AProfit offers complete functionality for booking, billing and tracking ads for your publication. Manage ad order entry and ad tracking in a system that integrates with asset management and page and edition planning solutions.

Developed hand-in-hand with our customers, AProfit brings ad booking and ad tracking together, improving management and communications not only within the organization but with external customers as well. AProfit delivers time savings and offers customers greater access with capabilities to book ads, submit material and approve proofs through the Internet. Combined with the Planner edition management and ad layout system and the Doris32 asset management and publishing production system, AProfit integrates with all of a newspaper’s prepress activities.

Customer management

AProfit’s integrated customer management tools let users manage basic advertiser billing data, contracts, multiple contact persons and classifications from a common interface. Customers can also be linked in a parent-child relationship with their advertising agencies or parent companies. Information stored in the customer profiles and contracts is also used in pricing, marketing, invoicing and reporting.

Sales support

Sales representatives have their own work area in AProfit. The “sales card” allows representatives to create and maintain multiple customer sets that can be stored as personal (for example customers of a sales person) or public (for example the 50 biggest advertisers).

Each sales card shows information about the active customer including their mailing and billing information, authorized company representatives, classifications and a list of contacts.

Through the sales card, staff members can quickly manage sales and marketing activities with a variety of functions including ad listing, statistics, budgeting, contacting and customer listing. Campaigning is also a standard feature in AProfit. Customers can be added to specific campaigns with different rules or contact persons. Campaign feedback can also be recorded and used later when building new campaigns.

Ad booking

Ad booking starts by choosing an existing customer or creating a new profile directly through the order screen. Then ad size, class and publishing date(s) are set. The system sets other information according to predefined defaults, which can be updated by the user.

Ads can also be booked directly from the page. A new ad reservation can be defined on the page in the Planner edition management and ad layout system and then transferred to AProfit for customer and billing information.

Pricing

AProfit automatically calculates pricing as the order is processed according to price information defined in the rate table and from the customer’s contract. Modifications to prices and support for multiple payers can also be handled and recorded at the time of order entry.

Ad List

The Ad List is a powerful query tool for building lists of booked ads with a flexible criteria set. The Ad List lets users create queries based on booking data such as customer, publication, campaign, sales representative and production status. All ads entered in the list can also be printed and opened on the order screen. Commonly used reports such as the daily checklist and the customer ad list can be easily stored and retrieved.

Ad production

AProfit lets you work with a variety of tools to use for ad production. Classified liners can be built with Anygraaf’s Eddie SGML/XML text editing tool. Display ads can be managed with standard design tools such as QuarkXPress, Macromedia FreeHand, Adobe InDesign, MultiAd Creator and CorelDraw. Customer specific and generic ad templates can be assigned to each insertion order and can be opened directly from AProfit or from the Doris32 asset management and publishing production system in an Ad Manager configuration. Ad templates can be customer related class related or public. Ad material such as logos and images provided directly by the customer or agency can be imported directly into the system.

Ad placement

Single or repeat ads can be placed directly onto a page during ad booking in AProfit in conjunction with Anygraaf’s edition management and ad layout system, Planner. Ad placement can also be done in Planner, where ads are visible in the manifest right after they have been booked. Automatic placement of classified ads with class headers is also maintained in Planner.

Workflow management

Ad tracking workflow management is accomplished with Anygraaf’s Doris32 asset management and publishing production system in an Ad Manager configuration. During ad booking, production status flags can be linked to the ad (for example ‘Deliver proof to customer’) manually or automatically. With the help of these links, ad production workflow can be routed in Doris.

Through the worklists, users and managers can keep track of several conditions such as material readiness, priority status, estimations of resources required and total time spent in production.

In the paper planning process, Planner visualizes the production and placement status of each ad through custom color coding. Modifications in AProfit booking and in Doris are shown in the ad boxes. Status levels can be tracked that show conditions where the ad material is ready for placement but has not yet been accepted by the customer.

Invoicing

Invoicing is an integrated feature of AProfit. The process includes tools for building checklists and acceptance, printing, reporting, a connection to an external financial accounting system and an invoice archive. Invoices can be printed to blank paper or to pre-defined templates or forms. Interfaces to external printing services can also be implemented.

Payment control

Through the payment control tools users can track the status of outstanding invoices. As customers submit payment, AProfit reads those transactions from external payment lists and updates the invoice. Transactions can also be recorded directly in AProfit. Payment reminders can also be generated based on the organization’s schedule.

Statistics/Reporting

AProfit provides a flexible and customizable reporting interface. Statistics can be calculated at the yearly, monthly, weekly, daily and paper levels. Compare ad progress against previous years and budgets and calculate statistics according to total sales, sales representative, customer, payer, class and customer classification.

Archiving

All archiving in AProfit is fully automatic. Users just define the length of time archived material is kept and how often new material should be moved from the production system to the archive.

Internet functions

There are three main Internet functions provided by AProfit: ad booking, ad approval and Internet publishing. With ad booking, customers, using their own logins, can book ads via a browser-based Interface integrated into your website. Classified liners may be booked and built via a browser interface. After booking, the system shows an ad preview and the calculated price.

Ad approval allows customers that have been given system access the ability to review their ads in progress. Customer can download materials (proofs) and indicate acceptance of such material.

The Internet publishing tools allow selected ad classes and ads to be published on the Internet. If the advertiser’s e-mail address is known, it can be added to the ad as needed.

Benefits of AProfit

• Better quality and efficiency of customer contacts
• Better forecasting and management
• Independence of time and place
• Saving of time
• Better quality and efficiency of customer contacts
• Better forecasting and management
• Independence of time and place
• Saving of time
• Understanding the state of your customer relationships
• Versatile ad reservation possibilities make ad sales more cost effective
• Versatile pricing
• Shared information reduces need of resources and possibilities of errors
• Built-in CRM, but also integrated to external systems
• Minimizing surprises
• Developing sales
• Managing customer feedback and contacts as a part of the sales process
• Common job list keeps ad production on track.
• Resource management keeps workflow moving along.
• Internally managed customer artwork speeds up production.
• Better accounting of production costs
• Savings in human resources
• Customer realizes benefits of cooperation by becoming part of the process.
• Ad buying decision is fast and easy.
• Independence of time and place creates new sales and flexibility
• Easier customer management
• Reduction of credit losses
• More reliable forecasting
• Workload is minimized and can be centrally managed
• Archive of invoices makes sales and customer service easier

KB’s staff knew their responsibilities and were used to completing them with fewer resources. Showing them capabilities within AProfit and Planner that would maintain their data’s integrity while informing better decisions was Anygraaf’s priority,

Hannu Inberg
CEO of Anygraaf