Fax it or computerise it.. that is the question..

[theplanb]

The company I work for has about 15 (and growing) takeaway shops and restaurants in the city.
We manufacture the food from the factory and deliever it straight to the shops.
(one guy doing all the work.. sofar not much problem...)

Now.. the orders are often made from the shops (and some regular orders adjusted from the company office..where Iwork..).. by phone.. or sometimes by fax if too complecated 🙂

Each and everyshop has to fill out daily report from and send it by fax.(written by hand by cashier) with all the daily details..(sales.purchase... comments..and so on). The forms for each shop is different.. (which is necessary.. and yet not a good thing.. to transfer tit to digi format..) The form is one A4 size paper with cramped infos. (thus, hard to read somethimes.)

Why one paper? well.. it's much easier to send it by fax.. I guess. ..and we, the office has to print out the forms and send them to the shops by delievery as needed. Saves paper cost..



Anyways...



Now.. fax..and paper.. may stand for reliability (at least you know what you are getting)..
But they are just too ... damn hard to read and I have to call them if they are not sent on the prev day. I don't mind that.. but if you are a person who's in charge of Account rec/pay + Assit Administrator + Ordering in/out... and a receptionist/ personal secretary..you get the picture.

Anyways.

Nobody in this copany knows how much thye are earning not to mention spending.

The key is the Daily report.
It's the only way to solve the management fiasco. at the moment, they are not even be entered into in any kind of digitised format..
We need to get it reliably, acurately, digitally, AND Cost effectively.

So.. sorry for all the horrible details..but I thought I might give full details to save me from explaining again.,

So here comes the question.
All the shops has phoneline.
No shop has a computer. (well at least not yet )
I want the report in excel format or some kind of digitalised.

What would be the most cost effective and future proof solution to achieve this??

1. Buy everyshop with an old notebook computer, and let them type in the report and send it by email. Why notebook? Well.. some shops are small.. not eough space for bulky tower and monitor..


2. Hire a softwre company to do all the hardwork including buying necessary hardwares to set op full bolwn automatic reporting system. (what was it called?? erp?)

3. Let the shop managers to use some sort of internet cafe (well some shops finish after 11pm...) to type it up and send it by email... (which I don't think is very realistic)

4. Buy them IPAQs! (the coolist solution) 🙂

5.Setup some sort of.. I don't know.. intranet with real time automated reporting using.. dot net? (no.. I don't know what I'm talking about)

6. Do what MacDonallds do.. (BTW, how do they do that?)(

5.

 

[Insidious]

Unless you want to take on training the shop operators on the 'puter (a thought that makes me cringe) and
"fix" their machines everytime you get the call "I didn't do anything different, but now it doesn't work"

I suggest you bite the bullet and make your forms adequate to the task of the information they carry (ie: make
them bigger, etc.)

Finally, your shopkeepers will get the idea if the illegible form they fax is returned to them with a nastygram ensuring
they know their order has not been processed and will not be until they do their job correctly (ie: print the information
so it can be read without misinterpretation.)

 

[theplanb]

I guess that means another work for me entering the information on the excel or something..
God.. I want to quit this thin now.. I work 9-11:30.. (that's AM to PM)..

been only a month or so.. but I'm getting really tired. 🙁
By theway, sometimes faxes to break.. and need change on the toner (or ribbon)...

But I do see what you mean.. there has be a easier way and at the same time, user friendly..
BTW, they can't print out report.. there is no computer for them to use at the first place not to mention a printer.

 

[tboneuls]

laptops for everybody sounds cool, but teaching everybody how to use them and fixing them, and getting the necceasary software, etc. is a large task. try to enforce stricter rules about the neatness of the forms and possibly have the guys at each of the shops type it up, but then print it and fax it to you. sounds silly, but you eliminate the large area of problems with the computers - the internet. faxing sounds like the best idea.

 

[kjacobs]

I think faxing stuff on a regular basis would be a pain (and how to make sure it is received?)

First:
A cheap PC in every store with internet access, email, and Excel.

Solutions:

1) Create a web-based form with check boxes or drop down selections (one form fits all!)
Store could then submit the form and it would be emailed to you. I'm sure there is an easy way to create a database or spreadsheet to capture the email info. Not hard to train folks. Email could be audit trail.

2) Create an Excel spreadsheet with drop down lists (not hard to do-email me for steps). Spreadsheet could be emailed to you and I'm sure there is a way to merge them. Again low training curve. Spreadsheet could be audit trail.

If I missed something obvious or critical, I'm sorry.

Ken

 

[HappyPuppy]

If your company has 15 shops and is growing, you have already gone far beyond where you should have computerized/automated sales, inventory and report generation. The company could be losing its a$$ and nobody would know until the lawyers start showing up.

There are many companies that provide software and hardware solutions to your problem. They even supply the support for software and hardware problems onsite. One that comes to mind is NCR Corp., but they are probably to large for your enterprise at this time.
Another is CAM Data Corp. which caters more to the mom and pop chain stores.

You can check them out and get contact information here:



CAM Data/Commerce

It never hurts to ask what they can do for you and how much it would cost.

Good luck.