MAY 2008

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From the CEO

Market Outlook

The first quarter of the 2008 calendar year has not been without its challenges. Many of us have seen negative results in our superannuation funds for the first time in several years and this together with a share market in free fall and rising interest rates is setting the scene for a substantial rise in failed small businesses over the remainder of the 2008 year. 

Despite this, Australia continues to outperform many larger economies in the western world and the Australian automotive industry has remained relatively immune to the downturn. The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries recently reported that with 347,500 vehicles sold so far this year, sales were up 5.1 per cent on the same period in 2007. FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar was reported recently as saying that “the FCAI forecast of 1 million vehicle sales this year remains firm.”

IT Essential for Growing Companies

Auto-IT is an information technology company with a mission to deliver and support computer systems that improve profitability in retail automotive and equipment dealerships. Information Technology is all about empowering dealers to meet  customers’ expectations and to enhance their experience in the dealership. A flexible, well integrated and secure computer environment should hold the key to raising profitability in good times and bad.

Some business owners in our experience still subscribe to the outdated notion that the ongoing cost of supporting dealer software and IT infrastructure is a waste of money or even worse, a constraint on growth. But those who understand the value of IT and base dealership processes around known best practices will be rewarded with greater returns from their investment in IT systems and more loyal customers as a result.

Dealership Data and Who Controls Access To It

This brings me to the fraught question of who owns the data resident in dealers’ systems. If this question is put to the factories, the dealers, the customers, or the Dealer System Providers, the answers will be widely divergent and there is no prize for guessing what the answers will be from each of these self interested parties.

Auto-IT believes that it is the dealers who own the data residing in their own computers. Not to have access and control over this important property, not only makes the dealer potentially captive to a single supplier, but also limits the benefit they should be enjoying from their not inconsiderable investment in computer technology. We adhere to this belief so strongly that if you so desire, and if you are a customer of ours, we can give you the opportunity to install products that ensure nobody (including Auto-IT) can gain access to your data without your prior knowledge.

Auto-IT now has more than 10,000 licensed users of its software products.

On a final note, Auto-IT continues to enjoy strong sales both onshore and offshore. Last calendar year our new software license sales averaged 250 new users per month and we are on track to exceed these figures this year. Currently as at 1^st May 2008, 10,440 individual users are licensed to use Auto-IT software products in 8 countries and 400 dealer groups.

I look forward to being able to report strong growth and a healthy sales result in the next issue of The Occasional Newsletter shortly after the end of our financial year.

Ken W Fife | Chief Executive Officer | Auto-IT Pty Ltd.

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Auto-IT Factory Interfaces

Auto-IT has and will continue to write all available Factory Interfaces. Many of these interfaces can assist in making your business more efficient and effective. Don't miss out on giving your business a competitive edge! To find out more about how these interfaces can benefit your business and how to set these interfaces up please speak to your Account Manager or Aaran Newman on anewman@autoit.com.au or 0418 253 368.

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Training Needs

Got a new staff member?

Need a refresher?

Want to step up to a more advanced level?

Need help tackling that one process?

To ensure we offer training sessions that meets your needs, we’d like to ask what you require.

Whether you’re interested in training for the Finance, Management Reporting, Parts, Service or Sales related modules of UNITS™, we can offer training in areas that meet your needs. Training delivery options include classroom, on-site or web-based methods.

So we can determine the most common areas in which training is required, please click here to complete our one minute survey. It will help us to serve you better.

Thank you!

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UNITS™ Technical Tips

Servers fail. They break down; hard disks seize up, memory chips burn out. And it always happens an hour before the big sale or service rush! Then of course there are other potential disasters that can affect servers such as fire, flooding, burglary and lightning strike.

We all know that server backups are essential, and all run a system backup of some sort to either tape, hard drive or remote storage device, but do you take the time to check the backup logs and run test system restores to ensure that the backups are actually working?

Backup logs should be checked on a daily basis, and test restores should be run every few months.

For Windows servers, i.e. UNITS™ customers, the backup logs will be located in either “Veritas Backup Exec” or “Acronis True Image”. These logs can also be configured to email a selected group of people in the organisation.

System restores can be carried out by Auto-IT to ensure that your database backups are working correctly. Please contact your Account Manager for further information.

Submitted by Lachlan Rothheudt – Systems Engineer, Auto-IT.

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FAQs - UNITS™

Question:

How can you stop Workshop Charges from appearing on the Service Tax Invoice?

Answer:

The following screen shows workshop charges. These charges will appear on the Service Tax Invoice unless you make changes to the Branch Configuration Maintenance program.

Where workshop charges are not required to be printed on the Service Tax Invoice you can perform the following:

• You can zero the amount of each charge or

• You can change branch configuration to stop automatically selecting the charges and select them when required to be printed on the Service Tax Invoice.

The following screen shows the Branch Configuration Maintenance program. All that is required to stop the charges being listed automatically is to remove the tick from the box for each charge by checking the boxes next to the workshop charges.

All future Service Tax Invoices will show no description or amounts for workshop charges once you have made this change to the configuration.

Question:

How come the amount of available hours in UNITS™ does not correspond to the amount of technician hours I have?

Answer:

There are two ways to correct this situation:

1. Rebuild Diary in Service/Maintenance/Diary Maintenance and if this does not correct the hours then;

2. Check that the shifts applied against each Technician in the Technician Maintenance section are correct.  Therefore, if you have two shifts where Shift 1 = eight hours and Shift 2 = six hours, you need to check the shift applied against each technician is correctly attributed.   For example, if you had eight technicians on the eight hour shift and two on the six hour shift, what should be displayed in the diary as available is 76 hours per day.

Question:

What is a quick way to copy and paste information?

Answer:

Highlight the text to be copied and press the keys ‘Ctrl’ and the ‘C’ keys simultaneously. This copies the text. Then place the cursor where you want the text and simultaneously press the keys ‘Ctrl’ and ‘V’ to paste. This will work in most programs within a Windows environment.

Submitted by Kelvin Gilbert, Mark Beamiss & Max Sita.

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FAQs - PACE2000

Question:

How do I run stocktakes more effectively with PACE2000?

Answer:

Firstly, to avoid unwanted Stocktake Sheets for parts with a blank bin location, carry out the following:

• Run the utility to Rebuild Stock from Purchases and Sales

• Run a DFQUERY report on INMASTER and select all parts where location = “ “ (BLANK).

Stock on hand QTY is <> (not equal to) “0”

Stock on hand VALUE is <> (not equal to) “0”

• Locate any stock on that report in a suitable bin

• When running the Stocktake Extract – Select from BIN “A” to BIN “zzzzzzzzzzz” (so as not to produce count sheets for parts with a blank bin location).

Then proceed with the normal stocktake procedure:

Run the utility to rebuild stock from purchases and sales.  From the Parts Stocktake Menu, carry out the following:

(NOTE: It is advisable to run all output to disk and print sheets and reports from disk.)

1. Run the Stocktake Extract – Say “N” to alternate sort key unless you want the sheets in that sequence.  Say “N” to Ford sequence unless you are a Ford dealer and you want that sequence.

2. Run the Print Count Sheet.

3. Run the Print Blank Count Sheets

4. After stock has been counted – enter counted sheets (Note: all sheets MUST be entered even if zero qty.) (If qty = zero bring up on screen and “F10” to save.)

5. Enter Blank Count Sheets

6. Run the Uncounted Stock Report

7. Run the Stocktake Exception Report (locate parts into the correct bins)

8. Run the Merge Blank and Counted Sheets

9. Run the Stocktake Variance Report

10. Run the Stocktake Update

11. Run the Stocktake Valuation Report

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Auto-IT Pty Ltd 
ABN: 57 091 383 854
Suite 2 / Level 1, 333 Drummond St, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
Ph: (03) 9349 3062 :: Fax: (03) 9349 3067  www.auto-it.com.au