iPoint LLC, which launched as a grassroots business management software provider for the home technology market in 2013, has launched updates to iPoint Control, its flagship business automation tool. The software suite streamlines business operations and provides a central point of communication and documentation for the user’s entire company.
The latest update empowers dealers to seamlessly invoice proposals and change orders built in iPoint, allowing them to manage payments and credits directly within the platform. The addition of these time-saving enhancements build on iPoint’s feature set, leveraging the company’s rapid development platform to provide a single interface for CRM, proposals, sales orders, change orders, invoicing, payment management, purchasing, inventory control, project management, scheduling, parts and time tracking, and payroll.
“Our unique payment system allows dealers to invoice a customer for a deposit without creating a posting transaction in QuickBooks,” said Brooks Swift, founder and CEO of iPoint LLC. “This enables them to easily create progressive invoices, and wait until product and labor are delivered to the customer before applying sales tax. iPoint Control then seamlessly syncs the delivered goods invoices and payments into QuickBooks—saving dealers hours of tedious duplicate accounting.”
Swift noted that many installation companies struggle to manage invoicing and deposit requests due to the complex nature of their business, and often use multiple software programs to accomplish all business needs—one for proposals, another for invoicing, a third for purchasing, and sometimes a fourth to track inventory. iPoint Control, he said, consolidates all of these functions, effectively eliminating the need for multiple programs as well as automating workflow. Along with iPoint’s robust two-way syncing with QuickBooks, dealers can now eliminate the need to enter data twice. The result is a time and operating cost-savings for administration tasks, which gives business owners the opportunity to focus on growth.
iPoint also has made a significant update to its automatic notification engine. iPoint Control has more than 40 notification triggers, each with custom parameters that allow companies to tailor alerts to their specific needs. The platform’s “intelligent ecosystem” can automatically notify team members with updates for events such as a new proposal being created, a change order that requires approval, a payment that was accepted, or that a product needs to be ordered—enabling dealers to manage teams and workflows much more efficiently than ever before.
“iPoint notifications are like having a full-time project coordinator,” said iPoint Control user Wynne Walker, vice president of Symbio Lighting + Control. “They are an integral part of our daily workflow and make the handoff between departments seamless. Without iPoint notifications, we’d be back to verbal conversations or physical paperwork to keep track of job progress, which is inefficient and error-prone.”
Over the last two years, iPoint has grown slowly and deliberately, developing a solid base of 50 dealers as it has expanded its platform. Now, Swift said, the company is hiring more team members to help market and sell the product and engage with more dealer customers. The company, which once consisted of just Brooks at the helm, has grown to six employees, with two added at the beginning of the year, including Brian Good, who is leading sales and marketing efforts.
