March 2024

Warming up for an early spring...

Our Punxutawney Phil predicted an early spring and day by day it is happening here in Pennsylvania.  

Easter arrives early this year on March 31.  Our offices will be closed on Good Friday, March 29. 

Looking ahead to next month, our programmers are on track for an April release of DQB 1.76.   Look for the details in our April newsletter.  

For those who are required to charge tax

For both the desktop and online versions, it is in QuickBooks that you setup the components for taxation that determine whether to tax and the tax rate when QB creates the invoice.  When you request printing of the QB invoice in DQB, the program accesses QB for the invoice record and this will include the tax whenever applied.

For many years, the taxation protocol in the desktop versions of QuickBooks has been easy to master. In Edit/Preferences/Sales Tax, you indicate that you will be charging sales tax, establish each sales tax item with its name, rate, tax authority and account. You can also record due dates and whether the tax will be due when paid (cash basis) or upon invoicing (accrual basis).  If there are multiple taxes, you can create a hierarchy of liability accounts.   For taxable items, you check on the taxable indicator.  For taxable customers, you check on the taxable indicator and assign the tax item.   Then when invoicing, these components determine the tax and the liability.  

It is important to note that this protocol has been changed in the online versions of QuickBooks.  It has become more complex and may require careful review and coordination with your professional accountants.  We have been told that it is the location of the ship-to address for each invoice will be used to determine whether to tax and the tax rate. The liability will be based on the date of the invoice (accrual basis) even if you are registered as a cash based business.  

To help with this, the next release for DQB will include having both the bill-to and ship-to addresses available in a number of display screens and reports. If you have not already done so, it is best to enter both the bill-to and ship-to addresses even when they are the same.  

An easy win-win choice

The DentalRx web portal has been one of those proven winners for everyone involved. 

It is a win for your customers because it provides an easy convenient way to submit prescriptions as well as the digital files and documents for the case.  The services requested are already part of your DQB tables for standard procedures and items specific to your lab.   The prescriptions are typically easier to read, more accurate and complete.  The dental office can easily add communications specific to the case, instructions for standing preferences and/or enter pickup and other requests.   Then they can conveniently look up the status of current cases as well as review history cases.    

It is a win for the lab because it is primarily a single entry of the case details directly into your DQB case records.   The lab can specify which entries are required for each case submittal.  Typically more than 95% of the case entry process has been performed at the dental office.  Having complete, accurate, easy-to-read prescriptions reduces the possibility of having to do remakes and adjustments. If the dentist is registered with one of the digital dental providers, the lab can be alerted that a digital file has been transmitted.   Accompanying digital files and documents are automatically named and identified as part of the case record and can easily be retrieved/accessed in the same variety of ways the basic case record can.   They are also easily backed up properly for extra safeguarding.  

In addition, being able to quickly schedule and/or pre-book time for the case adds to the professional stature and premier customer service for the lab. For the standard version, there is a small fee for the work involved in the initial setup to assure adequate security measures to meet HIPAA compliance, but then the ongoing service is included in your DQB subscriptions and service agreements. 

If you would like to have us create a custom version to coordinate with your website and marketing goals, we can also work with you to get this done. 

To answer your questions....

Q:  Is there a way to track which cases included a specific item?  

A:  Yes.  In DQB/Cases/Production you can choose Special Items by Product Group.   You will need to have a product group setup for the item (or set of items). The criteria at the top of the screen can be used to limit the search if you wish to a selected date range or customer group.  Note that in DQB, this search is based on case records.   

In QuickBooks /Reports/Sales the Sales by Item reports can be used.  You can either use the Filter to limit the report to a selected item or generate the report and then drill down to see the details.  Here you can also limit the search such as a selected date range.  Note that in QuickBooks, only invoiced items will be included.  For invoices created from DQB cases, the invoice number will include the case number.  

Q:  The new addition to our staff has experience with Excel and has offered to use this here for extra analysis and projections.     Can any of the information in our database be exported to Excel?

A:  Yes.  For the DQB Case List, you can first select criteria to generate the list you want and then choose the option to export to an Excel worksheet.   Our reporting tool provides for exporting to a number of industry-standard formats including Excel.   After you have chosen your criteria and generated a report, you first click Save and then choose the format and the location where you want to direct the results.

Q:  Does DentalRx provide financial transactions such as invoices and payments?

A:  No, the standard DentalRx web portal focuses on submitting and looking up cases.  Financial management is provided by QuickBooks.  You can setup and designate the online features you want to authorize for your customers such as checking on invoices, making payments. 

If you wish to customize your DentalRx reports, there are a limited number of financial fields you can include for the cases.

Before you respond to your customer requests for extra information

 Before you take on a time-consuming task when one of your customers asks you to provide extra information from your database, we recommend that you check with us to see what might already be available and/or what can be easily customized in your software.   Here are some of the solutions we have been able to provide to meet customer requests: 

1. In the DQB Case List criteria, you can enter a variety of criteria for cases, generate the list and then export the results to an Excel spreadsheet.
2. One of the most frequent requests labs encounter is for a review of invoices over a period of time.  The Invoice Register was designed to also provide for selecting one customer and a date range. 
   
3. In DQB Reports there is a variety of criteria you can use to generate both detailed and summary reports.  You can then choose whether to print or to save to one of the industry-standard formats such as PDF or Excel to send to your customers. 
   
4. The DQB Notifications supplement can be used to generate reports to a number of your customers.  Reports on their cases received and recently shipped are automatically emailed to the customers you specify on the schedules you specify.  You can also include marketing messages and shipment tracking information.  
5. Providing a DentalRx web portal for your customers to submit prescriptions, digital files and other communications also includes reporting on the status of cases in process and history cases. 
   

Keep in mind that you can request customization of your reports in DQB, the Notifications supplement and DentalRx.   Typically report customizations involve just a small amount of work.   The tools provided by Intuit within QuickBooks for report selections and customization are also versatile and worth learning.  

Understanding the DQB weblog and when to  click the button Send to Mainstreet

In our programs there are measures to detect predictable errors such as having alphabetic letters in a field requiring numbers.  These are reported to you directly and are not sent to the weblog.  For other errors and those coming from Windows, QuickBooks, SQL Database Management or the DQB-QB Connector, a detailed technical error message is generated that typically includes a Send to Mainstreet button near the bottom.   When you click this, the details are sent to our weblog.  

It is important to understand:  

• You do not need to send to the weblog if you can easily resolve the error by yourself.  
• The purpose of the weblog is to provide the technical details for what was happening when the error occurred to help us pinpoint and resolve the issue that caused the error.
  
• We do not monitor this weblog throughout the day.  
• When you encounter an error that you cannot resolve on your own, it is best to click Send to Mainstreet and then call or email for technical support.
  
• We do monitor the support email log throughout the day.    
  
• If you call and we are not able to respond immediately, our Verizon Digital Voice system will alert us if you have left a voice message and need assistance.   
• These support resources are covered by your subscription or service agreement. 

If you wish to be removed, reply to this email with the subject "unsubscribe".