SouthWare offers customers a fully integrated, PCI/DSS compliant, and cost-effective payment processing solution via is partnership with Element Payment Services, the industry leader in PCI DSS compliant payment processing solutions.

Through a simple upgrade, capture every sale with easy-to-use, reliable payment processing solutions that simplify card payment acceptance and dramatically reduce the risk associated with handling cardholder data. The state-of-the-art Element Express Processing Platform supports credit, debit and check solutions and includes features such as TransForm tokenization, point-to-point encryption and comprehensive Web-based reporting, allowing customers to easily comply with PCI DSS requirements for your payment processing software.

Key Benefits:

• Process Payments Using the Fully Integrated Payment Module in SouthWare, Eliminating the Need for Standalone POS Terminals Or Costly and Unsecure Third Party Software
• Option to Keep Your Current Processor While Leveraging the Advantages of Element’s Processing Platform
• Security and Compliance with Industry Standards such as PCI DSS
• Access to 24×7 Customer Support at No Additional Cost
• Get the Most Valuable Payment Processing with Highly Competitive Processing Rates and Fees.

• Often employees at receiving will manually match a receipt to a purchase order, or even accept that the shipment quantities match the purchase order quantity when in reality the shipment is incorrect. This means that your inventory counts are not reliable. When receipts are hand written, they often go to accounting for updating the computer, which allows for manual data entry errors and a delay in shipping customer orders. By using technology that scans the label on every receipt, you can match it to the correct purchase order, and immediately update the system quantity; you can improve inventory reliability, reduce order fulfillment times, and reduce vendor disputes. You also reduce the amount of time a warehouse worker spends on receiving so they can be assigned more productive tasks, as well as, reducing the time accounting spends to resolve disputes.

• Many errors occur during the manual picking and packing process due to product numbers that are similar or quantities that are not picked correctly. These manual errors result in costly shipping errors and frustrations for your customers. For example, the cost of a single shipping error includes return freight, receipt of returned goods (and potential scrapping), accounting hassles, processing the replacement order, and out bound freight. Frustration from the customer can cost you sales. As you can see, one single error can be very costly. An automated picking and packing solution will stop these errors before they occur, and result in accurate shipments and satisfied customers.

• Many companies spend days completing an annual physical count, and must stop receiving and shipping until the count is complete. This results in a back log of customer orders with a direct impact on your receivables and cash flow. Counts are taken and written on a paper form. When the counts are complete, they must be entered into the system. Because hand written entries may be difficult to read, or the data entry person may make typing errors, your system counts may still not be correct. An automated solution can save you time by updating system quantities as each product is scanned, reduce the total time to complete the physical count, and ensure that the count is accurate. You will be able to resume invoicing sooner and reduce the impact to your cash flow.

From these examples, you can see how scanning and warehouse management can greatly reduce costly errors in the warehouse and improve staff efficiencies. An additional benefit is simplified processes that allow cross training in the warehouse, and a reduction in training time for new employees.

Consider providing your customer with access to this information from your web site. With today’s technology, many customers want immediate results. They don’t want to be put on hold or leave voice messages for a call back. Providing an easy to use site where a customer can access a copy of their invoice, get a tracking number, review a list of products they purchased in the past or check the status of a sales or service order on their schedule can provide higher levels of service, and reduce the cost of in-house customer service employees.

This Live Portal contains dozens of features for entering orders.  The bottom line is that with the OE Portal your order entry:

• Is Quicker
• Is More Accurate
• Requires Less Training
• Is More Intuitive
• Is Simpler to Use, but..
• Allows you to access all the standard features of SouthWare’s standard Order Entry program

Here are some of the key features available in this portal:

• Instant access to existing orders
• Quick customer access or setup of new customer
• One-click creation of a new customer order
• Instant stock item inquiry
• Smart entry of items
  • Item inquiry/pricing access
  • One-click handling of out-of-stock conditions
  • Prompts for related items
  • Generates standard bills as needed
• Instant access to full Order Entry program
  • Maintains same files as standard order entry so you can use both entry methods
• Billing info on separate tab
• Shipping info on separate tab
• Easy entry of text
• Option to select items from previous customer purchases

Having the right technology to improve employee efficiencies is critical to reducing your costs. Structuring personal menus or roles-based portals that simplifies the user experience can have a direct impact on your costs. Users see everything they need to do their tasks, and they are not bothered with information they do not need to see. This allows an employee to work from one convenient screen to perform all of their job related tasks.

This will streamline each employee’s work efforts and help make them more productive. Establishing these methodologies will also reduce the amount of training time when you add new employees.

During a slow economic time, perceptive companies look for ways to enter new markets and expand their business. Here are some ways to grow today, and ensure that you emerge positioned for the inevitable boom that will come.

• Introduce or expand your e-business services. This is a great time to enhance your web site and your professional image.
• Look for ways to attract new customers with your web site. Think of this as adding another sales person without the overhead of hiring an additional employee.
• You may want to offer existing customers an option to enter their own orders on-line. The benefit to your customer is that they can place orders 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The benefit to you is a reduction in the amount of time your sales staff spends each day answering phone calls and entering orders. The cost savings to you can be substantial.
• Look for additional products or services to offer your existing customers. If your products have warranties, this might be a great time to offer preventive maintenance contracts or other types of services that can add to your revenues.

As you can see, this is a great time to consider business opportunities and additional services to improve efficiencies and grow your business.

I had an opportunity to use a Redbox this past week a few times.

The process is simple.  You need a credit card.  If you want a receipt you need an email address.

That is all you need.  You do not give them your name, address, phone number or any other information.  No contracts to sign.

Rental is $1 per day.  After 25 days you own the DVD.

It is a process that could not be made any simpler.  It is less steps than video on demand via your cable provider.

What processes in your business could use a rethink, some simplification and a little technology?

Serious businesses use predictive analytics to identify the most profitable customers and customers most likely to cancel maintenance agreements. You can be proactive during this time to retain your existing customers. Here are a few examples of how you can retain your existing customers.

• Set up a daily Alert that is sent to your sales staff notifying them of all their customers who have not purchased within a specified number of days. Sales people can quickly follow up with these customers to ensure their satisfaction with your performance and pricing.

• Use a technology that provides built-in CRM. This will help your sales staff provide higher levels of service to your customers to maintain their loyalty. Having the right information about each customer, their buying trends, and a 360° view of their current and past activity can enable your sales staff to achieve the highest level of service to keep your customers happy.

Many companies spend a large amount of time at the end of a month running reports and then making collection calls. Often the over due balances that appear on the monthly report occurred at the beginning of the month and are much more than 30 days past due.

You should consider using a management tool such as an Alert to improve your collection process. You can set the alert to send a notification every morning that includes the past due invoices as of that day and immediately begin your collection process. With the right technology, the alert can be structured to include all the information necessary to make the collection call, such as the contact name, phone number, invoice number and amount past due. This will help your employees become more effective, reduce the time it takes to collect the cash that is due you, and improve your cash flow and liquidity.