Software to Grow With Your Business, Made Easier

One of the great things about our suite of software applications is that you can pick and choose individual applications so you only buy the programs that you need. If you only need something to help you with invoicing, you can purchase Express Invoice and not need to wade through a complete accounting package just for sending bills to your clients. This is great for small companies that frequently have help from outside with their accounting, and it isn't until you are doing more of the bookkeeping in-house that you'll want a full blown accounting system.

As your business grows and you are getting ready to make the transition to an accounting system, you will be pleased to know that we are striving to make this upgrade easier for you. Now when you install Express Accounts, it will search for Express Invoice on your machine and give you the option of importing the invoices and using the balances from Express Invoice as the opening or beginning balances for your Checking and Accounts Receivable in Express Accounts. Imagine how much time that will save you in setting up your accounts.

Create Custom Typing Exercises

Who couldn't use a refresher course on touch typing? If you have actually tried some lessons or typing programs recently, you may have found that the standard typing lessons don’t match up with what you want or need to work on. If that's the case, you should try importing your own custom exercises into KeyBlaze typing tutor software to really focus on your weaknesses and hone in on the kind of typing that you do.

Your custom exercise should be saved as a .txt file, so check out Doxillion document converter if you already have documents in another format. When you have your text files ready, go to the Tools tab in KeyBlaze and click the Import icon. Select the type of exercise you want to import, browse to the location, and click Import. The exercise, or speed test, will then be listed in the program ready for you to use.

Send Personalized Video Greeting Cards

The holidays are right on top of us, so I hope you got your presents mailed and your cards and letters sent. But even if you haven't gotten something in the mail yet, it isn't too late to send a heartfelt message to your loved ones, both near and far. With Debut Video Capture Software and a webcam, you can record yourself or your whole family in front of the computer to make a quick and easy video greeting card. Just like you've seen in those holiday commercials with the audio-recorded talking greeting cards and books, you can make a sentimental message with both video and voice that can be played over and over again, without going to the store, that can be delivered to a loved one's email inbox, or burned onto a DVD.

If you want your video to really shine, you can import the clips from your webcam into either VideoPad Video Editor, or PhotoStage Slideshow Software to do more polishing and editing, and combine with other video clips, or photos and music, but any heartfelt holiday message to family members far away can be enough to bring a smile and some holiday cheer.

Make A Seasonal Slideshow

There is something nostalgic about this time of year. Shopping for gifts, making holiday plans, going to parties. And between the parties, presents, and traditions—like sitting on Santa's lap, cutting a Christmas tree, decking the halls, or cooking the special family recipes that only come out once a year—there are also a lot of photos to share.

But what if this year, instead of posting hundreds of individual pictures to Facebook, you combined all your favorites into a slideshow that will warm the heart? PhotoStage Slideshow Creator, rated the best slideshow software by TopTenReviews, makes it easy to combine your memories into a truly magical movie slideshow starring none other than your family. TopTenReviews recently posted an article that runs down how to make a personalized winter slideshow with PhotoStage. With its easy-to-use interface, the most important thing is just to come to the table with your imagination, ready to play with and perfect your slideshow.

Whether you want set your photos to your favorite holiday songs, record the family caroling, or add captions or narrations, you have complete creative control to tell the story of any memorable holiday, moment or event. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a slideshow is easily worth ten thousand, and with easy sharing options, lots of transitions, and dynamic features, there is no better way to create a slideshow than with PhotoStage Slideshow Maker.

The Lego Principle: How building from blocks, sets and platforms applies to software

Do you remember playing with Legos when you were a kid? I was thinking about my surplus of Legos the other day, and it got me thinking about software…

When I was a kid, I literally had tens-of-thousands of Lego blocks. It didn't start this way. I grew my collection from the first few space sets I could afford into a massive armada of ships and bases. With each set I added something new to the foundation of what I could already create with my current Lego supply.

Software developers do much the same thing, starting out with a few basic pieces. By learning and accumulating more interesting bits of code overtime, more designs and possibilities begin to emerge. Eventually developers collect a whole range of different building blocks that they can use and the number of possibilities skyrocket, which we refer to as exponential growth.

This phenomenon also occurs on a more local level at NCH Software. Our products are based upon blocks which can be built into a powerful conglomeration of tools. With so many software products, we often use blocks of code, or functions, from our library in multiple products and stack them together to add to the features.

One of the more banal examples of using these building blocks is in our dialog windows. Using the same code ensures that our software products will have a similar look and feel throughout. You wouldn’t want to build a castle with a mixture of Legos and Lincoln logs, would you? A more interesting example is our sound effect library, which is available in WavePad, VideoPad, and MixPad. Think of each of those applications as an already-constructed Lego spaceship, and the sound library is a fancy laser gun we’ve added to all three to make them that much more effective at what they do.

Yet another example is the weblet. In some programs, the weblet is where you go to run your business when you are away from home. In others, it’s where you configure the settings for your phone system, or where you test the video streams you are going to put on your website. The weblet is a foundation we lay down and build on top of to suit the needs of the individual program.

Lego has the right ideas – expandable and always interoperable. At NCH Software, we have the same ideas so that all of our products fit our users' needs. By making core features in our library, we gain a lot of dynamic power to make future products more robust, making our entire development team more powerful. And you can never have too much power.

Interactive Voice Response Best Practices & Design Tips

We've all been stuck on the phone trying to get information from an automated phone system in a battle against the machine that can seem to be designed specifically to prevent us from finding what we're looking for. While that almost certainly wasn't the intent of the automated phone system, poor execution can leave a multitude of customers with a bad taste in their mouth.

A well designed IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system can be a valuable resource, but a poorly designed one will only reflect poorly on your company’s customer service. With that being said, here are a few pointers to help make sure you are designing a good call flow for your automated IVR system:

• Outline the Call Flow for Your IVR
  A flow chart or an outline is the perfect place to start. You really need to take the time to plan out how someone is going to interact with your phone system long before you start creating the actual IVR in your software. Taking the time to plan it all through at the beginning will help you keep the big picture in mind and to avoid creating a long trail of prompts.
  
  
• Think Like Your Customers
  Always keep your customers in mind. Why will they be calling the system? Put the options for the most frequently used items at the beginning so they can be accessed quickly and easily. At every step along the way think about how the message will come across from a customer's point of view.
  
  
• Keep It Simple
  Don't try to do everything. Less is more. With an automated phone system you want to keep the number of key presses to minimum. Trying to do too many things just gives the callers more places that they can get lost along the way. Really think about what options should be available and who is calling in. For example, if you need to offer different services to customers and vendors it might be better to have two different systems rather thane on that does everything, keeping each line simplified and tailored to its purpose instead of trying to do everything on one line.
  
  
• Keep Menu Prompts Clear and Concise
  The longer your message, the harder it is going to be for a caller to remember everything that is being said and what they need to do to interact with the system. Be sure to use the same language as your customers, avoiding industry slang and terminology callers might not be familiar with.
  
  
• Offer Universal Commands
  Options like pressing the star key (*) to return to the main menu at any point during a call, or an option to repeat a prompt will make it much easier for callers to navigate the IVR system.
  
  
• Give the Option to Talk to Someone or Leave a Voice Message
  The goal of an IVR system may be in part to reduce the number of calls that your staff needs to handle, but there will be times when the system does not fulfill a customer's needs. You need to offer these callers the alternative to either talk to a live person or leave a message for someone to call them back.
  
  
• Test, Test, Test, and Test Some More
  Test the call flow every step along the way test the flow. Think of as many possible scenarios as you can and go through the process yourself. Get other people to try it out, too. Never think of your system as being completely done. You need to monitor how well it is working, and make sure that you are offering the right options at the right time. Get feedback from your staff and customers. Designing a good IVR call system should be an ongoing process.
  

These are just a few of the tips to help you get started on the right foot when you are implementing an interactive voice response system. Taking the time to thoroughly plan out a new IVR call flow, before you even start working with an application like IVM interactive voice response software, can make a significant difference in the final result and is well worth the time and effort.

eWeek Article by NCH Software CEO

In a recent Knowledge Center article in eWeek, NCH Software's CEO talks about some of the ways you can Run A Small Business on Single Applications.

Especially for a small business or start-up venture, the purse strings can be pulled tight making it very important to not spend money on anything you don't need. This idea also extends to the software world. Instead of buying an entire suite of software that might contain applications or features you don't need, it is becoming increasingly possible to find single applications that can be purchased separately but ingrate with each other to meet the specific needs of your business.

This is how the NCH Software business software suite has been designed-so that you are never required to buy all of the applications, only the individual components you need. This approach gives you more flexibility in finding a tailor fit solution that can grow with your business.

Single Software Applications are the Way of the Future You Don't Need to Buy the Whole Suite Anymore

The days of needing to purchase an entire software suite are behind us. At NCH Software we have designed our software suites so that each product can be bought individually and still integrate with other individual applications. This gives businesses more control and flexibility to purchase only the products they need without spending money on products they will never use. Customization becomes available to businesses of all sizes so they can craft solutions to best fit their individual needs.

This approach to separating out the units of a software suite is particularly beneficial for smaller businesses just getting started. A small business has fewer needs than a more established company and less capital to put into a fully fledged system with all the bells and whistles. With our software you can start out with just the features that you need and easily add on more features and more products as your business grows. The benefits of this type of scalable system of buying individual products as you need them should be obvious.

For example, most new businesses with limited personnel are going to hire a consultant part-time to manage their accounts, but they are still going to need to invoice their customers. Having the option to purchase a standalone invoicing program like Express Invoice is a great solution in this case. Later, the business can upgrade to Express Accounts as they begin handling more accounting in-house, or integrate with Inventoria for inventory management control. The flexibility of upgrading and integrating as needed caters to the environment and economic needs of a small business owner.

Your telephone system is another area that should be able to grow with your business. As you bring on employees you will need extensions. You might want to set up an information line to answer frequently asked questions when no one is in the office to take a call. Maybe having on-hold music and messaging is something you need. With the NCH Telephony Suite you can add on features like these to your basic system as you grow into the need for them. There is absolutely no reason to purchase features like call conferencing capabilities that you won't ever use, but it is always available if someday you do.

We have had a lot of positive feedback from customers about this approach to selling software. We would never dream of making someone pay for the entire software suite if they didn't need it. Integrating the products together gives you the ability to design a custom software solution, piece by piece, for exactly what you need.