Edition #18

Perhaps you’ve heard about our new product called QConnect, but you may be unsure about what exactly it is. This new product allows information to be sent from external sources into QFloors. The most popular uses for QConnect right now include taking external leads coming from websites, social media, or manufacturers’/buying groups’ lead generation programs, and transferring those leads into the QFloors leads and/or sales modules.

Adding to QFloors Leads CRM

Some of the industry’s digital marketing/website companies have integrated to the QFloors Leads window. Companies like Mobile Marketing, Velocity, FloorForce, and Creating Your Space can add the leads that they are collecting directly into the QFloors Leads/CRM window. And from there, customers can track their leads through QFloors until they become sales. We’ve also had a few other customers who have used their own internal web development resources to do the same thing. (These are people who have websites created by their own programmers.)

CRM Imports

Other dealers are using external CRMs (for example, Zoho or RLM), which provide the equivalent of the QFloors Leads Screen, and track their leads through that. But they want to start a sales order in QFloors without having to type all of the information back in. So QConnect will also allow you to transfer data from a CRM directly into QFloors and start a new proposal.

QFloors Contacts

Both of the methods described above also have a feature that will allow you to add the lead to the QFloors contact section as an option.

Additional Features Coming in the Near Future:

ECommerce and the QFloors Product Catalog

In the most recent pre-release version of QFloors, we have added some additional fields that will allow QFloors to create a more robust connection to e-commerce sites. The new fields are: Collection, Display Online, and Associated Product Pictures.

In the near future, customers will be able to select which products they want to display on their e-commerce websites from QFloors. So there will be one easy point of administration for what’s going to be displayed. It will allow for quick updates and more current information displayed. QFloors will also be able to give information about available local inventory quantities.

Mobile Marketing/Velocity and QFloors are actively working on another exciting new QConnect feature. (Although the same opportunities are available for any other company who wishes to connect with us through QConnect.) This feature will allow our dealers to print out QR codes for their samples in their showroom displays, for those who want customers to be able to look up a retail price and available quantity using their cell phones.

Mobile Marketing/Velocity and QFloors are also actively working on a connection between QFloors and the Velocity/Mobile Marketing e-commerce products.

Sign up for QConnect today.

QConnect offers a lot of cool capabilities that customers want. The cost is $600/yr to have a QConnect account, or it is free if you have an active QPro Pay account. For more information about QConnect, contact me (Chad) or our sales department.

One of the main reasons people tell us why they need software is for more organization within the business, but QFloors is more than just a digital filing cabinet. The phrase “Raise Profits” is in our tagline, and we take that seriously. We recommend the following steps to ensure your system keeps you organized, and more importantly positively impacts your bottom line:

• Obtain an Accurate Financial Statement
• Close your journal to lock in the numbers
• Look at Key Ratios
• Compare, Compare, Compare
• Investigate the Why’s
• Implement the Changes

As a way to support and assist your flooring business in recognizing and realizing opportunities for growth and success, we are excited to introduce another financial service offering – Industry Benchmark Comparisons.

We have purchased current flooring industry statistics for different sized businesses, and your report will show you statistics of businesses that are of a similar size, in the U.S. and Canada. Some of the training you’ll receive will refer to these reports and numbers.

If you want to get an even more meaningful set of reports, we can incorporate your financial results from the past year or two side by side with the industry averages. Through this comparison, we can show you how you stack up; where are you strong and weak compared with the flooring industry and other stores your size. This training will include suggestions for what you should consider to improve.

If you would like to receive this training from us, you can qualify by having accurate financial statements, and be willing to share those statements with us. Of course, all of your information is strictly confidential and your numbers will only be shared in your personal report.

If your financial statements are not accurate or up to date, I am willing to provide instruction and help to catch them up and get them correct.

The charge for this service will be $200/hour, billed as the service is completed. We will give you an estimate prior to beginning, specifying how much time we think will be required (depending upon the size of your business and the state of your financial records).

This is a service that we are providing as part of our upcoming Users Conference to all attendees, but we would like to offer it to those of you who are not able to attend the conference as well. If this is something you would like to take advantage of, please contact our sales department at 801-563-0140, option 4 or email sales@qprosoftware.com, and tell them you are interested in the Financial Benchmark Analysis Trent is offering.

The past year brought a TON of new features and capabilities to QFloors software. Yet I’m often surprised at how few customers are aware of this.

We typically send Release Updates via email, and then there are the Release Notes on our support site. But emails can easily get missed. So here’s a list of some (not all – there are way too many) of the recent additions of the past year. (Note that all of these features are specifically for QFloors software. Our QPro programmers continue to make good strides on the QPro side of things as well.)

For more information on any of these additions and features, feel free to call our support department, review your “QFloors Release (number)” emails, or read through the Release Notes section on our support site.

• Sales Order Split Lines
• Assign costs coming from bills/credits screen directly to specific sales orders
• Sales Order Header – required fields before saving an order
• Enhanced Commercial Projects Summary Reports capabilities, search filters, and features
• Additional Product information added to Product Search Window
• Expanded auto reordering features and capabilities
• QPay
• Option for credit card fees included in job costing
• Order status button for fcB2B orders that have been placed
• Check/Uncheck highlights for contract labor, sales commissions, sales tax, and unbilled reports windows
• Tax ID column to Vendor Accounts Setup, so you can see which vendors may be included in 1099 report
• New search window on Employee/Subs screen
• New status column for Employee/Subs list
• SFTP for fcB2B
• New ETA field and “save as default” pop-up for Finalize PO WIndow
• New Search Window date features and “save selection” options
• Freight Cost on sales order lines
• Materials List check and uncheck selected highlighted items button
• Finalize PO save checkbox
• Sales Order Payments timestamps in description field
• Change Log features
• Project Management – delete project names
• Specialized CARE rates for California dealers

So many cool new things, and more in the works! Again, let us know if you need us to walk you through anything on this list.

Also, to ensure you’re in the loop for important update information, please make sure that emails from qprosoftware.com are not hitting your spam folders. To do this, you can go into your email settings, and under the filters, choose “never send to spam” for any address with @qprosoftware.com. Here’s a link to how to do it with gmail. Secondly, make sure that the email address you gave us is one that is checked regularly. Otherwise, you may miss essential notices.

One of our QTools that many of you may not have been aware of is QReporter, a custom report solution to fit your business’s needs. Many of our customers use QReporter to print customer invoices, as well as to email invoices directly to their customers. Be sure to visit our support website, where you can find a QReporter library of reports that you can preview and download. (Note that you must be logged in to the support site first.) These reports are accessible to you for no additional charge. Even if you have already been using the standard reports, there are updated reports in the QReporter library available to you.

What is QReporter?

QReporter is an add-on reporting program that is more customizable than QFloors reporting. If there is data in QFloors, QReporter has the ability to pull that data out and into a custom report for you. QReporter comes with a few of these standard reports already installed.

What is the QReporter Library?

The QReporter library has a variety of customer invoice options, as well as profitability reports. We recommend that you take a look at our QReporter library making sure you are using the most up to date reports, and correct reports for your area. (This particularly applies to California and Canada due to their unique tax laws.) We have recently been updating our QReporter library making sure our standard reports display the new Surcharging field for those who are using this new feature.

What is a Custom Report?

We recommend taking a look at our QReporter library to find a report that is ideally close to what you are looking for and in need of. Then print that report and redline it showing the changes you would like to see. We have a form that you will fill out and submit to our QReporter programmer for an estimate. Custom reports are billable due to the custom programming that takes place.

I already use QReporter and use it to send emails. Why should I look at what’s new?

We are always doing our best to keep QFloors at the forefront of our industry. So updates are always happening to create the best working environment in the software for you and your team. One thing you may not have been aware of is that we now have our own email relay server. Providing this solution and switching over to our relay server, allows us to help our customers ensure email deliverability.

Did you know about button mapping and the new Ctrl Q shortcut?

You can set your print button located at the top of your sales order screen to pull up your most frequently used print preview from QReporter. This will allow you to pull up your print preview with just one simple click. You still maintain access to your full list of print options. But by setting this feature, you will save time from having to search for the report you like to use. You also now have the ability to quickly pull up your list of options using our new Ctrl Q feature on your keyboard.

So are you using your QTools?

This is only one of the many different features available to you with your software. For more information regarding other QTools and their features, contact a member of our support or sales teams and we will show you what you may be missing out on.

We’re hearing great things about QPay from customers. QPay is an in-house payment processing product, where QFloors controls and supports everything, all the way down to the shipping and connection of the terminals to QFloors. QPay offers integrated payment features, plus a few new advanced enhancements (listed below).

And right now, we’re also including QReporter and a subscription to QConnect* with every new QPay account.

Here are some of the benefits of QPay:

• Plug-n-play terminal setup that does not require an IT expert to attach to our system. This saves time, hassle, and expense for IT services.
• Ability to add a “Pay Now” button onto your company’s website, or send an email request with a button in it, that will allow customers to pay online. Dealers can request payment from customers utilizing this “Pay Now” button, and then are automatically notified of any payments made.
• Ability for customers to pay with eChecks. These payments get automatically posted to your system.
• Surcharge options, for dealers who wish to utilize legal ways to pass credit card fees onto the customer using the card.
• Upgraded security on keyed in cards.
• You don’t have to have a credit card present to do a return.
• You can get a token for all major credit cards, including American Express.
• All gateway and credit card processing support questions go through QFloors support.
• QPay is a QFloors company product! That means we control the pricing, which should instill confidence for all customers.

QPay and QFloors customer Blake Merrell of Castle Floors says that incorporating QPay’s “Pay Now” online payment option for customers has resulted in quicker and higher close rates. “QPay has been a huge time saver for us, as far as collecting deposits and balances. We’re seeing a quicker and a higher close rate on sales, because the Pay Now feature makes it so convenient for our customers to pay. When it’s time to close a sale, we simply send them an email with the Pay Now link. It’s an easy and polite way to prompt them. And it’s easy for them to just click on the link and pay. They don’t have to arrange to come into the store; there’s no phone tag back and forth as they try to call in with their credit card. Because it’s so simple for everyone involved, it helps get us to that close more quickly.”

And Kimi Quinn from Kimi’s Carpets says “We absolutely love QPay! We are seeing benefits in several areas; it is saving us a vast amount of money. We’ve found that for some clients, it does not matter, they want to use their credit card and they will pay the surcharge. For those that want to save that percentage, we send them the echeck option. Using either option for us is a cost savings; the percentage on echecks is so much lower than credit cards. It makes our way of doing contracts, deposits and final payments easier.”

Kimi says she has seen very little resistance from customers about surcharges. “We are very transparent with our clients. We explain to them that their invoices are based off a check or cash payment, and if they choose to use a card, then they will be responsible for the credit card fee that gets added to the payment when it’s processed. We have found that if we put the choice back on our client, then it’s easier for them to choose. Echecks have actually made it easier and quicker (for the clients who don’t want to use a card) to make deposits from home. They feel safer and can do it after we close. So it’s beneficial to us and our clients. Anything that helps them and us is a great addition.”

And as a reminder, for a limited time, we’re also including QReporter and a free subscription of QConnect* with every QPay Account established. For more information on QPay, please contact steve@qprosoftware.com or call 801-563-0140, option 4.

SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) protocol is a direction that the industry is moving to with fcB2B. We here at QFloors have upgraded our software to accommodate this new protocol. This B2B protocol is a functional part of recent QFloors and QPro upgrades.

The following is an insight as to what this protocol is and how it works:

We have increased our efforts to better serve those customers using the B2B functionality in QFloors and in our Web-based version QPro.

The current vendors that have migrated or created a new system environment to use SFTP are Happy Floors, Shaw Industries, and Kraus Flooring, and United Tile. Going forward we will broadcast future vendors that have been certified using SFTP protocol with QFloors.

On our website we have a list of vendors who are currently B2B certified with QFloors. Each Vendor has their own individual link, which can provide additional information on how to communicate with them, and shows the current fcB2B Documents that are certified.

See the Full B2B Table.

We welcome all new vendors who have become B2B certified with QFloors and those who have expanded their B2B/EDI presence.

Here is a list of the most recent vendors to be certified:

So reach out to them and request this communication and time-saving function. Full B2B Table

Important Note: The following vendors are in pre-certification stage with QFloors: LW Flooring, Horizon Forest Products, Viking Distributors Inc., LFishman.

Web Services is continuing to evolve and increase this service in our industry. A good reference for this service and ongoing updates is the fcB2B organization, which we adhere to regarding industry standards.

Web Services within QFloors is a free service to all current customers. I urge you to get on board, for your own benefit. We have videos, documentation and human resources to help you start now. You could be doing more in less time, lowering stress and raising profits.

Taking advantage of Web Services can help save time, lower stress and boost profits. Let us know if we can help you get started.

Don’t wait or worry about implementing all the tremendous benefits of B2B. Here at QFloors, we are ready to help step you through it. Please contact us in regards to any fcB2B questions.