Teleos Newsletter : February 2012

Posted on 03. Feb, 2012 by in News

The latest Teleos e-newsletter is now available by clicking on this link Teleos Times 2012 Issue 1

Teleos Roadshow : URGENT please register your interest!

Posted on 25. Jan, 2012 by in News

Teleos is pleased to announce that we will be running a series of one day training courses around the UK and Ireland. The course is designed to bring you up-to-date with all the latest developments in the program and show you how to use simple marketing tools to improve client communication and expand your business. Topics covered include New Program Features, Vet-XML Update, System Architecture and Cloud Based Solutions, Financial Control & Reporting, Marketing Tools.

The venues have been carefully selected so that we minimise travel times for the vast majority of clients, whilst making each course potentially viable by its catchment area. We will not be adding any more venues so please select the one most convenient for you.

All venues are currently provisional and we would request that you register your interest immediately so that we can firm all bookings. Registering your interest does not commit you to attending but helps us to gauge numbers for each venue. If we do not get the required numbers to make the course viable then it will not go ahead.

Venues and dates are currently as follows:-

Bagden Hall Country House Hotel, Denby Dale, Huddersfield HD8 8SZ – Tuesday 6th March 2012

Fort Dunlop, Birmingham (venue may change depending on numbers) – Wednesday 7th March 2012

Manor of Groves Hotel, High Wych, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire CM21 0JU – Tuesday 20th March 2012

Newbury Racecourse – Wednesday 21st March 2012

Clonmel Park Hotel, Clonmel – Tuesday 24th April 2012

Clontarf Castle, Dublin – Wednesday 25th April 2012

Courses will also be arranged for Glasgow, Exeter and Belfast – more details will be posted later.

To register your interest and get further information about the course, please email Roadshow@teleosvet.co.uk giving your contact details and which venue you would like to attend. Please also register your interest for the Glasgow, Exeter and Belfast venues.

 

 

 

 

System Manager Course 21st/22nd February 2012

Posted on 05. Jan, 2012 by in News

Places are still available for the next course which is being held at the Fort Dunlop support centre in Birmingham. The course is designed to improve users knowledge of the system and its capabilities, and to ensure that you are getting the most out of it in these difficult economic times. The course will cover:-

Day One

Windows Hints & Tips, Problem Solving & troubleshooting, System & Network Architecture, Terminal Server Administration, Housekeeping Tasks, Remote Access and Security, Vet-XML Services, Customising Documents, Setup Options.

Day Two

Customising Work Entry Scripts, New Features and Things You Might Have Missed, Financial Control & Reporting, Stock Control & Ordering, Practical Uses of The Report Generator.

The cost of the course is £195 + VAT for both days or £105 + VAT for a single day. Lunch is provided and there is a Travelodge in Fort Dunlop if you require accommodation. Places are limited so please ensure that you book early!

For a booking form, please e-mail louisa-hewitt@teleosvet.co.uk or phone +44 (0)1480 393604.

 

Ordering via ANALOGUE MODEM to cease from 1st January 2012

Posted on 21. Dec, 2011 by in News

With the constant addition of new facilities within the Teleos program, we do need to regularly review the relevance of older modules to avoid unnecessary features remaining that no one uses any more.

Most Practices now use direct broadband ordering when requesting supplies from their wholesaler. As this facility is available from all wholesalers, the decision has been taken to remove support for ANALOGUE ordering (Dial-up using ‘Kermit’) from 1st January 2012. If you are unsure as to whether your Teleos system still uses analogue modem ordering or not, please contact the Support Desk as soon as possible. Any existing systems that do still use this communication method will not stop working on 1st January but the module will not be included in any future releases of Teleos.

Normally, this changeover involves your wholesaler making a small change at their end so you will need to advise them that you wish to change your method of ordering.

Please contact our Support Desk if you have any questions regarding this change.

Many thanks

Teleos Support

 

Utility for retrospectively correcting VAT changes in the Republic of Ireland

Posted on 19. Dec, 2011 by in News

To download :-

a) click each page link below in turn

b) click the underlined download  link on that page

c) ‘save’ each file to the main Televet folder (this is c:\televet or d:\televet on the server – on the opening Teleos screen, look at the ‘Database in’ location, bottom right, to establish this).

ALL THREE FILES should be downloaded and saved to ensure correct operation !

Page link for: Fix12ROIVAT.exe 
Page link for: F12RVOption1.exe
Page link for: F12RVOption2.exe

In the main Televet folder, double-click on Fix12ROIVAT.exe (ONLY) when you need to correct the VAT rates on work entered retrospectively.

———————————————————————————————————————————-

As you may be aware, the goods rate of VAT in the Republic of Ireland is increasing from 21% to 23% as of the 1st January 2012.

The relevant statement by the Department of Finance is available at here.

The Services rate is unchanged at 13.5%. You will need to complete ONE small change to get Teleos to work with the new rate and this needs to be made at close of business on the 31st December 2011 or before start of business on the 1st January 2012. In Setup -> Settings -> VAT rates, VAT rate “G”, Rate description “Goods” needs to have its percentage changed from 21 to 23.

Unless you enter work retrospectively or have synchronising laptops that’s the only change you have to make. The change only needs to be made via one of your workstations as the setting is stored centrally on the terminal server (or your local server, if appropriate). You don’t need to make any change to individual procedures or stock items as changing the VAT rates setting achieves this globally.

Frequently asked questions

What about running the Cash VAT report ?
The Cash VAT settings don’t actually need to be changed until you run the Cash VAT Report. These should be left as they are until after you have run the report for December 2011. Go into Setup -> Settings -> Cash VAT settings “VAT rate 2” and change this setting from 21 to 23 before running any Cash VAT reports for 1st January 2012 or later. These are centrally held settings and only need to be changed on one workstation. The Cash VAT report will operate as normal and the effect of changing this setting relates only to the caption for the second VAT rate and not the actual calculations that are made.

What about work entered retrospectively ?
Almost inevitably, there will be work needing to be entered retrospectively – especially in practices with significant large animal work (that is, work entered on or after the 1st of January 2012 which is dated prior to that date). There is no facility in Teleos to allow individual workstations to operate with different VAT rates and, even if this facility were to be permitted, it would not prevent work being added using the wrong rate. For retrospective work for December 2011 entered during January 2012, this should be entered as normal – even though the VAT will be worked out incorrectly. The transactions concerned can be corrected afterwards using a utility we have created to set the VAT amount, the gross amount and the VAT percentage to the correct figures based on the invoice date.

This utility is called Fix12ROIVAT.exe and it will be available for download from our website at teleosvet.co.uk from mid-December 2011 onwards. The utility should be downloaded to your server machine along with with its two required sister programs F12RVOption1.exe and F12RVOption2.exe and run after any retrospective work for December has been added after the VAT changeover date. This will find any work which is dated for December 2011 which has wrongly been charged at the new rate of 23% and change it to the old rate of 21%. To prevent work which is paid for at the time being charged at the wrong rate, it is therefore important that the changes to the settings outlined above are carried out prior to ANY work for the 1st January 2012 and later being entered.

 

What if I don’t remember to do the changes at the right time ?
If work dated on or after the 1st of January 2012 is entered before the VAT rate setting change is made, the utility will also recalculate the VAT for the relevant transactions and mark them at 23% if they were erroneously marked as being at 21%. It will not change any payments for work entered at the wrong rate and the client will therefore owe the amount of the VAT increase and you will have to decide whether to leave this amount outstanding or to credit it. If it is credited, that amount must contain VAT at 23%. Remembering to change the VAT rate at the correct time is the easier option !

*** IMPORTANT – Please note ***

The changes must be carried out and the utility run before the end of January 2012. Only work dated for December 2011 will be corrected to the old rate, and work for January 2012 corrected to the new rate.

What if I have synchronising laptops ?
If you have laptops which are taken away and operate independently of the main server and then synchronise work back to it, then change the VAT rate on the main system, and synchonise it with the laptop afterwards. If you can’t manage to do this, make sure you also make the rate change on the laptop before entering new work from 1st January 2012 (it won’t matter if you do it on both the laptop and on the main computer). For the purposes of running cash VAT reports you will need to make the change in Setup -> Settings -> Cash VAT settings on the laptop itself – even if you have already done so on the main server and synchronised it with the  laptop.

What if I am based both in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland ?
Unlike the last occasion when VAT rates were changed in the Republic of Ireland, there is no VAT change taking place at the same time in the United Kingdom. There are therefore no additional changes that need to be made over and above the procedures already mentioned.

What about producing invoices for December 2011 after the changeover ?
For the avoidance of doubt, invoices produced for work which was dated and entered for a date prior to the change should be dated with an “Invoice date” at the top of the invoice no later than the 31st December 2011 – irrespective of the date when the invoice is actually produced and sent out. For this reason the “Choose date on invoice” setting in Setup -> Settings -> Billing parameters should be ticked on the workstation(s) processing the billing run for December and the date 31st December 2011 chosen when the bills are run.

Further information
If you need any further information, please contact the Support Desk on 01 442 9867 or +44 121 286 9990 or by emailing support@teleosvet.co.uk.

2D (datamatrix) barcoding for stock control (5th August 2011)

Posted on 05. Aug, 2011 by in News

Staff from Teleos attended an update briefing at NVS this week on their future plans for handling 2D barcoding.

Since the introduction of 2D (datamatrix) barcodes (as opposed to the old linear barcodes still widely in use in supermarkets) there has been a complete lack of any cross-reference of the manufacturer barcode to the wholesaler product code. This has applied to ALL wholesalers and all requests for this information have been met with the response that the wholesalers did not have this information themselves.

Primarily for this reason, we  introduced a ‘barcode learning’ process into our Quick Price Check some time ago to allow those Practices who had purchased 2D scanners to actually be able to use them. Immediately prior to this, they were unable to be used for anything meaningful other than for the ‘tote’ single-click re-stocking barcode (which is only available to Centaur customers anyway).

Datamatrix barcodes are capable of storing much greater amounts of data than the traditional linear ones and their initial use was triggered by the last BSE crisis. After this, legislation was brought in requiring manufacturers of any drug potentially affecting the food-chain to be barcoded with additional information to enhance traceability. In the veterinary market, this covers all POMs and is essentially to incorporate batch information and an expiry date. Unfortunately – as with many ‘new standards’ – the manufacturers have implemented this legislation in slightly differing ways resulting in the information contained within the barcode not being stored in a consistent order (this was not defined in the legislation). In addition, certain manufacturers have used inappropriate colouring for their barcodes and even inverted the normal colours causing the scanners to be unable to read them properly or, in some cases, at all !

NVS have spent the last year examining every barcode that has come through their warehouse building up, in the process, a comprehensive cross-reference table of manufacturers codes and how they translate to the NVS product code. For their customers, this information will be incorporated automatically within their Teleos system and it will be dynamically updated – initially on a weekly basis but eventually daily. This should mean that NVS customers can fully implement barcoding stock control with the minimum of Practice input in the near future.

Hopefully other wholesalers have been working behind the scenes in a similar way to NVS although – to date – we have no further information from them.

As regards barcode scanners themselves, NVS will not – as a matter of policy – be recommending any hardware to Practices. The commonly-held view is that you get what you pay for with 2D scanners in terms of their ability to read the many variations of barcode quality being produced. To date Teleos has been supplying the Symbol DS3408 (wired) and DS3478 (wireless) units and, whilst cheaper units are available, we have no immediate plans to change this.

If any Practice wishes to consider barcoding and stock control via any wholesaler please contact Support for the latest information.

Teleos Systems Development Team (13:10 on Fri 5th August 2011)

IMPORTANT : eRegistrations of Bayer ID chips (5th August 2011)

Posted on 05. Aug, 2011 by in News

Whilst the ability to eRegister ID chips from Bayer is already tested and in place within the Teleos system, we have just been advised that contract negotiations between Vet Envoy and Bayer to provide a permanent service are not quite complete. Accordingly Bayer have requested that Practices do not attempt to register any Bayer chips from within Teleos until we advise that this facility is fully available for use.

This only applies to ID chips manufactured by Bayer – all others chip suppliers supporting the system are fully-enabled for eRegistering.

Please watch this space for further updates !

Many thanks

Teleos Systems Support (10:40 on Fri 5th August 2011)

IDEXX Interlink installations ongoing ! (30th July 2011)

Posted on 07. Jun, 2011 by in News

The reputation that this automatic in-house lab connection has already built up is resulting in a backlog of installs. We currently have around 5 Practices awaiting  installation. If you are one of those waiting, please bear with us, we are working our way through the list as fast as resources will allow. This is a zero cost upgrade for Teleos clients and is proving very popular but does need to be carried out around, and in addition to, our normal commitments.

Teleos Systems Installation and Upgrade Team

 

Menarini and Visbion links announced (20th Apr 2011)

Posted on 05. Apr, 2011 by in News

Menarini ‘Menavet’ in-house lab equipment

We are now able to offer a semi-automated connection to the Menarini ‘Menavet’ in-house lab equipment.

The Menarini system controller is already a pc network-capable device but it needs to be connected to your existing Local Area Network. This can be achieved by the use of a cat5 wired network point, a pair of mains networking adaptors or a pair of bridged wireless access points. Please contact the Teleos Workshop (workshop@teleosvet.co.uk or on +44 [0]121 288 0110) for further help with this.

When results are received from the Menavet machine, a window will appear within Teleos containing the name of the client and animal as stored in the Menarini database. Clicking on this line will then search the Teleos database for possible matches and you will need to select the correct one to store the results against. This connection behaves in much the same way as the IDEXX Serial Connection whilst not being as completely automated as the IDEXX ‘Interlink’ version. This is due to the fact that we are unable to request Menarini tests from within Teleos but this arrangement will still save a lot of time and prevent transposition errors overall.

Please email menavetsetup@teleosvet.co.uk to register your interest in using this link. We can then provide you with the ‘export path’ that Menarini Support will need in order to activate the link from their end.

 

Visbion VPACS system

VPACS now integrates seamlessly with the Teleos System. All digital images that are acquired within the Practice are stored within VPACS, and are also made available from within Teleos. The images can be accessed using a standard web browser in two ways:

1. Clicking on the URL stored in the clinical history within Teleos which will display the image at the maximum resolution capable on the local terminal.(This option can be used to view the image from within the same building as the VPACS but also remotely from anywhere on the web)

2. Using the VPACS display itself to show the image at full diagnostic-quality

Your VPACS system will need to be configured to export to Teleos. Please contact Teleos Support in order to obtain the communications folder address on your server that Visbion will require to enable this function.

 

Teleos Systems – staying ahead of the field


 

 

IDEXX in-house lab equipment connections (23rd Oct 2010)

Posted on 23. Oct, 2010 by in News

As everyone should already be aware, all IDEXX in-house lab equipment can be set up to transmit results electronically into your Teleos database. If you are planning to take advantage of this feature, please note the points below :-

1. There are TWO different  types of connection – serial and network (Interlink)

2. SERIAL – allows a stand-alone 8008 analyser to transmit basic information to Teleos provided that a spare port is available on the unit. Please speak to our Workshop on 0121 288 0110 to establish the situation with your equipment. IDEXX Support will supply a self-install serial connectivity kit free-of-charge but it is important that our Workshop let you know in advance exactly what to request from them. IDEXX will also send out their field staff if the situation regarding your equipment is unclear.

3. NETWORK (known as ‘Interlink’) – allows fully-automated generation of test requests from within the Teleos software and fully-automated return of results directly to the animal’s record. This requires the IDEXX VetLab Station (IVLS) and an available RJ45/cat5 network port. Again, please contact our Workshop on 0121 288 0110 to discuss the best setup for your Practice.

Important note: An ongoing maintenance contract with IDEXX is a pre-requisite for this type of connection – please speak to them directly if you are in doubt about this. You will also be asked by IDEXX to sign a form accepting the terms and conditions associated with this connection.

4. Installation – There have been a number of instances where Practices have gone directly to IDEXX (without Teleos being aware of their intentions) and a field engineer from IDEXX has come along and installed a serial connection on an IVLS (intelligent network-capable) setup ! We are working hard with IDEXX to prevent this happening but provided anyone planning to connect their equipment notifies our Workshop at the outset this should be avoidable.

5. Teleos costs – There are NO additional Teleos setup costs associated with acquiring either link. They are both provided FOC – provided your normal monthly Support payments are up-to-date. There may be some additional costs for cabling or wireless connectivity which the Workshop can advise on.

Teleos Systems Ltd

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