Product SilverBlaze

SilverBlaze © DMS is a comprehensive dealership management system for automotive dealerships that simplifies day to day operations, increase efficiency and profitability. Keeping in mind the business challenges and complexities involved in an automotive dealership we have introduced different modules for different functions. All of these functional modules are integrated between themselves and with back office operations like accounts payable, accounts receivable and core accounting on a real-time basis.

 Key Modules of SilverBlaze© DMS

  • Vehicle Management
  • Workshop Management
  • Spare Parts
  • Accounting
  • In-house Financing
  • Pre-owned Vehicles
  • Asset Management
  • CRM
  • HRMS
  • Payroll

Vehicle Management

Vehicle Management module has all the industry standard operations a dealership follows for Sales, Purchase and inventory functions relating to vehicles. By efficient way of operations the margin and profitability is increased and cost of operation is reduced in the vehicle associated processes.


Purchase

Productivity and performance of each and every employee in the vehicle purchase cycle can be improved with SilverBlaze © DMS vehicle management module, thus the overall profitability of the organization is improved. A brief walk-through of the purchase cycle presents a great example of the magnificent usability provided by the Application.

Some of the key features are:-

  • Vehicle Purchase Order
  • Supplier Order Confirmation
  • Vehicle Consignment
  • Pattern based Costing of vehicles
  • Configurable Customs Duty & Port Fee Cycle
  • Adaptable import procedure
  • Online Inventory & Accounting Integration
  • PO Status Reports
  • Order In Pipeline Reports
  • Customs Duty Estimate v/s Actual tracking Reports
  • Chassis Number specific detailed costing

The online integration of the purchase cycle with the core accounting module automatically manages the appropriate financial postings. The user defined and pre-configurable invoicing patterns helps the end-user to concentrate on the normal activities involved in the purchase without worrying about the postings or invoicing methodology. The ease of work leads to a more productive environment.

Sales

Vehicle Sales is the foremost revenue source of any dealership. The enhanced sales processes in SilverBlaze© DMS immensely helps the organization to execute the sales related activities more effectively. The module is presented with an accurate tracking system of all the activities beginning from the order and ending with the delivery of vehicle with the best processes tailored together.


Some of the key features are:-


  • Sales Enquiry, enquiry Follow-ups and enquiry dashboards.
  • Vehicle reservation and invoicing
  • Dynamic invoicing components.
  • PDI and Delivery process
  • Vehicle registration and Insurance process.
  • Payment stages and accounts receivable tracking
  • Salesman dashboard
  • Customer satisfaction surveys and reporting.
  • Sales budgeting and tracking.
  • Online Accounts ledger and stock integration.
  • Detailed cost breakups for each vehicle and gross profit per vehicle.

Given the importance of vehicle sales in a dealership, which paves the way for future revenue generation in parts and service, SilverBlaze© DMS vehicle sales module makes the sales operations so easy and user friendly.

Inventory

Every dealership ought to keep their inventory in an organized way to support the sales division effectively. The SilverBlaze© DMS has a proficient inventory system which helps the dealership to keep the stock in order and placing the best processes and control over the internal stock movements as well as the external stock movements between multiple branches.


Some of the key features are:-


  • Stock requisition between yards and associated stock movement tracking.
  • Current stock position of each yard with details of associated slots.
  • Transit yard and tracking of vehicle.
  • Inter branch vehicle transfer and intra-branch vehicle transfer.
  • Online inventory and accounting integration.
  • Unique inventory securitization featues for generating funds against your inventory.

The logical storage system offered by SilverBlaze© DMS is an industry standard method which is followed by most of the dealerships in the world. The Yard and Slot based storage helps the inventory department to pin point the location of vehicle at any point of time. The integrated vehicle reservation system is a real helping hand to the sales executive.

Reports

Vehicle management module provides all the vital reports relating to purchase, sales and inventory process.


Some of the key features are:-


  • Sales analysis reports
  • Multi-dimensional sales & gross profit reports for management.
  • Sales & Inventory reports.
  • Current and historical stock reports.
  • Vehicle movement reports.
  • Vehicle costing and cost break-up reports.
  • Customs duty estimation v/s actual reports.
  • Reservations register.
  • Vehicle Sales V/s Target Reports

Workshop Management

A well-organized vehicle service department is an integral part of every dealership. Efficient coordination between the service department and the Spare parts department generates more revenue to the dealership from both departments. The Workshop Management module is fully equipped with the gadgets for this harmonization. The challenging scenarios are met with technical excellence which leads to the amazing growth of the organization.



    Some of the key components which makes the SilverBlaze© DMS vehicle service system unique are:-


    Bookings & Appointments

    The elegant design of the Service Booking system of SilverBlaze© DMS offers immense assistance to the user to capture new bookings effortlessly. The booking calendar displays a user interface which resembles the Microsoft Outlook appointments window where the user can create or modify existing appointments easily.


    Service Agreements & Packages

    Many customers frequently visit the dealership Service centers for minor repairs or fine tuning their vehicles. It's quite easy for the service department to offer Annual Maintenance Contracts or service packages to the customers which are mutually beneficial for both the parties. The customer gets free services and coverage for specific repairs as per the agreement at the same time the service department generates stable revenue from these contracts throughout the year. SilverBlaze© DMS comes with all the tools and processes to handle these procedures. The earned and unearned revenue with respect to each agreement is automatically tracked in the system with 'Income accrual processes'


    Service requirements.

    Most of the time the vehicles comes for service for routine maintenance for which certain kown jobs has to be performed and certain parts has to be replaced. Standard servicing of vehicles can be pre-defined in the system for which parts and jobs can also be mapped. This will help to process the electronic job card for those services faster.


    Service campaign and service coupons

    SilverBlaze© DMS has the facility for your dealership to launch service campaign and offers, for ensuring the regular flow of vehicle to your dealership for service or maintenance


    Job Distributor

    In the earlier days of dealerships and vehicle servicing the repair jobs are allocated to technicians manually and this system had many major drawbacks. Sometimes these allocations either led to under utilization of the resources or put overload on technicians. Later came the era of Dealer Management Systems and solutions to deal with these circumstances. SilverBlaze© DMS comes with best in the industry tools and gadgets to assign and track the Jobs easily. The Job Distributor in the Workshop Management module is a powerful tool which can be used either by the Lead Technician or the Service Manager to allocate Jobs to the technicians. The rich user interface of the Job Distributor displays the current status of the Jobs and it's really helpful for the Team Lead to evaluate the situation and take appropriate decisions on allocation and re-allocation of jobs.


    Technician's Dashboard

    The touch screen based Technician's Dashboard helps the technicians to clock their actual working time for each job. Each technician can login into the system to see his tasks on dashboard using their Magnetic ID Cards. The technician can start, pause or finish the jobs by a tap of their finger tips. The Integration of the technician's workings hours into the system ultimately helps the service department to run the repair activities with more productive hours. The productivity reports generated from the system is a real helping hand for the management to take corrective actions for improvement.


    Warranty and Recall

    SilverBlaze© DMS has incorporated standard warranty and recall process followed by leading automotive manufacture. Specific warranty terms for each variant can be recorded. Similarly the vehicle recall campaign launched by the manufacturer can be effectively executed using the recall process in SilverBlaze© DMS


    Labour time guidance/Operation code integration for jobs.

    The manufacturer specific standard effort for each jobs for each variant groups can be integrated in SilverBlaze© DMS. This helps in populating effort for each selected jobs in job card based on variant group of the vehicle.


Vehicle Service

The Repair Order process in the Workshop Management module is systematically built with the remarkable features in the Job Card. An electronic Job Card in a Dealer Management System is a multifaceted tool which is used by a diverse group of users. A Job Card may be opened by a Service Advisor and the same Job Card may be modified by the Lead Technician. It may be indirectly updated by the spare parts department when the required parts are issued or returned. SilverBlaze© DMS presents a Job Card with outstanding features with a user-friendly interface which helps all kinds of users to carry out their operations within a short period of time. Quality working hours are assured for every user.


Some of the key features are:-


  • Seamless integration between sales, service and parts
  • Job cards can be easily created against service booking, PDI request, Service quotation or vehicle refurbishment requests.
  • Job card can be created for services under warranty,extended warranty, recall, insurance, Annual maintenance contract etc…
  • Easy navigation option from job card for vehicle service history, Annual maintenance contract, ownership transfer etc…
  • System alert for recall, AMC, customer black listing and related alerts set for the customer.
  • Facility to load Jobs & Parts as per the Pre-Defined service requirements
  • Auto start jobs and Group jobs feature
  • Integrated workshop request for additional parts.
  • AMC service details recording and tracking in job cards
  • Option to capture customer complaint, cause and correction measures taken in the Job Card
  • Secured action for the Team Lead to finalize the Job Card after verification.
  • Option to generate Service Invoice directly from finalized Job Cards.
  • Facility to verify Parts utilization and job completion on closing the Job Card
  • Replacement vehicle issue and tracking.
  • Service gate pass and gate pass monitor system

Reports

Some of the key reports in workshop management module are listed as follows:-


  • Vehicle service history reports.
  • Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) Profitability tracking and drill down to each services.
  • Productivity & Revenue Reports
  • Garage Revenue V/s Target Analysis Reports
  • Vehicle recall reports.
  • Parts issue and return reports
  • Service related multi-dimensional management reports.


Spare Parts

The volume of the parts handled by a multi franchise dealership is enormous. The mammoth effort is very much reduced that nobody feels it anymore. The parts inventory is proficiently handled by the application from the cycle of purchase to sales.


Purchase

The Spare Parts Module of SilverBlaze© DMS has an integral section dedicated for the purchase related activities of the spares handled by the dealership. The design of the purchase cycle is equally capable to handle the importing procedures of multi-franchise spares from abroad and the purchase from the local suppliers. The dynamic billing patterns are extremely helpful in the purchase cycle.


Some of the key features are:-


  • Intelligent ordering system enables historical sales based ordering suggestions. System will suggest the ordering quantity based on past sales, order in pipeline, back order and lead time & transit time for delivery. In addition to this system will suggest the least cost source of supply.
  • Integration with Manufacturer Ordering System (RIM).
  • Supplier price list integration and price comparisons.
  • Integration with OEM consignments
  • Dynamic landing cost computation components.
  • Parts cost re-computation for base unit according to on current cost and new purchase cost
  • Online accounting and payable integrations.
  • Online stock integrations

Sales

The spare parts sales process is orchestrated by the SilverBlaze© DMS as a dual channel process which offers extensive support to the workshop sales along with the counter sales from Parts Department. The perfect interconnection and coordination between both the departments boost up the sales and generate more revenue for the dealership because of the demand of parts from garage for the repair orders.


Some of the key features are:-


  • A Fast Sales Enquiry System with automated lost sales capturing
  • Sales channel based sales budgeting and tracking.
  • Option to define dynamic Sales Price matrixes on pricing category level or part level
  • Sales quotations and sales estimates
  • Supersession of parts.
  • Barcode Integration throughout the Sales Cycle
  • Option to attach special discount matrixes for frequent customers
  • Authorized user action to control for discount overriding.
  • Accounts receivable and tracking
  • Online integration with accounts and inventory.
  • Sales to garage against requests from garage.
  • Sales return and refund process.
  • Return of unused parts from garage.

Inventory

An effective and organized inventory system is essential for a dealership to manage the stock of spare parts, especially in the case of a multi-franchise dealership the parts should be precisely classified and kept for quick access of counter sales and ales through the garage. The Spare Parts Module of SilverBlaze© DMS meets all these requirements with a perfect set of processes and practices fully automated for the dealership.


Some of the key features are:-


  • Real time Parts Inventory System
  • Stock movement tracking between stores and BIN
  • Parts Issue against requests from other stores & garages
  • Parts Transfer between branches, stores and bins with bulk transfer option
  • Branch based stock & Weighted Average Rate Calculation
  • Store & Bin based inventory capability
  • Stock Write Back/Write Off facility
  • Online Accounting & Stock Integration.
  • Parts ageing and dead stock identification.

The logical storage system offered by SilverBlaze© DMS is an industry standard method which is followed by most of the dealerships in the world. The Yard and Slot based storage helps the inventory department to pin point the location of vehicle at any point of time. The integrated vehicle reservation system is a real helping hand to the sales executive.

Reports

Some of the key features are:-


  • Purchase Summary Reports
  • Order In Pipeline Reports
  • Purchase & Inventory Analysis reports
  • Current & Historical Stock reports.
  • Parts fulfillment ratio reports.
  • Parts ageing summary and detail reports.
  • Multi dimensional sales analysis reports.
  • Parts ageing and dead stock identification.
  • Sales V/s Target Reports

Accounting

All the industry specific modules in the SilverBlaze© DMS are seamlessly integrated with the core accounting module which is the backbone of the application.


Overview

The Accounting module in SilverBlaze © DMS structured in a manner which ensures the effective functioning of accounts department of modern day dealerships.


Multi-company & Multi-Branch Capability

Corporate groups or group companies are common in today's fast growing business environment. Many of the business entities are working under group companies and act as a single economic entity through a common source of control. SilverBlaze© DMS provides extensive support for these requirements across all modules and especially in the area of Accounting. The independent branch level accounting makes sure that you can get your balance sheet at each of your independent business lines. All this supported by multiple currency capability.


Multi Currency accounting and currency trial balance

The SilverBlaze© DMS gives extensive support to multi-currency operations throughout the application. This capability is built around the multi currency transaction model of the core accounting module.


Revenues centers and Cost centers.

All revenue account transaction can be tracked with associated cost/revenue centers, which will enable the dealership to arrive gross profitability for reach revenue centers.


Chart of Accounts

The Chart of Accounts in the accounting module is a perfect blend of structure and flexibility. The organization can define unlimited number of account groups and accounts under the standard groups like Assets, Liabilities, Income and Expenses. The dynamic structure and the Flexibility of Chart of Accounts offer significant help to the organization to adapt any pattern which is suitable to the financial and accounting laws of the country. This comes with additional option for user level branch level security for transaction and viewing.


Accounts Receivable

Transactions originated from sales and services are automatically reflected in the accounts receivable. Tools for analyzing outstanding receivables and collection are readily available in SilverBlaze© accounting.

  • Outstanding receivables tracking.
  • Collection from customers can be in one or more currencies.
  • Collection in the form of card, Cash or cheques.
  • Processing charges on receipts.
  • Collection against invoice or as advance.

Accounts Payable

Accounts payable transactions initiated from operations are reflected online in the accounts payable module, which leads to accurate payable tracking

  • Integration from Spare Parts Purchase
  • Integration from Vehicle Purchase
  • Integration from Pre-Owned Vehicle Purchase
  • Integration from Outsourced Services.
  • Payments and Dr/Cr Notes.

Key features

SilverBlaze© DMS accounting module has wide range of features which are the tools of modern day accounting department. Some of them are listed below:-


  • Multi-currency transactions and vouchers
  • Template vouchers and reverse vouchers
  • Back dated entry facility for book closure
  • User authorization for transaction and viewing of accounts including cash and bank accounts.
  • Reports with drill down to accounts, vouchers and to source transaction document.
  • Exchange variance accounting.
  • Report templates definition and draw your own reports.
  • Outstanding receivables and collection reports.
  • Budgeting and budget v/s actual reports.


In-house Financing

People do not depend on their cash reserves to buy a brand new vehicle. In many cases- whether it is an individual or a company-most of them prefer to buy Vehicles on installments. Here is the tool for you to finance your sales and earn that interest revenue as well.


Overview

The SilverBlaze© DMS introduces a unique module called In-House Financing to take care of the vehicle financing and funding activities of the dealership with dynamic financing Schemes and end to end operations to ensure profitable deals to the dealer ship on each financing process.


Financing your Sales

If the dealership is allowed to finance its sales based on the law of the land as well as mandate from management, you can define the financing schemes for each category of customers and fund their purchases from your dealerships.


Collection and tracking

Your credit department can assign collection executives and track the receivables from each customer. SilverBlaze © DMS has a collection & follow-up dashboard for each collection executives, which will help him to know daily tasks for him and plan for future actions.


Refinance your receivables

The built-in fund management and debt securitization capability of SilverBlaze© DMS helps the dealership to raise money from other financial institutions on behalf of the funded receivables. The dealer ship can get into collateral agreements with banks by pledging the receivables generated for the financed vehicles. The structured design of the re-financing tools and processes is definitely a great help to the dealership.


Key features

Main features and tools for financing the receivables as well as for generating fund by refinancing the receivable are:-


  • Dynamic Financing Schemes with the options like Balloon Financing, Fixed EMI, Zero % Interest
  • Vehicle Financing against Promissory Notes or PDC
  • Unearned Interest & Collection charges tracking with specific accounts
  • Multi-Locations & Notes Transfer Process
  • Auto-calculation of confiscation surplus/deficit based on the monthly depreciation of the vehicle using SLM or WDV methods.
  • Collection Manager’s Dashboard
  • Notes Discounting Processes
  • Notes Securitization Process
  • Collection of discounted, securitized or own notes with different accounting treatment.
  • Online integrations with accounting and other operations.


Pre-owned Vehicles

The importance of the used car market is growing significantly in the recent years. Used and new vehicle sales are interrelated and complementary to each other. Successful dealerships tend to have strong sales in both the new and used vehicle departments.


Overview

The purchase, sales and inventory management of pre-owned vehicles involves unique processes to maximize profitability and efficiency. The cost of purchase of each vehicle and additional costs incurred to make it in a better saleable condition are tracked separately with cost breakup. SilverBlaze© DMS is fully capable of handling the practices involved in the trade-in business including the purchase of a used vehicle from a customer and in exchange, selling a new car to the same customer by the dealership. The push and pull approach helps to boost the revenue of both departments.


Some of the key features are:-


  • Vehicle Evaluation , Pricing & Purchase Processes
  • Integration with new vehicle sales
  • Vehicle Refurbishment Process and workshop Integration
  • Vehicle Re-Selling processes(Sales Order, Invoice and Delivery Note)
  • Online Integration with the accounting and the vehicle Inventory system in all stages of trade-in processes
  • Comprehensive Inventory management processes
  • Current & Historical Stock Status Reports
  • Vehicle Stock Ageing Reports
  • Sales Gross Profit Analysis reports.

The entire trade in cycle for purchase, sales and inventory management is handled as a separate set of process



Asset Management

Asset management is the coordinated activity of an organization to realize value from assets. Every Organization needs a systematic process to manage their Fixed Assets efficiently, a dealership is not an exception. The Asset Management Module of SilverBlaze© DMS presents a rich set of tools for managing the assets of the dealership.


Overview

The Asset management module of SilverBlaze© helps to track the assets it owns, where each asset is located, who has it, when it was issued out, when it is due for return and the cost and depreciation of each asset. An effective and integrated asset management system is vital to minimize the whole life cost of assets. Once you have all your assets in the system, tracking them and protecting them is going to be an easy task.


Some of the key features are:-


  • Grouping & Classification of Assets
  • Define the Assets locations of the organization
  • Capturing Supplier & Purchase Information
  • Capitalization of assets
  • Recording Technical & other specifications of the asset
  • Warranty of assets
  • Capturing Insurance information
  • Tracking the Issue & Return of asset
  • Transferring assets from location to location
  • Asset depreciation using straight line or Written down value method
  • Sale of Assets with necessary financial entries
  • Asset Write off with necessary financial entries
  • A comprehensive Asset Register Report with in-detail information of each asset with drill own facility
  • Asset statement reports
  • Fully integrated to General Ledger with user-defined accounts to cover original cost, depreciation and depreciation reserves.

CRM

Ability of the dealership to attract and convert new customers and retain the existing customers is the key for achieving more sales. SilverBlaze© DMS customer relationship management module enable the dealership to record, track and follow-up each sales leads and contacts in an effective manner to close sales deals.


Overview

Managing and processing sales leads and contacts are very important to earn more revenue. SilverBlaze© DMS CRM helps the dealership in sales & marketing functions effectively to achieve your overall sales goal. Customer relationship management (CRM) can help reduce costs and increase profitability by organizing and automating business processes that assists in customer satisfaction and loyalty in the sales, marketing, and customer service fields. The customer data, customer interactions, test-drives, test-drive feed backs etc… are easily available in the system for. Comprehensive enquiry management system provided by SilverBlaze© DMS make sure that each positive opportunity is converted to sales.


Enquiry & Contacts

Every enquiry and contacts can be logged in to system, be it from an existing customer or from a new customer. While capturing each such opportunity the CRM user can also record the details like



  • Customer details and contacts
  • Customer preference
  • Source of enquiry
  • Customer budget details.

CRM Executive dashboard

CRM dashboard is the one tool which makes the opportunity conversion to sales makes easy. SilverBlaze© DMS CRM dashboard has the following capability:-



  • Display of my today's action.
  • Record current follow-up details.
  • Scheduling of next follow-up
  • Displaying of all the historic follow-ups on demand.
  • Display of completed follow-ups for the day.

In addition to individual CRM dashboard, system also provide consolidated dashboard to management, which makes the managerial tracking of each sales lead more effective.

Test-drive

The details of test-drive taken by the customer and customer feedback on key test-drive parameters can be recorded and used for subsequent follow-up action and reporting.


Customer satisfaction surveys

The success of every dealership largely depends on the satisfied customer base. SilverBlaze © DMS CRM offers tools for ensuring the customer satisfaction at each sales and service activity.



  • Defining the dynamic questionnaires and report generation structure for each type of vehicles, this can be used while doing after sales survey or after service survey by CRM department.
  • After sales survey by CRM department.
  • After service survey by CRM department.
  • System generated survey reports based on pre-defined parameters


HRMS

Managing and retaining the right combination of manpower is the challenge faced by modern day organizations, as the mobility of human resource has been increased now-a-days. SilverBlaze© DMS provide a helping hand with information technology with its HRMS module.


Overview

The day-to-day operations of an HR department in tracking employee details, skills, abilities, performance and compensation in a manual system is quite difficult. An automated centralized system ensures that there is lot of time for the HR staff to form policies and process which will benefit organization by way of better employee satisfaction, which will obliviously reduce attrition and employee retention cost. SilverBlaze © DMS HRMS module is developed keeping in mind the needs of an automotive dealership. A special emphasis on privacy and data security is enforced in this module. A configurable workflow process with alerts is an added advantage to meet the specific communication protocol needed in your organization with respect to employee activities.


Some of the key functions and features are:-


Employee Information Management System

A complete employee information management system which acts as a central employee database. This enables HR administrators to utilize all employee information productively.



  • Centralized employee data base with all the details of the employee with personnel and professional details.
  • Employee Awards & recognition process.
  • Disciplinary action details.
  • Education, work experience, skills etc.. of the employee.
  • Employee transfer and cost center transfer.

Employee Self Service System

This is the place where individual employee interacts with the HR department through system. Some the options an employee can use in this section are.


  • Travel requests.
  • Leave requests.
  • Resignations and resignation withdrawals.
  • Dash board for listing workflow based approval actions.
  • Pay slip viewing and printing

Employee Performance Management System

The performance management system simplifies the performance review process of employees and handles the appraisal mechanism efficiently.


  • Setting Key Result areas and goals for each employee.
  • Raising Appraisal notifications & Forms
  • Performance Evaluation & RA appraisal
  • Review by HR and closure.
  • Promotions and Salary Revision
  • Appraisal related reports

Leave Management System

The Leave Management system streamlines all leave related procedures‚ eliminates paperwork and saves costs.


  • Facility to define different leave types relevant to the organization.
  • Leave Entitlement, leave time, balance & history.
  • Allows employees to apply for leave directly from the system
  • Approval mechanism to manage the leaves of subordinates.
  • e-mail notifications to the employees and reporting managers on leave apply/approval status.
  • Attendance tracking facility
  • Leave Balance Reports


Payroll

Payroll module in SilverBlaze© DMS eliminates all the cumbersome processes involved in preparing monthly payroll. Having an efficient payroll system helps a lot for the back office departments.


Overview

The Payroll system maximizes the potential of payroll through timely and accurate salary processing, efficient handling of reimbursements, loans & advances and related statutory requirements including withholding tax. The advantage of our payroll module is the flexibility to handle complex salary structure offered to each employee. At the end of the month you need to spend very less time for processing your monthly payroll. Once the payroll process is initiated system will compute the monthly salary after considering new appointments, salary hikes, loss of pay for the month etc… The all powerful tax structure defined in the system is capable of computing the monthly withholding tax for each employee.


Some of the key functions and features are:-


  • Integration with HRMS data
  • Defining payroll components and Tax Components
  • Defining organizational Payroll structure and Tax Structure
  • Import from excel option for key manual payroll inputs
  • Monthly Salary processing with ease
  • Accurate salary arrear processing.
  • Automatic deduction and tracking of Salary advance and loan
  • Payroll locking
  • Full and Final Settlement
  • Salary Disbursement Statement
  • MIS reports

Technical Support Services

We offer round the clock technical support and problem resolution for our clients.

These include installation and product support, trouble shooting and usage support.