Edition #16

If you’ve been out of the country, or haven’t been plugged into the news as of late, you may not be aware of ransomware and what that is. Needless to say, there’s been an increase of ransomware attacks, especially on US corporations, particularly exploding over the past 6 months.

On May 15, 2021, our hosting environment (QCloud), was attacked and brought down by the Conti ransomware group. This is one of the Top 5, most sophisticated ransomware groups in the world.

QFloors was able to successfully defend ourselves against this attack, being out of service for only four calendar days and not paying the demanded ransom. For reference, according to one news article, the average outage time right now for a ransomware attack is 21 days, and the average ransom is $300,000. (Although it is much, much higher for larger companies.)

We encourage all QFloors customers – whether operating on a cloud environment or not, to educate yourselves about this serious potential threat that has emerged. All businesses, small or large, are at risk of being targeted.

In addition, as you know, sometimes you may experience an internet outage, a power outage, a natural disaster, theft, or other events that make it difficult for you to run your business as normal. So it is important to be prepared for any of these unexpected events.

We have created a webinar of a live event discussing the attack and important tips for protecting and preparing yourself. If you haven’t already seen it, please watch it. We’ve also created a knowledge base article on things you should consider implementing to safeguard your business, not only from ransomware, but from other outages. For instance, how will you write up a sales order? Can you still run a credit card? Think about your operation and how you can keep things moving, if necessary, during a temporary outage. Preparation is your greatest defense.

We’re constantly working to make QFloors better for you! Simply, it’s what we do, and we love doing it! Today I’m going to list the new features we’ve added since our last official release back in December 2020.

On that note, I hope you’re watching our Release Notes page so that you are aware of the bugs we’ve fixed and the new features we’ve added. We have two types of releases. An official release is one which we feel is ready for all of our customers to use, and we send an email announcement about these releases. The other type is a pre-release. We post many pre-release versions to our website between official releases, but we don’t send an email out about them. We recommend that you wait to install a pre-release version until a couple of weeks has past since it is posted, unless we’ve notified you specifically that it addresses a software issue you’re dealing with.

With that being said, here are the new features added since the December 2020 official release.

QPay is our own, in-house credit card processing service, and we’re excited about how it can help you! If you haven’t already, watch CEO Chad Ogden’s announcement video, and also this webinar he presented on credit card processing.

We added some information fields to the Catalog Search window, such as whether you have flagged the style/color as having a sample present in your showroom, available balance, physical balance, and calculated retail price. You get to this window by double-clicking either the style or color field on the line of a sales order, or by pressing Ctrl + F6 on your keyboard.

The icon on the QFloors desktop shortcut now looks like this:

This one is still in testing, but it is a new feature in QFloors. Completed Sales Order information can be sent to a Swell server. Swell uses this information to send to your customer your request for a Google Review. You must set up an account with Swell (www.swellcx.com) before activating this feature in QFloors (Setup > Integrations > Swell). And I suggest you watch the Integrations – 3rd Party webinar we posted on our website just last week (Swell and Podium are discussed at the 53:25 point of the video).

You now can assign the cost from a Bill line item to a specific sales order, without adding a material or labor line to that sales order. When you select any account on a bill line other than Inventory, the Description field on that line of the bill will display a list of sales orders [by default, displayed and sorted by Sold To Last Name**Ship To Last Name**Ship To First Name (Sale#)]. After selecting a sales order, the total of that line of the bill will be added to a cost amount on the sales order (displayed below the Ship/Ovhd costs). For full details, see the Assign a Cost from a Bill to a Sales Order knowledge base article.

Consider all that is done each day on your computer. Now consider all the work each member of your team does in their day-to-day operations? Things just got big, didn’t they, and maybe a little overwhelming. Now that we squeezed that elephant into the room… How would you feel if you couldn’t access the information stored in your QFloors software? Customer Information, Sales History, Orders, Stocked Materials, Payments, even your recorded bills. Here at QFloors, we want to remind you just how important backups are.

For just one minute, picture if something were to happen to your server computer that your QFloors is installed on. It doesn’t paint a pretty picture, does it? The great thing is you can fix it. If something were to happen, worst case, you could buy a new computer and reinstall QFloors. But you are only as good as your last backup.

So that brings us to the next question: How often should you backup your computer? The answer to that question is simple…just how much data do you want to lose? One day, one week, a year, maybe all of it? We would recommend that you back up daily.

Disconnected backups are done daily for QCloud customers, but those who host their own data need to make sure backups are happening. Don’t just rely on your IT or tech company to do the backups for you. It’s great to use their service but as an extra layer of protection, you should test the backup. We even suggest that you have a “fire drill”, and let us help test a backup with you. That way you can be sure that your backups are good and doing what they are designed to do.

You can also do a backup yourself and we will test it for you. Please be aware that we would highly recommend when doing your backups that they are being stored and/or moved somewhere off of your computer.

We recognize you are busy, and adding another responsibility as important as this can often feel a bit overwhelming. So if you don’t want the burden of having to remember to make a daily backup, you can always have your IT person set up an automated backup for you. If you would like some guidance and assistance with how you can do this yourself, please give us a call and we can help direct you to the instructions for automated backups on our website. Be sure to check out our Webinar Automated Backups that can be found in your support login under Training Videos to help provide some great instruction and information just for you.

Having flooring specific software is just the beginning. Customize and streamline your day-to-day tasks even further by integrating add-on products. You’ll be amazed at just how much more efficient and productive you can be. Learn how these flooring software add-on products can help automate labor schedules, emailing, advanced reporting, leads, analytics, and more. If you’d like to see any of these time saving products in action, schedule a demo with us.

Measuresquare Estimation Software ($49/mo/license)

Measure with Ease

Zip through measurements with your bluetooth laser measure device or upload PDF blueprints. MeasureSquare instantly estimates product quantities, directions and seam layouts. Also capture room photos, floor conditions, and customer approval signatures, right on the spot. It’s quick, easy, accurate, and immediately communicates professionalism to your customer.

QReporter ($699)

Get Access to Accurate, Helpful Reports for Your Flooring Business

QReporter was designed to give QFloors users additional flexibility in emailing and reporting options. Email quickly and easily from within QFloors. Tap into scores of different flooring business reports. Customize a specific report, unique to your needs.

Document Manager ($499)

Make Your Life Easy with Our Flooring Business File Manager

Organize all of your information – regardless of file type – by job. For example, you can create a job folder containing files from QFloors, QSched, Excel spreadsheets, QReporter, Microsoft documents, photos, etc. You can then open or print any file from this shared folder. Make life easier, with Document Manager.

QSched (Starting at $699)

Flooring Labor Scheduling Software for Integrated Organization

Throw away the whiteboard! This powerful labor management scheduling and tracking tool will take your operation to a whole new level of efficiency and organization. This robust software can deftly handle large numbers of different installers and locations. It’s user-friendly and highly customizable. And helpful reports are quickly generated and easily accessed. When used with QFloors, information is shared seamlessly between the two programs, which means everyone is always on the same page.

On-Site Training ($4,900 promotional price)

4-day Training and System Conversion at Your Location

On-site training is an ideal way to minimize downtime and help your staff quickly come up to speed. We travel to your location, and in just 4 days, we train your entire staff. We also bring your account balances over from your old system, if needed. Customers tell us this is an optimal way to hit the ground running, or an excellent way to start getting more out of the system.

Accounting Services ($200/hour)

Virtual Expert Accounting Assistance

Our management-level QFloors accounting experts can help with a variety of accounting issues, such as year-end financial statement preparation, quarterly reviews, year-end tasks, and more. Prior to the work being initiated, and after you have fully explained your needs to the QFloors accounting specialist, you will be given an estimate of the time/cost required. These services are above and beyond the general software support already provided to all new and current QFloors customers. Because we know exactly where to find all pertinent reports and numbers in your QFloors system, typically these tasks can be performed in much less time by us than by an outside CPA firm.

Stay up to date with the best technology trends and features! Find a full list of add-on products and services on our website.

Is B2B functionality an efficient way of communication between vendors/suppliers and retailers? This is a question we are sometimes asked.

The B2B/EDI x12 document process has been around for over 20 years. We at QFloors feel that the features and functionality of this technology really do represent the most efficient way of EDI document transfers. It allows for real-time communication. It saves a huge amount of time. And it’s a great benefit to vendors, suppliers, and retailers.

QFloors continues to grow our list of certified vendors/manufacturers: QFloors B2B Certified Vendors. We receive a lot of feedback from customers who are wanting to use this technology with as many of their suppliers as possible. We’re continually adding to this list.

We are in the midst of certification with four new suppliers for some or all of the EDI x12 documents.

We are also currently working with Virginia Tile in becoming certified with QFloors and using Web Services. Just as a reminder, web services is a way to check stock and related items with vendors in real time.

Utilizing QFloors’ B2B features can help save time, lower stress, and boost profits. Let us know if we can answer any questions or help you get started.