We are working towards release by the middle of March if not sooner.

We will be notifying licensed QBI v1.2.2.0 users as soon as it is available.

AyaNova Sales & Technical Support

http://www.ayanova.com

I recently downloaded this program in its trial form. We are looking for a scheduling program for about 10 field technicians for a (future) dispatch person to operate. I was particularly interrested in this program because the summary said it interfaced or worked with Quickbooks and we use Quickbooks extensively in our service-based business. I have a clear-cut vision of how a scheduler such as yours could work with my Quickbooks files. I see the ability to assign a particular job (from QB) to a particular person scheduled in AyaNova, and having all of the job data linked to the scedule (location, type of work, contact person, phone #). I also see the ability of AyaNova sending sceduling information to the Quickbooks timesheets for these employees.

It seems that AyaNova also has particular things like inventory and units that I don't think we would ever need, being a service-based business.

So, I have a few questions:

I've seen posts on the forum about troubleshooting QBI, was the interface available before?

Is it not at ALL available right now?

Do I HAVE to wait till March to try it out?

Will it interface with my Quickbooks ENTERPRISE Edition 2006?

Will it do any of the things I have described in my 'vision' above? And to what extent?

I am really excited about the possibilities here and wish I could talk with someone, but I guess the forum will have to do. *sigh*

Thank you.

Lydia

>> was the interface available before?

Yes it's available for use with our original version of AyaNova.  We recently completely re-wrote AyaNova from scratch, it was originally released in 2000 and needed to be modernized.  The old AyaNova's QuickBooks interface is completely uncompatible with the new AyaNova so a new QuickBook interface is being built for it as I type this.

>> Is it not at ALL available right now?

No, not for the new AyaNova 3.

>> Do I HAVE to wait till March to try it out?

Yes, likely you will, we're hoping for an earlier release but it's hard to say.

>> Will it interface with my Quickbooks ENTERPRISE Edition 2006?

Yes we support any version of QuickBooks that their developers API supports and they list that edition.

>> Will it do any of the things I have described in my 'vision' above? And to what extent?

This is where I think there is a bit of a disconnect between what we offer and what QB offers.  I suspect that you are used to using QuickBooks for primarily managing your service. 

AyaNova is a complete service management application so we look at QuickBooks as being primarily an accounting program.  In the past we have offered integration at the level required to create invoices in Quickbooks from AyaNova workorders and to import data from QuickBooks for customers and billable items mostly. 

We did not interface to any aspect of QuickBooks related to service, it just didn't seem to make any sense since AyaNova was primarily used to accomplish those tasks and is purpose built for doing exactly those things that Quickbooks has as afterthoughts.

That being said we will definitely consider anything new to add and we do have on our internal list to check into the latest QB service management features and how we can integrate more fully with them, but in the interests of expediency the initial release of the QuickBooks interface will mostly focus on avoiding double entry and creating invoices / receipts.  A few new features to be sure but mostly to enhance the existing focus of treating Quickbooks as nothing more than the "accounting" side of the service management equation.

Note that in AyaNova you can turn off the inventory, you don't have to use it if it doesn't fit your business.

I invite you to give AyaNova a try, consider how it would be used in your business if *it* was the primary method of managing service and Quickbooks was relegated to doing the accounting that it's best at.  If AyaNova is not a good match for your business then no harm done, it might give you some ideas of what to look for when you trial other service software at the very least.

Cheers!

The thing is is that we use QB mostly for payroll, invoicing (A/R), A/P, and Employee-related tasks; we DON'T currently use anything to manage operations other than a couple of brains, cell phones and post-it notes!

I guess I need to print up your manual (will much change in AyaNova operations after the QBI add-on?) and get to studying, the program seems very useful, I just don't know where to start, especially with the limited capabilities of the trial version.

One other question: will we be able to IMPORT QB info into AyaNova such as clients and vendors after QBI is available?

What type of business is AyaNova ideal for?

Thank you again for your help!

~Lydia

Hi Lydia, I wouldn't actually print the manual it's pretty huge!   Best to just start playing with AyaNova, getting a feel for it and referring to the manual on screen as you get more in to it. Nothing will change in AyaNova with the QBI add-on, it's a separate application that will have it's own interface.

The trial version is not actually limited in any significant manner, the only real limitations are that you are limited to 30 total workorders and can't change the trial users setup in it.  If that prevents you from evaluating it fully we can provide a time limited license key however in my experience most people have more trouble with that when first learning AyaNova because it's easier to learn with the trial data in place.

QBI will definitely import clients and vendors when it's released.  The whole point of QBI is to eliminate double entry wherever possible in areas where AyaNova and QBI overlap such as clients and vendors and parts labor rates etc.  In addition to generating invoices / receipts of course.

AyaNova is best suited for companies or organizations that provide service to others.  I know that's pretty generic, but it's how we look at it and have designed for.  AyaNova is not industry specific, there are certain aspects of managing service that apply to all service businesses.  Our existing client base has no particular industry more than any other and some pretty unusual ones as well.  Basically in a nutshell if you want to organize your service, ensure that nothing gets lost, keep track of service appointments, schedule preventive maintenance, track billable hours and possibly parts / expenses used in service then it's a good match in most cases. 

Also it's useful in being able to present a professional image to the people or companies you are providing service to.  Nice clean reports can be printed showing the work performed.  You can quickly go back and look at a service history so when you provide the service you are not re-learning things all over again.  Sometimes just being able to say to a customer that the last time you serviced xx item was on a certain date and that it might be time to service it again is a huge source of income for a business.  The marketing side of it was a huge benefit in our business and having software to keep track of things gave us more ability to be pro-active about the service instead of reactive when things went wrong.

Note that the terminology used in AyaNova 3 is now completely customizable so if your business doesn't use the word "client" for example it can easily be changed to "boat" or "building" or whatever makes sense.  Every word you see in the program and printed reports can be changed, however initially you should just look at it using the built in terms as they are pretty generic and apply to most businesses.

As with any business software the worst part is the initial learning curve and applying it to your own business in the best way that suits you and getting people to "buy in" to using it fully when they are used to just scribbling things down on paper.  AyaNova is carefully designed to not *enforce* a certain way of doing things and tries to be flexible as possible.

We developed it initially many years ago for our own service business because we were just getting too busy to properly keep track of service, where we had to be, what we had done in the past etc.  We used to use paper, then moved to spreadsheets then looked for software that was affordable for small business and just couldn't find any.  We developed AyaNova originally as an in-house application in our computer networking and service business (we also developed custom software for the oil and gas industry at the time) and decided what worked for us might be useful to others.  Fast forward many years and we have clients now in over 34 countries last time I checked.

Bottom line is to not commit to anything too soon, don't buy AyaNova or any other business software until you are sure it will be a benefit to your business.  Have a look around at other software there are a few out there and they are all quite different from each other.  There isn't really ever a "best" software for business, there is a "best match" though and it's important to know what's available to make a decision.  Once you have narrowed down what you are after take as much time as possible to play with the evaluation versions and make sure you are satisfied that you know how it will fit your business and what it will bring to your business and how you will use it.  It's a long term commitment usually and a new way of doing things, you want to be sure it's right even if it takes some time to do so.