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Yesterday we received the ISE cheque book through, over the next couple of days we will transfer £20,000 from UKW to ISE Appliances which is a loan from one to the other.
We have been projecting ISE appliances being available from 15th January 2006, whilst I’m still awaiting John Hopwood to make contact regarding crossing the T’s and dotting the i’s, I’m thinking we are likely to be ready nearer 1st February.
So, I need to chat about a couple of items so I understand the plan, direction and efficiency we are to apply to ourselves.
“Indie” (hope I’v spelt it correctly)
This is I believe the ISE database, allowing us to store and save customer details such as name, address, appliance details etc…and producing a job sheet. I understand there is quite a lot it can’t do and Cheryl and I have come up with forms etc to overcome these shortcomings in the 1st instance.
Question 1.
Can ISE database job sheet be printed off and electronically emailed to an agent. I appreciate some agents will need fax, some email.As far as I’m aware “Indie” has not been discussed between us, planned by all of us or discussed much. So, I have concerns over how much it will cost and if it has in fact been costed.
Question 2
Callum has asked for a sum of money for developing “Indie”, circa £7,000 plus Vat, where will this cost stop and where are we to fund this from?Whilst I see the need for ISE to have an operating system, we have no budget for this. This one payment makes a massive hole in the £20,000 loan to the ISE budget.
ISE will need to have in place its own computer systems and admin tools along with office space. The back room is earmarked for this and I wonder how preparations for this are coming along. Because of the locations of the four directors this all falls on your shoulders Kenneth, as well as the 3 absent directors not being in a position to keep updated on progress. We will also need to answer the ISE phone lets say during the hours of 9AM to 5PM, Monday to Friday.
Have any of you given thought to this and the problem of employing an Admistrator for the Kilmarnock office?
We already have times where I can’t get through to UKW phone for being busy. That translates to David and Graig not being able to answer the ISE phone, and why should they? Neither will work for ISE Appliances, neither will have any of their respective costs on the ISE spreadsheet.Every missed phone call on the ISE line can easily be lost business, so we need the phone answering. If we are to succeed at this we have to have administration to back up the sales and service, otherwise we will lose the goodwill of the agents and their confidence. We also owe it to our partner in this venture, CDA, to get our end correct. So, if any of you have plans to employ someone for ISE, in Killmarnock, in time for them to be trained and ready, I’d like to be a part of the plan.
Basically, there are many loose ends here, with no movement that I can see to tie them up.
VAT and ISE Appliances.
The Vat office wont register the ISE Appliances with a Vat number until we make purchases and prove we are trading. Callum’s invoice for “Indie” is the start of that, therefore Kenneth, can you find out what it has cost us and ask Callum to issue an invoice to ISE,please. The, very due, phone lines for Ise will also be billed to ISE, as should office furniture and filing stuff, can I ask you to ensure you get relevent purchases to the correct company.
I am purchasing a ISE accounts computer which we can use our existing copy of “Sage” on, saves £300.00, if you’re not aware you can’t run two sages on one operating system, therefore new computer required. So, bear in mind that Cheryl now has under my direction responsibilty for DAR, UKW and ISE accounts as well as expenses and flyers and everything else we do. This office will be extremely busy and we may need another body to assist Cheryl, sometime in 2006. I will of course advise as the load increases, as it will when ISE kicks in.
And to finish, ISE share certificates for the shareholders(us) are they missing/overdue or what?
KevinRe: ISE Appliances
First off, why do we need Indie ?
ACH will more than accomodate the needs of ISE when it’s ready, isn’t there something else we can use in the interim period ?
The back office I assume will also be for my use when we make the move Northbound which is now a 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} certainty. The house will be on the market after Xmas, but if it hasn’t happened by the time ISE goes to the field I’m more than happy to use the 0845 number we set up to my home number and take the calls here which can then be transfered to the 01563 number in Nursery street when required..
Dave.
Re: ISE Appliances
Indie is, in effect, a client front end designed from scratch.
The only reason that I let development of this go ahead was the fact that it will likely be needed in the medium term to offer to low volume clients looking for a network. If we work out the bugs first then things are massively simplified and we have the interface to ACH for commercial clients.
Indie simply takes, allocates and delivers service call information. Much of what it does also slots into ACH in full, deliberately.
Indie can pump out a call to email/fax no problem, that was part of the requirement as well as place it directly onto ACH.
There’s a lot more in Kev’s post which I’ll get to tomorrow.
K.
Re: ISE Appliances
Now that it’s not a Sunday night and I’ve caught up…
kheath wrote:This is I believe the ISE database, allowing us to store and save customer details such as name, address, appliance details etc…and producing a job sheet. I understand there is quite a lot it can’t do and Cheryl and I have come up with forms etc to overcome these shortcomings in the 1st instance.
It was actually you that raised this initially and, on your idea we progressed it as you were quite correct in that we had no way with which to track the appliances and repairers etc. electronically.
That is what Indie is all about. However, it does also give us the ability to have a client that can be used for others if they wish it.
kheath wrote:Question 1.
Can ISE database job sheet be printed off and electronically emailed to an agent. I appreciate some agents will need fax, some email.Yes is the simple answer to that question.
The problem is that you and Cheryl had a chat and came up with all sorts of other things that were not originally specified.
kheath wrote:As far as I’m aware “Indie” has not been discussed between us, planned by all of us or discussed much. So, I have concerns over how much it will cost and if it has in fact been costed.
Well you initiated it!
kheath wrote:Question 2
Callum has asked for a sum of money for developing “Indie”, circa £7,000 plus Vat, where will this cost stop and where are we to fund this from?I was aware of a cost and this was discussed by us some time ago as the payments made to Calum thus far were to develop ACH, Indie was an additional project over and above that. I was not aware of what the cost was, but we did think it would cost about £5-6K initially.
kheath wrote:Whilst I see the need for ISE to have an operating system, we have no budget for this. This one payment makes a massive hole in the £20,000 loan to the ISE budget.
Agreed.
kheath wrote:ISE will need to have in place its own computer systems and admin tools along with office space. The back room is earmarked for this and I wonder how preparations for this are coming along. Because of the locations of the four directors this all falls on your shoulders Kenneth, as well as the 3 absent directors not being in a position to keep updated on progress. We will also need to answer the ISE phone lets say during the hours of 9AM to 5PM, Monday to Friday.
I amm not anticipating a mad rush of calls anytime soon. Given the low volume of calls expected I’msure that we can deal with it between the three of us here, four when Dave gets here.
kheath wrote:Have any of you given thought to this and the problem of employing an Admistrator for the Kilmarnock office?
Yes, once I can justify the expense of an extra body and it is required. Until then there’s no point in wasting money by having someone sat here doing next to bugger all all day long.
kheath wrote:We already have times where I can’t get through to UKW phone for being busy. That translates to David and Graig not being able to answer the ISE phone, and why should they? Neither will work for ISE Appliances, neither will have any of their respective costs on the ISE spreadsheet.
I agreee, but until I can justify the requirement to spend the money on the person to man that phone then no, I won’t spend it.
The engaged tone will be massively helped when Dave gets here and we can have a dedicated spares line as, from what I can see, this accounts for the vast majority of the phone traffic.
kheath wrote:Every missed phone call on the ISE line can easily be lost business, so we need the phone answering. If we are to succeed at this we have to have administration to back up the sales and service, otherwise we will lose the goodwill of the agents and their confidence. We also owe it to our partner in this venture, CDA, to get our end correct. So, if any of you have plans to employ someone for ISE, in Killmarnock, in time for them to be trained and ready, I’d like to be a part of the plan.
As you should be. But as I have said, right now, I simply do not see any call for it and I don’t antisipate having to go down that road for at least the first quarter of 2006, so there’s no urgency. Also, getting admin staff is not a hassle as there are at least three or four that I can get full time almost at the drop of a hat.
kheath wrote:Basically, there are many loose ends here, with no movement that I can see to tie them up.
No, there’s just no plans to go as far into the future as you are looking right now and, from the above, I think you’re tryingto gaze to hard into that crystal ball of yours. My point being that we just don’t know what’s going to happen or what the volumes are going to be, we are guessing here totally with no hard facts or data on which to base a decision upon.
kheath wrote:The Vat office wont register the ISE Appliances with a Vat number until we make purchases and prove we are trading. Callum’s invoice for “Indie” is the start of that, therefore Kenneth, can you find out what it has cost us and ask Callum to issue an invoice to ISE,please. The, very due, phone lines for Ise will also be billed to ISE, as should office furniture and filing stuff, can I ask you to ensure you get relevent purchases to the correct company.
Any purchases in relation to ISE will be made this way as you requested the other day.
kheath wrote:I am purchasing a ISE accounts computer which we can use our existing copy of “Sage” on, saves £300.00, if you’re not aware you can’t run two sages on one operating system, therefore new computer required. So, bear in mind that Cheryl now has under my direction responsibilty for DAR, UKW and ISE accounts as well as expenses and flyers and everything else we do. This office will be extremely busy and we may need another body to assist Cheryl, sometime in 2006. I will of course advise as the load increases, as it will when ISE kicks in.
That’s fine, we always assumed that another body would be required at some point, it’s the “when” that is in question only and we must be in aposition to be able to support the additional salary/ies at that point.
kheath wrote:And to finish, ISE share certificates for the shareholders(us) are they missing/overdue or what?
No, I simply haven’t pulled then off for anyone, myself included. If you want a copy then it’s no problem to pull them off.
K.
Re: ISE Appliances
My only concern is that Indie does not become another bottomless money pit, with nothing to show after months and months of development.
We have to be up and running with ISE from the 1st of Feb and this date has already been put back once, as has ACH.To do so again would blow a serious hole in our credibility, therefore would it not be prudent to have an off the peg system apraised and investigated beforehand, just in case.
Am I right in thinking that ACH has to have the capability of being able to talk to all systems. It seems a little bit worring that it has to have a tailor made system to talk to it on our behalf.
I am not belittling the complexity of the task involved in writting code and designing the software but we have given ourselves deadlines that have to be met and it’s just that, rightly or wrongly I dont feel that others share our sense of urgency even though they stand to gain as much as anyone, if the venture proves successful.
Another idea may be to install a similar phone extension to the one used by Dave at the moment at my home address to handle enquies re ISE sales and enquiries which could be defaulted too if the Nursery St. line is busy.
Sean
Re: ISE Appliances
You are incorrect to say that I initiated “indie”. I may well have stressed the importance of having a system with you, the idea might have been mine, but I did not order it or comminsion it, in any way sanction its functions or have imput into its ACH implications.
I have no problem with Indie, we do need a database to track our calls, record who are our customers, record who are our agents, what postcodes they cover, which are level 1 or level 2, to switch off and on the agent when their circumstances demand…………but I don’t think indie can do this. It can’t track who sells what or track commission payments or order stock that our agents use.
So, how much use is it? Seems to me there will be an awful lot of manual admin to be done once we start selling appliances, I for one don’t think you or david will have the time. You both will be needed to do the P&G stuff, as that has to take precedent from January.
Sorry Kenneth, I think you have underestimated the work involved in ISE Ltd selling appliances to the trade and to UKW. UKW alone could sell 10 a week just by promoting it correctly from the UKW site. Its not the service calls we have to worry about, its answering the sales enquiries with a trained person, not david or Craig (no disrespect intended).
And employing someone at the drop of a hat is surely a receipe for disaster. A point to ponder with regard to this is, I wonder where ACH might be now if the contract had been awarded to strangers instead of friends?
Dave moving up to Kilmarnock will not help ISE with its sales leads. The last 10 weeks has shown that Dave will have his hands full handling the spares operation for UKW and ISE. If Domo goes the right way and ACH fulfils its ambitions in June, Dave could be involved in the importation of spares for Shop@ and spares for external contracts and agents doing that work.
I assume by your response that the back room is not being cleaned up ready for use from 15th January, does that also mean that the garage roof has not been fixed also? As one garage is full of NWAR’s gear and the empty one leaks, are we still planning to have a stock of appliances at Kilmarnock?
These are the loose ends I refer too. Perhaps I do look into my crystal ball and see problems that may not come to fruitition, but I think we have to be prepared for the future and not leave it until too late. The registration cards are but another example of this.
KevinRe: ISE Appliances
I do not recall exactly what Indy does but I will get the schematic from Calum and forward when I have it.
What happened is this, we discussed it, agreed to get it in place to track customer details and asign a repairer to that customer. It also had to be able to allocate a service call.
Now, a few weeks later you come back after talking to Cheryl asking if it can do this that and the next that were never discussed by us initially, including all the invoicing stuff. Now, I’m sorry but you just can’t wave a magic wand and change things like this, you can’t also dive in half way through and change the specs that were given. Indy was never intended to be used as an accounts package.
The intention was always to sell from the or a web site and track accounts that way. Then this whole notion of commisions came about, which we hadn’t considered, comes along and *whammo”, the whole thing changes yet again.
Selling 10 a week isn’t really a concern to me, just as selling several on one invoice is not as I’ve done this sort of thing before and trade sales are not really a hassle in the main. Where the hassle lies is in retail sales as that is very often time consuming.
The answering of sales queries is not really an issue I shouldn’t think until the volumes pick up. What I don’t want is someone sat there with feck all to do.
There is no problem with staff, easy to get and pretty easy to train even if it does take a little time, but then we’re not exactly expecting the phone to be ringing off the hook for the first few months are we?
As to awarding the contract to friends, there were really no other serious contenders to do what we wanted within the price range. To do what ACH requires would cost in the order of 100K+ normally. I know, I asked.
As for Domo, well another great unknown and I don’t like to count my chickens and all that malarky, I’d rather see hard facts and figures before jumping in. I see where you’re going and you are getting on my tits (:lol:) but these things need sorting, I agree.
the back room is more or less clear, it can be ready (less painting) in less than a day essentially.
No the garage has not been done, I forgot it TBH. I will attend to that tomorrow. And, both the buggers leak, it’s just that one is not so bad.
Yes, I think we’ll need a small stock at Kilmarnock. I actually think that the largest requirement for stock will be where you are, more population there, out of all of us.
Registration cards,yes. As I said today, one of the “loose ends” that I did ask John about some time ago, along with instruction manuals and I did not get an answer.
K.
Re: ISE Appliances
Success, I’m getting on your tits!!!!!!
It seems the only way to get things done! Suppose you’ll want thanking for getting the roof fixed when it seems you’ve tasked David to do it.
As for the back room being cleared, I take that as a no then, any one of us could “skip” the room contents in a day. Best get it cleared for when the telephone installers are due, or have you forgot that too!
Come on Ken, pull yer fingy out
KevinYeah you are, just as I get on yours.
No, I said toDavid and, being as his old man was in the biz, volunteered to do it, so shove it.
Back room, phone/LAN points are already there so all I need to do is plug stuff in and, if you’d bothered your ass to ask I’d have told you that.
K.
Re: ISE Appliances
So where are we……
Have we got nearer having an office and systems installed ready for 1st March, it’s 2 months since I raised this issue.
As you are all aware we have orders for the appliance, therefore from the 1st March we have the requirement to track and administrate the sales. I’m aware, (re Ken’s insistance of not spending money where there is no justification to employ someone) we will not have an employee for ISE, so just how are we going to handle this and keep a track of costs?
Do we have an ISE system with indy installed?
A quick check reveals that the website has not changed, so have we initiated the “build” yet that we were quoted for a month ago. We will look like burks if we have no site for our launch at the NEC meeting.We are quickly running out of time to achieve a state of readiness where we will not suffer lost sales due to:
a) no telephone answering
b) no time or ability to follow up UKW site sales
c) no accountability for the costs of ISE administration.
d) no web site to sell from or advise who we are to the general public.
just a few thoughts that should be addressed……
KevinRe: ISE Appliances
You really do like getting on my tits don’t you?
The back office will be clear this week, massively once we remove all the clothing and the remainder of the dish stuff. Now that the roof is fixed on the garages the rest can be moved out there. I will need to get some shelving out there though and I was trying not to spend unless it was absolutely neccesary.
I get that you think we should have someone in place to admin ISE and I fully agree, we do need someone to do it. What I wanted to do was avoid that until the position with PG was 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} clear, which I will address this week seeking a definitive answer. Assuming that goes our way then an employee is a certainty before the end of the month.
We don’t need a system until we need a system. Indie and the training dbase can be accessed from any terminal on the LAN, all I need is a basic box or laptop of any description to make it live on any desk.
No, I haven’t done anything with the ISE website as yet. However, given that I’m pretty much fecking useless for owt else this weekend I’ll see what I can rattle up in Dreamweaver myself for now, it can certainly be better then it is at present.
What I did do, as usual, is start thinking about the website and I came up with an idea that won’t cost a lot more to impliment but is slick and makes our life a lot easier. That is to do the appliance registration via the site, whcih would directly import to Indie daily updating it without much human intervention. It sounds complex, but it’s not its just a bit of data handling, but I am waiting on answers from Calum before I proceed. It also enables us to get the info to DAG faster which, as you know, allows us more of a revenue stream from that source.
If I’m seeing Wardle this week it was my intention to also meet with Different on the same day to work this.
I appreciate the concerns but you’ve now trained me to be as tight as a Yorkshireman so what do you expect? 😉
K.
Re: ISE Appliances
Yes, ISE does need an administrator.
David can’t do it as he has a full time job as UKW/P&G admin. Craig isn’t in the running.
Trouble is we don’t need a top level guy such as David to admin ISE. Therefore for £10K to 13K we can get someone in. That someone will need supervision of course, thats where your timesheet comes into the equation and also training on Indy.
Between the two business based in Nursery Street you can then cross train for ISE and UKW to job share the admin and cover holidays ect.
I doubt you can get an administrator before the end of the month, we have not advertised and even when we do we are all mosly tied up regarding attending interviews this month. This will be an ISE employee, we need the correct person, not the 1st to apply.
We both know that the new P&G spreadsheet includes another admin body for the P&G contract. However, my thinking on this was to relive David of much of his UKW bits so he can concentrate on P&G, also reliving Sean of the follow up phone calls, to a degree. In theory an apprentice for David not ISE.
KevinRe: ISE Appliances
Agree.
Whilst we may not have someone in place we will have it well under way by month end.
K.
Re: ISE Appliances
All of the things we need will depend on renewing the P & G contract. Until we know for sure we will all have to try and be all things to all people.
We have that many balls in the air at the moment we dont know wether to have a shit, shave or haircut first. We really dont need anymore distractions.
What we need is a clear list of priorities and they should be 1) Secure the P&G contract 2) Launch ISE. 3) continue to develope Spares@.
I’m sorry but I consider anything else at the moment as window dressing and distraction.
If we do secure another year with P&G then we need to be more frugal with the funds as I dont think there will be a third year.
We really need to be financially self sufficient by at least this time next year. So what goes on which time sheet for the moment is a little accademic until we get the answer to no. 1. As it’s no use setting someone on this week to admin ISE only to let them go the week after.
Without a solid income stream we will be of little use to anyone no matter how well intentioned we are.
Sean
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