October 2010 Entries

ContractPro Trade Promotion Management Tool v4.3 Released

Answers Systems launched the latest version of our ContractPro® solution to the foodservice industry today. The new ContractPro v4.3 release, a complete trade promotion management solution for foodservice manufacturers, offers the new Volume Auto-Populate feature among its over 24 new features and performance enhancements. The Volume Auto-Populate feature automatically analyzes the prior contract period’s claims and estimates volume forecasts automatically when the user renews the contract. Volume estimation when renewing an agreement can be one of the most problematic components in forecasting contract profitability. The Volume Auto-Populate feature in the latest ContractPro v4.3 release will automatically estimate volume based on actual...

posted @ Saturday, October 30, 2010 2:31 PM | Feedback (0)

Contract Management is Scary

by Greg Hilton During this time of year at Answers Systems, our office decorates and participates in Halloween festivities. We wear costumes on the last business day before the big day, we decorate offices and we generally just have a little fun. Amid all of the fun, we are serious about helping our customers get past the fear that is contract management. Manufacturers and operators face the same basic dilemma: how to harness all of their contract management activities, keep track of the data and make decisions based on this information. It is scary! That is why manufacturers and operators need...

posted @ Wednesday, October 27, 2010 5:33 PM | Feedback (0)

Trick or Tweet: Our Halloween Trade Promotion Twitter Tales

We're tweeting the scariest foodservice trade promotion management tales we can think of between now and October 31.  Drop by our profile at twitter.com/AnswersSystems to send a shiver up your spine. 

posted @ Tuesday, October 26, 2010 2:47 PM | Feedback (0)

Millions of Lines of Data Involved in Getting Food on the Table

by Stacy Jackson The amount of data involved in moving food from farm to fork is overwhelming. Even narrowing the focus to data related to foodservice trade promotion management still leaves millions and millions of data to contend with at any given moment. When we take it down to just the universe of Answers Systems’ client data, it’s still quite a bit of information that must be dealt with in order to pay rebates, perform contract management functions, and analyze trade promotion spending. Answers Systems handles incoming claim data for manufacturers and operators at an average of over 5 million lines per...

posted @ Wednesday, October 13, 2010 3:47 PM | Feedback (0)

All Aboard the Claim Train!

by Tracy McQuilkin A claim moves through our system like a train on its track until a “pending” or “on hold” stops the claim. Some claims have to take extended stops in their journey toward claim settlement. Pendings and On Holds not only stop the claim train progress, but many times stop it for a long period of time. Pendings are claims where the contract we have on file does not match to what is requested on the claim we received. Pendings require more work for many people. Just think if the customer had the same copy of the contract we...

posted @ Wednesday, October 06, 2010 11:32 AM | Feedback (0)