Retail Store computerisation

SuiteCRM Forum - English Language SuiteCRM General Discussion
1

Hi,
I’m new here obvs! I’m looking for some helpy help. I have started a new job at an old school optical store which has all its patient details and systems written by hand on paper cards. I would like to help them out by computerising the system, however they are not convinced as as far as they are concerned their system works fine. So. they are not willing to pay the £250 per month to use the industry leading optical management software and I can see their point, however could anyone here tell me before I dive into this particular rabbit hole if Suite CRM is customisable enough to cope with running a retail/medical store? So that I could demonstrate its effectiveness. Would it be scalable enough to just keep using, or if not will it spit out my data easily to be transferred to another software if they decide to go with a purpose built system.
Apologies for the long question, I am finding it difficult to narrow my search - all the great CRM systems out there seem to be amazing at everything, I’m struggling to filter them out, prices also vary wildly.
As my pilot friend puts it - I am all thrust and no vector :slight_smile:

Brief requirements:
-Patient Records (personal info- fully searchable) + ability to “find family members” living at the same address.

-Prescription entry, The optometrist has a preset “form” to fill results, have space to write medical findings, the final result is available to call up in an order page later.

-Recall (The optometrist can set a period for the system to remind the patient to come in again - sending out an automated email/text)

-Appointment Diary (Ideally that can be linked to their “non existent” website so that people may view availability and book online) - making an appointment should generate a confirmation email/text immediately and allow to set a reminder email/text at a user definable interval.

-Ordering/Inventory, All the frames would be entered to a spreadsheet, all available lenses also then the inventory is controlled.
The order would need to specify the prescription, frame, lens type, any extras, required deadline with alerts for overdue jobs, price and payments.

-Accounts, It would be good if the system has a reasonable book keeping ability, or at least output the financial info to another software for running financial reports and analytics

-Reports & Analytics - It should be simple enough to run queries on say, how many eye exams we had this week, how many sales did we make from the eye exams, how many sales from the store, best selling products etc

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[color=#00bb00]-Patient Records (personal info- fully searchable) + ability to “find family members” living at the same address.[/color]
[color=#ff0000]Yes, you can search using the advanced search option to find all records living at a certain address.[/color]

[color=#00bb00]-Prescription entry, The optometrist has a preset “form” to fill results, have space to write medical findings, the final result is available to call up in an order page later.[/color]
[color=#ff0000]Yes this could be done through the subpanels of that account either in their History or the Documents[/color]

[color=#00bb00]-Recall (The optometrist can set a period for the system to remind the patient to come in again - sending out an automated email/text)[/color]
[color=#ff0000]Yes this can be done using workflows[/color]

[color=#00bb00]-Appointment Diary (Ideally that can be linked to their “non existent” website so that people may view availability and book online) - making an appointment should generate a confirmation email/text immediately and allow to set a reminder email/text at a user definable interval.[/color]
[color=#ff0000]This can be done for users(Staff) of the system. Using the calendar modules and adding meetings and a reminder can be sent out to both the staff and the customers. For customers being able to add it through a website It would need to be something you look into a wee bit more[/color]

[color=#00bb00]-Ordering/Inventory, All the frames would be entered to a spreadsheet, all available lenses also then the inventory is controlled.
The order would need to specify the prescription, frame, lens type, any extras, required deadline with alerts for overdue jobs, price and payments.[/color]
[color=#ff0000]You may be able to get something similar looking at the products and quotes etc module but this would have to be something you looked at yourself to see if you could get it to work the way you would like to.[/color]

[color=#00bb00]-Accounts, It would be good if the system has a reasonable book keeping ability, or at least output the financial info to another software for running financial reports and analytics[/color]
[color=#ff0000]Again you can have a look through a few of the modules to see if they suit what you are looking for and if you always remember to look on the suite store for add ons that may help[/color]

[color=#00bb00]-Reports & Analytics - It should be simple enough to run queries on say, how many eye exams we had this week, how many sales did we make from the eye exams, how many sales from the store, best selling products etc [/color]
[color=#ff0000]Yeah using tools like the report or spots[/color]

[color=#880088]You can always highly customise your instance so you are showing what you would like, renaming modules, adding new fields, creating new modules, hiding exciting modules etc. Just have a look at Admin > Developer tools to help you customise :slight_smile:
[/color]

1 Like
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Hi There :slight_smile:

From what you have explained I am sure SuiteCRM can be a great option for you, it will allow you to start off small and grow with the business,

You may need help in customising the system but you can get it to where you want to go.

From a very quick look at your requirements I would can see:

(Contact module)
-Patient Records (personal info- fully searchable) + ability to “find family members” living at the same address.

(Case Module / Case Portal)
-Prescription entry, The optometrist has a preset “form” to fill results, have space to write medical findings, the final result is available to call up in an order page later.

(Meetings & Calls)
-Recall (The optometrist can set a period for the system to remind the patient to come in again - sending out an automated email/text)

(This will need to be a custom diary / Case Portal)
-Appointment Diary (Ideally that can be linked to their “non existent” website so that people may view availability and book online) - making an appointment should generate a confirmation email/text immediately and allow to set a reminder email/text at a user definable interval.

Email reminders will come standard, text alerts are a paid plugin + cost of sending texts

(AOS - Products, Quotes, Invoices and Contracts)
[i]-Ordering/Inventory, All the frames would be entered to a spreadsheet, all available lenses also then the inventory is controlled.
The order would need to specify the prescription, frame, lens type, any extras, required deadline with alerts for overdue jobs, price and payments.

-Accounts, It would be good if the system has a reasonable book keeping ability, or at least output the financial info to another software for running financial reports and analytics[/i]

AOR Reports
-Reports & Analytics - It should be simple enough to run queries on say, how many eye exams we had this week, how many sales did we make from the eye exams, how many sales from the store, best selling products etc

Hope this helps :slight_smile:

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Cameron summed this up as I was still typing lol :slight_smile:

1 Like