WHAT’S NEW IN ACOWIN VERSION 4.8?
Quick Quotes: Acowin 4.8
introduces the Quick Quote screen, which allows you to easily prepare an
estimate in advance, and create a Call Slip when the customer agrees to have
the work performed. You can include
labor and materials in your estimate, and prepare a sale price using Time &
Material, As Agreed, or Flat Rate billing methods. The Quick Quote system includes a Diary,
Attachments, and Microsoft Word merge letters – perfect for creating quotes and
proposal letters! The Quick Quote option
appears on the Acowin Main Menu, to the left of the
Customer/Site File.
Revised Call Slip
screen: The first screen of the Call Slip
has been extensively revised, using the same clean, friendly style as the new
Quick Quote screen. The customer aging
has been moved to the bottom-right corner of the screen, and is presented in a
more readable format. Many of the less
commonly-used fields have been moved to an Advanced
screen, accessed with a button below the Site Notes. The status indicators for Credit Hold, COD,
and the presence of a Contract have been changed into colorful icons beneath
the Contract ID.
Salespersons Per
Call Slip: As part of
the Call Slip screen enhancement, the Advanced pop-up window includes a
Salesperson field. This allows you to
over-ride the standard Service salesperson from the Billing screen of the
Customer/Site File.
New Diary: The Diary alert window has been
expanded to include the new Quick Quotes diary.
Job Cost Warranty Expiration Utility: On the Company Utilities menu, you
will find a new option called Close Expired Warranty Jobs. This utility will change every Job with an
expired Warranty back to the Closed status. The original warranty expiration date is
preserved, so you can still run accurate reports based on this date. After you process the warranty expirations,
you can click the blue View Results hyperlink to generate an Excel
spreadsheet of the warranties that have expired.
New Export to Excel Feature: Every Acowin
report now includes a button on the Preview screen, called “Export to My
Docs.” Clicking this button will create
a carefully formatted spreadsheet based on the report, and save it to the My
Documents folder associated with your Windows user name. Better yet, the system will automatically
launch Microsoft Excel and display this spreadsheet for you. Since these exported spreadsheets are based
on the raw data used in compiling the report, they often include information
that was not actually printed on the report.
New Reports: Several of the Call Slip reports have
been modified to include options for including or excluding Call Backs and
Warranty calls. Call Slips can be
designated for Call Back or Warranty on the new Advanced
pop-up window of the redesigned Call Slip screen. Among the reports enhanced with this new
selection option:
·
Call Slip Summary Report
·
Call Slip Profitability Summary and Detail
·
Salesperson Profitability Summary and Detail
·
Print Call Slips
·
Technician Profitability Summary and Detail
·
Customer History Report
Also, some
new reports have been added for the Quick Quotes system:
·
Estimate Detail Report
·
Status Report
·
Estimate vs. Actual Report
·
Estimate Aging Report
·
Closing Ratio Report
Other report
enhancements: The Purchase Order
Quantity report now has an option to include the cost of each listed item. The Scheduled Calls Report now includes both
sort and selection options for Zone.
Enhanced Dashboard Display: A summary of Quick Quote information
has been added to the Dashboard display.
Modified Call Slip Packing Lists: You can now include the inventory
Location for each item on the Call Slip Packing List, produced by clicking the
Printer button on the Call Slip screen.
Inventory Labels: You can now print Dymo
Label Writer labels directly from the Inventory screen, by clicking the Printer
button.
Company Name Display: The title bar of the main Acowin window will now display the name of the company
you’re working in. This should help
users with multiple companies remember which one they have open, at any given
time.
AcoTruck
Flat Rate Approvals: AcoTruck users will find a new Approval button beneath the
Flat Rate area, when a Call Slip is set for Flat Rate billing. Clicking this button opens a screen listing
the Flat Rate repairs, plus an area to capture the customer’s signature. A form including the repairs and signature
can be printed and given to the customer.
Custom acceptance text can be added by creating an entry in the Setup /
Subsystems / Footers file in Acowin, named
“TMSFLAT.” This Footer is automatically
added to the Flat Rate Approval forms, after the technicians update the Static
Information in their tablets.
Service Agreement Calculator
Integration: A new
button has been added to the Customer/Site File, which will export the selected
Customer and Site to the TMS Service Agreement Calculator. To use the exported information, add a new
Contract in the Service Agreement Calculator, then click the Import From Acowin button. For further information and pricing on the
Service Agreement Calculator, please contact your TMS sales representative.
This
button appears in the lower-right corner of the Customer/Site File screen.
WHAT’S NEW IN ACOWIN VERSION 4.7?
Payroll Processing: Acowin version 4.7 introduces a system for compiling weekly time cards, based on labor from Call Slips, and synchronizing these time cards with QuickBooks. After you select the desired work week, the Payroll Processing screen will be populated with all of the hours worked during that week. You can make adjustments to these hours as needed, then process them and use the QB Sync to forward them to QuickBooks, where they will take the form of Weekly Timesheets in the QuickBooks Payroll system. These weekly time cards are also kept on file in Acowin, for future reference, and can be viewed from the Acowin Employee File. You can process payroll for one technician at a time, or for all of your technicians at once.
History Import: It is now possible to import service history from other programs into Acowin. This can help you avoid the trouble of keeping legacy software running, just so you can review history from before you began using Acowin. The history must be exported from your old system in a format that can be opened in a spreadsheet, such as Microsoft Excel. From there, it can be saved as Tab-Delimited Text, which can be imported into Acowin. The History Import routine is part of the Acowin Data Conversion tool, which you can access from the Acowin Quick Launch icon on the server. You can browse through imported history from the Customer Utilities menu, and attach history records to existing Acowin Sites. Attached history can then be reviewed from the History screen of the Customer/Site File or Call Slips.
Contract Sneak Peek: A blue Contract hyper-link has been added to the bottom-right corner of any Call Slip that belongs to a Site with an active Contract. This hyper-link is located directly beneath the Status Change button. If you click on the Contract link, you will see a pop-up window containing some basic information about the Contract – including the calculated sales amount per visit, which is very useful if you’re keeping your Contract income in a liability account, and transferring it to income only when the Inspection visits are completed.
This image shows the location of the Contract hyper-link.
Customer Address Labels: A Print button has been added to the toolbar in the Customer/Site File. You can use the Print button to produce a mailing label for either the Customer or Site. These labels are formatted for Dymo LabelWriter printers.
Enhanced Technician Information on the Dispatch Board: You can right-click on a technician’s name, at the top of the Dispatch Board, to see a window filled with information about the technician and his current Call Slip. If he is dispatched to more than one Call Slip, the arrow buttons at the bottom of the window will allow you to scroll through them. Click the blue Current Call Slip hyper-link to jump directly to the selected Call Slip.
New Report for Payroll: A new Payroll Hours Report has been added, in the Accounting section of the Reports menu. This report lists the hours paid on your weekly time cards, through the new Payroll Processing screen described above, and compares them to the original hours worked on the Call Slips. Adjustments made through the Payroll system will be clearly marked. It is possible to run the report for only the hours that were adjusted through Payroll. You can use the Payroll Hours Report to verify that the proper hours were paid through QuickBooks, and spot any adjustments made in QuickBooks after the weekly time cards were synchronized from Acowin.
Equipment History Report: This new report has been added to the list of Equipment reports. It produces a detailed service history for selected units of equipment on site. The report can optionally include Checklist entries made during the specified date range, based on the Checklist feature of the Equipment Types.
WHAT’S NEW IN ACOWIN VERSION 4.6?
The Acowin Dashboard: Acowin version 4.6 introduces the
Dashboard, which instantly provides a number of essential month-to-date totals
for your company, including:
The
percentage of month-to-date sales from Service, Contracts, and Job Costing,
presented both as text, and graphical “speedometers.”
The
number of Call Slips that have not been transferred to A/R yet, broken down by
Call Slip type and status level.
Total
sales and costs for the month to date.
Essential
summary information about your Contracts, including the number of Inspections
planned for the month, and the number of Contracts due
to expire or automatically renew.
The
number of open Jobs, and the amount remaining to be billed on them.
You’ll find
the button to launch the Dashboard in the upper-right corner of the Acowin Main
Menu. As soon as you click this button,
the system will prepare the necessary totals and present the Dashboard display.
This is
the new Dashboard display.
Dispatch Board Sort Buttons: Each column of the Dispatch Board,
including the Unassigned column, now features a Sort
button. It looks like a stopwatch at the
top of the Unassigned column, while the much smaller
technician column buttons resemble a digital clock. Clicking the Sort button will instantly
re-sort the open calls in that column, according to scheduled time. This is the time that appears in blue text on
the Call Slips.
The Sort
button is the first button beneath each technician's name. It looks like a digital clock.
Map Button for Unassigned: The top of the Unassigned
column of the Dispatch Board now includes a Map button, which will create a map
of the Unassigned calls, using Microsoft MapPoint. Previously, this feature was only available
in the technician columns.
These
Sort and Map buttons now appear at the top of the Unassigned
column.
Closest Tech Map for New Call Slips: The Call Slips screen now includes a
Closest Tech map button, next to the Payment envelope button. Clicking the Closest Tech button produces a
MapPoint map, with the currently selected work site in the center, and
push-pins marking the current location of each field technician (according to
the Dispatched or Arrived time on their current Call Slips.) This map will help you determine which technician
is currently closest to the work site for the new service call. Previously, the Closest Tech map was only
available from the Dispatch Board.
The
Closest Tech button now appears on the Call Slip screen, in the bottom right
corner.
User Selection for Diary Notes: When creating any type of Diary
entry, you may now assign any Acowin user to follow up on the event. This is done with a pull-down menu in the
upper left corner of the screen.
Previously, a Diary note was automatically assigned to the user who
created it.
New Report Organization: The Reports have now been grouped
according to report type, within each category.
For example, the large list of Call Slip reports is now grouped into
Service Call, Flat Rate, Profitability, and Invoice reports. This should make it easier to locate
particular reports from the lists.
The
reports are now organized into groups, as seen here for the Technician reports,
which are divided into Time Reports and Profitability Reports.
New Reports: Several new reports have been added
to the system, including an Employee List, a Scheduled Contracts Report, and a
Diary Report.
Here is
an excerpt from the new Diary Report.
New Options for Reports: A variety of new sort, selection, and
special options have been added to existing reports, in response to requests
from the user base.
New
Dispatch Board Display Settings: The
Display icon on the Dispatch Board now offers settings for wide-screen
monitors. The display settings are now
described in terms of how many columns they offer horizontally, and how many
vertical pockets can be seen. Be sure to
experiment with these new Display settings, to make the Dispatch Board fill
your screen area most efficiently!
WHAT’S NEW IN ACOWIN VERSION 4.40?
Dispatch Board Posted Status
Indicator: The dispatch status indicator will now change
to a green “P” when a Call Slip is posted to Accounts Receivable. This lets you see which Call Slips have been
fully billed out and posted. The
dispatch status indicator is the second small box beneath each Call Slip on the
Dispatch Board. The list of possible
colors and codes now includes:
Blue “O” = Open or Incomplete call
Green “D” = Dispatched time entered,
technician is en route to site
Yellow “A” = Arrived time entered,
technician is now on site, working on the call
Grey “C” = Departed time entered,
labor is complete
Green “P” = Call Slip has been
invoiced and posted to A/R
Technician Leave Time: Acowin version 4.40 introduces the
Technician Leave system, an option in the Employee File that lets you designate
a technician as “away from work” for a period of time. To put a tech on leave, click the Leave
button in the Employee File. Use the
fields on the left side of the screen to set the Start and End Date, and use
the “Include Weekends” check box to indicate whether the technician’s Leave
time should include any weekends that happen to fall within the date
range. Click Add to put the Leave time
into effect. The right side of the
screen lists any Leave time currently in effect, with a pull-down menu to view
Current, Past, or All of the technician’s Leave. You can use the Remove button at the bottom
of the screen to cancel a Leave at any time.
This is
the Leave setup screen, accessed by clicking the Leave button in the Employee
File.
As long as
the technician is on Leave, his name will be darkened on the Dispatch Board,
and the system will NOT allow you to place any Call Slips in his column. The tech’s column returns to normal when his
Leave ends, or is removed. You can use
this system to make your techs unavailable when they’re on vacation, out sick,
or away from the office for any other reason.
The
column for Bob has been darkened, because Bob is on Leave. No calls can be placed in his column until
his Leave ends, or is canceled.
Copying Jobs: When you create a new Job in the
Project Management file, you will now have the option to copy the Phase list,
and detailed Phase estimates, from an existing Job.
The Phase detail from Extras may also be included, and you can limit the
estimate detail to only Materials, Labor, or Miscellaneous costs – or you can
copy the entire detailed estimate from the existing Job, including all labor,
materials, and miscellaneous costs estimated for all Phases. There is also an option to bring over the
billing Customer from the original Job, or you can use the Customer who
normally pays the bills for the new Job’s work site. This new feature should greatly speed up Job
creation. You could even create some Job
Estimates that serve as “templates”, providing standard Phases and detailed
lists of labor and materials for new Jobs.
You are always free to revise the Phase list and Estimates for a new
Job, after you have created it.
This
screen will appear when you create a new Job.
This example shows how to select an existing Job and copy its Phases,
with their detailed estimates, into the new Job.
Interface with ACORATE – Flat Rate
Made Easy!: The Import Flat Rate program now includes an
option to import Flat Rate price books from the new ACORATE – Flat Rate Made
Easy! system.
ACORATE provides a simple but powerful environment to create and update
Flat Rate price books, allowing you to change all aspects of a repair code from
a single screen. If you haven’t switched
to ACORATE for managing your Flat Rate prices yet, please contact your Team
Management Systems sales representative for more details.
New Reports: Acowin version 4.40 includes four new
reports, listed here with their location in the Reports menu:
Flat
Rate Tech Spiff Report (Reports / Call Slip) – this report tracks incentive
or commission payments, known as “Spiff” payments, for each technician. Spiff amounts are drawn from Flat Rate price
codes created by ACORATE, the new Flat Rate pricing solution from Team
Management Systems. If you are using
ACORATE and have chosen to include Spiff payments with your Flat Rate repair
codes, you can run the Flat Rate Tech Spiff report each pay period, to obtain
the total Spiff amount owed to each technician.
Flat
Rate Spiff Detail (Reports / Call Slip) – this report analyzes the
profitability of every Flat Rate invoice that included a Spiff payment to a
technician. The estimated costs from the
Flat Rate billing codes are compared to the actual costs from the completed
Call Slip.
Flat
Rate Evaluation Report (Reports / Call Slip) - This report helps you
compare the actual performance of your technicians to the estimated labor hours
included in your Flat Rate billing codes.
Each Call Slip is listed on the report with its total Estimated Hours
from the Flat Rate codes, plus its total Actual Hours from the Times
screen. If the Actual Hours frequently
exceed Estimated Hours, perhaps your Estimated Hours are not realistic, or your
technicians require additional training to complete the repairs within the
allotted time.
Distribution
Profitability Report (Reports / Call Slip) - This report provides a concise
summary of the profitability for each Distribution Code. Since Distribution Codes represent
departments within your company, and are usually tied to QuickBooks Classes
with similar names, this gives you a departmental profitability report. For each Distribution Code, you will be given
total revenue, total cost, gross profit, the number of invoices posted during
the report period, and the average invoice amount (total income divided by
number of invoices.) The percentage of
total sales and overall profit represented by each Distribution Code is also
presented, helping you to determine which departments generate the most revenue
and profit.
New Inventory Price List Options:
The Inventory Price List, found in the Inventory section of the Reports
menu, can now be run to compare Average Unit Cost, Last Unit Cost, and List
Cost. You can use the report to locate
items where any or all of these conditions is true:
Average Cost > List Cost = the
item’s Average Unit Cost is higher than the List Cost, which is used to
calculate a sale price. You should
consider raising the List Cost on such items.
Last Unit Cost > List Cost = the
last price you paid for the item is higher than its List Cost. If this is a permanent price increase, and
not just a temporary price spike, you might want to raise the List Cost.
List Cost > Sell Price = the item
has a fixed unit Sell Price that is lower than its List Cost. This would strongly suggest that the Sell
Price is set to an artificially low level.
Improved Purchase Order Data Entry:
The Purchase Order screen has been enhanced to allow faster data
entry. When you’re filling in the list
of parts to order, and your cursor has reached the List Cost column, you can
touch ENTER to add a new line. Your
cursor will move into the Key Code field at the beginning of the new line,
ready for you to enter a Key Code for the new item. In the past, it was necessary to click the New button to add each new line, but now you can touch ENTER
to move through the Quantity, List Cost, and Actual Cost fields, then create a
new line and continue listing the parts you wish to order.
New Attachment Options:
The Attachments feature has been added to Purchase Orders, the Vendor
File, the Inventory File, Receiving Slips, and Vendor Bills. You may now attach images, documents,
spreadsheets, and files from other programs to these parts of the Acowin
system.
Inventory List Costs and Sell Prices:
If you change the List Cost for an Inventory item, and that item has a
fixed Sale Price on the Stock Count screen, the system will ask if you want to
keep the Markup the same and change the Sell Price, or keep the Sell Price the
same and change the Markup.
WHAT'S NEW IN ACOWIN 4.3?
Introducing AcoTruck: Acowin version 4.3 is being released in conjunction with the debut of AcoTruck, a new system that allows technicians to use portable tablet computers to complete their work orders in the field. These “tablet” computers are laptop PCs with touch-sensitive screens, which can be manipulated with electronic pens. If you purchase AcoTruck for your system, your Acowin dispatchers will be able to send Call Slips out to the technicians via the Internet. These Call Slips appear on the technicians' AcoTruck schedule display. The technician can fill in labor, materials, resolutions, and equipment specifications, using a screen that looks exactly like the pre-printed work order forms traditionally carried by field techs. The technician can prepare the final invoice using Time & Material, As Agreed, or Flat Rate billing methods, show the customer an on-screen invoice preview, obtain the customer's signature electronically, and print the invoice with a portable printer. The Acowin Dispatch Board is updated as the technician enters his work times, and completed Call Slips are returned from the AcoTruck tablet to the Acowin system over the Internet, closing out the Call Slips and storing the customer's signature as an Attachment file for easy review in the future. Several Acowin screens have been modified to work with AcoTruck, as described below. If you're interested in adding AcoTruck to your system, please contact your Team Management Systems sales representative.
Attachment Setup
Change: To allow Attachments to work with AcoTruck, the Setup / Settings /
Miscellaneous screen has been modified to include an “Attachment UNC”
field. This field should contain the
computer and share name of the Attachments folder, in the standard Windows
directory format, like this: \\server\attachments,
if the Attachments folder is located on a computer named “server” and shared as
“attachments”. This is the same path you
would type when creating a mapped network drive to point at the Attachments
folder. The Acowin server computer no
longer needs a mapped drive to point at the Attachments folder, as it can use
the UNC entry instead. Acowin
workstations should still be given mapped network drives pointing to the Attachments
folder, using the drive letter specified in the “
Tablet Icon and Check Box on Dispatch Detail Screen: The Dispatch Detail screen is opened by right-clicking a Call Slip on the Dispatch Board. This screen has been modified to include a check box called “Tablet”, in the upper-right corner. Also, an icon for the AcoTruck tablet has been added in the middle of the Dispatch Detail screen. The icon resembles a PDA or Palm Pilot. To send a Call Slip to the AcoTruck technician, the dispatcher clicks on the AcoTruck icon. This marks the Call Slip for transfer to AcoTruck. It will be picked up the next time the AcoTruck technician clicks the Sync button on his schedule display, launching a short “send and receive” connection to the Acowin system over the Internet. If the Acowin dispatcher changes his mind about sending a Call Slip to AcoTruck, he can remove the Tablet check mark, but this must be done BEFORE the technician synchronizes and takes the Call Slip. Once a Call Slip has been pulled by the AcoTruck field tech, it becomes locked and can no longer be changed, until the tech returns it.
This
button marks a Call Slip for pickup by AcoTruck.
Dispatch Board AcoTruck Indicators: The first indicator box beneath each Call Slip on the Dispatch Board will now change color, based on the AcoTruck status of the Call Slip. (Up until now, this indicator has only been used to indicate the presence of a service contract, which causes it to display a star. It still displays a star if the customer has a service contract.) The AcoTruck color codes are:
Dark Blue = marked for transfer to AcoTruck, but not picked up by technician yet
Green = picked up by AcoTruck, the technician has the call on his tablet
Yellow = returned by the AcoTruck technician as a completed call
Red = returned by the AcoTruck technician with “Needs Attention” flag set
The Dispatch Diary: A new Diary has been added to the system, called the Dispatch Diary. It can be accessed by right-clicking a Call Slip on the Dispatch Board, to open the Dispatch Detail window, then clicking the Diary button. This Diary is intended to contain reminders and special alerts pertaining to the Call Slips. The AcoTruck system uses it when technicians return a Call Slip with the “Needs Attention” flag set. Special notes from the AcoTruck technician become Dispatch Diary entries. You can use the Dispatch Diary to create manual reminders tied to Call Slips, even if you don't have AcoTruck on your system.
Vendor Bill Wizard: When you create a new Vendor Bill, the system automatically launches a short wizard to help you prepare the invoice. This should make the procedure easier to follow and more convenient, especially for those users who have a large number of Purchase Orders in their system, since the old method involved using pull-down menus and became somewhat cumbersome when hundreds or thousands of Purchase Orders needed to be scrolled through.
Mass Change of Assigned Technicians: The Company Utilities menu now includes an option to change all of the Sites assigned to a particular technician, replacing him with a different default technician. This utility will prove helpful if a technician leaves your company or is assigned to different duties, making it necessary to transfer all of his assigned Sites to a different tech. The assignment of a default technician to each Site is made on the Billing screen of the Customer/Site File.
WHAT’S NEW IN ACOWIN 4.2?
Acowin
License Manager: The
Acowin Server program has been renamed to “Acowin License Manager.” The appearance of the program has been
slightly adjusted, but it still has the same buttons, and serves the same
purpose. You may notice the Acowin
License Manager closes considerably faster than the Acowin Server did. It is no longer necessary to close the Acowin
License Manager overnight, if you leave your server computer running all night
- you should let the Acowin License Manager run constantly.
Improved
QB Performance: This
version of Acowin brings a substantial increase in speed when synchronizing
invoices with QuickBooks, or requesting customer aging information and invoice
balances from QuickBooks. Your QB Sync
runs should be much quicker.
Improved
Email Performance: Email
message sent from Acowin, including emailed invoices, Purchase Orders, and Call
Slips, should go out much faster than ever.
If you occasionally experienced time-out issues when sending emails in
the past, you should no longer have such problems.
Windows
Auto-Updater
Now Runs as a Service: The
Acowin Auto Updater, which formerly ran as a minimized icon in your server’s
system tray, now runs as a Windows service on the Acowin server computer. This will reduce icon clutter in your system
tray, and comply with the requirements of Windows Vista. The Auto Updater service should normally be
left running at all times.
WHAT’S NEW IN ACOWIN 4.15?
Automatic Contract Renewals: The system now includes a tool that will help you automatically create new Contracts for customers who choose to renew their service contract agreements. Each Contract now has an Auto Renew option, on the first screen of the Contracts File, which allows you to designate the Contract for automatic renewal, and offers several methods for setting the price of the renewed Contract. You can renew Contracts for the same price as the previous year, or for the current price associated with the Contract Type, or you can use the previous price plus a percentage increase. A button on the Contract File screen allows you to renew a single Contract immediately, or you can use the Mass Renewal tool, found in the Customer Utilities menu. The Mass Renewal tool can pull up a list of all Contracts designated for Auto Renewal, based on their expiration dates. You can select all of these Contracts with the “Check All” button, or select them individually, then click the “Create” button to produce the new, renewed Contracts. The list of Contracts due for renewal can also be exported into a text file, whether or not you proceed with actually renewing the Contracts.
Credit Invoices: A new button has been added to Call Slips that will allow you to quickly produce a Credit Invoice for a posted invoice. When you click the Credit Invoice button, a window will appear, listing the sale prices from the original, posted invoices. These sale prices will be reversed, appearing as negative credit amounts. You can adjust these amounts if you wish to issue a partial credit, instead of crediting the full invoice amount. You can set up a standard Problem Code and Resolution Code (i.e. invoice text) to appear on the Credit Invoices, using fields in Setup / Settings / Miscellaneous. These Problem and Resolution Codes can also be over-ridden on individual Credit Invoices, if desired. When you click the Finish button on the Credit Invoice screen, a new Call Slip will instantly be created, using the Problem Code, Resolution Code, and credit invoice amounts you have specified. This Call Slip can be immediately posted and synchronized with your accounting software, applying the desired credit amount to the customer’s account.
The Ready to Invoice List: This new feature makes it easy to find all the Call Slips that are ready to be billed and turned into invoices. When you open the Ready to Invoice List, it will instantly list every Call Slip that has reached the “labor complete” (LAB) status or higher, but has not yet achieved the final “posted to Accounts Receivable” (XFER A/R) status. The resulting list will include every Call Slip that has completed labor and/or materials, and is therefore potentially ready for invoicing. You can choose a call and click the Detail button to jump to the full Call Slip screen, where you can complete the billing procedure and create an invoice. When you return to the Ready to Invoice List after completing an invoice, the Call Slip you’ve billed out will be marked with a special color, to show that invoice has been completed. You can access the Ready to Invoice List from the Dispatch Board, with a new icon that has been added for this purpose, or you can access it from the Utilities button in the Work Orders section of the Acowin Main Menu.
Enhanced Mapping Features: The Acowin interface with
Microsoft MapPoint has been dramatically enhanced with several new
features. The route map button, located
at the top of each technician’s column, will now create a map that begins and
ends at either the technician’s home address, or the company’s physical
address. The choice of starting and
ending point for the route map is made for each technician in the Employee
File, so you could have some technicians beginning their day from their homes,
while others begin their route from your company headquarters. Maps can now be resized to fit any portion of
the screen, allowing for easy viewing of large maps. The map window now includes an
The Company Diary: A new Diary has been added to the system, called the Company Diary. Like the other Diaries, it has reminders that appear in the small Diary window in the upper-right corner of the Main Menu. You can create Company Diary entries by selecting the Company Diary option on the Company Information Utilities Menu, using the exact same procedure as for the other Diaries - click the Add button, specify a Follow-Up Date, and enter a description or select a Diary Note Code. The Company Diary is unique in that the system can automatically create Diary reminder notes for Contract Inspections and Contract Invoices. The Setup / Settings / Miscellaneous screen has new fields for setting the day of each month when these reminders should be issued. For example, you could set a reminder for generating Contract Inspections for the 1st of each month, and Contract Invoices for the 10th. These automatically generated Company Diary reminders can be marked “done” when they have been taken care of, the same as with other Diary reminders. The Employee File includes new fields that control which employees will see the Inspection and Contract Invoice reminders as “their” reminders, while all users can see them by toggling the Diary reminder window to “View Everyone’s Entries.”
Printing Call Slips From the Dispatch Board: You can now print Call Slips directly from the Dispatch Board. Right-click on the desired Call Slip to open the Dispatch Detail window, then click the Printer button on the toolbar.
Attachment Notifications: If you attach files to a Customer, Site, Call Slip, Job, or Contract, the Attachments button will now change visibly, to notify you that Attachments are present. The Attachments button shows a folder overlaid with a blue check mark if there are existing Attachments, alerting you to their presence so you can click the Attachments button and review them.
The
Attachments button looks like this when Attachments are present.
Automatic Rounding for Accounts Payable Invoices: Acowin’s Purchase Orders allow the entry of items with costs that extend to the hundredth of a penny. Since vendor invoices are always rounded to the nearest penny, a new set of fields has been added to the Accounts Payable Invoice screen, to automatically handle rounding adjustments. If you invoice a Purchase Order that had items with costs that include fractions of a penny, the system will automatically create the necessary rounding adjustment and display it in the bottom-center of the Accounts Payable Invoice screen. A Cost of Goods account can be entered in Accounting Setup / Default Setup to handle these small rounding adjustments.
WHAT’S NEW IN ACOWIN 4.0?
NEW MAIN
MENU: Version 4.0 introduces a completely
redesigned Main Menu for the Acowin program.
The new Main Menu resembles a flowchart, with arrows linking the menu
buttons together, reflecting the way some parts of the Acowin system influence
others. The special functions formerly
contained on the Processes menu and Navigators have been consolidated into a
Utilities icon located in each section of the Main Menu. For example, clicking the Utilities icon in
the Inventory section of the menu will open a menu containing all the Inventory
Utilities. The round Acowin “button” in
the bottom right corner of the Main Menu will take you to the Support section
of the Acowin web site, where you can submit a support request across the
Internet. The File pull-down menu
contains an option to Logout, which will allow you to change user names or
companies without exiting completely from the program.
AUTO
UPDATER: An automatic
update system has been added to Acowin.
The Auto Updater runs automatically on the Acowin server, every time the
server computer is rebooted, and will begin running as soon as the Acowin 4.0
update is installed. The Auto Updater
will check for updates every night, and if a new update is available, it will
be automatically downloaded from the Team Management Systems master server
overnight. When you log into Acowin the
morning after an update is released, you’ll see a message informing you the
update has been downloaded, and asking if you would like to install it. Updates will then flow automatically from the
main Acowin server to the workstations.
If the Auto Updater stops running for some reason, you can restart it by
rebooting the Acowin server computer.
NEW LOGIN
SCREEN: The Acowin
login screen has been expanded to include a message area that will be
automatically updated from the Team Management Systems master server, bringing
announcements of new features, helpful hints, and other important news. If the Auto Updater has downloaded an update
overnight, the login screen will ask if you want to install it.
NEW REPORT
INTERFACE: The
interface for all Acowin reports has been completely rebuilt. All reports now begin with a standard Sort
option, which can be changed if the user desires, and Selection options now
default to “all records” automatically.
Selections can be made with a streamlined interface that tells the user
what the results of the report will be, using a plain English summary. The latest version of the Crystal Reports
Viewer has been incorporated into Acowin, providing a smoother report preview
experience. The master Reports screen
now includes a brief description of each report.
REVISED
DISPATCH BOARD GRAPHICS:
The overall appearance of the Dispatch Board has been improved, with new icon
graphics and a pastel color scheme.
31-DAY
SCHEDULE BOARD: A
powerful new 31-Day Schedule Board has been added to the Call Slips and
Dispatch Board, replacing the old Calendar icon. The 31-Day board is a large calendar display
that resembles a desktop blotter. A
summary of scheduled and unscheduled calls appears within each day. You can jump back to the Dispatch Board by
clicking on a date. The right side of
the 31-Day Schedule Board is a bar graph that shows which hours are available
for each technician, and can be toggled to a list of calls scheduled for a
selected date. You can use the 31-Day
Schedule Board to quickly schedule a selected Call Slip, by clicking on the
desired date, or even clicking in the bar graph area to choose a specific
technician and time.
ENHANCED
EMAILING OF PURCHASE ORDERS AND INVOICES: Acowin 4.0 makes it even easier to email your Purchase
Orders to vendors, and your Call Slip invoices to customers. When you click the Print button on Purchase
Orders and Call Slips, you’ll see a new Email icon on the Print Options
menu. Clicking this icon will pull the
default email address from the Vendor or Customer/Site File, and instantly
produce an email message with the Purchase Order or Invoice attached, using the
popular Adobe Acrobat PDF format. You’ll
have an opportunity to override the default email address, adjust the Subject
line, and add body text to the email, if desired.
Here
is the Print Options menu for a Call Slip.
The Email icon is the envelope plus green arrow that appears next to the
Call Slip Invoice check box.
After
you click the Email icon, you’ll see this window, which allows you to override
the default Email Address for the vendor or customer, or make adjustments to
the Subject line and Message text.
UPDATED
HELP, DOCUMENTATION, AND TUTORIALS:
The Acowin Help system has been fully updated to reflect the changes in Version
4.0. Help is now available from a
pull-down menu at the top of the Acowin main screen. The Version 4.0 update, and all future Acowin
updates, will automatically place shortcuts to the latest editions of the
Acowin Documentation and multi-media Tutorials on your desktop.