Order Acknowledgments

[Craig]

First time user of Order Acknowledgments and gotta question. When you select "Show Delivery Date" why isn't that date pulled from the information entered on the order? I just sent an acknowledgment with today's date as a the delivery date for 25,000 2 part invoices, numbered.... and it's 2:30pm :eek:

It seems to be defaulting to today's date when you check the box.

[Keith]

I noticed the same thing. But never gave it much thought because I edit the heck out of emailed acknowledgments, quotes and estimates.

Another issue- Paper mark-up is locked out. Meaning, I can adjust the slider and press the radio buttons but the percentage stays the same. It only happens when I select "No Printing"- so I'm guessing there is a reason?

[Hal Heindel]

First time user of Order Acknowledgments and gotta question. When you select "Show Delivery Date" why isn't that date pulled from the information entered on the order? It seems to be defaulting to today's date when you check the box.

Craig, I suppose we could pull in the due date from the order and use that - provided there is a due date! That makes sense and will likely find its way into the next update. The question is, what do we default the estimated delivery date to when there isn't a due date?

At the Unitac shop, we never committed ourselves to a shipping date unless we absolutely had to. And then we padded that date by a day or two. Maybe that explains why the "Show Delivery Date" defaults to NO. And why we would prefer that MF users pull up the calendar and pick a specific date whenever they do check the box.

Another alternative, in the absence of a due date, would be to not default to any date. Then, if the box is checked but the user leaves the date field blank, MF would automatically pop up the calendar.

Let me know what you think.

[Hal Heindel]

Paper mark-up is locked out. Meaning, I can adjust the slider and press the radio buttons but the percentage stays the same. It only happens when I select "No Printing."

I'll bet that percentage is 20. Although the slider and radio buttons appear inactive for blank paper, the percentage does change based on the quantity ordered. If you're using the default of 20% across the board, the display looks to be static. It isn't. MF is just replacing one 20% value with another 20% value (if that makes any sense!).

In all my years of running a print shop, selling more than a carton of blank paper at a time was a non issue - it never happened. If you think the markup for blank paper should be as full-featured as it is for printed stock, let me know. I'll put it on my to do list.

[Keith]

That makes sense. But I only have two customers that order blank paper from me, so I don't know if it's worth it to change it. I manually changed the price.

On the other hand, there are only two other customers that don't ask for a due date. Just about every customer asks for a due date. I'd say if it's left blank, default to no date given. Or pull it from preferences (not sure, don't have the program here at home). But I like your idea of the date window popping open. Even when those two customers don't ask for a due date, I put one in. I sorta schedule on the spot.

[Hal Heindel]

On the other hand, there are only two other customers that don't ask for a due date. Just about every customer asks for a due date.

Looks like print buyers have gotten far more demanding in the four years since I sold the shop. :eek:

Before we go any further, I need to point out that MF distinguishes between a "due date" and a "scheduled delivery date." It's more than just semantics. A due date is when the customer says the job has to be ready for pickup or delivery. That's the date you enter on page two of the order entry form and the date that shows on the Order Tracker. A scheduled delivery date is when you estimate the job will be ready. That's the date you fill in on the Acknowledgment when you check the box.

The two don't have to be the same. In reality, they often aren't. Let's say your customer is a Realtor who needs handouts for an open house on Sunday, April 25. He tells you he absolutely, positively has to have the handouts by Saturday, April 24. A critical due date, for sure. If it were me, I'd schedule the delivery for Thursday or Friday at the latest and show that on the acknowledgment. If nothing else, it would reassure the customer and avoid a panic call.

Bottom line, if we pull in the due date from page two of the order as our default for the scheduled delivery date, we had better make sure we can deliver. That's a part of the printing business I don't miss.


http://www.printfire.com/Images/Forum_TrackerDueDate.jpg

[Craig]

I still think by default the due date and scheduled delivery date are 1 in the same. I fully understand the Realtor scenario but in my mind it's like my wife setting her alarm clock to be 15 minutes fast, so she can hit the snooze button when it goes off and still be "on time".

If my customer tells me it needs delivered on the 5th and we agree on that, I set that date on the order why would the acknowledgment be different?

[Hal Heindel]

... in my mind it's like my wife setting her alarm clock to be 15 minutes fast, so she can hit the snooze button when it goes off and still be "on time".

You kind of hit the nail on the head there, Craig. In the end, it all comes down to psychology and how well you understand your customers. It's not something the software should decide. MF needs to be flexible enough to support any reasonable strategy that works for you. Which is why I've already decided to take your suggestion and make the scheduled delivery default on the acknowledgment identical to the due date on the order.

If there is no due date on the order to default to, I think the best approach is to not default to anything on the acknowledgment, leave the entry field blank, and pop up the calendar.

For what it's worth, I'm by no means the first to suggest that whatever one's wife does, there's usually a price to be paid for making light of it. Hadn't thought of relating the snooze button strategy to delivery scheduling, but now that you brought it up, there's actually a lot to be said for it.

One of the things I really hated when I owned the print shop was having to explain why we missed a deadline. "Press broke down and couldn't get the part, paper didn't come in on time," a million other reasons - all plausible but rarely improving the experience. For a couple of years, the situation was made worse by an overly optimistic shop manager who clearly had no understanding of Murphy's Law and promised far too many jobs with a "stuff doesn't happen" mentality.

At the time, we had a system in place where every employee started the month with a $100.00 bonus. If the month passed without any screw-ups, all of it showed up in the fourth-week pay envelope. If a job had to be rerun that month, a percentage of the cost would be deducted from every employee's bonus, regardless of who caused the rerun. It occurred to me that a $10.00 deduction for every broken promise, from just the shop manager's envelope, might do wonders for our scheduling.

Things got better after that.

[Craig]

Thanks Hal, I like that bonus idea too!!!

[Hal Heindel]

If there is no due date on the order to default to, I think the best approach is to not default to anything on the acknowledgment, leave the entry field blank, and pop up the calendar.

Craig, turns out that's the only approach. Acknowledgments, like estimates and invoices, can span several orders, each with a different due date. That nixes the idea of automatically using the due date from one of the orders as the estimated delivery date for all.

Should have tripped over that earlier, but saw it as soon as I tried to rework the code. What if, when there's more than one order, we took the due date from the order with the longest delivery?

[Keith]

Is it possible to have the due date "travel" with the order/quote? So, if you send an acknowledgement or estimate, each item would have it's own due date? Could we forget about due dates on Acknowledgements, estimates and invoices all together? I'm envisioning an order of biz cards (needed tomorrow for a meeting), brochures (a couple days is fine) and pens (those damn things take forever). I'm afraid if we default to the longest date, we'll hear a lot of- "Can I get X before everything else?"

[Hal Heindel]

Is it possible to have the due date "travel" with the order/quote? So, if you send an acknowledgement or estimate, each item would have it's own due date?

Good thought, Keith, but there are wrinkles. You said that virtually all of your orders are promised, so this is something we had better get right. I finished coding the revisions this morning, and I'm hoping you'll like the results.

Having the due date travel from the estimate to the order isn't really viable, mainly because when you create the estimate, there is no date as such, only an estimated number of days from receipt of the order. Those days are subject to change, based on your workload. When the order comes in (if it comes in), you're now able to pin it down and assign a specific date.

http://www.printfire.com/Images/Forum_Delivery2.jpg

Here is how I reworked it for Acknowledgments:
There's no due date on any of the orders. The estimated delivery date stays blank, with the box unchecked. If the user checks the box but doesn't enter a date, the program pops up a calendar.
There's a due date on a single order. As Craig suggested, MF defaults the estimated delivery date to the due date on the order.
There are varying due dates on multiple orders. MF picks the longest due date as the default. "Can I get X before everything else?" is a valid concern. The solution is to uncheck the box which will clear the default, then promise the individual orders under remarks.
A new setup file for the Gold Beta was uploaded on Saturday, April 24.

http://www.printfire.com/Images/Forum_Delivery3.jpg

[Craig]

I will download the newest version and let you know. I am new to using the acknowledgments (how long have I been using MF now???) and only assumed 1 acknowledgment per order, never thought that multiple orders could be combined into 1 acknowledgment.:o

[Keith]

Just like invoices and estimates, Craig, you can put up to 4 orders in a single acknowledgement. Be careful though! Once you start using it, your customers will call you when you forget to send an acknowledgement! ("Did you get my email about the brochures?") What's cool about the acknowledgements, in fact, is that customers will appreciate knowing you got the order; as well as how much it will cost- no surprises. And it includes the sales tax! Some of my customers have paid me from that, before I could even invoice it.

Hal, you gave me a reason to look forward to Monday morning!