Recent content by Frans VH

  1. Frans VH

    I’m rethinking software. I’d value your input.

    I agree that moving data can be very timexonaing. But quoting and chasing invoices are part of the integrated systems like Odoo, Zoho and others. What in your experience are these systems missing that would make the process more efficient?
  2. Frans VH

    I’m rethinking software. I’d value your input.

    The more boring it is, the better the result of automating it: fewer mistakes and more motivation for employees. What are some “boring businesses” you think would benefit most?
  3. Frans VH

    I’m rethinking software. I’d value your input.

  4. Frans VH

    I’m rethinking software. I’d value your input.

    I’ve been in software companies all my life. But the economics of software is changing fast. Custom software is now much cheaper and easier to build. Probably this shift will happen first in SMEs. Large corporations will keep buying SAP and Salesforce, because they move slow and commit to big...
  5. Frans VH

    Anyone here taking benefits of AI in their everyday business?

    You’re right. Once those models are trained, that part is basically done. I was thinking about retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), see entry on wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrieval-augmented_generation) A RAG pulls relevant text from databases, uploaded documents, or web...
  6. Frans VH

    Anyone here taking benefits of AI in their everyday business?

    Given the current state of the technology, it is better to keep a “human in the loop.” Let the system draft the answer, but require a human to approve and send it. Each correction becomes training data. Instead of training your team again and again, you train the system once and let it scale...
  7. Frans VH

    How do you handle repeat "how do I do X?" questions from your team?

    It is mainly product related questions. Customers come in the shops and explain a problem they are having with their installation. The root causes of the customer problems are sometimes difficult to find and it requires some expertise to ask the right questions. That's one part of the issue...
  8. Frans VH

    How do you handle repeat "how do I do X?" questions from your team?

    There are a lot of good suggestions in the replies above: setting up wikis, develop SOP, write employee handbooks... Those can help for your full time staff. However, like fisicx mentioned, this doesn't work for a bunch of summer interns. Trying to get them through a training is also difficult...
  9. Frans VH

    How do you handle repeat "how do I do X?" questions from your team?

    The issue came up when I was doing consulting work for a chain of 12 stores selling mainly during spring and summer. They needed to hire many temp workers and students but could not train them well enough to deliver good service to customers.
  10. Frans VH

    How do you handle repeat "how do I do X?" questions from your team?

    Those of you with small teams - how do you handle training and "how do I do X?" questions? I'm curious whether most people just rely on shadowing/asking colleagues, or if you've found something that actually works for documenting processes. (Context: thinking about this for a business...
  11. Frans VH

    Rename PDF files in bulk

    You could also ask ChatGPT to generate the commands to rename the files with something like this: please extract invoice date, invoice amount and supplier name from thes invoices and generate a "rename" command that renames each file to YYYYMMDD-[SupplierName]-[InvoiceAmount].pdf so that I can...
  12. Frans VH

    Rename PDF files in bulk

    I think you would need a script that loops over all files in your input folder and then for each file asks chatgpt to identify supplier, invoice date and amount use that info to rename the file and move it to an output folder log the result of the scan (one line / file) for quick validation...
  13. Frans VH

    Rename PDF files in bulk

    Just for fun, I uploaded two invoices in chatgpt and asked: "Please extract invoice date, invoice amount and supplier name from thes invoices" It got it correct in this minimal dataset. It even flagged the invoice date on invoice 2 which wasn't really an invoice but a booking confirmation. It...
  14. Frans VH

    Does anyone have any experience of using Zoho One?

    I was a user for many years of Zoho books (accounting) and Zoho desk (support desk with ticketing system). These got the job done, no fancy features or fluffy graphics, just rock-solid support of business operations. If ever I need an integrated set of tools like those offered by Zoho, I will...
  15. Frans VH

    Do you encourage your team to use ChatGPT?

    Here is the full chat dialogue I used to prepare this table: https://chat.openai.com/share/8956d118-186a-4846-9a05-12037d157902
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