28 – 30 October 2010

Twin Waters Resort, Sunshine Coast

Conference Program
Thursday: Golf and welcome function
Friday: Breakfast seminar and conference sessions
Saturday: Conference sessions, AGM’s and Gala Dinner

simPRO is attending – come along and meet us!

Australia’s definitive industry event for Security Professionals, Government Security, IT Security and users of leading edge Security Technology and products.

2010 marks the 25th Anniversary of the Security 2010 Exhibition & Conference, cementing its place as Australia’s largest and longest runningsecurity event.

This year, the Security 2010 Exhibition will showcase the most advanced SCEC-approved products, the latest in security technology, IT security, services and systems from over 140 leading security industry manufacturersfrom Australia and beyond. The Exhibition’s free Seminar Program will feature a series of case study led sessions, delivering informative sessions on new technologies, innovative solutions and real results from the best in the industry.

The Security 2010 Conference is organised by Diversified Events on behalf ofASIAL, and will again feature an impressive line up of local and international speakers focussing on critical issues affecting today’s security industry and the impact of social and technological changes.

simPRO is attending – come along and meet us at stand g15!

simPRO Website |  simPRO Lite Website |  simPRO Mobile Website |  Mediaglue Website

As a rule, he/she who has the most information will have the greatest success…

Friday 6 August,  10am – 4pm

You are invited to an information session on the latest developments for simPRO. The day will provide training and demonstrations on what simPRO can now do and also highlight areas that you may not be using to the fullest capacity. Also, it will be a good opportunity to meet with other users and provide feedback to simPRO on how we can better improve your system.

Get in early – Only 20 spots available

Agenda

- General Housekeeping rules in simPRO

- Card Maintenance

- Managing Quotes & Jobs

- Invoicing Refresher including credits

- Contractor Invoices

- Scheduling tips & tricks

- Q & A – bring your laptop with access to your system for personalised help

RSVP

For more information and to RSVP please contact Leslie Byrnes on 1300 139 467 or leslie.byrnes@acornsoftware.com.au

To confirm your place, simply reply to this email with the number and names of people wishing to attend .

WHERE

Harold Park Hotel, 70A Ross St Glebe NSW 2037

PRICE

$160 inc GST (Lunch & Resfreshments included)

………….
This is the first of a series of monthly simPRO Information Sessions

Next session: Friday 3 September ‘Estimation & Project Management’

However, with the 2010 financial year behind us, it’s now time to focus on ensuring your business is financially fit to tackle the new challenges that lie ahead and that you are moving closer to your strategic financial goals. Therefore it’s critical to have the right financial structure in place ensuring you are well equipped to meet these challenges head on.

The CFO centre, a team of Chief Financial Officers with extensive industry expertise, understands the pressures on owner managers, and has the frontline experience, skills and knowledge to support businesses through any conditions.

Through simPRO’s strategic relationship, the CFO Centre is currently offering business owners like you, a FREE Business Financial Health Check – an opportunity to discuss your financial and strategic aspirations with one of their experienced CFOs.

The free Financial Health Check from the CFO centre offers you the chance to:

• Spend valuable TIME to discuss your financial and strategic aspirations with an experienced professional
• Identify and understand in more detail the MONEY you can release from your business
• Save time so you can spend more time on growing your business.

You can be guaranteed total trust when you contact the CFO Centre. All Financial Health Checks are carried out in confidence and at no cost to you.

You may now think a fresh pair of eyes is what your business needs. Or you may wish to just have some quality time with an experienced CFO to talk through your business aspirations.

So contact them today and start achieving your business objectives for the future:

Register your interest here

or contact Simon Knapp directly on 0424 278 782

or email simon.knapp@cfocentre.com.au

In this issue of Back to Basics we are going to look at the material ordering processes.

Why do we need a procedure for ordering?

The basic process for ordering materials and services is to raise an order, select the goods you wish to be supplied or enter the service to be performed and then give the order to the supplier. In doing this the supplier has a clear understanding on what they are to supply to you and also you have a clear indication on what you have asked for and expecting. The order is also optionally raised against a job to help ensure parts are not missed/forgotten or simply not costed against anything and lost! Items bought for stock also helps ensure accurate stock control. Information about stock control can be found in one of my previous articles titled “Stock Control for Year End”.

How do I order materials?

Though there are many ways an order can be created and different types of orders that can be made, I am going to stick with three situations as examples.

1. Raising an order from scratch and choosing parts I wish to order for an upcoming job

2. Raising and order for materials quoted for on a job

3. Creating an order number for a technician that needs to drop into a supplier whilst on the road

Situation 1 – Raising an order from scratch

To create a purchase order, go to Projects > Orders > Create Order > Catalogue

When entering the details of the order in the top section, the two most important items to fill in is the supplier and assigned to (see Figure 1). This means ‘Who are you buying it from? And ‘Where is it going to?’ Optional items include a reference number or maybe you might want to have a due date on it for the supplier to deliver it to the office the day before the job. If you are running multiple stock control (that is, have more than one storage device) you will also need to selection a ‘Default Location’.

Once these details are entered, go to the ‘Catalogue Tab’

Figure 1

Once in the ‘Catalogue Tab’ (see Figure 2) search for the part you wish to order using the search terms field or alternatively you can click through the categories and sections of parts to locate the correct part. Once you have located the part you wish to order, put in a quantity (you can just tick for just 1) then click the include button. You can continue to search and include until you have all the parts you wish to order.

Figure 2

Once you have selected all the items you wish to order, click back on the “Order” Tab you can now see the part has been added to the order. Near the bottom on the order you can select a delivery address or even add a script (Admin > Setup > Scripts) for things like “To be ready by 8am for Pick Up”

Figure 3

When happy all you need to do is click submit then you can print or email the order to the supplier!

Situation 2 – Ordering the materials that were quoted on a job

To order materials from within a job go into the department of the job that you wish to order materials for and click on the “Materials Tab” on the right hand side. Under this tab you can see the list of materials required for the job. You can also see if the parts have been ordered or assigned to the job where the yellow arrow is pointing. To create an order for these parts click “Order Materials”

Figure 4

Next you can select what type of order you would like. These options basically mean what would you like to do with the parts on the job? `Blank’ means don’t bring them across onto an order, `Stock Still Needed’ will order the materials you need minus the items you already have in stock, `PO Number’ will just create a PO number to give to a supplier, and the option we will use is `All Stock’ meaning bring all the parts required across onto an order.

Figure 5

You can now see all the parts have automatically been added to a purchase order (see Figure 6). The default supplier for the parts has been selected against each part and the order has been locked to that job. All that needs to be done is add a storage location, maybe a due date or some delivery notes then click submit.

Figure 6

Back on the job you can now see the parts are assigned.

Figure 7

Situation 3 – Quickly creating a PO Number

Lastly I want to show you how to quickly be able to create a purchase order number while the technician is en-route or at the wholesaler picking up some parts to get the job finished. You don’t want to record the parts or prices – just give him a number to tie to the job.

For this go to Projects > Orders > Create PO Number

Figure 8

Here I can again select the two most important parts of a PO. The supplier and the job. So the questions to ask the technician are, “Where are you going?” And “What’s it for?” I have also added a few notes to the order for when later I add the parts to the order when I get the supplier invoice.

Once the deliver docket or invoice comes in, then I can the parts & prices to the PO which will update into the job.

Easy!

Sum it up

With purchase ordering, not only do you get control of who is buying what on accounts but also assurance that parts and costs are correctly going to jobs. Also a good purchasing ordering procedure will help in getting that stock under control and provide accurate information on what is sitting in the van and warehouse.

For more information or to arrange onsite training on purchase ordering please contact simPRO on 1300 139 467

What does an hour of downtime cost your business?

A reliable backup system can literally save your company thousands of dollars in lost productivity when your IT systems fail. Business continuity is essential to your business and a reliable backup routine is an insurance you cannot operate without.

If you have a hosted simPRO solution, you don’t need to worry – your simPRO database is backed up and maintained all under your monthly datacenter hosting fee. This services backs up all your transactional records. However this does not cover the backup of your attachments held in simPRO. Please contact us if attachments in simPRO are essential to your business continuity.

If you have your own onsite server, your backups may not be included or managed by Acorn Software, please check your solutions with Acorn Software for the status of your backup maintenance. Database backups are included with our leased server solution.

As part of the nightly database backup routine maintenance, you will receive an email if your backup fails. Attachment backups are not included in the onsite server backup solution or leased server option either. So please contact us to find out your options to include these in your existing backup routines.

In the event of hardware failure, if Acorn Software has a copy of your database, we can usually have your business back up and running within the hour using one of our dedicated backup data sites so you can continue business as usual. This can save your business many hours of lost productivity and thousands of dollars.

If you’re unsure of your current simPRO backup procedures, please don’t hesitate in contacting us today via emailsupport@acornsoftware.com.au or phone 1300 139 467.

Andre Borell has left Round 5 of the Genuine Ford Parts Formula Ford Championship, held on the streets of Townsville this weekend, without the trophy he was aiming for – and a damaged Master Electricians / simPRO Racing Mygale. With the next round of the Championship over three months away, there is plenty of time to work towards a better outing at the Surfers Paradise street circuit for Round 6.

It became clear early in the weekend, that Borell was going to struggle to match the pace of the three Sonic cars, and Chaz Mostert’s Spectrum up front. Borell was still hopeful of a Top 5 grid spot, however an anti-roll bar problem in qualifying meant that 13^th on the grid was the best that was possible. It was clearly going to be a tough weekend from the mid pack for Borell.

Race 1 was an action packed affair, with Borell finishing in 11^th after a race long battle with Tom Goess. Race 2 stepped the intensity up a notch, with a monumental battle for 6^th with Nick Cassidy, Caleb Rayner, Tom Goess and a number of other drivers. Borell came home 9^th for more championship points, after running as high as 6^th. “We are a bit of a sitting-duck on the straight here. For whatever reason we are not very quick, while we have been earlier in the year. It makes it hard to pass, and even harder to avoid being passed. I drove my socks off, so 9^th is disappointing. We don’t have any spare horsepower in the toolbox that we can just bolt on unfortunately, so Race 3 will be similar” said Borell.

If Race 1 and 2 were full of action, Race 3 was sizzling with intensity. Borell made a good start, getting up to 5^th by the end of the first lap. Andre hoped to maintain position, but it was not easy: “We didn’t have the pace to be running 5^th, so it was always going to be tough to hold on to it. Waters got by me at the halfway mark, but I thought I could maintain 6^th for sure. It was a tough battle to hold off the guys behind, but I was doing an OK job. Unfortunately on the last lap, Nathan (Morcom) hit the back of me and rolled over me. He came right over the cockpit so I’m lucky to still have my head on my shoulders. I kept going on three-and-a-half wheels and crossed the line, but out of the points with 13^th” said Borell. The frightening and headline-making accident was a nasty end to the weekend, but with Morcom and Borell both walking away unharmed, things could have been much worse.

Borell remains 7^th in the championship, and hopes that work to the car, and testing planned the mid season break will help Master Electricians / simPRO Racing to improve for the final 3 rounds.

Andre is supported in 2010 by Master Electricians, simPRO, HPM Legrand, Extreme Safety, Speedo, Yellow Jersey, Giant, Xtreme Racing and Mediaglue. For more information contact Andre directly on andre@andreborellmotorsport.com

Thanks to everyone that participated in all the user forums so far this year.  One of the sessions we went through was about the future of your business management system (simPRO Enterprise and simPRO Fire).  We have been working hard on a number of concepts for over a year now.

Over the last couple of months we have chosen the concept that we will begin to move forward with and have been working hard on thrashing out how the new system will look and operate. Obviously our number one focus is to improve the user experience of simPRO, making it a more intuitive system that is easier to use and learn which in turn means you will be able to get more out of it.

It’s been a massive task, everything from analysing typical user behaviour to how best design the system, data grouping and labelling, aesthetic appearance, technology, drag and drop and auto suggest are just the tip of the iceberg.  The designs are now getting very close to completion and as we move closer to that I thought I would share a sneak peek at one of the screens. Below is an example screen shot of what in simPRO is currently called departments (being renamed to cost centres).

This is to be an expanded department view in a project (service is similar but without the sections – we have hidden the navigation structure until the next version, something to look forward to next time).  But just on this screen there are heaps of easy to understand information as well as alerts and guides for more advanced users (eg. stages on the cost centres, red strip to alert to a budget over run on the cost centre etc.)

Ultimately its still very recognizably simPRO, and over the coming months I’ll reveal more and more to you guys as to what the system will look like and how it will operate.  For now, our goal is to maintain the current set of functionality while greatly improving the user experience and making data more accessible without overcrowding and confusing users.

Further down the track of the build & implementation process we will be setting up a demo site that everyone will have access to and every company will need to log a minimum amount of time in the demo site in order to be eligible for the upgrade, though keep watching this space for more information on the progress of simPRO version 11.

Client Custom Fields

Ever had some information that you want to store about a customer but there just has never been quite the right spot to do it. Hmm, I could put it in the notes, or perhaps I could use this field over here because I don’t seem to use it for anything else….

Hang on a tic, what if we could have a field set aside that specifically stores this information for me, wouldn’t that be easier than the guessing game?

Easy peasy. Providing you have access to do so, head to Admin → Clients → Custom Fields. Laid out very similarly to the asset and plant builders, you can create your own fields which can then be searchable and be used on reports if you would like them to be, or just there as a quick reference. You have the choice to pick from List, Text or Date type fields.

Now you can take the guess work out of it and just have a dedicated field set aside for that important information you have always hated to keep!

Linked Items

A very powerful and massively underutilised feature in the system is linked items. Linked items allow the system to suggest other items to be used on a quote/job in response to one that has been selected.

For example, I have chosen to build a padlock. So I choose the body of the lock, now that I have chosen that I now have a selection of barrels, pins, shackles, keys etc presented to me that I can use that are compatible to the body.

Or what about a simple power outlet. I have chosen a 2025, so now what about an option for faceplates that can go on there, or cabling options, mounting block or junction box perhaps?

It’s pretty simple, just go to the catalogue item in question, go to the linked items tab, browser through the rest of the catalogue and select the items you would like to link those to. Then when you’re in the quote/job/prebuild/kit/purchase order and you use that item (in the case of a quote/job if you use a prebuild with one of more items you will get an icon representing this) the system will alert you to the fact that there may be linked items you could choose to use along side this. Clicking ok will then show you this list to choose from.

So accessorise already.

What is Everyone Doing?

Ever wonder what people around you are actually up to all day? Maybe you would like to just keep an eye on things. Maybe you’re a closet big brother addict!

eh, anyway, there is a tidy report in the system that can show you an activity log of what people have actually been doing in the auditable area’s of the system.

Head over to Reports → Employee’s → History Log. There are date range filters, employee filters and specific filters for much more targeted searching, though basically it shows you what’s been happening.

That should satisfy that craving for you!