Features & Benefits
Member Maintenance
Data is presented using a familiar Windows interface. Each tab folder within member maintenance allows for ease of obtaining specific data on members such as member's personal details, history, financial history, member status, alternative establishments, education and committees. The use of tabs allows for important information to be available at the fingertips of the user instantly. At the click of a button users can also access information such as welfare, delegates, future grades, back dated grades and sundries.
GBST Unison™ uses colour coding and symbols to make it easier to recognise important information. For example, financial members have 'financial' in blue amongst the details, whereas resigned are identified in red. If a member is a delegate then he will have a tick next to 'Delegate'. This ensures that information that the user will need regarding a member is visible within a glance.
Member Activities
Various activities such as an enquiry, request or complaint made by a member can be easily logged and monitored in Unison™. These “activities” can be allocated on a departmental basis (such as a union department) with the use of drop down lists. For example, if a member were to make an enquiry regarding financial status then this could be logged for the membership department. Users also have the ability to enter descriptive comments against any activity logged. The coding and logging of activities is ideal for analysis, allowing users to easily create reports on any of the data stored. For example, the number of members who enquire about say, leave without pay.
Financial Transactions
Unison™ is a comprehensive system, built by professionals with an in depth understanding of the financial and accounting requirements of large membership based businesses. Unison includes a flexible Chart of Accounts with an unlimited number of General Ledger accounts, (making it easy to interface with corporate accounting packages) as well as powerful billing and payment procedures such as those outlined below:
- Accounts Billing automatically identifies which members need to be billed and generates correspondence that can be printed in a standard Unison format or a custom format for your association.
- Advanced Billing provides users with the ability to send account notices to members before the billing period, allowing them to pay in advance to ensure they do not become un-financial.
- Autopayroll Deductions saves time and increases productivity by importing data from an external sources (such as tape, disk or e-mail).
- Credit Card processing feature allows for payments to be made via periodical debiting of members credit cards by either a report, electronic transfer or real time credit card engine..
- Direct Debit processing facility allows for the automatic generation of transfer files for Banks and Credit Unions
- Bargaining, sale of merchandising, donations and training fees can be managed within the Unison sundry billing system.
- Banking – Unison caters for the generation of bank deposit slips and income reports that can then be sent off to the bank for processing.
- BPAY, Locked Bag, Pay by Phone and other payment facilities are available
Event Management
The event registration module allows users to register members for an event and record the session attendance details. It also caters for costs involving budgeting and accounting, speakers, guests and venues.
For example, an event such as an annual conference can be set up with all members that have been invited. Every time a member confirms attendance or registers for the event, the information can be easily entered in Unison. This allows final numbers to be confirmed and calculates the amount the event will cost and income that may be generated from the conference.
Reporting
Unison™ has the capability of producing a number of reports that can be used for further analysis.
These reports enable your association to present not only statistical but also graphical representation of trends regarding members within your organisation.
Graphs such as 3D graphical reports, bar charts and pie graphs can be produced by Unison to graphically represent important information.
Executive reports are provided to offer summary reporting of financial transactions and of membership levels.
Reports can be saved in a number of standard formats that can subsequently be accessed by a vast array of third party desktop packages, such as Excel, Word, Lotus, Access, HTML and others.
For example, reports can be generated on new members vs. resigned members. This allows representatives within your union to view the number of members that have joined your union compared to the number that have been resigned. Unions may also incorporate InfoMaker, which is a customisable-reporting tool that enables reports to be created by users.
Security
Workgroup based security facilities allow specific users or groups of users to be granted access to specific functions. For example, financial records, credit card details etc may only be accessed by authorised users. Each function can be altered so that users can be limited to certain areas such as viewing, printing or entering data.
Letters
With Unison™, users have the capability of producing letters, statements, invoices, labels, membership cards or any other form of correspondence with ease.
The merge facility is easy to set-up and use and will save hours of time for users.
Users have the choice of customising any form of correspondence such as invoices and membership cards by merging necessary information into a template to create a standardised set of correspondence items.
For example, a letter to new members can be set-up so that when a member joins, a letter thanking them for joining the union can be easily produced and sent to them.
Once this merge is completed, the correspondence will automatically be registered in the correspondence register for each item that has been sent to the member.
Email and SMS
The Email & SMS module lets you send any custom letter generated in Unison via Email or SMS.
Welfare Legal Case Management
The welfare/legal module provides the users the ability to integrate welfare/legal case information with the existing membership information. Details such as case file numbers, précis, organisers working on the case; recommendations, status and levels of expenditure approved can be added and maintained. The security on this module is such that if a user does not have the correct level of security for a case then they will not be able to access the information.
Organisers
Organisers are a vital part of any union. Unison™ enables organisers to record details after visiting a site and to schedule the next visit to a site. Unison can act as a diary to log an organiser's visits and provide management reports for the visits carried out during a period.
Organisers have the ability to access Unison™ via a remote connection or via the web whilst travelling. This ensures that they have the ability to view or update any data while on the road.
Unison™ Anywhere
Unison™ offers powerful facilities to support around the clock access to information.
Unison's™ web interface and remote connection capabilities enable members, Organisers or similar officers that are field based to check data such as membership details at any time they have access to the web. Security levels restrict access to particular functionality.
The web interface also ensures that management has up to date information regarding the associations’ activities anywhere in the world. A simple internet connection enables them to view data and produce any reports they may need during their travels.
In addition, Unison™ Anywhere can be used to provide extended support for mobile and offsite processing. Features of Unison™ Anywhere include
Call Centre
The Call Centre module has been designed to facilitate the ever-growing requirement to be able to integrate a Call Centre with your membership system.
Campaigning
The Campaign module has been designed to provide Unison clients with the ability to create and record results from campaigns and surveys for members and non members. Unison is capable of running a number of campaigns at the same time. Clients can create scripts unique to each campaign with results linked to the member record.
Enterprise Bargaining
The Unison Bargaining module is designed to manage the entire Workplace Bargaining process. The bargaining module allows you to manage the workflow through the bargaining steps until the agreement is finalised. The agreement can be viewed from, Employers, Site and Member records; furthermore the Agreement can be viewed from within the web portal.
Professional Education
The education module has been designed to provide a flexible yet powerful solution for those membership-based organisations that require the ability to track and record the professional progress of their members.
Social Networking
Social networking tools utilising Facebook and twitter have been designed to help you facilitate communication and information sharing amongst your members.
Web Access
Unison contains web capabilities that provide web access to many key features via a web browser. This web browser is tailorable to the client and allows for access via various mobile technologies.
Member Advantage is a member web login that can be integrated to your current website that provides a number of member based functions including: Joining Online, Updating personal details and more.
Organiser Advantage is an organisers web solution that provides access to various organiser functions contained within Unison. Features such as a Visits calendar as well as Employer, Site and Member search with the ability to record and view Non-Members. Organiser Advantage also allows for campaign results to be entered in against Members and Non-Members as well as the ability to view and create Call Centre notes.
Web Design Service
Web designing services are also available if you need to further tailor the look and feel of the web portal. These services are also available if you wish to redesign your website.
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