Bizmanualz is the Internet’s Premier online source for premium quality policies and procedures manuals of all types such as accounting, human resources, ISO quality, security, disaster recovery, and more. Bizmanualz is your direct connection to a variety of prewritten MS-WORD procedure templates for industries ranging from manufacturing, non-profit, construction, software development, banking, and medical office to employee handbooks, job descriptions, business forms, and other standard operating procedures.

If you’ve been struggling with writing your own procedures or searching the Internet for samples of policies and procedures, you’ll know that procedures can be expensive to produce but even more expensive to ignore. Bizmanualz offers policies, procedures and software at a fraction of the price it would cost you to develop them yourself or hire someone else to write. This we can do because we have developed a wide range of procedures, either for customers like you or for specific consulting engagements.

Bizmanualz’s goal is to best provide you with top quality service and to help you in creating policies and procedures that allow you to take control of your business growth and maintain confidence in your organization.  At Bizmanualz you will receive quality service with a personal touch, feel free to call us Toll Free at 1-800-466-9953 with any questions you might have searching for that perfect set of standard operating procedures. There is a lot of useful information that we provide on our site but we do understand it could be overwhelming at times. Our customer service representatives are here to go over anything you might have a question with, whether it be for selecting internal controls or developing your employee handbook.

At Bizmanualz, we specialize in providing a complete set of policies and procedures covering every department in your organization. We have long established relationships with business process software vendors, policies and procedures writers, and subject matter experts to bring you a whole solution. Because we are constantly developing new procedures, we make a market for products at prices, which are simply unrivaled. Once one understands the variety of policies and procedures solutions available (different software, books, or custom produced) then one can identify or compose the procedures solution that is appropriate. Please check out the Procedure Solutions page for more information. This will present the full range of different types of procedures products you can choose from to complete your project.

Are you spending your time doing “strategic work” — the kind that adds meaning and value to your long-term goals? Successful small business owners, or SMBs, do. “But, how does a small business owner ever find the time to do strategic work?”, you ask. “That can take up as much as 80% of my day.” I’ll tell you how — by developing systems of policies, procedures, and forms for doing the tactical, daily work.

Unsuccessful small business owners struggle to prioritize their time. They’re continually fighting fires or doing the mundane tasks — going to the post office, running around their disorganized workspace, answering the phone — and getting nothing done.

Does That Sound Familiar?

If your business is based on a system of policies, procedures, and forms, it will run on its own without you having to tend to all the details all of the time. This may seem hard to believe, but it works — Fortune 500 companies have been doing this for decades. “McDonald’s” now uses a clearly defined system of policies and procedures to unify marketing, operations, and customer service worldwide — they started in 1940 with a single restaurant, in California.

“You deserve a break today.”
(McDonald’s campaign slogan, 1971)

McDonald’s is just one example of how a small business like yours can — and must — create a system of policies and procedures to ensure its success. Start by imagining that you’re creating a model for your own series of franchise locations. Every day when you go to work, take one process at a time and systematize it with the policies, procedures, and forms your employees need to do the job you want them to do.

Why Start from Scratch?

That’s where Bizmanualz MS-Word procedure templates come in. Our renowned series of policies, procedures, and forms provides hundreds of templates and guides for your accounting, finance, human resources, information technology, and other departments. Every Bizmanualz policy and procedure manual comes with a set of sample procedures, a “How To” guide to help you get started, and a sample manual for the department manager to use as a guide.

Focus Is the Key

Today, start working on your business instead of in your business. Focus on strategic work and delegate the tactical work with Bizmanualz procedure templates — you’ll realize your goals, get out of the office more, and build the successful business you set out to build.

Free Procedure Samples

Why not check out the Bizmanualz line of free procedure samples and see for yourself how you can use these powerful procedure templates in your business?

What’s the value of process improvement? One way to look at it is by examining the reason for having a quality system in the first place. Let’s start by understanding the basics of six sigma, which define the maturity level of an organization’s management system. By that, we don’t just mean just a quality management system, but your entire system of management.

Sigma Levels

• 1 sigma = 67% error rate (or “2 out of 3 transactions are in error”)
• 2 sigma = 33% error rate (1 out of 3 transactions in error)
• 3 sigma = 6.7% error rate (1 out of 15 transactions in error)
• 4 sigma = 0.63% error rate (1 out of 160 transactions in error)
• 5 sigma = 0.02% error rate (1 out of 4,300 transactions in error)
• 6 sigma = 0.00034% error rate (1 out of roughly 290,000 transactions in error)

We define a system as “in control” when an organization’s processes exhibit a “3 sigma” (6.7%) or lower error rate.  If your organization has not defined its processes, effectiveness criteria, and competencies, it’s more likely that you’re at a 1 or 2 sigma level.  In order to achieve the “3 sigma” level, your company must consistently make no more than 6.7 errors per hundred — that’s a 93.3% success rate.

“Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service,
to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.”
From W. Edwards Deming’s “Fourteen Points”

Are You Operating at a 93.3% Success Rate?

Let’s say you see 60-70% as normal, which is about 2 sigma (66% success). The “delta”, or difference, between 2 and 3 sigma is about 27%. We believe that by adopting a quality process improvement program, you should see your success rate rise from 66% to 93%.  That’s a 41% improvement over your current rate! What organization wouldn’t be interested in that?

Once you hit 3 sigma, your next goal is to improve to a 4 sigma level, then 5 sigma, and finally 6 sigma (which is as close as you can realistically get to “zero defects” in most operations).

Now quantify the benefit.  What is 27 percentage points of success worth to your customers? The cost of implementing a six sigma process improvement program is small compared to the benefits to your customer (and, of course, to your bottom line). Process improvement practically guarantees customer retention, and can lead to customers advocating for you.

But if that’s not for you, don’t implement a quality program. Learn to live with a 2 sigma error rate — and hope your customers can live with it, too.

Document control is a common function within quality management systems for ISO, JCAHO, FDA, GMP, ITIL, SOX, and many other standards or regulations.  Document control has been around for decades.  In the old days it was all about controlling paper documents.  Then, along came electronic documents and a whole new world was created.  Yet, paper based systems remain today in many organizations that have yet to upgrade to more modern methods.  This leads us to make many common document control mistakes.

Do you make any of these document control mistakes?

1.       Assuming your document files are backed up on a regular basis.
Sometimes files are backed up and sometimes there not.  The only way to make sure that your files are backed up is to recover a missing file.  How long does it take? Hours or days to recover a file?  Who knows how to do it and has time to get your file?  Many assumptions are made about the backup process at any company.  Unfortunately, most people don’t test their assumptions until it is too late and they really need a file.  Products like OnPolicy archive all of your documents automatically and prevent you from deleting released documents.

2.       Saving document revision files under a new name.
Most people use MS-Word and MS-Word does not have a very good revision system.  It has a feature to “Track Changes”, which adds a lot of comments and colored text from each reviewer.  It used to have a version control feature (prior to Word 2007) that was removed.  If you are like most than you are probably saving your documents with a new name like document-name-Rev-1.  Then you have to remember to save the new version as Rev-2 or else you will overwrite your original and you will have to test your backup recovery system (see 1 above).  OnPolicy saves each file version for you, separate from the original document.

3.       Using a shared hard drive to store your documents and files.
Shared hard drives are easy to implement.  Just purchaser a network hard drive and connect it to your network.  Now everyone has access to the new hard drive space, but who has control.  Setting up access controls can be an issue.  So most people don’t have any access controls.  The result: document files get deleted, changed, renamed, or moved.  If you do not have access control then you do not have document control either.  ).  OnPolicy provides access control by department, category, and by user roles as an editor or reader to prevent unauthorized changes.

4.       Not using document templates.
If all of your employees write procedures from scratch every time then you will end up with different styles, formats, and structures that will confuse anyone trying to use your documents.  Document templates provide a standard format.  What is even better is having access to a library of best practices that you could edit to make your own.  Bizmanualz provides standard content in MS-Word for easy editing and customization.

5.       Printing paper drafts for review.
Paper is easy to print but it is not so easy to distribute to reviewers.  Document reviewers will mark-up your paper and give it back to you.  Now you have to implement the revisions.  If you had it all online in a system like OnPolicy, then you could route your documents to your document reviewers electronically.  They could enter their changes electronically, and then you could edit them electronically.  This works even better if you have a lot of locations.

6.       Using MS-Word to distribute your final documents to employees.
Most people use MS-Word to write their policies and procedures.  But if you send the original MS-Word file to your employees, your employees could make changes that others will not know about.  OnPolicy uses PDF files to distribute your documents which allows you to maintain control over your documents and keep unauthorized changes in check.

7.       Distributing paper documents to employees.
Paper and three-ring binders have been used for decades to house and distribute policies and procedures.  But paper is a lot harder to control.  Paper gets lost.  And paper gets forgotten.  Today, everything is moving online and onto the internet.  More and more employees have computers, smart phones, or access to one during the workday.  Eliminating paper save trees, improves document control, and allows for a more effective management system.

8.       Not collecting older revisions from your employees.
It is a lot harder to retrieve outdated pieces of paper hanging around the office.  It is common to find an old employee handbook that was given to an employee on their first day – 10 years ago.  Electronic online controls ensure that only the latest, most up-to-date copy of any important document is maintained and managed in the system.

9.       Designing your own document control system.
Many organizations decide to design their own document control software.  SharePoint is the most common platform.  But SharePoint is not a document control system and unless you are a SharePoint Designer you will end up with an expensive IT project with software designed by software engineers that are not document compliance and control experts.  Many such projects eventually are abandoned.  It is a lot easier to purchase a pre-built system, designed by document control experts, then to build your own software product.

10.   Receiving document control audit findings.
The most common ISO audit finding is document control.  Procedures are not followed, controlled, backed-up appropriately, retained, or kept legible.  In just about any audit you can find a document control audit finding if you wanted to.  But, using electronic document control software will virtually eliminate any such finding.  Document control software prompts you to review, approve, release, and even read documents.  They remain legible, get backed-up, and provide the access control you need to stay in compliance.

Now you should be better prepared to prevent making these Top Ten Document Control Mistakes.  Bizmanualz new OnPolicy software will eliminate these document control mistakes.  Try OnPolicy FREE for 30-days to make managing your policies, procedures and forms easier.

1.       Assuming your document files are backed up on a regular basis.

2.       Saving document revision files under a new name.

3.       Using a shared hard drive to store your documents and files.

4.       Not using document templates.

5.       Printing paper drafts for review.

6.       Using MS-Word to distribute your final documents to employees.

7.       Distributing paper documents to employees.

8.       Not collecting older revisions from your employees.

9.       Designing your own document control system.

10.   Receiving document control audit findings.

Company policy is used to establish employee expectations so everyone knows what is and isn’t acceptable.  Company policies are the vehicle by which your company defines risks and rewards, but can they also constrain your organization?

Your company policy can be a written document, part of your procedure documentation, or it can be your company culture. We’re all familiar with written policies but…what about cultural policies?

Have you ever said to yourself or to someone else…

“We’ve always done it that way” or “That’s not the way we do things around here”?

If you have, you’re up against a cultural policy. Cultural policies are not written down; instead, they’re passed on by word and behavior. Everyone knows your company’s cultural policy — it’s the set of unofficial rules that all of your employees live by every day. Organizational culture involves more than just socially acceptable dress codes, or the atmosphere in your office — it influences your company’s important decisions, too.

For example, what time is it safe to arrive and leave work? What socializing is acceptable before, during, and after work? People new to your company that do not conform to your cultural expectations might be shunned, embarrassed, or ostracized for not conforming.

Written company policies come from management and can be changed, so while a written company policy may constrain your organization, you can at least change it.

Unlike written company policies, your company culture evolves over time and is not tied to a particular CEO or manager. Try to actively change your company culture and you’ll see a lot of resistance, yet violating company culture and changing the paradigm is critical to any process improvement program.

So we have two different policies.  The first, a changeable written company policy handed down from management.  The second, an unwritten, hard to change, cultural policy that evolves from group norms over time – a paradigm.

Which do you think constrains your organization more?

If you want to grow your revenues, it’s important to know whether your company is driven by sales or marketing efforts. Sales driven companies grow by adding more sales people, while marketing driven companies grow by adding more marketing programs.  How do you know which one — sales or marketing — drives your company?

Try adding more salespeople (resellers or distributors), assign them a sales quota, and let them loose in a territory and see if your sales grow.  If you start getting more sales, you know your company is driven by sales.  If your sales fail to grow, try adding marketing activities. For example:

• Expand your website;
• Increase your public relations efforts;
• Add a company blog or a periodic newsletter;
• Expand your advertising or pay-per-click (PPC) program on the internet;
• Add more keyword focused pages to your internet marketing;
• Experiment with direct mail or email marketing;
• Attend (more) trade shows or events;
• Host your own conference for your customers and leads; and/or
• Add new products or enter new markets.

You can also try increasing your overall sales and marketing effectiveness by introducing more control over your sales and marketing cycle. If you’re unable to grow your sales by either adding sales people or expanding your marketing activities, it’s time for a strategic review. There are only two ways to grow your revenue — sales activities or marketing programs.

When neither of these works, it’s time to change your strategy.  Your business strategy is what drives marketing, and marketing is what drives your sales.

Sales and Marketing strategies and plans are critical for any business. Why leave them to chance?  The Bizmanualz Sales & Marketing Policies and Procedures manual contains procedures for developing strategy, adding sales people, and creating marketing activities. These prewritten and fully editable sales and marketing procedures can help you quickly and effectively take control of your sales and marketing processes to achieve consistent results.

What drives your organization? Sales? Marketing?

Information technology is changing the way business operates and increasing the need for consistent computer usage, security, and clear policies. Establishing policies and procedures for Information Technology (IT) management issues like:

• Information security;
• Computer usage;
• Network management; and
• IT policy

is now easier than ever using MS-Word templates available in the Computer and Network Policies, Procedures and Forms manual.  The IT manual enables business owners, IT managers, and IT departments to use customizable prewritten documents to protect and control their IT assets.

Easy IT Standards Compliance

Today’s business owners, Chief Information Officers (CIO), Chief Operating Officers (COO) and business leaders are required to comply with various federal regulations and international IT standards (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley, COBIT, ITIL, ISO 27000, ISO 20000). To meet these regulations, companies must demonstrate adequate internal controls of business records, information security, and quality management through effective use of policies and procedures and/or associated document compliance management software.

Computers and IT are important parts of business operations, routinely storing and circulating volumes of information between various business processes.  Many business functions necessitate the use of computer systems and networks. Since businesses and computer systems are increasingly interconnected, the need for controls such as IT policy, information security and computer usage guidelines become equally important.

The “Computer & Network Policies, Procedures, and Forms” manual addresses critical IT management issues and is an invaluable resource for any IT manager or IT department.  It complements our highly successful Accounting Policies, Procedures, and Forms Manual and, when combined, both publications provide a complete compliance solution.

Facilitate IT Management

The Computer & Network (or the IT) Manual provides a framework upon which a company of any size can improve the capabilities of their current IT system, systematically forecast IT needs and budgets, facilitate IT asset management, and resolve IT security issues.

By addressing core IT management issues, this manual helps many small and medium size companies that don’t have an experienced CIO leading the way to formulate best practices and optimal standards to establish a formal IT policy. This is the first publication to identify and provide the guidance and the tools for business leaders to accurately and efficiently determine the hardware, software, training, and security requirements of the organization.

Easy MS-Word Customization

The Computer and Network Policies, Procedures, and Forms Manual discusses strategic IT management issues including IT security, control of computer and network assets, and includes a section on creating your own information systems manual along with a computer and IT security policy guide.  Since all this content is available in editable MS-Word files, you can easily edit and customize the manual to create your own IT policy and corresponding procedures.  View a free sample from the manual today.

Customers demand consistency — they need it to make informed purchase decisions.  We’ll start with an example: Let’s say you run a restaurant.  At your restaurant, you have a different chef every day. Each chef makes the menu according to their preferences.

If your menu changes every day — if there’s a high degree of variability — most customers will be put off. Some people like variety and go out of their way for it, but most of us are creatures of habit. We find something we like and we stick with it; we go where we know what we’re getting. If we don’t know what to expect from you, you may not be in business for long.

It’s generally not good business to let your employees make your products any way they want, whether your product is hamburgers, tires, or remote data backup. Too much variation, or inconsistency, in your product will hurt your business.

Consistency with quality means value, and value means happy customers. Happy customers will return, and they’ll tell their friends. who will tell their friends, and they’ll grow your business.

If yours is like most companies in these difficult times, you’re struggling. Every employee reacts to their own problems and can’t be bothered with others. Furthermore, no one has the time or “luxury” to look ahead, let alone ensure consistency in the here-and-now.  The result is a decline in quality, revenues, morale, and…the number of employees.

You can do something about this! Work towards improving consistency in your work first.  Good management looks ahead, plans for the future, defines the “product”, and develops measurable objectives, active job descriptions, and clearly defined policies and procedures.

Consistency equals quality, doesn’t it? Not necessarily. You can make a consistently bad product, which obviously isn’t good for your business.  You need to make a consistently good product, which ISO 9001 — specifically, a quality management system designed around the ISO 9001 quality standard — can help you produce.

Quality management works toward delivering a consistent product, inside and out. Unless everyone in your business is doing everything they can to deliver a consistent product internally, you won’t see consistency in your finished products. Be a leader and deliver consistent products consistently. If you deliver high quality consistently, everything else takes care of itself.

I’ve been reviewing our Internet marketing program and recently decided to look into listing Bizmanualz on some ezine directories, because ezine directories provide some link value to websites. Many ezine directories require that you have a newsletter, but some will let you list your blog or article site, too. Some directories charge a fee for inclusion, but many more are free.

A good place to start is the NetTop20 directory of Ezine Directories. Directories I found include:

• Ezine Listings;
• The Ezine Directory;
• Ezine Articles;
• New List (Ezine Universe);
• Best Ezines; and
• Jogena’s eZine Directory.

Now we’ll just sit back and watch the Internet traffic roll in…right?

What do you think? Do ezine directories work? Are they worth the investment of time (and money)? Have you any firsthand experience with them?

Today, even the smallest companies are quickly becoming very complicated workplaces.  As a business leader, you must cope with rising taxes, increasing regulations, growing competition, a struggling economy, increasing technological complexity, and even the mounting threat of violence and fraud in your workplace.  The consequences?  The old rules of growing a business aren’t effective and the new rules are more complex than ever.

Let’s look at the facts:

• Regulations affecting small businesses are up 36% over the past five years alone. Business owners must contend with an alphabet soup of regulations: OSHA, FMLA, FLSA, HIPAA, FCRA, ADA, ERISA, ECOA, FDCP, FCBA, IRCA, TILA, EPPA, ADEA, and so on.
• Competition is intensifying at an accelerating pace. By century’s end, America’s share of world gross domestic product declined to roughly 20% from a high of 40% at the end of World War II. Customers now demand ever-improving quality (ISO 9001), innovation, pricing, and just-in-time delivery — demands that stress smaller businesses that are already running flat out.
• As recent as ten years ago, few small businesses used accounting software or had a local area network and most certainly did not have email or a website. Today, this is common. But now, so are issues of acceptable Internet use, information security, training, or software piracy.
• One in twenty workers are physically assaulted, one in six workers are sexually harassed, and one in three workers are verbally abused in the work force, each year. Now add the events of 9/11 and there is a heightened sense of fear in business today. But, OSHA requires that all businesses with employees, large and small, provide a safe and healthy workplace.

Many agree that the business world has undergone a clear and definite paradigm shift. Now, with the wealth of opportunities that accompany a globalizing economy, there arises not only an accompanying proliferation of hazards but also an expanding universe of compliance and detail. The longer a small business lives, the greater the complexity.

And this phenomenon taxes small businesses, which are typically resource constrained, more than large ones.  In sum, for small businesses today there is much more to gain, much more to keep track of and comply with, and much more to lose, than ever before.

So, how is a business owner to keep up with all the details? Bizmanualz® Policies & Procedures provides business leaders with example procedure templates that help you:

• Comply with government regulations;
• Certify your quality to ISO 9001;
• Reduce or eliminate uncollectible receivables;
• Prevent theft or embezzlement;
• Optimize inventory;
• Reduce employee liability; and
• Prepare your business for a disaster.

Utilizing just one single concept from Bizmanualz can reduce waste, fraud, and abuse and add real money to your business’s bottom line.

Every month, business leaders share their stories with us about satisfying their auditors with new controls, of increased earnings found in their business, and how much time they saved using Bizmanualz® Policies, Procedures & Forms Manuals, all without stressing over how to write clear policies or procedures, staying late at the office to research best practices, or wondering what format to use.

There are millions of small businesses all over the world that are struggling with these issues.  If you lack the operational knowledge or are too pressed for time to focus on producing your own internal controls, you need the kind of help that Bizmanualz provides.

Bizmanualz provides the subject matter expertise gathered from a variety of sources, including books, seminars, magazine articles, and real world experience, allowing you to find a fast, easy way to reduce the complexity of running your business.  Virtually every department or topic is covered.

Bizmanualz has encapsulated the most critical and vital information into an easy-to-use set of policy and procedure templates.  Everything you need to manage your business is ready for instant download.  No other organization has the breadth and depth of content to help you quickly and easily develop a system of effective internal controls like Bizmanualz.  Download a free sample policy and procedure example to see for yourself how helpful Bizmanualz® policies, procedures, and forms can be for your business.

As an accomplished business leader, you’ll want to take advantage of this outstanding business opportunity. You’ll find a small investment in Bizmanualz® Policies & Procedures can pay tremendous dividends.

[CJA1]reports Wayne Crews, author of “10,000 Commandments: A Policymaker’s Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State” and CATO Institute scholar