September 2007

Indian Summer in the Indian Valley

Here in the Indian Valley of Pennsylvania, September is the beginning of Indian Summer. This means we get the best of summer weather and start to see glimpses of a colorful autumn. And for us here at the DentaLab Support Office, we can breathe a sigh of relief as the largest release of DentaLab enhancements has finished development and testing and is in the final stages of documentation and posting on our website.

The full list of enhancements to the system will be posted in early October in the Support section of our website at mainstreet-systems.com and will be available to those with up-to-date support agreements. It is officially called Release 1.12.000. Here are some of its highlights:

Lab Notes

• Table of standard phrases or notes
• Each note can have up to 100 characters
• May be used for multiple languages in separate notes or by splitting one note
• No limit to the number of notes
• Can be easily inserted into Doctor Preferences by Work Center, Case Plans, Case Notes

• Associated with individual case, new tab in Case Entry
• Use can enter text based on communication between lab and doctor, recommended that each entry be dated, initialed.
• Can add in standard Lab Note(s) by right-clicking at entry point
• Can highlight text and add to Lab Note list
• Print button available to print full case plan, may be kept separate or accompany work ticket.

• Available for custom prices levels for items
• Can increase or decrease custom price by percent
• Can choose to not round or round to .05, .10, .25, .50, 1.00

• Available for piece rates by technician/item
• Can increase or decrease piece rates by percent
• Can choose to not round or round to .05, .10, .25, .50, 1.00

• You can now assign a technician to an item in Basic Lists-Items
• Transferred to case items, but can be overwritten
• Designed to save time if a technician typically does certain work

• Can choose which case fields to transfer to QuickBooks invoice.
• Choice of any or all: patient name, shade, teeth, pan code, request date
• Recommend review of invoice format used for cases to show/print selected case fields.

• Prior level for Entry now split into two levels:
• Entry will have same authorizations as before.
• Case Entry will be limited to entry of cases and related queries and reports.
• Must be assigned by authorized person at Manager/Administrator level.

• User can choose to consolidate data and scanned images into one backup file.
• User can choose to restore data files or scanned images or both.
• Browse feature for multiple backups

• All reports have been converted to a new reporting tool that generates reports more quickly, places a watermark at the footer
• Report dates will now reflect regional preferences set in Windows controls
• Custom work tickets, quality control forms have also been converted
• First step toward new supplement for users to design their own reports

• New option to exclude customers with inactive status in QuickBooks
• New option to include only customers with no new cases since (date)
• New options give a choice of showing activity or no activity
• Activity will be based on entry of new cases for doctor
• Report will be titled Last Case Report

In additon to those customers we cited in our August newsletter, we want to also thank Artisan Dental Ceramics and Space Maintainers for their excellent suggestions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does QuickBooks need to be open when you are working with DentaLab for QuickBooks?

A: You only need access to QuickBooks (QB) when you start DentaLab for QuickBooks (DQB) for the short synchronization process and when you are creating QB invoices from DQB cases.

Q: How do you determine what should be a QB item and what should be a lab note?

A: You will need to set up QB items for any products or services that 1) are billable 2) you want to track units and dollars and/or 3) you want to tie to technicians for productivity reports. Lab notes typically involve any other specifications or frequently used phrases that you would want to have in doctor preferences, case plans or case notes for work tickets.

Q: What are most labs using to backup their data?

A: The media we see most frequently are standalone disk drives and zip drives. Some of the popular vendors include Maxtor and Iomega. There is a trend toward also including web-hosted backup services, which are secure, dependable and offer offsite storage. As an example, Intuit offers this for $99.95 per year and it can be used for QB, DQB and any other data you choose.

Our Most Popular Supplement

.....is image scanning. This is the #1 choice when adding supplements to the basic DQB system. It's primary purpose is to provide scans of the lab prescriptions and associate them with the case. It can also be used to scan any other documents associated with the case and to link any graphic images sent by the doctor with the case as well.

Its low cost is easily justified in time and labor saved not having to go through boxes or drawers of paper documents to find the documents and then having to refile them when finished. Costs savings in space also add up easily.

Because we found that some labs were backing up data, but not their scanned images, we created an easy way to consolidate the backups to do both in the latest release.

To Make the Complicated Simple...

From Charles Mingus, virtuoso bass player and composer, came this great quotation: "To make the simple complicated is commonplace, but to make the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that takes creativity."

This describes what Intuit has done and why QuickBooks is the #1 selling software. It also describes what we have done to make DentaLab for QuickBooks so easy, intuitive and reliable.

This quotation was incorporated into a song written by Elaine Whelan with music by Ellen Schwartz and Roger Bruno called "The Voice of Creativity" that was the Grand Prize winner of the Copyright Utopia competition of the Center for Intellectual Property, University of Maryland. It will be used in school programs to get students thinking about why copyrights promote creativity. And if you love great music, you can hear samplings of Charlie's work at www.mingusmingusmingus.com.

Dental RX
We have been working with dentists on an alternate version of DentalRx that will be web-hosted and offered as an online service. The initial version will be for the USA and will include ADA insurance codes and dentist notes and preferences. Our goals for this second version remain the same:

• Easier-to-read prescriptions
• Provide accuracy and consistency
• Fewer errors due to misunderstanding between doctors and labs
• Convenient tooth chart and calendar
• Secured access
• Time and cost-saving features

And much more...look for this in 2007

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.