CD ROM Paradise Collection 4/CD ROM Paradise Collection 4 1995 Nov.iso/business/medlin95.zip/MEDLIN.ARC/PC-AR.DOC

Text File | 1995-01-05 | 32KB | 700 lines

                              PC-AR
                           Version 5.0
                  Copyright 1994 by Jerry Medlin


PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

     PC-AR is an accounts receivable and sales analysis program
for small and medium size businesses.  The program runs on a IBM
PC or compatible computer, with one disk drive and at least 256k
memory.

     PC-AR is a Shareware program.  You are encouraged to give
copies to anyone who might use it.  To register as a user, please
send $35 to:

               Jerry Medlin
               Medlin Accounting Shareware
               1461 Sproul Ave.
               Napa, Ca.  94559   U.S.A.

     You may use the order form printed with the VIEWDOC program
to register by mail.  U.S. Checks, Mastercard, Visa, Discover and
American Express are accepted.  For phone orders with a charge
card, call [phone].  To order by FAX, send the order form
with charge card information to [phone].

     Your registration fee entitles you to a copy of the latest
version of the program and telephone assistance should you require
it.  The opening screen will include your company name instead of
the shareware registration request and the registration reminders
on printed reports will be eliminated.

     To run the program, simply type PC-AR from the DOS prompt.  A
menu is then displayed for your selection:

          Program Configuration
          Enter or Change Sales Codes
          Enter or Change Customers
          Enter or Change Charges & Payments
          Print Statements
          Print Charges & Payments Listing
          Print Accounts Receivable Ledger
          Print Sales Summary
          Print Customer Listing
          Print Customer Activity Report
          Print Mailing Labels
          Import or Export Customer Data
          Start a New Month or Go Back
          End Processing and Save Data

     When inputting information, the plus <+> key has the same
effect as the return or enter key.  Numerical information is
entered "calculator style".  The decimal point is placed
automatically.  The minus <-> key enters a negative number.  This
makes using the numeric key pad even easier.

     PC-AR is fast because it works with data in random access
memory, but the capacity is limited by available memory.
Available memory is shared by the data.  With more customers on
file, fewer charges and payments can be entered and vice-versa.
PC-AR allows 4000 customers and 4000 charges and payments per
month with, 640k of memory.  With 256k, the capacity is reduced to
about 700 customers and 700 charges and payments.

     Each time the menu is displayed, the number of charges and
payments that can be added is printed at the bottom of the screen.
The approximate number of customers that can be added can be
obtained by dividing the number by 2.

     Since a power interruption results in loosing all the new
data entered into the program, you should occasionally save your
data back to the disk.  This is done by selecting <Q> Quick Save
from Enter or Change Charges and Payments.


THE PROCESSING CYCLE

     Accounting is done on a monthly cycle.  At the end of each
month, all charges are added to the customer's balance, and all
payments are deducted from the customer's balance.  The new
balances are used as the starting balances for the next month.

     Each time the program is run, all customer data is loaded
into memory.  Also, any charges or payments entered for the period
are loaded into memory.  You may also have the program
automatically enter a fixed billing amount and calculate late
charges and sales tax for each customer.  When all of the charges
and payments for the current month have been entered, begin
printing reports.  Reports may be printed in any order, and as
often as desired.  If you discover an error in any of the reports,
you may correct the problem and reprint the report.  At any time,
you can stop processing by choosing the End Processing selection
from the menu.

     The last step in processing is to apply the charges and
payments to customer balances.  This is done by choosing the Start
a New Month selection on the menu.   This selection does three
things:

1) Ages the customer balances.  All current due amounts become 30
   day due, all 30 day balances become 60 day, etc.

2) Deducts the payments from the customers balance due, starting
   with  90 day and proceeding to current due.

3) Adds the charges to the current balance.  You may then proceed
   with the next month.

ENTER OR CHANGE SALES CODES

     In addition to being an accounts receivable program, PC-AR is
also a sales analysis program.  Each charge or payment is posted
to a sales code.  The Enter or Change Sales Descriptions selection
allows you to enter up to 250 of these sales codes and their
corresponding descriptions and sales tax rates.  The sales
description is also printed on the various reports, including the
statement.

     Enter a three character sales code (alphabetic or numeric
characters are allowed), and up to 21 characters for a
description.  If you enter a default price for each sales code,
the value is entered automatically each time you enter the sales
code.  For most applications, the amount should be zero.  You may
also have the program calculate the sales tax for each sales code
if you enter a sales tax percentage.  Enter zero for non taxable
sales codes.

     You may add or changed sales descriptions, codes and amounts
at any time, but don't delete sales codes once charges or payments
have been entered.  Wait until the charges and payments have been
applied to customer accounts, and you are ready to start a new
month, before deleting sales codes.

     At least one of the sales codes, and it's corresponding
description should be for payments on account.  Payments received
from customers should then be posted to this code, as a negative
amount, using the minus <-> key instead of the enter key.

     If you plan to charge late charges or interest, you should
enter a sales code for this purpose.  Default price and sales tax
percent should be zero for the payments and late charges account
codes.  If you will be calculating sales tax amounts separately,
you should also enter a sales code for sales tax charged.


ENTER OR CHANGE CUSTOMERS

     Customer information is entered and changed using this
     selection from the menu.  Enter the following information for
     each customer:

     Customer Name - Two lines of 31 characters each are
     available.

     Customer Code - This is a ten character code used for sorting
     customers, and also to post charges and payments to the
     customers account.  In most cases, you want to enter the
     customers last name, followed by as much of the first name as
     will fit in the remaining characters.  For instance, if the
     customer's name is Jerry Medlin, the customer code would be
     MEDLINJERR.  Notice all capital letters are used.  If you

     enter lower case letters, they are changed to upper case
     automatically.  Also, notice no spaces are included.
     The program will prevent you from entering a previously used
     customer code.  If a customer code includes a tilde character
     (~), the customer will be deleted when the account is paid.
     This allows you to enter one time customers and have the
     program automatically delete them when they are no longer
     active.

     Street Address - Up to 31 characters for the street address.

     City State & Zip - Up to 31 characters for the city, state
     and zip code.

     Telephone or Memo - Up to 48 characters for the telephone
     number or any other important information about the client
     you wish to keep.

     Late Charge % - Enter the desired late charge for this
     customer as a percentage.  If you are on a monthly cycle and
     you wish to charge an 18% annual rate for balances overdue,
     you would enter 1.5 (18 divided by 12 months.).  If you don't
     want to charge late fees to this customer, press <Enter> to
     enter a zero.

     Auto Bill Amount - Dollar amounts entered here may be posted
     to a customers account automatically each month.

     Balances Due - You may enter the current balance, the 30 day
     balance due, the 60 day balance due, and the 90 day balance
     due.  For new customers with no opening balances, press
     <Enter> to enter zero.  These balances will be automatically
     updated each time you start a new month.

     Pressing the <Escape> key during entry takes you back to the
previous field.  Pressing the <Escape> key at the first name entry
takes you to the command mode.  The command mode allows you to
scroll up and down through the customer names, delete customers,
change customer information, do a quick check on the balances due
for all customers and even print statements for individual
customers.  Pressing the <Escape> key from command mode takes you
back to the menu.

     The acceptable commands at any point are printed at the
bottom of the screen.


ENTER OR CHANGE CHARGES AND PAYMENTS

     This selection allows you to enter charges and payments for
the current month.  Charge amounts are entered as positive numbers
using the plus <+> or <Enter> key and payments are entered as
negative numbers using the minus <-> key (enter the number, then
press the minus key).

     Before any charges and payments can be posted, you must have
at least one sales description entered, so you have a sales code
to post to.  The following information is entered for each charge
or payment:

     Customer Code - The 10 character code for each customer is
     used to post a charge or payment.  Pressing <Enter> at the
     beginning enters the previous customer code.  As you enter a
     customer code, all of the possible matching customer codes
     are displayed at the bottom.  You need enter only as much of
     the customer code as necessary to distinguish it from any
     other code.  With each additional character entered, the list
     shrinks.  Pressing return at any time, accepts the customer
     code at the top of the list.  The customers name is then
     printed at the bottom of the screen so you can be sure you
     are posting to the correct customer account.

     Date - Use the up and down arrow keys to change the default
     day, and the left and right arrow keys to move to the month
     or year, then press <Enter>.  You may also enter a specific
     date by pressing the period key and then the number.

     Invoice number - Up to 12 characters for the invoice number.
     Alphabetic characters are allowed.  Pressing the plus <+> key
     adds one to the previous invoice number, and clears the
     invoice total shown on the screen.  Pressing <Enter> gives
     you the same invoice number as the previous line, and does
     not change the invoice total.

     Sales Code - Enter one of the sales codes.  Sales codes and
     their corresponding descriptions should be setup using the
     Enter or Change Sales Descriptions selection of the menu.
     The possible sales codes and descriptions will be displayed
     at the bottom of the screen as you enter the number.
     Pressing <Enter> at the beginning, defaults to the sales code
     for the previous entry.  If you are using alphabetic
     characters for sales codes, be aware that upper and lower
     case letters are considered different by this entry routine.

     Amount - Enter the amount of the charge or payment.  Payments
     should be entered as a negative number.  A negative number is
     entered by using the minus <-> key instead of the <Enter> key
     after the number is typed in.

     Pressing the <Enter> key on any entry except the amount,
defaults to the previous value.  This allows you to make multiple
entries for an invoice with the same customer, date and invoice
number.  Pressing the plus <+> key for the invoice number
increments the previous number by one.

     Two numbers are printed at the top right of the screen.  The
top number is the total of all charges (+ entries) and the bottom
number is the total of all payments (- entries).  Use these
numbers to check your input data.  The screen also displays the
total for the current invoice.  This total is reset to zero each
time you enter a new invoice number, and should be checked against
the invoice total.

      Pressing the Escape key during entry takes you back to the
previous field.  Pressing the Escape key at the first entry
position takes you to the command mode.  The command mode allows
you to scroll up and down through the entries, delete entries and
change entries.  A number of other commands are also available
with a single keystroke:

     You may press the <A> Auto Bill key to automatically post the
auto bill amount entered for each customer.  You are asked to
enter a date and invoice number and amount for the automatic
postings.  Normally the amount should be zero.  If you enter an
amount greater than zero, an invoice is created for EVERY customer
for  that amount, even if the customer has no auto bill amount
entered.  Be sure to have a sales code available for sales tax.

     Pressing the <L> Late Charges key will calculate and enter
late charges for all customers.  You will be asked to enter a
date, invoice number (blank is acceptable), sales code and amount
for the late charges.  The optional amount will be used as a
minimum late charge in the calculation.  Late charges are
calculated on the balance brought forward for the month remaining
unpaid at the end of the month.  Late charges should only be
calculated once at the end of the month.

     Pressing the <Q> Quick Save key will save all of your
customer and invoice data to the disk.  Occasional power failures
are a fact of life, so it is a good idea to use quick save every
15 minutes or so.

      <S> Sort invoices will sort all of the current invoices by
any field.  The <T> command will calculate and create a sales tax
entry for each customer based on the current invoices and the tax
rates entered for each sales code.  You should only use this
command once per month before printing statements.  If you use the
tax calculation feature of PCINV, don't use the <T> tax
calculation.

     Pressing the Escape key from command mode takes you back to
the menu.  All the available commands are printed at the bottom of
the screen, and are chosen by a single keystroke.

PRINTING REPORTS

     On some reports, before you start printing, you are asked to
enter beginning and ending customer code.  Press the <Enter> key
to start at the first customer.  Press <Enter> again to print to
the last customer.  This feature allows you to print partial
reports, and is handy when your printer eats the 598th of 600
statements.

     When printing more than 20 statements or mailing labels, you
are asked if you want to sort the customers by zip code.  If you
answer <Y> (yes), the statements or mailing labels are printed in
zip code order.  This allows you to take advantage of the cheaper
bulk mailing rates.

     Next, you are asked to choose if you want to print the report
to the printer <Enter>, to the screen <S> or to a file <F>.  If
you choose to print to a file, you are asked for a file name.  The
report is then saved as an ASCII file.  These files are not
readable by PC-AR, but can be viewed and changed with a text
editor; and used by other programs that can read ASCII files.  The
report is printed to a file exactly as it is printed to a printer.
When you print to the screen, you may use the arrow keys and page
up and page down keys to scroll through the report.


PRINT STATEMENTS

Customer statements may be printed on statement forms from New
England Business Services (NEBS) or on plain paper.  For laser
printers and other full page printers, the form number is 9311 and
the window envelope is # 741.  For sprocket feed printers, the
form number is 9060 and the window envelope is #772. The forms can
be ordered pre printed, with your company name and address, by
calling NEBS at 800-388-3810.  Tell them the mail code number is
95111.

     If you don't want to use forms preprinted with your name and
return address, you may have the program print your name and
address on blank forms.  Choose Program Configuration from the
main menu to enter your name and address and set Plain Paper to Y.

      You may print a single statement to test statement alignment
and adjust the alignment accordingly.


PRINT CHARGES & PAYMENTS LISTING

     To provide an adequate audit trail, this report must be
printed and retained, before closing out the month.  It lists all
the charges and payments entered for the month, and the total of
charges and payments.

     You are asked to enter a starting and ending invoice date.
Pressing the <Enter> key twice defaults to the first and last
date, and all invoices for the period is printed.  You can use
this date feature to print only the invoices entered for a single
day, or a group of days.


PRINT ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE LEDGER

     This report prints each customer's opening balance, all
charges and payments for that customer, any late charges added and
the closing balance.  Customers with no activity and no opening or
closing balances are skipped.  The report should be printed and
retained at the end of each month.  Since PC-AR is a "balance
forward" accounts receivable program, the Accounts Receivable
Ledger is your best source of information, several months from
now, on how a customers balance got that way.



PRINT SALES SUMMARY

     This is a listing of all charges and payments by sales
category, followed by a one page listing of total sales by
category.

     Usually, you only need to print a sales summary for the
current period, but you may also print sales summaries for
previous periods and even ranges of previous periods.  Press
<Enter> at the range question for the current period only or enter
a number for the number of periods back.  For instance, if you are
currently processing June, entering a two would print a sales
summary for the month of April.  You may also enter two numbers
separated by a comma to print a sales summary for a range of
periods.  For instance, 2,3 would print a sales summary for March
and April if you are currently processing June.

     Answering <N> to the "Do you want a detail listing for each
sales code" question will give you a short summary of sales totals
only.  Answering <Y> will list each charge and payment by sales
code.  You should print the detailed listing at the end of the
month for audit trail purposes.

     Next, you must enter a starting and ending invoice date.
Pressing the <Enter> key twice defaults to the first and last
dates used, and all invoices for the period are printed.  You can
use this date feature to print a daily summary of sales.  By
assigning separate sales codes for paid by check, paid by cash and
paid by credit card, you can even print a list of checks to go
with your bank deposit for the day.

     You may choose to not print the detail listing for each sales
code and only print the final summary of sales by sales code.
This last report will also print a sub total every time the first
character of the sales code changes. For instance, a sub total
will be printed for accounts 100, 110 and 120 and another sub
total for accounts 200, 210 and 220.

PRINT CUSTOMER LISTING

     This report is a printout of all customer information on file
including ageing information.  The balances shown include any
charges or payments made since the beginning of the month.

     You may choose to omit customer addresses, and to omit
customers with no activity, when you print this report.


PRINT CUSTOMER ACTIVITY REPORT

      The Customer Activity Report summarizes all the transactions
posted to a customer's account for the past months with the
beginning and ending balance.  Normally, you should choose only a
single customer to review, but if you have an unlimited paper
budget, you may choose to print a customer activity report for all
customers.  PC-AR normally saves data for six months, but you
change use Program Configuration to change the number of months
saved to any number between 1 and 99.


PRINT MAILING LABELS

     As long as you have all this customer information on your
computer, you might as well use it to print mailing labels.  You
can print labels for all the customers, or only one customer, and
you can sort them by zip code, and print labels only for customers
with balances due, if you wish.  If you have set "Laser Printer"
to Y in Program Configuration, labels will be printed on 2 5/8" X
1" laser labels.  They come 30 per sheet and are commonly called
5160 labels.  Because the labels are small, only the first 25
characters of the name and address can be printed on a laser
label.

     For standard sprocket feed printers, the labels are printed
on standard one wide labels with one inch spacing between labels.
To align the sprocket feed printer, use the selection process to
print a single label.  For laser labels, you may add extra lines
to the top of each page under Program Configuration.

IMPORT OR EXPORT CUSTOMER DATA

     This selection creates a file on the logged drive and
subdirectory called PC-AR.PRN, which can be read by programs like
Lotus 123 and Reflex.  Text data in the customer file is
surrounded by quotation marks.  You can then read the data into
Lotus 123 by using the /File/Import/Numbers command.  Be sure no
names or addresses in your customer file contain quotation marks,
before trying to export customer data.  You may also import
similarly structured customer data into PC-AR.  You should not
attempt to import data unless you have a good understanding of
ASCII data formats.


START A NEW MONTH OR GO BACK

      When you have printed all the reports you need and all is in
order, you can start the next month.

     All charges, payments and late charges are applied to
customer balances. The customers balances are updated to agree
with the balances shown on the statements, and the Accounts
Receivable Ledger.  The charges and payments are saved, so later
you may review all the transactions posted to an account for the
past months using the Print Customer Activity Report selection of
the menu.

     The Go Back selection allows you to go back to the previous
month and make changes and print reports even after you have
started entering charges and payments for the new month.  When you
have made your changes, start a new month again and your new
month's charges and payments will be waiting for you.  You may go
back as often as necessary, but the process may take some time for
all of the necessary calculations.  To get the aging right when
you go back, you must have at least three months of customer
history in your data.  In other words you must have Months of Data
to Save under Program configuration set to at least 3 and you must
have been using the program for at least three months.


END PROCESSING AND SAVE DATA

     When processing is completed, exit the program using this
selection.   Do not end processing by turning off the computer,
because you lose any data entered since the last save operation.

PROGRAM CONFIGURATION

     Program Configuration allows you to change certain features
of PC-AR.  Use the up and down arrows to move the pointer, and
then press <C> to change an item.  You are allowed to change the
following information:

     Display colors - If you have a color adapter and monitor, you
     can change the colors for screen borders, program prompts,
     data, and background.  Use the arrow keys to change the
     colors.  The display is instantly updated as you enter the
     new colors.

     Laser or sheet feeder printer? - You may also change the way
     PC-AR starts a new page.  Usually, PC-AR starts a new page by
     counting lines, until the page total equals 66 lines.  If you
     enter a "Y" for the laser printer question, PC-AR starts a
     new page by issuing a form feed command.

     Plain paper statement - If you change this to a "Y",
     statements can be printed on plain 8 1/2 x 11 paper.  If you
     choose "N", statements will be printed on cut sheet form 9311
     if Laser Printer is "Y" and on the shorter sprocket feed form
     9060 for Laser Printer set to "N".

     Months of data to save - The PC-AR program saves charges and
     payments on your data disk for later review with the Customer
     Activity Report.   Normally, the paid invoices for the
     previous six months are saved.  You may modify this number to
     be anywhere from 1 to 99 months.  Remember, the more month's
     data you save, the more room you need on the data disk, and
     the more time it takes to review a vendor's activity.  You
     must save at least three months of data to get proper aging
     using the Go Back command.

     Path for PC-AR data files - Enter a drive and path
     designation for PC-AR data.  For example, if you want the
     program to read data from the B drive, enter B:.

     Printer for reports (1 or 2) - If you wish to print reports
     or labels to a printer attached to LPT2 change this number.

     Printer for statements (1 or 2) - If you wish to print
     statements to a printer attached to LPT2 change this number.

     Statement headings - If your company name and address is not
     pre printed on the statement forms, you may enter a statement
     heading.  Enter up to five 31 character lines to print on the
     top of your plain paper or laser statement.

     Statement footer message - You can enter a 40 character
     message to be printed at the bottom of the statement form.
     This is a good place to enter your payment terms, or a short
     advertising message.

     Print ageing on statements - Changing this from Y to N
     prevents the 30, 60, 90 day ageing information from being
     printed on the statements.

     Invoice details on statements - Changing this from a Y to a N
     causes only the totals for each invoice to be printed on the
     statements.  This allows you to have a detailed breakdown of
     sales on the sales summary, but prints only invoice totals on
     the statements.  All adjacent entries with the same invoice
     number are totaled on the statement with "INVOICE #" for a
     description.  For this option to work properly, multiple
     entries with the same invoice number, must be together in the
     charges and payments listing.  It is a good idea to sort by
     Invoice number before printing the statements.

     Left margin on reports - If you use an Epson compatible
     printer or a Hewlett Packard laser printer, you may add a
     left margin to your reports.  The necessary codes to change
     to a slightly smaller printing and add a small left margin
     will automatically be sent each time you print a report.
     Choose <E> for an Epson compatible printer or <H> for a HP
     compatible printer or <0> for none.  Statement printing will
     not be affected.

     Print zero balance statements - You may choose not to print
     statements for customers with no balance forward.

     Print credit balance statements - You may choose not to print
     statements for customers with a credit balance.

     Extra lines on top of each page - some sheet feeder printers
     (like the Canon BJ series)  start printing too close to the
     top of a page.  Use this selection to add a blank line or
     two.

     When you have finished making your changes, press the escape
key to return to the menu.  Changes will be saved for all future
sessions.

DATA FILES

     Data files are created automatically by PC-AR.  The Medlin
Menu Program can copy these files to another disk for backup
purposes.

PC-AR.CUS      Customer data file with balances.
PC-AR.INV      Current period payments and charges.
PC-AR.DES      Sales codes and descriptions.
PC-AR.CFG      Data created by Program Configuration.
PRIOR.INV      Current month's data when you go back.
AR1.INV, AR2.INV, AR3.INV, etc. contain the previous period
payments and charges.  AR1.INV is the most recent.

MULTIPLE SALES TAX RATES

     If you sell to areas with different sales tax rates, you can
set up a duplicate series of Sales Codes for each area.  For
example:

101  Widget (County A)        6.00%
102  Left Widget (County A)   6.00%
103  Right Widget (County A)  6.00%
201  Widget (County B)        7.25%
202  Left Widget (County B)   7.25%
203  Right Widget (County B)  7.25%

     This allows you to print a sales summary with different sub
totals for each county for tax reporting purposes.  You may use
this for departments also.

HELPFUL HINTS

     The <Escape> key is always used to go back to the previous
operation.  From anywhere in the program, if you continue to press
the <Escape> key, you will eventually return to the main menu.

     When printing reports, you may pause printing by pressing any
key.  To resume printing, press any key again.  To quit printing,
press the escape key after pausing.

     Each customer must have a unique customer code for posting.
If you use numbers, the program won't object, if the numbers are
all the same length.  Customer number 1 should be entered as
00001, for instance.  But, you should at least try the method
suggested earlier in the manual.  Use a customer code made up of
the customers last name plus as much of the first name as the 10
character limit allows.  Jane Smith would then have a code of
SMITHJANE (Notice there are no spaces).  This method allows rapid
posting of invoices, without looking up customer numbers.  The
searching method allows you to quickly examine the codes for all
of the Smiths, by typing SMITH when asked for a code.

     The first 6 times you start a new month, more disk space is
required for historical files.  If you have a large business and
you are using floppy disks for data storage, you could run out of
disk space.


CONVERTING DATA FROM EARLIER VERSIONS

     If you have been using version 3.7 or higher, no conversion
is necessary.

     If you are changing from a version of PC-AR beginning with 2
(a very old version) you need to convert your customer data.  A
program called CONVERT.COM is available for this purpose and is
free to all registered users.  Run the program and follow the
directions on the screen.

     If you have been using a version prior to 3.7, you must
rename your earlier charges and payments files for use with this
program.  Contact us to receive instructions on how to rename your
earlier data files.

     Starting with Version 3.9, late charges are handled the same
as any other charge or payment.  You must enter a sales code to
receive the late charges and, each month, you must choose the <L>
Late Charges option to calculate and enter late charges.  This
method requires only a few seconds per month to enter the late
charges, and provides increased flexibility and improved audit
trail.

     PC-AR is written in Turbo Pascal.  The source code is
available for $95.