Combase Information Systems Ltd

Our Lottery Software package manages all stages of the workload in your Office. The System handles new Member Registrations, Collections from existing Members, carrying out the Draw, Printing of all Management Reports, Printing of all Letters including the Winners cheques and keeping Accounts.

The System works on Windows 95/98, NT, 2000 and XP operating systems and the prices include full installation at your site together with a days on site training for UK organisations only. Non UK organisations can have the installation and training carried out over the Internet if your computer is capable of VPN support.

Key Benefits

Pricing

Other Modules to enhance the Lottery System are available at extra cost. Please call us for more details.

All prices are only applicable to UK customers and are subject to VAT

ComBase Lottery Features

The following is a list of features of the ComBase Lottery Management Software. It is not exhaustive but gives some of the major areas where the software is designed to help Lottery Office teams be efficient, accurate and helpful to Members' enquiries. The list is in no particular order but generally follows the flow of the Main Menu system of the software.

ComBase's Lottery System Software is based upon a Community Membership Lottery. A Member joins the Lottery pledging to pay £1 a week (the Stake Amount) until further notice. If the Member's account is in credit by at least the Stake Amount then he/she will be entered in that weeks draw.

To produce a well run Lottery Office certain procedures are required to organise the vast amounts of data that are generated each week. Also effective Sales and Collection systems need to be in place to attract new Members and collect continuing payments from them.

ComBase's Lottery System Software assumes that Sales campaigns such as Canvassing, Direct Mailing, Advertising, Telephone Marketing etc will be deployed. The software therefore has the concept of a Canvasser working in an Area. This Canvasser may be the Lottery Office, an external Sales team, a Person knocking on people's doors etc. For all these cases the system can be organised so that you can tell from which source your Members have come from and how much in commission this is costing.

On-going Collection payments can be made by Cheque, Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Direct Debits, Standing Orders or Cash. The system has the concept of a Collector working in a Round. This Collector for example can be the Lottery Office working the Standing Order Round or a Person working a Cash Round by knocking on doors. In these and other cases the Members are grouped into special Rounds so that the Lottery Office knows how that Member pays and how often.

The System also has the concept of a Field Manager whose job is to organise Canvassers and Collectors on a regular basis. The Field Manager 'owns' Areas and Rounds and is responsible for collecting all the monies in those Areas and Rounds.

The Software also caters for temporary Membership by the use of Single Tickets sold weekly by Distributors. The idea is that a person can become a temporary Member by buying a ticket that week. That ticket number will take part in the draw for that week only.

The ComBase Lottery Software features :

1.  User Log-In systems with password hierarcy.

2. Encrypted data for security.

3. Comprehensive record of Members data including :

                          a) Mail Address details, which can be copied to the clipboard

                          b) Collection Address details in cases where a Member is not collected from their home.

 c) General Note Pad for users to make any sort of comment.

 d) Full payment and winning history

 e) Bank and Credit /Debit Card details

 f) Telephone details

4. Full Canvas and Collecting systems based on grouping Members into Areas and Rounds. This includes calculating Canvasser's and Collector's Commissions.

5. Ability to send individual emails from a Member's record.

6. Complete integration with Post Code software such as 'afd Post Coder'.

7. Storing of deleted Members in a separate database and with the facility to be able to transfer them back into the Lottery.

8. Ability to search the Members database on a wide range of criteria and data fields.

9. View member's data in different orders.

10. Comprehensive methods for finding Members using ultra fast indexing methods.

11. Members have a unique Membership Number and a Random Number for use in the draw. This makes filing and finding Member records very easy. From Ver 7.0 of the software a Member has the ability to change their Random Number provided it is not being used by another Member or the Single Ticket System.

12. Easy database form controls include a Database Navigator, which is a graphical tool for moving from record to record.

13. Member records can be automatically updated from external data (i.e. web site or other database) including new Members. This facility generates a log file giving the import history.

14. Audit trail of user inputs so that changes to the data can be traced.

15. Comprehensive data records for Field Managers, Canvassers, Collectors and Single Ticket Distributors.

16. Full data records for Areas and Rounds to track new Member details and on-going payments.

17. Payment update form designs to help with the input of Member payments. This includes batch updates under user control.

18. Automated payments from Standing Orders and Direct Debits directly from electronic Bank Statements. A log file is generated at import time to show the history of payments. Also the user can generate an error file to filter out payments because of Bank mistakes etc.

19.Automated cash payments by using Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) techniques. A special Collection Round Sheet is marked in appropriate boxes by the Collector and read by a scanner. The data from the scanner is imported into the system. A log file is produced to trace the history of payments made this way.

20.Ability to allow temporary Membership of the Lottery. This is achieved by weekly sales of Lottery Raffle type tickets - Single Ticket Sales. Tickets are printed by the system and sold weekly in shops, clubs, etc. The paid ticket numbers enter that week's draw.

21. Full reconciliation facilities are available so that user input can be checked against the Lottery Day Book and Bank Deposits. Draws cannot be started until the user sets special payment flags in the system.

22. Weekly Payment totals are available at the push of a button.

23. The draws are completely automatic and take place after a number of safeguard checks are made by the system. The Winners List and Draw Statistics are automatically printed after each draw.

24. Historical records of all winners are available for searching and viewing by the user.

25. Full printing facilities for Winners is available including Letters with cheques at the bottom, Lists and Labels. The data can be exported to Word, Excel, Access or Outlook. The data can be exported as an ASCI Comma Separated Values file (text file) for use in other database programs.

26. Ability to carry out one off Ad Hoc draws for a special prize - money or item. It is based upon the Members who are in credit at the time of the draw.

27.Comprehensive reporting facilities to produce for one or a selected number of Members, printed Letters, Labels and Lists using Word, Excel, Access or the internal report writer. The data can be exported in text format for use in other database environments.

28. User control of letter templates for a variety of jobs including New Member Letters, Winners Letters, Reminder Letters etc. Templates can used from within Word or the internal template editor.

29. Complete Reminder system for Cheque paying Members including Credit and Debit Card payers. The system at the correct time collates all those Members whose payments are due and the system will print out the Letters, Lists, Labels etc.

30. Check lists are available for Standing Order payments and Direct Debit payments due.

31. The system monitors non-payers and Reminders can be triggered on this information.

32. Full printing facilities for Collection Sheets on a per Round basis. Two types are provided - one for manual input of Member payments and the other using Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) techniques.

33. Ability to print out a detailed Advance Payments List at any time. This lists on a Round by Round basis the statistics of each Round like how many Members are in each Round, how many have paid, how many have not paid, the state total credit state of the round etc. The information gives the amount of money that would have to be returned if no further draw were carried out.

34. Bulk emailing capabilities for letters to New Members, Reminders, Winners  etc.

35. Complete log system recording the history of each letter that has been printed by the system including emails.

36. Comprehensive record of payments made by Canvassers and Collectors together with Commissions earned on a draw-by-draw basis.

37. Ability to record all payments responsible by Field Managers

38. Full payment records of Single Ticket Distributors including commissions earned.

39. Comprehensive context sensitive Help system accessed by a Help button on every form.

40. Ability for the user to change the Prize structure for a draw.

41. Full access to the user and password data so that users can be added, deleted or their passwords changed. The system has a two tier password heirarcy. Level 1 users can input basic data and payments but cannot change any system defaults or make draws. Level 2 users have total use of the system.

42. Comprehensive Commission calculation system for Field Managers, Canvassers, Collectors and Single Ticket Distributors.

43. Users can use Structured Query Language (SQL) scripts to interrogate the Lottery data if the standard way is not detailed enough. Help in this scripting language is available to users from ComBase.

44. Full ability to track Canvas returns based on Street information. The system analyses data such as Number of Houses Visited, Number of Yes replies, Number of No replies etc. This gives a good history of what a Canvasser has achieved during the campaign.

45. System can be tailored to suit any electronic Bank Statement files provided they conform to the ASCII CSV format.

46. The system can be integrated with a Web site so that information can be exchanged between the two. This gives the ability for a Member to join on the Web and then his details downloaded and fed into the Lottery System. Likewise data changes made in the Lottery Office, Winners lists etc can be uploaded to the Web site to keep it up to date.

47. The user now has the ability to change the Stake Money at each draw. This is usually £ 1 but it can now be higher than this figure.

48. From Ver 7.0 of the software, a new Lottery game has been added to the system. This gives Members the opportunity to win a big prize each week by making an extra Stake Amount payment..

49. The Single Ticket sales system also has the ability to be used for one off JACKPOT draws. On a special draw date during the year, sales of these tickets up to 30,000 and beyond can be organised for a one off draw with a big prize value.

Send mail to mike@combase.co.uk with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 1999 Combase Information Systems Ltd
Last modified: April 02, 2007