Beckman Services
We are pleased to feature Teresa Johnson of Beckman Services, in our special feature article this month. Starting in 1996 as an accounts payable clerk, Teresa is now the General Manager of Beckman Services. The company was founded in 1978 and is currently run by Dick Beckman and son, Richard Beckman. With fourteen full time employees, Beckman does HVAC/R, with a focus on commercial customers; primarily in the restaurant industry. They have a separate beverage department. Beckman is the Coca-Cola Service Agent for the Cincinnati and Columbus markets and they are a local distributor of Everpure Water Filtration products.
Beckman Services originally came on board with VMS in 2002. Teresa said what attracted them initially to VMS over other software was that while they felt they were getting an excellent system; VMS had the ability to grow with their company as their needs grew and changed. In 2009 they beta tested Ventus, and began running parallel with VMS-GUI in March of 2010. After several months of duplicate results in both systems they dropped VMS-GUI in July 2010 and began running Ventus only. They have successfully been through month-end close twice with Ventus.
They presently use the following Ventus applications: General Ledger, Service Management, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Inventory, Purchase Order, Job Cost, and Payroll and recently purchased Crystal Reports 2008. They use Windows Server 2003, with SQL Server 2005, 4 GB RAM and 500 GB hard drive, and run Ventus through Terminal Services. Teresa explained that their central focus is the Service Dispatch Board and everything they do is linked through service; creating service tickets for jobs, issuing PO’s through the Dispatch Board, linking payroll hours and payables to service tickets or jobs.
Teresa agreed to share some of her thoughts with us in an effort to give our new and existing VMS users insight into the Ventus transition process.
Teresa has a lot to say regarding the benefits of using Ventus over VMS GUI.
“ Ventus is more user friendly! There are more search fields available enabling us to find records using the information that we have available. I like the “drill down” feature in general ledger. When you go to an account you can continue to double click and it takes you back to the original transaction; you can see the line items on the service ticket or the purchase order for the vendor.”
“Real time posting is turning out to be a feature I didn’t think I’d like as well as batch posting. One of the benefits of real time posting is that you no longer need to wait for batches to get posted or interfaced to see the current status of an account. I also like the fact that in some areas you can correct (unpaid) transactions. If a mistake is discovered you can go back into the transaction, and make a change. When you save the transaction the correct entries are made to general ledger in the current period. Report selections are saved from your prior request. A lot of the reports I print use basically the same criteria. It’s a time saver to go in and only have to change one or two fields (date or account number) and print the report in the same format as the last time. We recently purchased Crystal Report Writer, and I am looking forward to creating custom reports. But probably the major difference I’ve noticed between VMS-GUI and Ventus is the benefit of using the SQL database. Being able to locate records based on certain criteria and replacing incorrect information has already proved to be very useful. Ventus allows us to easily access information, makes information available in a timelier manner, thus Ventus is becoming more and more valuable to us in making day to day business decisions.”
Teresa had the following to say about her experience with the VMS support team during their transition.
“The support team at VMS did an outstanding job. Because we were one of the first users of Ventus, Dan & Brian were on site during the installation and addressed issues as they occurred. Brian was assigned to us during the beta/parallel period and did a great job conveying our issues/needs to programming. Once we were up and running, issues reported through the support channels were addressed quickly. If something needed to be fixed immediately – it was.”
Teresa has the following advice to offer for others considering moving to Ventus.
“If you are doing a conversion, try to clean up your existing data prior to conversion. The process will be smoother and, as a bonus, you will not have all the old info in your new system. After the conversion verify all your beginning balances. Conversion is a funny thing and you want to make sure you start with good numbers. It’s also important to know your business and know what you need. I recommend taking a good look at the procedures you currently have in place. Look at the reports you use, your month end close procedures, and your balancing procedures, in addition to your day-to-day transactions. After your Ventus installation run through everything before you go live.”
“Whenever you install a new system, the settings can really make a difference in whether or not things post correctly. My advice is set up a check and balance procedure for your transactions to make sure everything is posting the way it should. Follow the transaction all the way through. For example, if you post a ticket, be sure to check: accounts receivable, inventory, general ledger, sales tax, etc. Once you get everything set up and running, this will all be automated but you need to verify everything in the beginning.”
“Also, expect some resistance in your office, most people do not like change and sometimes things take a little while to get use to. If you are in charge of conversion, you are not only responsible for learning your own tasks, but also helping those around you adjust to the changes. Remember to be patient and tolerant; it will help the transition go smoother.”
Teresa’s last words of advice:
“Don’t forget the responsibility for your business is yours, VMS/Ventus is a tool that we use to make our jobs easier but it won’t do our jobs for us. Be constantly aware of how things should be and the software will do a great job for you! It took everyone in our office working together as a team, learning the differences between VMS-GUI and Ventus, giving feedback and examples to make our conversion a success.”
The Beckman Office Team:
Peggy (Billing & AR), Larry (Inventory & Purchasing), Morgan (Billing & Service), Tom (AR & GL), along with Dick & Richard and Teresa (General Manager).
Our sincere thanks to all at Beckman Services and a special thank you to Teresa Johnson, for her extraordinary dedication through the year and amazing persistence in beta testing Ventus, leading and making the way easier for those who will follow!
(Back by Popular Demand)
Ventus Overview Presentation
Based on the number of requests from our users who want to see the Ventus applications we are scheduling another overview session on this exciting product. Details of the presentation are as follows:
Date: Wednesday, October 12th, 2010
Session Length: 1 hour
Session Time: 1:00pm Central Time
Location: Internet WebEx (login instructions to be provided upon registration)
Cost: No Charge
Trainer: Jim Snyder
This session will give you a brief overview of Ventus. You will see firsthand the ease of use, real-time posting, flexible reporting options, and a host of other new features made available as a result of using state-of-the-art .NET programming tools from Microsoft.
We expect a high number of attendees for of this session and would encourage you to sign up as soon as possible.
To register please call or email Linda Bishop: (800)-476-0094.
Financial Statement Formats in Ventus
Please join us as we present Financial Statement Formats for Ventus. You will explore the concepts of how to build financial statements. This class is for both Ventus users and those with an interest in moving to Ventus .
Date: Wednesday, October 21st, 2010
Session Length: 1-2 hours
Session Time: 1:00pm Central Time
Location: Internet WebEx (login instructions to be provided upon registration)
Cost: $200
Trainer: Dot Desrosiers
Topics to be discussed will be:
- Length & Width of Financial Statements
- Property Types
- Financial Statement Format Tips
We expect a high number of attendees for of this session and would encourage you to sign up as soon as possible.
To register please call or email Linda Bishop: (800)-476-0094.
Setting Up Financial Statement Formats in Ventus
The following demonstrates how to create a line in the format header separating the header from the body of the Financial Statement. The line will cover the width of the page and will be used as a divider between the column headings and the first account listed on the financial statement.
- From the drop down menu, select MAINTAIN, select Company, and click on Financial Statement Formats. Highlight a financial statement, and click open.
Example: Income Statement
- Select the row below where you want to create the divider line, and on the left select Text – Header. Start with the width of your financial statement, enclose it in { }, and select =, – or = to create the line. Example: {80==} will place a line that appears like this across the page ==================. The line cannot exceed the width on the Edit Financial Statement Screen. Enter {80==} in the Text to Print field. Click OK.
- Click Save on the bottom menu. Close out of Financial Statement Format, and print your financial statement. See the following example.
VMS Referral Program
Please click image to open up pdf document.
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