Tips, Tricks & Tweaks

One of the most powerful features in FloristWare is the ProgressTracker - a tool that lets you follow each order throughout the entire process - helping you with preparation, shipping and delivery. It finishes up by sending a delivery confirmation to the customer.

Most of the time users are advancing orders through the system from "Preparation" to "Ready To Ship" to "Out For Delivery" but, sometimes, a mistake is made and a user wishes they could move an order backwards in the process.

Here is an example - they accidentally move an order from the "Preparation" area to the "Ready To Ship" area before it is actually ready.

Most users don't realize that they can move the order backwards - in fact it's actually very easy! Just hold the shift key down and click the button you would typically use to advance the order.

This tells FloristWare that you actually want to move the order backwards and it will ask you to confirm that. Just click "Yes" and the order moves back.

I recently came across a very good article on employee theft and occupational fraud that any small business owner - especially those that deal with cash should read.

It is also a good idea to review with some of the controls in FloristWare. Our theft prevention tools are some of the most powerful - and least used - features in the system.

Nobody ever wants to think that they might have a problem but it almost certain that you will be a victim at some point. It is best to use the tools as a deterrent before you have a problem.

Part 1 - The Suspicious Activity Report
Part 2 - Late Cancellations
Part 3 - Cash Refunds for Non-Cash Payments (Same Day)
Part 4 - Cash Refunds for Non-Cash Payments
Part 5 - Cash Refund On The Same Day As Sale
Part 6 - Reducing Internal Theft
Part 7 - Advanced

A discussion of the elements of planning and implementing a successful points-based incentive/loyalty program can be found in the public articles section of our website.

FloristWare now gives you the opportunity to set up different printers for Worksheets, Receipts, Statements, and more.

To change your printer settings, go to Settings -> Features -> Printer Settings
Select a report, choose your printer, paper size, and paper source.

You can also change printers 'on the fly', simply hold down your SHIFT key while clicking the PRINT button in FloristWare. You'll see the Printers windows and can select your printer, and make any other printer output settings.

Need help? Call our support line at 1.888.531.3012

The PROGRESS TRACKER is a great tool for reviewing the upcoming days orders and activities. Make sure you and your staff take full advantage of this very useful feature by clicking the DATE - select tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and even more.

Don't forget to check all your options in bottom menu bar, and you have even more choice.
Use Progress Tracker as a quick view of what's going on in your Flower Business.

Can't find Progress Tracker? Make sure it is enabled under Settigns -> Features (Manager Level)

When faced with a customer that wants to pay later FloristWare gives you two main options - you can charge the sale to a house account or you can "defer" payment. Both options are similar in that they involve making a sale now and arranging for payment later. The real question is which method is better.

We believe that you should only ever give an account (and charge privileges) to people or companies (usually companies) that purchase from you on a regular basis. If they purchase often then an account and the things that come with it - like the ability to generate statements, etc. - really make sense.

If it is a person who just orders a few times a year "deferring" is probably the better option.

There is one exception. If you have someone who is making a very large one-time purchase (a bride would be a good example) and they want to be able to make deposits prior to receiving the goods and/or make payments on an ongoing basis afterwards it is probably better to set up an account. It can then be closed out when the wedding (for example) is over.

One of our favorite users recently completed her new website. It is a great example of what a florist can accomplish when they choose to go their own way and create their own unique site instead of just plugging their name in to a website template.

The European Flower Company is a real florist in Massachusetts offering fresh flower delivery to the following towns on a daily basis: Braintree, Cohasset, Hingham, Hanover, Holbrook, Quincy, Rockland, Norwell, Weymouth, East Weymouth, South Weymouth, North Weymouth. It is a great shop and they now have a great website!

Some very astute users have noticed a change to the order process in FloristWare v2.5 and have asked why that change was made.

The change involves the enclosure card information. We used to collect it after completing the product selection. In v2.5 we are trying to get the card type and message before we begin product selection.

Why? In preparing this update spent a lot of time and money working with a consultant who does nothing but train retail florists to sell better - better service AND higher average order values. He gets more than $1,000 a day and has columns in Florists Review and another magazine in the UK.

He felt really strongly about getting the card message first because it allows you to get a sense of the occasion and tailor your sale to the situation. If for example you find out right away it is sympathy work you might be a little more formal and/or reserved in the way you handle the customer. If it is something really big (like a 25th wedding anniversary) then you know that you should really try and push the order value.

We like to think the old way was already very good but this suggestion made a lot sense. We really want the software to help you increase average order value and improve service and this seemed like a good way to do it.

As you have probably noticed the receipts & invoices that FloristWare generates when dealing with an order contain a lot of information.

There are several reasons for this. The first is that customers who want receipts tend to find this information very useful. The second is that invoices containing detailed information tend to get paid faster and with less headaches. When the customer opens a FloristWare invoice they can see exactly what the invoice is for, remember making the purchase(s) and get you paid. Invoices that are vague tend to get put to the side until the customer has time to call you and ask you for the kind of information that already appears on the FloristWare invoice.

There is one other really important benefit to our detailed receipts and invoices - they can help you reduce errors.

Every time you take an order you should encourage the customer to review it carefully. If the customer is shopping in person you can hand a hard copy right to them. If they are on the phone you can send it by e-mail. You want to stress that they go through it immediately and let you know if there are any mistakes.

This can really help! Many users have had customers catch an incorrect delivery date, mispelled name, etc. By enlisting the customers help they were able to catch these mistakes.

These means better service and happier customers!

As we continue the process of getting all FloristWare users switched over to Version 2.5 we are going to begin the process of explaining how to take advantage of some of the new features.

One of the most popular involves navigation. You can now activate onscreen buttons from the keyboard - you no longer have to use the mouse and/or touchscreen.

It is very easy to use. The next time you see a screen with several buttons on it start hitting the tab key. You will notice that one by one the buttons are highlighted. If you shift-tab the buttons are highlighted in reverse order.

Once you are on the button you want to activate you simply click the Enter key (Windows) or Return key (Mac) and it's the same as if you clicked the button with your mouse. This allows you to activate the buttons without taking your hands off of the keyboard.

This is the best of both worlds - the speed of a keyed interface without having to remember any codes, commands or keystroke combinations. This, combined with a newly streamlined order process, makes FloristWare faster and easier to use than ever. It can take a little while to get used to, but most users quickly report that they can't imagine doing it any other way.

More information on how to get the full benefit of FloristWare 2.5 will soon follow.

Too many FloristWare users are not shutting their computers off each night!

You may have been told that you do not have to but trust us - it is is very important that you shut down and restart each machine that runs FloristWare each day.

Please note that we are not just talking about shutting down FloristWare. That is of course very important (this is when FloristWare creates a back-up copy) but you also need to restart the computer.

Why? The longer your computer runs the more likely it is to run into problems. The best way to avoid such problems is by "starting fresh" and restarting each machine at least once each day.

You may never have a problem, but if your computer is left running for weeks or months at a time you almost certainly will, and you don't want to run in to a problem while you are in the process of taking an order.

Please be sure to restart each machine at least once each day!

This week you should try using the Marketing features in the FloristWare POS system to send some e-mails promoting a summer special.

Don't get crazy. Sending thousands of e-mails can be dangerous if you don't have enough products to fill the orders that you get. For this experiment we'd suggest maybe 100 e-mails.

Just enter FloristWare at the Manager level and choose "Marketing". From there you should build a list "name-by-name" and select only the people that you think will be interested in the special you have in mind.

Make sure you put some thought into your e-mail. Remember, you don't want them to think you are sending them junk mail so try and offer them something of value.

That's it! If you have any questions please give us a call.

Any business that deals with cash is susceptible to internal theft by employees. A flower shop certainly qualifies!

The FloristWare Point-Of-Sale system for flower shops has a lot of tools that can help reduce internal theft, but there are a lot of things you can do outside of (or in conjunction with) FloristWare to help combat the problem. This article discusses some of those things.

Please give it a serious look and think about following some of the suggestions. It doesn't take a lot of internal theft for you to start hurting. Curtailing this type of activity can go a long way towards making your store more profitable.

Research All New Employees
Ask prospective employees for permission to do a background check. If they don’t give their consent you should probably avoid them. If they do give their consent you can take it to the next level - check with previous employers and maybe even consider hiring a service to look into their background more thoroughly.

Use The Security Tools In FloristWare
FloristWare gives you excellent tools for monitoring suspicious activity. Not only should you use these tools, you should make it known to the staff that you use them. It is always better to deter employees before theft occurs than to try and catch them afterwards.

Treat Your Employees Well
Theft can be as much an act of anger towards an employer as anything else. If an employee doesn’t feel appreciated or respected it is easier for them to do something they know is wrong. Conversely, it is harder to steal if you do make them feel good about themselves. Ask for their opinions. Treat them well. Make them feel like the are a part of something.

Pay Good Wages
By paying better than average wages you accomplish three other things. First it allows you to attract better quality employees. Second, the employee will be more inclined to appreciate their job, and they will be aware that is will be hard to get another job that pays as well if they get fired for doing something stupid. Finally, decent pay helps your employees to feel appreciated and respected - which we have already discussed as being important.

Maintain A Tight Refund Policy
There is less internal theft in business with strict and tightly enforced refund policies. Fortunately FloristWare makes this very easy because it forces the employee to actually find the original sale and customer information before they can issue a refund. If you believe that a certain refund doesn’t look right than you should definitely call the customer. FloristWare makes this kind of theft very easy to stop.

Offer Employee Discounts
Your employees are surrounded by beautiful flowers and they’ll want to be able to enjoy them at home from time to time. Give them a good deal. Any time you make a sale to an employee you can be almost certain that you would not be making the sale at all if they were not an employee. That means that there is no real opportunity cost involved - you can offer the flowers to your employee at or slightly above your actual cost. This will help the employee fell valued and appreciated, making them less likely to steal. It will also increase their appreciation for their job.

Never Take Cash From The Drawer
Even if you are the owner and technically all the money is yours you should never, ever take cash from the register. There are several reasons. It gives the impression that controls are loose - that cash can be taken and not be missed. It also leads to hard feelings that can lead to theft. Your employees work hard to put that cash in the drawer - if they see you casually scoop it out it undermines their efforts. And while $50 might not seem like a lot to you, your employees are acutely aware that they might have to work a whole shift on their feet to make that much money. Whenever they sense the disparity in your respective incomes it becomes easier for them to rationalize theft by convincing themselves that they need the money and you don’t.

Be Very Careful About Scheduling
Keep a close eye on your scheduling and employees match-ups. Changing employee match-ups can be a great tool for diagnosing problems and narrowing down the list of suspects. Only allow your most trusted employees to ever work alone. On a similar note it’s a good idea to avoid having close friends working together on their own unless there is a lot of trust - they may very well like each other more than they like you!

Balance The Cash Mid-Day
You should periodically “cash out” one or more times during the day by printing a temporary Daily Sale Report during the day, removing the drawer and making sure that it balances. There are a couple of reasons for this. First it 'turns up the heat' on any employees who might be stealing. They will quickly realize that you know something is wrong, so this makes for a strong deterrent. More importantly it helps you figure out when things are going bad. If you are balancing the previous days cash the following morning it can be very hard to figure out what went missing and who is responsible. If you try and balance the cash two hours after opening it's much easier.

Spend Time Behind The Cash
Employees will feel more confident about stealing if you’re never around. Make sure to spend time around the cash register and safe. Make sure they know that you are keeping an eye on things. We mean that literally! You want them to see you looking at the cash register and the transactions that take place on a regular basis.

Install A Security Camera
A working security camera installed over the cash area will of course be very helpful if you are ever held up, but more importantly it will help deter employees from stealing from you.

Other Quick Rules:

Employees cannot leave bags, purses, packs, etc., near the register.

Employees cannot enter their own purchases.

Employees cannot enter purchases for family or friends.

Since customer information is so valuable for marketing purposes FloristWare encourages you to collect as much as possible. This information is like money in the bank.

It does however take time to collect. And you may find yourself in a situation where you just don't have time to collect it, or dealing with a customer who does not want to share it.

In these situations look to the yellow bar at the bottom of the screen. If it might be possible to skip certain sections you will see that option presented to you there. Just click the "Skip" button.

You should not make a habit of this. Some people get lazy and skip as much information as possible all the time. Then, when they go to do some marketing, they don't have a decent group to work with.

Always try and get as much information as you have time to collect and the customer is willing to share. If you have to, skip steps as needed.

The FloristWare Floral POS System has a lot of features that are designed to help you with future marketing efforts by collecting customer information during the sale/order process. While using these features will help increase your sales in the long run we understand that it does take time to collect this information, and that there may be situations when (for the sake of you or the customer) you want to skip over certain sections.

Here is one example. After you have made the sale and arranged for payment FloristWare starts going through several features. Depending on your settings this could include things like the Reminder Service, AdTracker, Goodbye Message, etc.

Like we said, all of these features are for your benefit. If however you or the customer is in a rush and you want to skip them you have to options. First, you can skip them section by section by using the "Skip" button. This works very well if you want to skip certain sections but take advantage of certain other.

If you are in a real hurry you can skip all of the post-sales steps by clicking the "Express Checkout" button. This will immediately end the sale.

Many of you use the "Defer Payment" feature quite often. It is a very handy tool and can make life much easier. The only trick is making sure that you get paid for all those sales!

That's the problem - it's easy to "forget" about a Deferred Payment sale and not collect payment. This is why FloristWare allows you to create a "Deferred Payment" report. It shows you all of the payments that were deferred, the date they were deferred, the customer's name and all of their phone numbers. The idea is that you take this list and start calling the customers who still owe you for deferred payment sales.

Running this report is easy - simply enter at the Manager level, go to the Reports section and choose "Deferred Payments Report". It is a good idea to print it out and keep it by the phone to work at whenever you have time - just keep calling the people that owe you money.

You should run this report at least once a month. Once every two weeks is better and every week is better still - especially if you do a lot of deferred payment sales. It is a fact that the longer you allow an invoice to sit unpaid the less chance you have of getting paid. Stay on top of these deferred payments!

Earlier in the week a user in our home town had a very interesting problem. She was trying to take an order for delivery to another city about 40 minutes away.

The name of that city (or so we thought!) was St. Catherines. She knew that searching for "St." was trouble so she just searched for "Catherines".

Nothing turned up! This was perplexing because she knew the city existed - it's a pretty good size and she had visited there just a few months ago.

When this happens it almost certainly means that the name was entered incorrectly, so she checked it and was sure she had it right ("Catherines") but it just didn't work.

That's when she called for help. In a case like this the best approach is to assume that there is a spelling mistake - even if you are sure that you have the name right. What you need to do is enter only the first few letters of one of the words in the name.

So in this case we entered "Cather". Still no luck!

We then entered "Cath", and sure enough the city we were looking for turned up. The problems was that the proper spelling for the town is "Catharines" with two A's. Even though we had both been through this city and seen the name hundreds of times we never noticed the somewhat unique spelling.

If you ever find yourself in this situation you should assume that you may have the spelling wrong, and use only a small part of the name to do the search.

Have a great weekend!

One of the new features in FloristWare Version 2.0 is an employee timeclock that automatically keeps track of the hours that your employees work and, if you like, the wages that they earn.

To take advantage of this feature you will first have to enter FloristWare at the manager level and visit your settings. Once there you need to select "Features - Employee Punchclock" and turn it on. FloristWare will be running the timeclock from then on.

Some users have called us because they are not sure about the next step - they don't understand how they get users to punch in and out. The answer is simple - they don't have to do anything! It is all automatic. All the employees have to do is sign in when they arrive in the morning and sign out when they leave at night.

Here is some more detail. When an employee arrives they first thing they should do is "punch in". This just means that they have to go to a computer running FloristWare and sign in. If another user is signed on the new user would simply click the blue User button at the top right hand corner of the screen. FloristWare then starts their "shift".

Punching out involves the same process. The user simply needs to walk over to a station and, if they are already signed in, click the blue User button to sign out. If they are not currently signed in they would have to first sign in and sign out.

Some users have asked what happens if a user gets signed out by another user five minutes after they arrive - does this end their shift? The answer is no. FloristWare starts the shift when the user first signs in and ends it the last time they sign out.

For more information please visit the Support Library.

FloristWare Version 2.0 includes a vastly improved Daily Sales Report.

One change involves the way that the data is grouped. All of the accounting information now appears on one page and all of the performance information appears on another. This makes the report easier to understand.

Another change involves the way Accounts Receivable information is presented. You know see the total value of sales charged to account, total value of payments received on account, and the net change in your total accounts receivable.

Deferred payments are now handled in a similar fashion. You know see the total value of "deferred payment" sales, total value of deferred payments received, and the net change in your total deferred payments.

There are several other enhancements. Early feedback has shown that the new and improved Daily Sales Report in FloristWare Version 2.0 makes keeping track of what is happening in your store and taking care of accounting easier and more intuitive than ever.

More and more of you are taking advantage of the feature that allows FloristWare to automatically print out the delivery slip/enclosure card for each order.

To take full advantage of this feature you will need card "blanks". There are several ways you can go about getting these.

The John Henry Company carries the cards on page 101 of their catalog. If you deal with the John Henry Company and they have your artwork on file this is probably your easiest option.

You can also have your own printer prepare the artwork. You can download the worksheets and templates they will need from the resources section of our website.

We can also direct you to other printers that are familiar with this work. Please contact us for more information if you are interested in this approach.

One of the great things about FloristWare is that it's very easy to use. All you have to do is read the question on each screen, make your selection and FloristWare will take you through the process of making a sale, taking an order, generating a report, etc.

This makes FloristWare very simple to learn but, as time goes on, you will want to become faster. The best way to do this to always be practicing.

Every time you do something with FloristWare (make a sale, take an order, etc.) try and understand the sequence and anticipate the steps. Never be passive - whatever you are doing you should always be thinking ahead, trying to figure out how you are going to answer the next question.

Soon you will no longer have to read every single screen and try to figure out what to do next. You will know the answer to the question on the next screen before you even get to it. You will be able to use the system faster than you ever thought possible.

There is one report in FloristWare that you will hopefully never have to use. If however the need does arise it will prove to be very helpful.

The Suspicious Activity report is used to make you aware of any employee activity that FloristWare considers suspicious. More specifically, it is designed to show you transactions that may indicate an employee is stealing from you.

If an employee wants to steal from you, the easiest approach is just to take cash from the drawer. While this is easy for them to accomplish, it's also easy for you to spot - when you cash out each night you will notice that cash is missing!

A more clever and determined can however use several different approaches to mask their theft. In other words they can do certain things to cover up the fact that they are stealing. This is troubling because everything will appear to balance when you cash out. You won't be immediately aware that any money is missing.

This is where the Suspicious Activity report comes in. Just generate this report for any period you wish and it will show you all of the suspicious activity that occurred during that period, as well as in-depth descriptions of each type of activity and suggestions on how you can respond.

FloristWare has many different tools all designed to help you improve your sales. Used properly they will do just that.

Unfortunately there is one Achilles heel - in most cases you need to have some customer information on file to take advantage of the marketing features.

Until you enter a customer into the system, you can't send them marketing e-mails or postcards. You can't keep track of reminders for them. You can't get them into a points based loyalty program. You can't view their spending history and ensure that you are getting the most out of them on every single sale.

Because customer information is so vital to getting the most out of FloristWare we urge you to enter customers into the system whenever possible. Don't skip the customer information section of a sale unless you are so busy you don't have the extra minute it will take, or you have a customer who simply refuses to take part.

You should also enter whatever customer information you may already have on hand. Do you have old order forms, business cards, etc? You should be taking customer information from those and entering them into FloristWare.

At this time of year I hope that FloristWare users will be doing everything they can to generate Valentines pre-orders. There are a couple of reasons for this:

It Makes Life Easier
Instead of trying to take hundreds of orders over just a few days, you can spread them over a month or more. It makes it easier to buy, plan and prepare. It just makes everything run more smoothly.

It Increases Sales
As a guy I know that on Valentines Day I better have some kind of gift for my wife, and I’m a little bit stressed about it. If a florist contacts me today with the right offer I can jump on it and forget about all that stress.

If I don’t get that offer I’m going to be looking around for other ideas. Maybe I’ll decide to get her a gift certificate, a spa day, theater tickets, chocolates, etc. Maybe I’ll even go to another florist. The bottom line is that I have number in my head that I’m prepared to spend on Valentines, and once it’s gone it’s gone. Whoever gets my money first wins.

So if you are interested in generating pre-orders the next decision is how to best go about it.

There are lots of ways. Typically you want to reach out to your customers with some kind of incentive. You want this incentive to be very appealing to the customer while costing you as little as possible.

One of the most common is a discount of some kind - something like “order before January 31 and save $5”. This is a good approach - it appeals to the customer and doesn’t cost you all that much.

I have also seen some really wild promotions. One shop had a deal that when you bought a dozen roses for VDay you would receive another dozen free later in the winter.

I love that idea for being so creative and aggressive. I also worry about a couple of things. First, unless you have huge standing orders and know that you will be throwing away roses throughout the winter you’re spending money on product. Even if you are certain you’ll have extra product you’re still paying for prep and possibly delivery. This kind of promotion costs you money!

As a consumer it also feels a little weird - it leaves me thinking something like “I must really be getting screwed on these flowers if they can afford to send me more flowers for free after Valentines.” It also leaves me thinking that outside of Valentines flowers really can’t be worth very much. This might not be the kind of thing you want rattling around in your customer’s head.

If are a running some kind of points program I suggest that you promote something like double or triple points on any orders placed during the month of January.

Why is this better? It costs you less. A typical points program rewards at between 2% to 4%, so let’s use 3% as a reference and double that (our special pre-order incentive) to bring it up to six percent.

Let’s say your average Valentines order is $70. A cash discount of $5 costs you $5 real dollars in revenue. Awarding the points at 6% means a theoretical loss of $4.20 in revenue.

Why theoretical? Because a large percentage of points will never be redeemed for a variety of reasons. So, even though awarding the points means that someday you might have to give the customer $4.20 in free product, the odds are that at least a third of the points that you generate won’t ever be redeemed. That means that the $4.20 in free product becomes about $2.75. So instead of giving up $5 in real revenue right now, you may one day be giving up $2.75 in free product.

Which brings up the next point - hopefully you make a decent margin on your product! That means that the $2.75 in free product at retail actually costs you much less - maybe less than $2 - it all depends on your shop.

This is why I’m such a big fan of these programs - instead of losing $5 in revenue right now you can get the same result by being prepared to give away about half of that in free product somewhere down the road. It can make a big difference.

The next step is promoting it.

The special should be promoted on every receipt, invoice and statement that you send out. Your staff should mention it during every phone call and face-to-face interaction with a customer.

You also need to promote it even more actively. I would say you should do at least one e-mail, a postcard and, if at all possible, a phone call. FloristWare makes all of this easy.

It really does work! Below is an e-mail that was received from a user who threw a program like this together. She was happy with the results, but I think they would have been much, much better if she had started sooner!

We tried the marketing feature in FloristWare for the first time just in time for Mother's Day. We created a mailing list of 300 names and mailed out a postcard 10 days before Mother's day. . We also did a follow up about 5 days with an email reminder. You could have knocked our socks off with the response. We had 48 orders --- not responses -- but 48 orders from the postcards.

This by no means the only thing that you should be doing, but I hope it’s something that you will consider doing.

Thanks - and good luck!

P.S. There is an article that covers much of this material in the FloristWare support library.

This week there was a call from a florist who explained that a customer had gone "missing".

The florist knew that they had taken an order from this customer and entered all of their contact information including name, phone number, address, etc. However, when they tried to look the same customer up later they couldn't find them. The florist were worried that the customer had been lost or accidentally deleted.

This is almost always the result of the customer's name being entered incorrectly - either when you first entered or on subsequent searches.

The good news is that the customer and their data are still in the FloristWare POS system - it's just a matter of finding them.

Since FloristWare lets you search for customers by last name or phone number, it's a good idea to look for customers with confusing names using their phone number instead. This way you don't have to worry about getting the spelling right.

In this case the florist did a search by telephone number and found that they had indeed spelled the customers name incorrectly when they were first entered. They then simply corrected the name and in the future they will be able to find that customer by last name or phone number.

I came across a very interesting take on the issue of "House Accounts" also called "Charge Accounts".

There is no doubt that these type of accounts are very important to some florists, and FloristWare does the best possible job of streamlining and simplifying the handling of Accounts Receivable. However, I still believe that there are too many shops that are too liberal with house accounts and create extra work and more headaches for themselves as a result.

Here is what Cheryl Bakin had to say on the subject:

Folks, get rid of your house accounts....all of them!

Happy holidays to everyone!

Cheryl credits Emily Moth Chapman and Tina Stoecker with helping form her philosophy.

There are of course times that you will need house accounts, but please don't give them away too easily. As Cheryl says your customers use their credit cards every where else - you deserve the same treatment!

FloristWare Version 2.0 includes a new feature that allows you to easily run fundraising programs on behalf of charities and other non-profit and volunteer organizations. The goal is to help these organizations out while increasing your sales.

The idea is simple. Almost every florist we know is besieged with requests for donations, free product, etc. It often feels like you get hit up every single day, and while the people making the request always say they will only buy flowers from your store, they often don't look very familiar....

The new fundraising feature is designed to help them help themselves. Here is an example of how it works.

Let's say someone from the local Little League comes in and asks you to donate $50. You tell them that you will do them one better. You will set up a special program, and every time someone participates in it by buying flowers you will set aside a portion of the total sale as a donation to Little League.

It's now up to the Little League to make it work. If they want a decent donation, they are going to have to promote this program. They will have to promote it to all the other parents and coaches and urge them to shop at your store and participate in the program. They effectively become your sales force.

Here is how it works on your end. You will use your settings to specify that you want to run programs of this type. You will then enter as many of these programs as you like and define a certain contribution percentage for each. You can also turn programs on or off as you see fit.

When a customer makes a purchase you will be prompted to ask if they are taking part in a fundraising program. If they are FloristWare will show you a list of all the possibilities. You then select the appropriate one and FloristWare calculates the donation.

Whenever you see fit you can generate a special report that shows you how much money has been generated by each program, and you can make whatever payments are required to the organizations involved.

For those of you who don't know Tim Huckabee he is a highly respected floral industry trainer. He comes into a flower shop and works with the employees, teaching them to employ a special methodology that has evolved over years in the business.

His program enables staff to provide (among other things) better service for the customer (making for more loyal customers) and substantially higher average sales figures.

Last night I met with Tim as he finished up a day of training at a local flower shop. The owner and her employees were very pleased and excited to put his program into practice.

I was very impressed with Tim. He outlined his program and it made sense. More importantly he has countless satisfied clients who all swear that his training has increased their sales dramatically and immediately.

If you are interested in increasing your sales please take a look at Tim's website and give some thought to getting him in to your shop.

Floral Strategies Website

Thank you!

FloristWare was designed from the ground up to be compatible with touch-screen monitors. To the best of our knowledge it is the only floral POS system that works with touch-screen technology.

This is one of the reasons why most of the buttons are so big. Big buttons make life easier when using a mouse, but it also makes them easier to use with a touch-screen monitor.

Using a touch screen can make FloristWare easier and faster to use than a mouse alone - particularly for people who are unfamiliar with computers. The touch screen gives them a more intuitive way to interact with the software.

Setting up a touch screen monitor is very easy. We have a separate article on it but if you can connect a mouse and a regular monitor to your computer you can hook up a touch-screen monitor. The monitor, your computer and FloristWare do all the work.

Touch screen monitors are more expensive than regular monitors, but prices are dropping and the difference is getting smaller all the time. A touch-screen LCD monitor would typically cost about $200 more than a regular LCD monitor of similar size.

You can also take some consolation in the fact that touch-screen monitors are generally built for commercial use and are much more sturdy than a standard monitor. They will hold up much better to the abuse to which they will be subjected in a retail environment.

One of the best ways you can increase sales is to review each customer's spending history each time they make a purchase.

Why? Because you never want to undersell a customer. A quick review of their spending history will make sure you don't.

For example, let's say you see that you are dealing with a customer who spends $85 on average. You don't want to let them spend any less! DO NOT suggest that they take advantage of your current $19.95 special. This customer is comfortable in the $85 range and that is where you want to keep them.

The FloristWare POS system shows you the spending history for a customer each time they make a sale. It appears right after you have confirmed their contact information.

The AdTracker report allows you to monitor how well your various advertising campaigns are working for you. The idea is to improve sales by concentrating your advertising budget on the types of advertising that are most effective.

Here is how it works. In the AdTracker section of your settings you will enter all of your "Campaigns". These can be anything from a yellow pages ad to spots on the local radio station. Then, each time you make a sale, you will ask the customer which of these campaigns prompted them to make a purchase and then enter their response into FloristWare.

Then, once a month or so, you will generate the AdTracker report. It will show you the number and total value of sales generated by each campaign. You can also enter the cost of each campaign - so in the case of a yellow pages ad you would enter the cost of running the ad for the month.

FloristWare will then show you how effective each campaign is by showing you how many dollars in sales each campaign generated in return for each dollar spent.

As we mentioned the idea is to advertise most effectively. If you have efforts that are not working for you we suggest spending less on them and more on the efforts that are effective. You want to concentrate your advertising budget on the types of advertising that give you the biggest possible return on your investment.

When talking to relatively new users I'm always sad to see that they generally aren't taking full advantage of the "Hot Spots" feature - usually because they don't know what it is or to use it.

A "Hot Spot" is any place that you deliver to frequently - places like Hospitals, Funeral Homes. large businesses, etc. FloristWare allows you to enter as many of these places as you like.

Then, when you are taking an order for delivery to one of these places, you don't have to enter the address over again - you simply select the HotSpot and FloristWare will fill the address in for you. This can really save you a lot of time and help reduce costly delivery errors.

It's one of those things that will save you time every single day, but it does take a little bit of time to get it set by entering all of the places you deliver to frequently. As a result users ten to put that important first step off, and therefore don't get the benefit of the feature.

Please try and set aside some time to enter your HotSpots - once you do you will find FloristWare even more helpful!

Earlier this week we spoke to a user who wanted to do some marketing. Specifically she wanted to send a newsletter to all of her customers so she used FloristWare to print mailing labels for all of her customers.

She knew that she had entered a lot of people into the system but she was surprised by how few address labels printed out. The reason for this is simple - when you are doing marketing FloristWare will only print out address labels for the people who have complete mailing addresses (including ZIP/Postal Codes) on file. If you don't have a complete address there is no point printing a label so the system doesn't bother.

She was a little disappointed that she had not collected more of this valuable information and was happy to learn that FloristWare features a special "Customer Tools" feature that allows her to go and collect the data she needs.

The "Customer Tools" are found in the Marketing section. Among other things they let you create a list of everyone who does not have a complete mailing address on file. You can then enter the information - you can call the customer to get it, or you can take it from a phonebook or internet.

It's another feature that helps you maximize your marketing efforts!

Published by Mark Anderson, FloristWare on Friday, September 01, 2006 at 2:07 PM.
In case you haven't heard the new and improved SAF (Society of American Florists) website has just been unveiled and it is GREAT! If you are an SAF member you should try and check it out ASAP. A link appears below:

New SAF Website

If you are based in the US and are not an SAF member you really should think about joining. It is a great organization that works very, very hard on your behalf. Aside from all of the other benefits there are probably enough special member discounts for you to get your membership investment back there alone.

Many florists are reluctant to be so aggressive as to market to recipients (people who have not bought anything from you but have only received flowers from you) and they should be. It is something that must be handled very delicately.

Why? Your first loyalty should always be to your customer. If a customer buys flowers from you and sends them to his wife he wants you to help make sure that she feels good about it. If you send her a tacky flyer the next day proclaiming that you have the "CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAPEST ROSES IN TOWN - $AVE $$$$ - BUY NOW" then you devalue you the gift - you have told the wife that her husband bought her the cheapest flowers he could! Not a nice thing to do.

You can however do it with some class. Here is what we would suggest - once a week you could prepare a postcard or letter for everyone who received flowers the previous week. Send them a message explaining that you hope they liked their flowers. Assure them that you pride yourself on the level of service and quality of work that you provide.

You can then suggest that they consider you they next time they or someone they know buys flowers. If you handle it like that you can really increase your sales without insulting anybody!

As you may know FloristWare Version 2.0 includes a built-in employee timeclock that automatically keeps track of the hours worked and wages earned by each employee.

This information is summarized on the "Punchclock Report" which can be generated just like any other report. It is a real timesaver when you are doing payroll.

For more information please search for "timeclock" in the Support Library.

Changing product prices in FloristWare is very easy. Simply enter at the Manager Level, click "Settings" and then choose "Products" from the pull-down menu and click "Continue". From there you can access all of your products and make changes as you see fit.

If you need to change a lot of prices because it's a floral holiday you might want to try another approach. For example, all of your rose prices are probably higher at Valentines Day. Instead of changing the prices for all of them you may find it easier to create a special category of Valentines roses with Valentines pricing. You will turn this category on during the Valentines season and off the rest of the year - that way you won't have to see it. This will save you the trouble of changing the prices back and forth.

Sending and receiving wire orders can be time consuming. On an outgoing wire you typically have to take all of the information from the customer, complete the sale and then enter the order into a wire service terminal. With incoming wires many florists take the order off of their wire service terminal and then enter it into their POS system.

The new BloomNet BloomLink interface in FloristWare Version 2.0 makes it faster and more convenient. When you take an order from a customer sending it to another florist to be filled is as easy as clicking two buttons. You have dealt with the order in a matter of seconds.

Incoming BloomNet wires work just as well. The order comes directly into FloristWare and is presented to you for review. If you choose to accept it the standard FloristWare worksheet prints and all of your reports, statistics, etc. will reflect the order.

Reconciling to your BloomNet statement is easier than ever too. FloristWare prints a "reconciliation" report that you lay out beside your BloomNet report and you can then reconcile them line-by-line to make sure that you are getting credit for all of your activity.

Using FloristWare and BloomNet is the fastest and most affordable way of dealing with sending and receiving wire orders.

We are pleased to announce that FloristWare 2.0 is now available for download. This new version of the FloristWare POS system for florists features many new features and enhancements which make it better than ever.

One of the single biggest improvements is complete integration with BloomNet's BloomLink network. Florists can now send and receive BloomNet orders and messages right directly from/to FloristWare. This offer tremendous advantages to BloomNet members as they can now send outgoing wires directly from FloristWare with just two clicks. Incoming orders are entered directly into FloristWare and, if accepted, a worksheet will print and the order will be added to a special BloomNet reconciliation report.

Another exciting new feature is address verification. FloristWare now verifies all US addresses on entry. This means that FloristWare will check any US addresses you enter to make sure that they are valid and, whenever possible, provide the zip code. This saves you the time and expense of attempting to deliver (or mail invoices, marketing material, etc.) to invalid addresses.

There are countless other new features and enhancements including (but not limited to) an employee timeclock that automatically keeps track of hours worked and wages earned, and internal messaging system and many, many more. For more information please visit the Version History page.

Any florist who has been thinking about switching to a POS system (or switching from their existing POS system!) needs to give FloristWare 2.0 a try. It is the best version of FloristWare ever!

One of the new features in FloristWare Version 2.0 helps you generate the greatest possible revenue from your outgoing wires.

First you enter the rebate that you receive from each of the wire services in your settings. Then, every time you send an outgoing wire, you see a list of all your services along with the rebate that you will receive from each. This makes it easy to select the service that pays the biggest rebate to maximize your rebate revenue!

To get started visit the "Wire Services" section of your settings and enter the rebates that you receive from each service.

There is a new feature in Version 2.0 of the FloristWare order-taking/POS system for florists (available this week) that makes entering enclosure card messages faster and easier than ever.

FloristWare now keeps track of up to twelve "short forms" or abbreviations to help you enter card messages more quickly. FloristWare will then expand these abbreviations into their full phrases.

For example, you could specify that FloristWare expand "hb" into "Happy Birthday". Then, each time you want to enter "Happy Birthday" on an enclosure card, you need only enter "hb" and FloristWare will replace it with "Happy Birthday".

To take advantage of this feature you need to make sure that you have upgraded to Version 2.0. You can then specify your short forms in your Settings and use them whenever you are entering a card message.

The Hot Spots feature is one that most users are not taking full advantage of. It is very powerful and it can save you a lot of time if you use it properly.

A "Hot Spot" is any place that you deliver to frequently - places like large business, hospitals, funeral homes, etc. FloristWare lets you store the address information for these places so that whenever you are sending an order to one of them you can complete all of the address information for the order with just one click.

The reason many florists don't make full use of the feature is that it's "front loaded". It takes a few minutes to set up. Even though it will save you time the set-up tends to get put off.

Once you do take the time to set it up the Hot-Spots feature will be saving you time for years to come. It really is a great feature so please take the time to get it set up soon.

We're thinking about a new reporting feature and we'd like to get some feedback from our users.

As you know, FloristWare tries to create a Daily Sales Report each night when you close down. This report does a great job of showing you what happened in your store during the day.

We are thinking about adding a new feature that would allow FloristWare to automatically e-mail the Daily Sales Report (in pdf) format as soon as it is generated.

It could be sent to as many people as you like. The idea is that your Daily Sales Report could be sent to the owner, manager, and possibly the accountant or bookkeeper to help them keep on top of things. It would be especially helpful if you are on vacation and want to receive updates of what is happening in your store each day.

Please let us know what you think!

Earlier in the week I was speaking to a florist who has been using FloristWare for some time. I was surprised (and disappointed) to learn that she was still using her cash register.

She explained that she used FloristWare for taking orders and the register for "cash & carry" type sales. She didn't really have a reason other than that was the way she had started out, and that she found the cash register a little quicker at handling these simple sales.

The whole point of having a POS system is to collect valuable marketing information on your customers. Doing that takes a little longer than just ringing in a sale on a cash register, but it will pay off in the long run.

Since this information is so valuable you want to collect as much of it as possible. That means that you try and collect whatever information you can from every customer even if they are just buying a single rose!

If for some reason (you or the customer are in a hurry, it's very busy, etc) and you don't have time to enter that information you can always skip those sections. If you do, FloristWare is just as fast as using a cash register.

So please - if you haven't already gotten rid of your cash register please thing about doing so!

Some of our Canadian users have had difficulty in sourcing enclosure cards for use with FloristWare. It was not practical for them to deal with the John Henry Company and their own local printers weren't really prepared for this type of work.

We are please to tell you that we have found a new supplier that is ready and eager to work with Canadian FloristWare users. For more information please contact:

Suzanne Christie
1-800-603-3862
http://www.srcprint.com

We just started a new month. And, as you probably know, most FloristWare users need to enter new unlock codes at the end of each month. This always leads to the question "why?"

There is no doubt that the process of entering the unlock codes is a bit of a nuisance but it is, unfortunately, unavoidable. It's a case of taking the good with the bad. The unlock code system is the only way we can offer the FloristWare POS system the way we do - for a low monthly subscription with no contract or commitment.

There are couple of things that you can do to make this monthly ritual less stressful. The first is to make sure that you contact us as soon as you start seeing warnings that your FloristWare is about to expire. Leaving it to the last minute only makes things worse! There is no worse scenario than waiting until the first of the month and then not being able to start FloristWare in the morning.

The other thing that you can do is to pay in advance. If for example you pay for three months in advance your next set of unlock FloristWare for three months - you won't have to worry about unlock codes for another 90 days! Other users choose to pay for a year at a time.

We really are sorry that you have to go through the trouble of entering the codes at all, and hope that you find FloristWare worth the effort.

Thank you!

There are a couple of things to report this week.

The first is that FloristWare will be exhibiting at the Texas State Florists Association Convention in San Antonio Texas from July 21-23. We hope that any florists in the area who are interested in taking a look at the FloristWare POS System for florists will visit.

The other news is that testing of FloristWare Version 2.0 is going very well. We managed to sneak in a few more new features at the last minute and it will be available for download on Monday July 10.

Thank you.

As you know, when making sales the payment method is sometimes recorded incorrectly. A sale charged to a Mastercard may accidentally be recorded as being charged to a Visa or Debit card, etc. This means that the payment figures in your daily sales report will not match the actual payments collected.

Because this is such a common problem the FloristWare includes a powerful feature that can help you balance the payments recorded in your Daily Sales Reports. You can correct errors of this type before you print your daily sales report and try to balance it.

To get started go to the 'Payments' section of your Daily Sales Report. You will see a small orange button near the bottom of the screen. Clicking this button shows you all of the payments made during the day specified at the top right-hand corner of your screen.

The information in the report is organized into columns and rows. Each row contains the information for one payment. You can now change the method of each payment using the pull-down menu in it's row. It's that simple!

There are three things that you should keep in mind when balancing payments in this way:

1. Never Change the Payment Method From 'Account'!
If you originally recorded a payment as being charged to an account and then change it to something else it will not be removed from the customer's balance owing. FloristWare will not let you change payments to 'Account' for similar reasons - the amount would not be added to a customer's balance owing.

2. Be Very Careful!
Make only changes you are sure about - things can become very messy if you get careless.

3. Keep Track of the Changes
We also suggest that you keep track of any changes you make (using pen and paper) until you get the report balanced. While you can always change sales back, FloristWare does not keep track of the changes you are making so you cannot just 'Undo' them.

As you know, the FloristWare Flower Shop POS System makes it very easy to market with e-mail and postcards. FloristWare will walk you through the process of building a list and then automatically create a customized e-mail or postcard for each person on it.

Writing the content for that e-mail or postcard is up to you! The message that you send to your customer will play a huge role in determining the effectiveness of your campaign. It is very important that you get it right.

This excellent article by Janine Popick contains some great information on how to create an effective message. You should give it a read before your next batch of e-mails or postcards.

Thank you.

This week we're going to spotlight one of the new marketing features that will be available in Version 2.0 of the FloristWare Point-of-Sale System for Florists, due to be released in the very near future.

FloristWare has always been very good at helping florists with their marketing. In a matter of minutes it can help you create a list of people that you want to target and then begin the process of contacting them (in an attempt to get them to make a purchase) in a number of different ways - you can generate postcards, mailing labels, phone lists or, perhaps most attractive of all, e-mail. FloristWare allows you to create a template and them uses it to automatically prepare and send a customized e-mail for each person on your list.

This is a great feature, but it's about to get a whole lot better. Until now you have been limited to simple text e-mails. In FloristWare version 2.0 you can send fully formatted html e-mails. This allows you to have complete control over the appearance of your marketing e-mails and include graphics and links to your site.

This kind of e-mail is generally much more efficient for marketing purposes so this new feature should really help you generate some sales for your flower shop.

Version 2.0 of the FloristWare Floral Point-Of-Sale system is expected to be released in july 2006.

P.S. Here is an interesting article on html e-mail.