Private Hire and Contracts System - VecBook
Picture Courtesy of Lakeside Coaches Ltd.
The AKM Private Hire and Contracts booking system - VecBook is designed for small to medium sized coach companies for easy maintenance of booking records made for vehicles. It also carries out invoicing of customers, and produces drivers work tickets and various reports. It runs as a stand-alone system, or on a small computer network using Windows networking.
The system is straightforward to use for Private Hire operators, the system keeps allows booking of single journeys for customers, repeating past journeys, or arrange contract bookings for single or multiple vehicles. The system allows amendment of bookings, and the ability to schedule vehicles to jobs, and to invoice customers for work done.
It is a fully Windows based solution, using standard Microsoft products, and maintains all its information in Microsoft Access format, so that the user can write their own reports (in addition to those provided by the system).
The main functions of the VecBook Private Hire and Contracts system are:
- Individual and repeat Private Hire Bookings
- Contract Bookings over a defined period of dates with exceptions
- Repeat Bookings
- Drivers Work Tickets
- Driver and Vehicle scheduling
- Producing Letters of Confirmation
- Entering, selecting or updating Customer Details
- Printing Invoices and Customer Statements
- Recording payments received
- Exporting information to SAGE accounts systems
- Producing routine Reports and Management Information
Private Hire and Contracts has been designed in collaboration with coach operators, and with the specific aim of being as easy to use as possible
The software is fully Microsoft Windows compatible and does not require any additional external software packages which are non Microsoft based, this protects your investment for the future.
Bookings
Bookings can be made immediately for new or existing customers. The system immediately provides a job number for quotation to customers. Existing bookings are referenced by number or customer name and can be either for one day or several days, single or return.
More than one vehicle can be used on a booking, with a different price. The type of vehicle can be selected from a user-defined list and a mix of different vehicle types can be used in the same booking.
Pickup points
These can be input for each vehicle on the booking. Where more than one vehicle is used on a booking, the pickups for each vehicle can be different, or copied from the previous vehicle
Contract and repeat bookings
Details of the period and days of the week are specified and any "exception dates". Multiple vehicles can be used on a contract and a daily rate for the Contract can be specified.
For repeated Private Hire bookings on another date, then at the press of a button, all the information for the booking can be copied for the new date.
Drivers Work Tickets
Private Hire booking details are be printed out on Work tickets. The layout and information on the work ticket can be designed to your specification, although a default is provided. Individual or bulk printing of work ticakets can be easily printed.
Vehicle / Driver Schedules
The system can show Vehicle and Driver Schedules and identify booking clashes. The system provides warnings if a vehicle or driver has been allocated to more than one booking
Adaptation of the system is possible to meet your operational requirements including worksheets and invoice layout.
Daily Booking Graph - Diary
The system shows all the bookings for a particular day, page forward and back by day as you would do in a normal diary see immediately the number of bookings which are scheduled for that day.
Confirmation Letters
These can be sent to customers, either at booking time or later. The system checks if a Confirmation has been sent and provides a warning. The layout of the letter can be designed to your own specification: or you can use your own stationery if required, and thus cut down the cost, by eliminating the cost of special stationery.
Customer information
Customer details are held in such a form that they can be easily exported to a Microsoft Word, for use in Mail-Merges etc.
Printing Invoices
Invoices can be accessed by Customer selection, Booking Number, or all un-invoiced bookings can be printed for a period.
The system allocates a unique number to each invoice, but this can be altered if required. Contracts can be invoiced periodically; the contract amount is calculated by the system depending on days run in the period.
Statements and Payments Received
This lists all outstanding Invoices and Credit Notes that have been sent to a customer. This includes the Invoice No, date, description, and a cumulative total. Payments received records payments against Invoices previously sent.
Exporting Information to SAGE Accounts or other accounting systems
An optional module, allows you to export details of all Invoices and Customers to SAGE accounting systems. The system records details of which information has been sent to SAGE, and you can choose to send another batch of information at any time.
Management Information
The following reports are provided as a standard part of the system.
- Daily Booking Report - a list of all jobs on a particular date, including a summary of the numbers of vehicles used.
- Invoice Report - a list of all invoices between two given dates, including details of the status of the invoices.
- Job Report - a list of all jobs done between two given dates
- Drivers Report - a list of all jobs done by a driver in a particular period.
- Bookings Summary - a list of all bookings between two dates. This can be for all customers, or one particular customer.