Quotes can be for a specific customer or initially for a “dummy” customer to cover the telephone enquiry for a price. For the telephone enquiry, only the Post Code and work involved (selected from menus of standard jobs) needs to be identified to produce a price.
The Post Code enables the price to be automatically adjusted for the difficulty of working in the particular area. If necessary, the standard price can be further modified to reflect the difficulty of the job or as a discount to a regular customer.
If acceptable to a customer, then further details are then added including the specific customer details (or Customer ID for previous clients). Quotes created are stored on the system so that they can be converted to Invoices. The details of any Quote produced on a Mobile machine are passed back to the Office as part of the end of day processing.
The Quote facilities offer:-
■ Enquiry Quotes produced in seconds.
■ Conversion of an enquiry to a firm quote.
■ Firm Quotes linked to a specific customer / address.
■ Consistent pricing for an area / type of job.
■ Entered Quote to provide the majority of Invoice data.
■ History of Quotes created.
Contract Quotes can be created in various formats to match respective commercial or private sites. The actual text employed can be defined / modified via the Office machine for use in all subsequent quotes.
On site, the operator enters key data such as the number of treatments a year, minimum contract length, repeating cost, initial setup cost, pests covered or excluded and the Customer / Site details.
The pest covered or excluded are then selected using the standard Pest Menus used elsewhere for Site Reporting, Fly Unit Work, etc. The selection provides options to exclude a group of pests, specific pests within a group or include all pests. With a complete record of the work and pest covered, a contract form can be printed on site ready for a customer signature.
Subsequently, the completed form is used to set up a Contract Invoice record on the Office machine which sets up parameters for the initial Contract Invoicing. By including details of the interval between payments, the system will automatically advance all dates included in the Invoice Header and within the descriptive text in the body of the Invoice without the need for further user input.
Invoices can be created from Job Work Quote data or from a list of repeating Contracts.
Job Work Invoices.
An Invoice can be created from a Quote at the touch of a button with all the key information already entered. If required, delivery costs and any deposit paid can be added to give a final cost. If payment is made at the time the Invoice is raised, the Date Payment Received can be entered to stop subsequent Statements being raised for an outstanding payment.
Reports showing Invoices paid and the payment method can be created from each Mobile machine - thus providing a reconciliation between the physical payments passed to the Office by an Operator and what has been Invoiced and marked as paid.
When Invoices are created on a Mobile machine, the details are passed to the Office machine as part of the end of day processing.
If Invoices have not been marked as paid, standard Statement and Reconciliation processes in PestFriend track unpaid Invoices until settled. Thus PestFriend provides traceability of all payments received from the point of Issue of an Invoice until the payment is made.
Contract Invoices.
The Contract Invoices features only operate from the Office machine. This feature can create all the Invoices for a month within the time required to enter the month and year to be processed - the longest job is waiting for a 100 plus Invoices to print off!
This feature allows details of a contract to be entered once then have subsequent Invoices produced automatically on the due month showing the correct period covered. A review facility allows a check to be made on the Invoices automatically selected for the month.
Once Contract Invoices have been printed, all dates are moved forward automatically by the contract repeat interval ready for a new Contract Invoice to be printed when the new due date arrives.
To cover periods when Site Visits are not required (for instance during building works) the Contract Invoice feature has a suspend indicator.
For Contract Invoices, the last Invoice and its value are shown on the Site records. This enables payments to be chased whilst an Operator is on site if required - with the benefit to cash flow.
Once created, all Contract Invoices are handled in exactly the same way as Job Work Invoices. Any Invoice (whether created by the Contract process or as a Job Work Invoice) not marked as paid will appear on a Statement which can cover all sites for a company.
Five Easy Steps to Contract Invoicing
★ Create Master Contract Record for a Site / Customer
★ Enter the Initial Payment and the Repeating Payment
★ Set First Payment Date and Repeat Interval in Months
★ Select Text Format and Initial Dates to be used on Invoices
★ Save ready to be run when an Invoice is due★ Run all Invoices for a month by just entering month and year
Will give a total for all Invoices created by Value and the Number created
From our Customer comments, the Contract Invoice feature is considered to be one of the hidden gems of PestFriend - its so simple to use yet saves so much time.
★ Consistent pricing for the same work in the same area.
★ History of the price charged on previous visits.
★ Price Factoring policy set by the Office for the Operators to use.
★ Pricing which takes account of local conditions - nothing overlooked.
★ Job Work Invoices produced on site - improves cash flow.
★ Ability to monitor Invoice payments made during a site visit.
★ All Contract Invoices for a month created in seconds.
★ Minimises the opportunity of missing a Contract Invoice.
★ Invoices can be produced by site or directed to a Head Office.
★ Statements of outstanding Invoices to help chase overdue payment
