October 22 2021 Conference Agenda
**Agenda is subject to change**
9:30 to 9:55 EDT (6:30 to 6:55 PDT) Conference Opening
We have a full day of Spire training, educational and informative topics planned for you. Our new conference platform welcomes you with a step by step guide on how to get settled into this new environment. We’ve set aside some time for you have a bit of fun for and get acquainted with our exhibitors before we get down to business. There are prizes to be won first thing in the morning, so make sure you arrive on time.
10:00 to 11:00 EDT (7:00 to 8:00 PDT) Tech Update 2021 with Ward Blatch, CPA, CA
We’ll start the day with some very interesting tech knowledge to share with you. Our guest, Ward Blatch, CPA, CA, and tech guru will answer the question; what technology trends significantly impact you? Which technologies will affect you and your business? This visionary session provides insights, choices, and recommendations. You will experience a summary of 5G, Wi-Fi 6E, and the latest hardware and software trends to help you make the best decisions. You are certainly going to discover at least one new technology you had not considered. This session provides strategic and tactical insight on technology choices.
The Tech Update 2021 session is brought to you by our platinum sponsor SPS Commerce
11:05 to 12:05 EDT (8:05 to 9:05 PDT) What’s New in Spire with Al Romeyn
Al Romeyn welcomes customers, channel partners, exhibitors, guest speakers and other invited delegates to the Spire Virtual Conference of 2021. Al will be reviewing the improvements made to Spire over the last 12 months and look forward to great features the team has been working on for the coming year. You will see some new and important product integrations as well as some of the items you have been asking for to make your Spire experience even better.
The What’s New in Spire session is brought to you by our platinum sponsor Swiftcount
12:05 to 12:35 EDT (9:05 to 9:35 PDT) Break
While you enjoy a short break, take part in some Spire contests and rack up leaderboard points. Not only can you gain leaderboard points by visiting our exhibitors, but you’ll also learn about how their solutions enhance your day-to-day use of Spire. Pop in a pick up some knowledge! The top 3 Spire Clients with the most points on the leaderboard at the end of today will win something cool!
Concurrent Tracks
You will have the option on the day of the conference to select which sessions you want to attend within a track.
12:40 to 1:35 EDT (9:40 to 10:35 PDT)
Track 1
Spire is highly configurable, with options to do a lot of things that might not be obvious from a default installation. This session covers many topics, including a deep dive into: -Interesting uses of communications -Tips for managing orders more effectively -Ideas for navigating Spire more efficiently -Short cuts to save time (kit/macro/copy from documents) -Hints on managing multi-warehouse stock -Barcodes, UPC codes and automating processes in Spire.
Rick Notman
Rick Notman, head of Quality Assurance at Spire. Rick has over 25 years of experience creating, supporting, testing, installing, and extending the functionality of accounting software. In other words, Rick’s work is pretty cool – he’s the guy who tries to break Spire every day. Rick is a proud father of 2 hard-working sons. Rick’s long term goal is to open a BlockBuster location and run it out of his office. Yes, all his movies are in a database, sortable by title, category, actor and director.
Thank you to Terracor for sponsoring this session
Track 2
Every accounting software is user friendly once the user has become friendly with it. In this session we will explore the Spire fundamentals. Must knows for every new Spire user. How to easily navigate through Spire in your day-to-day role. You’ll walk away with tips that you can start applying immediately. We’ll be covering: – Helpful user preference settings – How to use Spire powerful Google like search – Email merge in Spire – Creating, saving and using filters – Document attachment – User Defined Fields
Al Romeyn
Al Romeyn, CEO of Spire Systems Inc. Along with his partner Peter Reimer and their team, they created Spire accounting software. Over the past 8 years, they have improved it to where it is today. Al is a father of 2 and a Grandpa of 4. When he’s not in the office, you can find Al on the river in his jet boat, BBQing or smoking something tasty in his backyard, or hitting the road in his RV with his wife. Oh, and he loves to fish!
Thank you to INFOtrac for sponsoring this session
Track 3
The heart of any accounting system is its General Ledger. This session will cover how to search for entries within the GL, how to edit recurring journal entries, reverse journal entries and create useful and custom filters within the GL grid for easy to review information. We’ll also look at the different financial reports included in the GL and how to set your query parameters for the most commonly used reports.
Cindi Polyzotis
Cindi Polyzotis has cemented a reputation in the software community for providing expert training. She is a certified Spire Instructor who works closely with Spire Partners and the Spire team and has been part of the community for over 20 years in BusinessVision and Spire. As a certified Spire Instructor Cindi works exclusively with Spire Consultants to provide training needs to Spire Clients. When Cindi is not working on Spire, she enjoys rock climbing, hiking, golf, and travelling, especially to Greece.
Thank you to Evron for sponsoring this session
1:40 to 2:35 EDT (10:40 to 11:35 PDT)
Track 1
From our smart devices, to tablets, laptops and PC Computers, where you should be running your Spire from is becoming a question asked by many. To Cloud or not Cloud? We will take a look at the reasons why your business may want to consider Spire Cloud and also what the differences are between on premise, Cloud and SAAS in the Spire world. We will review the functionalities, advantages and limitations of all three so that you can walk away better understanding what is right for your business. In this session Rick will show some real hands on examples of Spire Cloud.
Rick Notman
Rick Notman, head of Quality Assurance at Spire. Rick has over 25 years of experience creating, supporting, testing, installing, and extending the functionality of accounting software. In other words, Rick’s work is pretty cool – he’s the guy who tries to break Spire every day. Rick is a proud father of 2 hard-working sons. Rick’s long term goal is to open a BlockBuster location and run it out of his office. Yes, all his movies are in a database, sortable by title, category, actor and director.
Thank you to INFOtrac for sponsoring this session
Track 2
Some estimates indicate that business professionals spend as much as half their time in Excel working on formatting. If you are interested in getting better formatting results in less time, participate in this session to learn the best practices for applying formats in Excel. In this session, you will learn the right way to apply formats in your workbooks. More specifically, you will learn about features such as Custom Format Codes, Templates, Styles, the Accounting Format, Precision as Displayed, date formats, and many others, all of which can save you substantial amounts of time when working in Excel.
Ward Blatch, CPA, CA
Ward Blatch, CPA, CA and Managing Director for K2E Canada Inc has a demonstrated history of working in the computer networking industry. Skilled in Windows 10, Budgeting, Office 365, Customer Service, and Strategic Planning. Ward provides consulting and training services throughout Canada and the United States. His years of working with technology to improve operations and workflow result in a positive learning experience when attending a K2E Canada Inc. professional development course. Ward obtained his CPA, CA designation while working at a Nova Scotia regional accounting firm before starting his own consulting and accounting practice. His practice provides accounting, tax, training, and network evaluations for small businesses and not-for-profit organizations. Currently, Ward lives in rural Nova Scotia with his partner Elizabeth and their twin daughters. The family enjoys exploring the outdoors on foot and canoe.
Track 3
Cashflow for any business is crucial. In this session we will introduce you to Accounts Payables and Accounts Receivables. We’ll review how in Spire you can make live entries or create batches, set filters by aging periods, access vendor and customer history and information. We’ll look at EFT’s, Credit Card Payment and how Spire manages split tenders.
Cindi Polyzotis
Cindi Polyzotis has cemented a reputation in the software community for providing expert training. She is a certified Spire Instructor who works closely with Spire Partners and the Spire team and has been part of the community for over 20 years in BusinessVision and Spire. As a certified Spire Instructor Cindi works exclusively with Spire Consultants to provide training needs to Spire Clients. When Cindi is not working on Spire, she enjoys rock climbing, hiking, golf, and travelling, especially to Greece.
Thank you to Evron for sponsoring this session
2:40 to 3:35 EDT (11:40 to 12:35 PDT)
Track 1
In this session Rick discussed and demonstrates the Spire API and explains why it’s important to you as a company using Spire. During the discussion he will cover;
- The web world and third party services -Some concrete examples anyone can use
- API versus traditional data access -An example that compares and contrasts the approaches
- Future Spire directions and how the API relates
Rick Notman
Rick Notman, head of Quality Assurance at Spire. Rick has over 25 years of experience creating, supporting, testing, installing, and extending the functionality of accounting software. In other words, Rick’s work is pretty cool – he’s the guy who tries to break Spire every day. Rick is a proud father of 2 hard-working sons. Rick’s long term goal is to open a BlockBuster location and run it out of his office. Yes, all his movies are in a database, sortable by title, category, actor and director.
Thank you to Terracor for sponsoring this session
Track 2
Every small business accountant knows and accepts the reporting limitations associated with entry-level tools. Most of these same professionals periodically export data to Excel, text, or other file formats to create custom reports to manage their business. The related data transformations required to utilize exported data can be automated using Microsoft’s Power Query tool in Excel. With Power Query, these professionals can perform simple and complex tasks almost instantly. Participate in this session to learn how to use Power Query – a tool you already own – to create more accurate and timely reports for your small business.
Ward Blatch, CPA, CA
Ward Blatch, CPA, CA and Managing Director for K2E Canada Inc has a demonstrated history of working in the computer networking industry. Skilled in Windows 10, Budgeting, Office 365, Customer Service, and Strategic Planning. Ward provides consulting and training services throughout Canada and the United States. His years of working with technology to improve operations and workflow result in a positive learning experience when attending a K2E Canada Inc. professional development course. Ward obtained his CPA, CA designation while working at a Nova Scotia regional accounting firm before starting his own consulting and accounting practice. His practice provides accounting, tax, training, and network evaluations for small businesses and not-for-profit organizations. Currently, Ward lives in rural Nova Scotia with his partner Elizabeth and their twin daughters. The family enjoys exploring the outdoors on foot and canoe.
Thank you to Netstock for sponsoring this session
Track 3
Requisitions and Purchase orders are an important part of many Spire users’ day to day. Learn how to create a requisition from inventory shortages, automatically generate requisitions from sales orders and maintain links between sales orders and purchase orders. From there we’ll briefly take a look at how to create a purchase order from a requisition, copy an open/closed purchase order and how to access purchase and sales history from within the Purchase Order module.
Cindi Polyzotis
Cindi Polyzotis has cemented a reputation in the software community for providing expert training. She is a certified Spire Instructor who works closely with Spire Partners and the Spire team and has been part of the community for over 20 years in BusinessVision and Spire. As a certified Spire Instructor Cindi works exclusively with Spire Consultants to provide training needs to Spire Clients. When Cindi is not working on Spire, she enjoys rock climbing, hiking, golf, and travelling, especially to Greece.
Thank you to Evron for sponsoring this session
3:40 to 4:35 EDT (12:40 to 1:35 PDT)
Track 1
Inventory control is critical for many businesses. In this session Rick covers UPC code use when dealing with inventory in Spire. From creation of barcode codes, through to scanning from start to finish, barcode scanning might be useful for you (even if you aren’t an inventory centric business). Albert ends the session with a business case for SwiftCount and quick, accurate and timely inventory counting.
Rick Notman
Rick Notman, head of Quality Assurance at Spire. Rick has over 25 years of experience creating, supporting, testing, installing, and extending the functionality of accounting software. In other words, Rick’s work is pretty cool – he’s the guy who tries to break Spire every day. Rick is a proud father of 2 hard-working sons. Rick’s long term goal is to open a BlockBuster location and run it out of his office. Yes, all his movies are in a database, sortable by title, category, actor and director.
Albert Amar
I am a mechanical engineer (by schooling) and business management specialist (by practice) with over 25 years of experience in strategy and software development, for both small and large enterprises.
I quit engineering and ran and sold 2 distribution companies in the gift and cosmetic industry where my focus was on creating systems to run the operations and more precisely better control the inventory more efficiently.
After the sale I became a consultant helping other company better their systems.
BarcodeApps was founded in 2003 as a side project to help clients needing a specialized solutions in warehouse management and sales to improve efficiencies and accuracy of their inventory related processes.
In 2016 we decided to wipe the slate clean and combine everything into a modern, cleaner, and simpler platform to replace the various systems that had grown over the years. That is how Swiftcount was born.
Thank you to Swifcount for sponsoring this session
Track 2
Learn how Spire’s new integration will help with processing orders from your customers that require you to receive and process electronically. After we hear from Brian Finks from SPS on the advantages of EDI Al Romeyn will show you how easy it is to process orders in Spire utilizing the Spire->SPS integration.
Al Romeyn
Al Romeyn, CEO of Spire Systems Inc. Along with his partner Peter Reimer and their team, they created Spire accounting software. Over the past 8 years, they have improved it to where it is today. Al is a father of 2 and a Grandpa of 4. When he’s not in the office, you can find Al on the river in his jet boat, BBQing or smoking something tasty in his backyard, or hitting the road in his RV with his wife. Oh, and he loves to fish!
Brian Finks
Sales professional with proven success in B2B SaaS sales. Currently managing partnerships with strategic SPS solution partners and manufacturers reps.
Outside of the office, I have a lifelong passion for motorsports, travel and being on the water- Usually with my camera in hand!
Thank you to SPS Commerce for sponsoring this session
Track 3
Spire understands that there is more than one way to place an order. In this session we will spend time going through how to place a sales order, a booking order, a standing order, an RMA, and work order. We’ll take a look at how you can customize phases in an order and search for the different phases to add workflow like process in your approvals.
Cindi Polyzotis
Cindi Polyzotis has cemented a reputation in the software community for providing expert training. She is a certified Spire Instructor who works closely with Spire Partners and the Spire team and has been part of the community for over 20 years in BusinessVision and Spire. As a certified Spire Instructor Cindi works exclusively with Spire Consultants to provide training needs to Spire Clients. When Cindi is not working on Spire, she enjoys rock climbing, hiking, golf, and travelling, especially to Greece.
Thank you to Evron for sponsoring this session
4:40 to 5:10 EDT (1:40 to 2:10 PDT)
Track 1
How to prepare for the dreaded visit of your auditors! Marilyn Benninger, CPA and Spire’s Rick Notman will describe for you the reports and documents you should have ready for your auditor’s visit. Marilyn let you know what they are looking for, and how to avoid items of concern and Rick will show you where to get what you need in Spire and processes you should run before the auditor visit.
Rick Notman
Rick Notman, head of Quality Assurance at Spire. Rick has over 25 years of experience creating, supporting, testing, installing, and extending the functionality of accounting software. In other words, Rick’s work is pretty cool – he’s the guy who tries to break Spire every day. Rick is a proud father of 2 hard-working sons. Rick’s long term goal is to open a BlockBuster location and run it out of his office. Yes, all his movies are in a database, sortable by title, category, actor and director.
Marilyn Benninger
Marilyn Benninger, CPA, CGA, the nationally recognized moderator and presenter at the Alan Salmon Accounting Technology Seminar Series is known for having a wealth of knowledge into the daily challenges faced by accounting professionals. Marilyn has served on the CGA Ontario Hamilton Chapter Board of Directors and held the position of Chapter Chair before becoming an elected member of the CGA Ontario Board of Governors for 9 years. She was either chair or a member on numerous committees at both the provincial and national levels of the CGAO Association including the Task Force on Mentoring, National Education Committee representative and CGA Ontario Vice President. Marilyn is from Burlington, Ontario and is currently the President of the Children’s Aid Foundation of Halton. Together with her husband, Chef Mike, they are active members of the community, involved in many organizations supporting youth and families.
Thank you to Evron for sponsoring this session
Track 2
This session is designed to address some of the more challenging and complex scenarios that payroll can present. Because managing your own payroll is an important part of many organizations, we’ll cover basic rules, top ten troubleshooting issues you can fix on your own, best practices for tax table updates and open Q & A.
Al Romeyn
Al Romeyn, CEO of Spire Systems Inc. Along with his partner Peter Reimer and their team, they created Spire accounting software. Over the past 8 years, they have improved it to where it is today. Al is a father of 2 and a Grandpa of 4. When he’s not in the office, you can find Al on the river in his jet boat, BBQing or smoking something tasty in his backyard, or hitting the road in his RV with his wife. Oh, and he loves to fish!
Thank you to Evron for sponsoring this session
Track 3
Every software is user friendly once the user becomes friendly with the software. In this session we will take a look at getting comfortable in your new Spire software. We’ll explore user settings, keyboard shortcuts, using the calendar and chromium browser.
Cindi Polyzotis
Cindi Polyzotis has cemented a reputation in the software community for providing expert training. She is a certified Spire Instructor who works closely with Spire Partners and the Spire team and has been part of the community for over 20 years in BusinessVision and Spire. As a certified Spire Instructor Cindi works exclusively with Spire Consultants to provide training needs to Spire Clients. When Cindi is not working on Spire, she enjoys rock climbing, hiking, golf, and travelling, especially to Greece.
Thank you to Evron for sponsoring this session
Spire Conference Wrap Up
5:15 to 6:00 EDT (2:15 to 3:00 PDT) Yan Markson
This is a unique virtual experience in which professional mentalist Yan Markson uses mentalism and magic effects to capture the audience’s attention and illustrate the power of influence and perception. Guests take part in interactive, and mind-blowing illusions while learning about the science of how we perceive our own identities, abilities, and make decisions in our lives.