• Am I making money?
• What is my true cost to service a customer, model, contract?
• Is my service department running as efficiently as possible?
• Is my per page/per click rate profitable?
• Do you need to combine color, black, and/or scan clicks from multiple machines or customers into one invoice with a minimum billing?
• Do you need to maintain the supply inventory located at your large customers

The service package includes the following features for managed print services:

• Service department management including dispatching techs, completing calls, 3rd party service calls, technician car stock, and detailed service histories by customer and serial number
• Inventory for parts, supplies (OEM  and compatible), and serialized equipment
• Service department Snapshots, Dashboards, and Analysis to give you instant information about your service department
• Contact billing for copy clicks and page counts which can be combined in any combination, multiple meters, meter requests by fax or email, and customer summary reports which can be exported to excel for your customers
• Purchase Order with alternate supplier part numbers and stock management
• Street level mapping for customer and machine lookup and business intelligence analysis
• Text messaging for instant communication with your technicians both free form text and service call information
• Bar Coding for inventory count management of technicians
• Sales Prospecting and Team Management including sales campaigns, statistics, email newsletters, forecasting, and sales funnel management
• Interface to River Cities accounting, Quickbooks®, or stand alone without an accounting package.

Service Dispatch

Deletion of a machine from the Contract/Meter Billing system will automatically assign the machine to Time and Materials billing status for any future service calls. This guards against the possibility of lost revenue which occurs when service is performed on machines which are mistakenly thought to be under contract.

Maintenance contracts for which the renewal is not paid by the expiration date will be automatically placed on Time and Materials billing for future service calls (unless changed by authorized personnel). This is another safeguard against lost revenue.

A user-defined billing table by contract type determines which category of inventory items are to be invoiced to the customer, and which are to be covered by service contract. Labor, travel, and mileage may also be billed. This allows contracts which include or exclude certain parts or even supplies to be correctly billed.

Labor charges for Time and Materials calls and COD customers are user defined and may be set for each model of equipment as well as to billing increment (minimum minutes for one unit) and rate. Billing rates may be different for outside service calls and for inside depot service calls.

When a call is dispatched, the screen displays the job number, technician assigned, log date and time, date of last PM, last service call, location, customer defined problem, key operator, phone number, and most recent service history for the machine. The dispatcher will be alerted if a PM is due on this machine, resulting in more effective use of technician time.

When a call is completed, inventory used  is reduced from your   inventory. The inventory used may be completed at a later time, at your discretion.

The system will not allow you to dispatch a service call if the customer is on Credit Hold until authorization is obtained from a manager. 

When a call is completed, the parts inventory used from the technician's car stock is reduced from car stock and inventory. The inventory used may be completed at a later time, at your discretion. 

A street  map location for each machine may be maintained so that the technician may be dispatched from his current location to the nearest call, more effectively managing technician productivity.

Complete service history detailing times, meter readings, technician, and comments can be displayed, printed, or analyzed.  Every problem reported by your customer, service performed by your technician, and inventory used in any service call is stored for display or analysis.

The Daily Report includes a warranty replacement report showing all items replaced during the manufacturer's warranty period, all service performed, any inventory used with a separate report for billable and non-billable inventory, jobs to be billed, General Ledger posting entries for inventory used but not billed, call back analysis, and low stock report for inventory quantities which are below user-defined minimums.

Allows the user to enter the necessary preventative maintenance schedules by machine model. This may be based on either elapsed time or meter clicks. Thereafter, all machine models will be scheduled for P.M. automatically, thus relieving the service manager or operator the time and effort of keeping up with the P.M. status of each machine. This helps build customer satisfaction which in turn results in higher Service Contract renewal rates.

While logging a service call, the system will also perform a credit check in Accounts Receivable based on customer credit limit, pay class (i.e. COD or Cash with Order), and user defined past due balances. 

Keep track of miscellaneous, lunch, shop, and other time types for all technicians. Maximum technician productivity is extremely important to the productivity of the service department.

Car stock for the technician is maintained and can be easily re-stocked to the desired quantity by individual item or an entire car stock. 

Contract Billing

Flexibility to meet your contract needs

Multilevel Base and Excess frequencies for billings as defined by the user.

Supports up to  five levels of per copy (or page count) charges as defined by the user and does automatic calculation of charges at the different copy level breaks.

Supports monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, tri-annually, semi-annually, annually, and yearly either or (1 through 9 years) contract billing.

Rentals and contracts may expire by date and/or meter clicks. Advanced billing helps increase cash flow.

The software is designed to bill rentals and service contracts with or without excess copy charges. The combination of billing criteria is almost limitless. The system will bill contracts monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly (can be calendar or non-calendar quarters), quarterly advanced by one or two months, semiannually, annually (these are usually one year contracts with excess copy charges), or yearly for up to nine years.

Does complete billings for Base and/or Excess meter click charges.

Supports flexible, user defined, multilevel excess copy charges which may be set by individual machine.

Invoices can also be printed in arrears to satisfy government invoicing requirements.

Invoices may be generated at any time throughout the month. Any machine may be on a different base and/or excess frequency billing. It's no longer necessary to work endless hours verifying customer files and calculating copy charges in order to get your invoices done at month-end. All you do is enter the meter readings and print the invoices. The verification and calculation is made for you, allowing you to increase and stabilize your cash flow by producing invoices all through the month.

Invoices for time based contracts.  For example, your customer can buy a contract for a certain hours of labor.  This is mostly used in computer and networking contracts. 

Fully supports group billing so that multiple machines may be billed with one invoice. Proper excess copy charges are calculated for the entire group.

Each contract can have unlimited multiple meters.  Each meter can even be invoiced at a different per click rate.

Be more efficient with easy interface and updates to other modules.

The software is designed so that the operator only needs to enter the necessary information one time. The interface system employed makes use of this information throughout the system, thereby saving the operator the time and frustration of entering this information several times in different modules.

Allows the user to assign different General Ledger numbers for base and excess copy charges for each machine and/or by contract type. The base and excess charges may be allocated by percentage for up to five different general ledger departments. This allows for more accurate revenue recognition on your financial statements.

Automatically posts the journal entries to the appropriate general ledger accounts. Here again, no multiple entry is required, saving operator training and processing time.

The system allows the user to define an almost limitless number of contract types. The income and expense from the contracts may be posted to different general ledger accounts, or all posted to the same sales and expense accounts based on the amount of detail desired.

All invoices produced through the contract billing system flow directly into your accounts receivable with automatic posting to your general ledger.

Maintains accessory items delivered with machines. You always know where your inventory is located. If you must pick up the unit, a complete list of accessories is easily displayed or printed to ensure that all equipment is returned. Accessory items may or may not be serialized.

Billing amounts may be posted to the general ledger split into up to five departments. This more accurately recognizes the rental, supply, or service revenue on contracts which include rental or supplies.

Invoice contracts accurately and on-time!

Special messages may be entered with the option to print these on the invoice. These messages may be free-form messages for the operator which do not print, or you may enter the information such as contract terms and allow them to print on each invoice by machine.

The meter call proof list will signal the operator if the date and/or meter reading is less than the previous date and/or meter reading. This will assist in operator efficiency and guard against errors in reporting. 

Upon expiration of a contract, the contract is renewed at the current rate for the contract type. This can be performed automatically so you don't have to worry about missed revenue due to contracts not being renewed.

A request for meter readings can be faxed to the customer.  This helps keep your operators from having to call every customer.

The expiration list will print all contracts due to expire by date or by meter clicks. The expiration list also prints the amount of revenue which would be generated if all contracts are renewed. This report also indicates the percent of usage on the contract, thereby giving action oriented information to management. Contracts which should be upgraded are easily identified.

If no meter reading is available, the system will retrieve the meter reading from the service/dispatch module. This meter reading may be used for billing. If no reading is entered for billing, the system will invoice the base charge

Import page counts and meter readings from Printfleet, FM Audit, Miracom, Labrador, and other fleet management systems.

Also import from machine emails, manufacturer web sites, or the River Cities Software web interface.

Determine profitability with management reports.

The invoice register contains an analysis report of billings by contract type, billing period, base, and excess charges. This analysis report will help you pinpoint areas where machine and/or contract upgrades should be performed.

A listing of all machines sorted by customer, rate code, or contract type is provided.

Generates a proof list of all machines to be invoiced each month. This report can be printed an any time during the billing period. If a machine has already been invoiced for that billing period, that machine will be excluded from the proof list. A credit check is performed with this report allowing management to better determine account status.

The system will maintain toner usage information for each contract which includes toner.  During order entry for toner, the system will test to see if the customer has received too many toners for the machine. 

Revenue can be recognized on your financial statement at time of invoice or a liability can be created and the revenue is spread evenly over the life of the contract. 

By using rate tables, it is only necessary to enter a contract type, base charge, and associated excess charges one time. 

A copy of the actual contract may be scanned, stored, viewed, and/or printed.  

Inventory

The importance of Inventory control cannot be overemphasized. The ability to effectively manage your inventory is crucial to your continued business success. The software has been designed with these factors in mind and will provide you with the information to successfully manage your inventory investment.

To maintain accuracy, the software provides for your choice of costing methods, true real time processing, and flexible pricing methods to your customers.

The cost of each item in inventory is maintained by either average cost, true FIFO, or true LIFO. All serialized inventory is maintained on a specific cost method. This allows the flexibility required to meet your particular needs.

Retail prices may be automatically calculated in many ways. These include: a percentage added on top of cost or based on your GSA contract price, your state contract price, or your own user defined contracts. Other methods include a percentage off list, a dollar amount on top of cost, a dollar amount off list price, or most importantly, any given price specified at the time of order entry.

Quantity price breaks may be entered for up to 10 levels for each item. These can be set up as a dollar amount, percentage off list, and/or percentage on top of cost. 

Special automatic pricing can be set up by customer, vendor, item, or by category. Special prices may also be based on user defined price breaks by vendor, item, or category. This flexible pricing system will relieve the hassle associated with special pricing. 

Contract pricing such as GSA or state schedules may be entered for automatic retail price calculations for a particular customer. 

A Retail Price List of all items be category may be printed. The list will optionally show cost, transfer cost, gross margin, and price breaks associated with each item. Printed without cost or margin, this list is useful as price lists for your salesreps. 

Maintain a detailed movement history for each item.

On-hand quantities in the Inventory system are continually updated from several different areas. These include sales entered from Accounts receivable, inventory received through the Purchase Order system, and inventory used through Service Dispatch, giving you true on-line processing.

The master record for each inventory item contains a great deal of information. Item cost, list price, month-to-date sales, cost and usage, year-to-date sales, cost and usage, as well as last year's sales and usage, plus the usage for the previous 24 months stored by month. With this information readily at your fingertips, you will make sound buying decisions and gain greater control over your inventory.

Inventory movement history is maintained for each item in the inventory system. The display will show the movement by month for the last 24 months. This information will help in determining order cycles and quantities.

Detailed receipts are available allowing you to view each time an inventory item is received with the purchase order number, vendor, and cost.  

A detailed usage can be viewed showing the date, invoice number, customer, quantity, and price for each sale.  If the item was used in a service call, the job number and technician are also displayed.

Virtually unlimited inventory setup capabilities, methods of item inquiry, and ease of maintenance.

Maintain an almost unlimited number of product categories. An Item Master List may be printed by item, one category, or by all categories, allowing you to view a particular item or category without obtaining a complete inventory printout. General Ledger posting entries may be assigned by category to gain greater control of inventory.

Multiple inventory locations may be maintained with one or more accounts receivable.

Support is also available to load your vendor's item pricing information from both disk and/or modem providing efficient inventory and pricing updates.

Create and maintain a core bank showing core and cartridges owed to your customers or from your vendors.

Options for inventory can be defined by individual item or for an entire category.  For example, color, material, and size can be defined.

You may obtain access to an individual item in the system by various methods. These include the exact item number, partial item number, description, or by item category. Also, when part numbers change, a cross reference may be maintained of the new part numbers and your part numbers. Operator processing speed is increased by the versatility of the software.

Inventory locations, whether in the warehouse, on the sales floor, or other areas, are maintained for each in verifying inventory quantities during a physical inventory. The optional Bar Code Tracking System can greatly speed up the process of Inventory Management.

Inventory may be allocated to technicians and/or salesreps. A breakdown of allocations is displayed on the individual item record showing number on-hand, and the amounts allocated to technicians, or sales reps. The system will also display the number allocated for backorders. At a glance, you can tell where your inventory should be. If you need more detail, it's only a keystroke away. 

Full serialized inventory with complete history from purchase to retirement.

The inventory system tracks all inventory, including serialized equipment, parts, and supplies. Serialized inventory does not require the assignment of an additional ID number, but you can assign the id number if desired.

The serialized inventory record contains the received date, origin of the item, sold date, customer which purchased the item, invoice number the item was sold under, as well as the invoice number from the vendor when the item was purchased by you.

A serial numbers report will sort by sold and/or received dates. The serialized inventory report will show which serialized items are sold, on-hand, rented, leased, or on demonstration to prospective customers.

Serialized packages may be order from your vendor and sold as a group with full serial number tracking of each piece of the package. 

Management analysis reports include:

Several items may be combined under your own user defined part number to sell as one item. This is very important for special "deals" and promotions (i.e. start-up kits) and handles proper inventory reductions for each item comprising the "deal" and proper cost of sales accounting in the General Ledger system, even though the items may be from different item categories with different General ledger account numbers. 

The end-of-month inventory report contains a gross margin analysis for each item sold during the month.

Yield analysis is available with the manager's console.  Accurately measure and maintain toner and supply yields.

There are many additional reports which are available to help you is other ways. You may obtain as little or as much detail as necessary. These provide you with the tools you need to better manage your inventory investment. With the addition of Microsoft Access  you may write your own reports.

Purchase Order

The system maintains sequential purchase order numbers, or verbal purchase order numbers may be given to the vendor and entered into the system at a later date.

The purchase order system may be used to enter vendors into the Accounts Payable vendor file. This allows the person ordering to change a vendor to get the best price.

Special messages may be printed on the bottom of the purchase order for notices to the vendor.

Purchase Orders may be pre-paid.

All inventory products may have alternate vendors, allowing orders to be placed based on the best price, terms, and availability of the item.

Multiple ship to locations for each vendor allow quick easy choice for shipping.

Minimum stock levels can be calculated and the inventory updated.

All outstanding purchase orders by a vendor or item may be displayed and/or printed.

The purchases "on hold" report will list all orders and inventory quantities which have been received but not yet matched to an invoice.

The Purchase Order system is a two-step system. When inventory is received, the packing slip is entered into your system to reflect the inventory received. At a later time, the invoice is received to update the true cost and to create a voucher in the Accounts Payable system.

The Purchase Order system updates the inventory when the purchase order is received. The Accounts Payable system is updated when the invoice is received.

The Purchase Order system allows timely closing of your books at end of month by recognizing costs for true accrual accounting.

The Purchase Order system will print a low stock report or a recommended order for your entire inventory or for a selected category of inventory.

The Purchase Orders system will print shelf labels for the quantity received, quantity on hand, or quantity on hand for an inventory category.

Purchase orders can be faxed directly from the purchase order system. (requires faxing center).

The vendor's name and address is automatically retrieved from the accounts payable system, if installed.

Purchase orders may be canceled with automatic reduction of quantity on order in the inventory item file.

When the packing slip is received, a list of your customers with inventory on backorder is printed.

The list price of the item can be updated immediately upon receipt of the purchase order to maintain your profit margin.

The packing slip and invoice can be scanned, stored, viewed, and/or printed.

The bar code inventory tracking system interfaces directly with the Inventory and Purchase Order systems. If is designed to allow inventory to be received by scanning the bar code labels, to expedite the inventory of stock, and to facilitate the inventory of technician car stock assigned to each technician. Many companies are discovering that by using bar code technology in tracking their inventory they are not only able to pay for the bar code system within a very short time, but save substantial amounts of money by reducing the time and personnel requirements typically associated with the inventory process. Now your inventory process does not need to be a painful experience.

An optional bar code printer is available which will print out custom bar codes with your part numbers.

While taking inventory, the bar code scanner can be used to gather the item numbers by reading the imprinted item bar codes (i.e. serialized inventory, manufacturer bar code labels, etc.). This greatly accelerates the inventory process and can result in significant savings. The inventory process can now be conducted on a monthly basis resulting in tighter control on your stock.

When inventory is first brought into the system through purchase order, the bar code inventory tracking system can be used to enter each item by scanning its bar code.

This system utilizes a non-contact, portable, hand-held laser bar code scanner with a built-in rechargeable power supply to collect data. The laser scanning technology provides a superior first-time read rate. A built-in keypad and display facing the operator during scanning allow for single hand use without the tangle of cords associated with many other systems. The scanner unit is a pistol grip "point and shoot" system which employs a button "trigger" which combined with the light weight gives it a natural feel that is both comfortable and easy to use over extended periods of time. If you are haunted by inefficiency in tracking your inventory, River Cities Software has the solution-- Bar Code Inventory Tracking.

Serialized inventory may be scanned to enter the serial number into the inventory.

The bar code inventory tracking system will allow you to keep track of all your technician car stock and the tools assigned to each technician. You no longer have to worry about who has what tools or what items are "floating around". By using the sophisticated reporting capabilities you will be able to determine the exact needs of your technicians and be able to verify that stock is being properly utilized.

Snapshots and Dashboard

The manager’s console will display information in a graphical format. Easily see contract billing and service history statistics. These statistics are updated when your daily processing is performed, giving you up to the minute information.

The contract analyzer is used to analyze contracts. The screen will show a graph detailing costs, sales, and profit. The detail used to calculate the graph is readily displayed. A list can be calculated by contract type, model, expiration dates, and profit margins. Each machine on the list can then be analyzed. You can even change the billing amounts for the contract from the manager console.

By using the contract analyzer, your actual toner yields are easily calculated. The calculated yields can be updated into contract billing at the touch of a button.

Analysis and graphs for calls, technician time, models service and contract types.

The yearly average number of calls, parts cost, and repair time for each model can be calculated. The costs for each year of life (one to five years) will be displayed. This information is also calculated on the volume size of the model. Using this calculation, you can even price your service contracts, detailing base charge, excess copy charge, and allowance.

The system prints a Population report showing the number of machines under each contract type, or by contract type for machine model.

Password protected technician base rate can be used to determine machine profitability on the Profit Analysis report.

The Customer Analysis report will detail the revenue and cost of service contracts and supplies as well as gross profit and profit margin for each customer.

Provides a great deal of information such as detailed/average technician response and repair time, customer and contract profitability, giving you control of your service department through comparison.

Profit analysis and warranty return credits

Track the manufacturer warranty expiration date on each machine. This ensures proper credit by the manufacturer for warranty replacement, eliminating lost revenue.

The Warranty report will show serialized items which are eligible for credit return due to failure during manufacturer's warranty period, either by elapsed time or meter clicks, allowing you to take advantage of manufacturer's credits.

The Profit Analysis report prints the profit for each machine by model and/or contract type, or technician. The report gives totals for average and per copy profit. Labor, inventory, other costs, revenue, profit, and gross margin percent are also included.

Sales Team Management

Know what you have scheduled and when

The Sales Prospecting system contains a complete appointment and task scheduler with daily, monthly, weekly, and yearly views.  Also a planner view can be displayed.  Each appointment can be color coded and reminders set. 

A report will print a list of calls to be made for each salesrep for a specified date range.

The appointment records will show the contact history and date/time for each follow-up.

Contact history is maintained for as long as desired.

A report listing appointments not completed by each salesrep is a valuable management tool. How often has a sale been lost because the salesrep did not follow-up in a timely manner on a lead, proposal or demo.

Comments may be entered for each contact. This will allow a detailed explanation of what the contact was about. This can be used to get new salesreps selling in a shorter time when existing salesreps leave your firm.

Statistics on each type of contact or call can be maintained for each salesrep. The statistics report is used to measure salesrep productivity.

Information, information, information!

An example is when your sales people call on a new prospect. They can gather a wealth of information about what types of office equipment the prospect uses, such as brand and model, expiration date of service contracts and types of contract. Now you know what type of toner they need, normal paper usage, etc.

Have the ability to maintain multiple contacts within a prospect and selectively sort to determine the relationship with other firms within your market area with SIC code comparisons.

Each prospect may have up to 150 yes/no qualifiers assigned, as well as up to twenty-one user defined data fields.

Track decision maker's name, title, and phone numbers with fields to record who influences the buying decision.

Competitive equipment is maintained by SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) code, customer location, type of equipment, purchase or rental, term of contract, billing terms, current volume, contract expiration, and special customer needs that may or may not be satisfied by the current equipment or supplier.

Supplies and other renewable inventory is loaded into the Sales Prospecting system from the Service Dispatch, and Invoicing systems.

Time savers help your sales grow

Sales territories may be maintained by zip code, selected markets, and specialized equipment.

The ability to print mailing labels or envelopes for prospects after sorting.

The Sales Prospecting system measures supply potential by manufacturer, equipment type, and copy volume. A report is printed showing potential versus actual purchases by customer for all consumable supplies.

Lead generation based on historical and future known facts by prospect and user needs.

A complete mail list file is maintained with the ability to select any combination of "and", "or", or "not" search on qualifiers.

A complete mailing history of date and content of each mailing to every prospect may be maintained and reviewed.

The sorted prospects may be interfaced to a word processing program so that correspondence may be sent to all prospects selected in the search.

Machine sales can be forecast by comparing recommended monthly usage on each copier to actual monthly usage. The report will print a list of all copiers eligible for upgrades.

Reports are available to forecast supply sales based on past buying habits of your customers. This enables you to call the customer before another dealership to get those supplies.

Sales prospecting information can be dumped to a Palm handheld or notebook computer so that the salesrep can have up to the minute information about their prospect, including appointments, service history, and purchasing history.

Know about your customers without hassling the accounting and service departments.

Gather sales information from your own sales department about your customers. Information is also gathered from your sales staff who are calling on new, prospective customers.

Contract information on your customers as well as prospects is maintained showing all contract information including a purchase amount to facilitate upgrades.

Every time a meter reading is taken in the Service Dispatch or Contract Billing system, the reading is put in the Sales Prospecting system.

Full service history may be displayed by the sales rep without the use of the service dispatch system.

Purchase history may be displayed or printed by the salesreps.

Sales Campaigns, Email Campaigns, Newsletter, Email Newsletters,  Sales Forecasts, Pipeline management,  Sales Funnel Management, and more.