May 2021

In the month of May

Please put it on your calendars that our offices will be closed on Monday, May 31 to celebrate the USA Memorial Day. 

We have been pleased to hear from those who downloaded the April DQB 1.66 release that they like the new menu and found it easy to adapt to it. 

If you have tended to use the weekly and master schedule graphic calendars whenever you want to review your workloads or edit a case, we hope you will check out the new Daily Schedule graphic calendar.  The newer pane technology uses visual techniques and colors to quickly give you both the overview and details.  It also adds greater versatility by adding searches by technician and by case status in addition to the traditional search by work center.

For those synchronizing with the QuickBooks Online Editions  (QBOE) 

For those wanting to be confident their information will always be available to them, Intuit provides better possibilities than most software-as-a-service providers.  Even if you cancel your QBOE subscription, your records will be available for an additional year.  There is also a software service called Rewind (rewind.com) that provides for backing up your QBOE records.  

In addition, from your synchronizations to DQB your customers, employees and items are stored in your DQB database.  If you have elected to synchronize vendors, these are also available. With DQB you have a choice of the standard backup built into the menu or the Advanced Backup Protocol for automatic backups based on your selected schedules, encryption levels, locations and media. 

If you elect to move from QBOE to one of the desktop versions of QuickBooks such as Pro, Premier or Enterprise, your information can be transferred.

Moving up from DQB starter to standard

We have found that the #1 reason labs have had for moving up from the starter version of DQB to the standard has been to add the capability of receiving and storing digital files and documents with the case record.  The #2 purpose has been to add more concurrent users.   We recommend that you plan to do this in several steps:  

• First upgrade your license to the standard version.  Let us help you learn its capabilities.  If needed, add more concurrent users.
  
• Second, add the DQB Digital Images supplement.  With this, you can choose to receive digital files from the dental offices, scan documents in the lab such as prescriptions and completed work tickets and/or use a camera to capture images and have them become part of the case record.  
• Third, implement the DentalRx web portal for your customers to submit prescriptions and transmit digital files.  This can be accomplished in one of 3 ways 1) customizing and incorporating it into your own website 2) developing a new standard website with DentalRx included 3) having a direct link that can be placed on the computer desktops of your customers.    This can help to assure accurate and complete prescriptions and reduce your costs involved with case entry, misunderstandings and remakes.
  

For planning your budgets, here are the standard one-time fees involved for those synchronizing with the desktop versions of QuickBooks:  

• Upgrade from starter to standard $200
• To add more concurrent users  $300 each
  
• DQB Digital Images supplement $600 
  
• DentalRx Custom $1600  OR  New 4-Page Site with DentalRx $480 OR DentalRx Direct Security Setup $260 
  

The DentalRx fees cover custom work and internet security setups.  The ongoing DentalRx service is included in your support agreement. 

To answer your questions....

Q: What is required to send emails from DQB? 

A:  You need to have an email service and then setup the technical details in DQB/Email Settings.   We can provide assistance with this.   You can choose to have the email associated with a customer or with a case.   You will also need to have a valid email address in the customer's QuickBooks record.  

Another level of email capability is through the DQB Notifications supplement that can be added to the DQB standard version.  This provides for automatically sending reports via email to your customers on their cases received and recently shipped.  You can choose the frequency and schedule for sending and which customers are to receive their reports.

Another feature of the Notifications supplement provides for automatically sending internal lab reports to selected personnel on the schedule you choose.  Already adapted for formats compatible with email protocols are a number of reports such as work in progress. 

These reports can be viewed on any device including smartphones and do not require access to a computer.  You can also request customization of your notification reports.

Q: Can you transfer any of the information from our current system to DentaLab for QuickBooks? 

A: Yes for most other software systems, particularly if you can export your information to an industry-standard format such as Excel, CSV or SQL If your software is using a non-standard data format, we would need to explore whether there are any technical specifications available.   The tables most critical for transfer are your customers, items (products and services) with pricing, and your open accounts receivable balances.  These are first transferred to QuickBooks and then synchronized into DQB.  In addition to basic demographic fields, we will review the critical QuickBooks fields such as taxation, chart of accounts. naming customers and items for easy selection.

Next we check for the possibility of transferring customer preferences, special price levels, case invoices.   From the success we have had with transferring for several systems, we have developed a protocol that can be adapted to capture as many of the fields needed for QuickBooks and DQB tables as possible.

Before setting a QuickBooks record to Inactive

One of the very wise standards Intuit established in its QuickBooks products was to use the Active/Inactive indicator rather than simply a Delete.   Once a customer or item has been used in a QB transaction, you can no longer delete it.  If you no longer wish to have it available for new transactions, you set it to Inactive.   An inactive record continues to be available for history lookups but can no longer be selected for a new transaction.   

In our support calls we have had to address the timing for when a QB record should be set to Inactive.   If a customer or item has been Active when a case has been entered but then gets set to Inactive before the case has been completed and invoiced, a QB error will be issued when you try to transfer the invoice to QB and the invoice will not be created.  

Before setting a QB customer or item to inactive, it is best to check on whether there is an open DQB case that includes them.   Here is an easy way to do this: 

• In Basic Lists/Customer Groups, set up a group for Inactive Customers.  Include in this group the customer(s) you want to check.   Then go to Cases/Special Items by Customer Group.   Select the Inactive Customers Group and an appropriate date range to check for case activity for the customer.
• In Basic Lists/Product Groups, set up a group for Inactive Items.  Include in this group the item(s) you want to check.   Then go to Cases/Special Items by Product Group.   Select the Inactive Items group and an appropriate date range to check for cases that include the item.  
• Continue to keep the Inactive Customers and Inactive Items groups, just use the checkmarks to indicate the records you want to check each time.
• Note that if you wish, you can change an Inactive back to Active in QB and then re-synchronize to let DQB know.
  

For more in-depth understanding, you can request white papers

One of the important services we provide is education through our library of white papers.   These are in-depth detailed reports on specific topics.   Since our early IBM days we have been writing these never questioning why they were called white papers.   With a little research we found that they date back to the late 19th century and the British Parliament.  Blue papers were the formal official reports, green were the preliminary ones for discussion, and white paper were to educate the reader and help them to understand.  The white papers we develop come from a variety of sources and purposes. 

Over the years we have been asked to contribute educational articles to the various dental and dental laboratory journals.  After publication, these also become part of our library of white papers.  Other times, we see the need to develop and distribute more guidance on topics involving our software, computer technology, dental technology and compliance requirements.  These are used in conjunction with the support and training we provide via emails, in-person and remote sessions, telephone calls and webinars.  Here are some of the most recent additions:  

• CAD/CAM Workflow with DentalRX and DQB  
• Preserving Privacy 
• What are the ideal combinations for your dental lab software? 

And here are some of the most requested topics over the years:  

• Advanced Backup Protocol  
• Barcoding and Barcode Scanners 
• Case Scheduling
• Custom Fields
• DQB How it works
• DQBT Tablet Workflow App  
• DentalRx and Dental Offices
  
• DentalRx and Sending Digital Scans
  
• Discounting and Remakes
  
• Email Notifications  
• Group Dental Practices 
• Local Driver App 
• Marking case items complete  
  

If you have a topic in mind that is not listed above, just ask....we may already have it in our library.

Other resources to gain knowledge include:

• Help/User Guide embedded into DQB available from the menu
  
• Knowledge Base, Blog, DQB Features and Product sections of our website:  www.mainstreetsystems.net 
• Our personal interactive webinars
• Monthly newsletters

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