Parley optical services sells spectacles and lenses. They serve customers from the local community around Parley and the NHS. It is owned by Mr. Andy Pearce, an experienced optician.
How the process works
A customer who needs a spectacle visits Parley with a prescription from an Optometrist. From the prescription, the specifications for the spectacle are generated. A product order is submitted for the spectacle and a cash order is made for accessories. The daily sales, monthly sales and the outstanding payments are important pointers that the firm has to keep track of.
" The automatic reports have saved around 20-30 hours per month "
Parley's Order Management App
They developed an Order Management Application to organize the spectacle sales process. The App comprises of 8 modules to manage their stock, customers, orders and their cash flow.
Frame stock information
This module stores data about the current stock. Parley staff can make stock additions anytime either by a large upload from an excel sheet or by making individual entries.
When a sale is made, the stock information is updated automatically by the workflows configured in the Application.
Customer Contact information
The details of existing customers can be accessed from this module, with each customer having a unique number. A new customer can be added when he is making his first order. The necessary details are captured and the unique number is generated automatically for the new customer. This number will be used to track all the orders from that particular customer.
Spectacle Order Form
A new order for spectacle is entered in the App with this form. The order form is split into four sections.
They are:
1) Prescription information, where the details of the eye examination can be entered.
2) Product Details, where the details of the product fit for the prescription can be entered.
3 Order value and details - the value of the order and the savings made while ordering with Parley is captured in this section of the form.
4 Payment made - the staff can enter details of the payment type and the mode here. Any outstanding payment is shown here.
The order form also has fields that associate each order with the particular customer who made the order. This is achieved by entering the customer's unique number in the form, upon which customer details are auto-populated.
Cash sales order form
While the spectacle order form is suitable for prescription based orders, a separate form is ideal for sales of non prescription items such as cases, cleaning clothes and sunglasses. The cash sales order form serves this purpose and simplifies the process.
" The automatic reports have saved around 20-30 hours per month "
Linking order to the customer
The “Customer Search” drop down enables the user to link non prescription sales to individual customers via their unique customer number. If the customer has not purchased from Parley Opticians before it is possible to generate a unique number for the customer right here.
Outstanding payment
In the same form, it is possible to select a product and the quantity for which the total will be calculated automatically.The order total and the amount paid by the customer is available in the form, from which the outstanding amount is calculated and displayed.
Order Number and Receipt number
The App also generates a unique number for each order. A receipt number is generated following which the mode of payment has to be chosen. Once this is done, a print of the order can be taken.
Reports
Automated reports have been set for the application and can be emailed to selected users.
The Daily Transaction report details the number of receipts and the total value£ for both credit/debit cards and cash for the current day.
The Monthly Transaction report is for the current month and offers a snapshot of the current payments being made.
The Daily Sales Report details the current month’s order values per trading day and split between NHS and private contributions.
The Money Outstanding report – currently lists all orders and all payments made against them. This helps when a customer has made more than one payment towards a single order.
The report also details any outstanding balances for any single order number.