Sales Essentials Details
Client Records The system is designed around Client records. Each Client has a comprehensive detail screen with tabbed pages for quotes, jobs, multiple addresses, notes, multiple contacts, client messages and a client folder in which all correspondence is held. Each client can be assigned to a Sales person and a Client Services Exec. There is additional information such as the source of the client and the nature of their business. Their website, if any, can be accessed directly from their record and we also hold their VAT rate and their terms of business. Quotes Although quotes can be review in other areas of the system, all the quotes for any client are displayed within that client’s detail record. This is convenient when discussing new projects with the client. For each quote you can see the product lines that need to be purchased and the lines that will be sold to the Client. Also displayed are the profit margin and percentage. The quote date, terms, due date, contact, project title, master and artwork dates, delivery and invoice dates, current status and client order number. The sales staff can control the progress of the quote at each stage, sending it to the sales manager for authorisation, sending it via email to the client and finally creating a job directly from the quote. Multi line quotes, where clients want to consider different quantities, are also provided so that you only need to send one quote for all options. Jobs On each client record there is a job tab under which a complete list of the client’s current jobs is provided. Details can be reviewed, purchase orders viewed and finally a questionnaire is available for the assessment of client satisfaction and service evaluation. Once jobs are completed they can, if required, be archived. The archived records can be reviewed elsewhere. Each job can also have a long textual description. The job records show the client order number and contact, the job type, delivery and invoicing addresses, dates for master received, artwork received, approvals to clients, client approval, supplier approval and due date. The details show all the products required to be purchased for the job and the items that will be finally sold to the client. The margin and percentage are also shown. Each job record also holds warehouse disposal instructions, job notes and artwork tasks. The job line details are divided into purchase and sales items. For the purchase items there is a quantity, description, supplier, unit price, net price, VAT rate and VAT amount. For the sales items there is a quantity, description, unit price, net total, VAT rate and VAT amount. Purchase orders These always relate to a specific job and are created automatically when required. They record who raised the PO, its number and date, the job to which it relates, the supplier, due date and date received, the total price, current status and the supplier telephone number and email address. Each of the PO lines holds a text product description, internal notes and notes to appear on the PO for the supplier to see. Also the quantity, price, date approved for order as well as date received and by whom. Suppliers The system requires the entry of a record for all Suppliers. This holds all the usual details as well as web address, email and the company’s VAT rate. There are tabs for further information which hold multiple addresses and multiple contacts. All their purchase orders and notes are also shown. The notes are related to PO’s and can be used to note quality of service issues or anything else. There is also a special feature included which allows the monitoring of the total spend with each supplier during a set period of time. When this level is breached within the period set a message is sent to the person nominated for the supplier. The system holds standard levels which are assigned to each new supplier entry but these can be tuned for each supplier individually. This makes it easy to negotiate better rates dependant upon pre-defined criteria. Status progress The entire system is governed by statuses. This means that the system ensures that certain things must be satisfied before a quote, job or purchase order can be progressed. For instance a quote has the following possible statuses: Raised by sales, To S/Mgr for Auth, Auth by S/Mgr, Sent to Client, Client Accepted, Pro Forms, Auth by Finance, Job created. At this last status the control is handed over to the Job status. The job statuses start with Created and then PO’s ordered, All PO’s received, W/H Action required, Completed and Invoiced. Most companies have their own accounting systems so invoices are raised within the system and manually transferred into the users accounting system. Resource planning When a business has a number of staff needing to book the use of rooms or the running of a job on special equipment this can be done using the resource schedules provided for the purpose. Bulk Emailing The system contains the facility to hold email addresses for Client contacts, prospective customers and suppliers. These emails are also presented in a special section used for bulk emailing these three groups of contacts. Emails can of course be barred from those clients who prefer not to receive bulk email. Record Archiving The system has the facility to archive records when they are no long required in the main front end system. Expired quotes that fulfil user set system criteria and completed jobs that have been reviewed and clear by the responsible CSE and authorised by the finance department can be archived. This helps to keep only the current relevant records on the system. Client satisfaction survey There is a section in which you can define a series of questions to ask your clients. These questions are attached to the jobs that you wish to check for quality and satisfaction. You decide which these are. Carrier records The carrier record is similar to the Supplier record. These records are used when entering the goods in and out records and showing which company was the carrier. Financial control The system does not have links to any accounting system at present. It is designed for the finance staff to manually transfer the invoice data into their accounting system of choice. The finance staff have controls to provide for holding clients who are behind on payments and can issue pro forms invoices for clients without a credit account for payment before despatch. When these clients are paid up to date or have paid the pro forma invoice then they can release the order. They can exercise discretion. When a client is on hold their jobs cannot be processed. Goods movement recording The warehouse staff book the goods in and despatch them. A record of the quantity held is maintained against each job and job line. A report is provided that shows all jobs or PO’s with positive stock. Goods movements are recorded against PO’s and PO stock against individual jobs. Staff functions The system is designed to accommodate a range of difference staff functions. This allows for the progression of quotes, jobs and purchase orders through the system whilst being controlled at each stage by the responsible staff. For instance any quote must be passed to the sales manager for authorisation if its value is over a use defined system parameter or its profit percentage is below another parameter. This results in the Sales manager being able to concentrate on those orders that really need his or her attention, whilst Sales staff will attempt to pass these parameters in order to expedite the order. All the way through the progress of quotes and jobs the various stages can only be moved to when the required parameters are satisfied. At different stages automatic system generated messages alert the next person in line that they now have control. This mixture of statuses and job roles ensure that orders are dealt with in the most efficient manner and provide a high level of non intrusive management with a considerable saving in administration costs. System Parameterisation The heart of the system is controlled by the use of user definable parameters. This allows the user to define the system to best match their specific needs and results in the system being extremely flexible. Help system Throughout the system there are help topics attached to every screen. This means that with F1 function key you can gain context sensitive help for any screen. The help is also shown in a help file in the usual Windows format with a contents listing.