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Fitting the Pieces Together: A Guide to Office Operations for the Liquid Waste, Portable Toilet & Septic Pumping Industries |
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Most people view record keeping as a necessary evil. It takes time, money and takes your attention away from generating sales. In addition, it can be viewed as a violation of your privacy, in that you have to put down all your earnings so someone else, outside of the immediate family, can see it. Thus the first guideline is:
Do not automate if you feel that is a violation of your privacy
Many owner/operators like to work by themselves and do not like to deal with the effort, stress and problems associated with a multiple people or truck operation. There is nothing wrong with this choice, you can earn a decent living and live a good life. Thus the second guideline is:
Do not automate if you want to stay a owner/operator business
On the other hand, if you are suffering from any of the following symptoms
You’re spending nights and weekends doing paper work
You do not know who or how much you are owed by your customers
You never have time for vacations
You have no way of contacting your customers to build repeat service volume
You do not know which services generate what percentage of your company’s revenue
You do not know how much revenue each truck and/or driver generates
You do not know which counties generate what percentage of your company’s revenue
You do not know how your business has changed since last year in terms of dollars and services
You keep saying, "There’s got to be a better way"
then your company is a candidate for automation. Remember, records automation is not easy, it will require you to :
Consider changing your current business practices
Commit time
Learn new skills
Set different goals for your business
.
If you are open to these commitments, then records automation should be considered for your business.
When you have made the decision to automate records management, it takes an additional investment of time to select the hardware and software to use. The features included in the system and the amount of time and effort required to learn to use it will have a direct impact on whether the costs of the system will be justified. If the system doesn’t provide the tools you need to run the business, you will not be able to use it effectively. On the other hand, if the system is easy to learn and provides you with the tools you could use now and additional features you may be able to use later, you will be rewarded with more free time and greater control of the business.
What, then, are features you should look for in a records automation package for a business? A shopping list of features should include:
These are the things that make the computer system easy to learn and use. Features to look for are:
Windows-based
On-line help
Ability to rapidly switch between activities
Fast, responsive operations
Ability to support unlimited number of customers
Single and multi-user capabilities
High speed entry for posting receivables
This is what allows you to access or create customer records easily. These features are helpful:
Rapid customer location by:
Name
Site address
Phone number
Check locator
Automatic lookup of coded fields
Automatic defaults when entering customer information to reduce typing
This set of features provides the information to manage the daily work in support of the business:
Production of paper to control the flow of work, i.e., work invoices for septic and tickets for portable toilets.
Automatic generation of work schedules for customers with regular interval service, e.g.,
Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Yearly
Routing of daily work for multiple truck/driver operations
Reporting of daily driver activity to track production efficiency
These capabilities help you to calculate, record and collect money due for customer services. Look for these features:
Multiple ways of charging customers
Statements
Late charge option for past due moneys
Message area on invoices and statements
Customer ledger
Sales tax by county
Customizable rate tables so that you can easily make changes to how and what you charge your customer for., i.e., for septic a rate tables with two steps table, i.e., $100 for first 1000 gallons and $75 for next 1000 gallons
Unlimited number of entries in rate table
Ability to override charge item description
These reports help you to understand where your money is coming from and how effective your operations are.
All reports should be for selected date range
All reports have options to print details and recaps or totals by:
Account type
Customer status
County
City
State
Receivables
Sales
Age report
Production tracking by:
Driver
Truck
Type service
Zip code
Service city
County
Activity tracking for high cost areas, i.e, Septage management for a septic business
Driver and/or truck activity
These features help you to minimize the work required to retain customers using mailings.
Label printing
Form letters
Reminder notices
Each of the features described above will help to provide you with the greatest return for your investment of time and money. The computer is a tool which can be used to empower you to expand your control and help you to get work done with less time and effort. As with any tool, it is important to choose wisely.