November 2019

Lots of reminders for November

Please mark on your calendars that we will be closed for the USA Thanksgiving holiday November 28-29 (Thursday-Friday).

We will be hoping that the hurricane season will be over and the snow and ice season not begun, but should extreme weather conditions cause us to not open the office, we will be using Verizon's Digital Voice to receive Mainstreet telephone calls on our smart phones.

We also have a standby generator at one of our offices so should there be a power outage, we will be able to receive emails.

Be sure to always identify yourself, leave adequate contact information and the purpose of your call or email.

Remember to begin updating your 2020 holidays and non-workdays in DQB so that you will be ready to schedule cases into the new year.

If you are planning to update in any way for the start of the new year, it is best to begin in November and not wait until the end-of-year and holiday period.

At the start of 2020 support will be ending for a number of the major software components such as Microsoft Windows 7 and Server 2008. Support is particularly critical if you use the internet in any way because of the growing need for new stronger security measures.

Call or email if you would like further guidance on keeping your system up to date and running smoothly.  Here's sending you all many thanks for your participation in the DentaLab user group and wishing you a fine relaxing long Thanksgiving weekend! 

Are you prepared for an inspection?

From the support calls coming our way, we are seeing an uptick in FDA inspections here in the USA.  To always have your record-keeping well prepared and ready for these inspections, it is a good idea to know the features that are available in DQB to help you meet the compliance standards.  

Typically it only takes seconds when entering cases and marking completions to record the relevant information such as quality control issues and resolutions, the date/time and technician for case item completions.   You can also easily record significant communications as well as email exchanges between the dental office and the lab.

Your standard procedures can include and document the quality assurance and safety measures you have established.

DQB also provides for material disclosure, recording of issues, finding cases that have included a specific material should a recall or alert occur. 

Because it is web-based, we keep DentalRx up to date with the latest industry security standards and patient privacy measures mandated by HIPAA.  DQB also has available a number of queries and reports that help to track case histories and quality control. 

We have been told that government inspections throughout the world can mandate up to a 5-year history and that if you have not been keeping good records to document that you have been in compliance, you can be facing both significant fines and a very short period to become compliant.

Looking ahead to December

The Christmas and New Year holidays this year are right in the middle of the week.   We will be closed December 24-25 (Tuesday-Wednesday), December 31 (Tuesday), and January 1 (Wednesday).  

We ask that you schedule much earlier in November or December any changes you are planning for 2020 that would need our support.

To answer your questions

Q: We are offering a select group of customers a 10% discount but want to exclude some items such as shipping.  What is the best way to assure that the discounting is correct?

A: You can go to Basic Lists-Price Levels and set up a new price level by item with an appropriate name.  Next click the button to add all items to the list.   At the top of the screen, you can update the standard prices by -10 percent and then choose how to round and click this button.   This will discount the price for all the items by 10%.  To exclude certain items from the discount, find them in the list and set their price back to the full amount. Next, assign the price level to the customers either from the Price Levels screen or from Basic Lists-Customers or the Customer Center.  

To let the customers know that their 10% discount has been applied, you can go to Options/Invoice Settings/Additional and enter a message based on price level such as:  Your special discount has been applied.  When creating an individual invoice you can also enter a message to the customer.

Q: Which versions of QuickBooks synchronize with your software?  Which one do you like best?

A: DQB synchronizes with the desktop versions Pro, Premier and Enterprise including the USA and international versions as well as QuickBooks Online Editions.  Most dental labs choose the Pro version due to its low cost and do well with it.   For our custom development, we like Enterprise the best because it is SQL-based, which means it can handle large volumes of data and has the best speed and performance.  It also provides for up to 30 custom fields for special requirements.  It requires, however, an annual subscription fee and that you stay up-to-date.  

With any of the desktop versions, you always have ownership and control of your QB company file.  It can be located in-house or on a web service such as Amazon. You can access it in-house or with remote access software such as AnyDesk, Teamviewer, MyQuickCloud.

We are seeing an increase in those wanting the anytime, anywhere capabilities of the Online Editions.   These still lag behind the desktop versions in terms of capabilities but are gradually catching up.   With these your QuickBooks information is stored along with the other subscribers on Intuit servers.   Should you ever decide to cancel your subscription, Intuit gives you read-only access to your information for one year or the option to update to one of the desktop versions.

Whichever QuickBooks version you choose, your DQB or custom database continues to be owned by you and in your control.

Ongoing guidance and training

One of the most important benefits of having a service agreement is for you and your staff to be able to call, email or have a remote support session whenever guidance is needed,  a question pops up or some kind of change is at hand.    You can count on these occurring, sometimes it is a change in personnel, sometimes your computer system, sometimes new technology, new requirements or a new approach you want to try for your business.   In addition to our tech support and programming staff, our software includes a comprehensive help guide, monthly newsletters, and a website with tutorials, product descriptions, a blog and knowledge base.  

From the phone calls we receive we have come to realize that sometimes the owner/manager and those whose work involves the computer/information systems do not know about the capabilities of the system and its resources.   This can lead to awkward time-consuming methods that are not at all necessary. 

To give you an example: A staff member, having been told to setup six different prices for each item, setup six records for each item with the same name and a different price.   This meant that the selection list for an item for a standard procedure, a case or an invoice had six of each item name.   She did not seek guidance and did not realize that the best way to do this was to setup one record for each item and then Price Levels by item. 

An owner of another lab was faced with a government inspection mandate to provide complete records for his cases for two years including safety measures and resolution of issues.   He was given just two weeks to get this done.   If he had tuned into the requirements, asked for guidance and then took just seconds to enter the information on each case during those two years,  he could have avoided the stress and drudgery of tackling this in a very short time frame.

For DentalRx, three ways to guide prescription entry

The original way to provide for prescription entry in DentalRx was to setup and designate DQB standard procedures that would be available to the dental office.    These provided a way to transform the doctor's request into the steps needed to develop the case in the lab.  

The second request we had from those using DentalRx was to provide for product groups of items that would be specifically setup for prescription submittal.    This had the added advantage of working with shorter selection lists when specifying the work to be done. 

The most recent request was to setup prescription categories with specific items and choices that would correspond to the design of the website and make prescription submittal even more convenient for the dental office.   They also provided for an easy transition from the lab's preprinted prescription forms with choices by department or category to website submittals by department or category. 

All three ways continue to be successful as more and more labs are setting up the DentalRx web portal on their website as a service to their customers, to provide for easy-to-read more accurate prescriptions and for convenient transmittal of digital files and documents.

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