October 2008

Livin' Lean

As economics are changing rapidly here in the USA, most of us will be urged to start living lean.....not to stop living, buying and investing, but to be smarter and wiser in our choices. Here in the Indian Valley of Pennsylvania, we have on one side of us the Philadelphia Quaker influence and on the other the Pennsylvania Dutch. Both of these stress simplicity and placing family, friends and the community before ostentatious wealth and greed. So we are quite used to livin' lean and liking this way of life.

Although all the way across the country in Mountain View, California, Intuit with its Quicken and QuickBooks products very much fits this philosophy of simplicity, reliability and wise choices. We have been very happy to be part of their developers network these past four years and to bring these values along with lots of choices and flexibility in DentaLab for QuickBooks.

We are pleased too that so many in the dental lab industry has found DQB to be a very good fit. We have been installing new systems at the rate of 4 to 8 each month, receiving lots of good comments from our users and lots of what is known in industry as WOM....word of mouth.

As we look forward to November, the month of Thanksgiving in ours and other countries, we thank all of you who have contributed to this success for us and for dental labs worldwide. Two reminders: For those areas of the USA that observe Daylight Savings Time, this ends on Sunday, November 2. Be sure to check your system clock to make sure the time is correct. To observe Thanksgiving, our offices will be closed on Thursday and Friday, November 27 and 28. We will check both voice mail and email on these days, should any one run into an emergency.

California Here We Come!

We are planning to be both up and down in California in the months ahead. The up part of the state will in mid-November for Elaine and Charles in Mountain View and the heart of Silicon Valley.

Killian Dental Ceramics in Irvine, which is down south of Los Angeles, has graciously offered their beautiful training facilities for DQB training and workshops similar to the ones we are having here in Pennsylvania this month. We would like to hear from both DQB users and prospective users if you would be interested in coming to a Saturday session at Killian and if there are any dates in the winter months January - March that are more appealing than others. Please give us a call or send an email if you are interested.

Some of our long-time users have also suggested gathering a user group meeting with workshops for Key West, Florida, sometime in March. We have done this before with our legacy DentaLab systems with enthusiastic participation. Let us know if this possibility is of interest to you.

First Katrina, then Gus, then Ike

The southern part of the USA, particularly Louisiana and Texas, has had a series of devastating storms in recent years, resulting in a major slowdown in the local economies that has included dentistry. A number of labs in this area that had previously been very successful are now struggling to stay in business. If you have been lucky enough to be in a state where the weather is not so bad and have an overload of work, consider the possibility of subcontracting to these areas rather than looking overseas. This will be one more step toward restoring the strength of your country and the strength of the dental lab industry here.

For those using DQB, we have developed several worktickets that print in landscape mode, with the left half for inhouse use, the right half for outsourcing to another lab, with the doctor information omitted. We can create one for you too. Call us if we can be of help in any way on this issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: We would like all invoices in the month to be due at the end of the month, as it was in the older DentaLab systems with balance forward accounts receivable. Is this possible with QuickBooks?

A: Yes, here is how you can do this. In QuickBooks, in the taskbar go to Lists, then Customer and Vendor Profiles and Terms. For the Net 30 term, set the indicator to be date driven and specify the 30th of the month. This will result in the default due date being set to the 30th of the month. If you would like your Finance Charges to correspond to this, go to Edit, then Preferences, then Finance Charge. Setup for 30 (or 60) days from invoice due date.

Q: Do we have to set up and use standard procedures rather than designing each case from our item list?

A: No, you do not have to use standard procedures in case entry. But we highly recommend that you take the time to read how and why they can be so useful for management control of schedules, accuracy and completeness of cases. In addition, they can save you a lot of time during case entry. Keep in mind that these are basically templates that can be used again and again, but they can also be edited and fine-tuned as needed, that they can be setup to relate to alternatives such as standard vs rush schedules, to coordinate with case stages. to comply with the preferences of individual doctors. You can use one or multiple standard procedures to design a case. They essentially create an infrastructure that can add to your efficiency and quality standards.

Q: Can DQB be run on a MAC?

A: Yes, it can. We are hearing from an increasing number of folks who love using Apple's MAC. Most of the labs who have successfully been running DQB on their MAC computers have chosen to do this using the Parallels desktop software.

Like American Automobiles

Just as most manufacturers of American automobiles do, Intuit announces its upcoming year QuickBooks versions in the fall. This will be QuickBooks 2009. We have been told that one of its major new features will be the ability to handle multiple currencies. In the past, we have had to do extra planning and development work to handle extra currencies, but it may be that this will become a thing of the past. Our custom development schedules, getting the DQB October Release 1.16 and October 18 Training & Workshops ready have occupied much of our time, but checking out QuickBooks 2009 will be next on our agenda.

DQB Release 1.16 is Ready

In our September newsletter and now on our website (www.mainstreet-systems.com) in the Support section is the list of the enhancements to DQB in Release 1.16. Please review these. If you have an up-to-date service agreement, you can call for the current authorization codes when ready to download the release. Before doing this, check the About box from the top taskbar under Help. If your version is earlier than 1.15, call us first to review if anything needs to be handled for the updates you have missed.

Please let us know if you have any requests for the next release.

And it is never wise to let your system get too far out of date! Small steps performed with ease and confidence are better than giant steps performed under pressure, necessitated by an emergency.

Product Costing
Knowing the cost of producing a product or service is essential to any business. This knowledge can become critical if faced with competitive pricing or with opportunities for new business based on meeting price requirements. Cost analysis is an important part of maximizing profits. At times it may uncover ways to reduce costs.

• Estimate production costs
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Available now at a special introductory price.

Call 1-800-257-4535 or visit www.mainstreet-systems.com to learn more about Mainstreet Systems and our software designed specifically for dental laboratories.