January 2015

At the start of 2015

DQB 1.41 has turned out to be a major release with the introduction of new email capabilities, event logging for cases, a fresh new Customer Center.  A number of minor enhancements are included as well.   See the articles below and the official release list on our website in Support/Quarterly Releases.   If you have an up-to-date service agreement, you can call for the authorization codes to download this release.  The download takes just a few minutes.

If you would like to check the version you are currently using, go to the About box in DQB.   We recommend that you not get behind more than one or two releases so that your system can easily be supported whenever the need arises.

Each winter season  here in  Pennsylvania, we want you to know that should we be prevented from travelling to our offices, we can still service you from our homes thanks to the latest technologies.    If you have an issue that needs to be addressed, please be sure to provide a clear review in your message of this and how and where we can reach you.

25 years and going strong!

We have been reminded by LinkedIn  that this month is 25th anniversary for Mainstreet Systems..  Our business model has been a good one  both for us and for dental labs.  The aim for our software systems has been to provide the highest quality with ease of use at affordable prices.   We continually encourage customer participation in determining the new features of our systems.   Our support program provides a wide variety of services, also at very affordable prices for all labs, and encourages labs to not neglect their information systems so that they too can provide a high level of quality and excellent customer service.

Built into this model are provisions to provide adequate funding so that the software can be responsive and continually adapt to the changing requirements of technology, security, government compliance and the business models of our customers.   We have seen over 30 competitors come and go in the past 25 years but here we are still going strong.

Is it really January?

Over the years, January has typically been a slow-down month but something is different this year.   We have seen a definite spark in this industry with labs making new plans, updating their equipment, making the jump from their older software to DentaLab for QuickBooks to improve both their case and financial management.   Three labs that began as traditional labs, then tried outsourcing to China, have told us they have decided to return to a focus on quality work performed in their own country.  

All of this has kept us very busy but we are pleased to see the year off to such a great start.

To answer your questions...

Q:  We have decided to add a new item to every standard procedure but we are finding these are being scheduled way to March.   What has gone wrong?

A:  When you do this, you have to also remember to increase the daily limits for the work center associated with the item to an appropriate level.  If you do not want to have any limits on this item, set the daily limit to a high value such as 999 or 9999. 

Q:  We have been told by a new account that is a group dental practice that they will require that our statements meet these criteria: 1) the invoice information will identify the doctor and the patient and be listed together for each of their doctors 2) that a total be provided for the whole group.   Can this be done?

A:  Yes.  In QuickBooks, you would establish the billing account for the whole group as the customer and then within this, setup a job for each doctor within the group.  Each of these will synchronize into DQB as a separate customer so that each can have their own preferences, alerts, communications, and prices if desired.   When invoices are created from their cases, the billing account will get the customer statement.   When generating the statement, be sure to check that you wish to show the invoice item details.   The statement will then group the invoices by the job-level doctors and show the details, including the patient name.   It will provide a total for the whole group.   

Lots of new features in DQB 1.41

New Email Capabilities for Cases and Customers

A first review can be found in the article below.   You can also request a copy of the guide and/or review this feature in the user manual available from the Help button in DQB.

Customer Center

The Customer Center in the standard version has a fresh new look with more advanced  technology to provide your business development personnel with more flexibility to move and forth among related customers and between categories of information for each selected customer. The new email capabilities have been included in the Customer Center so that you can create and track emails during your business development/marketing activities.

Ability to Mark Work Center Inactive

You can now mark a work center as inactive.  As the complexion of outsourcing keeps changing and digital dentistry continues to increase, there have been greater changes in work centers for scheduling.  This is necessitating this new feature that was hardly needed with the traditional in-house work centers.  Inactive work centers will still be available for historic cases, but not for selection within new cases or new standard procedures.

Invoice Register for One Customer

The current invoice register provides for selection of a date range and then shows/prints all cases invoiced in that date range.  This enhancement provides for generating the same report for one customer.

Vendor Return Date

Previously the vendor return date was automatically set to the last scheduled date.  This has been changed to retain an entry that has been made by the user.

Event Logging for Cases

For additions and changes to case records, an event log will record the date, time and user login in an event log.  Each log record will be retained for 30 days and will be available for tracking and reporting.

Notifications Center – Option to Use Invoice Date for Shipped Report 

In the Notifications Center, we have added a new indicator you can check to use the case invoice date instead of the shipped date to determine whether a case will be in the Cases Shipped Report that is emailed.  

Handy, time-saving...the new email capabilities!

With the release of DQB 1.41 this month,  new email capabilities have been added for case and customer communications.

These been placed in a number of convenient locations:

1. from the Email tab in Case Entry for both the standard and starter versions

2. in the left frame menu of the Customer Center for the standard version

3. from the Actions menu or right-click on selected case in Case List

4. from the email tab for a selected customer in Basic Lists-Customers

The email address entered In QuickBooks for each customer or job is synchronized into DentaLab for QuickBooks (DQB) and will be readily available for case and customer emails.  It will also be displayed in a number of locations throughout the system adjacent to other basic customer information.

You will also be able to additional email addresses added to your DQB address book and when composing your emails, use this to select your addresses. .

This new email capability provides a number of time-saving features:

• templates to use common fields in the subject line or body of the email

• easy selection of primary customer and case fields to insert into the email

• ability to easily attach documents, case images to emails, compress if needed

• the user can preview emails, test settings and layouts, request onscreen guides

• automatically search case-related records such as case plans, case communications, action required messages for email addresses

Customization is available

The email layouts have been developed with the standard reporting tool that is used for reports and forms throughout DentaLab for QuickBooks.  This means that you can submit requests to have Mainstreet customize unique formats for your lab. Note also that if you save any of the DQB reports to an industry standard such as PDF or Excel, you can attach these to send to your customers.

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