It’s important that you identify your specific needs before you start the search. This will help you prioritize. Don’t buy a product with all the bells and whistles, unless it does what you need’
Make sure:
1. The product interfaces with your financial software.
2. It’s Dispatch and Service Management meet your needs.
3. The Mobile Field Service product meets your needs.
1. Financial Software Interface:
Many products were designed to work with their own Accounting module. When QuickBooks took over the market they rushed to put an interface together, using importing and exporting. Check to see if they have their own Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable. This is a dead giveaway, and can cause serious problems, especially when The Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable in QuickBooks gets out of sync with the Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable in the service produce. Who wants to pay a fat accounting bill when your accountant tries to fix the problem.
The billings should flow seamlessly from the initial call, to the final invoice in QuickBooks. Would you rather create your customer invoices in QuickBooks or be forced to import or sync invoices which are created in a 3rd party service software program? Fireline allows you to create your customer invoices in QuickBooks. Everything ties directly to your QuickBooks information, including taxes, items, and customer pricing. This makes the integration simple and seamless with QuickBooks. Who wants to manage two billing programs, and deal with the problems when they get out of sync.
QuickBoks can be tailored to your company and it’s needs. It can be used in many ways, this causes great problems for service software products that started out with their own Accounting Program. They just can’t interface with QuickBooks the way you are using it. Jobs are a good example. They can be setup as service locations, projects, or a mixture of both. Fireline Software lets you work with all these methods without changing the way you have been using QuickBooks.
-defined information.
2. Service Management:
It can get really hectic in the office. During busy times calls need to be handled quickly and efficiently. Make the most of the new technology, use an electronic calendar to record all calls. Nothing generates double entry like entering the call on a spreadsheet, than onto a Google calendar, adding the equipment and the latest history for this job site. Most likely, technician will write the same information on a service ticket. When that ticket hits the office the person responsible for billing enters it again into QuickBooks. What a bottleneck, it is no surprise that things get messed up with a system like that.
Who wants to type the same information into spreadsheets over and over again? With the Electric Pack Software your customer information is entered only one time and it flows through the entire process saving time and money, eliminate duplication and errors. If you take a call for an existing customer, all you need to enter is the problem and the schedule date. Address information, equipment, and history are sent to the technician’s mobile device automatically.
You need your customer information, and you need it right away. No-one wants to wait while you search to see if you can find their history. It is important to track the history at the site where the work was done. You need to have the service history and warranty status of the equipment at the site, not the billing location. Sometimes we need to bill another customer, like a contractor, or a property manager. Fireline Software keeps a complete history of the work that was done at the service location, as well as the billing account. We also keep an history of the work-orders, and the equipment that was worked on, model, serial number, installation and warranty information, along with custom user
3. Mobile Field Service:
Using mobile technology can improve cash flow, eliminate duplicate entry, and provide a paperless environment. Equipment Packs Mobile solution allows your technician enter work performed, recommendations and notes in the field. The customer reviews the work and sign that it was done correctly. The Technician can email or print a receipt, and send the work back to the office by simply pushing a button. In the office, the work can be reviewed, corrected, and sent to QuickBooks in a simple easy step. Equipment Pack will create an invoice or sales receipt. The customer can also receive an emailed copy of the invoice through QuickBooks. The only thing that really changes is the drudgery of entering the same thing over and over again.
Here are some other things to consider when choosing Mobile Field Service Software:
How about the security of your customer list and financial data? These days, it seems like everyone is getting hacked, including the Government and the Military. If they can’t protect their data with the billions of dollars they spend, you can be pretty sure your data is out there for the hacker. You can do a better job protecting your own computer in your office without sending your valuable business data to a big corporate cloud-based computer.
Face it, your technicians are thinking about starting their own business. Why make it easy for them to take your customers. It took you years to build the business. Avoid Mobile Field Service Software that lays all your information out there on the cloud for anyone to see.
What about mobile connectivity? Do your technicians always have cell coverage or is it spotty coverage. You need to be sure that the mobile software you are considering can work without live cell coverage. If your technician is trying to run a job on his mobile device and is constantly dropping the cell signal you have a big problem. With Fireline Mobile software your technician can work the entire job including capturing the customers signature without cell coverage.
If you are considering new Service Software for your Electric company, please give us a call at 800 890-8614 to review your specific software needs and schedule a personal software demonstration.
