SSCS News for December

SSCS Announces Release of Central Price Book 3.1

Service Station Computer Systems, Inc. (SSCS) announces Central Price Book (CPB) 3.1, the latest version of its hosted enterprise price management module for the Computerized Daily Book (CDB), SSCS’s flagship back office system. CPB works hand-in-hand with the CDB to provide multi‐site operators consolidated control over pricing information from any computer with a web browser and a broadband Internet connection. Users add, edit and delete the information in single or multiple price records, then distribute changes to sites grouped logically from a price management standpoint.

Version 3.1 contains a number of new enhancements to make the program even more useful to SSCS customers, including:

• A Future Pricing feature that allows users to create price changes by amount or percentage to be implemented at a future time or date. These types of future events may be cloned and initiated on multiple dates, as desired.
• New items can be added to CPB in batches with a streamlined interface that promotes speed of entry
• New items can be cloned in CDB to use as a template for subsequent new items, a convenience when most of the information for an existing item matches that which is being cloned.
• A Zone List that can be displayed to show the impact items added to the price book through CDB and other outside sources will have on the sites in a displayed zone.
• New items can now be added to the price book from the Item Adjust feature.
• An existing negotiated cost item set can be cloned to provide a template for a subsequent item set, a convenience when most of the information in one set matches that which is being cloned.
• In addition to running a Negotiated Cost report for an individual vendor, users can now run a report for all vendors, sorted by Vendor ID.
• CPB can now be filtered to import only items that have been modified in the CDB.

“Initial response shows that our customers are embracing these new features—some of which they requested specifically—since they lead to greater productivity,” stated SSCS Vice President of Sales and Marketing Al Stoeberl.  “The improvements in the Negotiated Cost report are probably the most exciting feature since they further refine the customers ability to monitor the vendor’s billing and document any discrepancies that may be found.”

Central Price Book 3.1 features many other new enhancements. Current SSCS customers may access a complete list on the SSCS portal.

SSCS Introduces Eight-Part Instructional Video Series Explaining Every Aspect of the Physical Inventory Process

Service Station Computer Systems, Inc. (SSCS) is pleased to announce the release of a new eight-part video training series covering how to perform the Physical Inventory process with SSCS software. The series complements SSCS’s existing video series on the Computerized Daily Book (CDB), SSCS’s flagship back office system.

Content is conceptual and procedural, with time devoted to explaining trickier, more nuanced inventory best practices. The goal is to get someone up to speed on all major aspects of the process in a minimum of time, as the entire series runs approximately 80 minutes.

The SSCS creative team produced and directed the segments in concert with the training, support, and quality assurance departments to ensure accuracy, consensus on subject matter, and course organization. In addition, the team made a concerted effort to present visual content in a lively fashion, using graphics and animation to engage the viewer.

SSCS video training aligns with and supports SSCS’s other instructional methodologies, including classroom instruction, web-based advanced training, printed user guides and PDFs, online help, and outreach through social media. Additional video sets are in the plans for the near future as are efforts to integrate video more closely with SSCS applications.

“We are evolving our training to keep pace with the changing retail environment and these videos are an example of that evolution,” said SSCS Sales Manager Shawn Herrick. “Our mission to make SSCS’s dealers and their businesses as successful as possible. Providing ready-to-go training gives our customers another vehicle to improve their utilization of our solutions and, as a result, improve their performance as retailers.”

Current SSCS users are invited to explore the current video series by logging onto the SSCS Portal (portal.sunrayasp.com) and clicking the large video slide. As always we encourage your feedback.