Rippe Solutions

We'll walk you through it step by step. We'd like your initial customer database and catalog spreadsheet or breed association export at least four weeks ahead of the sale to make sure the data is clean and ready to be imported into the system. We'll handle invoice customization, credit and discount options, delivery dropdown selections and more. You'll have plenty of opportunities to proof the setup and make changes as needed. Much of the setup conversation is for us to learn your sale and make sure the software meets all your unique specifications and requests.

Yes, absolutely. We can set up a demo sale with your exact specs so you can see how it works in real time via a Zoom call and shared screen. This is also a great way for us to learn more about your operation and help us identify how we'll handle the details on sale day. We can also schedule a Zoom call for live training to make sure everyone is up to speed prior to sale day.

You don't. We leave your sale open for about six months so you can keep working on it if needed. There are always times that you'll need to move animals around, sell a no sale animal, pull something off an invoice if it didn't pass a semen test or got injured, etc. After six months we typically move it to historical archives, but you can still access it if you need to look back. Your customer database stays live year-round no matter what, so you're always managing your buyer list between sales.

Web-based means you're not downloading anything to your computer. You just open a browser (we recommend Chrome), log in, and you're in. No installation headaches, no software updates to manage. You access it from any device with internet: a laptop, desktop, or tablet. If you can get online, you can get to your sale. You'll have a unique username and password that will get you into the system.

Fiber is ideal but Starlink works great when fiber isn't an option in your area. We travel with at least one backup Starlink unit for our onsite clerking whether you need it as a backup system or as your primary source of internet. We've also seen people make it work with a solid hotspot when they're in a bind but keep in mind that most sale barns are covered with metal siding and that can really affect phone service and hotspot signals. The key is reliability, not just speed.

Honestly, 2-3 laptops will get you up and running in no time. We recommend laptops over desktops. If you lose power during a sale, you don't have to wait for a desktop to boot back up or go into that dreaded system update. A laptop with battery backup keeps you moving. Any modern browser works, but we test everything in Chrome, so that's what we recommend. We also recommend laser printers for speed of printing and professional quality invoices and reports. If we're onsite, we'll have plenty of laptops, printers, extra toner and backup units in case anything goes wrong. If you need help, feel free to ask for our latest recommendations on laptops and printers that we have in our current equipment rotation.

If the auctioneer is still going, we automatically switch to handwritten auction block logs. We always try to have a backup internet source and have a plan in place if we need to switch connections. Once you're back online, we sync everything up and keep rolling. We don't currently have an offline mode or sync-later option. However, it's likely that if the internet goes down, so does the online bidding platform so you may need to pause the auction briefly to ensure everybody is good to go.

We call it guaranteed sale day availability. That means we're in the office in front of our computers all day monitoring your sale in real time. We can watch your online bidding platform to see and hear everything happening and, of course, you can call, text or email us at any point if you have questions or need us to make a quick fix. We're here for whatever you need.

Remote works great if you've got a reliable group of office help, reliable and up-to-date hardware, a solid internet connection and you're comfortable troubleshooting small things on your end. It's also ideal if you want to keep control of your own office but need expert backup available behind the scenes. The cost is lower than on-site, and for a lot of producers, it's the perfect middle ground.

One or more of our trained team members will come to your sale and handle your office from start to finish. We set up and test the equipment, register buyers, process invoices, handle online bidder information, coordinate with your load out crew, provide the vet and brand inspector with the proper paperwork to keep them going, reconcile financials, generate reports plus anything else you might need from us. We can work with you and your team or bring the staff to handle it on our own. It's really up to you.

Way fewer than you're probably used to. Typically, one or two people can run the office for smaller sales, plus a third person handling the block during the actual auction. For larger sales, we recommend three people in the office the whole time with a fourth rotating to help with check-in, block duties, and checkout. The reason it's so lean is that there is almost no paper trail, no runners, minimal filing, and a ton of automation. No handwritten invoices slowing things down. Your software is doing the heavy lifting.

Absolutely. We work with any combination. It could be all our team, all your team, or a mix of the two. We figure out what makes sense for your sale and your available resources.

Yes, we can bring additional staff if you need it. We'll talk through your sale size and complexity and make sure you're covered and confident going into sale day.

Online bidding platforms vary in the way they handle buyer registration, but in all cases, we've been able to establish a system of accessing the back side to either get email notifications direct from the system or to pull the registered buyer list in real time throughout the sale. This enables us to get your online buyers added into the RBI Sale Management Software before and during the sale, so they are invoiced just like your in-house buyers. The best part? We're able to export a list of any new buyers that weren't already on your mailing list, so they are sure to get a catalog in the future. We also generate labels for all the outstanding online invoices so you can easily mail invoices, and we save pdf copies so they can be emailed as well.

Yes. Your customer database is live year-round, so you can track buyers across sales, see what they bought, what they paid, their contact info, and membership details. You're building relationships, not starting from scratch each year.

The software automates a lot of the breed association paperwork. We're managing that communication in the background so you're not shuffling papers or playing phone tag. It depends on which association, but we've built templates into the system to help streamline the process. We pride ourselves on customer service and this is a great example of working with you to customize the export you need and walk you through it step by step.

By utilizing the customized dropdown delivery selections, we can generate reports for each category. For example, you might have 'take home today', 'will pick up', and 'need to deliver'. The options are endless so we help you decide what will assist you the most in organizing post-sale delivery plans. We also have maps with buyer counts by state, head counts by state, and individual animal listings by state. These visuals and detailed listings help answer questions fast and get the process started. Most importantly, we create a customized map of color-coded pins for each buyer location. The colors will correspond to the dropdown selections that you choose in your set up. You can turn on or off any options you don't need to see, view them in clusters to help plan trailer loads, and click the buyer pins to see all the animal details going to that location.

Yes. You've got access to all your buyer and customer information whenever you want it. You can add notes, designate groups, update contact info, track preferences, manage your repeat buyers, and more. It's not just a sale tool; it's your year-round customer management system.

It's like Google Sheets in concept in that it is real-time info flowing from the block to the office electronically. But here's the difference: Google and Excel entry screens are unprotected, so someone can accidentally change a price or buyer while they're trying to check in on progress, or they could accidentally delete a critical formula in a cell to throw the whole sheet out of order. Our software has protected fields and built-in read-only reports so you can see what you need without accidentally editing the data. It's safer, faster and prevents accidental deletions.

Yes. We can set up multiple sales each year. You pay the standard sale fee for each event but get a discount for hosting multiple sales within a 12-month time frame. The previous sale is archived before the next one starts but all the data is accessible via the historical reports. Your customer database always stays intact.

We build the checkout around your unique, customized sale specs. Every discount, credit and miscellaneous charge is set up to match the way your catalog reads. We can accommodate discounts by the head or as a percentage of the price and everything shows up in the individual financial reports, so you know exactly how it was all accounted for.

Yes, and way more than just the logo. Your invoices are fully customized in your color scheme with your logo. We add custom headers with whatever contact info you want. You decide on the names, phone numbers, emails, websites, etc. You can also add a custom message in the footer with your own color scheme.

We can handle pretty much anything you throw at us. Volume discounts, sale credits, take-home or delivery credits, repeat buyer discounts, miscellaneous credits like field day specials. We also handle miscellaneous add-on charges like freeze branding after the sale, extra feed or yardage, additional delivery fees, semen sales, or anything else you might need. You can calculate volume discounts before or after sale credits, whichever way you prefer. And credits can be flat dollar amounts or percentages. Basically, if you've ever offered it, we can build it.

Yes, your data is secure and backed up. You own 100% of your data and no mail list will ever be sold from our system. And although we keep archives of all the past data, we provide download links in the system and highly encourage you to keep your own backup copies for extra peace of mind.

We can integrate with various accounting systems and export data in formats your accountant needs. Talk to us about what you're currently using and we'll make it work. Most customers find that the detailed financial reports are perfect for providing information to their accountants or creating journal entries to get the sale data into your accounting system.