On a recent visit to one of our customers, Power Mower Sales Corp, nizeX president Glenn Hancock had the chance to interview Gus, their Internet Operations Manager. Gus enthusiastically described the great changes Lizzy has brought to their business after just 4 months of using Lizzy.

1) Ease of Communication — Since everything is linked to a customer’s record, the staff doesn’t have to communicate with each other in order to find the status of a customer’s order. Buyers see new orders automatically when a special order is placed. Gus says: “It (Lizzy) gives us that very seamless way of communicating without having to communicate, because everything is in the system.”

2) Improved Customer Service– Because Lizzy shows the status of each special order, the staff can call a customer proactively when a part is on back order, improving customer satisfaction.

3) Improved Webstore Integration — The process to import webstore orders is simple. Lizzy automatically flags orders when there is a possible issue, and special requests like overnight shipping are marked so that those orders will be seen and shipped right away. Lizzy has also made them more efficient in shipping orders. Gus stated, “It allows us to take 300 orders and within 30 minutes, you’re done.”  The issue of shipping incorrect parts has been resolved as well, thanks to Lizzy’s ability to flag an incorrect part that is scanned for a webstore invoice.

4) Service — Lizzy tracks how long each unit has been there for service, whether all the parts are available, and flags you when each job is ready to be worked. With the scheduling module, service can easily be scheduled for techs of varying skill levels, and there’s no need to guess whether you have time to complete a job the same day the customer needs it done.

5) Ease of Training New People — Gus says that new employees can be working successfully in Lizzy after just an hour of training.

6) Improved Business Performance — The business has seen an improved ability to manage inventory and maintain proper stock levels. Their fill rate has risen from 60% to 90% since implementing Lizzy.

7) Decreased Business Costs –  There is no need to print web orders in order to pull stock, since Lizzy downloads the webstore orders rather than forcing you to print them. Gus says the business is saving money on paper, toners and printers because their need to print documents has been nearly eliminated. In addition, there is no need to file orders as Lizzy tracks each order by customer, so you can pull the order up in an instant when you need to refer to it.

In addition to telling how nizeX’s customer service and speed of system updates were far better than what they experienced with their previous provider, Gus explained that they believe their business will experience improved growth in the future thanks to Lizzy’s advanced features. “We’re not only getting what we need right now, but I believe we’re getting what we’re gonna need in the future.”

Take a look at Glenn’s interview with Gus of Power Mower Sales! We’d like to extend a big thank you to Gus and the entire Power Mower Sales Corp team for their time & willingness to share their thoughts on Lizzy.

To set up your EZ-Link interface, there’s only a few simple steps to follow.

1) Contact Toro to begin the process of registering for EZ-Link. You can reach EZ-Link Support at 866-946-3108 or ezlinksupport@toro.com.

2) From your Lizzy database, go to Settings > General > Manufacturer Interfaces. Select Toro EZ-Link from the dropdown menu.

3) Link each Toro brand to the appropriate contact. (Here it is Toro for each, but you might have your contacts set up differently.) Then link each Lizzy contact type to the correct Toro customer type.

4) If needed, you may register your store(s) with Toro at this time by clicking the green “Register” key. Now you’re completely set up for Toro EZ-Link!

• SigLite T-LBK460 (1 x 5″ screen)
• SignatureGem T-LBK462 (1 x 5″ screen)
• SignatureGem T-LBK755SE (4 x 3″ screen)

For the purposes of this blog, we’ll be examining how to set up your signature capture pads to use with your Lizzy DMS. If you have questions over the differences in the various signature capture devices, or if you’d like to purchase one, please contact the nizeX sales team for assistance.

Once you’ve received your signature capture pad & connected it to your computer, follow these steps to begin using your new device:

1) Install the Topaz drivers that came with the pad.

2) You should already have Java installed, but if you don’t, you can go to Java.com to download it.

3) Install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable package found here.

4) Install the Lizzy™ specific Java modules found here.

5) Finally, go to Settings > General > Company Info. Select the checkbox for “Signature Tablet” under the header “Toggle Java Modules Off/On.”

Then select the correct size of signature capture pad you are using and save.

Once you have followed these steps, a live signature window will be displayed in both your browser and the signature capture pad whenever a signature is required. Once a customer has signed, their signature will be captured and then linked to their invoice or work order in Lizzy.

Once you have your barcodes ready to be placed on each product, you’re ready to get started tracking scanTags in Lizzy. The first thing you’ll want to do is go to Settings > Inventory > Defaults. Scroll to about the middle of the page, until you see the checkbox for “Use Lizzy scanTag.” Check the box, then save.

Now you can begin linking units to their individual scanTags. To do so, go to Serialized > Units > Locate a Unit. You can use the drill-down features to locate the units you want to tag. Once you have clicked on an individual unit, locate the green button that says “Assign scanTag.”

Click on the “Assign scanTag” button, and you’ll see a small pop-up window that asks for the scanTag information.

Scan or enter the unique scanTag number into this field and Save. Once you have saved the information, the page will refresh and show you the new linked scanTag.

Now, once you have all of your major unit inventory linked in Lizzy, you may also wish to tag customer-owned units as well (that may not have been sold by your store and therefore were never tagged). Once a customer brings a unit in for servicing, you can link their unit to a scanTag at that time. First, create a new service ticket. If you have your Lizzy database set to use scanTags, you should see the option to scan a tag at this time. However, you’ll need to actually link the tag to the customer before Lizzy can recognize the unit.

Once you have the service ticket linked to the correct customer, add the customer’s unit to the invoice. You should now see a special icon that looks like a ticket displayed on the invoice that will allow you to “Assign a scanTag.”

Click on it, and you will see the small pop-up window displayed that allows you to link a scanTag to the unit. Scan or hand-enter the unique code, and save. The scanTag is now linked to the customer’s unit.

If you do not need to create a service ticket for a customer, but wish to assign a scanTag to a customer-owned unit, you can do so by first locating the customer and then going to Invoicing > General Invoices > View Customer Units. Once you have done so, any units already linked to that customer will display and you can assign a scanTag to each unit the way you did for your own inventory earlier in the process.

Finally, a great question from a customer about when scanTags wear out. “Can I replace a scanTag on a unit in Lizzy?” YES, you can! While the scanTag options that nizeX sells are extremely durable (with an estimated lifespan of over 20 years when kept outdoors continuously), should you find that you need to replace a scanTag, you need only click on the “Assign scanTag” button and then “Replace scanTag” when viewing a unit that already has a scanTag linked to it.

There are 2 basic methods of use tax.  The first one is inventory that is originally purchased for resale, but then instead is used in your business ( say a quart of oil, or a tool you sell that your repair shop instead grabs for itself, etc ).  The other is purchases you made from a normal inventory supplier, but aren’t for inventory ( say computer equipment, etc ), but since you purchased from an inventory supplier, they don’t charge you sales tax on something you should have paid it on.

So the question is how do you track this in Lizzy, so that you can correctly report it on your regular sales tax contribution.

Well, since they are 2 different things, they are handled 2 different ways.

The first, expensing of inventory, is pretty automated by Lizzy, so long as you are set up for it.  First thing is you need to go to Settings > General > Tax Rates.  Then scroll down and click the Edit Pencil next to a given tax rate that needs USE tax charged on it.  Then make sure that State USE Tax is checked.  Do this for every municipality you will be charging USE tax for.  Once that is set up – use tax is activated when you adjust your inventory.  On the inventory adjustment screen ( Inventory > Management > Adjust Inventory ), there is now a Apply USE Tax check box.  This is defaulting to unchecked.  This is also due to the fact that by default you are tied to the Inventory Shrinkage account for your adjustment. Naturally, when you increase inventory, nothing happens regarding use tax.  Also, by default, if you reduce inventory into Shrinkage, the Apply check box stays unchecked, and it won’t charge USE tax on shrinkage ( you don’t want to have to pay USE tax on stolen merchandise ).  However, if you change the account to a different account ( some other expense, or asset account ), then the Apply USE Tax check box will get checked.  PLEASE NOTE:  The check box is what tells the system to calculate USE tax…  if the user unchecks the box when expensing out oil to the shop ( a clear case of USE tax ), then use tax will NOT be calculated.  On the same token, if the user checks the box when shrinking inventory ( hitting inventory shrinkage – a clear case of not wanting to charge use tax ), Lizzy will charge use tax, because the user told her to.  Once the tax is calculated, it will appear on the Sales Tax report in Lizzy under USE heading.

The second method, by taxable items without sales tax from your inventory supplier, requires a bit more on your end.  The easiest way to handle this is use the prepaid sales tax gl account.  You can see what account this is ( or change it ) in Settings > General > Tax Rates.  But as the user, you would simply create a GL Adjustment ( Accounting > General Ledger > Create Adjustment ) hitting this account ( and offsetting the same account you hit when you purchased whatever material you should have taxed ).  The nice thing is that this amount will show up on the Sales Tax Payment form, so you can add it into your sales tax submission.