Dunedin Fine Arts – Case Study
It’s never too late to pick up a paintbrush or try your hand at the pottery wheel at Dunedin Fine Arts Center. For over 40 years, the space has served as an artist’s haven, providing classes and courses from calligraphy to cooking–for students of all ages.
Guests are encouraged to stroll through seven artist galleries, grab a bite at the cafe, purchase local and international art in the Gallery Shop, and learn first-hand in one of fifteen studio classrooms. Children and teenagers express themselves in youth classes, summer camps, and art clubs at the Kid’s Corner. Monthly events, from conversations with artists to silent auctions draw visitors as well.
“It’s proven to be very adaptable,” says Debra Blythe, Administrative Assistant at Dunedin Fine Arts. She especially appreciates how Artisan handles the artwork that flows in and out of the Gallery Shop. The boutique features work from over a hundred local and international artists, as well as retail and consignment items. From jewelry, ceramics, fiber art, soap, books, music, home decor, and more, shoppers find truly unique gifts lining the shelves. The art rotates every three to six months to create space for other pieces, which makes having the right point of sale system a necessity.
“Artisan provides us with a variety of reports that our previous program did not,” explains Blythe. The Sales Summary, Inventory Change / Adjustment, and Inventory Aging reports help staff in particular. All reports keep an eye on what’s sold throughout the day, making running the shop all the more efficient.
From attending art shows to being on-call at our headquarters, CerTek is grateful for the friendships forged and guidance shared with the staff over the years.
Have an Artisan success story you want to share? We’d love to feature you!Â
Email sales@certek.com and we’ll be in touch.
CerTek Switches to 4.6
 After twenty years, CerTek finally switched our own operations from Artisan POS 3.5 to 4.6. This was a significant change for us since we use Artisan to track our software, equipment, and supply sales, as well as our customers, purchasing and receiving, and our inventory. We even adapted the program to generate and track our Artisan license keys.
We started with Artisan POS–then called Artisan Storefront, since the very first version. Although we wanted to switch much sooner, we were in need of the automatic billing feature in particular, as well as our licensing tool and some other features now in 4.6. We decided to patiently wait our turn since this is by far not our most popular feature. We have been trying to implement 3.5 features into 4.X in order of popularity.
We are proud to say that we’re much closer to the end of that list! Portable Data Terminals (PDTs), now called handhelds and tablets, are next up in 4.7. We plan on adding import templates to the Import and Export feature. Vendor Catalogs, Duplicate Customer Cleanup, Contract Pricing, Immediate Label Printing During Receiving, Balance Forward A/R Statements (potentially), and a few other incidentals are on the horizon. That sounds like a lot–and we’re looking forward to it!
There are some newer features under consideration, such as Big Commerce Integration, QuickBooks Online, and others. Although we can’t do everything that is requested, it is certainly mission-critical to hear your suggestions and feedback. Please let us know what you think.
We are very excited to finally enjoy some great new features, such as multiple screens, configurable columns and record lists, and all things 4.X. We will be happy to relaunch our web store with Woo Commerce soon, and many of you will enjoy the convenience of being able to order supplies online once again!
During this process, we were reminded of how challenging it can be to switch from one system to another, especially one you’ve used for years. Though it felt like we understood our customers’ perspectives, there’s nothing like having first-hand experience of the transition process.
It’s important to note that we also switched payment processors, so you might receive a call or email from our Sales Team asking for an updated card on file. We appreciate your patience at this time!
Important Info for Mac Users
If you use a Mac and are on an older version of PostgreSQL (version 10 or below), please call Technical Support at 877-723-7835. Press Option 2 to speak with a Support Technician. Older versions of PostgreSQL are not fully compatible with newer versions of macOS (12 or later). Our staff will help you upgrade your PostgreSQL version.
Artisan Tutorial: Back Orders
Have you explored our growing Knowledge Base? These articles are here to guide you if you’re stuck or need a refresher. From pending stock corrections to product variants, we have in-depth information to keep you on track.
Any store that handles special items, such as apparel, fine craft, and clothing stores, can benefit from using the Back Order feature. Back ordering helps you distinguish items that you don’t have in stock but are on-reserve for another customer.
By clicking on “Operations,” then “Back Order Item” (or Ctrl-Z on your keyboard), we can select the item that we want to back order. In this new “B/O” column that appears, we’ll insert the quantity of the back ordered item that we want to order. Then, we’ll “Finalize” our changes.
The customer has a few options on the payment screen. They can choose to pay the minimum deposit, or we can override it and they can pay a custom amount. They can choose to pay just for the item that’s available now (or both items) and take the available item with them. Or, they can pay for one or both of the items and come back later to pick both of them up with the back ordered item is ready.
Regardless, Artisan will move the back-ordered item(s) to a new sale and mark the sale as “Waiting” since the products have not been delivered to the customer yet.
We can also see this information by selecting the customer in a blank sale screen. Their orders will show at the top of the screen. In this example, the customer wants to take home the item that’s ready. So, we’ll click on “Deliver” to mark that item as delivered.
Artisan will automatically create a purchase request for that back ordered item. Then, create a purchase order for that item. Once the item has come into the store, receive it. Artisan will alert you that a customer has the item on back order.
Create another sale for the customer and mark the item as delivered. If they still need to pay for the item, you’ll need to collect the rest of the payment in order to receive the item.
Now that you know how to create back orders, consider using this efficient process to help keep you organized. If you need more guidance, view our detailed article on our Knowledge Base.
Thanks for reading! Keep an eye out for future newsletters to stay up-to-date on the latest Artisan information.
