The ICommander A/R System extends customer information far beyond just tracking
sales and receipts from each customer. Likewise, the ICommander P/R System does
the same for employee information. The accounting functions provided by
ICommander are very capable in and of themselves but ICommander extends the
value of having a centralized database of customers and employees to enable many
uses outside of the basic accounting functions.
Customer Relations Management
Extended customer information starts with the ability to enter detailed notes about any customer using the powerful Vim text editor directly from the Customer File Maintenance screens. The notes may be used for any additional information that is deemed useful to entry clerks, credit managers, or others.The ICommander Customer File Maintenance screens allow entry of some basic contact information about each customer. Often there may be several people with a particular customer for whom separate contact names, positions, addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses and other information is needed. ICommander provides a Representatives and Relations file for this purpose. Any number of relationship codes may be established and then any number of contacts for a given customer entered. Both the main customer file and the representatives and relations file allow specifying mailing lists that the customer and/or reps and relations should be included on. Mailing labels may be printed across both files when desired or limited to one or the other.
Websites and email addresses for both the main customer and the representatives and relations may be stored. Even though the main file and the reps/relations are in physically separate files, an ICommander Free-Form Data Extraction program is available to access information from both files simultaneously. This includes the standard ability to generate a Web Page for the Intranet with whatever information you wish to make available to Intranet users.
Membership organizations may also utilize the Representatives/Relations File for tracking all specific people associated with a member as a customer. This may include scheduling standard charges per representative when applicable. This is the approach used in the ICommander Country Club A/R System along with other extensions unique to operation of such an organization.
ICommander also provides a separate Customer Events File. Any number of Event Types may be defined. Examples include "NSF" for Non-Sufficient Funds Check, "COM" for Complaints, "CLC" for Credit Limit Changes, and so on. This file also allows entry of detailed notes about each event to the extent desired.
If company policy requires credit approval before a new customer may purchase goods or services on open account or in any form besides cash, a Credit Applications Tracking function is provided to track applications for credit. This includes an option to setup all relevant customer information before actually accepting the customer for any form of sale. Once accepted the customer information may then be automatically transferred to the Customer File when a Customer Number is assigned. The function also allows easy monitoring of outstanding credit applications.
When a more free-form approach to existing and potential customer information is needed, ICommander File Manager may be used to record any form of contact and to store electronic copies of credit approvals, maps to customer locations, and about anything else you may want to associate with a customer. This may be setup so that only users who have access to ICommander A/R or it may be handled through ICommander Help Topics to make available to anyone with access to ICommander. The File Manager area may optionally also be made available via the Integrated Intranet for users who do not normally use ICommander. Such users may also be setup to access ICommander only to get to the customer information by setting up Help System Only access that bypasses the normal ICommander logon process.
File Manager also provides a way to consolidate all important communications with a customer. Important faxes may be scanned into PDF Files and emails that you don't want to lose track of are easily stored in a text file accessible to ICommander File Manager by using Copy and Paste to insert the email contents.
Employee Relations Management
ICommander P/R may be used at a very basic level for simply recording the basic employee information needed to issue periodic P/R Checks &/or Direct Deposits and for preparing tax filings. ICommander enables extending the value of the forced database of all employees for purpose of issuing P/R checks. Some of the extensions are optional ICommander features and others involve simply deciding to use one or more of the available functions.Leave time tracking is often omitted when P/R is first implemented. This may be due to timeframes for getting the first live check run out or because it was not possible in the prior P/R System in use. ICommander lets you turn this on at any time to extend the usefulness of the system.
Likewise for tracking employee benefit plan participation. This may currently be done via a separate system or via spreadsheets or some other tool that requires separate entry of employee information. This function may be activated at any time in ICommander in order to centralize tracking this information. It may simply be for tracking or may be implemented in a manner where ICommander can calculate both the employer expense and employee deductions automatically.
ICommander P/R cross references Job Classifications to Workers Compensation Rate Codes. Sometimes on initial implementation due to time pressures this may be bypassed by using a "dummy" code for all employees. It is very useful to implement this correctly as soon as possible. ICommander can generate reports sorted by Worker Compensation Insurance Codes that simplify the Workers Compensation Audit process. If you have employees in multiple states, separate rate codes and rates for each state may be entered. You may also optionally have ICommander accrue estimated Worker Compensation expense.
If the nature of your operations results in some employee work being subject to very high rates of Workers Compensation Insurance, you will want to take advantage of ICommander's ability to code any work not subject to the high rates to the applicable lower rates. This may be done automatically via the Job Classification Codes provided employee time is entered in detail so the appropriate classification may be assigned. If time is entered daily and, especially if some billings to customers are related to employee time, use of the combined P/R and Billing capabilities of the separate ICommander General Billing System may be very useful. This can also simplify assigning employee time to job classifications and workers compensation codes.
Most ICommander Employee File fields are preset for particular pieces of information used by almost any type of organization. However, there are six optional employee classification that may be activated for any purpose. That might be the employee's education level, college attended, or anything else that is useful to your organization.
Printing mailing labels for employees includes an option to print only for employees born in a particular month for employers who like to send birthday cards to all employees. The Free-Form Data Extraction programs for the various employee master files also make it very simple to extract information using either a single or multiple selection criteria. When it is desired to import any such information into a spreadsheet, ICommander outputs a tab-delimited file that may be easily imported into almost any brand of spreadsheet software. All such files are easily formatted by selecting all fields and letting the spreadsheet software react to the nature of the data in each column. If any dollar amounts are involved, the totals will already be there so there is no time lost inserting formulas.
All Employee Master File changes are automatically logged and changes in pay rates and deductions additionally create a trail of all changes for each employee from the first time you started using ICommander P/R. This includes storing a copy of the Pay Rate and Deduction Master File record whenever it is confirmed by a user that maintenance reflects a date-based change. The trail provided by these functions is extremely useful over a long period versus needing to maintain separate records elsewhere. If you currently have a trail of pay rate changes stored elsewhere, ICommander has a utility function that enables entering the history prior to starting to use ICommander in order to avoid needed to look in two places.
The "Search for Date-Based Maintenance/Review Needed" available on the Employee Master File Maintenance Menu is a very useful tool for determining any maintenance needed before the next P/R. We recommend using it as soon as the current computer check run is issued in order to quickly identify expiring deductions, pay rates, leave accrual changes, and many other date-based changes that are needed before the next check run.
The Pay Rates and Deductions File each allow entry of detailed notes for each employee. This can be very useful in centralizing information about what resulted in changes to either or both files.
Additionally, an Employee Events File is available. This is simply a matter of defining an event type and then entering information about that event for an employee. This can include detailed notes. We have seen it used for entry of Termination Notes/Exit Interviews, Leave of Absence Notes, Family Members, Births of Children, Marriages, Divorces, Drivers License Numbers, Evaluation Notes, Drug Test Results, Family Members, etc.
ICommander File Manager may be used to further extend the information available about employees via ICommander. This may include setting up a folder for each employee where employment applications are stored in PDF form, Drivers Licenses and/or Employee Photos stored in image files, etc. Alternatively or in addition other File Manager choices may be setup with directories or folders organized by type of information with subdirectories and/or files for each employee to centralize all information. The powerful search capabilities of ICommander File Manager may be used when needed to locate every file for a particular employee or to search for dates within text files when needed.
It is also very simple to setup P/R Menus for use by a Personnel or HR
Department without giving them full access to the P/R System. This can be
unique to each person or for all HR staff. The ICommander Free-Form Data
Extraction programs make it very simple for any employee master file information
or history to be extracted when needed. If non-accounting staff do not want to
learn how to use ICommander Free-Form Data Extraction programs, it is simple to
setup parameters to generate the information needed. Then it is simply a matter
of choosing the appropriate parameters whenever updated information is needed.