“Without a doubt last year was our busiest and most successful ever and I would like to thank all of our customers for their time and input. I would also like to reiterate the welcome to our new customers – we are really looking forward to working with you and helping your businesses become more successful.

We have been extremely fortunate to grow our business through customer satisfaction and thank all of those who have recommended us. Referrals have been the main stay of our business and we recognise the significance of this word-of-mouth marketing. We also recognise that for you to continue to recommend us we must continue to perform exceptionally, particularly as our business grows. To help us meet this challenge, we will be gearing up with new team members and the establishment of a new help desk system. We are also keen to ensure we maintain regular contact with you, our customers, and plan for this to be the first in a series of quarterly newsletters.

2007 has started well, with more new sites taking on our UNITS™ and EQUIP™ windows based software. We are also continuing to develop our PMDS product; 5.4 is about to be released and 5.5. won't be far behind. Thanks once again for your time and please call me if there is anything I can help you with.”

Roger Peffers - Auto-IT NZ Manager

Auto-IT continues to grow across the globe...

• We now have over 7,000 licensed users of Auto-IT Dealer Management Systems.
• Our permanent staff numbers have reached 70.
• EQUIP™ is now exclusively endorsed and recommended by John Deere for all its dealerships in New Zealand, Australia and North America.
• Auto-IT Malaysia Sdn Bhd was incorporated in Kuala Lumpur and began trading at the start of 2007 to service Malaysia and Singapore.
• AKNT Pty Ltd commenced the marketing of our systems in the Republic of South Africa.

Intelligent Support – The Hall of Fame & Shame

We have our own “Hall of Fame & Shame”at Auto-IT and it's not quite what you might imagine. To keep everyone on their toes regarding support and to reinforce the importance we place on it, every member of the permanent staff receives a daily copy of the 'the hall of fame and shame'; these statistics reveal just how many requests for support remain open and closed for each individual. We all take our fair share, even the boss, a daily reminder that our customers come first.

To help us effectively manage this information we have established a new help desk system. Following on from the successful launch of our 0800 number last year, the new system will ensure we continue to strive for support excellence, of benefit to us all.

support@auto-it.co.nz  
Using email technology, a preferred means of communication for most, you can be assured of a speedy, monitored response when you make contact. All email requests to support will be automatically lodged, issued a receipt and simultaneously posted to an individual Auto-IT team member for attention. Tracked throughout the day, outcomes are monitored. Being better informed we can also better manage our relationship with you.

We welcome your feedback on how this new support service is performing.

Auto-IT welcomes new customers

Gordon Handy Machinery Ltd, (John Deere), Timaru

South Canterbury Toyota, Timaru

Armstrong Peugeot, Wellington

HC Prestige, (Mercedes-Benz & Chrysler Jeep), Nelson

Our People – Matthew Skilton

If you are a UNITS™ or EQUIP™ customer and you call our 0800 number you'll be put through to Support Technician Matthew Skilton, a relatively new member of the team. Matthew joined last year, after 5 years with Westpac and a year with a web design company.

Says Matthew, “I enjoy the variety of the work, there's always lots to do and something different; from stepping someone through how to use the system to sophisticated report writing. I like solving problems and figuring out where things may have gone wrong.”

Originally from Christchurch, Matthew is now based at the Auto-IT offices in Wellington. He admits that he doesn't get stressed easily, an important characteristic for the job as well as for his spare time role as an international tennis umpire! This calm approach to problem solving enables him to stand back and see the big picture. He sites honesty as what's important to him and believes he has the determination to get to the bottom of things. So next time you need some 0800 support you'll know who you're talking to.

Impending Release of UNITS Build 2000

UNITS™ has continued to mature throughout the life of Build 1900 and our development department are now putting the final features into our latest release, Build 2000.

Packed with may new features and enhancements Build 2000’s most noticeable change will be in the look and feel of the menus and screens. We have upgraded to the latest Sybase PowerBuilder 10 application which provides Windows XP look and feel.

Not just a pretty face, there are many new features under the surface, such as five new General Ledger Reports; an ability to save and recall user defined settings in many programs and probably the most useful feature – the ability to display the allocation of debtor receipts against individual transactions.

Build 2000 has already undergone extensive integration testing in-house, has been released on some sites in America and is schedule for selective release within Australia over the next 6 weeks. We can expect general release of Build 2000 within the next 3-4 months.

PMDS 5.4

PMDS 5.4 has recently been loaded onto our first test site here in New Zealand and, all being well, will be released to our PMDS clients over the next few weeks. The release will be staggered to ensure we are able to deal with any unforeseen events, and limit any risk of inconvenience. This is mainly a maintenance release, which includes minor enhancements and specific fixes, for instance:

For Administrators - a new Debtors Transaction Summary is available, (Rp 846), showing the dollar amounts processed through Debtors by transaction type.

For Parts Departments - Movement Enquiry now shows Unit Sale Price with Drill-Down to Enquiry, a clever enhancement with a summary display allowing source document view and print options.

A week or two prior to issuing the software update on tape we will send out the release documentation by email in PDF format to give sufficient time for it to be circulated amongst staff.

It is likely that PMDS 5.5 will be released in New Zealand in May, although this is a tentative date.

Handy Hint

It seems many of our clients are unaware that the Viaduct Terminal software, (used on their PCs to access PMDS), supports Copy and Paste functionality. In any Windows application you can hi-light and copy data in the usual way, then paste it into the appropriate PMDS field by using “Shift Insert”, (hold shift and press insert once). This is particularly useful with VIN numbers from LTSA and part numbers from online catalogues. Of course the reverse also applies, where you can hi-light and copy from a PMDS screen, and paste into a Windows screen. In addition Viaduct supports copying data from one PMDS screen to another. All you need do is hi-light and copy the piece of data and then paste it using “Shift Insert” into the required field in the other screen. Some words of warning though - copy the data, not the data and field names, and in multi-line fields the data needs to be copied one line at a time.