Support :: Newsletters
November 2014
DentaLab News | November 2014
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Reminders for November
As we write this newsletter, we are seeing our first snow here in Pennsylvania about one month earlier than ususal. We have our computers setup to service you from our homes should snow and ice make it very dangerous to travel to our offices. As long as we have electricity, we can check for email and phone messages and log in to our computers (or yours if needed). If you send a message, be sure to include who you are, why you have been in touch, and details on how to reach you. For the USA Thanksgiving holiday, our offices will be closed on Thursday November 27 and Friday November 28. For those in other countries, we will check voicemail and email to see if there are any urgent messages. We also need to remind you to soon setup your holiday schedules in DentaLab for the upcoming year, as these can vary from year to year and country to country. It has become common practice for a number of labs to implement new systems or new features at the start of the new calendar year. To avoid a stressful jam at the end of this year during the holiday season, we will give you an incentive of a 20% discount for additional users or supplements if you license this month in November, rather than waiting until December. | Projects underway
The release of DQB 1.40 was smooth and our once-a-year open period for those who needed to catch up is now over. Focusing on the January release of DQB 1.41, here are the projects we have underway: - New Look for the Customer Center: We have been wanting to find the time to make this even more flexible for those involved in business development and customer relationships. The focus will still be to provide a wide variety of information all together for each customer, but now it will be easier to move back and forth between customers if you want to make comparisons or handle several at a time, as you might want to do for group practices or for those with similar characteristics. We also will be introducing new controls that provide a clean easier to read format.
- Event Logging: We have completed the first leg of new event logging features. For the next release, this will focus on events involving case entry, additions and changes. The event log will include the date and time, the login for the person making the entries, and timings. This type of logging can provide a number of benefits, such as tracking who makes changes, when they took place, how long did it take, comparisons of in-house vs. dental office (Dentalrx) entries.
- Inactive Work Center: Under development is a new feature to inactivate a work center when it is no longer to be used for new cases. The inactive work center will remain available in historical records, but will no longer be available for selection in new cases, standard procedures or preferences. When encountered in standard procedures and other active records, the inactives will be highlighted to let the user know these need to changed.
| It's time for a big hearty thank you...
In this month of giving thanks, we want to send many thanks on behalf of the entire user group to all of you who participate in some way, by providing ideas and suggestions, by performing the first level of beta-testing, by spreading the word to others in the industry. You have been the strongest, most responsive voice in this industry to create software to support efficient workflow, cost savings, excellent customer service and compliance that flows into accurate and complete accounting. |
| | | Easy, versatile software for the modern dental laboratory.
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| To answer your questions... Q: One of our customers is a clinic with a number of doctors. Can we get reports for the whole clinic as well as for the individual doctors? A: Yes. In QuickBooks, you will need to setup each individual doctor as a job within the clinic, which will be the billing customer. In DQB, you will need to set your options to synchronize both customers and jobs. In DQB each doctor will be treated as a separate customer that can have its own cases, preferences, shipping address and both production and sales reports. If you want to combine these into reports for the clinic, create a customer group for the clinic checking each of the doctors within it. Then select the customer group for the reports. In QuickBooks, you can request reports and statements for both the customer and for the individual jobs. Q: One of our customers, a large group practice, has told us that in order to continue with them, we must include on their monthly statements more details on what service was provided for each invoice. Can your software do this? A: Yes. The details are provided by DQB but this is accomplished in QuickBooks by checking the indicator on the statement screen to include item details. For each invoice, included will be the invoice number, date, patient name, item name, quantity, price and line amount. You can also check an indicator to include the due date. Take the time to review the many options you have on the statement screen. You can, for instance, include the invoices for each doctor in a group practice (if setup as jobs) by requesting a statement at the customer level or you can generate a separate statement for each of these doctors by requesting at the job level. You can choose to send by email or mail. If mailing and you have a large volume, it may save postage costs to sequence the statements by zip/postal code.
We have seen other instances of new requirements by large dental practices such as requiring statements be sent via email, that daily email notifications be sent on case status. If you encounter new requirements for your lab, check with us to see if it is already available or if it can be accomplished with your software so that you can retain the business. |
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With the same look and feel of QuickBooks.
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| A whopping 92.5% say yes
Every so often we take the time to review our statistics on sales, user-group participation, services and other aspects of our business model. We were amazed to find for the 30-day trials of DentaLab for QuickBooks, 92.5% of those who installed their trial and gave it a try said yes to moving ahead with licensing. On the other hand, however, we average about 8 labs a month who request the trial, commit to begin the trial within 10 days, but never do. Most of these do not choose another system, but continually say they are busy, going to get around to it, had an employee quit, are getting ready to move or are somehow or another short on resources. We offer webinars, extension of time, a helping hand....but it remains a challenge! One of the suggestions that has come forth is to have a set of daily lessons that can each be accomplished in less than half an hour. If you have a suggestion or two on how to help with this, please send it our way. | When it comes to choices
For both QuickBooks and DentaLab for QuickBooks, there are many choices built into both systems through options, preferences, and the tables you build for your selections. Some of the other important choices are these: - You can choose to be all-desktop, a combination of desktop and web-based, mostly desktop with occasional internet access, web-based through an outside server.
- You can choose whether to use one of the standard forms for work tickets, case labels, invoices, material disclosures, quality control feedback forms or customize any of these.
- To track production, you can mark progress and completions via the keyboard, the tablet workflow app, or barcode scanning.
- You can choose paper and/or digital display for images, documents and reports. Many labs are easing their way into less paper and more digital.
- The systems support both the traditional methods and the newer digital methods of case production and recognize this too is a gradual process.
- To let the dental offices know case status and completions, you can choose quick responses to telephone calls, email notifications, online access by the dental office or any combination of these.
- And many more!
Both systems have strong reputations for not only being intuitive and easy, but also very flexible and powerful through the choices they provide. | 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. |
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"Dental Lab for QuickBooks has been very reliable. You guys did a great job with it."
Geri Monori, CAD CAM Supervisor Dentgineering, Florida
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