New Software Available. Quickbooks Integrator
Many of you are using Quickbooks in your collision repair business but have to manually enter information from your estimate. Most of the management systems that interface with your estimating system export your financials into Quickbooks, but most small shops cannot afford the excessively high monthly payments. For instance, CCC only offers Quickbooks integration if you buy their “CCC One Workflow,” and they want an insane $600 per month for that previlege.
Tell a Friend
CCC-One: Another Update. Another Disappointment.
I don’t have too much to talk about these days because I’m just writing estimates part time, and I’m not too involved in the industry anymore. So that leaves poor CCC, the makers of software I spend a lot of time using, as the main source of my frustrations.
Tell a Friend
Here’s What You Can Expect From CCC One
As I explained in the last post, there can be no logical reason for CCC to host YOUR data on THEIR servers. It will serve only to aggravate the user. Unreliable Internet connections and unreliable servers at CCC’s data farm ensure that CCC One users will see this screen quite often. Click the image for a full size view.
I dealt with this for two hours today. For two hours I couldn’t write an estimate, enter parts, print estimates for appraisers or print a work order for car that arrived at the shop for repairs.
Our Internet connection was working fine. It was obviously CCC’s servers that were down. I called CCC tech support and waited on hold for close to a half hour. They were “receiving heavy call volume.” No sh*t! Suddenly CCC One connects and is working again, so, tired of waiting on hold I hang up–relieved. Less than a minute later no connection again. I finally give up and go out in the shop to get in the way of the techs.
CCC One sucks beyond belief. Can’t wait for the contract to expire.
Tell a Friend
Test Driving the New CCC One Estimating System
If you haven’t heard yet, Pathways is going bye-bye. The boring estimating system most of us use is being replaced by CCC One. Why not just update Pathways? Control is the keyword here. CCC wants control of every bit of information of every vehicle you work on. CCC One keeps no estimate or claim information on the user’s computer. Instead, you must have a working Internet connection, and your estimates are stored on CCC’s servers. That information will then be farmed and mined for every nugget of data.
Tell a Friend
My Popular Tow Bill Helper Software is Now New and Improved
For all of you using my Tow Bill Helper software, a long overdue overhaul is finally here. I’ve completely rewritten the software from scratch, making it more versatile and adding many features. The software can now be used to write invoices of any kind, not just tow bills. If you have been having a hard time getting paid a markup on sublet tows, this software will solve that problem. Read on, an I’ll give you a quick overview of the new Tow Bill Helper 2010.
Tell a Friend
CCC: Helping Insurers Nickel and Dime You To Death
Have you seen this yet?
Yes, your good friends at CCC are at it again. While you were working hard trying to eke out an existence repairing cars, CCC was conspiring with insurers to whittle down paint times again. First the bumper prompt reappears, now this new gem.
This little window popped up on me for the first time the other day when I entered a hood replacement in a Pathways estimate. What a surprise.
Apparently some appraiser saw one of those rare instances where a hood had just been painted around the outside edges underneath. You know, where the hood insulation doesn’t cover? Looking for some brownie points this person brought this information to the idiots in the suits and suits pressured CCC to come up with a new time chiseling prompt. What company do you think it was? Nationwide? I believe they were the scoundrels behind the bumper prompt reinvention.
Are you ready for your very own estimating system yet? As long we keep using estimating software paid for by insurers, we will continue to see these cost cutting options.
The sad part is that Pathways is still the best of the big three.
If anyone has any information on this new prompt, please post it here. I’m not going to bother calling CCC. It would be a complete waste of time.
Tell a Friend
More New Software. Diminished Value Calculator
I have had many requests from people wanting to buy my diminished value calculator software separately from my BodyShop Office suite. And one of the most popular keyword searches that bring people to this site is “Diminished Value Calculator.” So here it is. I’ve finally created a separate application.
Tell a Friend
New Tool From BodyShop Solutions: Supplement Request Generator
I’m sure I’m not the only person fed up with insurers causing us more work. The recent trend of insurers demanding supplement requests be in writing, and on their own forms, got me a little fired up. In protest I managed to anger Geico enough that they threatened legal action. They don’t like their logo being desecrated (I used some digital magic to make the gecko on the top of their supplement request form flip Geico staff the bird.) and hired some high profile legal firm from Washington DC to let me know it. Liberty Mutual may not know it, because I haven’t had the chance to use it yet, but I’ve defiled their supplement request form also. Their logo of Liberty holding a torch has been changed to Liberty giving the middle finger salute.
Tell a Friend
Geico’s Gecko Gets Grumpy
Geico whined about copyright infringement so I had to remove the image. They are wrong and don’t understand the Fair Use act, and I could easily win in court, but I’m not sticking my neck out for this industry any more.
Photoshop is a wonderful thing. Insurers creating more work for us is not. For those of you not on either Geico’s or Allstate’s DRP program, you’ve probably been acquainted with their new supplement request forms. I first received one from Allstate. Instead of picking up the phone and calling the supplement hot-line, I now have to fill out a full page form and fax it to a supplement fax number, then pray it got through and was processed.
Tell a Friend
Screw Lean, Get Mean
Pick up any trade magazine from the past couple of years and you’ll probably find an article about “lean production” or cutting your cycle time. Anyone whose mind is a jumbled mess from having to deal with the daily BS involved in running a shop would think little about the meaning and intent behind those articles. In fact, many of you have invested time and money to follow some of the advice in these articles.
From people intimately familiar with Toyota’s lean manufacturing processes to the freelancers who write for our industry’s trade magazines even though they have zero experience working in or running a collision repair shop, everyone seems to be banging on the same worn out drum trying to get you to dance. But these writers are no musicians. They are herdsmen, and you are their brainless sheep.
Tell a Friend