Our Story
In 1982 Larry Acord founded Advanced Business Products after 12 years learning the ropes in the corporate world. ABP's mission was to provided sales, service and supplies for Point of Sale Electronic Cash Registers primarily for the hospitality industry.
In 1992 one of the world largest travel companies commissioned Mr. Acord to design, develop and deploy a point of sale system capable of issuing and tracking a voucher that would be accepted at the gate for admission by all the major theme parks and attractions in Orlando and throughout the entire Central Florida area.
In those days travel planning personnel would literally type out a voucher one at a time on a typewriter. These vouchers were part of vacation travel packages to the Orlando area put together by the travel company.
After some very hard work and innovative software engineering Voucher Snap was released that same year. It was an instant success providing efficiency, reporting and ease of use for travel planning personnel. Voucher Snap was able to print and track vouchers for every theme park and attraction with ease.
A voucher in lieu of a ticket was a fantastic idea made possible by the travel company contacting each theme park, attraction, tour bus company, dinner show and a host of other tourism related products and services to get approval for their voucher to be accepted at the gate. These tourism related companies would in turn invoice them for each voucher redeemed on a regular basis.
Not only did the theme parks and others allow vouchers to be accepted at the gate, the cost to them was considerably less than purchasing a ticket at the gate price. This spread was significant enough that they opened 14 guest service sites across central Florida “from Tampa to Daytona Beach” just to sell theme park and tourism related admissions via a voucher.
The word about Voucher Snap soon got out to the Timeshare industry which had millions of dollars tied up in their hard ticket inventory. Buying, tracking and securing ticket inventory was not only a major expense but a major risk as well. Internal and external auditors would routinely find appalling discrepancies resulting in losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. They knew something had to be done and Voucher Snap had already proven itself to be the solution to this difficult accountability problem.
It wasn't long until tour bus companies, limo services, local bus transportation to/from the theme parks, taxi's, helicopter tour rides, balloon rides, day spas, fishing guides, golf courses, water parks, dinner shows, theater shows, hotel room night booking, foreign currency exchange, on property BBQ's and pool side events, even florists wanted to accept a voucher for their services. Voucher Snap was now creating more profit to cover the cost of Timeshare marketing by increasing their ability to provide tourism services not normally available to the Timeshare industry.
Voucher Snap’s first Timeshare client was able to recover millions of dollars tied up in inventory par levels and put that money back to work. They dramatically cut losses “close to zero” caused by poor operator accountability within the first six months of use. Not only did Voucher Snap solve the operator accountability problem it also allowed for easy expansion of Guest Service sites where the marketing of Timeshare tour bookings was accomplished. Voucher Snap was easily paying for itself by cutting losses alone, but now we discovered Voucher Snap could play an important role to increase Timeshare tour bookings as well.
Before Voucher Snap was implemented the accounting involved for each site was massive. They balanced by pouring over tons of paperwork using a calculator to get their totals. Adding a new guest service location would dramatically increase the work load in the accounting department requiring additional personnel to perform the accounting tasks necessary.
Because of Voucher Snap’s automated back office reporting the workload was dramatically cut and the result was the ability to easily add additional guest service locations without increasing the accounting departments work load. Our first Timeshare client went from 10 sites to 40 within one year as a direct result of Voucher Snaps reporting and operational accounting capability. With the increase of guest service locations an increase in Timeshare tour bookings followed.
Our clients reported something new to us called “breakage”. One Timeshare company reported breakage exceeding one million dollars. Breakage was a new concept to us that really didn’t seem possible, but it was possible.
Since vouchers are issued in lieu of a ticket the cost of the voucher is not realized until after the guest presents the voucher at the park for admission. To our amazement not every guest presented their voucher for redemption. That fact never dawned on us that someone would pay for a voucher and then not redeem their voucher. This client’s voucher sales were in the multi millions annually and just a small percentage of guests not redeeming their voucher would and did amount in significant breakage. Enough to pay for Voucher Snap ten times over on this one point alone.
Driven by the specific business requirements of the Timeshare industry Voucher Snap has evolved to encompass every facet of front end Point of Sale and Back End accounting and marketing reporting. Voucher Snap's software engineers are constantly working to address the specific operational and reporting needs for their clients.
Working closely with Timeshare management we soon learned that for some theme parks it may be desirable to sell hard ticket inventory instead of issuing a voucher so we designed Voucher Snap to be as flexible as possible. Maximum flexibility was achieved so that every guest service location could not only sell hard ticket inventory stock for every theme park they could also issue a voucher for every theme park, it was their choice based on their business requirements.
The ability to sell ticket inventory and/or issue vouchers “where desired” is the balance that our Voucher Snap clients have requested. It’s not a matter of either/or it's your choice on a park by park, service by service basis whether to issue a voucher or sell hard ticket inventory stock.
Voucher Snap can track ticket inventory sales so closely that inventory losses are close to zero because operator accountability is a top priority for Voucher Snap.
Voucher Snap routinely tracks voucher and hard ticket inventory sales while at the same time tracking the drawer totals on a real time perpetual basis. Operator accountability is held to the highest standards possible with a methodology known as real time perpetual blind balancing.
At the Point of Sale cash and hard ticket inventory stock are balanced at the beginning of a shift and at the end of a shift. This method transfers cash and inventory totals from shift to shift and requires the next shift operator to balance to the last shift operator totals. This "blind balancing" method never allows the operator to know the totals the software is tracking, holding the shift operator to the strictest possible accountabilty standards.
We have heard many times from operators that Voucher Snaps reporting capabilities protects them by providing excellent audit trails for their shift activity. In the past “before Voucher Snap” operators would have to start balancing their shift an hour before their shift ended. Their paper work was massive and time consuming and often times didn’t provide an audit trail to protect them from an out of balance situation.
Since each and every sales entry the operator makes during a shift has their name on it "provided by their individual pass code", operators very much like Voucher Snaps ability to track commissionable sales without them having to keep any records. Tracking commissionable sales was not only a paper work nightmare for the sales person but a time consuming laborious process for the accounting department as well.
Voucher Snap can track commissions on a ticket by ticket, voucher by voucher, service by service basis on a fixed dollar or a percentage of profit basis both based on whether the ticket or voucher was discounted or not.
Each ticket or voucher can have up to five different commission levels based on where the item was sold. Some remote POS sites don’t have the sales volume that other POS sites do so for remote locations it may be desirable to increase the commission rate payable to compensate for slower sales. Each guest service location is assigned a commission table "from 1 to 5" designation for the purpose of commission calculations.
When it's time to pay commissions the back office accounting personnel simply enter the date range for the commission report and Voucher Snap does the rest by producing a clerk by clerk sales and commission report. What used to take hours of accounting time now only takes a few minutes and Voucher Snap can produce a much more detailed report by providing a ticket by ticket, clerk by clerk, site by site commission report.
Over the years Voucher Snap has evolved according to our client’s business requirements. A major benefit is provided to our clients by providing custom software engineering to address each clients unique accounting requirements. Over the years hundreds of features have been added to Voucher Snap encompassing a myriad of unique accounting needs.
Management who used to have to wait till period end to get sales reporting could now view or print real time compresensive sales reports right at their own desk in a matter of minutes.
The accounting department as well have seen major improvements in reporting and accountability without adding to their workload which brings us to the next department that can benefit in a major way, the marketing department.
Timeshare sales is what the marketing department is all about and Voucher Snap does its part to help increase sales by providing the marketing department with the ability to easily increase the number of guest service locations. In some cases we have see a 400 percent increase in guest service sites without creating a problem in the accounting department. Voucher Snap can and will do its part in helping you to increase your Timeshare tour bookings.
Voucher Snap provides excellent reporting capabilities for the accounting and marketing departments that are essential to managing multiple guest service locations employing numerous guest service operators. PDF and Excel reporting capabilities for vouchers sales, ticket sales, clerk sales, site totals, hourly, daily and period gives management all the critical information necessary to stay on top of such a large operation.
You don't have to take our word for it, your counterpart with our existing clientele has already given us permission to refer them. If you're in a management position and responsible for looking into ways to improve your company's profitability they will be happy to tell you why they chose Voucher Snap as the answer to their guest services marketing and accounting needs. Just use our contact form and we'll connect you so you can hear it for yourself.
In 1982 Larry Acord founded Advanced Business Products after 12 years learning the ropes in the corporate world. ABP's mission was to provided sales, service and supplies for Point of Sale Electronic Cash Registers primarily for the hospitality industry.
In 1992 one of the world largest travel companies commissioned Mr. Acord to design, develop and deploy a point of sale system capable of issuing and tracking a voucher that would be accepted at the gate for admission by all the major theme parks and attractions in Orlando and throughout the entire Central Florida area.
In those days travel planning personnel would literally type out a voucher one at a time on a typewriter. These vouchers were part of vacation travel packages to the Orlando area put together by the travel company.
After some very hard work and innovative software engineering Voucher Snap was released that same year. It was an instant success providing efficiency, reporting and ease of use for travel planning personnel. Voucher Snap was able to print and track vouchers for every theme park and attraction with ease.
A voucher in lieu of a ticket was a fantastic idea made possible by the travel company contacting each theme park, attraction, tour bus company, dinner show and a host of other tourism related products and services to get approval for their voucher to be accepted at the gate. These tourism related companies would in turn invoice them for each voucher redeemed on a regular basis.
Not only did the theme parks and others allow vouchers to be accepted at the gate, the cost to them was considerably less than purchasing a ticket at the gate price. This spread was significant enough that they opened 14 guest service sites across central Florida “from Tampa to Daytona Beach” just to sell theme park and tourism related admissions via a voucher.
The word about Voucher Snap soon got out to the Timeshare industry which had millions of dollars tied up in their hard ticket inventory. Buying, tracking and securing ticket inventory was not only a major expense but a major risk as well. Internal and external auditors would routinely find appalling discrepancies resulting in losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. They knew something had to be done and Voucher Snap had already proven itself to be the solution to this difficult accountability problem.
It wasn't long until tour bus companies, limo services, local bus transportation to/from the theme parks, taxi's, helicopter tour rides, balloon rides, day spas, fishing guides, golf courses, water parks, dinner shows, theater shows, hotel room night booking, foreign currency exchange, on property BBQ's and pool side events, even florists wanted to accept a voucher for their services. Voucher Snap was now creating more profit to cover the cost of Timeshare marketing by increasing their ability to provide tourism services not normally available to the Timeshare industry.
Voucher Snap’s first Timeshare client was able to recover millions of dollars tied up in inventory par levels and put that money back to work. They dramatically cut losses “close to zero” caused by poor operator accountability within the first six months of use. Not only did Voucher Snap solve the operator accountability problem it also allowed for easy expansion of Guest Service sites where the marketing of Timeshare tour bookings was accomplished. Voucher Snap was easily paying for itself by cutting losses alone, but now we discovered Voucher Snap could play an important role to increase Timeshare tour bookings as well.
Before Voucher Snap was implemented the accounting involved for each site was massive. They balanced by pouring over tons of paperwork using a calculator to get their totals. Adding a new guest service location would dramatically increase the work load in the accounting department requiring additional personnel to perform the accounting tasks necessary.
Because of Voucher Snap’s automated back office reporting the workload was dramatically cut and the result was the ability to easily add additional guest service locations without increasing the accounting departments work load. Our first Timeshare client went from 10 sites to 40 within one year as a direct result of Voucher Snaps reporting and operational accounting capability. With the increase of guest service locations an increase in Timeshare tour bookings followed.
Our clients reported something new to us called “breakage”. One Timeshare company reported breakage exceeding one million dollars. Breakage was a new concept to us that really didn’t seem possible, but it was possible.
Since vouchers are issued in lieu of a ticket the cost of the voucher is not realized until after the guest presents the voucher at the park for admission. To our amazement not every guest presented their voucher for redemption. That fact never dawned on us that someone would pay for a voucher and then not redeem their voucher. This client’s voucher sales were in the multi millions annually and just a small percentage of guests not redeeming their voucher would and did amount in significant breakage. Enough to pay for Voucher Snap ten times over on this one point alone.
Driven by the specific business requirements of the Timeshare industry Voucher Snap has evolved to encompass every facet of front end Point of Sale and Back End accounting and marketing reporting. Voucher Snap's software engineers are constantly working to address the specific operational and reporting needs for their clients.
Working closely with Timeshare management we soon learned that for some theme parks it may be desirable to sell hard ticket inventory instead of issuing a voucher so we designed Voucher Snap to be as flexible as possible. Maximum flexibility was achieved so that every guest service location could not only sell hard ticket inventory stock for every theme park they could also issue a voucher for every theme park, it was their choice based on their business requirements.
The ability to sell ticket inventory and/or issue vouchers “where desired” is the balance that our Voucher Snap clients have requested. It’s not a matter of either/or it's your choice on a park by park, service by service basis whether to issue a voucher or sell hard ticket inventory stock.
Voucher Snap can track ticket inventory sales so closely that inventory losses are close to zero because operator accountability is a top priority for Voucher Snap.
Voucher Snap routinely tracks voucher and hard ticket inventory sales while at the same time tracking the drawer totals on a real time perpetual basis. Operator accountability is held to the highest standards possible with a methodology known as real time perpetual blind balancing.
At the Point of Sale cash and hard ticket inventory stock are balanced at the beginning of a shift and at the end of a shift. This method transfers cash and inventory totals from shift to shift and requires the next shift operator to balance to the last shift operator totals. This "blind balancing" method never allows the operator to know the totals the software is tracking, holding the shift operator to the strictest possible accountabilty standards.
We have heard many times from operators that Voucher Snaps reporting capabilities protects them by providing excellent audit trails for their shift activity. In the past “before Voucher Snap” operators would have to start balancing their shift an hour before their shift ended. Their paper work was massive and time consuming and often times didn’t provide an audit trail to protect them from an out of balance situation.
Since each and every sales entry the operator makes during a shift has their name on it "provided by their individual pass code", operators very much like Voucher Snaps ability to track commissionable sales without them having to keep any records. Tracking commissionable sales was not only a paper work nightmare for the sales person but a time consuming laborious process for the accounting department as well.
Voucher Snap can track commissions on a ticket by ticket, voucher by voucher, service by service basis on a fixed dollar or a percentage of profit basis both based on whether the ticket or voucher was discounted or not.
Each ticket or voucher can have up to five different commission levels based on where the item was sold. Some remote POS sites don’t have the sales volume that other POS sites do so for remote locations it may be desirable to increase the commission rate payable to compensate for slower sales. Each guest service location is assigned a commission table "from 1 to 5" designation for the purpose of commission calculations.
When it's time to pay commissions the back office accounting personnel simply enter the date range for the commission report and Voucher Snap does the rest by producing a clerk by clerk sales and commission report. What used to take hours of accounting time now only takes a few minutes and Voucher Snap can produce a much more detailed report by providing a ticket by ticket, clerk by clerk, site by site commission report.
Over the years Voucher Snap has evolved according to our client’s business requirements. A major benefit is provided to our clients by providing custom software engineering to address each clients unique accounting requirements. Over the years hundreds of features have been added to Voucher Snap encompassing a myriad of unique accounting needs.
Management who used to have to wait till period end to get sales reporting could now view or print real time compresensive sales reports right at their own desk in a matter of minutes.
The accounting department as well have seen major improvements in reporting and accountability without adding to their workload which brings us to the next department that can benefit in a major way, the marketing department.
Timeshare sales is what the marketing department is all about and Voucher Snap does its part to help increase sales by providing the marketing department with the ability to easily increase the number of guest service locations. In some cases we have see a 400 percent increase in guest service sites without creating a problem in the accounting department. Voucher Snap can and will do its part in helping you to increase your Timeshare tour bookings.
Voucher Snap provides excellent reporting capabilities for the accounting and marketing departments that are essential to managing multiple guest service locations employing numerous guest service operators. PDF and Excel reporting capabilities for vouchers sales, ticket sales, clerk sales, site totals, hourly, daily and period gives management all the critical information necessary to stay on top of such a large operation.
You don't have to take our word for it, your counterpart with our existing clientele has already given us permission to refer them. If you're in a management position and responsible for looking into ways to improve your company's profitability they will be happy to tell you why they chose Voucher Snap as the answer to their guest services marketing and accounting needs. Just use our contact form and we'll connect you so you can hear it for yourself.
