iWASH - Back Office Basics

The iWASH system is very powerful tool for your business. Behind the Point of Sale system is a very comprehensive set of reports and features that will allow you to analyze your business and manage the POS system.

iWASH is an industry dedicated version of iPOS for the cash wash industry. In this document the terms iPOS and iWASH are interchangeable

This document will take you through the all of the concepts behind the proper operation of the system.

Customers with Support Agreements will have iWASH fully installed by Imagatec. One computer in your network will be setup as the ‘server’ and this will have iWASH installed on it. All the other workstations ask the server for copies of iWASH as needed and do not have the program installed on it as such.

iWASH is an Internet Application. This means you start Internet Explorer to get access to the system. iWASH will be set as Internet Explorers Home Page. This means it will automatically start every time.

The Home page is the first page you see when you open Internet Explorer. From the home page you can directly open the many features of the Point of Sale, and Time Clock sub-systems, (right hand side, large buttons). On the left hand side is the login. Only those with a login and password can get into the management and reporting section of the system.

A LOGIN is a combination of a login (or username) and password. This is to allow access only to those people who are allows to have access to your reports. This is a very important security issue. As the system is connected to the Internet, your LOGIN details protects the system.

To get a login and password - See your System Administrator or Manager

Open Internet Explorer. Click in the Login field. Enter your Login, press Tab Enter your Password Click the Login button

If you get it wrong the system will give you 3 attempts. Do not panic if you get it wrong 3 times. Just close Internet Explorer and try again. Each time you open Internet Explorer you get 3 attempts.

The login and password are not case sensitive, but if you have used a combination of letters and numbers then the Num Lock may be turned off which is sending direction arrows instead of numbers. Check that the Num Lock light on your keyboard is on.

The system will on a regular basis ask you to change your password. When you do this only your password will change the Login part will stay the same.

Do not share your login details with others, this is a security risk. If you want others to have access then you can create a separate login and password for them to use. Internet Explorer will offer to remember login and passwords for you. We recommend that you do not use this feature as it will render the security useless in a shared office environment.

As a further security measure iPOS will idle out your Back Office session after a small amount of time, if you do not continue to use it. This is why you may be asked to login again if you leave the system and come back and try a run a report.

Once you have successfully logged in you will always be displayed the Main Menu. Across the top of the Page the system will display the name of the page (middle large font), the name of the store (top right corner), the day and date (lower right).

Click on POS (top left) will always return you to this page which shows the Point of Sale Reporting options. The Stock and Labour links will take you to those modules respectively.

iPOS has been designed so that you don’t have to print a report at all. The system will store and be able to report on anything today, tomorrow, 6 months or 3 years from now. Everything is date based.

The actual number of and position of the reports may change in the Menu, and that is covered separately. But what wont change is how to ask for a report and what you can do with it.

All reports in the system are calculated when they are asked for. This means that changes in the data (such as more sales) will be reflected each time you ask for the report. A good way to see this behavior is to run a Sales Report for today, wait a couple of minutes and click the Refresh button in Internet Explorer. This will make the system recalculate the report and include any new sales made in between reports.

Many reports also have hyperlinks. Every report in iPOS is a web page, one of the features of web pages are that they can be linked in many ways to each other. (This is why it is called a ‘web’, since the links do not have to be ordered and they can jump from any page to any page). Hyperlinks are used on Reports in iPOS to indicate that more information is available. This is normally a ‘drill-down’ process (into more detail) but it could also be a ‘drill across’ (into related data).

A Hyperlink can be spotted on a report by the underline. Also when you move your mouse over the hyperlink it will change to a pointing hand. Clicking on the hyperlink will start the calculation of that report. You can return to the current report by clicking on the Back button in Internet Explorer. (When clicking Back, the report is not recalculated, your computer picks up the copy it had before).

Reports in iPOS have been designed so that they are compatible for Word and Excel. Reports can be copied into either of these programs and they will retain their formatting and hyperlinks.

To cut and paste a report, select the report by pressing Ctrl+A or Edit | Select All from the Internet Explorer Menu. Open the Word or Excel Document then Ctrl+V or Edit | Paste.

You can also right click anywhere on your report and select the menu option Export to Microsoft Excel.

At some time you will want to print the reports. Internet Explorer does the printing, not iPOS so you need to be aware of how Internet Explorer handles printing.

Firstly Internet Explorer will use your default printer settings. Where possible we have designed Reports to be best printed in Portrait but not every report can fit that way. If a report needs to be printed landscape you will need to change the Print Options in Internet Explorer, iPOS cannot tell Internet Explorer which way to print the report.

Select File | Page Setup. Change the Orientation to Landscape Click OK.

Once you have printed the report, don’t forget to change it back to Portrait otherwise the next report will be in landscape as well.

When you do print a report, it may look slightly different to the format on the screen. This is because the screen is different width to the printed page. iPOS has built into each the report rules about how to change column widths to fit on a page.

A very powerful feature is that you can run multiple copies of Internet Explorer on the same computer and run multiple reports at the same time. You can use this feature to run and compare reports for different periods.

Every time you open a new copy of Internet Explorer you will need to login again.

Just be careful when using this feature if you request multiple large reports. The Server will try and process both requests at once which will affect speed.

Internet Explorer also allows you to Email a report to someone else to share the information with them. Run the report you want to email then in Internet Explorer select the Email icon and select Send Page. This will open Outlook and create a new email with the report imbedded in it. Add the people to send it to and add any notes then click send. It’s that easy!

iPOS makes using dates easy. iPOS is set to run dates in a dd/mm/yyyy format (just the right way for Australia and New Zealand). This means you don’t have to fight those US Date formats as forced by many other windows programs. The system is smart enough to handle dates typed in the following formats and it will convert it to the correct format. dd/mm/yyyy dd/mm/yy ddmmyy ddmmyyyy

There is also a powerful calendar gadget on all date fields. This gadget allows to you pick any date of the current month change months, years even pick by week number.

The final tool for dates is the Snap Dates. Common dates like yesterday, this week, last week appear in a list on the right hand side of the screen. Click the word and the dates change for you.

Dates are very important in iPOS as everything is stored by date and time. All the reports you need will be requested by date. Therefore getting used to the various date tools will make reporting a simple and powerful task.

While the iWASH system has been installed, it will not be fully operational until a number of tasks have been completed for your local operation. The single most important and largest of these tasks, is setting up your Staff in the system.

To set up Staff you need to first login and select Staff from the Left hand menu. Full instructions for Adding, Modifying and Deleting Staff are an appendix to this manual.

Now that the system is setup and ready to be used lets look at how it will be used.

Some POS systems require that you tell the system that you have started the day, this clears totals and sets it up for trade. iPOS is a lot smarter, there is nothing you need to do. Every transaction is date and time stamped. From the date and time iPOS can tell where one day ends and the next one starts.

To get going in the mornings, make sure that all the equipment is turned on and working (server, workstation, printers, PDAs). Put your cash into the till and start trading.

Make sure that as Staff arrive they Login using the Time Clock. This is important as this will be the basis of how they are paid and it will then allow access to the POS system and other features.

It is expected that during the day Staff will clock on and off for breaks and the start and end of different shifts. Since iPOS date time stamps all transactions in the system you can get a report on the days trade to the moment at any time. Other system called this an X read. In iPOS we call it a Daily Analysis.

The Daily Analysis is available from any workstation including the PDA. Different stores are able to set different security levels which may hide the Daily Analysis unless you use a password. If available the Daily Analysis runs today’s report. To get reports for historical data, use the Back Office login ad password and select Daily Analysis from the Menu, you will be prompted for a date.

Traditionally systems would require at the end of the day to perform a Z read. This would clear the totals ready for the next day. iPOS is smarter than that. As already indicated above, the date/time stamp allows iPOS to work that out for itself.

To close up for the day, you are still expected to complete a number of tasks for good management, such as balancing the till against the Daily Analysis, but the system does not force you to do this. You could leave it and in the morning run yesterdays report and balance the till then even though trade may have already started for the day.

This is a very important feature of iPOS. We understand that in retail, stuff happens, and sometimes that stuff is not always helpful to getting out on time, so having a POS system that allows you to trade on and do the paperwork later can be a blessing in those times of need.

The weekly reporting cycle is the most important in iPOS. All of the major modules Sales, Labour and Stock all combine their data to have at least weekly reporting so they can be compared to each other. For example the Labour module benchmarks itself to Sales by reporting the cost of Wages as a percentage of Gross Sales.

Select Sales Report from Main Menu, change Report Style to Weekly and set the date to the Sunday date of the week to be reported.

Select Timesheet from the Labour Main Menu. Enter the dates from the Monday to the Sunday of the week to be reported. The Timesheet is used to transfer data into a payroll system. The iPOS labour module is not a payroll system but it can and does provide the raw data for a payroll system to process.

Select Labour Summary from the Labour Main Menu. Enter the dates from the Monday to the Sunday of the week to be reported. This is more a management report on Labour. The Timesheet is a very detailed report, while the Labour Summary provides a streamlined view of where the hours are spent.

New Staff need to be added and pay rates modified on existing staff members are they are required. While this can be done at any time, it is normal efficient practice to do all these changes prior to completing the Rosters for the next week as this information

Rosters are completed on a for a day at a time, normally for the week about to commence. (See the Labour Manual for complete instructions on how to complete Rosters).

The most common monthly report to run is Monthly Sales Report. Select Sales Report from the Main Menu and change the style to Monthly. This report shows the month in weekly columns a great tool for tracking against budgets.

All Reports can be run at any time. Just remember that if you are running reports that includes today and the store is trading the numbers will change as more orders are saved and added to the totals. iPOS stores every transaction for ever. This is no need to run and print reports just to store them. Run the reports when you need them to build business cases for new projects, run the reports for accounting data, run the reports to manage the business

Computers are complex devices. Even with the care and attention to detail we place in our products sometimes the system will get upset. Fortunately there are some simple methods for getting out of trouble and back on track.

There are 3 steps to troubleshooting a problem. 1. Make sure that all the equipment is actually plugged in and turned on. For example if a printer is not printing make sure it is turned on, has paper and is connected to the computer. Sometimes it is that simple.

2. Shutdown and restart that workstation.

3. Shutdown and restart the server.

Failing all that call the Help Desk. The Help Desk is there to provide the support. As you gain more experience with the system you will get to know which problems can be fixed by a restart (most of them) and which can’t. Most problems that happen will be environmental, such as power, dirt, dust, loose cables, or the operating system of the computer (windows). iPOS is a very robust system, bugs do occur (especially when we upgrade features) but they are not common and rarely the cause of a random failure.

Core to the success of the iPOS system is the management of the customer database and how it can be used to increase awareness and promote loyalty. This manual covers the technical aspects of how to maintain the customer database. The campaigns themselves are covered in a separate manual.

iPOS breaks the information into 2 separate databases. Cars and Customers. This is to allow 1 customer to own multiple cars (a fleet). Every wash sales is recorded with the rego plate of the car being serviced. This plate has its own Car Record in the system. These can then be linked to customer details.

It is not expected that iPOS will have the customer details of every car in the database

In iWASH Accounts are used to keep track of owners of cars and if they should be invoiced at the end of each month. For every sale the car rego is recorded. Cars can be attached to an owners account. this way it is possible for an owner to have a fleet of cars and have all the cars tracked both individually (by rego) or as group (by owners account). When the sale comes to be paid there is a further option have the sale settled then (by cash and or card) or the payment can be deferred and paid “on account”.

Login to the back office part of the system. Under the heading Accounts select the option Accounts. Click the New Button (right hand side, top of page) fill in the form and click save (right hand side, top of page)

Find the Account in the list of accounts and select it. Since there is potentially a lot owners the list if filtered alphabetically by surname. Use the pull down list to change the filtered letter. fill in the form and click save (right hand side, top of page)

It is not recommended to delete Account Details. You can remove them from view by clearing the Active checkbox and saving the change.

As a car is entered into the POS system there is the option to select the account as this point. Alternatively the account can be attached through the back office Car features. In either case use the drop down list to select an owner.

NOTE : Not every car needs to have an owners account attached many cars that pass through will only be recorded by Rego.

As mentioned above NOT every sale have been “on account” (deferred payment) some owners may have an account setup but for varied reasons may choose this time pay for the sale by cash/card. To place this sale or part of the sale “on account” type in the amount on the payment window and click the account button. This will reduce the outstanding payment by that much. Once the sale is fully accounted for you can save the details and the sale will be complete.

Depending on your accounting cycle (I will assume monthly) you will need to generate reports. All the reports are DATE driven so you can run the reports daily, weekly and or monthly.

The first report which will use for your own records is the Account Summary. This report lists the total (sum of all sales) for each owners account in the date range. You will notice that this report separates sales that were settled at the time (cash/card) and the sales that were deferred (on account). This is a management report and not designed to be shown to customers. This report is to be used to show the value of the account customers to your business.

This is the report from which invoices will be generated. This report is available from the menu and is also a hyperlink on the Account Summary (preferred method). The account statement lists each sale by car rego the date/time and sale that needs to be paid. iWASH at this point does not create Invoices or manage Debtors. iWASH generates the raw data from which invoices can be created.

At the end of each cycle, run an Account Summary for the entire period. Use the hyperlink on each owner to calculate then print the Account Statement. Using your Accounting Package (like MYOB) generate one invoice for the month for each owner for the value of the unpaid for sales. Attach the Account Statement to each invoice as proof of debt. Manage the payments of these invoices in your accounting system.