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July 2011

DentaLab NewsJuly 2011
from Mainstreet Systems & Software

FAQ  DentaLab News

 

The Summer Slowdown

We know that it is winter for those of you in the southern hemisphere but for most of our customers, this is the summer slowdown when many lab personnel as well as the dentists are taking vacations. 

We always have a to-do list for the DentaLab systems as well as our internal systems, so we like having a summer slowdown to get some extra background work done.  This is also a good time for many of you who want to do more with your computer systems, whether it be learning more, implementing certain features, updating and/or upgrading.  Tackling these tasks now can mean time savings, greater efficiency, and better service to your customers when you once again face a hectic schedule getting your lab work completed.

Ready for you:  One of our primary goals for July is to have the quarterly release tested and ready for you.   DQB Release 1.27 is now posted on our website, along with the list of the new features and enhancements.   If you have an up-to-date service agreement, please call just before the you are ready to download so that we can give you the current authorization codes. 

Projects Underway:  Here are some of the projects on our summer list.   There is still time for you to voice your opinion and make suggestions:

1) Customer Center - The earlier DentaLab systems were the first in the dental lab industry to introduce customer relationship management, now popularly known as CRM.  In DentaLab for QuickBooks, we have most of the same features--such as basic information, notes, activity logs, alerts, profiles, requests--but they have added as required in various areas throughout the system.  Our plans are to add even more features and to bring together all the information related to a customer in one easy-to-use place so that customer reviews, telephone calls and other communications will flow easily and be complete.  Look below for further details.

2) Image Scanning Tutorial - The new tutorials for the basic features that are on our website have been a success and we will now move on to creating more tutorials to cover the supplements.  The first will be for Image Scanning, which is the most popular of all the supplements.

3) Intuit Anywhere - We will be exploring ways to introduce this new service from Intuit into your systems to provide for greater access through a variety of mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones.  At this time, these devices are typically viewed as supplements, but not replacements for desktop systems.  They are particularly useful for personal communications and mobile personnel.  Let us know if you have put any of these in action for your lab.

4) IBIZ Connector Replacement - Since the inception of DentaLab for QuickBooks, we have used the connector routines developed by another company to transfer information to and from QuickBooks.   To provide for greater speed and efficiency as well as more QuickBooks fields, we have developed our own routines to replace the IBIZ connectors.  This is an enhancement that will be most appreciated by the labs whose customer and item lists have grown significantly. 

5) Requests from DQB Users - We always have a list of requests from those using DQB for making the system even more useful.   Those that are applicable to many labs are funded in whole or in part by license and service agreement fees; those that are applicable or unique to just one or a few must be funded by the one lab or shared by a few.

 

  Easy, versatile software for the modern dental laboratory.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q:  Do any of the other dental labs use QuickBooks classes?

A:  Yes, we have heard from a number of labs that they are doing this.  Whenever you want to classify or categorize your business by specific departments, locations or some other way and then generate financial reports specific to these categories, it is a good idea to setup and work with classes in QuickBooks.  In DQB, we provide product groups for classifying items and customer groups for classifying customers to provide analysis for your case management. 

Q:  We work with a group of dental labs that requires several special reports in order to do business with them.   Can we accomplish this in QuickBooks or DQB?

A:  Yes, we are familiar with the information available in both systems and can guide you toward creating special reports whenever the basic data is available for these.  In QuickBooks, you can work with the Reports Center to modify, filter, change headers,footers, fonts and colors. to create a special report, then memorize it for future use.   If the information is in DQB, we can work with you to create a custom report to meet the group's requirements.    If the information is available in QuickBooks but the criteria for the report does not nearly match anything in the Report Center, we can in most instances access the information and create a new report through DQB.  

      With the same look and feel of QuickBooks.

The Customer Center

In our legacy DentaLab systems, we brought together on one screen options to access a variety of information related to a customer so that it was very easy to flow from one option to another if the conversation (or other communication) hopped from one topic to another.   This was a forerunner to what has now become known as a CRM--customer relationship management--system.  

As DentaLab for QuickBooks developed from a small application to become a front-runner for dental laboratories all over the world, its capabilities also grew, but the various customer-related options were added as requested throughout the system.  When we redesigned the Home Page recently, we established a Customer Center and included a link to each of the existing customer topics.    The next step in this process will be to redesign the flow to make this a very smooth easy-to-navigate process. 

You will first choose a customer or select criteria to find customers and then choose the one you want to work with.   You can branch out in whatever direction you choose.   Included in the choices will be:

  • Basic information such as name, address(es), telephone number(s), contact(s), office schedule, purchase order number/expiration, license, Social Security/government ID
  • Alerts with dates, memos
  • Preferences by work center, by item
  • Activity Logs with dates, topics, memos for marketing/promotion, issues, resolutions, and other communications
  • Dates such as first active, last active, latest case
  • Case List by status (all, open/in lab, out-for-tryin, on hold, invoiced), date range with option to view/edit case details, communications, histories, images, documents
  • Production analysis by schedule dates, items showing work in progress, invoiced, remakes, adjustments
  • Sales analysis by invoice dates, items, showing units and revenue and remake/lost revenue
  • Pickup requests
  • Email notification schedule, if applicable

New date-centric graphic displays will show by year, month and day:

  • Alerts calendar with option to view/edit details
  • Activity Logs calender with option to view/edit details

Each one of our designers and programmers has been asked to contribute their ideas to this project and we invite you to join in with yours.

Wasted Time, Wasted Space

In the calls we receive, we many times hear about various ways the labs have devised to tackle everyday issues, often trying to make do with whatever resources they have.  Some involve handwriting, cutting and pasting, entering new customers in several different software systems, manual calculations, searching for papers, filing and refiling, looking for cases....the list goes on and on. 

In business, wasting time and wasting space typically translates into wasting money.  Although the work in front of you can grab most of your time, it is important to stop from time to time and think about alternatives.   Whenever possible, calculate how much your current methods are costing and explore the possibility of introducing new methods that can save time, space and money as well as stress. 

Software has become one of the most cost-efficient ways to provide these savings.   The cost and effort quickly translate into much larger savings in every way.  Some of the many ways the synchronization of QuickBooks and DentaLab for QuickBooks provides these are:

  • Single entry of case information
  • No need for manual reconciliations, calculations
  • Rapid response to customer requests and inquiries
  • Easy location of cases in a variety of ways
  • Convenience of generating case labels, materials disclosure, invoices
  • Tracking multi-stage production and billing
  • Having doctors' preferences and requests readily available
  • Scanning images of prescriptions and other case documents rather than filing, refiling paper
  • Information for analysis from a variety of viewpoints
  • Reducing conflicts and stress involved in getting the work completed as requested

Many of the suggestions that come our way are geared toward making things easier for the lab.   We too are always on the lookout for ways that software can help you.  It is a dynamic process that never ends.

Worth Repeating...

These are our summer specials.  They will be valid through August 31, 2011:

DentalRx:  We are making a special offer to encourage more of you to explore the many benefits of implementing DentalRx for online prescription entry, case lookups and other communications with your dental offices.   For those who license 3 or more DQB users plus one or more DQB supplements and enter into a service agreement, we are offering a DentalRx license at no additional charge (this is a $1600 value!).

If you are already licensed for DQB and further license users and/or supplements valued at $1600 or more and are covered by or execute a new service agreement, this same offer will be extended to you. 

Image Scanning Supplement: Following her husband's serious auto accident, Elaine spent much time in hospitals, rehabilitation centers and radiology centers and took note how these professional healthcare centers are handling electronic health records (EHR).   One very important component of these is the immediate scanning of every document-- authorization, diagnosis, prescription, treatment, test result--into the patient's health records.  She asked if they kept the paper for any length of time and they said no, the paper is put into secured HIPPA bins and then every week a mobile unit comes and shreds it. To encourage more of you to implement image scanning, we are offering a license to the DQB Image Scanning Supplement for a reduced fee of $320, a savings of $80.

For those who have been using the DQB Starter version, we offer a combined upgrade to the Standard version plus the Image Scanning license for a fee of $420, a savings of $180.

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Customization is available for all products.

Contact us at 1-800-257-4535 or www.mainstreet-systems.com.

"Elaine wrote the book on Dental Lab Software and her company Mainstreet Systems and Software continually raises the bar."

Shane Purnell
Phoenix Business Systems
MO


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