Tip #5 - Provide Fast and Sophisticated Sales Processing

Personnel turnover in the retail/distribution industry is legendary. One serious consequence of the turnover situation is that your are left with a work force that is too new to be very effective at providing quality customer service.

There are ways to dramatically increases your employees abilities and productivity, even though many of them are new. In fact, with the Retail/Distribution System, you can have your employees doing complex procedures right away that they couldn't handle otherwise.

Our system is designed to be extremely flexible. It is easy to set up customer menus, security levels and function keys tailored to individual jobs. This makes it easier for employees to become more productive much sooner than they ever have before.

Speed Up Transaction Entry

The steps to complete a sale vary from transaction to transaction. "Cash and carry" is usually the easiest, unless you are a distributor and don't have a sales workstation. On the other hand, it all you have is a cash register, then credit limits, terms, shipping information, tax and non-tax items, tax tables, different bill to and ship to locations, and a host of other issue could make you shy away (if not run away) from large customers.

Systems designed to handle the most complex transactions are often too cumbersome and slow to handle simple transactions. Systems designed to handle only simple transactions are just plain inadequate to handle anything complex. That's why Panasoft developed parameter driven set up tables that let you define the way you transact each sale.

By using preset sale types, your entry screens will be tailored to show only the fields that are relevant to the transaction being processed - no more and no less. The result is the fastest, smoothest possible transaction processing every time, no matter how simple or complex the transaction happens to be.

On-line and Batch Credit Card Authorizations

Credit card authorizations can also slow down your selling operation. Panasoft has built in the extra capabilities to really speed this process up.

To get a credit authorization, someone places a call and communicates a long series of numbers either verbally or by keying them in. When an error is made on one of these numbers, a great deal of time and money is wasted placing second and third calls. Panasoft's system utilized automatic card readers that virtually eliminate these errors. It even has special check sum algorithms built in to catch any keying or card reading errors before the call is made (and before valuable time, money and customer goodwill are lost).

When the authorization comes through the Panasoft system prints a receipt that has all of the transaction information pre-printed on it and is ready for the customer's signature. If the items are to be shipped, then a pick ticket is automatically printed in the warehouse.

On-line credit authorization is activated before and after the order is taken. Since all credit information is on-line during order processing, your order clerks will have up-to-the-minute status. At last, your personnel will be able to control credit and immediately stop making shipments to customers who are trying to exceed the limits you have set for them.

This feature makes quicker checkouts possible. If you sell to wholesalers or contractors, the "Taxable Line Items" feature will allow you to override the automatic default and specify manually which items are for resale or for the customer's personal purchase without having to create two separate invoices.

If you sell into a wide variety of states and municipalities, you will find value in Panasoft's interface to nationwide tax table services. By loading these tax tables into your system, you can be sure to charge the correct tax, no matter where you sell your inventory.

Panasoft's Sales Workstation Enables You To Do Far More

Professionally process and document transactions:

• Print detailed sales receipts and invoices (40 and 80 column)
• Read and print bar codes
• Utilize dual receipt printers
• Automatic cash drawer control
• opens for cash transactions
• remains closed for non-cash transactions
• locks sales entry when drawer is open
• Check and charge slip validation
• Charge slip printing with standard charge slip form

Money saving controls:

• Returned merchandise authorizations
• Drop ship from customer file
• Special order tracking
• Authorized buyers list
• Bad check alert

The look-up capability will also come in handy when you are searching for customers with multiple company or contact names. Customer information such as addresses, special discounts, credit limits, addresses, shipping information and more, all appear at the touch of a button. Your customers will be impressed and you will win their confidence as an automated business capable of serving their needs.

Enter Your Sales Orders Faster

Entry of sales orders is high speed because your clerk enters only enough information to uniquely identify customers and products. The Panasoft Retail/Distribution System automatically completes names, addresses, terms, item numbers, item descriptions and prices.

The following situations happen everyday in retail. See how Panasoft's System handles these everyday occurrences with ease!

Imagine there are three customers in line. In the middle of the first customer's transaction, he suddenly remembers that he left his wallet in his car and goes to retrieve it. The next two customers in line immediately look aggravated because they think they are going to have to wait for this customer to return. But that is not what would happen if you have the Panasoft System.

Instead, your clerk can suspend the first transaction by pressing one button and continue to serve the other customers. Their frowns turn back to smiles, and when the first customer returns your clerk goes back to the suspended screen and continues from where he left off.

Now, say the third customer in line has an open account with you. He asks what his balance is. Your clerk presses one button and gets an immediate answer. Next he wants to be sure that he gets his special discount on his purchase. Your clerk can explain that the system automatically calculates special customer pricing. Your clerk can also accept payments on account right at the register! It's easy with the Panasoft Retail/Distribution system!

True Sales and Cashiering

Sometimes it is better to separate the sales order function from the cashier function. It frees your sales staff from clerical work and lets them get back to working with customers and making sales. In some circumstances it may be more efficient to have orders entered in one part of the store, with the more time consuming payment process taking place in another area. On the other hand, it quite often is best to rung up the sale and take payment all in one place. Panasoft's Retail/Distribution System will give you the option of doing either, or both in your business.

Park Your Orders While You Get More Information

What happens with most software when you've taken an order but the customer is going to have to call you back with new shipping or payment information? Either you accept the order and risk printing out the pick ticket or invoice before you are ready, or you cancel the order and start over when the customer calls back. The sophistication of the Panasoft Retail/Distribution System allows you to "park" the order in a holding area until you get all of the information that you need, and then you can release it. No risk, no waste. That's just another small reason why software sophistication is so important to your business.

Do you see how you can improve customer service with an efficient computer system? Since it would be fast and easy for your staff to provide more sophisticated services to your customers, more time would be left for helping them to buy more. Customers love this level of service and they will keep coming back to your for more.

Sales Ticket Inquiry With Void/Reprint Control

Usually your employees are honest, but you can't always be sure. Businesses have been stung more than once by employees who have gone back and altered invoice totals, them pocketed the difference. "Void/Reprint Control" will help you manage this problem.

It is not practical to prevent your employees from looking up invoices. There are many times that there is a legitimate business need to do so. The "Void/Reprint Control" feature will allow you to set security levels for invoice inquiry purposes by any valid cashier, however, the invoice may not be altered or voided with out the highest cashier security password as set up by management. No longer will anyone be able to make unauthorized reprints of sales tickets.

Customer Service Module

Customers want to know where their orders are. It's a simple question, but the answer isn't unless your system has special features to help you. First you have to check to see if the items in question were actually ordered. If they were, then are they in stock? If they aren't, was a purchase order placed with the vendor? If the P.O. was placed, when is it due in your warehouse? If it is in your warehouse, when will it be shipped? If it has been shipped, where is it now and when will the customer receive it?

Very few companies can give quick, accurate answers to those questions. With Panasoft's Customer Service Module, you will be able to answer all of these questions with ease. The Customer Service Module will give you a signal screen inquiry that ties all of your sales, inventory control, purchasing and open shipments together with multi-window capabilities. It will allow inquiry of sales detail with open orders. You can inquire on orders by customer, item, due date, and you can review open purchase orders for on-order items. It will also tie shipment tracer information back to sales detail.

With this kind of information at your fingertips, you will be able to give top notch service to your customers and impress them with the fact that you are the best vendor for them.

When You Need To Get The Money First

Should you release the merchandise or not? There will be no need to wonder anymore when you have "Full Payment Verification". This system is flexible in allowing your business to define the kind of information that is mandatory for each payment type. For example, you may require a license number, home phone, and major credit card for check verification. With "Full Payment Verification" a custom window will pop up for each particular payment validation type.

Return Verification

Sometimes it happens; a customer will bring something back. You accept the item because you want to keep the customer's goodwill, but what if that item wasn't purchased in your store? What if that item was purchased during a recent sale, or at a discount? If the customer doesn't have a receipt it is difficult to verify whether to refund at all, or if you do, how much to refund. That's why we have automated "return verifications" for you.

The system will bring up the exact price that the customer paid if the invoice number is know. This way you will not give a refund if you didn't sell the item. It will ensure that you do not refund more than the customer actually paid, and it will also ensure that you don't give inventory away when all you wanted to do was make an exchange.

Sales Workstation Profit Questions

• How long does it take to check the inventory at another location?
• How do we get A/R information to the sales workstation?
• Can we effectively stop customers from charging over their credit limits?
• How long does it take to get a credit card authorization? Are we losing sales because of it?
• Can our people give our customers the answers they need?
• If a customer leaves the sales workstation in the middle of a transaction, does that tie up the whole system?
• Is our sales workstation fast enough to keep from losing sales?
• Does our sales system give our business customers the kind of detailed invoices that they want and need?
• Are new operators able to easily handle the more sophisticated transactions?

To Tip No. 4 To Tip No. 6