Basic operation of DSM

This section will show you how to use DSM by going through an entire basic process. It may not cover every item on every screen. For further instruction, see the advanced section later in the documentation. This documentation will cover the basics on:

· Enter the customer (if necessary)

· Take the quote

· Print, fax, or email the quote to the customer

· Turn the quote into an order (if quote is accepted)

· Assign workers to the order

· Change the status of the order (for dispatching reference purposes)

· Dispatch the job

· Enter the job ticket information (when job is completed)

· Enter the employee timecard information (on the job ticket)

· Invoice the customer

· Enter the check (when the customer pays the invoice)

· Return the check (we’ll assume the check bounces)

· Send collection letters (if the customer is past due)

· Run financial reports

So, here we go! A potential (or current) customer calls and wants a quote on some concrete cutting work. Here’s what you do:

The ORDER

1. With DSM open, you go to Action, add/view/edit orders.

2. Click the button at the bottom that says New Order

3. The customer selection screen will come up. From here, either select the customer (if they’re already in your system), or click the New Customer button. If you click the new customer button, just enter the customer information as described earlier in this documentation.

4. Once the order screen comes up, the first thing you’ll do is select the Type of work you’ll be performing for this customer. In this case they’re requesting a quote, so select the QUOTES type of work in the upper left hand selection box. (it will be opened by default on a new order/quote)

5. Next, in the upper right hand corner, there will be some selection boxes. They will be asking “who is the order/quote by?” and “Salesman?” Just select the appropriate options here and proceed.

Below is a sample of the order/quote screen. We’ll look at it and describe each item below as we continue with the process.

Next, for the purposes of a quote, we’ll move to the job details area. The items here are:

1. Job date – The day in which the work is to be performed.

2. Arrival time – Enter the time scheduled on the job site.

3. Job Req # - Field that can be used for many things. Entering a number here is not necessary to complete this quote.

4. PO# - Enter the PO number if given to you by the customer.

5. Ordered By - Used for a name of the person requesting the work or quote.

6. Comments button – If clicked, opens a window that allows you to type general comments or notes relative to the job.

7. Itemize costs – The area where you itemize the costs for the job. (See picture below) When you click the select button, it will bring up the list of product codes you defined earlier in your configuration steps. Select the items that are relevant to the quote / order and click OK below.

The next area we’ll go to is the job site information section. The items found here are:

1. Sites button – click this button to select a job site from the job site table or you may just type it in the area below it. Clicking the jobsites button is not necessary at this time. Typically it is used for Certified Jobs (Davis Bacon Scale Jobs) which is covered in the advanced section of this documentation.

Next is the Equipment needed at site area. These items are:

Elevation and Distance are not necessary to enter at this time. The check boxes are the items you defined when you configured the system. To review these selectable items, go to file, configuration, system and click on the Order/Customer button in the upper right hand corner to modify or review this list. It’s located in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

With all these items entered, click “SAVE” and you now have a quote entered into DSM.

Now, since we’ve entered a quote, it will not show on the Dispatching screen in DSM by default. You must click the “SHOW QUOTES” checkbox in the upper right of the dispatch screen to see quotes. Click “Show Quotes” and the quote you just entered will appear on the display.

Our next step is to change the quote into an order. (assuming it will be an order) Do so by double clicking the order and changing its worktype (in the upper left hand corner) to the desired work type. For now, make the work type “CORE DRILLING” and click Save. You now have an actual order placed in DSM.

DISPATCHING

Our next step is to Dispatch the job but first we’ll need to assign a worker or two to the job. For now, we’ll just assign one and dispatch the job. To accomplish this, we highlight the order on the dispatch screen and click the button at the bottom left entitled “Assign Worker”. You’ll see a screen similar to the one below.

As shown above, the assign worker screen. These sections are broken down as follows:

Workers assigned to the job section:

1. By default, the first person in the list of available employees will appear to be selected at the top. In truth, if you click “SAVE” the person selected would be assigned to the job.

2. Click the “ADD” button and a list of employees will appear. To select one, you only need click ONCE on that person to assign them. If you wish to assign another person as a helper, just click “ADD” again and repeat the process. The only thing to remember is that you can only assign one primary operator and the rest of the workers assigned must be marked as helpers.

3. Click Save and you’ll go back to the Dispatching screen. Now you’ll notice that the worker assigned appears in the description of the job on the dispatch screen. You may print the order at anytime by clicking the Print button at the bottom. Now you’re ready to dispatch the job.

General Dispatch:

1. Dispatching the job is simple. When the operator leaves and heads to the job, just highlight the job in question and click one of the many “status” buttons below. These buttons are as follows and reference the legend below.

Upon clicking any of these buttons, the status of the job on the dispatch screen will change. These buttons are:

a. Job open – This button sets the status to open (means that nothing has happened with this job)

b. In Route 2 – Sets the status to Dispatched and places an “R” next to the job so at a glance, you know if they’re on their way. It also places a time stamp on the job so you can see when it was dispatched.

c. In progress – Places a slash “/” next to the job signaling that they’ve arrived and the job is commencing. Pressing this button does not update the time stamp.

d. Job complete – if pressed places an “X” next to the job and updates the status of the job.

e. JT Received – if pressed places a checkmark next to the order signaling that the dispatch office has received the paperwork from the operator. This also notes that they’re back from the jobsite.

f. Job Closed – If pressed will close the job and mark it with an asterisk *, so at a glance you know that the job is closed, paperwork has been received and it’s time to prepare a job ticket in DSM.

The Job Ticket

The job ticket in DSM is designed to do many things. In short, it’s the place where you enter what actually happened on the job. Although the order contains the information on the job and what potentially should have happened, the job may have changed between the time of taking the order to the end of the job. To accommodate this, we’ll enter a job ticket on the order in which DSM can invoice from. The items on the job ticket are the actual reflection of the job and is the source of information for many of the reports found in DSM.

Entering the job ticket. The steps are:

1. With the closed job highlighted, click the button called “Job Tickets” The system will bring up the screen below. Depending on the configuration settings in DSM, the system will either assign a number to the job ticket identical to the order number, or allow you to type in a number. By default, DSM does not automatically assign the job ticket with the order number. If you’d like it to, click Cancel, then the DONE button and go change it. Do this by going to File, configuration, system and click the “Job Ticket” button in the upper right hand corner. To make the system automatically assign the number, put a Y next to the field entitled “Default new job tickets with order #”. Click ok, then ok again, then go back to the dispatch screen and we’ll continue with the job ticket.

To get back to the dispatch screen, go to Action, then add/view/edit orders.

Find your order and click on it once then click Job Tickets. Type in your ticket number or (if you had the system automatically assign one, just click Edit. You’ll be presented with the Job ticket screen as illustrated below:

As seen in the illustration, the items you entered on the quote/order in the beginning were brought over to this job ticket in the top section along with their associated prices. For the time being, we won’t worry about the top section where it refers to truck information. The truck information is covered in the advanced job ticket section later in this documentation.

Now back to the Job ticket. From here, you have the option of leaving the billable items as is, or changing them. You do not need to leave them as they are. Typically a job can - and will change due to job conditions, problems, etc. If you’d like to change them, just select which item you wish to change by clicking once on it, then clicking the appropriate button above it. For now let’s assume that what happened on the job is listed here, and no modifications are necessary this time. Your next step is to put the employee timecard information in. Shown in the lower section of the job ticket is the time card information area.

Entering the employee time

Below is a screen shot of the employee timecard entry area.

Here, we’ll assume that “ADMIN” was actually the person that went on the job since he was assigned in an earlier step. The reason the people assigned to the job aren’t pulled from the initial order to the timecard area is because once again, things could change. Anyway, we’ll go through each item here and enter the employee time in preparation for billing.

Enter their information, the steps are:

1. Employee – Click the button to select from a list of employees, then click on the desired employee

2. Started – This is the time they started the job. Typically this time will be the time they leave the shop and begin the trip to the job.

3. Arrived – This is the time they arrived on site.

4. Lunch – In minutes, the time they took for lunch

5. Departed – Time they departed the job site

6. Finished – Time they got back to the shop

7. Total work (hrs) – Non editable area, calculates the total hours of work based on start, arrive, depart and finish times.

8. Total Travel/Shop – Non editable area, calculates the total hours of shop/travel/other time based on the entry to the right. The valid entries are:

a. B – Before time

b. I – Travel inbetween

c. O – Other time

d. S – Shop time

For this demonstration, we’ll turn it on by saving and closing this ticket, then going to File, configuration, system and click the JOB TICKET BUTTON. From there, we’ll just put a “Y” where it says “enable travel time type” and save it. By default the system has this feature turned off. To get back to your ticket, go to action, add/view/edit orders and find your order. Highlight it and click job tickets.

9. Lost time – Non editable calculation field which takes the lost time entries (directly above the SAVE button) and records the hours/minutes of time lost due to any strange or unforeseen circumstances.

10. Certified Job Rate Class – A selector of which certified rates to pay. This feature is off by default and further instruction on Certified Payroll can be found in the advanced section later in this documentation.

11. Cost Code – ???

Next section is the Summary of timecard activity

This area basically breaks down the time you’ve entered above showing you where the employee time has been applied. You may change any of the editable fields. (e.g. if it’s calculated overtime in the travel section and you don’t pay overtime for travel, you’d just zero out the time there anc click Refresh)

Special Considerations, and the Employee’s share areas will be discussed in the advanced sections of this documentation.

To continue, click SAVE.

Now you will see a finished Timecard and job ticket entry ready for billing! Let’s move on and bill it and get you some money!

Click OK. The system will prompt you with a question box stating that it has been saved. It will then ask you if you wish to close the order. If you haven’t closed the order, you cannot bill it. To close it at this time, click YES.

You’ll now see the dispatch screen with the order in the closed state. Click “DONE” at the bottom and we’ll get on to Billing it.

BILLING!

Using the previous order, we’ll now invoice the job. The steps to do so are:

1. Go to Billing, Generate invoices. You’ll see a screen similar to the following.

Note that the order # 000002 is displayed with another order above it. The order above it is just other demonstration data so we’ll not worry about it for now. Note that the 2^nd order has an asterisk next to it. If you click on it once and highlight it, you’ll see the status of the order below in the window marked “Billing Status” It will say “Job Closed, Ready to bill”

Now that it’s ready to bill, you have two options. One is to highlight the order you wish to bill and click the button below marked “highlighted”. This will only invoice the selected item. The other option to billing is the button called “all ready,” which would invoice all orders which are ready to bill. For this example, click “HIGHLIGHTED” and proceed to the next step. It will produce a screen similar to the following.

Your options are as follows:

1. Invoice Date – The date you want on the invoices. You may change this date to any date you desire.

2. # of invoices to generate – a calculation field which shows the number of invoices being generated. If in the previous step the “All Ready” button had been clicked, this field would display the number of invoices the system was about to generate.

3. Starting invoice number – The invoice number that DSM will start with. In the default configuration of DSM, the system will automatically assign the invoice numbers.

4. Preview invoice to screen – allows the preview of an invoice to the screen but DOES NOT GENERATE THE INVOICE

Click OK and the system will generate the invoice!

When you see this screen, the system has created the invoices. You now have the option of printing them now, or you may print them at a later time. To print them now, click yes. If you wish to print them at a later time, click no and you’ll be returned to the main billing screen.

To reprint invoices, go back to the DSM menu and click on BILLING, then REPRINT INVOICES. You’ll be prompted with the following screen:

You can reprint invoices using a number of options. They are:

1. All for given Date – A date field in which you can specify a batch of invoices that were created previously. Typically the use of this option is handy when you didn’t print the invoices at the time of generation or when a customer needs a reprinted copy.

2. Specific Invoice – A field in which you can type the invoice number to reprint.

3. Unpaid for customer – when selected, activates the “FIND” button to the right and allows you to find the customer, then produces all invoices unpaid for the selected Customer.

4. Outstanding invoices – when selected activates the field below allowing you to type in a number of days the outstanding invoices are past due.

5. In the upper right, there are also some extended sort options when running your reprints. You can select alphabetically or by customer number ranges.

Your printing options in the lower half allow you to send the invoices to one of 4 destinations. They are:

1. Screen – When selected, the report (invoices in this case) are sent to the computer display. When displayed on screen, there is an available toolbar that allows the user to then send them to a printer. See toolbar below.

2. Printer – if selected, will send the report (invoices) directly to your Windows® printer. If you have more than one printer installed on your computer, you may see the Windows® printer prompt. If you do, just make the appropriate selection and you’re on your way.

3. Email – Yes, DSM has the capability of sending any report in the system to an email address. For the recipient to view the report (invoice in this case) they will need to have a PDF reader installed on their computer such as Adobe Acrobat™. The selection of EMAIL will prompt the user with the following screen:

The email screen is a basic screen containing the following fields:

a. Email address – A place to type the recipient email address. You can also click the “ADD” button which will prompt you with a list of users set up in the system.

b. Subject – By default, DSM will put in a subject for you based on the report being sent. You may add to it, remove it and type in your own, or whatever you choose.

c. Message – You may type a brief message with your emailed report.

d. Attachement – a non editable field containing the list of file(s) to be sent with the email. Typically this will only include one attachment.

After you’ve clicked “OK” you’ll be prompted to enter the senders name.

Type in your name and click OK.

After clicking ok, you’ll be asked for your email address.

Type in your email address. This would be YOUR email address or whatever email address you wish to become the sender. Click ok and it’s on its way!

4. Fax – If selected, the system will allow you to enter the faxing information. NOTE: You must have WINFAX™ Running in the background for this feature to function.

Ok, now you’ve invoiced! Let’s move on…

Now, let’s assume that you’ve mailed your invoice to the customer and they’ve mailed you a payment check back. The next steps will cover how to enter the payment on their account. The steps are:

1. From the DSM main screen there are two ways to get into entering payments on a customer account. Either go to Action, see financial history OR go to Billing, then Enter payments. Both will produce the customer selection (finder) screen as seen below:

2. Select your customer and click ok. Double clicking on the customer is also acceptable.

3. If you are entering this process from the Action / See financial history screen you’ll then be presented with the customer history. You can enter a payment from this screen by highlighting the invoice and clicking the button entitled “enter check” as seen below;

After clicking the “enter check” button you’ll see the screen below. If you entered this process via the “BILLING / ENTER PAYMENTS” option, you’ll be presented with this screen as well bypassing the customer history.

4. On the payments screen, you have many options. First is the Payment information, it’s options are:

a. Check – if selected, enter the check # to the right then type the amount below along with the date of the check

b. Cash – typically used for COD customers, if selected allows the entry of a cash amount disabling the check # field

c. Credit card – if selected, activates the Credit card information window below allowing you to enter the CC information, and authorization number. There is also a notes field for customer financial notes.

5. After entering the payment information, select the invoice (highlight) on the right and click the button above entitled “AUTO”. This will automatically distribute the check amount to the selected invoice. In this case, there’s only one.

6. Click OK and you’ll be presented with a final screen as shown below:

Make your selection and we’ve entered a payment on the invoice!

Our next step will cover how to return the check we just entered. We’ll assume it was returned due to insufficient funds.

To be continued…