SSCS News for July

The latest events of interest to our convenience store customers.

Every month is a busy month at SSCS, but the first half of 2019 has been something else. Several exciting projects are making their way through the development pipeline as this is being written, and the rest of 2019 is sure to be peppered with news items of interest for our readers, especially SSCS users. Here’s what we’ve been up to in the past month or so.

Computerized Daily Book 7.5.17 released

The latest version of our flagship back office system has been in staggered release for about a month now, and SSCS users can find a complete list of enhancements on the SSCS Portal. Highlights include the ability for Passport users to post fuel sales on a by-dispenser basis and the ability of Commander users to break out Loyalty Rewards by:

• Fuel sales where the customer has received a discount per gallon at the pump (ppgDiscount).
• Fuel sales where the customer has received a discount of the total amount at the pump (ticketDiscount).
• A total of the two above values (lineItemDiscount).

To clarify further, the interface as it appears in Post2CDB for VS-Poll (the Commander poller) looks like this:

Central Price Book 4.0 makeover is here

Our enterprise pricing solution, Central Price Book, has undergone a facelift, with a few additional capabilities customers have requested. It, too, has been slowly released over the last month or so.

The program contains the same basic functionality and organization of features to make the transition as easy as possible for our user base. You can find a list of the main differences between CPB 4.0 and its previous iteration, CPB 3.4.6 on the SSCS Portal. Some of the key improvements include:

• A responsive display that takes into account the size of the user’s device.
• Easy identification and correction of divergent values — items with different prices across the enterprise sites.
• Convenient email transmission for all reports.
• Costs can now be managed in the Item Adjustment and Add Item screens.

If you want even more information than our portal list, we have just released a CPB 4.0 User Guide, which is available here. Online help to match will be included in the application shortly. To whet your appetite, here’s an image from the new manual:

New video training set covering CDB setup

Our videos continue to be one of the most popular features of the SSCS Portal thanks to their educational effectiveness. Fans of our training videos will be interested to know that we’re releasing a new set that covers setup in the Computerized Daily Book. These videos will become available on the SSCS Portal next Friday, July 19. Keep watching us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for an announcement of their availability.

While our technical support team is always more than willing to assist in system setup for new customers, many can benefit from learning how to do it themselves. We also realize that personnel and ownership changes often lead to a hire needing to learn the CDB without an SSCS technician onsite. The new setup series will make sure that every user has what it takes to configure their system and get it working for them. You’ll learn about:

• 1. Vendor, Department, and Account Setup — The basic, but important processes of setting up these parts of your system.
• 2. Tax Group and Tax Setup — A demonstration of how the CDB handles tax, including effective strategies for using the CDB to track the various types you deal with on a daily basis.
• 3. Inventory Setup — A walk through of setting up items, offering quick overviews of some of the more nuanced aspects of item setup.
• 4. Fuel Setup — Covers how to configure your fuel tanks and grades.
• 5. Users/Restrictions — Shows how to set up permissions for personnel in your site that work with the CDB.
• 6. CDBWin Settings — Instructions on how to configure the way the CDB handles Paidouts, Alerts, Email, and other daily work settings.

The above videos are optimally effective for new employees when watched in the suggested order, but also have value for stand-alone viewing, in the case, for example, that more experienced personnel need a refresher.

Well that’s all the news for today. Keep watching this space for upcoming announcements, and enjoy the new software releases!