Master Price Files: This is something I’ve been talking about a lot and while this release is not the one that contains the actual ability to take advantage of the Master Price file module, it is the one that actually contains it. In the next release you’ll start to see the ability for you to actually use it, but we had to take it in steps to insure that we didn’t break anything along the way.

Price Category and Industry Changes: You’ll notice in company settings the ability to now choose any combination of industries that you happen to be in. This will allow you to narrow down the items in your major unit Unit Types as well as the categories of items when you create new inventory. This has now been standardized across all dealerships to enable us to begin building the next phase of Lizzy, which we’re more than certain you are all going to like when it’s complete.

Barcode Printing: It might not seem like a big deal, but Lizzy now sports a new barcode printing system that we hope exceeds the abilities of what TBA was able to do in the past. The new processes not only include the ability for Lizzy to print barcodes from key places within the program, but also to store key information that allows us to get to the exact part being scanned. Remember, Lizzy can track inventory in many different ways, to include physical locations within the dealership as well as different distribution centers. So our barcodes had to encompass all the different processes in order to operate perfectly and as such, took a bit of time to get through. We’re pretty excited though about finally having this done and working so well.

Inventory Changes: In the past, not only with Lizzy, but TBA as well, we’ve always had problems with dealerships creating inventory and selecting accounts that were just plain wrong or didn’t make sense. We’ve been trying our best to eliminate this error but dealers kept on going side ways when it came to the accounting process. In this release we have changed things yet again to hopefully put a nail in it once and for all.

The scenario was that someone would import a price file and select the accounts they wanted to use. Then someone else would come along and add a new part manually for whatever reason, but when they did, they would select different accounts for the item than the originals. Even though it should have used the same one as the other items and Lizzy attempted to set it that way, it would inevitably get changed. So in this release of Lizzy, we have elected to remove the ability to set accounts based on individual part numbers and instead have set the system up to auto set them on a per manufacturer basis. This insures that you will NEVER have an item without the proper accounting and that all items for that vendor will exist with the same accounts, unless sub-accounts had been selected for the category of item, which would then be used. It is all handled now from one location in the CRM system instead of for each individual item.

New Template: We’ve been talking a while about redesigning the user interface and have begun that project now that we’re coming to a close on Lizzy’s core functionality. If you’d like to check out another menu system and color scheme, do the following: select System -> Security -> My Profile and then choose the Template drop down. It currently is set to Default 2; change it to Clean Blue then select the save button. Next, completely close your browser, reopen and login again. You should see a completely different color and menu system. There will be more coming soon now that we’ve worked out the first one.

New Chat System: With the new template, came a newly designed chat system and in future releases it will get even better. You can see the Learning Center for more information on how to use it.

Rental Processes: The rental system has been enhanced and in the next release will sport the new scheduling system for scheduling and keeping track of your rental equipment.

General Ledger: We’ve redesigned the General Ledger Location form to allow for lots of other ways to get at just the things you want to see. If you’re interested in the accounting processes you should check it out and let us know if there are any other items you’d like to see there.

Payroll Tables Updated: The payroll system has been updated for the 2011 year. Aren’t we all just so excited about that? Lizzy can help the government steal more of our money that we work so hard to get?

Form Emails: We’ve enhanced the form emails to allow for more formatting options and attachments. While other systems allow you to build email templates and send them to customers, we’ve found that because of all the anti-spam filters that exist most of the images get blocked. As a result we’ve included the ability to attach your brochure, or images, as PDF documents and have them serve as your primary source of information. This allows for you to send the email looking anyway you want as well as attach the actual images and information inside a file that the recipients will actually be able to view and print. We’ve also added a new selection tool on the email screen to select which form email you’d like to use.

While there have been tons of little changes and tweaks as well (I’m sure I’ve left off a few other major things) I’ll turn to the release notes for all the core detail. We’ll be uploading the final release notes later today for everyone to see, so pay attention to your login screens for that information. I’ll also update this entry and post the new link as soon as I have it ready.

Thanks for all your patience on this release as I know it took longer than normal. We’re going to work hard at getting them out faster from this point forward. This was a major hurdle to get through and now that we’ve moved past it, you should start to see things flowing much faster going forward.

Happy new year to all of our awesome customers. 2011 is going to be our year to explode and begin to push things the way we always wanted. We’re already adding new dealers at a record pace and are hiring new staff to help with all the new work. Stay tuned to the “In the News” section of the site as I plan to be a lot more vocal going forward with everything that is going on within the company and the product.

–glenn hancock

Warranty claims are finished for the most part and we’re working on getting them posted into account receivables so that you can process the credits that can later be used in Payables. The next thing on the warranty plate will be to have Lizzy™ automatically submitting the claims for you, or at the very least, putting the claims into a format that can easily be uploaded to the vendors websites.

F&I processes are nearing completion and we’re spending most all of our time on creating the forms for the different States. We’re approaching most of this work on an as needed basis and adding the forms as we add dealers. I’ll keep you up to date on this part of the project as it progresses but so far things are looking really good. We’ve had a number of meetings with new and old customers and have worked out most of the kinks that we’ve been told about so far. I’m sure more will come up as we add more dealers but we’ll address them as quickly as possible as they come to light.

As you can see from the release notes, we’ve been spending a good bit of time tweaking things in different modules and adding new features as we move forward. We’ve added more reports to the system that some of you have requested and we have even more on the way.

Its getting harder and harder for me to make these posts because so much is happening so fast that its hard to keep up with. I’d suggest reading and keeping up with the release notes as a great place to start tracking us in more detail. They cover every important aspect of a release and the different tickets that are completed along the way.

Lizzy™ is really shaping up to be the product we’ve all wanted but could never quite reach far enough to obtain. The extra functionality that is available to us because of being on the web is tremendous and opening many new doors that we had never considered before. Within the next week we’ll be releasing a new SDK that will allow web stores and other 3rd party software vendors to interface directly into the heart of the system. This is going to allow things such as real time inventory requests, customer lookups, invoice processing and more, that is much more difficult on other Dealer Management Solutions. We are on our way to having Lizzy™ be the standard everyone else is measured against.

Well, enough blab. You guys have a great week and we’ll hopefully be speaking with you again soon.

–glenn hancock

2.1.1.6 Release notes

2.1.1.7 Release notes

Release Notes 2.1.1.6

We’ve added another new template “Default 2″ that features a much improved user interface. A lot has been fixed or updated so please review the release notes for more specific information.