emman's blog

Employees who deliver services in the field face a wide range of challenges to accomplish their tasks efficiently while providing superior customer service. From scheduling appointments and visiting different locations to servicing equipment or inspecting facilities, field employees have a lot on their plate. Fortunately, new cloud-based technologies enable them to do their jobs more effectively and provide data for management and customers to make better business decisions. Let’s take a look at how an integrated mobile field service app or an inspection management solution can help your business save time, reduce errors, and provide actionable data.

How Cloud Technology Can Help

Being organized is vital for field technicians, inspectors, and other employees who perform services at client locations. Even the slightest error or omission can result in an unwanted outcome and client dissatisfaction. A feature-rich mobile field service app or inspection management solution can enable field technicians and inspectors, delivery drivers, and other team members to manage transactions and access forms and data with a smartphone or tablet.

Whether they need to update or close open issues, view customer and equipment locations, find replacement parts, update an inspection log, create an invoice, or provide price quotes, field employees can complete tasks in a paperless environment, accessing customer information, mobile forms, digital instructions, and data through the cloud.

A mobile field management app streamlines case management, order management, and issue management, and it lowers the risk of miscommunication between field techs and home offices. A robust mobile field service app or inspection management solution will also integrate into ERP and CRM solutions, giving field techs everything they need to do their jobs efficiently and effectively.

Benefits of Mobile Forms

Mobile forms are one of the primary features of a field service app. They provide many benefits, including:

Enabling users to collect information in real time

Capturing pictures and videos

Avoiding the need to re-enter data into another system or Excel sheet

Simplifying the storage and retrieval of past forms

Making managing past forms easier

Automating expensive, time-consuming manual processes

Providing offline access

A mobile field service app will ensure that your field employees don’t miss appointments, deliveries, or pick-ups and perform their jobs properly.

Benefits of an Inspection Management Solution

For businesses providing inspection services, mobile technologies used by your inspectors will help your clients reduce risks, improve quality, and ensure compliance, and they will help support environment, health, and safety protocols. An inspection management solution provides many benefits, including

Scheduling inspections

Enabling the creation of customized forms, checklists, and reports

Filling out and submitting inspection reports

Speeding up inspections

Distributing reports

Analyzing collected data

Automating manual processes

Providing an audit trail

By consolidating your systems, an inspection management solution helps your inspectors streamline inspections, flag issues, and track issues until they’re resolved — all while using fewer resources.

Each Business Is Unique

When your field teams transition to using digital forms, you will need forms that fit your workflow and business logic and that are tailored to fit your specific data collection needs. A robust mobile field app or inspection management solution will provide an easy-to-use online form builder that enables you to design customized, intuitive forms and create forms, checklists, and other documents that employees can fill out easily and efficiently — even for the most complex field tasks. A full-featured solution will empower your teams to use field forms to generate reports and data sets and to distribute them electronically to clients and throughout your organization.

Conclusion

If you’re in the market for a cloud-based solution to deliver service excellence and transform worker productivity, take a look at our mobile field services app and our inspection forms module. Your field employees can access them from anywhere at any time, and they seamlessly integrate the management of work orders within your company’s workflows. Contact us today, and one of our experts will work with you to show you how Averiware’s advanced erp software solution can help resolve your business problems and get you to where you want to be.

Why do fully stocked warehouses need cloud-based inventory management software? Let’s be honest: all-night stock take blitzes and over-complicated excel spreadsheets are painful to use, unnecessarily labor-intensive, and incredibly outdated.

Why torture yourself and your team when there are cheaper and faster options available online? Sure, you might run a small business on a tight budget and can’t justify big, fancy new software. Luckily for you, cloud inventory management is actually more affordable than the old-school methods you’re currently using, and that’s just one perk.

Access Real-Time Inventory Control

Easy stock control is one of the most exciting benefits of cloud inventory management. Instead of combing through piles of reports from different systems and departments, or worse, making “educated” guesses, cloud software lets you view up-to-the-minute data on inventory levels through easy-to-understand reports and dashboards.

And instead of relying on special, manual stock-takes that require extra labor and could interrupt your operations (costly for growing businesses and large, multi-location companies alike), cloud inventory software often includes features like QR code tracking that allow you to actively measure stock as it flows through your operations. which can save you much more than the cost of a monthly software subscription.

But the time-savings don’t end there; the automation cloud inventory systems bring can drastically reduce the number of costly human errors you and your team make.

Get Up-To-Date Inventory Reports & Insights

If you’re business savvy, you probably know your top 5 best-selling products, but do you know your lowest-selling ones? You may notice how well you sell during Christmas, but do you know when demand actually peaks and troughs?

Questions like these are answered by inventory reports automatically generated by cloud software. By knowing your lowest-selling items, you can make strategic decisions like upgrading those products, changing your marketing tactics, or ditching them altogether to focus on something new.

And knowing when demand for your products is actually at its peak, you’ll be able to order enough stock without overdoing it, saving money and storage space while also maintaining enough safety stock to prevent “out of stock” notices that cost you customers.

With the inventory reports you’ll get from cloud inventory software, you’ll be able to deeply understand the last quarter so you can effectively forecast for the next, which means better customer service and faster business growth.

Quick Installation & Easier Employee Training

The old way of doing business required you to install software on each and every computer your team uses and have a dedicated IT department to keep that software running.

This cuts into profits, slowing down training time and increasing labor costs. Cloud software doesn’t require any additional employees or special hardware, you just log in and get to work!

And since they don’t rely on dedicated in-person training to teach your team how to use the new software, most cloud companies have streamlined their software’s learning curve so that everyone can understand the basics and start using it on day one.

Quick QR Code Tracking Systems

QR and barcodes are essential to modern cloud inventory management; if you’re not using them, you’re practically living in the supply chain dark ages.

Paired with the right cloud software, they provide detailed, real-time insight into your inventory levels across your operations, saving you from ordering too much (which forces you to sell at clearance prices) or ordering too little (which forces you to break out that costly “out of stock” sign).

While this is a more effective strategy than depending on educated guesses, with a reliable cloud inventory management system that uses QR or barcode technology, a few simple changes to your production processes can provide much more accurate data that lets you know exactly how much inventory you have in stock – saving you hours of time and reducing human error.

Smooth & Continuous E-commerce Integration

Can you imagine manually entering all the data from your e-commerce platform into your inventory management system, and then again into your accounting software? If you operate like many other businesses, you might not have to imagine it – that may be your day-to-day reality. Fortunately, you can sidestep or end that nightmare with cloud inventory management software.

By automatically syncing data across multiple top business applications like Shopify and Xero, modern inventory management software can save you a ton of time spent on manual data entry.

This allows you absolute control over your operations across all channels, enabling you to see where your inventory is currently held, the status of your purchase and sales orders, and ensure your accounting is up-to-date and accurate all from one place.

Manage Multi-Site Operations from Anywhere in the World

While there are many benefits of cloud inventory management, one of the most important for the busy entrepreneur is being able to operate their business any time, any place.

With cloud software, you can manage multiple warehouses wherever you are, allowing you to buy, sell, and manufacture with ease. If your team operates remotely, then your product manager in Detroit can update your distributor in New York in real-time.

And you can generate reports on the spot for a trade show in LA or for a business presentation to new investors in Hong Kong. 24/7, anywhere accessibility makes cloud inventory software perfect for startups without a physical location and international companies alike.

Are you on the market for cloud ERP software systems? There are many different systems on the market, but they don’t all offer the same features. Before you choose a fully integrated cloud ERP software, you need to make sure it has the features that meet your company’s immediate and long-term needs.

With this in mind, below are some of the most important and advanced key features you should expect from a fully integrated cloud ERP software.

Customer Relationship Management

Customer management is an essential feature for small businesses. It allows owners to keep track of customer profiles and interactions. If you need to see a customer’s full history with your company, including their quotes and orders, this feature makes it possible.

Multi-Location Order Management

Order processing can become complicated as your business grows, so it’s important to choose a cloud ERP software that offers an order management feature. This lets you finalize quotes, create orders, and update them if customers request any changes. It’s wise to choose a system that supports multi-location orders so the platform can be scaled up as your company grows. 

Case and Issue Management

Customer issues are a regular occurrence for any business, no matter how dedicated it is to customer service. Patrons will have complaints or questions, and you can’t let them fall through the cracks. A case and issue management feature lets you track customer issues and ensure those problems are resolved in a timely fashion.

Pricing Management

Special promotions and campaigns can make keeping track of your pricing very challenging, especially as you start offering more products and services. Cloud ERP systems should include a pricing management feature to help you track all pricing-related data. You can also use this feature to track offers like gift cards and coupons.

Catalog Management

If your small business sells a variety of products and/or services, a catalog management feature is essential. This feature helps you keep track of everything your business sells. This feature should let you create bundles of products and set customer-specific pricing. For efficiency, look for cloud ERP software that can pull product information from distributors.

Inventory Management

Managing inventory on paper or on spreadsheets isn’t efficient, and the data isn’t always current. To update your data easily, you need cloud ERP software with an inventory management feature. This feature gives you real-time data about availability and stock levels across multiple locations.

Billing and Account Management

Cash flow management is essential for any small business, and the best way to have a healthy cash flow is to make sure your customers pay you quickly. This is why cloud ERP software should have an account management feature. This allows you to track and manage your company’s invoices and payments, while email notifications remind your customers to pay on time.

Marketing Campaign Management

Marketing campaigns are essential for businesses, and that’s why cloud ERP software should include a marketing campaign management feature. It lets you create and control your company’s marketing efforts more intuitively. The feature also helps you track how well your various campaigns are performing.

Business Analytics and Reports

Business owners need good data about their companies to make informed decisions. Without access to the most up-to-date information, you can’t make strategic decisions. cloud erp software should offer business analytics so you can quickly and easily create the reports you need.

Self-Service Portal

Customers don’t always want to call or email a business when they need help, so a self-service portal is an important ERP feature. This also increases your business’s efficiency, since customers can resolve their own issues. With this feature, prospects can browse your catalog on their own and place orders when they’re ready to do so. Customers can also view their past orders and make payments.

Choose the Right One!

Averiware is a fully integrated cloud ERP software that gives you complete control over your business activities, including warehouse management, inventory management, and order management. Built-in the cloud and customized for your needs, Averiware helps companies improve customer satisfaction, reduce order times, and control costs across the entire business operations.