Setting sail for superior service
Press Release - 26 August 2010
ClearWaterMMS helps marina owners manage every aspect of their operations more effectively.
In the marina business, it’s easy to assume that location is everything. But the reality is that many boat-owners will happily sacrifice the convenience of berthing at the nearest point if they’re unhappy with the service they receive. From inaccuracies in invoicing to missing out on preferred moorings, there are a whole range of potential service issues that need careful management and effective administration. With ClearWaterMMS, those issues can be eliminated – as an increasing number of marinas around the country have discovered.
ClearWaterMMS, developed by George James Software, provides a comprehensive system for managing every aspect of marina operations, from allocating berths to sending out the bills. It was first created some twelve years ago as a bespoke solution for Shepperton Marina in south west London. Today, it is installed at dozens of marinas across the UK, from Dean & Reddyhoff’s four major south coast sites, including the xxx berth Portland Marina, to individual sites like Harleyford on the River Thames.
“We use it for literally everything,” says Alistair Clarke, manager at Dean & Reddyhoff’s Weymouth marina, “from allocating moorings to moving boats around the marina to batch invoicing. It simplifies all our admin tasks: without ClearWater, we’d have to spend a lot more time doing paperwork rather than serving our customers. It particularly helps with reporting across the group: we can generate up-to-date management information about each marina instantly.”
Berth management simplified
That’s a sentiment echoed by Mike Myers from Harleyford Marina. “When I was looking for a solution to replace the one I’d had since 1995, this was the best on the market. The price was good, it was installed quickly and I’ve never looked back.”
“I use ClearWater to keep track of names, addresses and boats for my 300 berths. When it comes to essential tasks like invoicing, I just go into ClearWaterMMS and get the information I need. It used to take me a lot of time to complete billing. Now I can do it at the touch of a button.”
But ClearWater is about planning as well as billing – particularly in terms of making best use of the marina’s mooring space. “It’s a constant challenge to make sure the right boats are in the right berths”, Mike explains. “Especially as customers often upgrade to a larger boat, and so need a larger berth. That might mean I have to move another customer to a different mooring to make room. ClearWater makes the task simple: I can see on screen exactly how to configure the marina most effectively, which means I can get the most revenue from the space I have and make sure I’m charging correctly.”
This, like so many of ClearWater’s features, is enabled by the underlying database – InterSystems Caché – which holds spatial information about each of the berths. ClearWater’s web-based interface then makes it easy for operators to model different configurations visually, to make sure that the right boats are in the right places to maximise available space.
Delivering additional income
That capability is equally valuable to Dean & Reddyhoff, as Alistair explains. “Because the database is so scalable, we’ve been able to put all our marinas, all our customers and all the boats onto the same single system. That gives us enormous efficiencies in admin terms, but also helps with berth management. Not only can we allocate permanent berths effectively, but we can also use ClearWater to help us find the right mooring for visitors. Doing it on the computer is far faster and simpler than doing it manually: we can keep track of all the berths available at any one time and when a boat comes in we know exactly the right place to moor it. That saves us time and gives visitors a better service.”
Under this system, customers who are away sailing for a few days can ‘resell’ their normal berth, and book a mooring at a different Dean & Reddyhoff site in advance. A recent addition to the ClearWater system means they can simply pay on arrival for the time they use.
“The new Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS) module is a really valuable addition for us,” Alistair acknowledges. “It gives our customers the flexibility to travel between our marinas and simply pay for a mooring when they get there – which used to be a complex and time-consuming admin task. That helps create an additional income stream for us, as it encourages them to travel round our different sites.”
Excellent service and an evolving solution
It’s proof too of an evolving solution– vital for Alistair and Dean & Reddyhoff. “We work very closely with the team at George James Software to keep developing ClearWater as our needs change. This might mean creating additional tools or producing reports in different formats.”
Dean & Reddyhoff also rely on George James Software to resolve technical problems – at a speed which impresses Alistair. “On a number of occasions, I’ve called up in the morning with an issue and they’ve solved it by the afternoon. In all our dealings with them, the service is excellent. They have developed a real understanding of the marina business, and they do whatever they can to help us.”
Whether at a single site or a marina group, ClearWater is proving to be a vital tool in delivering efficient and accurate admin, improving management information and above all enabling better customer service. As Mike Myers concludes, “I wouldn’t be able to run my business without it.”
ClearWaterMMS upgrade at Shepperton Marina
- August 2010
Shepperton Marina have recently taken over the administration of fuel sales and yard services at the marina. In order to process the sales quickly and efficiently, and to handle the fuel duty surcharge, they have upgraded their ClearWaterMMS marina management software to include the EPOS module.
Located just outside London on the Lower Thames, the 250 berth marina has been using ClearWaterMMS for it’s administration since 1999. Marina Manager, Steve Gray said “the upgrade was very smooth and the staff at ClearWater Marina Management Systems were careful to ensure the system addressed all our needs and requirements whilst configuring the upgrade.”
A key element of the upgrade was to address HM C & R regulations for the sale of red diesel. These require the capture of customer name and address information for future reference. ClearWaterMMS solves these issues by producing a docket for the customer to sign, verifying these details as well as applying the appropriate duty surcharges according to the propulsion/heating split on the sale.
The system at Shepperton is now fully web based. It can be accessed from all machines on the network which makes it ideal for a growing marina such as Shepperton.
Shepperton Marina staff were given a short training session on the new features such as:
- Stock Control of products e.g. fuel
- Custom reporting tool
- Google style search facilities
- Streamlined, efficient features for handling large numbers of visitors
- HM C & R regulations applied to handle:
- automated duty calculations for red diesel sales and generation of duty declaration form
- automated credit card surcharges
Due to its clear and colourful layout the EPOS module is very easy to use, even for unskilled operators and occasional users. Shepperton Marina are using it with a conventional keyboard and monitor, but it can also be used with touch screens. It integrates completely with the main ClearWaterMMS system, allowing quick and efficient customer service at the till. The main system records all the information entered through EPOS, allowing this valuable information to be used within the many useful reports that are available on the system.
Further information about Shepperton Marina and can be found at www.sheppertonmarina.com.
New member of staff
8 April 2010
ClearWater Marina Management Systems are pleased to welcome Adrian Smith to the team. Adrian is joining us to promote ClearWaterMMS in Italy.
Why?
Length: 58m
Beam: 38m
Autumn 2009 Update
17 November 2009
Latest release of ClearWaterMMS
We are pleased to announce a new release of our marina management system, ClearWaterMMS. It has been built with the latest web technologies integrated with our fast, scalable database at its core, giving you the performance and flexibility you require.
ClearWaterMMS has been around since 1998 and this development shows our continuing investment in the latest technologies.
ClearWaterMMS can be installed on your server and accessed from any number of PCs on your local network. Benefits of this are:
• quick and simple installation
• the system can be made accessible from anywhere with an internet connection
• quick and simple updates and maintenance with very limited downtime
Subscription service launched
A further new development is that we are now also able to offer ClearWaterMMS on a subscription basis. ClearWaterMMS is installed on one of our secure servers and can be accessed through your browser.
• As the software is leased, the up-front cost is significantly reduced.
• There is no need to provide and maintain your own server.
• Backups are automated.
• Secure access
Visitor berthing and EPOS
The Visitor Berthing and EPOS add-on module, compatible with touch screens, is available for purchase or subscription, adding extra functionality for your front office.
• Deal with visitors more quickly and efficiently
• Till receipts can be issued
• Till reconciliation reports are available
Visitor Berthing and EPOS add-on module live at Dean & Reddyhoff marinas
April 2009
The Visitor Berthing and EPOS add-on module has been installed in all four of Dean & Reddyhoff's marinas on the south coast, including Portland Marina, the site of the Summer 2012 games. It has been added to their existing system to enable them to deal with visitor berths quickly and easily using touch screens, whilst accessing the powerful database of their full ClearWaterMMS system.
"ClearWaterMMS installed at Harleyford Marina"
Article published in Fore & Aft Magazine, March 2008
Mike Myers
Harleyford Estate is home to a top-rated, 300 berth marina together with a development of luxury timber holiday lodges and a private golf course. The marina has recently enhanced its operations with the installation of a ClearWaterMMS Marina Management software system. This brings the total number of marinas on this part of the Thames using ClearWaterMMS to 5, in addition to many on the south coast and throughout the rest of Europe.
Mike Myers, Marina Manager at Harleyford, says they had been using a system which had been developed in-house but the time had come to replace it with something more sophisticated. He sought advice from other marina operators such as MDL, Premier, Tingdene and Harleyford's sister marina, Shepperton, which has been using ClearWaterMMS for nearly 10 years.
Mike looked at several systems on the market and ClearWaterMMS came out as good as, if not better, than the rest. "I asked competitors to wow me and they couldn't. The consultants at George James Software, who develop ClearWaterMMS, were extremely knowledgeable and helpful and were very interested in our operation and how the system could be tailored to exactly fulfill our needs. They have experience of dealing with large operations such as MDL and smaller individual sites such as ours."
The whole process was extremely smooth. From the initial visit in July 2007 to going live in September the system was completely configured and adapted to fit Harleyford's operation.
Harleyford had already collected data going back 10 years, a valuable resource which they didn't want to lose. All this data was checked for integrity and tidied up for consistency, then migrated to ClearWaterMMS where it can still be used.
The system was linked with Sage Line 200 via a browser based interface so that all transactions are exported from ClearwaterMMS into their accounts package.
Mike already had document templates he was happy with and didn't want to change so the templates within ClearWaterMMS were configured to be exactly the same as he and his customers were used to.
Harleyford had their own unique phased payment process which was able to be replicated within the system. It was also configured to deal with electricity payments from the holiday homes site separately from the marina.
At Harleyford, berths are reconfigured from season to season and with ClearWaterMMS' flexible marina map this is a straightforward process. The system retains the history of how it looked each year and can show what it'll look like in the future. It shows clearly which berths are occupied at any given time.
Once the system was ready, it took just half a day to install and half a day to train the users.
Staff at Harleyford find the software easy to use. Mike, a self-confessed technophobe, describes it as 'idiot-proof'. All the basic information relating to a customer is displayed on the main screen with space for extra information within clearly defined tabs. This enables the marina operator to quickly and easily deal with customer queries and provide a very efficient service, keeping everyone happy.
Harleyford makes good use of ClearWaterMMS' mail merge capabilities to effectively keep in touch with their customers. Not only is this simple to use facility used in the generation of contracts and issuing of invoices, but it enables them to quickly and easily contact selected people on the database when necessary. In the recent floods it was a simple procedure to send a quick letter to each of their moorers, updating them on the status of the river and encouraging them to come along to check on their vessel.
This demonstrates Harleyford Marina's commitment to providing quality and service, which has been recognized by the Yacht Harbour Association awarding them the prestigious Five Gold Anchor Award. They expect the same quality and service from their suppliers, which they have received from George James Software.
As Mike has found, ClearWaterMMS has an excellent team supporting it.
"The staff at George James Software are very helpful. Whenever I need something done I ring up and they help me. If I have a problem I always know there's someone on the end of the phone and I know it's going to be dealt with." They are experts in their field and in implementing the software they get to know each individual marina's setup which enables them to provide a quick and efficient support service.
If you would like more information about ClearWaterMMS phone Tim Huggins on 01932 252568 or visit www.clearwatermms.com. For information about Harleyford Marina go to www.harleyford.co.uk.
