Cindy Bauer is the Marketing Manager at Red Wing Software. In the past several years, Cindy’s four wonderful children have grown up, moved out, graduated college, and several have gotten married. I caught up with Cindy to ask her about the transition and how it has been for all four children to leave home and move on with their bright futures.

• The last couple of years have been a whirlwind with all the changes in your household! Please tell us about your kids and what they’ve done since leaving home.

  We have two girls and two boys. Our daughter Jordan is the oldest and she and her husband, Mike, had a baby boy, Patrick, in September. Josh and Andrew are our middle children and are identical twins. Josh is in pilot training in the Air Force and will be marrying Kaitlin in December. Andrew is a financial analyst and just got married to Megan last month in Texas. Our baby of the family, Elizabeth, just graduated from college in December and is transitioning from student to full time career mode.

• What are some tips on how to stay sane with all the planning that goes into multiple graduations, weddings, etc.?

  My husband, Dave, and I have been married for almost thirty years and have been so lucky to have four children that certainly kept us busy and on our toes. Between years spent in hockey arenas, baseball fields, and other activities, it seemed like we were always running to the car for some event. We also owned our own business and there never seemed to be enough hours in the day and sleep was minimal! To keep everything and everyone organized, I was, and still am a planner. When the kids were in school, we had a big, white board calendar on the wall and it was rare that there weren’t three or four events scheduled on each day. I am also a huge fan of sticky notes! Now with lists for wedding invitations and budget items, etc., I have advanced to spreadsheets and reminder notes on my iphone…although I still always have a pad of sticky notes nearby.

• What are some of the things you enjoy and look forward to now?

  When Elizabeth left for college and there truly was an empty nest it was really hard to get used to life not on a roller coaster. But over time, you really do find other activities that take up your time. Dave and I are fortunate that three of our four kids live within an hour of us, so we get to see them regularly. Some of my favorite things to do are going to workout classes, reading, golfing, watching sports, and volunteering. Of course since our grandbaby, Patrick, was born, all of our worlds revolve around him and watching him grow. I think probably the best thing of all is we have four children that have met wonderful people that joined our family and now they are all our best friends and we really enjoy spending time with them.

By Stephanie Elsen

Budgeting is an estimation of the revenue and expenses for your company over a specified future period of time. In order for your budget to benefit you, it needs to be monitored on a regular basis.

Budgeting lets you look at “what-if” scenarios. What if you purchased a new asset? What would be the change to your cash flow? This enables you to make smarter buying decisions.

So yes, a budget can definitely help you! All CenterPoint Accounting Software products contain budgeting capabilities. If you are interested in getting help setting up and using budgets in CenterPoint, call your Customer Care support number, and the support experts will be happy to help you!

“Creating the Best Management Software Experience” is our vision at Red Wing Software. Now, we don’t pretend that we are perfect in every way, but we do try hard to reach this vision every day. Even if our software was completely error free, there is much more in creating the best “experience.”

The experience that our (and your) customers get when they deal with us (you) involves the entire organization. When you think about every contact point a customer has with any company, you start to see the importance of the experience. For example, at Red Wing Software, these contact points include; printed sales and marketing materials, salesperson conversations, Web site, front desk personnel, support people, the invoice the customer receives, the packaging of the product, and all of these experiences can take place before they even see the software.

So, when we think about the “experience,” we look at every function and process in the company that can affect a customer’s opinion of us. Most importantly, the only way we can improve on this experience is to get feedback from our -customers. So, please let us know whenever you feel there is something we can do to improve your “experience” working with us.

- Ken Hilton, President

Google is apparently planning to launch paid channel subscriptions for its premium channel partners. Click on the link below for more info!

http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/06/google-nears-launch-of-paid-youtube-subscriptions-report-says/