Arsenault Associates has released FinanceLink, which allows users to easily export parts purchasing data to business systems for payment and reconciliation.


FinanceLink is part of Dossier version 6.2, the latest edition of Arsenault's fleet asset maintenance management software.

"Every release of Dossier brings many improvements in maintenance management based on our users' feedback and industry trends," said Bob Hausler, vice-president of marketing & technology at Arsenault. "Sometimes we improve Dossier by delivering functionality that helps those outside of maintenance. FinanceLink is such a feature. It's an option that makes it very quick and easy to send data to virtually any financial application."

Maintenance departments constantly buy and receive parts, and it can be difficult for accounting departments to know that the parts have been received, that they are the right parts, and that it's okay to pay the vendor's invoice. This is where FinanceLink can help.

"Lots of software can export a report of purchases," said Hausler, "but FinanceLink does two things that make it different; both are focused on ease of use."

The first is the setup of the data export. All too frequently this is a complex programming task that can be only be done by the maintenance software vendor, because it requires accessing the stored database and formatting a customized data output.

With FinanceLink, the hard work has been pre-engineered, so creating the export is as simple as choosing the data desired from a drop-down menu. The export can include up to 15 key pieces of data such as dates, vendor, purchase order number, general ledger code, etc. The data fields can be ordered for input to a business system or for an account's review as an excel sheet.

The second is ease of operation. FinanceLink is smart enough to know that companies want to pay for parts only once, and only if they're the right parts. So with FinanceLink, Dossier now has an "OK to Pay" checkbox on the parts receipt. Once OK'ed, Dossier will include that transaction on the FinanceLink export, and then flag it so it won't re-export and cause a duplicate payment. That simplifies life for both maintenance and accounting.

Once defined, the exports can run automatically or manually. FinanceLink exports can specify a date range, check all transactions, or run as of the prior day, prior Sunday, or last day of the prior month.

Version 6.2 also includes minor enhancements, such as the availability of Dossier's Instant Recall panel available in other parts of the program. That means Dossier users can have a unit's history literally at their fingertips when they access that vehicle's data page. Dossier 6.2 also adds the built-in ability to email any report or export in the system.