Recommended Procedures

Every broadcast operation uses a different set of procedures. Some are elaborate; some are simple. Management values some reports highly and shows little interest in others. When the office staff changes, the procedures often change as well.

Describing a set of procedures for your operation is difficult because everyone operates under unique circumstances. However, there are some "core" functions and procedures that are so basic to broadcast station operation that virtually everyone uses them.

This section outlines the most common procedures. Modify them if necessary and add additional items to the listing if they are important to your operation. If you are new to traffic operations, this should provide some guidelines for your schedule.

Procedures

You can divide procedures into two broad categories. Daily procedures are those that are needed to get a complete log ready for use by the air staff or an automation system. After the log day is over, the log is reconciled or adjusted so it agrees with what actually happened.

The second group of procedures relate to your companies’ billing cycle. All of these functions are tied to producing invoices and statements and tracking accounts receivables. Both procedure groups are related, but we can split them up to clarify things in this discussion.

Critical Processes

We recommend you perform a daily backup every day you work with VT. This is insurance in case some kind of problem happens. Some VT functions are permanent and can not be undone without a recovery. Four particularly critical functions are accepting logs, printing invoices, committing invoices, and closing the month. We suggest you do a backup just before performing these procedures.

This protects you in case you have a hardware problem, something happens to the database while processing the function, or you make a mistake that you wish you had not done. With a backup, you can restore the database to its’ previous condition.

For more information, see the following topics:
 Daily Traffic Procedures
 Weekly Traffic Procedures
 Daily Billing Procedures
 Weekly Billing Procedures
 Monthly Billing Procedures