May 2025

In the month of May

To honor the USA Memorial Day holiday, our offices will be closed on Monday May 26.  Also this month for those with QuickBooks desktop subscriptions, updates will be handled more efficiently in these ways: 

• There will no longer be major releases identified by year but updates will be made available in ongoing releases. 
• Instead, you will receive a notice upon loading the program to install the latest update. 
• Some updates will be designed to take place seamlessly in the background as you work and some will be designed to be speedy and efficient so that you can quickly continue your work.
• One of the goals will be to keep you up to date, particularly for compliance and security measures. 
  
• Another goal will be to provide more rapid technical support without having to research through prior histories for issues already addressed and resolved.  
  

The latest release focuses on new search capabilities and security measures:  

• New options for searching in reports   
• New options for searching in lists  
• Zoom functionality in reports  
• Option to show grid lines in your reports  
• Security enhancements for the industry leading AES 256-bit security encryption measures 
  

The QuickBooks Shipping Manager for desktop versions will also have a major update this month.   We are awaiting more details on this.

For those considering QuickBooks Online, Intuit has announced a Memorial Day sale with 90% off for the first 3 months, available from their website.

Once again...Spring Specials!

We have had requests to offer once again the same Spring Specials we offered in prior years.  From now until spring officially ends here in the USA on June 21, 2025:  

The DQB Images/Digital Files supplement that typically licenses for $500 is reduced to $400.  This provides for capturing and accessing digital images and files associated with your lab cases, having them readily available in case entry/edit and on the DQBT tablet workflow app, transferred via email or the DentalRx web portal, choice of in-house scanning or camera, inclusion in your backup protocols.

The DQB Notification supplement that typically licenses for $500 is reduced to $400.  This provides for creating automatic schedules to send via email notifications on cases received and recently shipped. You can also include marketing messages and shipment tracking information. 

These specials are available for both the desktop and online versions of DQB.

To help your staff adjust to using QuickBooks Online (QBO)

We have found from our support program that those who begin with one of the online versions of QuickBooks learn more easily than those who have been used to using one of the desktop versions and now have to adjust to working with the online.   Although much of the core principles of both are the same, the navigation and terminology are different.  Here are some of our recommendations and resources to help with these adjustments or if you and your staff want to simply have a look: 

• Intuit provides a free 30 day trial for QuickBooks Online, available from their website.  
• Intuit also provides a Sandbox where users can explore and practice with sample data, not disturbing your production system.  
• With your Intuit ID, you can login to Intuit's QBO in the Know, a series of webinars on how to learn and use its capabilities.  
• For both the basics and more advanced topics, you can tune into Hector Garcia's YouTube channel.  
• For preparing for the transition from the DQB desktop version, you can request a copy of our white paper "DQB Transitions from QB Desktop to Online" and call to discuss your questions and plans. 
  
• For your dental lab case management, we recommend that you begin by focusing on the invoicing, payment and sales features in QBO.  The basic tables for these will be the customers and items, along with the applicable settings.  If required for your location, also review and setup for taxation.   
  

To answer your questions....

Q: We are thinking about hiring a sales person and wanted to know if there is a sales module in DentaLab or QuickBooks?

A: The Customer Center in DQB was designed to provide support for business development.  In QuickBooks, when setting up the customer record, we recommend that you distinguish prospects from existing customers.  For this, we recommend that you use the Account or Rep field, perhaps by having a P at the start of the field.   In DQB, you can also use one or more of the customer Custom Fields for additional sales fields. These measures can provide for quick access in both the DQB Customer List and the Customer Center.  

When in the DQB Customer Center, the two auxiliary records best for tracking sales activity and reminders are the Activity Logs, which include a topic, notes, entry/edit date and alert date and the Alerts, which include the alert message, entry and expiration datae.   For existing customers, there are a number of reports to provide for review and analysis of activity as well as opportunities to develop more sales.  

For searching and contacting both prospects and customers, the contact name, telephone, email and address fields can be used.  As business develops, interests can be recorded such as doctor preferences at three levels, special price levels and standard procedures, use of the DentalRx and Lab Lookup web portals, email notifications and communications on cases received and recently shipped. 

Q:  Do we need to mark cases as Finished before we invoice them?

A:  No, this is not a requirement.  You can, however, in your DQB Options/Invoice Settings indicate that when invoicing a case you want to be able to set the case status and/or mark the items as completed.   It is important to understand the purpose of each status and its date: 

Case Status: These track the workflow of the case.  The five standard choices are:

1. Pre-Booked for when a case is entered before it arrives at the lab. 
2. Open/In Lab for when the case is being developed.  
3. Out for Try-In for when a case is sent back to the doctor for review before being returned to the lab.  
4. On Hold for when the case is temporarily halted; this can be for a variety of reasons.  
5. Finished for when the case is considered fiinished and to be returned to the doctor.

Shipped:   This records the date that the case was shipped.   It is typically accompanied by the service such as FedEx, UPS and a tracking number or code.  

Invoiced:   This is the date that the latest invoice for the case was created in QuickBooks.

Q:  Is there a way we can send an email when a case is shipped to give the tracking information?

A: The DQB Notifications supplement includes the option to include the tracking code along with a convenient link to the website tracking component for the service.   This supplement provides for setting up schedules, assigning to customers and sending reports on cases received and cases recently shipped. You can also include marketing messages. 

The two web portals DentalRx and Lab Lookup also provide for including the shipment date, tracking code and a link to the website tracking feature for the service.

For a specific case, from the Email tab in Case Entry/Edit you can also send an email but currently there is not an option to automatically include the shipment information. 

Note that the QB Shipping Manager adds the tracking number to the QB invoice and you can indicate in DQB invoice settings that you want this transferred to the DQB case record.

A preview of DQB 1.78

DQB 1.78  is focused on a major update to its SQL database performance.  This provides for complete compatibility with 64-bit technology and a dramatic increase in speed particularly for large volumes.

This release was originally planned for release in April but needed further beta-testing in a live production environment with a volume much larger than that in our test environment.  We think you will be pleased with the enhanced speed and performance when searching the case list, when performing batch processes and generating reports that cover a wide range of data.

Fine tuning how you design cases and track their workflow

You have within DQB a number of very versatile and powerful tools to design your cases and create an efficient workflow. 

Items:  Your items are the basic components to define your products and services.  Their records begin in QuickBooks and are enhanced for case production in DQB.   They can include billable products and services as well as non-billable such as technician work steps and design elements.  You can include both digital and analog processes as well as both in-house and outsourced steps. 

Work Centers: These define  schedule capacities, daily limits and units scheduled and completed.   In many labs they are called departments and often are also associated with physical space within the lab.  They can also represent points where work is performed outside the lab. 

Standard Procedures:  These provide the best way to define the work centers, items and standard days for completion for each step to assure accuracy and control.  To meet special requests and schedules, however, they can be modified for a specific case whenever needed.  

Case Entry/Edit:  Here you can use both items and standard procedures to design your case and its workflow.   You can also modify by adding and deleting, viewing already existing workloads and completions, stopping schedules and restarting, whenever fine-tuning and adjustments are needed. 

Marking Completions:  To track and to measure your results, you can record the date, time, technician for each item completed in a variety of ways.  The DQBT tablet workflow app provides the most precise method. The most frequently used method is to have a supervisor or quality control person scan the item barcode on the work ticket upon completion.   You can also update completions in Case Entry/Edit or when invoicing.  

Case Reports:  DQB provides a large variety of reports related to your cases for analysis and in-depth details to help you pinpoint where improvement and adjustments are needed.   These cover both the core workflow and the auxiliary actions such as accessing digital files, outsourcing and shipments. 

We have found that a close collaboration between those with first-hand experience in the lab and your computer team works well and is a very good practice both initially and with periodic reviews and adjustments.

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