Update: You can download the Report Builder from Microsoft.

Reporting is a key feature in any software package today. But really, reports are a means to an end. The result that you're ultimately looking to accomplish is to view data in a particular manner. Reports are the 'pre-defined' manner in which a software designer gives you the ability to view your data.

But what if you don't have a software designer? The 'classic' solution to this problem is to hire one, or go back to your software vendor and request a specific report.

Now, fast forward to 2008. With Quantify, we of course know about the 60+ reports that you're going to want to see, and we've included them. But even then, our report might not be what you want. What if you want your logo in the upper left corner. Or, say you don't want the address formatted like we have it? We've solved this by providing a 'report designer'. Each report that's contained within Quantify is a document that lives in your \Reports\ folder. When you run a report, Quantify grabs this file and tosses the appropriate data at it. The report contains definitions of the fields and at runtime these fields map themselves to the appropriate data. The report is rendered to the screen.

So, if you want to change the report, it's a simple task of modifying the report definition. To do this, you use the 'Report Designer' and open the report file to modify it. Think of this as the same as editing a word document with Microsoft Word, only there's no data in the document. The report file contains a definition of what the data looks like and where it's going to go, not the actual data itself.

What can you do with this report designer? Well, the short and easy answer is *everything*. We use the same designer to create the reports, so it's all available to you to use free of charge, included with each installation of Quantify. Within the report designer you'll see a list of fields for the report data. These fields can be dragged and dropped onto the report surface to add them to the list. Note that if there are many items (such as a customer summary shown above) the list simply repeats itself. You can even add new controls to our reports. Below is the toolbar of available controls.

These reports are bound to our software, but if you'd like you can use this same designer to attach directly to SQL Server and create any report you'd like.

In our frequent talks and training with current and potential customers there’s one thing that Avontus has become quite good at discussing: rental billing methods. The plethora of options to suit the needs of all of the falsework companies out there is the purpose of Quantify. In Quantify, you set up your billing method on each job (which some people call a ‘lease’) as shown below. Once you set these options, Quantify bills everything automatically, you don’t have to worry about when things or due.

 
So, a little background. A billing method allows you to tell Quantify how and when invoices are created. Quantify has four:

• Lump sum: This is handled straight from converting a quote to an invoice to a customer. You can bill the entire amount up front or you can spread it out into partial bills in variable percentages depending upon your contract. You still use Quantify to ship materials to the job, this way you can continue to track your inventory.
• Arrears: Some people refer to this as ‘Post-Bill’. In arrears the invoices are created and sent out at the end of the period you define. This can be a set number of days (the most common is 28 days but you can set it to anything; 365 would cover a year lease), first of month, last day of month, or a specific day. The invoice represents the actual cost of the materials that were at the site.
• Advance: Also known as ‘Pre-Bill’, these invoices are generated when the shipment goes out, to be paid for by the customer right away. If the equipment is returned early, Quantify has options to issue a credit or not.
• First Advance, then Arrears: This uses a combination advance/arrears. The very first time a shipment goes out, a minimum is billed. After this first cycle (per shipment) the cycle switches to arrears.

So, back to the discussions. One of the more common conversations has to do with billing minimums (for either advance or first advance then arrears billing). The purpose of billing a minimum is to get your cash as fast as possible. The only way to 100% get your money up front is to pre-bill the entire minimum on the day each shipment that goes out, no matter when it goes out. Here’s how it works in Quantify:

• If you have a single or multiple shipments to a single job you have the option of generating an invoice each day for the minimum and sending it out, or you can wait and have all minimums for a particular job appear on a single invoice.

Here’s how Quantify DOESN’T do it. You can use this list as potential ‘gotchas’ when evaluating rental billing software or your internal billing processes:

• Make sure that you bill the entire minimum amount on the day the shipment leaves the door. We’re seeing a lot of systems that bill some of the minimums one one invoice cycle and the rest on the next month or whenever. This defeats the purpose of having a minimum. What’s worse, you might not charge the correct amount if your customer returns the equipment early.
• The billing for multiple shipments to a single jobsite must synchronize on a single invoice. This includes the advanced and arrears portion of your invoice. If both minimums and arrears are due, they should all be on one invoice.
• An invoice should have the option of being available to print on the day your shipment goes out. If you bill the minimum with your shipment you’ll get your cash faster.
• If you elect to bill on every Friday (as an example), make sure that the minimums for the shipments to the job on Monday and Wednesday and whenever, all appear on a single invoice if you haven’t printed them yet. What’s more, make sure that all of the parts are billed for the full 28 day minimum cycle.

OK, now here’s a gotcha for arrears:

• On your invoice line item for an early return in the arrears cycle, don’t issue credits. If the part was on the job for 14 of 28 days, the invoice should have a single line item for 14 days. Yes, the math will be correct if your invoice bills the full 28 day cycle and then issues a credit, but you can be sure that you’ll get a phone call from your customer asking why it’s done that way. In today’s economy, taking care of your customers is a must.

We hope this topic is useful for improving your internal processes. Below is a timeline that you can use as a comparison for First Advance Then Arrears billing.

  download as PDF

One thing that you can be guaranteed to see in any falsework (scaffold, shoring, or formwork) company is a partial return. Partial returns happen when you ship a bunch of stuff to a jobsite and you only get some of it back. The rest either stays on rent or gets returned somewhere else. This could be in the form of multiple small deliveries in the early stages of the job, then at some point in the middle you’ll get half of it back.

Keeping track of partial returns can get complex if you’re tracking these parts on paper or via an Excel spreadsheet. Quantify saves you a lot of pain in this area, but there is one concept that’s important to know in order to understand how it works.

The concept is called FIFO, which is an acronym that’s short for First In First Out. In Quantify, the quantities on the partial return post against the first shipment that was sent out. You create a FIFO return simply by creating a shipment and setting your source to a jobsite. The ‘return’ groupbox becomes active and you can enter a rent stop date for the parts on the return, which tells the invoice generator to stop rent on a date that’s different than the actual return.

 
FIFO returns are actually optional in Quantify because there are cases, such as when you’re billing by scaffold tag, that you don’t want to FIFO return. To accomplish this you create a non-FIFO return instead of a normal shipment, by clicking on the return button on the shipment toolbar.

In the case of non-FIFO this one delivery will go off rent, probably in the middle of a bunch of other shipments, while leaving the other shipments alone.

Jobs can have mixed FIFO and non-FIFO returns. Quantify memorizes what returns have been posted to what deliveries, all at the time the invoices are generated.