Customers take into account various factors when assessing a prospective supplier, including whether the supplier uses up-to-date technology and how promptly the supplier responds with information.

SmartTrade puts information at your fingertips, with features such as customisable fields and quick searching. Respond within seconds when a customer asks a question about say a job.

• Quick and easy costing and quoting, with features such as template jobs and kit-sets.
• Customise professional looking proposals

Issuing professional quotes and estimates quickly isn’t necessarily enough, disciplined follow-up is also important. We have all experienced prospective customers who sit on proposals for weeks, and need to be prompted into action.

Neglecting to follow-up also risks leaving the wrong impression. The customer may wonder whether you really want the job, and also whether may be a bit disorganised. And the longer you take to close the sale, the more time you allow for the customer to change his or her mind, or give the job to a competitor who does follow-up.

SmartTrade provides the tools to follow-up in a disciplined manner, including recording contact dates either by job or client or in the schedule, and generating reports. We use these features in-house to manage follow-up with prospective new SmartTrade customers.

Many businesses lag behind with invoicing, particularly small ones where the reality is often that paperwork is done after hours. When cash-flow suffers, stress levels soar.

One tradee contacted us after his wife found a box of unbilled job-sheets going back over a year. Happily, using SmartTrade solved this problem and he is still married, despite confessing that there was a second box!

Customers become dissatisfied, and it gives them time to think of reasons why not to pay.

SmartTrade makes it easy to create and send invoices promptly. Job information is readily available. With up-to-date price lists from suppliers, you may be able bill customers before you receive their invoices for materials or services. But if you do want to process supplier invoices first, SmartTrade makes this much quicker.

Disputes with customers and suppliers are inevitable, even in the best run businesses. Not only can these [waste] a lot of time, they can become emotive, and if lawyers get involved, very expensive. The keys to resolving disputes are first, to as much as possible deal with facts rather than opinions, and resolve it quickly before it escalates, and last, be prepared to step back if it appears to be getting out of control.

SmartTrade can provide the factual information to have a rational discussion, particularly if the notes function is used in a disciplined manner. For example, recently a customer complained bitterly that we had failed to follow through on a matter. Using information easily obtainable from within SmartTrade, including date stamped notes of phone calls, we were able to show that this wasn’t true. The heat went out of the dispute and it was resolved to both parties’ satisfaction.

If an invoice is sent to a customer or received from a supplier via Smeedi, then Smeedi’s invoice query feature is available. The discussion occurs by way of exchanging message, which is more efficient and less prone to heat light and sound than phone calls and emails. A log of the exchanges is kept with the invoice in Smeedi.

It is well worth taking a minute or two to contact a prospect after a proposal is rejected, as this is one of those small touches that leaves a positive lasting impression.

SmartTrade allows template emails, with standard text (e.g. “Thank you allowing us to submit a proposal ... While disappointed that we were unsuccessful, we wish you all the best with this project ... Please don’t hesitate to contact us in the future if we can assist in any way”) and also to add a personal note if appropriate.

A well informed customer is usually a happy customer, and conversely, a customer kept in the dark is more likely to suspect the worst. SmartTrade provides the information and tools, such as report and email templates, to keep customers up-to-date with a minimum of effort.

You can change the default pricing (Trade Plus, Cost Plus or Trade Less) for:

• Individual clients by setting the client preferences;
• Client Groups by changing the default client pricing;
• Individual jobs by manually changing the pricing in the job sheet or invoice.

Labour is the single largest cost for most businesses, and a small increase in utilisation (the % of paid hours charged out) can have a significant impact on the bottom line and cash-flow. SmartTrade helps....

• Keeps your field staff on site and out of the office, as they don’t need to come in every day to be assigned jobs or to return paperwork.
• Makes filling out job sheets and timesheets quicker and easier, and by doing this onsite can convert potential downtime into chargeable time.
• Tracks labour utilisation by employee through timesheets.
• The schedule makes it easy to change appointments quickly, and to avoid frustrating schedule mix-ups which waste billable time and annoy customers.
• Job tracking (with or without SmartTrade Mobile’s GPS tracking feature) helps to minimise non-chargeable downtime.

SmartTrade’s job schedule lets you efficiently manage your work load:

• The floating schedule option allows you to display the schedule on a second screen, you can continue working on your main screen;
• Jobs can be scheduled by employee, time and time (day; week; month; or timeline view);
• Jobs can be dragged onto the schedule, jobs can be dragged around the schedule;
• Clicking on the job in the schedule opens the job card;
• Right clicking on the schedule allows new jobs or appointments to be created; job templates selected to save time; jobs archived or dispatched; a schedule report can be generated;
• Jobs can appear in different colours in the schedule determined by the Job’s Workflow Status, Dispatch Status, Priority or Category.

Failing to bill all materials is surprisingly common, reducing job profitability and cash-flow. One of our users described this problem as like buying a new Commodore each year, but leaving it in bits around customers sites.

With features such as orders and matching supplier invoices to jobs, SmartTrade can help ensure that materials are billed out.

Many businesses lag behind with invoicing, particularly small ones where the reality is often that paperwork is done after hours. When cash-flow suffers, stress levels soar. One tradee contacted us after his wife found a box of unbilled job-sheets going back over a year. Happily, using SmartTrade solved this problem and he is still married, despite confessing that there was a second box!

Customers become dissatisfied, and it gives them time to think of reasons why not to pay. SmartTrade makes it easy to create and send invoices promptly. Job information is readily available. With up-to-date price lists from suppliers, you may be able bill customers before you receive their invoices for materials or services. But if you do want to process supplier invoices first, SmartTrade makes this much quicker.

Variations are an opportunity to increase the profitability of a job, but equally are a common source of disputes if not managed properly.

For quoted jobs, variations can be tracked and invoiced out, selecting the levels of detail (e.g. total amount only, or say by line items) to display.

Few small businesses have the time to analyse profit job by job, so it can be a shock when the accountant finishes the annual accounts and the total profit is less than expected. SmartTrade does allow tracking of:

• Margin
• Contribution (margin less labour costs) if labour rates are entered.
• Estimated profitability, if the labour rates include an allowance for overheads recovery.

However, SmartTrade isn’t an accounting package and doesn’t report job profitability on a fully absorbed basis (i.e. after allocating overheads) that can be reconciled to the total profit for the period.

SmartTrade Mobile or SmartTime make it easy to record time against jobs promptly and accurately, and for you to check that timesheets are up-to-date. No more trying to remember what was done days after the event.

The SmartBiz dashboard comprises 3 components:

Operations – key information on jobs and quotes:

• Jobs

• Jobs overdue
• Upcoming jobs

• Quotes

• Follow-up quotes

Management Reports – the following useful management reports are available in SmartBiz:

- Client Profitability by Gross Profit %

- Invoice Summary by Job Category

- Item Tracking Report

- Stock Tracking Report

- Job Profitability Report

- Notes Report

- Van Stock Report

- WIP Report Details

- Workflow Status Report

- Weekly Schedule Report

- Sub-job Costing Summary

- Sub-job Payment Claim by Period

- Sub-job Payment Claim Summary

SmartTrade Discovery – self audit your use of SmartTrade, find out which features and functionalities you are missing out on.

Importing supplier invoices into SmartTrade is one of the most popular functions. Eliminate tedious data entry and, if you post supplier bills before invoicing your own customers, reduce the average time taken and improve cash-flow.

Invoices from a number of leading wholesalers can be imported into SmartTrade. Contact us if you want to import invoices from a supplier that isn’t on the list, as it may be possible to do so using a standard file format.

Supplier invoices imported or keyed into SmartTrade can be electronically matched to jobs by order or job number, and be exported to a connected accounting package.

Most leading trade suppliers now provide price-books in electronic format, and many of these can be imported into SmartTrade easily, allowing electronic price look-up and easy product selection for costings and jobs.

If your supplier doesn’t provide an electronic price-book in a format capable of allowing product level data to be extracted, tell them to join the 21st century! Unfortunately some suppliers still think that a PDF is adequate as an electronic price-book, which isn’t true. Extracting product level data from PDFs is difficult, especially if the PDF is formatted for printed output.

• Construct a supplier order using line items from the job sheet, this can be done either in the office or on SmartTrade Mobile in the field;
• Dispatch the order by email to your supplier.
• Fully integrated, no having to re-enter data!

SmartTrade users, particularly if using an integrated office and field solution, no longer need to print and dispatch paper job-sheets or to provide staff with paper timesheet forms. The data is saved electronically, so no more files or boxes filled with paperwork that is rarely ever accessed, or culling paperwork when the storeroom gets too full.

Filling out forms is becoming more prevalent. Compliance in regulated sectors such as electricity and gas is becoming more stringent, occupational health and safety requirements are becoming more demanding and having to fill out risk management forms is becoming common when working on industrial and commercial sites.

Forms can be much more than just a necessary evil. For example, they can be used to ensure that technicians follow specified procedures when doing a job, improving quality control.

SmartForms can be filled out on site on smart phones or tablets, and uploaded to a cloud database. If you wish, your customers can view their forms.

Commonly used forms such as Job Safety Assessments are available at a set one-off price, or SmartTrade can quote to customise forms to your specific needs.

For many managers, managing people is the hardest and most stressful task. The best way to deal with this problem is to attract quality staff, empower them with information and authority, and provide them up-to-date systems.

While SmartTrade has the facility to quickly run reports, both standard and customised, busy managers often prefer to view key performance indicators with a few clicks.

The SmartBiz dashboard allows users to view data in report and graphical layouts. Still at an early stage of development, SmartBiz is being extended based on feedback from users.

This article introduces the Health and Safety at Work Act and then focuses on 2 aspects:

• Worker participation
• The need to notify any particularly hazarddous works to WorkSafe NZ before starting.