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Granite House: Head Office
Head Office: Catalyst Computer Systems Ltd.
Granite House,
58 Loughborough Road,
Mountsorrel,
Leicestershire,
LE12 7AT.
Office hours are 9:00am to 5:30pm Monday through Friday (for weekend support see our Weekend Hotline number below).

Directions

Telephone: +44(0)116 230 1500
Fax: +44(0)116 230 1522
Weekend Hotline: +44(0)781 804 4086 See here for details.
Email: Sales sales@catalyst-uk.com
  Software Support support@catalyst-uk.com
  Hardware Support ITServices@catalyst-uk.com
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With the introduction of RTI (Real Time Information) for all payroll systems from 6th April, this is an excellent time to review your payroll arrangements. We have been taking part in the HMRC RTI pilot scheme and have successfully completed our testing and compliance.

Platinum Payroll

Platinum Payroll will provide you with a simple and easy way to handle your day to day payroll tasks and allow you to comply with the requirements of RTI, all under a familiar and simple interface.

Contact our sales team for further information about how our inexpensive Playroll can help you.

  • Existing users of Platinum Payroll can see our ever increasing Knowledge Base or contact our support on what they need to do for this years Payroll Year End.

Given the weather conditions, our hopes for this year’s Trade Expo at the NEC were quite low, and did make it interesting to set up the stand and get to the venue each day! While attendance did suffer noticeably on Sunday and Monday, we had a very good level of activity on all three days. It was very good to see those of you that made it on any of the three days, and thank you for taking the time to come and see us. It is always good to see both new and familiar faces and to get direct feedback, good or bad. It is very helpful to understand what we do well for you, and what we perhaps don’t do so well.

Expo 2013
Catalyst wins the Business Support Service to Dealers award

Expo 2013 Award

We are delighted and proud to have received the British Dealer News award for Business Support Service to dealers, which was presented to Jeff at the Motorcycle Trade Expo Awards Ceremony by Brian Crichton, editor of British Dealer News.

This is an award voted for by dealers and we are privileged to have received such a vote of trust and confidence. We will continue to strive to provide you with the best possible software, support and services going forward, and our thanks and gratitude to all of you who voted for us.

The Awards Ceremony was a great evening, if a bit snowy! It was also a pleasure to see Bill Smith receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, and his acceptance speech was the real highlight of the evening being candid and very funny, but with some very serious and relevant points for the industry as a whole.

Thank you once again to those who voted for us!

Expo 2013

Come see us at the Motorcycle Trade Expo 2013.

Catalyst Win "Best Dealer Management Software" award.

Following a poll of dealers across the motor and motorcycle trades by Tradeouts.com they have awarded Catalyst winner of their "Best dealer management software" award. The runners up in this category were our rather larger and to be honest better known competitors, ADP/Kerridge and Pinewood.

I’m personally gratified that it has been noticed and acknowledged that our years of considerable innovation and effort have resulted in a very reliable complete system. We have for many years maintained the ambition of making the administration of motorcycle dealerships as simple quick and painless as is possible. More recently we have brought these benefits to an increasing number of car, caravan and agricultural dealerships too.

Be assured that we will continue the good work on all fronts. We’ve lots of plans and ideas for development into 2013 and beyond. Above all we realise that our success depends on the success of our customers, we will continue to do all we can to help them thrive.

Jeff

Catalyst are pleased to welcome Mike Cameron to the sales team. Mike's career history encompasses both the computer and the motorcycle trades. No prizes for guessing what product he used when working in the bike trade, or his primary sales market.

Many, both in and outside of Catalyst will already know Mike of old from his previous role within the motorcycle trade. Mike's considerable experience, particularly from living on "the dealer side of the fence" will be of huge benefit, not only to our sales effort but also to our software design and development.

Getting your business ready for PAYE Real Time Information

From April 2013 there will be a new way to report PAYE information online: Real Time Information, or RTI. PAYE itself will not change, just the way, and how often, you send details to HMRC.

You may have received a letter recently from HMRC letting you know about the upcoming changes. You should read it carefully and its enclosed helpsheet so that you are aware of the new processes and things you can do in advance to prepare.

Look out for more information in our usual year-end Payroll updates in the spring!

Our online Knowledge Base is a 24/7 help system linked to directly from within Platinum to give you context sensitive assistance where you need it most. There are various categories and a search designed to help you find the answer you are looking for.

  • We are constantly adding on a daily basis to our Knowledge Base to help you gain the maximum out of your Platinum DMS.
  • There are now over 700 knowledge base articles (the FAQ section alone stands at over 300 articles) on every aspect of using Platinum. There are also over 1500 reference articles for the Report Generator and over 600 reference articles for the Data Import providing a comprehensive reference guide for using powerful Report Generator and Data Import modules (See our training page for details of up and coming training courses on the Report Generator, we are hosting both beginner and advanced user courses or the next couple of months).
Getting Started

If you haven’t had a look around on the Knowledge Base click here and get started.

Lawns 2012

All set up and ready to go for the caravan trade's outdoor "fest" on the East coast.

This is in fact the only outdoor show that Catalyst exhibit at. It's all a bit of a novelty for us, fresh air and grass! We've been doing the show for several years but it's always a novelty to experience a little of the outdoors.

The new improved, much larger marquee is in place and even erected without incident! Four times more floor area than it's predecessor, light, airy and all in all a better place to meet, chat and demonstrate what we do. Thanks are due to all involved in the preparations and design. The weather forecast is excellent, so what could be better than a day out. See us on stand 25, find out what's new, there are plenty of software innovations, it's been a busy year for our programming department.

Looking forward to meeting old friends and new faces, See you there

Jeff.

Traing from Catalyst

Due to incredible demand for our Customer Retention Course on the 14th we have had to add another date for the people that either couldn’t make that date or were too late to get into this course.

The next training day will take place on Tuesday 11th September 2012. The course will follow the same format as the course on the 14th, see here for details.

We suggest you book early in order to avoid disappointment as this has proved to be a very popular course. The sooner you learn how to use this amazing new tool to its full advantage, the sooner it can help you retain even more customers than your already do!

To book a place please call our sales desk on 0116 230 1500 or contact our sales team.

What is customer retention?

Put simply customer retention is the capacity to maintain regular sales to previous customers. A loyal customer base who habitually buy from you as a "Knee jerk" response to a relevant need.

Why is customer retention important?
Customer Retention

All companies are interested in selling their goods and services in order to create profit and flourish. Selling to existing customers is generally regarded as more efficient in marketing terms than finding new ones. Retaining the loyalty of previous customers is thus generally key to business success. For instance if you sell a customer a vehicle it would be nice to encourage them to have it regularly serviced by your company. Additionally related sales of consumables and "add on" equipment are an option to create ongoing revenue. As is encouraging replacement of the vehicle after a suitable period has elapsed.

How do you master customer retention?

How to achieve customer retention is compromised by a number of factors involved, only some of which are computer related. Obviously being generally nice to clients, having great surrounding and polite staff go a huge way towards customer retention.

As for the part that can be enhanced by use of computer systems, Catalyst have excellent market leading software that can help tremendously. Once configured this software is incredibly powerful but an element of "up front" effort to understand and configure it to individual company style is required.

By attending an in-house training day at Catalyst you are able to gain knowledge of the scope of the software and how to configure, style and automate it. Use of Catalyst software can enhance customer relationships enormously. For example a simple "Happy Birthday!" text message costs pence to send, is completely automatic and could well make the difference it takes to bring that customer to your business next time they require something. MOT and Service reminders are something useful to the majority of us. A gentle nudge at a time like this can be genuinely helpful to your customers and are likely to reward you with additional work; which could so easily have gone elsewhere.

Why choose in-house training with Catalyst?

Training Format
In-House training from Catalyst

The training day will take place on Tuesday 14th August 2012. The cost of the day course is a mere £190; which you are bound to make back once you’ve mastered Customer Retention! We have a limited amount of spaces so we urge you to book early to guarantee yourself a seat. Refreshments will be available during morning and afternoon intervals. The day is split into two three hour sessions, the first starting at 10am and the second beginning at 2pm. If you require overnight accommodation we can provide you with the suitable details of local hotels.

We are keen to ensure that knowledge gained is translated into real improvements for your business. As a follow up to the training, in order to help style the software to the needs of your specific business we offering two hours "One to One" remote support via computer link as part of this training.

To book a place please call our sales desk on 0116 230 1500 or contact our sales team.

The trade-only site for dealers

More great news for motorcycle dealers, We are happy to announce the addition of a free vehicle feed to "Tradeouts.com". Tradeouts is a trade-only dealer network for traders to source bikes / stock and get the best price for unwanted vehicles. The purpose of the site / service is to provide an alternative to auctions as a way of disposing of long term unsold and trade in vehicles.

My personal view on this is that the business needs this kind of service and it's an opportunity to both buy and sell vehicles more efficiently. Yes this is a comparatively new service but particularly in the motorcycle trade this is an unoccupied and useful niche. As the only effort involved is the agreement to do it and an extra tick on vehicles your willing to trade, it’s got to be worth a shot?

Jeff

We have enhanced a couple of areas in our own powered eCommerce solutions.

Searching

The product search in our eShop and eTrade shop now allow you to search for multiple words in any order from the Product, Description and Sales note fields.

We have used the same powerful search technology from our Catalyst FindIt website to enable clients using our eShops to find the products they are after.

Order Confirmations

For our eTrade shop, when an account manager places an order on behalf of a client, the account manager will be copied into the order confirmation email.

We have also changed the layout of our confirmation emails that are sent out after an order has been placed.

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PAYE RTI & Platinum

PAYE RTI & Platinum
With the introduction of RTI (Real Time Information) for all payroll systems from 6th April, this is...
Read More...

Motorcycle Expo 2013

Motorcycle Expo 2013
Given the weather conditions, our hopes for this year’s Trade Expo at the NEC were quite low, and...
Read More...

Catalyst Wins Another Award

Catalyst wins the Business Support Service to Dealers award We are delighted and proud to have received...
Read More...