bank Transfers (deposit side)
8.7 - Special Deposits (balance sheet)

9 - Expenses (monies going out)
9.1 - Payables Homepage
9.2 - Expense/Receipts
9.3 - Expense Types
9.4 - Check Requests
9.5 - Reimbursements
9.6 - Splits or Payments On Account
9.7 - Pay Stubs (payroll and withholdings)
9.8 - Payroll Tax Liability
9.9 - Sales Tax Liability
9.10 - Special Payments - Credit Cards
9.11 - Bank Transfers (expense side)
9.12 - Special Expenses (balance sheet)
9.13 - Printing Checks
9.14 - Advanced Concepts & Usages

10 - Reports & Searching
10.1 - Report & Search Basics
10.2 - Adilas Quick Search
10.3 - Basic Application Type Searches
10.4 - Advanced Application Type Searches
10.5 - History Homepage
10.6 - Sales & Profit Reports
10.7 - P&L - Income Statement
10.8 - All Advanced Searches & Exports
10.9 - View Custom Code & Reports

11 - Financials & Accounting
11.1 - Bank Reconciliation
11.2 - P&L - Income Statement (logic and flow)
11.3 - Balance Sheet (logic and flow)
11.4 - User-Maintained Balance Sheet Items
11.5 - Adilas Theory on Accounting
11.6 - Roll Call Accounting Principles
11.7 - Old School Accounting vs. New School Accounting
11.8 - Vision for the Future

12 - Other Tools & Features
12.1 - Bridging Users Between Corporations
12.2 - Site Look & Feel (colors and logo)
12.3 - Corp-Wide Settings
12.4 - Training & Support
12.5 - Barcode & Label Generator
12.6 - Profit & Discount Calculator
12.7 - Finance Loan Calculator
12.8 - Financial Flow Calculator
12.9 - Global Parts Find & Replace
12.10 - Global Parts Mark-Up
12.11 - Global Stock/Unit Mark-Up
12.12 - Admin Time Clock
12.13 - Update Inventory Counts
12.14 - Managers Checkbook
12.15 - Wholesale - Cart Builder
12.16 - Cross-Corp Sales
12.17 - Custom Forms & Documents
12.18 - Custom Code & Reports
12.19 - Building Master Time Templates
12.20 - My Cart Favorite Buttons
12.21 - Smart Group Buttons (tiered pricing)
12.22 - Become an Adilas Rep

4.34 - History & Reports

-Usually checked and used by admin - get to the history & data in/from the system

-Historical, Effectual, & Financial - levels of history on the different pieces

-Lots of flexible ways to get your data - All Data Is Live And Searchable

4.34 - History & Reports

Understanding the Basics:

There are 3 main groups of history tracked in adilas:  Effectual – what shows up for roll call (where is an object at, with date & time stamps), Historical – who touched what (actions/histories), & Financial – what & where does this show up on the financials.  History and reports are usually checked and used by admin to monitor and see what is happening in the system.  There are many ways to view, print, export and get at data in adilas: All Data Is Live And Searchable (adilas).  

The history homepage is one of the best resources for checking daily histories, weekly histories, grouped history reports, etc.  The history report provides drill down links into the specific items done in the system.  Many reports can be printed, exported to Excel, copied and pasted, and so forth.  Each object in the system also has its own history as it is created and tracked through the system.  Look for the history link to see the history associated with that object.

Getting Started:

Suggested Permission & Settings:

Basic Use:

System Basics: My History

Admin Use:

System Reports: Corp/User History

Related Pages & Help File Links:

History Homepage:  One of the best resources for efficiently accessing what has occurred in the system

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/help.cfm?id=329&pwd=history

All Advanced Searches & Exports: All of the links to advanced searches in one place

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/help.cfm?id=406&pwd=advanced

Additional Content:

- Screen Capture:

o It might be helpful to have a graphic here that shows a substantial or average Daily History report, so they can see layout, drill-down links, etc.

o It might also be good to show a couple different layouts for the ways reports are displayed & in the caption explain where that is

Steve and I met this morning and had a good meeting. It was just the two of us. So, we ended up talking shop and strategy. We talked about some of our internal pain points and how we could get someone to help us out with those things. One of the pain points was with merchant processing solutions. We have coded to a number of Internet gateways, and that is working fine.

We have two major needs on the merchant processing level...

1. Is on the chip reader side. We have two gateways that we have coded to, but it takes a person to get people setup and going on that (light babysitting). Those solutions require both web API socket stuff and software installed on a computer. If the company updates their software, we have to recertify and no one wants to pay for that. So far, those solutions have been somewhat of a headache.

2. We need a simple Internet solution where a new merchant could be approved very easily and then they are off to the races. Currently, the Authorize.net's and USAePay (our top two gateways) have pretty deep prerequisites that the merchants have to go through in order to be setup and qualify. As they grow and mature, they may need to go to a bigger processor, but we need a really simple solution to get people started fairly quickly. We are thinking that Stripe might be the best option and/or looking deeper into PayPal or something like that. I personally am leaning more towards Stripe.

We also talked about some other internal needs and who we could put on what projects. Some of the other needs are things like:

- User guides

- How to's

- News and updates (this is biggie for us)

- Billboard sites (world building, roll call accounting, data assembly line, and others)

- Tons of other mini projects that come up

- Build out the full Adilas API sockets and the underlying documentation to make that happen. That is a huge piece of the puzzle.

We would really like to have some focused project management on both internal projects and client projects.

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11:00 to 12:00 pm - Meeting with Global Design and Assembly - orders and backorders

- Not duplicating orders when something gets back ordered. They would love to enter things once and have it flow through.

- They would like a definitive answer of prices and timelines to make that happen.

- They import products and the resell those items. Lots of shipping and fulfilling of orders.

- They would like to go more paperless in the backend office (what is needed, what is ready, what has been shipped, etc.) - Currently, they are doing a lot of paper back and forth. They would like to eliminate the paper model.

- Steve, talking about a transitional PO (similar to a transitional invoice - between a quote and an invoice). This would be used for the on order/not quite inventory yet but maybe we are already making payments, etc. Steve was saying that Will Hudson (adilas developer) was going to be working on the transitional PO project. Basically, a work in progress type PO... it isn't fully valid inventory yet, but it is becoming more and more solid values.

- Jason, I think you guys would have a lot of clients who would like for a more automated backorder process.

- Steve, was talking about the existing manual process of duplicating the original PO and only pushing the backordered items forward. You don't have to build it from scratch, but you duplicate and keep pushing the ball forward. The other side to this, is you only pay for what you really get and have.

- Jason, would really like that process to happen (like magic) so that the whole story is still there but it flows through the whole system.

- Example: Say we ordered 500, you only got 300. What comes next? Do you have a small box that says, move 200 to backorder (aka a new PO) or what other options might be there.

- Small talks about ice-down dates

- On a technical side... how you do you keep cost of goods, inventory, accounts payable, and what is received and what is not received? Some of the questions go clear out to the balance sheet and how to track things.

- Just in time ordering and smaller draws... Say they need 500 total, but only want 100 now and another 100 by next week and then rest when possible. Just in time issues and some tracking nightmares.

- Technically, we may need another couple fields where we could put desired amount, shipped amounts, and backordered amounts.

- There is more of a need for time based ordering - just as, I need this on this date, and that on this other date... Basically, tying things into more of a time or schedule based environment.

- On the just in time... If someone wants 500 and you only have 200, how do you put it on the order? Do you put the whole 500 on there (this would drop your inventory by -200) or do you just do the 200, out the door, and then put the other 300 on another PO/invoice. Basically items still needed to be bought, purchased, and/or shipped.

- Warehousing and stocking shelves - excess inventory and back stock

- ecommerce type scenarios where orders are processed and managed as part of a supply chain scenario.

- Steve, was talking about companies that are proactively pulling sales from the other companies and then keeping a supply chain up and ready based on max/min re-ordering options. Once they (the other company) gets to certain level, a new order is always processed.

- here is a link for some of the older back order or backorder brainstorming from the developer's notebook.

https://data0.adilas.biz/top_secret/developers_notebook_home.cfm?q=back%20order%2Bbackorder

- Steve, was talking about the new plant move and harvesting options that they are building out. It used to be one manual process at a time. Now, they can click a button and move, kill, phase, or group hundreds and hundreds of plants at a time. The whole things was custom built and automated through elements of time, PO's, and parent/child inventory. Totally a new automated process.

- Jason, we only want what really happens to be recorded, but we don't want to lose the other details of the story.

- Brandi, we already have some custom code that helps us see what we have on hand, what has been placed on new orders, and what is still needed (don't have that yet)

- Brandi, we currently have to make a sales order, fulfill it to the level that is true, and then duplicate it and redo what is still needed. This is the current manual process. She would really love to automate that manual process and take out the possible human error (either multiple clicks and/or info that was forgotten).

- Backorders play on both sides of the fence... inbound items and outbound items... Both sides need a standard and automated flow process.

- Steve, was recommending that we see their existing processes and then make a plan.

- Brandon, we somewhat proposed a system that uses a request quantity (what is wanted), actual quantity (real values), and still needed values (backorders and/or wish list). We talked about having and showing all the fields and allowing JavaScript to help do the math, show/hide checkboxes to help automate the duplication process and pushing the virtual backorder and/or wish list forward. We would then keep chaining and flex gridding those pieces together. Basically, the same things that they are doing manually right now, but we speed it up and help to automate it.

- Steve, he loves clients who ask - Can we move this tree? I keep having to walk around it. While other clients just quietly walk around the tree every day. Sometimes those clients who ask the questions really help us move the ball forward.

- Steve, software and application are constantly changing.

- Jason, really likes to look at "scale". Can I do this? Can I do this for x number? Can I double or triple that and still be ok? Can I multiple by n (unknown number)? It all comes to scale.

- Jason, they have really used tons and tons of flex grid... It is now getting to the level where it is getting to be somewhat of a nightmare, due to the number of custom fields and where it is stored.

- Jason, process sequencing - what data (total) do we need to catch and then push to where it goes. First catch the data. Then we can display it, however we want to.

- Jason, he likes farming (talking about idea farming). But, he really like to harvest (seeing it through).

- Jason, will send up some docs on what they want done. We (adilas) will then help plan it out and get them some quotes and what not.

- Dream it up, and we'll help you wire it up.

9009 E Arapahoe Road, Greenwood Village, CO 80112
Phone: (303) 799-4555

See attached for notes, scans, files, and GoToMeeting recordings (videos)

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Day 1

We did some intros and then got started. Danny Shuford did a demo and did a great job. See attached for some notes. Here are a couple of the highlights from what I took away from it.

- Solution for solution minded people

- It can be molded to fit your industry

- Changes keep happening

- Big open view of the whole system - it wasn't made for just one industry

- Brief overview of the framework

- Based on user permissions and valid logins

- All web-based and cloud-based

- Features and benefits - focusing on the benefits

- CRM - log notes, additional contacts, photos, and other media

- We all deal with money, but in the end... we are all dealing with people

- Note to me... Danny went into the customer table and doing the custom page settings on the customer fields. This is for things like the name, aliases, sort value, show/hide, etc. We really need to keep pushing that idea and concept forward. People really want that level of control. It just takes a ton of work to cascade that through the full system.

- He talked about news and updates

- "Our Interface" - what do you want? We don't have a single set interface, we let you choose

- Customer queue

- Lots of moving parts

- Drea - "Adilas is play dough"

- Inventory tracking

- Reporting and building your own reports

- Labels and changes to the requirements

- ecommerce

- Payroll

- Accounts payable and accounts receivable

- Print checks

- emails

- Customize and working with the developers

- Security and back-ups

- Steve - Showing some hidden gems

- Small demo on flex grid

Next, I gave a small section on the adilas model - core concepts - and intro to world building. I will upload my outline. I'm also hoping to upload the video as well. I don't have any notes because I was the presenter, but here is my rough outline:

- We will be bouncing around

- Start with a guy holding tons of stuff

- Talk about the needs and how to organize things

- Go over different tools... head and mind, paper and pencil, word processing, spreadsheets, databases, software packages, web or hosted solutions

- Go over systems and how things start to inter-relate

- Cover the 12 main players

- Cover the 12 business functions

- Cover the 12 main world building concepts

- Mix and blend to get the desired results

After lunch, Alan Williams did a presentation on highlighting and exploring new features. He started out with a fun group activity and a game of sorts. Minimal communication and we had to figure out a path through a virtual mine (bomb) field. It ended up having forward steps, side steps, back steps, etc. We eventually, as a group, got through the mine field. Really fun exercise and it opened up some conversations. Here are some notes from Alan's presentation:

- Little active - mine field - group activity - finding their way

- How does this relate to the adilas process?

- He then showed some of the steps that we have taken to build the application

- Side steps, back steps, and forward steps

- Going into advanced add to cart and sub functions

- Request from the group - no standalone discounts - Make that a permission and/or a setting. Standalone discounts can and do cause tax problems.

Next, Steve Berkenkotter lead an open Q & A section. The first question was asking about any updates with the Metrc (state compliance and tracking system for Colorado). That got pretty deep but exposed some of the challenges that exist between connecting and maintaining dual systems (adilas and Metrc). Here are a few notes:

- Questions on Metrc

- Some new tables and new limits from Metrc

- Auto processors - running nightly stuff to help sync data between systems

- API and server to server connections

- Challenges that exist

- Mixing old and new functionality

- Transfers

- Sales

- Using elements of time to track states, status, phases, and groupings

- Getting back at the data - reporting

- High level vision

- Question from Pat - 280E - new tax and accounting rules - what can we write off as cost of goods? What about unitizing expenses?

- Steve - How the IRS is looking at things and expecting things

- Steve - loves numbers and how he brings his skills to the table

- Work in progress - attributing a value as part of the accounting

- The progression of building and breaking

- The system is able to store the data (huge piece of the puzzle)

- The system may be customized to get the data back out and/or to get the data in (another huge piece of the puzzle)

- Template building

- A consultant spending time and configuring a system before it is released to the end users

- Small questions on CSS and changing certain page colors

The last section of the day was a presentation on historical stepping stones - what have we learned and why do we do what we do? I did this presentation so I will add my outline. Once again, we are hoping to get some videos uploaded to this element of time incase someone wants to watch the videos. Here was my outline:

- Where did we start? Spreadsheets, static web sites, zip disks and sending inventory around from place to place

- Fixing current business problems

- Where is your pain? Start there

- Letting operations lead - Use the adilas interactive map to help show flow

- At some point, accounting will need to follow

- Checkpoints and flowing data

- Gap between operations and accounting - drawing the gap, horses and carts, and old school T accounts - light history of accounting

- How does time play into the mix

- Comparing operations and accounting in a static environment

- Comparing operations and accounting in a dynamic environment

- Progression - drawings of the data assembly line and how it ended up at a 3D data assembly line

- 3D world building - x=time, y=resources, z=space or depth - draw out the box or cube

- Black boxes & white label options

- The whole deal

We didn't quite make it all the way through the whole outline, but we covered a good portion of it. Towards the end, we went around the room and got some feedback. Those documents and notes will also be uploaded. The final request from the class was to have adilas allow the "adilas version" spreadsheet to be shared with the world. It was originally created in order to get a bank loan, but Steve said to release it to the world. Great meeting and good energy on day 1. Good stuff.

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Day 2

We spent most of the day working on and going over inventory tracking and point of sale (POS) features. See the attached videos. We also had some great demos from Calvin Chipman on building custom labels and one from Dustin Siegel on some new code and features that help with plant phases and cultivation. Here are a couple of notes from some of their presentations. For a more complete version, you may need to watch some of the videos from day 2.

- Calvin and the adilas label wizard - He gave a slide show and then started to interact with the label builder. After he was done, we asked him to show some of the behind the scenes pieces of his label builder. Good stuff.

- Vaporware - the product doesn't fully exist (yet) - part concept, part actual, not yet fully functional

- User designs the label (step 1)

- User selects the label from inside of adilas (step 2)

- The label(s) are created and displayed on the fly, based on stored instructions, mappings, and special code. (step 3)

- Part of the demo was showing sheet labels with a data merge, labels with barcodes and QR codes, static text, dynamic text (user can interact and change things), data mappings, graphics, etc. Pretty cool.

- Small talk about PDF's, Flash, & HTML and CSS - printing options from the web - Our choice is PDF currently

- Interacting with printers, browsers, and other hardware pieces

- PDF - actual size vs shrink to fit size

- Questions about font point size and possible limitations for compliance reasons - We will leave that up to the users, that way we don't have to chase all of the compliance rules and regulations.

- We talked about settings and maybe limits that could be stored and looked up on the fly.

- Possible template options

- Be careful saying a compliant label

- A good disclaimer to keep things legal according to the local and/or state requirements - put the liability back on the companies and/or users.

- Small story of a company and internal programming wars and war stories - Different places that Calvin has worked.

- It may take a hybrid solution of both software and web

- Small demo of the actual builder - Calvin is going to be taking that and putting it more into a wizard-type format. Currently, you have to be pretty techy to use it. Round 1 - prototype.

Dustin gave a presentation on some new cultivation processes and some dynamic mapping. We had some technology issues, the demo was going slow (Internet) but the concepts were awesome. Imagine going from a manual one-by-one process, to a bulk streamlined process. Huge time saver, plus tons more data points, capturing the whole story clear down to minutes, seconds, locations, phases, etc. Pretty cool.

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Day 3

Busy day today. We got into sub inventory, why we do sub inventory, customer relationships, elements of time, flex grid, ecommerce, custom emails, group mass texting (GMext Pro), and a presentation by Kelly Whyman (super power user from the Denver area). We are going to be posting the videos and the notes from the day. Good sessions. Here are some of the notes that I took while others were presenting. Once again, see the attached media/content files for videos and other digital notes.

These are some notes from Shari O.'s presentation on CRM functionality

- CRM - The real acronym stands for Customer Relationship Management - Shari O.'s acronym for CRM is - Can't Remember Much - pretty funny

- Good data in = good data out - Fill things out completely and make sure you get good data in

- The client log and how to use it

- Leaving personal footprints in the sand - using the log

- Addin gin a user-maintained history... internal communication

- Cover you own rear-end

- Being business appropriate - have good manners when recording details and data points

- Custom emails

Drea did a demo on how to show/hide transfer packages inside of the adilas/Metrc inventory pages. Here are some notes from that:

- Transfers in and out and how to hide things

- Everything in adilas is flexible

- This new functionality is only a week old

- Talking about manual clean-up and automatic clean-up - doing side-by-side comparisons

- Using the data tables and being able to sort and search data - almost on the fly - re-writing the page based on the data.

- Some of the new CSS cards, tabs, and such - really look super cool and it seems more intuitive - it also makes it look more modern.

- We would love to keep adding new data tables and more options

- As we keep going, we may need more clean-up options

Calvin game a PowerPoint presentation on GMext Pro - This is his group mass texting solution. He did a great job and I think that people really liked it. Here a few notes that I wrote down.

- Pretend like you are a client

- Communicating to a large group or large groups (plural)

- Pitching GMext Pro - great demo and presentation

- Some of the stories of huge companies and how changes have happened and how those big companies weren't able to keep up. WordPerfect and Blockbuster were some of them. Major game changers entered the market and could do things better, faster, and cheaper. People gravitated to those new options.

- Technology happens... embrace it and thrive

- Mass texting and single text notifications - similarities and differences

- Phones and phone numbers - with mass texting, you are basically buying phone numbers so that you can send more texts at a time. Each phone number can only send 1 text per second. So you may need 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 phone numbers to get all of your texts sent out.

- Problems with people giving out the wrong phone numbers (bogus numbers or wrong numbers) - that can break your marketing campaigns - too many wrong numbers and you get reported as a spammer.

- Ways of opting in and out

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Day 4

Final day of training for this go around. We started out day 4 with a group session on tips, tricks, and best practices. We spent quite a bit of time going over settings, permissions, and parent attributes for items. Steve then did a whole session on the three main parts of the balance sheet (assets, liabilities, and equity). The topic was intro to adilas backend office and functions. Steve took the words backend office and tried to flip it to - let's put the owners in the driver seat vs trying to drive from the back of the plane (pretend they are trying to fly the plane from back in the bathroom with the doors closed). Great session.

The afternoon session was talking about BI - Business Intelligence & Big Data. The group talked about databases, data, and how to both get data in and out of the databases. Lots of fun examples. We then has some other Denver power users jump in and do demos on tiered pricing and smart group buttons, and another one on the process of doing a full inventory reconciliation and full inventory count. Great info and good sessions.

The final session was supposed to be on the adilas model - vision, future, and wrap-up. We were all too tired, so we just chatted and went over a bunch of the things that we learned from the training session. We got some great notes and tried to clarify a few items, topics, and concepts. Pretty casual ending. Great people, wonderful ideas, excellent participation, and memories made. A great training session. Here are some of the notes that were taken while others were presenting:

- Molly presented on parent attributes for items - think of tag or ways to categorize things

- On parent attributes - for example: say you have an item but want to show different brand names or characteristics - Say you are selling shoes... You may want Nike, Converse, Adidas, etc. Or running, walking, hiking, trail running, etc. These would be good parent attributes or tags.

- Parent attributes are huge for ecommerce searching and creating tags for different items

- Russell did a great job on so many different features - we would love him to keep building more features

- Easy setup

- Building your own little shortcuts

- Parent attributes are used for labels, sales, ecommerce, searching, filtering, etc.

- Treat parent attributes like a way to build your own database... eight use the flex grid and the custom fields or use parent and sub attributes.

- Both parent and sub attributes are unlimited and they have a proper data type such numeric, dates, text, toggles, and drop-down lists. That really helps when putting data in and also when querying the data to get certain results back.

- As an idea... what if we build out both parent attributes and sub attributes to all 12 main player groups, inside of adilas. You literally could build your own one-to-many database relationships. The main 12 player groups are deposits, invoices, users, vendors, customers, stock/units, expense/receipts, balance sheet items, elements of time, quotes, PO's, and general inventory items. Currently, parent attributes and sub attributes are only available for parts or general inventory items. Think how cool that would be if we pushed it to the next level...

///////////

- Small note from a meeting during one of the breaks... what is the internal adilas funnel to report an error or a bug? Who gets put on that project? We need to figure out our own process and communication funnel.

- Bryan and Molly and others... funding some of the consultant projects - what is the short list and then where are things at. Basically, what do we have to work on and what are the priorities of those pieces?

- Shannon may be part of this funnel that we are trying to build out

//////////

Back to the main training even... The next session was Steve Berkenkotter and Shari Olin - going over financials and adilas backend office functions. Steve pretty much ran with this subject and did an hour long power session on the three main parts of the balance sheet (assets, liabilities, and equity).

- CPA homepage interface

- Inspecting what we expect - you have got to look at what is being delivered as a final product (actual items and/or tasks or services)

- Going back to the beginning - balance sheet homepage

- When you get a new system, we setup a default bank and default location

- Problem with batching... Say trying to remember 30 days back and/or not getting data and information for a long period of time. It kinda leaves you guessing and/or missing some of the details

- Steve - Think of flying a plain... try to be ahead of the plane... where is it going - often pilots try to think 3 tasks ahead of what they are doing

- Views of the balance sheet - a trial balance - working and checking mode

- Assets, liabilities, and equity

- We covered the difference between the income statement (P&L - profit and loss statement) & the balance sheet

- Values and tax laws

- Depreciation and schedules

- Life cycle - length of the life of an object and/or an entity - time and a schedule to lower a value (usage & wear & tear)

- The IRS has setup the tax game... They want you to play and even play up to the lines that have been setup - think of a game - play to the line

- Where you put things in very important

- Small discussion on double entry accounting - history and pros and cons

- Skate to where the puck (hockey) will be

- The formula is the most important part of it

- Passing things like a hot potato... basically moving things along the data assembly line - roll call accounting

- A balance sheet is a snap shot in time

- Talking about the profit margin and where does that come in to play

- Small holes in the ice - things that are either gotcha's or thin ice (not all the way done)

- Some of the guys and gals were saying that we need - big dumb animal pictures - super simple instructions

- Accounts receivables - Think of that as they have your inventory or they have your endeavor (a promise to pay for something) - basically, they owe you money

- You have to know the story - sometimes the numbers tell the story but sometimes the story tells the numbers what they mean

- Liabilities and hidden liabilities - be careful there

- Hidden costs

- Triggers

- Payroll and payroll taxes - this is a huge sink hole

- Sometimes we can't do things due to the technology - as that opens up, we have more options

- Auto processing and calculating needed values in non-peak times that could then be available for other reports

- Fall backs, redundancy, auto-syncs, and re-syncs

- Turtle up, sometimes the servers will shut down and pull in their legs - kinda like a turtle protecting itself

- We need an all encompassing system to help steer the ship - think platform or system

- Owners - who holds the liability

- Steve - analogy of the tail wagging the dog vs the dog wagging the tail - who is in charge & which way do things flow?

- The owner needs someone who is a decision maker and/or gate keeper

- What is the game plan and do you have buy in?

- The POS (point of sales and inventory tracking part) is only a small part of the puzzle. Very small compared to the whole business realm (world).

- Abundant model - you have to imagine a line of people wanting your services and standing in line - next, next, next

- The backend - really, this is the pilot's cockpit and/or the driver's seat

- Absorption (in take) model & attributing sub costs over time

- Dustin - I want "this" (meaning adilas & underlying data) to argue with my boss, not me.

- I need a business tool & now I can run faster & better - thank you

- Equity

- Net Profit - it comes from the P&L - one of the only connections between the income statements (P&L) and the balance sheet.

- Investment - how was this company funded and/or formed?

- Fracture - just having fun - it keeps doing it (fracturing) on its own... maybe let it keep going and play accordingly

- Change "backend office" verbage to the cockpit or balance sheet.

Towards the end of the day on day 4, we had a couple of power users show some demos and such. We had Josh do a presentation on my cart favorites and smart group buttons (tiered pricing). Drea made a suggestion that you make the pricing tiers as dummy proof as possible. They even pushed the ending values clear out to show a visual warning to the person using the buttons. The other major request was for this feature (buttons and tiered pricing) was dealing with allowing these buttons to be time sensitive for sales and promotions.

We also had Drea go through and show an inventory update and how she does a physical count and then an inventory clean-up. She would pull reports, export data, show/hide columns, add columns, print things out, and have her people go work. Then she showed how the system would take those over and short values and push them through an update PO (internal tool for updating inventory counts). Pretty cool. As we go along, we will need more clean-up tools.  Clean-up tools make things look better and help to give users a peace of mind. We also talked about trust issues and how sometimes it is tough to trust and/or trust people. All of that plays into the mix.

My final note about the training sessions is that those who played with us, live and online, really had a good time and we all learned a lot. Good times, great food, and wonderful people. Inspiring sessions. If you want more details, check out the media/content pieces (notes, excel docs, scans, and videos for more info).

The deeper we get into automating the balance sheet, the more this will come into play. 

-If we watch people use the system without any other information it may help us find the holes and pitfalls. That takes quite a bit of time, but if you don't have to explain everything, it actually saves you time in the long run.
-Maybe soften some of the error messages. Help to guide and virtually hold the users hand a bit more. Show them the goal and then how to do that.

Notes About Teachers & Educators - & How They Could Use Adilas:

-This morning I have been thinking about teachers and educators. I really think adilas could be beneficial to teachers at all levels.
-I was thinking about a guy who has been helping with adilas and having him spearhead this little project. I really want to get this product out to educators and people who are teaching the next generation. It could really help them out.
-We could sell a single teacher license for $10 a month. What a benefit to the teachers at that price! We could do a whole school from $17 to $187 (whatever) based on number of teachers and students. We could do districts at a different level and even dedicated servers at another level. Tons of options.
-We could do public schools, K-12, preschools, private schools, charter schools, alternative schools, technical colleges & schools, colleges, universities, etc. No limits! Hey, even Sunday Schools... :)
-We could make a number of other interfaces that fit styles and different age groups.
-We could set a flat rate of $50/hour for custom work. That is much easier to swallow than $100/hour or higher.
-We could offer custom interfaces, custom documents, custom reports, and custom training. These are all part of the system and great potential revenue streams and profit centers.

-A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system for teachers and students.
-Teachers could use – CRM, scheduling, photo management, documentation management per calendar event or per student, custom fields for tracking data, backend login (eCommerce) for parents, personal expense tracking, etc. Tons of options!
-We could approach schools at the state and district levels. We could approach teachers at a private or personal level. It is just a tool! They could use it at school, at home, over the summer, even while on field trips and bus rides. All they need is a hotspot or Internet connection.
-The application can be used on ipads, tablets, PC's, Mac's, phones, laptops, desktops, etc. Piece of cake and super small bandwidth and footprint.
-No contract. Month to month or annual plans. Free updates. Freedom and organization of their data.
-Cloud based, hosted solution.
-Privacy of data in multi-teacher environments.
-The power of a full business software system – catered to help teachers, educators, and students! A teacher's business is their classroom and their students. We can help with that!

Random note: I saw an interesting phrase in an email this morning... It said “disposing of digital debris”. I find that interesting as one of our current thought patterns deals with waste and being able to remove sludge and unneeded digital debris. All of nature has a way of getting rid of waste. We need to build those features in our data projects.

More notes on adilas for teachers & educators:
-School lunch program. They could pay and load cards from backend eCommerce. This is kind of like a gift card type interface or options. We could have an easy my cart favorites menu to bill out lunches and charge the cards accordingly. It could be super simple.
-Schools may need small online stores for yearbooks, t-shirts, game tickets, plays, donations, etc. This could be more eCommerce school funds cards. Pretty cool.
-Schools need email and text messaging between teachers and students and teachers and parents. We could use Full Circle IM as a 3rd party vendor for that. Piece of cake.

-Simple pricing structure of $10 per month per teacher. Any of the reps could get 20% of that as the rep and/or consultant. This same commission structure exists for all reps. This deals with accounts, not teachers (unless they are their own mini account).
Level 1 – 0 to 25 clients (accounts) – 20%
Level 2 – 26-50 clients (accounts) – 25%
Level 3 – 51-75 clients (accounts) – 30%
Level 4 – 76-100 clients (accounts) – 35%
Level 5 – Over 100 clients (accounts) – 40%

-Boy, it would be awesome to have a specific website that had teacher specific stuff on it. Ideas, tutorials, consultants, developers, manuals, and other resources. This could be really cool if they could even purchase or setup an account right from there. We could figure out referrals, promotion codes, etc. Just an idea! :)
-On schools and reports, dates are very important. We just barely added some custom date ranges to the school specific settings. This is an admin feature, but the dates could be set by school year, semesters, quarters, trimesters, year-round, etc. You get to set the active date range. All of the older data still exists, but the active date range helps to keep things current and fresh. In a way, it is like getting rid of waste and rubbish without actually towing it away.
-Objects and data wrapped in time... Think of what happens in a school year, a quarter, a semester, a trimester. What if all of that could be wrapped up together. Relationships, characters, players, problems, trouble, decisions, and consequences. Each chapter in the book (school year or timeframe) needs to play out as it happens. Catch the story at the source (teacher/student) and then go from there.
-Mini world building – a teacher, his/her students, their school, their community, their district, their region, their state, their world.

-More ideas and possible needs for an eCommerce and/or point of sale piece of software or solution... Event registration, community events and calendars, book stores, class fees, dances, housing, parking, food, labs, supplies, tuition, clubs, fund raisers, donations, extra curricular activities, field trips, exchanges, trips, etc. Tons of things, at a school, deal with money.
-This might be further down the line, but what about teaching adilas classes to students. Teach them how to run a business, sell things, track things, do accounting, even how to dream! Teach them... You dream it up, we'll help you wire it up!
-What about different accounts per students. Say they put some money on a card or an account, wouldn't it be cool if you could sub divide the money into different areas... For example: food, recreation, fees, book store, clubs, activities, etc.
-What if someone wanted to design a whole new interface that talks with an adilas backend? They could use any programming language and an adilas backend engine or API connection socket. The interface could be 100% specific to teachers and educators.
-I need to get back to my other projects... I'm having a hard time turning off the ideas... :) Good stuff and it could help great people! That's exciting!

Other notes:
-On customer logs (meaning the main customer information page), it might be nice to add all subs of time. Maybe also the invoice number of the main element of time to show what has and has not been invoiced. Then again, maybe just a link instead of showing all of the data. Or maybe wait until we do the roll call page and then link from there.

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As a side note, we added a Word Document on 10/30/2019. Original date of the entry above is 9/10/2014. The new Word Document came from Chuck Swann, an adilas designer/developer. It was listing out some additional needs for schools. See this link for more info on that doc.
https://www.adilascontent.biz/top_secret/images/corp371_A70F6B3792/pdf/doc_81887_01112B5ABC.docx