Advisory Councils: Party, General Rental, Heavy Equipment

The market-specific Advisory Councils meet again this year to give attendees the chance to meet like-minded peers and discuss common problems and their solutions. It is also a chance for them to give Alert staff and developers “the rental perspective” to help Alert EasyPro reach its full potential.

This discussion will begin with a brief hands-up/hands-down vote of the ballot options for this year. This provides the recommendations for the new features voting.

Next, there will be time to share any innovative ideas or new processes that you have implemented that have had a dramatic impact on your business this year. We encourage you to let us know about anything you would like to share in advance, and where practical, bring examples, or send us photos in advance so that they can be shared with participants.

Then the discussion will focus on future development, both short and long term. Come with your thoughts on the following subjects:

• What are the challenges you are facing?
• What technology have you recently implemented that has improved your business operations?
• What technological improvements could streamline your business processes and improve sales and profits?
• What technology changes are your customers asking of you?
• How can tasks be made easier and require less labor?

The goal will be to develop a consensus about future development priorities.

Dispatching Tools

Designed for the operation that does extensive delivery and pickup, this class focuses on the Alert tools used in planning and managing your dispatch operations to maximize your operational efficiencies. Learn how to set up and use both the standard Alert functionality as well as the Advanced/Alert options for this process.

Behavioral Interviewing

How much of your bottom line is spent on hiring and training the wrong people? Do you find that you hire the right people in terms of experience and talents, but you end up firing them anyway? Learn the secrets to discovering how employees will behave on the job before you hire them. Employing the right staff not only increases profitability by reducing hiring costs but also by encouraging productivity by the impact made on your entire team. See how Behavioral Interviewing will help you hire the right people the first time.

Introduction to Report Writer

Use the powerful tool you already own! This hands-on course covers the data structures and basics of VCQ Report Writer and is designed to introduce the user to this very powerful tool. This class is for the user who wants the ability to extract information from the Alert EasyPro system and tailor it to produce the reports their store needs or to customize existing Alert Reports. This class sells out every year, so be sure to register quickly to reserve your space today!

Web Requests, Customer Portal, and Report Publisher

Do you already have a website? Do you want to use it to take orders and give customers access to their accounts? Alert can work with your current web developer to allow your customers to get prices, place requests, or even see information on their own account. In addition, you’ll learn how you can use Alert’s free “Report Publisher” to deliver reports when, where, and how you want them.

Executive Dashboard/Operator Dashboard

Come see how to implement two of the most exciting new developments in rental management software in years – the Alert Operator & Executive Dashboards!

Operator Dashboard:

• See how the Operator Dashboard provides the most intuitive, easy-to-use work environment ever.
• Learn how to immediately review, work on, email or re-print any open ticket.
• See how to use active hyper-links to drill down into data so you work faster and easier.
• Use it to immediately and significantly reduce the amount of time your staff is spending on collections calls.
• Get instant access to your rental equipment, listed by equipment on-yard, equipment out-on rent, down for maintenance, and more.

Executive Dashboard:

• Learn how to setup the Executive Dashboard so that each department gets the key performance indicator data they need – and no more.
• No more digging for reports; No more flipping through menus.
• Using graphical and text reporting, the Executive Dashboard instantly gives you an up-to-the-minute status of how your business is doing.

Keeping Your Accounting Program in Balance with Alert

Do you know the best way to import Alert data into your General Ledger? Learn not only how to balance your Alert system and G/L with a minimum amount of effort/manpower, but also learn what else you can be doing to ensure that your open deposit report, Aging, inventory and other key indicators within your business are staying in balance. You will leave this class with a better insight into the tools available to make Alert work with your accounting program.

Multiple Deliveries/Truck Manifest

The class will show you how the new Multi-Delivery module enables you to create/maintain/track multiple deliveries/pickups for a ticket. We will go through the process of creating several delivery/pickup lists from one ticket, and how these will appear on the deliver/pickup board and on the delivery/pickup reports.

We will also cover a variation on the use of this module to create Truck Manifests. The manifest function creates a visual dashboard of transportation activity for an entire event, giving you the ability to know what is loaded on each truck and its status, creating a Manifest Document, and managing venue-to-venue movement of assets.

Achieving a 20% Operating Profit

Back by popular demand, this 90 minute seminar-style presentation expands on the topic that Tom Ross authored as an article appearing in an issue of Rental Management Magazine, combined with his experience as a professional profitability consultant for small businesses.

Many businesses share the challenge of rental operations—increasing competition, high fixed costs, seasonal fluctuations in revenue, and increasing costs for labor, insurance, overhead, etc. Tom will show you that profitability is really a decision—one that you should make consciously, upfront in the planning process. Building on the ARA’s Cost of Doing Business Survey, Tom’s presentation provides a complete and proven ten step process illustrating how you can become one of the most profitable operators in the industry. It is filled with dozens of market proven strategies that will increase revenue, reduce operating costs, improve your customers’ experience and, most importantly, increase your profits.

Using Attachments Throughout Alert

Throw away those sticky notes, note pads, and folders that clutter up your store! Learn how to store digital documents for your rental assets, customers, safety procedures, and more right on your Alert server. See how to easily access and print this information through Alert EasyPro. Learn how to set up and manage attachments to tickets, customers, venues, rental items, and more!

Advanced Counter Functionality (Tool/Party)

In this class you will learn about baseline features of Alert EasyPro that you didn’t know you had, from the newest features to the gems that have been there for years. This seminar-style class is a fun, interactive way of learning about the power of the software you already own – and how to make more and better use of it. You will be encouraged to ask “how-to” questions of your instructor. Hear how other stores use these features to improve profits, save time at the counter, improve customer service, and more. This class is for the Alert user that is ready for the next level and has at least 6-12 months experience on Alert.

Advanced Report Writer

This course is designed for the user who has already become familiar with the VCQ Report Writer in Menu Mode and is ready to move on to Editor Mode. Hosted by an Alert software developer, you will see ways to make your reports more powerful, more flexible, and easier to use. You’ll learn how to be more proficient in your report customization, use switches more effectively, and more. We request that you bring examples of reports that they would like to learn to write, and/or examples of reports or edits that you have been struggling with.

Purchase Order Module Roundtable

A continuation of months of on-line discussions and last year’s roundtable meeting regarding possible enhancements to Alert’s Purchase Order Module, this session will give attendees the opportunity to discuss a variety of ideas to improve this system. Please come with your ideas, copies of examples, and a willingness to work with others to help craft the best PO system for a rental store.

Owners’ Roundtable

This session will examine the unique challenges facing owners and how software can be used to alleviate the problems they encounter. Topics may include staffing, multiple locations, diverse markets, commissions, social networking, seo, and more! Owners: come with your own ideas and questions!

Import/Export Functionality

Learn about the powerful ODBC tool built into Alert’s Import/Export system. Streamline data entry and reduce errors by importing and/or exporting customer, equipment or sales inventory for quick and easy updating. Reduce labor costs by reducing staff time devoted to data entry and searching through old, incorrect customer, equipment, and sales data. Learn how to improve profits on parts, merchandise and equipment sales through improved pricing and product accuracy.

Kits within Kits

Join this roundtable to see what the first capabilities will be with regard to nesting kits, and have the opportunity to provide feedback directly to Programming on where you think the product should be moving forward. Get in on the ground floor and contribute your ideas to this time-saving and flexible new feature!

Excel Tips & Tricks

Have you ever converted a report to Excel from EasyPro and thought: What Now? In Excel Tips and Tricks, we’ll go over some basic Excel functionality such as how to write formulas, sort, and format, and then move on to some advanced concepts such as the difference between .csv and .txt (and why it matters!) We’ll cover our users most common “how do I?” questions so you’ll be able to get the most from your own data.

SubRental & Multi-Store Transfer

Minimize missed rentals, increase revenue, improve profitability and reduce expenses by using SubRental. Own it, but don’t use it? Learn how to avoid overbooking through “Smart Reservations” that help you minimize sub-rental through real-time availability tracking. Finally, if you must sub-rent, this system will help you plan and track purchases and sub-rentals, minimizing “last-minute” expenses. Most importantly: It will prompt for timely cancellation of expenses that you can avoid!

VSIFax for V14

VSIFax is an add-on module that allows you to email and/or fax contracts and statements directly from Alert. New to Alert? This class will give new you an overview of what VSIFax does. Recently upgraded to V14, or getting ready to upgrade? You will learn about the significant changes that have been made to this business-essential product.