Announcing the Release of Link Intelligence by Antera Software

Many corporate and independent restaurants rely heavily on the feedback from customer comment cards to make decisions about employees, menu items, and overall operations. Smaller single-location to five-location restaurant companies can handle the collection and data retrieval process without too much trouble. Companies with more than 5, 10, 15, or 500 locations have to allocate more resources to this task. The traditional methods large restaurant companies use to collect and process the data on these forms can over-utilize resources and become very costly. 

There are basically 3 various methods. (A) The first and oldest method is manual data entry. Comment cards are collected at location or via mail, and manually entered into a database by a group of data entry personnel either on site, or more commonly, overseas. Shipping and labor costs are very high in this scenario.

(B) The second method eliminates some or all of the shipping costs. Companies collect the comment cards, scan them, and then data entry personnel manually enter data from a scanned digital image into a database.

(C) The third method makes use of Optical Character Recognition Software which can extract the data (even handwriting and checkmarks) from a scanned image. In this scenario, forms are collected and scanned from any location, eliminating all shipping, and automatically dropped in to an electronic queue for data extraction. Instead of several employees needed for data entry, now only 1/10^th the amount of employees is needed for simple data verification.

Traditional software companies that offer this technology charge per page and large volume scanning and recognition can get expensive ($45,000 for 100,000 pages). Antera Software has just launched Link Intelligence, an OCR Engine with unlimited page count pricing specifically designed for comment cards. The purchase price is currently $9,850 which includes setup, training, customization, and unlimited use. Reporting on the comment card results can be broken down by item, by store, by region, and by various other custom reports.

Aside from the obvious price advantage, Antera’s Link Intelligence also provides a much quicker turnaround from the time the comment card is filled out by the customer, to the time the information is processed. Comment cards filled out that day at the restaurant are dropped into the scanner at closing time. The extracted data can be verified and processed before the restaurant opens its doors the following day. If a customer had a bad experience at a restaurant, corporate employees and/or the store manager will know about it the following day rather than several weeks later. This ability to catch problems before they get out of hand can make a significant difference in any restaurant’s future.

Antera Software, USA has been in the business of managing company’s data for 10 years. Managing includes electronically storing data, automating the transfer of data from one application to another, accepting and manipulating data feeds, and customizing software to allow business people to see and manage their data efficiently.

Antera Software’s components are 100% web-based, allowing secure access from any internet connection. Antera Software also offers all of our enterprise software components with an unlimited user license pricing model. We know that keeping up with user licenses can be irritating and can get expensive for a growing company.

Following the company platforms outlined above, it was only natural for Antera to get involved in the CRM business 2 years ago. Every company no matter how large or small can benefit from Customer Relationship Management Software. Antera Software offers a CRM product already known to many as Sugar CRM. Sugar CRM Community Edition is free to the public for downloading. If a company has a Sugar CRM expert on staff who can set up hosting, users, privileges, and import accounts and contacts, and customize the flow of data; this company should be off and running in no time.

Most companies do not have these resources on staff, and that is where Antera comes in. Antera currently charges $1800 to setup a domain, set up hosting, install, import data, and customize Sugar CRM for any company with any amount of users. We have Sugar CRM experts on staff that setup and support the product every day.   Sugar CRM is an enterprise level CRM heavily relied on by many Fortune 500 companies. Antera Software has been customizing modules, and building new modules for Sugar CRM during the last two years; and now the Sugar CRM product we offer has greatly surpassed the original product.

Link CRM Advance is Antera Software’s latest release which is a customized CRM for the promotional products industry with a built in Order Form. This Order Form contains your company’s database of products, suppliers, and vendors to choose from. It is also capable of accepting data feeds from an online catalog search engine; allowing customers or salespeople to click on an item and see that item populate in our Order Form. Once completed and approved, emails with art attachments are automatically sent out in a designated cue to any vendors and artists involved. Link CRM Advance allows any user to track account activity, contacts, opportunities, emails, calls, meetings, quotes, orders, and commissions all in one place.

Antera Software continues to develop custom applications for a variety of industries including Promotional Products, Restaurants, Retail, Construction, Oil and Gas, Banking, Finance, Legal, Property Management, Real Estate, Healthcare and more. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and tell us what’s on your company wish list – maybe we can help make it possible.

SugarForge is a communtiy website where developers share open source modules for the SugarCRM community edition.  Antera Software hosts, installs, sets up, customizes, and trains customers on Sugar CRM...we call our customized version Link CRM. We have recently posted one of our unique SugarCRM custom modules on SugarForge, and it is now the #2 downloaded module this week behind the SugarCRM core download.  Go to http://www.sugarforge.org/ to see what other CRM modules are making news.

Advantages of a Paperless Office 

1.  Less Space
If you are to take out all your paper files and burn them outside, you’ll be amazed to see just how much free space your office don’t need.
2.  Savings
Going paperless means less bulky filing cabinets and lesser costs in paying for storage spaces ( rent, lease, etc. )
3.  Convenience
Not only will it be easier to search for archives, but doing data entry work in the future is far more efficient and faster.
4.  Eco-Friendly
It takes a day to cut down a single tree, but years to grow it.  By saying no to paper, you help put an end in the vicious cycle of tree cutting.  Small actions can make a huge difference in helping conserve what’s left of our forests out there.

Disadvantages of a Paperless Office

1.  Human Error
Not everyone is tech savvy in making that transition to a paperless environment, specially when one is used to doing data entry in paper.  There is also a high chance of entering the wrong data.
2.  Automation
To achieve a 100% paperless office, one must have all systems automated flawlessly and this can cost time and money.
3.  Bugs and Breakdowns
To go paperless means keeping all records electronically, which comes with an IT department’s biggest nightmare concerning software and hardware issues that can disrupt work.
4.  Security Issues
With the dawn of digital technology comes the golden age of hackers.  Going paperless means vulnerability to unauthorized third party access or worse, data loss.  This is definitely bad news for confidential data stored online.  For this reason, we encounter cases of identity theft, credit card fraud, and many more.

One thing is definitely sure:  People are becoming more aware of going green and we can only look forward to seeing a seamless solution that will remove the doubts and fears of those who don’t want to make that digital switch.  Are you ready for a paperless change?