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December 2010

DentaLab NewsDecember 2010
from Mainstreet Systems & Software

FAQ  DentaLab News

 

Busy Busy Holidays!

December becomes one of the busiest months of the year as a multitude of holidays and holiday events collide with business end-of-year reporting requirements and planning for the year ahead. 

With the newer approaches such as the synchronization of QuickBooks and DentaLab for QuickBooks, the end-of-year work has been lessened greatly.   If you have been diligent about entering your information on a daily basis, the end-of-year reports can be generated lickety-split with just a few clicks.   The pressure has also been lessened because you do not have to get it all done by the last day of the calendar year, as you can simply choose the appropriate date ranges for reporting at any time.

Our offer this past year to begin annual reviews of your computer systems was a big success for many labs.  By scheduling a small amount of dedicated time to each participating lab, we were able to provide guidance on how to improve their computer performance and security in many ways.   We will be offering this again for 2011 beginning in January and hope you will each allocate a small amount of your time to this important task.   Call soon to schedule...typically each review takes about 2 hours and you can apply your monthly no-charge hour toward this if not otherwise used.  

Our offices here in Pennsylvania will be closed December 24 -27 and December 31. We wish you all a joyous season and good times in the year ahead.

Topics on our Mind: Snow and Ice

As we have grown internationally, we are aware that snow and ice are not topics a number of you need to think about.  But here in Pennsylvania for the next few months, we need to plan for the possibility that heavy snow and/or ice may prevent us from driving to the office.   When this occurs, we check email and voicemail from our home computers to see if anyone needs support.   If you send us a message, be sure to let us know your full name and lab name and how to respond to you.  

 

    Easy, versatile software for the modern dental laboratory.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q:  What are the best ways to reschedule a case?

A:  There are several ways to reschedule and/or edit a case.  You can determine which one you like the best:

1) From the Case List, select a case, then simply edit and save.   If you need to reschedule an entire case, you can edit the first case item, then right-click for the rolldown feature to reschedule the rest.

2) From Master Schedule,  you can select a work center and the monthly calendar, then choose a date and view the cases scheduled for that date.  If you wish to reschedule, simply select a case and edit as above.

3) From the Extra Time Cases option, you can enter a number of days to find all the cases with at least that number of extra days from scheduled completion to the doctor's request date.   Then from the grid, you can select a case and edit as above.  There is also a printed report available that can be used to help choose which cases to reschedule. 

Q:  Is it possible to go paperless with DQB?

A:  You can, if you have sufficient computer capability for all your staff so that work tickets and reports can be viewed from a station rather than on paper.  We see a greater trend toward reducing paper in smaller labs where the number of available  stations is a close match to the number of staff members.   It is up to you and your comfort level.   Some prefer viewing and working on a computer station, some work better with paper, some like to mark up documents with pen or pencil.  For many it is a mixture.   For your customers and vendors as well, it is up to you as to whether to send documents such as invoices,  statements and purchase orders via paper or email.

      With the same look and feel of QuickBooks.

It's Unanimous

From everyone who has given us feedback on the new Home Page design, the vote has been unanimous..it is very well liked, options have been easier to find, and from our prospective, there is very nicely still room for expansion.

Over the past five years from a variety of sources, DentaLab for QuickBooks has continued to grow and be responsive to your needs, to changing technology, to new compliance regulations.  Software must by its very nature be dynamic so that it can provide information and organization in a cost-effective accurate way. 

On behalf of all of our user group, we thank all of those in the dental lab community who have contributed their suggestions and ideas and those who have taken the time to beta-test in the lab environment.

Still the #1 Supplement

Image Scanning remains the most popular supplement to DentaLab for QuickBooks.  For most labs, the effort and money to implement image scanning pays for itself in a very short amount of time.   The ability to store, access and view graphic images from the Case Entry screen saves countless hours of filing and finding paper documents, allows you to be more responsive to requests from customers, helps to assure accuracy in completing work.

This past year, there were two major enhancements to Image Scanning.  One was implementation of the newer WIA (Windows Image Acquisition) standard that now comes with many scanners in addition to the traditional TWAIN method of formatting and storing.  This provides for both storing most images received from your doctors as well as scanning prescriptions, completed work tickets, charts and diagrams in-house.  

The second addition was provision for storing other documents that do not use the WIA or TWAIN standards.  This option is available in a new tab labeled Documents.  You can specify the method of accessing these documents from the standard list of common methods provided by Windows such as text and Word documents or add any additional methods you encounter to the list.

The updates come as part of the standard release available from our website to those who are licensed for Image Scanning and covered by a service agreement.   To help those who are not yet licensed for this supplement, we are offering a 20% discount from now to the end of 2010.   Call if you would like to take advantage of this offer.

Staying Up-to-Date:  Very Important

We are often asked if it is important to download the updates to other components of your computer system, such as  Windows and QuickBooks.  The answer is yes, you should take the time to perform your updates if they are coming from a trusted source such as Microsoft or Intuit.   Many times, these updates are directed toward providing more security for your system and for resolving compatibility issues between various software systems, as well as new features. 

For DentaLab for QuickBooks, most of the updates involve new features and fine-tuning the system, but sometimes we also have to take care of security and compatibility issues with surrounding software systems.  You can take a look at the About box in the Help section of DQB to determine your release level.   The latest is 1.24 and this is where you should be.   If you have an up-to-date service agreement, you can call to get the authorization codes to download from the Support section of our website www.mainstreet-systems.com.

This is a reminder too for those who have not been covered by a support agreement that there are just two weeks left in our once-a-year open period to acquire these updates.   This period ends on December 22, 2010.  The fee to be updated will depend on how far behind you are and your level of licensing. 

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

     

Customization is available for all products.

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

"I have never found a glitch in all the years I?ve had it and really love this software."

Rickey Kornegay
Twin Rivers, North Carolina


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