Say you have a locksmith business and you want to keep track of all your past and present customers, sales of services and products, vehicle key cut information, store information on your employees, and other facts pertaining to running a locksmith business. From viewing just the first three results of a GOOGLE search, you can see the numerous options available to your locksmith business. The top Locksmith software results show up as Treskat Software, BlackHawk Products, and Real Time Manager.
Treskat has numerous programs for sale, each of which fulfills a different function.
A few of them are:
- CodeMaster—A database of lock codes and padlock combinations.
- TimeMaster-Makes Schedules for employees and tracks jobs.
- Advantage 2009 Business Software—Bookkeeping Software for tracking sales and customers.
- MaxiKey and MaxiCore—Random combination generators.
BlackHawk Products also has a selection of locksmith software and management programs. A few of their programs include:
- Desktop Dispatcher—Keeps records of services, work orders, histories, and employee reports. It can also stores pictures and sound files.
- SCG: The Safe Combination Generator chooses random number for you to set a lock to.
- COD: Codes on Disk is a collection of different types of key codes from automobiles to padlocks.
Real Time Manager is a service management system that is fully online. Instead of selling little programs for each individual function, multiple features are bundled together in a software suite. Here are some of the services offered with Real Time Manager:
- Manage Services, Appointment Times, Service Types
- Manage employees, assign them to services, and set their commission rates.
- Track the location of your technician’s with GPS enabled cell phones.
- View jobsite locations with GOOGLE MAPS.
- Keep track of product inventory and sales.
- Process bills and payment information.
- Obtain vehicle key codes.
Each piece of software has its trade offs. The programs from Treskat can be used once you buy them with updates available for purchase. BlackHawk products look like they are sold as is, with limited software updates. Most of their lock and key programs are based in older operating systems, so they should run great on DOS and Windows 95. With Real Time Manager, you are renting access to an online service. To use the service you have to pay a setup fee and a monthly service charge. But you get access to many features in one place and not have to buy a bunch of separate programs.
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Adding a service provider to the system is one of the many tasks made easy by Real Time Manager. Once you are logged in, simply go to the “ADMIN” tab, scroll down and select “NEW SERVICE PROVIDER”. This will take you to the “add new service provider” form page.
On this form you can provide the following details of your new service provider:
- First and Last Name
- Company
- Title
- Account Number
- Email Address
- Web Page
- Business Phone/Home Phone/Fax Number/ Mobile Phone
- Address/City/Zip/State/Country
- Notes
- Commission information related to cash, checks, and credit cards. Day or Night services and ignition cost.
- You will also set how payments are handled. Will the technician hold the payments or not.
Once you have entered the company data and save it, the company will be selectable as one of your service providers.
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Continuing from our last post , here is the rest of the Admin section.
Click image for a larger picture.
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Most of the setup of Real Time Manager will be handled with the features of the "Admin" Section.
Here is a listing of the available features.
Click image for a larger picture.
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