Many Canadian florists will have to change their settings to reflect the new National sales tax (known as the GST) rate on July 1, 2006. This has prompted several of them to ask about how they can go about changing their tax settings.

There is already an article devoted to this topic. While it specifically addresses the GST change as it will affect Canadian florists, all users should know it is easy to change your tax settings at any time.

The thing to remember is that you make the change on the server machine AFTER you have closed for business on the last day at the old tax rate and BEFORE you open for business on the first day at the new tax rate. You will need to quit FloristWare and restart once you have made the change.

Thank you!

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!

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!

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.