Aurora’s billing and business management features use your XSite for more power, flexibility

The Aurora generation of WinTOTAL form filling software gives you tons of new and easier ways of doing business. As we've been telling you in the last few newsletters, visit the Aurora video library for online tutorial videos that guide you through the most important and timesaving new features.

One thing Aurora doesn't have that Athena did is Management Reports. We've improved business management with the Aurora generation all right, but one of the most important ways we've boosted its usefulness is by moving it out of WinTOTAL and on to your XSite. You don't need an XSite to perform essential features like creating an invoice and tracking your orders. But working together – and synched up automatically, so you don't have to retype or repeat work – Aurora and your Appraiser XSite website give you the industry's most comprehensive and best billing and management tools.

If you use Management Reports in Athena you know it takes effort to keep orders, files and contacts in sync. This is especially true if you're trying to help run a business with more than a couple appraisers. By moving the business management back end to XSites, a bunch of new doors are open that make it easy to run and measure your business. The biggest one is this: You'll never have to export an order from XSite Order Manager into WinTOTAL again.

When you automatically sync up Aurora and your XSite, they work together almost as extensions of one another. The Athena generation of WinTOTAL and your XSite are two separate entities, and they work independently. Aurora and your XSite will work seamlessly together, running desktop applications on your desktop and applications that can take advantage of a web-based environment, like billing and business management, on your XSite.

Don't worry: If you use WinTOTAL for billing, you can upload the current year's information into Aurora, and you won't lose a thing. You can also continue to view management reports you created with the Athena generation of WinTOTAL, you just won't be able to add data to them once Aurora is up and running.

In an office environment, making Business Management a web-based application allows appraisers in different locations, or even just different workstations, to be in sync at all times without you rooting through contacts, reports and billing information to keep everything on the same page. Appraisers in your office don't see or get involved with others' work or billing. You can even have an office manager without a WinTOTAL installation – which describes a great many multiple appraiser offices – create and assign orders, pushing them to the appropriate WinTOTAL station, and getting back all the status, billing and management information the business needs in one central place.

The functionality of XSite Order Manager – and then some – is now part of the Aurora generation of WinTOTAL. The Tracking PowerView in Appraisal Desktop will show you your dashboard view of all your orders, regardless of whether they originated with your XSite or not. You never have to leave the report you're working on to check your dashboard.

Creating XSite logins for clients who fax you orders is as easy as ever, only now you can do it from WinTOTAL, too. Creating XSite orders is even easier – select the client information in WinTOTAL and once you've set it up to automatically sync with your XSite, all the information appears just as if the order was placed online. This lets your client check status, retrieve completed reports and more, and you don't have to duplicate work re-keying information. No more creating an "order on behalf" – the relevant information is populated in the right places and stored automatically after it's entered in WinTOTAL.

You can still create invoices for reports in WinTOTAL, without an XSite, in much the same manner as you do now in Athena. And it's a good idea to take advantage of the QuickLists in the Order PowerView by setting up "canned" entries for your clients and charges. If you have an XSite, it will automatically bring in the invoice and payment information for recordkeeping and statusing purposes. If you don't, simply send the invoice to your client. And WinTOTAL's Tracking PowerView lets you track your orders without an XSite as well, and also lets you filter so you're looking at just WinTOTAL orders, just XSite orders, or all orders.

If you work in a multiple appraiser office you'll want to visit our website to learn how to create sub-accounts, reassign orders, set up fee tables and so on. You can also find out lots more information on running reports, entering orders, sending status messages and all the other timesaving tools we've included with Business Management – now on your XSite instead of in WinTOTAL. Note that you won't see any changes to the My Office area of your XSite until you install Aurora and point it in the direction of your XSite.

The Aurora video library includes several tutorial videos on the new ways of doing billing and business management with Aurora and your XSite. They serve as a great introduction before you get the upgrade or as a step by step, hands on learning tool once you do. Start here for a video overview of new billing and business management features in Aurora.