A marine business with “good management” has systems in place for the organization of all aspects of their operation. That includes databases, spreadsheets and visuals that categorize and display your collected information to be easily accessed and understood. Good management process initiates growth and efficiency in a business. For instance, if the flow from creating estimates, converting them to work orders and then billing them can be done using a well-defined process, your service department should gain efficiencies.
A business with “poor management” has little to no organization amongst their procedures. They are reacting, rather than anticipating, often creating disorganization and an ineffective work process. Poor management can stunt a business’s growth, instead of being organized and proactive. There are simple ways to get your footing into good management habits with marine management software or a dealer management system. These types of programs allow for customized systems for each aspect of your business such as service management, sales management, inventory management and more.
Marine Management
Marine management is exactly what it seems like in the title, organizing the function of a marine operation. This should be customized to fulfill the specific needs of marine businesses. That includes boat storage and billing, reservations and launch management, the boatyard, service and more. This process allows the business to grow their operations. How? It can be focused on optimizing the space of the marine operation and associated business process.
Service Management
This can be used to manage estimates and convert them into work orders with just a few steps. Templates can be defined to eliminate repetitive entry of the same tasks. Inventory Management provides all the necessary tools for efficient inventory tracking, including purchasing, integration to point of sale and integration with the service management (Work Order) features.
Sales Management (aka “Dealer Management”)
Your sales management system can assist with boat and major unit sales, and is designed to help you oversee major unit inventory, track purchase orders and receivables, manage prospects (CRM), and guide/track your sales team. According to Comindware.com, businesses that are not utilizing proper management software will not achieve the top 5 benefits of good business process management: Business Agility, Cost efficiency, Compliance ease and visibility, Customer focus and Staff satisfaction. The evidence is overwhelming from many different resources.
Lead (Prospect) Management
Your lead management system allows you to easily assign prospects to sales team members, monitoring follow-up activity, letters, and emails. Fully integrated with the Boat (Major Unit) Sales module, as well as Service (Work Order Processing) and Marina Management (Storage and Billing).
Financial Management
To truly gain improvements through software process, integrated Financial Management is the component that brings everything together. Financial Management helps all areas of your business from Accounts Receivable (with integrated credit card processing), Accounts Payable functions and the accounting entries that feed into the General Ledger, with a full audit-trail capability. The benefits of having a Financial Management system that is tightly coupled with Marina, Sales, Service, POS and Inventory Management includes reduced double entry, elimination of spreadsheet manipulation and reductions in data entry errors.
Fully understanding the needs and wants of your operation is crucial for growing your marina business and the bottom line. Having a one-stop shop from within the marina industry is also a great asset too.
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DockMaster Software is an industry leading management system for marinas, boatyards, and boat dealerships. DockMaster includes Unit Sales, Prospecting and F&I with fully integrated financial management and numerous integrations with CRM applications, dealer websites and text/messaging services. The Service module includes estimating, labor tracking, and complete parts management with ordering/receiving, subcontractor fulfillment and invoicing. DockMaster Mobile allows technicians to clock on/off jobs from any mobile device. Visual Marina™ management includes storage & billing, occupancy tracking, reservations and dry stack management, including integrations to leading consumer applications for boat rentals, online reservations, concierge/launch scheduling and our new Fuel Integration with FuelCloud. DockMaster also includes Point of Sale, Order Entry with eCommerce and a complete accounting system. Learn more at www.DockMaster.com and follow DockMaster on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Or email info@dockmaster.com
