The Book Service Ltd (TBS) has its own dedicated specialist IT department, which understands the publishing, audio, schools and book distribution business. The IT section provides support to Customer Services, Credit Control and Warehouse Management, as well as supporting all aspects of publisher IT requirements, including royalties, bibliographic data, sales analysis, stock control, perpetual inventory and data interfacing.
The services also include bespoke development to individual publisher requirements.
Information Flow & Interfaces
The interfaces between TBS and the publishers’ computer systems are designed so that the information passed is not dependent on the data structures of either system.
The system enables publishers:
- To upgrade without affecting the interface structure
- To download information to an Excel spreadsheet at the touch of a button
- Online access to the TBS system via virtual private network (VPN) technologies
EDI
TBS trades with many major customers using EDI. The current standard is Tradacom format, used by Teleorders and GEIS. Specific EDI interfaces are also used when necessary, for example for supermarkets that run their own proprietary systems.
TBS has the facility to transfer data between various gateways including - Tradanet / Tradlink / BT EDI / BACS / Teleordering / FTP. Whilst recognising that there are many other market offerings we could connect through, based on customers existing systems.
POD
TBS has links with print on demand suppliers which allow us to automatically trigger orders to the relevant supplier for order fulfilment. Supplier details are held at ISBN level. Orders are recorded until the stock is available and then we utilise the stand booking in process and order fulfilment to complete the order.
System Security & Disaster Recovery
A stand-alone backup of the system is held in fire safes, both on-site and off-site, providing the ability to recover lost or damaged data and, if necessary, to rebuild the system from scratch. All system access is controlled by password.
A full disaster recovery procedure is in place.