Educational Factoring Seminar on Wednesday, Nov 4th

Capital Associates Webinar
November 4th, 2009
Join us next Wednesday, November 4th, at 3pm EST for an educational webinar on the Factoring Basics For Brokers. This webinar will be limited to the first 15 who register, so sign-up today because you won’t want to miss as we explore the benefits of factoring during this down economy. This educational and informative webinar will feature the President of Capital Associates Bill Stewart and Capital’s Vice President of Business Development, Pat Walden who have over 50 years combined experience in the trucking in the trucking industry.
Capital Associates has been helping businesses in the trucking grow since 1979. With three decades of experience Capital Associates will help sort through the challenges and the solutions for transportation brokers in this economy. Starting with the seven reasons why brokers fail, and the solutions to avoid that failure in the future.
The conversation will include what a good Broker Factoring Program should include and what to look for as you decide if factoring is an option for your business.
Bill and Pat will discuss the benefits of building customize factoring programs that provide you the infusion of cash flow you need and at the same time help by providing Quick Pay services to your carriers.
A typical customized Broker Program will include components such as:
1. ADVANCES
2. FREE CREDIT CHECKING
3. BILLING FOLLOW-UP SERVICES
4. CARRIER PAYMENT PROGRAMS
5. RATE STRUCTURE
6. RECOURSE
7. AND OTHER VALUE ADDED SERVICES such as:
a.Direct Vendor Payment Programs
b.Quick Pay Services
c.On-Line Services – immediate access to any information or reports 24/7
d.On-Line Credit Services –credit decisions on potential customers 24/7

This will be a great and informative webinar. Save-the-date and sign up today so that you don’t miss next Wednesday at 3pm EST when Bill Stewart and Pat Walden join us as we discuss How Brokers Can Survive In A Down Economy.

Please sign up by email sales@aljex.com or call Robyn at 732.357.8000 for more details.

There are a limited amount of spots!

Phone Outage

We are experiencing some phone issues. If you are unable to contact us via phone, please send an email to support@aljex.com.

Did you know?

You can pull a report of all your customers to review their setup information, preferences & history

Accounting > D-Reports > 8-Excel Reports > 3-Enter Selection - Accounting > Customer List > fill in your search info > esc esc

This report is UNBELIEVABLE!
There are about 80 columns of information
From this report you can identify which customers are set up for:
E-Billing (column BJ)
Auto mileage & Fuel Surcharge
Pre-Bill
This same report will also provide you with Customer Status, Customer Type, YTD sales, Credit Limits, Shipments YTD & Total Shipments.

Text Messaging Feature

Text messaging is live within Aljex, this feature allows messaging directly from Aljex. From Active Dispatch you can text a request for the driver to call and/or pick up & consignees address, phone numbers & reference numbers. From the carrier Advance File you can text the advance check and amount.

The phone # to text is pulled from screen 0 in Active Dispatch. A preview screen allows you to edit the text or the phone #.

To sign up for this feature contact sales@aljex.com, there is a charge of 10 cents per text. Texting is outbound only the recipient can not reply to the text message.

Hot Key Update in Active Dispatch

CUSTOMER CONFIRMATIONS in Active Dispatch.
The standard customer confirmation and the laser confirmation have been consolidated into one selection G Customer Rate confirmation. With that choice you can then select the standard or laser form. If you have a customized form that will still be the non laser version.

The selection for the Laser Customer Confirmation has been replaced with a new feature. The new feature provides sms text messaging from Aljex. Features include a rate confirmation (no rates), request to call dispatch and advance information. Call Aljex Sales to sign up for this service.

Who is Updating a Record

We are releasing a feature to notify you what user is updating a record. Today it will be released in the Customer File and during the week it will be adding to Active Dispatch, Carrier File, Vendor File, Invoice File and Purchase Journal.

Did you know???

Did you know that a Dispatcher can receive an Email Notification when a carrier does not make a pick up and/or delivery for a load?

You can turn this function on in the Employee File> Screen 6> Email Notifications

DID YOU KNOW????

Did you know that Aljex currently has EDI 214's with the following partners? If a core carrier of yours is not on our list just ask them about doing 214's with you and we will set it up.

Averitt Express, Benton Express, Best Transport, Boyd Trucking, Conway,
Excel Transportation, FedEx, FedEx LTL, FedEx National,
Pilot Freight, SCO Logistics, Southeastern Freight Lines,
USF Holland, CR England, USF Glen Moore, Roadway,
Overnite, Sweeney, New Century, Estes, Cargo Xpress, Old Dominion,
R & L Freight, Yellow, PJAX, Pitt Ohio, Ward

Receiving 214's from a carrier eliminates the labor cost to trace shipments. This gives you a competitive edge to more more shipments with your existing staff.

The 1st step of an EDI project is to get specs from the customer or carrier

Forward the specs to support@aljex.com with contact information
so we can contact the company who the EDI is with

Some EDI projects require you to complete a survey which we will assist with

EDI can send and/or received via FTP or through VAN

This information and much more on other topics can be found in the Knowledge Base Center located at http://www.aljex.com/support.php

New way to Filter A/R Report

Collector is now a criteria that A/R Aging & Balance Due Statements can be
filtered by.
Collectors are assigned to sales reps through the sales rep file.
The collector's ID is their Aljex login.

New Option In Pick/Stops!

In an Active/Released load, press "3" to view Pick/Stops with Pcs/Weight

Employee File - Big new option

We added a new option to make it easier to update an employee's profile and permissions in the employee file. Its option 4 in the employee menu. You can now view, update, add or delete a persons profile from a web page. The advantage to this is its faster to find a permission on one big page, rather than looking through multiple screens.

For adding, it seems faster to me to do it in classic, but feel free to do it anywhere that it makes you happiest, its all updating the same information.

T-Checks for $1.95

The TIA is offering a deal to TIA members where you get T-checks for only $1.95 per transaction, a substantial discount to what most of you are paying. If you would like more information, contact mizell@tianet.org .

Aljex User Meeting in San Antonio 4/3

Please join us in San Antonio for our Annual Aljex User's Meeting. We hope to see you all at the TIA convention next week! Stop by our booth #301 for more specific location details.

Friday April 3rd from 3-5pm
The Grand Hyatt
600 E Market Street
San Antonio, TX

POSITIVE PAY

What is Positive Pay?
Positive Pay is an automated fraud detection tool offered by the Cash Management Department of most banks. In its simplest form, it is a service that matches the account number, check number and dollar amount of each check presented for payment against a list of checks previously authorized and issued by the company. All three components of the check must match exactly or it will not pay.


How does Positive Pay work?
Positive Pay requires the company to send (transmit) a file of issued checks to the bank each day checks are written. When those issued checks are presented for payment at the bank, they are compared electronically against the list of transmitted checks. The check-issue file sent to the bank contains the check number, account number, issue date, and dollar amount. Sometimes the payee name is included, but is not part of the matching service.

When a check is presented that does not have a "match" in the file, it becomes an "exception item". The bank sends a fax or an image of the exception item to the client. The client reviews the image and instructs the bank to pay or return the check.


How can I integrate this with Aljex?
Aljex can create a custom report for you to transmit to your bank. The report would include the detail of checks you have written in Aljex. To get started, email support@aljex.com

Covering Process

To stream line the cover process, when covering a shipment, you can now enter the carriers will pickup date and time. These fields are on the bottom of the screen where you enter the driver name, cell phone, trailer, ....

This is optional feature and if you don't enter the date and time the software will continue to prompt you for the date and time.

Invoice Posting Report

Many of our clients are taking advantage of the Fax and Email billing when they invoice their customers. The Sales Journal, that prints just before you post, now includes how the invoice is sent.

If you are not taking advantage of these features, its easy. Screen 2 of the customer file gives you an option to email or fax invoices. Put an E for email or a F for Fax and fill in the billing fax# or email address.

Bigger "Big Export"

The "big export" just got bigger! There is another version of the "big export", this one with over 500 columns of information about each shipment. This new report is so big, that you need Excel 2007 to open it. (Older versions of excel will not be able to open it). The new big export 500 is located in the excel reports menu, and the additional fields added now include every line of the invoice, and all of the extra picks and stops, with complete names and addresses).

Available Trucks -

Due to the increased availability of trucks, we have a new option you may want to use. You can now set the number of days for available equipment to stay in the available trucks file. The new option is in the setup file, screen 4, "Delete Available Trucks X Days". By default its set to "1", so if a truck is available today, it will be deleted automatically tomorrow night. (This has been how it has worked before this new option). But you can now set it to 0 - (if its available today, its gone tonight, or (with so much available equipment) choose to keep it in there for an extra day with a "2"

PC Miler Changes

PCMiler changed their policies and direct access to the program has been eliminated. It was a great deal while it lasted (and still a very good deal, even without it)

Moving forward, you will have to go through our interfaces. Our interface options include calculating miles for new orders, quotes and distances for check calls. We also have a stand-alone spot to calculate miles, generate a PCMiler map and directions.


Click Here to see the official news from PCMiler

Aljex Supplies

Aljex has Partnered with Dynamic Systems for substantial discounts for Aljex Compatible Checks, Window Envelopes and other consumables. If you need supplies, click on our partners tab, and put in your orders.