Topics Laura will cover include:

• The income and expenses you must track and why
• Setting up a small business chart of accounts
• Good Accounting practices to keep
• Record retention
• Security for your business accounting (both internal and external practices)

Topics Angela will cover:

• Importance for SMB having managed endpoints to reduce costs and increase productivity.
• Brainstorm with audience about SMBs main concerns/challenges when it comes to computers: How often to refresh, security, manageability, productivity,downtime cost?
• Intel vPro as the platform built for business, and how it helps you attend to Performance, Security, Manageability and Stability.
• TCO (Total Cost of ownership). vPro platform x non-vPro
• AMT (Active Management Technology). I want to talk about an online course offered by Intel that explains the sales and activation process for Intel AMT. This course awards a Certificate of Completion to partners who complete all training modules and exercises. It can be a valuable certificate for consultants.
• Hardware-based security
• Unite as a collaboration tool (enterprise and/or for classrooms).

There are some great tools to help us install programs on new machines, and to keep them updated. We will cover 3 of them:

• Ninite
• PatchMyPC
• Chocolatey with BoxStarter

Come and see some great tools to help us install programs on new machines, and to keep them updated.

We will look at:

• IT professional use as well as end user use
• Paid and free versions (if they exist)
• Scheduling updates
• Some scripting
• Automating both initial installation and updating

We will demo the programs and answer questions.

How have you used small form factor devices for yourself and for clients. We'd like to include:

• ChromeBox
• NUC
• Raspberry Pi
• PC-on-a-stick
• Other?

Bring your box and your stories.

Every meeting we have a opportunity to present to the group problems that we have as we go though our days as consultants, but it never seems like we have enough time to answer all the questions. This month's meeting, we will spend the time finding solutions, and talk about all those products and services we have questions and comments about. Bring all your problems, questions, comments, and solutions to this month's meeting.

Join us for a discussion on how to ensure your client's cloud hosted data is safe from ransomware, provider failures, and end users.

A roundtable where we share our approaches and experiences recommending products and vendors to our clients.

Computers

Is it worthwhile to sell it yourself, or just recommend?

• For Workstations
• For Laptops
• For Servers

• If you sell, who do you buy from and what is your experience?
• If you recommend, who do you buy from, which manufacturers and models?
• Are there any partner programs worth joining?
• What are your normal desktop office specs?
• How do you charge? How much do you markup?

Computer Setup

Do you set up clients' computers? What do you do? What do you charge?

Other

What other hardware do you sell yourself? How is it part of your business model?

What other hardware do you recommend? Why?

• Printers?
• Routers?
• Other support services (like Pacific Office Automation)?
• Phone systems?

Do you charge for the expertise in making recommendations?

Join us for a discussion of what you're doing to protect your client's devices. We'll discuss managed DNS, antivirus software, email filtering, and more. This is sure to be a lively meeting as we all have programs we love, and love to hate.

You might run a local business, but your website exists in a global marketplace. Join Nicholas De Salvo, founder of Edge One Media, as he discusses how you can identify important regulations, establish your website goals, and how to compete (and WIN) in an ever-changing environment.

Specific Topics Include:

• What you should do to embrace GDPR compliance?
• How do we measure website success?
• What should your website goals be?
• How do I make more money on the internet?

Routers, we've all got them. We install them. How do we choose the right one? How do we balance security and price for different clients? Routers have many features which are useful in some situations but worthless in others. How do we match our client needs to the right router?

Christian Martin will lead a discussion of the various features of the routers we install and how well they work. We will discuss which routers actually have particular features and how difficult it is to use them. We hope to utilize the experiences of everyone in attendance. Members who have knowledge of Asus, Meraki, Netgear, SonicWall, Ubiquiti, and Uplevel Systems routers will share their experiences to get things started.

We will cover:

• Maintenance and updating – How is it managed, frequency of updates, are updates automated, etc.
• Remote Access – What options are available; VPN Client (IPSec, L2TP, SSL), Site-to-site, etc.
• Advanced features – DPI, DPI SSL, Content Filtering, configurable ports, QoS, VLANs, etc.
• Performance – Real-world throughput you can expect with and without advanced features enabled.

If you will help us by sharing your experience with some routers, please come prepared with the model number, so we correctly identify the router with the features we talk about.