As discussed in our last post about dimensional weight, OnTime delivery software provides the tools that your courier business needs to create and implement your flexible pricing structure. Like dimensional weight, OnTime’s Zone Lookup Tables give you deeper control over your pricing and allow further flexibility.

When using zone based pricing in OnTime, Zone Lookup Tables can be used to offer complex rates that vary based on the zones involved. Create, manage, and adjust your Zone Lookup Tables in the OnTime Management Suite.

Each cell in each Lookup Table represents the value used for the two zones labeling the corresponding column and row. You may fill individual cells in Zone Lookup Tables manually or by copy-and-pasting from your own rate sheets in Excel. You can also adjust all cells in in a Zone Lookup Table at once, based on a fixed percent or a flat amount.

The values placed in Zone Lookup Tables can be included throughout your pricing structure as needed, ensuring that your prices are always accurate. Gain greater control over your business and its flexibility by using OnTime to manage and calculate your prices. Learn how to setup and use Zone Lookup Tables and OnTime’s other diverse pricing tools in the OnTime User Guide.

Some shipments are best priced by distance, others by weight, and most by a combination of charges. Because of the virtually unlimited factors that can affect the cost of shipments, OnTime is as flexible as your pricing needs to be.

In situations when both the weight and the volume of a shipment will affect the cost and pricing of that delivery, dimensional weight is commonly used to help calculate price. OnTime’s DIM Factor Generator (dimensional factor) and price modifiers make factoring dimensional weight into prices a painless process.

OnTime’s DIM Factor Generator can help you to automatically determine appropriate dimensional weight factors for your shipments. The DIM Factor provided by the generator can be used in overage type price modifiers, which can be included in your pricing structure. When that dimensional weight factor needs to be considered for your pricing, you can apply the appropriate price set to the order and OnTime will automatically calculate the accurate price, factoring in the shipment’s dimensional weight.

The parameters that you set will determine why and how OnTime calculates prices, ensuring absolute accuracy. Whether offering price quotations or dispatching orders, your customers will be provided with the most accurate, efficient, and reliable pricing possible.

Easy to set up and easier to use – OnTime smart courier software can help you to control your pricing structure and improve your delivery business. Contact us to find out more.

When you use OnTime’s Web Site Applets, such as the Price Estimator Applet or the Tracking Applet, your customers can instantly access information about their orders with your company. With the new Log In Form applet, your customers will be able to log in to your OnTime Customer Web Portal directly from your website.

This form will give your customers the fastest, most convenient access to your Web Portal, where they receive the best customer service. Instead of signing in from a separate application or page, customers will be able to log in from your website, wherever you place the form.

Place the Log In Form anywhere on your website by simply copy-and-pasting the code automatically generated by OnTime. To get that code, click on the Tools tab in OnTime Management Suite, then choose Web Site Applets. Click the link under Customer Web Portal Log In Form in the resulting window and OnTime will generate the necessary code.

The OnTime Customer Web Portal and its Log In Form applet are included with Enterprise and higher subscription plans. Buy or upgrade your OnTime account to give your customers seamless service.

OnTime can help you to simplify and speed the complex and time consuming process of managing your employees with our automated time tracking and compensation report generation. Your employees will view, use, and be tracked by OnTime exactly how you choose. You are in control of how OnTime works with your delivery company.

Each employee that uses your OnTime account can be assigned a role (Manager/Administrator, Dispatcher/CSR, or Driver), user name, and password. The role determines which programs the employee will have access to, which they will login to using the user name and password. 

The Employment tab for each user offers the ability to input the employee’s hired date, employment type (Employee, Subcontractor, or Company), company name, and various rates. Rates determine how the employee is compensated for their time based on role, assignments, commission, and so on. Price sets can be used to create custom compensation rates beyond the built-in options.

Once setup, users can clock in and out of the system manually or automatically from their assigned programs, determined by the set roles. OnTime will keep track of time worked and activities completed for each individual.

You can click View Time and Activity Report on the left of the User section to view reports about the selected user. Alternately, you may right-click on a user to view time sheets, time sessions, or more report options.

Employee management is in your control with OnTime. We can help you to better track your employees’ time and ensure that compensation is correct for each individual. Contact us or buy OnTime now to try this feature for yourself.

With the OnTime Workflow Designer, you can automate improved communications between your customers and staff. The Workflow Designer allows you to create custom notifications that are automatically sent when you choose. For example, notifications can be set to email your customers when their order has been picked up, or SMS message your driver when a new shipment is placed into the unassigned queue. You are in control of who receives what information, in what format, when, and why.

Customizations to basic notification information can be made simply via drop-down menus in the OnTime Workflow Designer. You can determine whether notifications occur for all or some of your customers (Scope), what will trigger the notification to send (Event), and what method of delivery will be used (Action).

Template messages can be created using special fields in the Content sections. Before sending your notification, OnTime will automatically recognize and replace the special fields in the message with the appropriate information from the shipment. You may specify dynamic content in notifications by inputting special fields manually or by using the Workflow Designer’s Insert Special Field button.

You determine where in your system the information for each special field is pulled from (i.e.: Order, Customer, Dispatcher, or Driver) and what information is used (for example, the customer’s name or email). Additionally, each special field can have a Default value, which OnTime will automatically use whenever the information is not available. For example, if there is no name entered on a customer’s record, you can tell OnTime to automatically refer to the customer as “Valued Customer” or another default name of your choice.

Customized and automated notifications created with the Workflow Designer are available to every OnTime subscriber. Contact us now to learn more about how OnTime’s Workflow Designer can help you.

OnTime 360's Management Suite and Dispatch applications include our powerful Tracking view, which offers a variety of features that help to streamline and automate courier business-related tasks. As an OnTime user, you can our tools, such as the Advanced Search and Quick Views, to customize the Tracking view to display information in the best way for you.

With our Advanced Search feature, you can filter your Tracking view by any field on a shipment. Those advanced searches can then be saved as a pre-set view, or a Quick View. From the Tracking View, you can later select those Quick Views and OnTime will display search results based on your saved preferences. With Quick Views, you can tailor OnTime’s already efficient Tracking view to work quicker and better for each manager and dispatcher in your company. 

As information is added into OnTime by you or other users, the saved Quick Views will update automatically. The most up-to-date, relevant information will be displayed, based on your customized searches.

The comprehensive criteria available in OnTime’s advanced search will allow you to utilize your Quick Views to organize and help perform time-consuming tasks within your delivery business. For example, you can save a customer-specific Quick View and export the data as an Excel or CSV file. Reporting for that customer will then be simplified.

OnTime 360’s Quick Views feature will help your company avoid day-to-day tedium and improve overall efficiency. This feature is included with every OnTime subscription level, which means that your company can enjoy these benefits today starting at $9.95/month.

OnTime 360 subscriptions offer a unique array of customizable features, such as an included set of User Defined Fields. With our User Defined Fields, you can input custom information about orders that will appear to all of your customers and users across OnTime. Each field can be named and used in the way that you desire.

User Defined Fields in OnTime Management Suite

While most courier software systems offer between zero and ten User Defined Fields, each OnTime subscription includes the ability to define up to 50 Custom Fields. The fields can hold four types of data: alphanumeric strings, numbers, dates, or Boolean values (true/false). OnTime's Custom Fields offer the flexibility to preserve the data that you truly need, at any moment.

These fields are not only available through the OnTime applications. In a recent update, we have integrated Custom Fields with our API, allowing you to make other software post information to or from your OnTime User Defined Fields. OnTime is the only courier software that offers API calls for Custom User Defined Fields.

Using OnTime's Custom Fields will allow our software to work even better with your delivery business. Our services scale with you, future-proofing your company and freeing you from software limitations. No other delivery software is as customizable as OnTime 360.

Learn more about the OnTime API or download OnTime now.

In July of 2013, OnTime 360 became the first delivery management software of its kind and caliber available in a pure 64-bit version. At OnTime, we are always working to keep our services and clients up-to-date with the best available technologies. Of course, we also work to make our services available to our clients using their existing equipment, so OnTime is still available and fully functional in a 32-bit version.

About 64-bit processing

• Standard in most new computers
• Perform best with 64-bit software
• Will run 32-bit software
• Improved, efficient handling of RAM
• Improved, efficient handling of large data
• Improved, efficient multitasking

About OnTime 360 64-bit Version

We are the only courier software with a pure 64-bit connection to QuickBooks, which allows for more data to be sent faster between QuickBooks and OnTime applications. Data can be sent faster between Excel and OnTime, as well. 

Multitasking is vastly improved with 64-bit processors. Multiple programs may be run and switched between quickly and seamlessly, allowing you to simultaneously use OnTime Management Suite, OnTime Dispatch, QuickBooks, Excel, and whatever other programs you need, without issue.

Your move to the 64-bit version will be seamless. Our installer will auto-detect and choose the optimal version for your computer, so that you don’t need to select between 64-bit or 32-bit.  All 64-bit improvements will automatically become available if your computer runs the 64-bit version.

Try, Buy, or Download OnTime 360 to see the 64-bit version for yourself.

People are often curious about OnTime’s international capabilities. With our subscribers spread across six continents, we’ve implemented a number of automatic functions within OnTime to ensure that the system always works for every region.

International Language Support

OnTime 360 smart delivery management software is available across the globe, and our integrated Unicode support allows any language to be entered into the system.

Although OnTime’s UI will appear in English, you may use any language to input information. From Customer Names and Notes to User Defined Fields, all of that information will be displayed in the entered language, even if the text uses non-Latin based characters or runs left-to-right.

International Date and Time Representation

OnTime is considered the smart courier software because it automatically works with delivery businesses. One way the system does that is by detecting and using the regional settings found in Windows, then displaying date and time formats accordingly.

OnTime’s applications will automatically adjust date and time settings based on local settings, so if you create an invoice on a computer that uses a 12-hour clock, but print that invoice on a computer that uses a 24-hour clock, the printed invoice will use the 24-hour clock.

International Time Zone Support

In other courier management programs, if you enter information at 12:00 PM Eastern Time, that information will be time stamped as 12:00 PM, even in other time zones. OnTime 360 addresses time zones differently, allowing you to offer your customers a more personal experience.

Our applications each render everything locally for the viewer, based on their regional settings in Windows. For example, when your employees in Eastern Time see a 12:00PM time stamp, OnTime will automatically show 9:00AM to your customers who use Pacific Time.

International Currency Support

Again, OnTime intelligently detects and uses your local Windows regional settings to display the appropriate currency for your business. OnTime supports all major currencies.

We recommend consistency with the currency-type that you use across your OnTime account.

International Measurement Support

OnTime supports the use of any unit of length. As with currency, we recommend that you are consistent with whatever unit you choose.

When we introduced our free website applet that allows shippers to track their orders from your website, we promised that we had similar additions planned. We are pleased to announce OnTime's second free applet that can be used on any web page. The new applet allows your website visitors to enter two postal or zip codes and receive an automatic cost estimate for shipping with your company.

The Price Estimate applet is available to every OnTime user, with any subscription plan.

To create this applet and add it to your web page, first set which pricing you want the estimator to use. Enter OnTime Management Suite and go to Tools > Web Site Applets. A window appear will appear:

Select the price set and type of pricing you want to use. You may also include a disclaimer that customers see with the price.

To generate the code for your website, click on the link labeled Generate price estimate form. Paste the code where you would like the price estimate applet to appear on your website. 

If you have any questions about this tool, feel free to contact technical support.