Help

Scroll down this help document to locate the area where you require assistance.

User Administration

Add New User:

If you have "Add User" privileges (Main Firm Account), there will be an "Add New User" link which can be used to create additional users.

List of Users:

There will be a table showing the Usernames of all those eligible to log on to the system. and Name of all your descendants (Firm Account Only). To edit a user, click on the username. To delete a user, click on the # column. Click on the column heading to sort – first click sorts in ascending order, click again to sort in descending order.

Edit User:

From this page, you can edit the user's login and account information. You are not able to update the address details as this must stay as the firm's address.

Client Manager

Client Listing:

This shows a list of clients you have added to the system. Click on the column heading to sort – first click sorts in ascending order, click again to sort in descending order. If you wish to delete a client, select the number from the # column. To view more information on a client, click on the client code text.

Client Search:

The search facility allows you to search through your clients on the system, either by client name or client code. To view more information on a client, click on the client code text.

Add Client:

Client Code – enter your internal client identification code for this client.

Client Name – enter the Client Name – note this is totally confidential and is for your internal use only. It does not appear anywhere in the benchmarking.

Post Code – enter the first two characters of the postcode.

Number of Partners/Directors – enter 1 for a sole trader, otherwise as many as necessary.

Notes
The Notes field enables you to record any specific reasons for figures being “out of the ordinary” or you can go back into this field when you have run the comparisons and make additional notes. This is “freeform” for your own use and does not appear on any reports.

Trading Entity - Click the arrow and select either sole trader, partnership or limited company.

Business Type - this is discussed in more detail below*. Clicking on the Business type box displays a pop down list on the left of the screen. Select the type from the list and the selected trade will be driven into the business type field.

Region – in this box select from the popdown list that appears the region in the country where the business is situated. This will enable reporting by region/country (discussed later on).

Click Proceed to write the information to the database.

The above screen will appear.

Client Graphs:

This box provides links to chart based statistics. The Yearly Finance Trend only works if you have more than 1 year of finances for your client.

Client Details:

The first box shows the client information, which can be modified by clicking the “Modify Details” link. The notes can easily be updated using the “(update)”.

The second box shows the client’s finances, which can be modified, deleted or benchmarked by selecting the buttons available. A new finance record can be added by clicking the “Add Finance” link. To view more information on any of the finances, click the “(View Info)” link which will expand the table. The table can be hidden again by re-clicking the “(View Info)” link.

The 3rd green box shows some brief figure based statistics on the client.

The 4th yellow box provides links to chart based statistics. The Yearly Finance Trend only works if you have more than 1 year of finances for your client.

The last box lists all the past benchmarks that have been created for the client. To delete a benchmark from the list, click on the # column.

Add Finances:

Enter the year end accounts date or click on the calendar popup button and navigate to the required date.

Enter figures from the accounts
Enter Turnover, Direct Costs, Gross Profit, Wages, Finance Charges, Net Profit, Current Assets, Current Liabilities and the Capital Employed.

Turnover will generally be the figure in the accounts for “sales”. However, what about interest received for example? In many cases this is ancillary to the normal activities and therefore is best left out – but for solicitors it can represent significant income so should be included.

For Direct costs enter both Cost of Sales and Other direct costs – i.e. any expenses that are deducted in computing GROSS PROFIT

COST OF SALES

Specify the cost of raw materials consumed in the business which are used either for resale in a manufactured product or are consumed in the production of a service. For those cases where manufacturing is involved, specify the cost of goods used, for example (purchases plus opening stock and work in progress) less (closing stock and work in progress). In the case of service industries (taxi or road haulage, for example), specify the cost of fuel consumed.

STOCK

Stock (inc in Current assets) – in some trades it is useful to monitor stock turnover ratios – e.g. jewellers etc. If this is not relevant you can either complete it or enter a 0. This stock turnover ratio is not yet available as a report but will be added shortly.

DIRECT COSTS

Specify expenses deducted to arrive at gross profit. For example, direct labour costs, depreciation, commissions paid, discounts allowable, carriage, and machine hire. If services are provided then rechargeable expenses may be incurred which are deducted in arriving at gross profit.

For wages, finance charges etc. it is suggested that you base the entries on the figures used on the self-assessment tax returns.

For companies, apply the same criteria as you would for sole traders and partnerships in arriving at the wages figure - with ONE major exception. It is recommended that you leave out directors’ remuneration, Employers NI on directors remuneration and directors' pension contributions. This is to compare "like with like" when including sole traders and partnerships in the comparisons. Omit from wages and add back to the profit figure. Obviously if a sole trader has £20,000 profit and a company has £0 profit after directors fees and NI of £20,000, the average would come out at £10,000 which would be misleading in both cases.

There is in the appendices to these notes a suggested form that can be used to adjust figures for the database. It is recommended you print a supply of these or copy and paste this page to a new document and place it somewhere accessible on the computer system so that it can be printed as required and then filed.

Click on PROCEED to save the figures to the database.

The screen above will appear. Click on OK.

Account Management

Login Details:

You can modify your login details such as e-mail and password. If you enter a new email-address, please make sure the address exists. On changing the email-address, your login details will be sent to the new email-address.

Account Details:

You can modify your details such as name and address for your account. Most fields are compulsory. Please ensure your details are up to date.

Statistics:

This page provides both figure and graph based statistics on your account such as number of benchmarks created per month and number of Clients under Each Trading Entity.

Import Manager

Import Data:

Please view our Importing Tutorial for detailed instructions.

Manage Imports:

There will be a table showing the File Type, Import Time, Records Imported, Status and view. If an import's status is "Not Live", this means that the data has been uploaded and must be confirmed before going live. You can view the imported data by clicking the view icon. Note that you can’t undo an import so please ensure that the imported data is correct before confirming.

Statistics

Statistics Tab:

This is likely to be one of the most frequently visited areas of the website, as this gives you details of categories and trades – showing numbers in each area.

On first entering the Statistics page you are presented with an overview of the main categorisation codes and the numbers of clients in those categories.

As you move the mouse over the categories an underline appears which indicates a hyperlink. Clicking on one of the categories eg. Wholesale, retail – produces a detailed list of Business types along with the SIC codes. As explained elsewhere the SIC codes are used but additional codes have been created by us specifically for this model and these additional codes appear in blue text.

Clicking further – e.g. on sale of motor vehicles provides the geographic spread for that trade. This enables you to decide firstly if there is enough in a particular area to provide a valid benchmark (remember that 5 or more are needed to be able to provide comparisons) or whether you will have to widen the criteria in your selection.

There is no further drilldown from here.

Benchmarking

Create Benchmark:

At the above screen click on the Benchmark button.

Here we are going to set the filters to apply to our clients.

Enter the “from” date and “to” date in the format indicated or choose from the popup calendars.

This is an important area and care should be taken. It is suggested that you restrict the comparison data to any 12-month period for a particular client. If he has a 31 March year-end you could choose dates from 01/04/2003 – 31/03/2004 or 01/01/2004-31/12/2004. If there are 6 clients of a type and 3 years data for each one, the system will assume you have 18 clients and will average the total over that number. Note that your client you are comparing will also be included and will distort the figures. Take this to extremes – if you have one client in a category and 2 years data, the system would report 2 clients and average the 2 years together to arrive at the statistics – this is incorrect as it is the same client!

Turnover limits – you can also choose to include clients with a turnover over or below certain limits – useful if you have say 8 builders with a turnover of around £100,000 each and one large builder turning over £10 million pounds. This will distort the figures somewhat! Or leave blank to pick up all clients.

Select the Country or Area – you cannot tick both. So you can choose all in England or Scotland or restrict it to a particular geographic area.

You can choose to omit either sole traders, or partnerships, or limited companies, or any combination of them. Leave blank to include all.

You have the option to save the benchmark, which basically stores the benchmark results on our database and you will be able to view it at a later time. If you save the benchmark then you can give it a name (This can be updated).

Click Create.

No statistics will be produced if there are less than 5 in the selected criteria. If this is the case widen the criteria.
Note that you can see the numbers in a particular trade or area by clicking on the STATISTICS link from the main screen.

List Saved Benchmarks:

This page lists all the past benchmarks that have been created for all of your clients. To delete a benchmark from the list, click on the # column. Click on the column heading to sort – first click sorts in ascending order, click again to sort in descending order.

TRADE TYPES:

The trade types are based on the SIC code list. However, not all trades have a classification so we have added some trades of our own e.g. florists. A category of “retail sales” not elsewhere specified is not a lot of use to benchmark clients. Should you feel a particular trade or business type is not covered please complete a “support ticket” and we can add it to the list.

General

Logout:

Please remember to click the logout button before exiting obbm. If you do not do so you may find you cannot log back in again immediately. If you cannot log back in, wait five minutes and try again and it should be “unlocked”.

Appendix

Net Profit Adjustments:

Net profit adjustments required for limited companies:



It is recommended that for limited companies you document the adjustments to profit and place this record on file.

Click here to open a Net Profit Adjustments Sheet in Excel.