The network engineer called an external consultant we had under contract for help. After looking at a few things the 2 made the decision that this was clearly a storage problem and request us to open a ticket with the storage vendor. Since there were no changes made to the storage system other than unplugging the cables from the Nexus 2000 switches and plugging them into the 5000’s this request seemed totally wrong (it was, trust me). My arguments that nothing had changed on the storage side were ignored. In the meantime the production environment that was sitting on the storage system was in limbo. We had failed over the storage system from one controller to the other one and all traffic was handled by one controller. Accordingly things were a little slower – actually slower than expected. While the storage vendor had sold us the system with the promise of being able to failover, it was clear that with the amount of storage and traffic the system had to handle, this was not a good solution and accordingly I was pushing to have this resolved as quickly as possible to reduce the negative impact on my production environment. I requested that the network engineer would open a ticket with Cisco, but that request was refused initially “because the external consultant was already on the phone”. It took me a little bit to get my point across, but finally a call to Cisco was made as well. We had also opened a ticket with the storage vendor (Netapp) and it was confirmed that nothing had changed on our end and that this was a network problem.

The situation above was very frustrating because we lost a lot of time during the troubleshooting process and our production systems were heavily affected because of this. What really stunned me was the lack of troubleshooting skills that the network engineer had. I honestly do expect more product knowledge and understanding of the technology for someone in that position. In addition I was really shocked that the external consultant (a so-called data center specialist) made such a move with quick finger-pointing at the storage system) – totally eroding any credibility in my opinion. Later on when a Cisco technical handled the case we came to a solution fairly quickly, but what was relayed to us did not make too much sense either and I honestly suspect some sort of cover-up by the network engineer. I would not be as upset and frustrated if the network engineer would clearly describe what went wrong and how Cisco fixed it, but the explanation that was provided was so vague – it clearly looks like a cover-up to me.

If you are a specialist in a certain field you need to have enough self-confidence to do the job right. When things go wrong you need to be able to do a certain level of troubleshooting yourself before falling back to someone else. If things go wrong and your first task is to ask for external help, then you are not a specialist – then you are clearly missing a certain level of knowledge and experience. I did not hire this engineer and I was not involved in assigning this project to this particular engineer. In this particular situation it became clear that the inexperienced engineer was clear not master of the environment and that the weakness in troubleshooting and the lack of knowledge clearly caused major issues.

If you hire people it is important to shoot for building a strong team of people with a certain skill set. I am not saying that you want a team of individual super heroes (that’s not a team), but you need a team where experience and troubleshooting skills are at a certain level to prevent bad situations from happening. The post mortem in my case would clearly include a discussion about what happened and if the right people were involved.

The take away from this article is the recommendation to really think about who you hire and where that person is on his or her career path. A junior level person should not be in charge of a situation that can damage your business. A senior level person should be involved in critical situations and eventually provide guidance for a junior person. It is important to hire the right people from the start – if you want to take a junior team and turn them into a group of highly-skilled specialists, then you will experience some setback. You will also need someone with experience who is able to guide the team and to lead it.

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QuickBooks is like the big brother of accounting. It has been there (as a desktop version) when I started my own business and has grown with me. The desktop version has been fairly complex to me – especially in the beginning and I dropped it in favor of a simple Excel spreadsheet. At a certain point Excel was holding me back and so I switched back to QuickBooks, but this time their QuickBooks Online service. I liked the fact that I could use it no matter where I was – it is completely web-based. It comes with approx. 80% of the features that the desktop version has to offer, but that was plenty for me. I did not like it too much when it came to tax season. While I was able to setup expense and income categories I think the product let you alone and when transferring the data into your schedule C I still had to do it all manually + my expense categories did not match anything the IRS was looking for. I spent hours in manually transferring my data … that kinda sucked. However, the reporting in QuickBooks Online was pretty good to give me business reports. I also did not like how QBOnline did not work well with PayPal which was a major drawback for me.

Now comes Outright which uses a completely different approach to business accounting. It is not as complex and versatile as QuickBooks Online, but that is actually a good thing. Outright does not want to be copy of QuickBooks online. It is less about syncing accounts, but more about categorizing income and expenses and to concentrate on the cash-flow items accordingly. The bank account setup and the PayPal import setup are easy and work very reliable. The interface is very different from QBO, but after playing with everything for about 30 minutes the tool really becomes intuitive and you can see yourself saving a lot of time already. Cumbersome was the import of old data – it had to be done via CSV file. I would love to see a straight copy from QuickBooks or QuickBooks Online actually. Overall getting my old data into Outright was not too complicated and then it was more to setup categories and to match accounting items accordingly.

Now, which online accounting version is better? If you run a more complex business QuickBooks Online might be the better choice. It provides more features and has a larger set of reports. Outright is lacking in reporting, but on the other side keeps things simple – very simple. What I love about Outright is the no-frills approach. It’s accounting, dummy. Outright can handle sales tax and other stuff, but is not good with inventory tracking or invoicing. That’s where QBO shines. QuickBooks also has the option to do Payroll and Contractor payments more easily. Outright has none of these. It keeps track of W-9 contractors, but not in a very intuitive way.

Outright is the cheaper solution that simply works. It is easy to use, and no big learning curve would be in your way. QuickBooks Online is more complex and can provide features that might be important to your personal situation. I will run the 2 in parallel for a little bit to see the differences in more detail.

Legal Disclosure: Please note that I am linking to 2 external websites here from this article. Please ready my disclosure policy regarding external links. You can find the link at the bottom of this page where you can also find the privacy policy.

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1. Restaurant Business Plan Software Starting your own restaurant often begins with the search for...

Why It Makes Sense To Buy Restaurant Business Plan Software

I personally have started 2 businesses on my own and I have learned a lot from it. In the very beginning with my first business I did everything myself and bypassed many automation tools and assistance because I was to proud to ask for help and I felt that the money I would have to spend would be invested better in a different way. Well, I learned a lot and I know when a small investment saves me a lot of time. As an example, my first accounting system was a homemade Excel spreadsheet. It worked great, really! But once I tasted a real, easy to use accounting system (Quickbooks Online) I kind of slapped myself because I was wasting a lot of time where it was not necessary and the money I would spend on QB Online was well invested.

Here Is What I Recommend To Fellow Entrepreneuers

One of the best software applications to create a business plan is coming from Palo Alto Software and it is called Business Plan Pro. This business plan software is the #1 selling business plan software and (of course) is great software to create a restaurant business plan. Business Plan Pro is made to safe you time and that is lots of it. When you buy this restaurant business plan software you pretty much buy an expert in business plan creation.

“Takes the guesswork out of writing a business plan.” (Wall Street Journal)

The above statement from the Wall Street Journal sums it up pretty good. Business Plan Pro will guide you through the business plan creation for your new restaurant step by step. It is nearly impossible to miss an important detail if you follow the detailed instructions. And if you are scared of manually adding the financial data that you might have in MS Excel or Quickbooks, you can lean back because Business Plan Pro can import the data easily.

Save Lots Of Time

The Business Plan Pro software comes with more than 500 complete sample business plans – including one for a restaurant business. Just add your own words where needed or modify the existing information to your needs. Very easy and a big time saver if you ask me.

Before You Buy You Need To Know This

If you are on the fence of buying the Business Plan Pro Business Plan Software I need to make you aware of a few very important items. Your investment into this software is covered by a 60 Day Money Back Guarantee that you will not really need if you ask me. But to give you peace of mind, it is there for you as needed. Also, be aware that your purchase includes a free business plan review and help is always available if you need it. However, while you can buy this restaurant business plan software from a few vendors I suggest you buy it straight from Palo Alto Software. Buying from anywhere else might make it more difficult to eventually get the 100% Money Back Guarantee. And in my opinion the best support comes really from Palo Alto Software.

You can take advantage of this #1 selling restaurant business plan software from the official Palo Alto Software website if you click here.

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