Accounting question.... EDI

[AllRightsReserved]

Ok guys, I really did try to search the forums and answer this on my own, I always do you learn some good stuff this way. For the past two years I've worked doing WSR at a very nice high end detail carwash in an affluent area in Dallas. For the entirety of that time we've done paper invoices with a carbon copy, submitted invoices online to SGC, HSG, Mitchell, then faxed Lynx invoices over to them. Tried keying in the invoices manually into quickbooks, the big one is SGC, that's 90% of our invoices. A few months back I started looking into automating the process and have been looking heavily at edirectglass.com, I did an hour and half webinar tutorial and all I can say is it's like "drinking out of a fire hydrant". Ok, well I can get through anything technical just have to push forward on that but here's the kicker. When I was talking to the sales lady initially she tells me that we can run as many users ie salespeople technicians etc, as we want through a windows based machine. So I'm thinking great, so my boss sends me after a Dell XT Latitude laptop, runs windows 7 pro, screen folds down like a tablet or swivels back around like laptop with a keyboard, and it's got a stylus pen so I'm thinking ok great I can even get a digital signature no extra equipment needed. Well guess what? At the end of the webinar tutuorial with edirectglass, I ask the tech, "where do you capture the signature"? and he goes "you don't"...... he said in his 9 years experience that it's never been an issue? So now this has me thinking twice, because my main purpose in going automated is to get away from having to submit invoices manually via the web to SGC but its turning out to look like edirectglass might be as much work on the actual input side as just doing it the way we have. So with all that said:

1) do you not have to get a signature when submitting via EDI ? What do you do if a customer challenges an install ?

2) has anybody figured out a way to export the data OUT of SGC and straight into Quickbooks? I'd be stoked if I could do that.

I've got a couple more shops coming online in the next couple months, plus my own! Lol...... all help is appreciated and ummmm if any ya'll are in the DFW area and read this and need a job.......

[bill lambeth]

You always need a signature for audits. I do my billing on the SGC web site and it takes about 2 or 3 minutes .Basically all you need is a signed invoice and the vin # .

[AllRightsReserved]

Thanks for your reply Bill. Yes we used Edirectglass for about 5 months and found at the end of it that there was a lot of redundancy, by which I mean we were re keying in the same info that SGC had already keyed in and we got with the referral fax/email. But all was not lost though because this experienced forced us to grow from our old ways of doing things which were 8.5 x 11 carbon copy invoices. We had literally a closet sized locker full of binders full of our copy of these invoices. Now I have developed an invoice where there are two invoices on the front and two on the back of a standard 8.5 x 11 piece of paper. We then scan those into pdf to keep a digital copy, and email the customer a copy of the pdf. I developed our spread sheet so that now it also tracks which invoices have been paid so now at a glance I can see which invoices are still due and owning and follow up on them. It's funny how sometimes we get stuck in our old ways because it's just what we know and it takes an experience like this to get us outside of our comfort zone and grown in new and better directions.

[benswindshieldrepair]

I have no answers to your questions. I still do everything on paper as far as invoicing goes and I use the online invoicing features of the respective TPA's and have a hard time finding time to make that happen (which means night work and 4-5 hours of sleep...However, I would like to state that someday I'm going to find a Safelite guy and either get him whiskey drunk or waterboard him into telling me exactly how many hoops they have to jump through on their jobs like us independent guys do. They commit more fraud than every repair/replace shop collectively in the world with impunity. I can't wait until the day comes that nationwide laws/standards dictate that they do business just like the rest of us.