Searching ReferenceUSA U.S.Businesses Module

Transcription

1 Searching ReferenceUSA U.S.Businesses Module

2 To access the BRS databases go to the Lancaster Chamber website at and click on the BRS icon located at the bottom of the page.

3 To access the BRS databases, use the click here hot link, which will take you to the login page.

4 Note that the list of databases in the center of the page is greyed out. You must now login to access them. In the pink box at the top of the page click logged in which will take you to the login page.

5 Enter your user name and password. Please note that this is not the same user name and password you use to login to the Chamber website. You will be given a different login name and password once you have subscribed to the BRS.

6 When you have successfully logged in your contact information will appear. Click the hot link to go back to the list of databases on the BRS page.

7 Before you begin your database searching you must check the agreement box above.

8 Scroll down the list to select ReferenceUSA and use the hot link under the logo to click to access the database.

9 You are now on the ReferenceUSA home page, where you can choose from business or consumer databases. On the business database page, select U.S. Businesses by clicking Start Search. This is the main module.

10 Use the Quick Search option to find information on a specific company. Enter name of company, and city and state, if known, into the search boxes. This is the summary format. Click on company name of your choice to view the detailed listing.

11 This is the detailed listing for the Isaac s Restaurant & Deli corporate headquarters. The green down arrow in the corporate tree box indicates that it is the parent company. Click on the down arrow to see a list of branches or subsidiaries.

12 There is a green up arrow next to each of the listings, indicating that there is a parent company. By clicking on the up arrow it will take you back to the Isaac s corporate headquarter listing. The tree symbol is a different depiction of the linkages.

13 This depiction shows branches and subsidiaries, number of employees and sales volume.

14 There are three options for radius searching. Enter number of miles between.1 and 150 into the radius search box. Find all will give you all companies, regardless of type of company. Find similar will allow you to select companies by specific industry codes. You can also use the Advanced Search feature to get more specific.

15 An alternate way to do a radius search is through the custom search option. Go to the Geography selects and click on Radius. Enter an address or zip code and indicate the number of miles, up to 150.

16 The custom search allows you to search for customers or competitors by selecting as many criteria as you need from the menu on the left. Expand each category to make your selections. Depending on the criteria you select you will get broader or narrower results. Click in the Unverified Businesses box to expand the record count from 15 million to 34 million businesses.

17 As you make your search criteria selections, corresponding search boxes open up for you to enter the specific data you are looking for. In this example, the search is for restaurants in Lancaster County with employees. To execute the search click Update Count. The record count shows 61 listings. Click View Results.

18 Results of search are displayed alphabetically in summary format. If you selected multiple geographic locations they will be listed alphabetically within each location. To view full record, click on company name. Click on Details to view full records for multiple companies you have marked for selection.

19 Three companies were selected for viewing full company record. At the top and bottom of the screen you can use the forward or back arrows to scroll through to view the individual records.

20 Search results can be sorted by record type, title, employee size or sales volume. The column at the right defaults to Corporate Tree. To change column sort type click on the menu in the Corporate Tree box.

21 In this example, sales was selected as the sort. The column heading has changed from Corporate Tree to Sales. You can arrange the results in ascending or descending order. Additional sorts by other criteria can be done when the results are downloaded to Excel by using the data and sort functions.

22 You may download 500 listings at a time. There are 25 listings per screen. You can pick and choose which records you d like to download or you can download the entire results list. Either click in the individual boxes to the left of the company name or to select all, click in the box next to the Company Name column heading. Continue to the next page of listings to repeat the process until you have reached the download limit. Click Download to start the process.

23 The download screen gives several options for file format and level of detail. Select Excel format. Select the level of detail that best suits your needs. The Custom option allows you to pick and choose only those fields you need. Click Download Records.

24 You can choose to either open or save the document. You may save to a desktop, document file, flash drive or other personal device.

25 This is what the list looks like when saved as an Excel file. Depending on number of results, you will have to cut and paste several downloads into one document. Do this before deleting any rows and columns of data you don t need. Information can be sorted by clicking on Data and then selecting Sort.

26 After completing download, click on the back arrow to go back to the results page.

27 Before selecting the next group of companies to download, click in the Company Name box to remove existing checkmarks. Select the next group of companies and repeat the download process as many times as necessary.

28 Within the results, to see the composition of the list and filter it by location, type of business or size, click on the Summary link and then click on your filter selections. Click View Results. Each listing is a hot link that you can click on to see just that segment of the list.

29 To view the results on a map, click on the Map link above.

30 Results are presented on a heat map showing higher or lower density of businesses by location, sales volume or employee size. Areas in red have the most density.

31 As you zoom in on the map the red pinpoints show locations of companies from the results list. In areas where there are several businesses in close proximity it will be denoted by a plus sign marked on the pinpoint.

32 For detailed information about each business click on the pinpoint and a dialog box will open up with name, location and link to full record. Where there are multiple locations on one pinpoint it will indicate 1 of 2 records. Use the right arrow to scroll to the next record.

33 You can create a pie chart or bar chart from your result list. Click on the Charts link.

34 Create your chart based on employee or sales size, city or zip code. The result list must contain at least 50 records in order to use this feature.

35 To switch to the bar chart view click on the icon below the pie chart. You can print or download the image using the icons at the upper right corner of the page.

36 For more information contact: Rhonda Kleiman Business Resource Solutions Specialist x 132 rkleiman@lcci.com