FloristWare keeps track of how well your employees perform and then presents this information to you in a way that allows you to use your people most effectively.

For example let's say you have one employee that consistently gets $8 more that the store average on each sale. Obviously this employee is very good at upselling and getting the most from your customers. This is somebody you want to make sure is right out front and dealing with customers - making sales and taking orders - all day long! You don't want somebody like that in the back washing pails.

If you have someone who is consistently making sales lower than the store average, or is frequently discounting product you may want to take them out of sales or give them some guidance.

You might also see that the work of a certain designer is being returned more often than you would like - maybe you need to talk about their preparation and packaging. If an employee's sales are being refunded more often than normal maybe they aren't giving the proper care instructions.

These may seem like little things but they are little things that can save you money and give you a real edge in customer service!

FloristWare has some powerful features that can help you reduce fraud and internal theft.

Here is an example. Each time a user makes certain types of refunds or cancellations that FloristWare considers suspicious it captures the name of the user and, if possible, the customer (just in case you want to contact them to see what happened). FloristWare also makes the user enter the reason why they did what they did.

This information is organized and presented in the Suspect Activity Report. This shows you the activity that FloristWare feels is suspicious for whatever period you specify. It goes further by showing you what happened, who was responsible, why it is considered suspicious and what you can do about it.

This information also appears in your daily sales report. Each and every day FloristWare tries to alert you to potential problems before they get out of hand.

With just a few simple clicks FloristWare can generate thirty different reports! You just pick a report and tell FloristWare what period of time you want to cover.

Some of them are very straightforward - Sales by Day, Sales by Week, etc. Other are much more interesting, like the Suspect Activity report which alerts you to potential fraud and internal theft, or the AdTracker report that shows you where your business is coming from (Yellow Pages, wire services, word-of-mouth, etc.) and how effective each method is!

The Comparison reports are very popular. First you pick a Comparison report - say "Compare Sales By Day". You then select the first period of time - let's say the current month to date. You then pick the second period - let's say the same month last year. FloristWare then shows you your sales by day for the two periods side by side so you can see exactly how well you are performing. Try doing that with a cash register!

Not sure it's a useful feature? Imagine it's February 9th. You have a chance to pick up some last minute product. FloristWare lets you compare your sales from February 1 to 9 of this year with your sales from the same period last year. You'll know in an instant how things are shaping up!

FloristWare almost certainly generates all the reports you are used to, all the reports you have ever wished for and probably a few you never even thought of!

FloristWare helps you build customer loyalty in several different ways.

The optional Points Program is a neat feature that runs a points-based incentive program. Every time customers buy flowers, they earn points that can be redeemed for free or discounted product in the future.

You choose whether or not you want to run an optional points program. If you do, you get to decide how many points are awarded and what they are worth. You get to decide whether to allow partial redemptions (for discounts) or just full redemptions (free product).

Don't think it will work? There is a reason why these programs are so popular! They keep customers coming back.

Reminders are another feature that customers love. Customers can ask you to remind them about their special days, and FloristWare will prompt your staff to call or email the customer as the day draws closer. This is a valuable service, and customers come to depend on it.

The greatest way to ensure customer loyalty however is to provide unmatched customer service. Features like AutoFill and HotSpots allow you to take orders faster, something every customer appreciates. Notes reminds you what the customer like and doesn't like. Histories can show you everything the customer ever bought, who it went to and what it said on the card.

The optional points program gives your customers a financial incentive to stay loyal. Reminders make sure you contact them just as they start thinking about making purchases. Enhanced customer service makes you the florist that they want to deal with.

These are ways that FloristWare helps you keep your customers loyal!

Whenever you are especially busy you will appreciate the extra level of organization and control that FloristWare provides even more. Imagine being able to instantly find and review the details and status of every single order!

The ProgressTracker tool is especially handy for busy shops that choose to use it. You could have one or more people entering orders over the phone. A designer in the back is on another computer looking at the orders as they come in and checking them off as they are completed. Meanwhile the manager can be watching the progress and keeping an eye on things from yet another computer.

FloristWare also allows you to break your deliveries into separate "runs" and prints separate delivery lists for each. It can also print pick-up lists sorted by name or order number - very helpful if you try and keep of your outgoing pick-ups!

FloristWare includes a very powerful tool called AdTracker that will help you determine exactly how much you gain from various advertising efforts. This allows you to stop wasting money on advertising that doesn't work and concentrate your budget on advertising that does work.

When AdTracker is turned on, your staff is prompted to ask the customer how they heard about you at the end of each sale. They then make a selection from a pull-down menu that you define. AdTracker automatically flags some orders, such as incoming wire orders or sales that come from reminder calls so that your staff doesn't even have to ask.

AdTracker will then generate reports for any period that you specify. These reports break down where your business came from. And you don't just see total sales — you see the number of sales, the average sale value and more — everything you need to decide whether a particular method of advertising is working for you.

And AdTracker does still more. Let's say you run an AdTracker report for January. It will show you how much business was generated by word-of-mouth, Reminder Calls, Sales Calls, incoming wires, yellow pages, and whatever else you may have going.

You then enter the cost of that advertising, and AdTracker then calculates the cost of the business that it generated. So if you spend $100 per month on your Yellow Pages ad, and that ad generated $500 in sales, FloristWare will show you that for every dollar spent, you made $5 in sales. It also sorts the list from most effective to least effective.

AdTracker shows you whether or not you are spending your money in the right places. Do those Yellow Pages and Wire Service Directory ads really pay off? FloristWare will tell you once and for all.

While it is not a complete accounting package, FloristWare can look after your Accounts Receivable, streamlining the process and saving you time and money.

The first step is to create the account in FloristWare and assign a credit limit. This is quick and easy. The credit limit is a handy feature that ensures nobody on your staff will accidentally let a customer get in too deep.

When you are taking the order and it comes time to select the payment method, you choose account. FloristWare prints an invoice, pre-formatted and ready to go in a window envelope.

You can also generate statements (and skip the invoices if you wish) whenever you like. You can generate an invoice for a single account, all accounts with balances or every single account. Once again, the statements are preformatted to go into a window envelope.

Recording payments is just as easy. You select the account, enter the amount and apply it to the invoices that you like. Reports are also simple — FloristWare can generate account summaries, aged receivables (overall or by account) and more that helps you stay on top of what you are owed.

This is a big improvement for most florists, who take the order, scribble it on a piece of paper and then try and enter it into their accounting system later. It's just another area where FloristWare can really make things more efficient. Not only does it save you time, it also saves you money - many users who used to have their bookkeepers come in once a week now only have them come in once a month.