How to run the counter

Getting in, and what you're looking at

Your administrator creates your account and gives you a temporary password. It is temporary in the strict sense: you will not get past the front door with it.

1. Sign in with your email address and the password you were given.

2. You land on a screen asking you to set your own password. This is not optional and there is no way around it.

   Type the temporary password once more, then your own twice. Your new one has to be different from the temporary one, and at least the minimum length the screen tells you.

3. Agree to the terms. Now you are in.

The shape of the screen

The sidebar down the left is the whole application, in three groups. The grouping is worth learning because it tells you where to look for anything you have not met yet.

Search, and when to use it

At the top of the sidebar is Search. It looks across customers, quotes, invoices and items at once. When you know a name or a number but not which list it lives in, start there rather than guessing.

It matches on more than you would expect: a customer's phone number, an invoice number with or without its prefix, part of a company name, an item SKU. If a customer rings and says “it's about job 1032”, type 1032.

Setting up the shop

Skip this part if somebody has already done it, but read the numbering note, because that one is hard to undo.

Everything here is under Settings, and most of it is administrator only.

1. Company information. Name, address, phone, email and your time zone. The address prints on every quote and invoice, so get it right once.

   The time zone matters more than it looks. Every timestamp in the system is shown in it, so if it is wrong, your day end report covers the wrong day and your audit trail is an hour out.

2. Your logo. A PNG or JPEG. It goes on documents, so use the version with room around it rather than one cropped tight.

3. Numbering. Set the prefix and next number for quotes, invoices, purchase orders, credits and receipts. For example INV- starting at 1032.

   Receipts start at 1 rather than 1000, because they are numbered per payment taken and starting at 1 is what shops actually want to see.

4. Tax rates. Add the rates you actually charge. You can have several, and each customer can be put on one.

5. Payment terms. These start out as COD, Net 10, Net 20 and Net 30. Change them to match how you really sell. Terms set the due date on an invoice, which is what the receivables report ages against.

6. The document builder. This designs how a quote or invoice looks: colours, which fields appear, the footer. It redraws a real document as you type, so you see what the customer will see rather than a preview of a preview.

   Every document keeps the template it was created with, so redesigning today does not rewrite last year's invoices.

No tax rate on purpose

The system does not invent a tax rate for you. A rate called “Standard” at 0% would be inherited by every customer and would compute tax as zero on every document: correctly, silently, and wrongly. Add your real rates before you sell anything.

Email

Out of the box your email is sent from a shared TopperBase address with your company name on it. That works immediately and needs no setup. Under Settings → Email sending you can do three things.

• Add a reply-to address, so that when a customer hits reply it reaches you rather than us. We email a code to that address first, to check it is really yours.
• Set up your own domain, so email comes from [email protected] instead. Two steps: prove the domain is yours with one record, then add three more. The screen checks each one and names the one that is missing, rather than just saying it failed.
• Send a test email. It is a real message, not a simulation. If something is wrong you get the actual reason back, which is usually enough to fix it without asking anyone.

The same screen shows how your last 24 hours of email went, and the addresses that bounced. That list is yours alone and does not affect any other company.

What you sell

Your catalogue is in two lists, and the split is not cosmetic.

What is on an item

How a topper gets its questions

For each manufacturer and model you sell, you build the list of questions that model actually needs: front glass, side windows, colour, rack, and so on. Each question is a dropdown, and each answer inside it can carry its own price.

Do that once, and from then on writing a quote for that topper is a matter of answering the questions in order. The prices add themselves, and nobody has to remember that the sliding front window is ninety dollars.

Set the questions up in the order you would ask them at the counter. The screen asks them in that order, so a well ordered list turns a quote into a conversation rather than a form.

Install packs

Rather than typing a labour line every time, set up named packs: Economy, Standard, Deluxe, whatever you call them, each with its own price. On a quote you pick the pack and the labour is priced.

Pricing levels

If you sell to dealers at different prices from walk-in customers, set up pricing levels and put each customer on one. The right price then follows the customer onto every quote, without anyone having to remember to apply it.

Your first customer

Go to Clients and choose New customer.

1. Pick Company or Private. A company gets a business name; a private customer gets a first and last name. This decides how they are addressed on documents.

2. Fill in the phone, email and address, but only what you actually have. You can add the rest later, and a half-filled record is better than none.

3. Set their terms and their pricing level. If they are tax exempt, tick it and record the exemption number, because that number is what appears on the document and on your tax report.

4. Add their truck with Add truck: year, make, model, bed length, cab. This is what makes the parts fit.

   A customer can have several. Pick the right one on the quote and the whole job is tied to that vehicle, which is what you will be glad of the second time they come in.

5. If it is a business with more than one person you deal with, use Add a contact for each. Every contact can have their own email, and you choose who receives a given document when you send it.

A customer's own page shows everything they have ever had from you: quotes, invoices, payments, their trucks, their contacts. When somebody rings with a question about a job from two years ago, that page is the answer.

Your first quote

This is the screen you will spend most of your day on. Go to Quotes and start a new one.

1. Pick the customer. Their terms, pricing level and tax status come with them, and so do their trucks. Pick the one this job is for.

2. Add the topper. Use Find or add an item. Choosing a topper opens its questions. Answer them down the list and watch the line price change as you go.

   If the model is not in the catalogue yet, you can add it from the same box without losing the quote you are part way through.

3. Add the accessories. Same box, one line each. If you picked the customer's truck, the picker knows what fits it.

4. Adjust the lines. Quantity, price and description are all editable on the line. Changing a price here changes it for this quote only and never touches the catalogue.

5. Add the labour. Pick an install pack, or add a line and type it.

6. Check the totals. Subtotal, tax and total are down the right. If the customer is tax exempt, tax is zero and the document says why, which is what you want when somebody queries it later.

7. Save, or Save and send to save and go straight to emailing it.

Sending it

On a saved quote, Send quote opens the compose screen. Tick who should get it, because the customer's contacts are already listed. Adjust the wording if you want, and send. The PDF attaches itself.

You can also print it or download the PDF from the same toolbar, for the customer who wants paper.

Where a quote can be

Duplicate is worth knowing about. A customer who wants the same build on a different truck, or a second quote with one option changed, is a duplicate and an edit rather than a fresh start.

Quote to invoice to paid

The customer says yes. There are two ways forward and they differ.

Taking payment

From the invoice, record a payment: amount, method, date and a reference. Part payments are fine. Record each one as it arrives and the balance follows. When the balance reaches zero the invoice becomes Paid by itself, and if the job was still a draft it goes live at the same time.

Every payment gets its own receipt number, so a customer who wants proof of one instalment can have it.

When something goes back

A return, a warranty write-off or a billing correction is a credit, under Credits. It is not an edited invoice and not a negative one.

A credit carries its own date, which is the whole point. A return in August against a June invoice belongs in August's sales and August's tax filing. Every report reads the credit's date and never the original invoice's.

If you have to change a sent invoice

Reopen for editing puts it back to draft. Use it for a genuine mistake found quickly, before the customer has paid.

If they have already paid, or the work is done, a credit is the honest answer. It leaves a trail, and an edited invoice does not.

Tracking the work

An invoice says what was sold. Jobs says where the work has got to. Every invoice gets a job, and the board moves left to right.

On a job you can set:

• Assigned to, whose job it is.
• Promised by, what the customer was told. This is the date that matters when they ring.
• Booked in and Should take, when it is coming in and how long you expect it to need. Together these fill the calendar.
• Notes, including private ones the customer never sees. Use those for the things you would say to a colleague and not to a customer.

Ordering what you haven't got

Orders shows what needs ordering, grouped by brand and ready to become purchase orders. It pulls from two places: items that have dropped to their reorder point, and items sold on an invoice that you do not have in stock.

1. Check the list, adjust quantities, and create the purchase order for that supplier.

2. Send it. The PO gets its own number and its own PDF.

3. When the delivery arrives, receive it against the PO. Receive what actually turned up, not what you ordered, because a short delivery you record honestly is a short delivery you can chase.

Receiving a topper creates a record of that particular topper, with its colour and the options it was ordered in, rather than adding one to a count. So your stock list shows what is actually standing in the yard. When it goes out on an invoice, that unit is marked sold and tied to that customer, and two years later you can still answer “which one did they get?”

Counting

Inventory adjustments is for when the shelf and the screen disagree: breakage, a miscount, a stock take. Record the adjustment with a reason rather than quietly editing a number, so the history explains itself later.

Knowing how you're doing

Dashboard is the morning screen: what is happening today, what is owed, what is booked in, what needs attention. Start there.

Reports is where you go with a question. These are the ones worth knowing by name.

A working rhythm

Everyday situations

The things that come up at a counter, and where each one is handled.

“They want to change the order”

If nothing has been billed, open the quote and edit it. If it is already an invoice and unpaid, use Reopen for editing, change it, and send the new version. If they have paid and the change reduces what they owe, raise a credit instead.

“They paid the wrong amount”

Record what they actually paid, not what they were meant to. The balance will show the difference, which is the true position. If they overpaid, the invoice carries a credit balance and the receivables report will show it going the other way.

“The topper turned up damaged”

Receive it anyway so the paperwork matches the delivery, then raise an inventory adjustment with the reason. That way the supplier claim and your stock figure tell the same story.

“A customer says they never got the quote”

Open the document and look at its history. It records what was sent, to which address and when. If the address was wrong, fix it on the contact and send again. If it bounced, Settings → Email sending will have the address on its blocked list with the reason.

“Somebody needs to be taken off email”

Addresses that bounced permanently or reported your mail as spam are skipped automatically. You can see the list, and take an address back off it, under Settings → Email sending. The list is yours alone.

“I need last year's numbers for the accountant”

Sales summary for the revenue, Tax collected for the filing, and Inventory valuation for what was on the shelf. All three take a date range.

“Which topper did they get?”

Open the customer, open the invoice. The unit that went out is recorded against it with the colour and options it was built in, not just the model name.

“I think I broke something”

You almost certainly did not. Quotes, invoices and credits can be voided but not deleted, every change is recorded with who made it, and the whole database is backed up off site every night. If something looks wrong, View history on the document usually explains it.