Tip of the Month for: August 2012

Available "Work Centers" in Answers

Although we have strived to get more and more users interested in using the 3 work center type programs that have been added to Answers over the past few years, we feel it is still worth summarizing and reminding everyone of what is available in these neat programs.  The purpose of these programs is to bring everything that someone doing these jobs needs into one centralized area.  In some cases the information that is provided is also available in other areas, but in other cases these programs provide some new and unique information and displays not available elsewhere in the system.

Credit Management Work Center

• Hot List Customers for high-lighting past due customers and customers over their credit limit.  It also can act as a "call list" and provides way of tracking what actions were taken and any follow-up actions needed.  This tab can be customized to populate automatically based on criteria you specify.
• Order Approval tab for approving orders for customers on medium credit security.
• Customer Aging tab provides a summary customer aging in a easy format to view and work from.
• Customer Reminders tab for a to-do-list for customers.
• Credit References tab which was a totally new feature for tracking credit reference requests for customers.
• Tax Exempt Certificates tab for managing customers that are tax-exempt, their tax exemption numbers, and any related documentation.
• More detailed information can be obtained on the features provided by this program, configuring it, and using it in the 2011 Release Notice.

Salesman Work Center

• Contact Management tab for making a to-do-list and follow-up list for dealing with customers.
• Quote Analysis tab for gauging performance of quotes issued to customers and which ones are being accepted and which ones you fail to get an order on.
• Open Quotes tab for reviewing quotes given to customers.
• Open Orders tab for reviewing customer sales orders.
• Back Orders tab for reviewing customer back orders.
• Invoice History tab for reviewing invoices for completed sales orders.
• Customer Ranking tab for a summarized listing of customers in order of sales.
• Sales Analysis tab for reviewing sales and profit information at the monthly, departmental, and product code levels.
• Pending Commissions tab for reviewing commissions due to the salesperson pending payment of the invoice.
• The Salesmen Work Center is highly customizable both at the system and user level.  For more information on this program that has been developed over the past several years, please refer to the on-line help on it.

Purchasing Management Work Center

• Suggested P/O Review tab for reviewing vendors and vendor's items that are in need of replenishment.
• P/O Expediting tab for proactively following up on purchase orders that should be arriving before you are faced with customer calls for failed or missed delivery promises.  This is another example of a tab like the Hot List tab in the Credit Management Work Center that can be configured to populate automatically based on your preferences.
• P/O Acknowledgment Request Logs for tracking what you have sent out and which ones have had replies and which ones have not which may require additional follow-up.
• Vendor RFQ Logs for tracking Requests for Quotes sent to vendors and which ones have had replies and which ones have not and may need additional follow-up.
• Buyer Task Reminders for a centralized to-do-list for each buyer.
• More detailed information can be obtained on the features provided by this program, configuring it, and using it in the 2011 Release Notice.

The next release of Answers will add a new 4th "work center" style program called an Executive Information Center.  More information on this program will be forth coming in the next few months.