IPRO GmbH, a German company, has been producing professional software for Opticians, Optometrists and Hearing Aid Dispensers since it was founded in 1979. The latest software product, winIPRO, is a Windows-based client/server Patient Management System, and is available from single user level up to multi-branch, multi-user environments.

Initially developed in 1997, the software is today in use across several countries. The most prominent user in the UK is the PG Allder Group with 15 practices. In Europe "Krane optic", which has 100 outlets and is part of the AVA-Group, is working with winIPRO too. As well as these clients, IPRO also has the traditional optician/optometrist customers. winIPRO is an integrated software that interfaces to the majority of ophthalmic technology available on the market. It communicates with Lab devices, or ophthalmic instruments of all types, and integrates with other software systems such as Rodenstock's Speedmaster, Zeiss' Winfral, Haag-Streit's Keratograph and EyeCap, Heidelberg's EyeExplorer.

Today, IPRO has 50 employees and distributes the software throughout Europe and the UK. They have more than 3,000 installations in the UK, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Andorra, Finland, Poland, Hungary and French Polynesia.

winIPRO is available in five different language versions; English, German, French, Dutch, and Italian. Translations in Finnish, Hungarian, Spanish and Norwegian are currently being produced. Customers can also buy branded hardware such as IBM and HP-Compaq, peripherals like till drawers, receipt printers, and accessories like stock labels, special sheets for ophthalmic certificates and ZIP cartridges.

The PostCoder address lookup was added to this software a couple of years ago and fits perfectly into the system. IPRO contacted Allies Computing to look at their solutions and found PostCoder API Compact, a developer's toolkit including a range of examples, met all their requirements. Dr Heinrich Gentner, IPRO's International Manager, says "We have chosen Allies Computing as our partner in Postcode Lookup because it was, and it is still, easy to integrate, easy to upgrade and also an inexpensive solution for our customers"

IPRO used the C++ examples included with PostCoder API Compact to develop this enhancement, which is offered to their UK customers as an optional extra to the winIPRO software. Almost all of their clients have chosen to add this option and feedback is all positive. Most of IPRO's customers comment that it speeds up entry of patient details onto their database.

The IPRO software has been developed in a Windows environment to make it compatible with the requirements of the majority of IPRO's customers.

Clive Williams, who runs a practice in Porthmadog, found the PostCoder element of the software "very useful as we were starting a completely new patient database and it made the keying in of all the patient records much faster".

As well as saving time, Address Management within a business contributes to good customer service, accurate addressing for mailings and professional presentation.