Precision Software Applications Silver Collection 4

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┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ PAGE FINANCIAL CONTROLLER - SHORT MANUAL │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌──────────────┐ │ INTRODUCTION │ └──────────────┘ This is the short manual supplied on disk along with the shareware version of Page Financial Controller. Users are expected to have worked through the accompanying tutorial. Many topics which are detailed in the tutorial are only mentioned briefly in this manual. Also read any README.* files supplied on disk; they may include information written too late to be included in the manual. Note that the software is being continually improved, and there will probably be more features in the software than described in the manual. The sample screens shown in this manual cannot show the colours and shading which will actually appear on your computer. If any instructions in the manual are not in complete accord with instructions appearing on the screen when using the Page software, then the instructions on the screen should be given more weight. The software is being continuously improved, and the manual may occasionally lag behind. The shareware version of Page has been released in the expectation that users will register as customers with the authors. Information on how to register is included in a READ.ME file, which accompanied the software and this manual on disk. The copyright of the software and all documentation is retained by Page Consultants, the authors. ┌─────────────────────────────┐ │ LEGAL POSITION OF SHAREWARE │ └─────────────────────────────┘ Shareware is a fully working copy of software. It is released with a limited licence, such that users are only entitled to use the programs for demonstration or evaluation purposes, or for a limited period. To use the software beyond this time on live data is a criminal offence under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and such users will bear a civil liability to pay the registration fee to the publishers. What does someone "buy" as shareware? They are paying for disks, postage, and the service of making a true copy of the software, but the shareware software itself is free. If a disk vendor sells these disks without describing the contents as shareware, or states or implies that the user will not have to pay an extra fee to use the software permanently, then any such vendor may be liable to severe penalties. Buyers are entitled to a true copy of the software, but have no legal rights to a refund if it does not suit them, or even if they do not think it works properly. There can be no implied terms of merchantable quality or fitness for purpose in the contents of a shareware disk, insofar as it is legally only demonstration software, and cannot be lawfully used for live data processing. ┌──────────┐ │ CONTENTS │ └──────────┘ Section 1 General Information 1.01 File sizes and numerical limits 1.02 Planning data codes 1.03 Entering existing data into Page 1.04 Printing Reports, and Spooling 1.05 On-screen Help 1.06 Pop-up calculator 1.07 Pop-up System Status 1.08 Accessing DOS commands within Page 1.09 Backup (Data Security) 1.10 Multi-user use 2 Ledgers 2.01 Sales Ledger 2.01.01 Sales Invoicing in detail 2.02 Purchase Ledger 2.03 Nominal Ledger and Cashbook 2.04 Stock (Inventory) Control 2.05 Sales Order Processing 2.06 Purchase Order Processing 2.07 Job Costing 2.08 Data Export (ASCII file) 2.09 Utilities 2.09.01 Month/Quarter/Year End 2.09.02 Company Header Details 2.09.03 Layout Sales Invoices and Statements 2.09.04 Passwords 2.09.05 Spooled Reports, Deferred Printing 2.09.06 Multi-User Users Report 2.10 Sales Discounts 2.11 Sales and Purchase Historic Analysis 2.12 Budgets 2.13 Parts Explosion/BOM 3 Accounting notes 4 Errors and problems ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1 General Information │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1.01 File sizes and numerical limits │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Page Financial Controller will allow up to two million records in each file. The maximum file size will effectively be limited by your disk size. File sizes do not need to be pre-set. When you are expected to enter information, you will be directed around the screen by the input field turning red. The computer will read whatever is in this field when you press Return (carriage-return, or the Enter key). Whatever is in the field before you are prompted to enter information is there as a "default". If you just press Return, then that information will be entered. You may edit the information in the field, using the left and right arrow keys, and the Ins and Del keys on the keyboard. Data will be accepted into the computer on the basis of "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG). This is generally accepted as the most user-friendly method of data entry. The cursor will generally move around a data-entry screen from left to right and downwards, unless there is some logical reason to do otherwise. Some programs with a lot of data entry fields allow you to go back a field on the screen by pressing the up-arrow key; instructions for these programs may include this fact. If you enter the wrong information in a field and press Return, and then find this is a program that does not enable you to go back a field, then it will not matter. You will either get an option a little later in the program to not update the files (i.e. ignore the data just entered), or it is a program which does not change any files (such as a report which you can just leave to run through to the end). When entering a number in the thousands, omit the comma, i.e. enter "9999" instead of "9,999". Do not enter either pound or pence symbols i.e. "1.13" not "£1.13" or "10p". Negative numbers should be entered with a "-" at the front, e.g. "-10". Decimal points, if used, should be the ".", and not the continental comma. The entries "2.50", "2.5", "2.", "0.3", and ".3" are all acceptable. If you enter an invalid number, such as "A3", "3A", or "2..3", the software will either try to make sense of it (and display the result), or otherwise the cursor will not move out of the input field and wait for you to input something more sensible. Page Financial Controller will cope with the full range of numbers expected in a medium size business, e.g. up to £99,999,999 in the Nominal Ledger. If you try to enter or use figures beyond the intended capabilities of the system, then the system will make such sense of them as it is able; in such circumstances it is likely that the display format of the figures on screen or report will seem rather strange. Values are generally rounded to the nearest penny, and units to the nearest whole number. This is by far the most usual requirement. For example, an ironmonger who bought 144 screws for £1.50 would find them valued at 1p each, giving a total valuation of £1.44, and the same result if he bought them for £1.40. You can use the Stock File Set program to tell Page to allow fractional units and/or parts of a penny. There are expected widths for values on the screen and in reports; if you try to exceed these widths, it may lead to ugly formats. Setting fractions in this way may lead to rounding errors (the computer's arithmetic failing on exact tiny fractions). You could equally select a different unit of measure e.g. "175 centimetre lengths" instead of "1.75 metre lengths". Auditors and taxmen will accept reasonable rounding errors. We can easily tailor the software to your exact needs (e.g. relatively huge values in Yen). Note that although you might set a stock item to have a cost or selling price in fractions of a penny, each line of an invoice will (as it must) be rounded to a whole number of pence. The initial setting of Page is for stock quantities to be whole units. It will initially prevent you using fractions of quantities. You may instruct the software to allow fractions of quantities in the Stock File Set program. This will also allow sales and purchase invoicing to record fractional non-stock quantities. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1.02 Planning data codes │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Each customer, supplier, stock item etc. needs a code by which it can be identified. Page allows you to give each customer, supplier or job a code up to 8 characters long. Stock items may have a 20 character code. Nominal codes are a special case, as explained. Try to make codes both easy to remember and easy to type. For example, a code such as "3R 4d5-bncQf" is easy for Page, but not easy for humans to remember or type accurately. Page will automatically index (sort in order) record codes. The sorting sequence is: Spaces (blanks) come first, then numbers 0 to 9, then capital letters A to Z, then lower-case letters a to z come at the end. You can also use special characters (!@%&*./= etc.), if you are willing to risk confusing yourself. In most cases, Page will automatically turn any letters in codes into upper case capitals. Note that if you must use numeric codes, then they will be sorted left- character-to-right-character, and codes such as "1 ", "2 ", and then "11 " will be sorted as: "1 ", "11 ", and then "2 ". So you would need to right-adjust numbers, e.g. "0004 ", or " 532 " to obtain the numeric sort you need for sensible reports. Page reports generally let you select only portions of your stock or other files, by specifying start and end codes. E.g. to select a start code for a report of "GE ", and an end code of "GEzzzzzzzzzz" will report on all the records whose codes begin "GE" (neither the start nor end codes needing to exist themselves). So you would best plan the codes so that you will be easily able to select portions of the file to print by specifying start and end codes. A typical way of giving customers a code is by using their company name. E.g. "JONES ", "TELECOM ", "GREEN-P ", "SMITH01 ", "SMITH02 ", etc. Nominal codes have already been loaded onto your system, as part of the Page installation. Although there is an 8 character alphanumeric field, you will find only the first four characters are used, and contain numbers. These codes may be familiar to you if you have used "Sage" (a rival accounts package to ours, whose trademark we acknowledge). You are not forced to use these pre- set codes. You could simply enter your own codes (e.g. "SALES", "STOCK", "OVERHEAD"), and use only these. You can create extra codes to the Sage 4- character-number format, and mix them in with the pre-set codes, and the reports will recognise these extra codes too. Note that codes below 1000 are usually Balance Sheet accounts, and numbers 1000 and above are usually Profit- and-Loss accounts. You should find the pre-set codes quite sufficient for any small business. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1.03 Entering existing data into Page │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Getting your accounts started is very much like learning to drive a car. As soon as you are moving, you only need to use the steering wheel, accelerator, and brake. But what really happens? You have to start the car first, and learn the difficult parts first, the gears and clutch. Accounts are the same. Setting them up is the difficult part, and it happens when you are least experienced and confident! Once you have got over the hurdle of starting, however, things become much easier. Firstly, make sure your hardware is working properly. An integrated accounting system puts more load onto your machine than, for example, word- processing, and will crash because of hardware faults that less powerful software did not find. You should be sure that you have a reliable electricity supply; many industrial estates have very "dirty" power, and even momentary "spikes" or "surges" in the voltage can corrupt data. Make sure that you are confident in the use of your printer too. Dealing with a printer "hang" for the first time whilst using accounts is a sure way to corrupt your accounts data files. Corrupt files are a nuisance, although not really dangerous if you have been taking proper backups as explained later. Try to have a little familiarity with the more common DOS commands such as DIR and COPY. Also FORMAT and CHKDSK, which should be in a \DOS directory, and on your PATH. If CHKDSK reports errors, then Page may experience problems, most especially when files become large. (All these commands have been supplied along with your computer, and should be explained in a manual which came with your computer. These commands are not part of Page, and we will not attempt to duplicate what is already in your DOS manual). These will certainly prove useful to any computer user sometime or other. Page will run much better if your CONFIG.SYS file on your boot-up disk has the lines FILES=50 and BUFFERS=20 (or more). (These commands and files should also be explained in a manual which came with your computer, not with Page.) There are a few basic accounting or bookkeeping terms that you should be able to understand. Debtors are people who owe you money, usually customers. Creditors are people to whom you owe money, usually suppliers. The sales ledger has all your customers who are debtors, and the purchase ledger all your purchase creditors. The nominal ledger has summaries of both sales and purchase ledgers, and also much more information, such as the value of fixed assets, or stock held. Nominal accounts (in Page the same as Cashbook Analysis codes) are split into Profit-and-Loss types and Balance Sheet accounts. Balance Sheet accounts are those carried forward from year to year, such as Bank Balance and Debtors. Profit-and-Loss accounts are cleared at year end, such as Overheads, Sales, and Stock Purchases. Credits are, by accounting convention, shown as negative ("-" minus) numbers, and debits as positive. An old accounting saying is "credit the account which gives the value, and debit the account which receives the value." For example, if you paid £10 cash for a book, then credit the cash/bank account by £10 (i.e. £-10), and debit the overhead account by £10 (i.e. +£10). Debits and credits were never intended to be easy; they were invented by accountants for accountants. Almost all your transactions in Page, you will be relieved to hear, have the debits and credits worked out automatically. An integrated accounts system is one (like Page) where one transaction in one program will affect all the relevant ledgers. For example, when you produce a sales invoice, you not only have a piece of paper printed, but both sales and nominal ledgers are updated, as well as the stock file if used. If you are feeling uncertain, then work through the Page tutorial again, and check your knowledge by entering a small amount of test data using an extra test disk. We will now start entering your data. Set your company name into Page, as explained in the tutorial. Use the same program to tell the software whether you are VAT-registered, and to amend the VAT rates if necessary. Set the number of printers you have connected, the £ sign to print if your printer is not Epson-compatible and whether or not to pause the printer after a form feed. (This last option requires that all the pins are connected between the computer and the printer, i.e. thick cable.) Choose the stock menu option to Set how the Stock File is to be used. Either elect to use an integrated stock file, where item quantities are updated by sales and purchase invoicing, or select the non-integrated option. Stock would typically be used non-integrated as a product file, or a simple way of calling up stock (or service) descriptions and prices. For example, a fence- mender would find it useful to be able to call up items such as nails and glue when accepting a purchase invoice, but he would be unlikely to try to track quantities in hand. He may like to call up stereotype descriptions such as "Mend a fence" from the product file, but he certainly couldn't keep a service in stock. There is a third option, to select that some items are to have controlled levels. This is particularly useful for manufacturers, who may want to control levels of parts, but also keep labour on the product file for B-O-M. The same program gives options to record prices to fractions of a penny, and allow sales and purchase invoices to a fraction of a unit quantity. If you do not want to use the pre-set Nominal Accounts, then now go into the Nominal Ledger and enter your own codes. This is the point when users who are new to the idea of integrated accounts start to really worry about whether they understand what is happening. If you do not really understand what nominal accounts are, then just use those accounts which are pre-set. Even though Page has a great many options throughout the system, there are sensible defaults built into the system (a default is whatever will happen if you do not tell it explicitly that you want something else). Try entering your stock next, if you hold stock, because the stock system is really the simplest for new operators to immediately grasp what is happening on the computer. You can either create the stock items, and then adjust stock into these records, or you can create stock items while amending quantities-in- hand. If you use the latter option, you will probably come back to the stock items later to tidy up their details. Next enter your active customers and suppliers. Those of them which have existing outstanding balances can be dealt with in one of two ways. The easy way is to do one single dummy sales or purchase invoice for each of these customers or suppliers. This would be for their outstanding balance. The disadvantage of this method is that the balances are not aged; they are all entered as current month balances regardless. The more difficult way gives the correct aged balances. For example you can immediately start issuing sales statements to customers which show their debt broken down into months. To do this, you have to enter each outstanding invoice individually, and the correct number of month-ends ago. If, for example, your oldest sales or purchase invoice is six months old, then set the "Todays Date" (when entering Page; if need be, then exit and re-enter) as six months ago, enter the six-month invoices, run a voucher listing, and do a month end. Then repeat the process for five-month-old invoices, four month, and so on. When you have entered the sales and purchase ledger correctly, then make the nominal ledger on the computer the same as your actual manual figures (if you kept a manual nominal ledger). If you need to enter a voucher which has more than nine lines (splits into more than nine accounts), then enter eight lines to a voucher page, with a dummy counterbalancing ninth line on each of the pages. If you make any mistakes during your initial data entry, then restore to the last point where you had it right, and re-enter the data from then on. You may well find it a good idea to make frequent backups while you are still gaining confidence with the system, say every half hour or so. Then, if and when you make an awful error, you only have half an hour's work to redo. You may well want to take print-outs of your customers, suppliers, and stock codes, and keep them by the computer. It is often easier to look up a code on a print-out rather than searching on the screen. Your routine work in Page consists of entering details of purchases, sales, and stock adjustments, and running reports whenever needed. You will want to check (and, if need be, reset) the working date every day that Page is used. Always backup your data at the end of every day that you have used the system to alter any details on your files (and even more frequently when you have done a lot of work on your accounts, which you would not like to risk losing in the event of computer breakdown). Your end-of-month, quarter, and year routines are explained with the relevant program. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1.04 Printing Reports, and Spooling │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Reports which you select will not print immediately, but will be "spooled" onto your disk which then enables you to select: i) printing the report on your PRINTER (hard-copy onto paper), and/or ii) displaying the report onto the SCREEN, and/or iii) KEEPing the report as a file on disk (to print later). Full prompts are given on the screen for spool-print options. When displaying reports on the screen, a 'Q' or pressing escape will abort the display. Pressing the space bar once will pause the screen display and a second press will restart it. If you are used to spooling, then you can skip the next section. If you are new to this idea, then please read the next sections carefully. Page has an in-built spooling system. This will not interfere with any other spooling system which you may have already installed onto your computer. Whenever you run a Page report program, it will not immediately appear on your printer. It will instead be created on an intermediate disk file. This has the advantages: A) You can print as many copies as required. It would otherwise be a bit of a nuisance if you had created a Sales Invoice and the paper skewed in the printer. B) You can leave spool files waiting while you continue other work. You might otherwise, in a multi-user system with one printer, just be about to print a report when another operator started printing a lengthy report, leaving you drumming your fingers until it had finished. C) You may choose to print on your screen, or any printer (DOS allows up to three to be connected at the same time). D) You can let print-outs needing special paper accumulate, and print them in one go. When a report program has finished creating a report, you will get the choice of the following options: ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ SCREEN PRINTER NO-PRINT │ └─────────────────────────┘ The SCREEN option will show the report on the screen. It will scroll down. While it is scrolling down the screen, pressing the space-bar will freeze it to stop the scrolling, and pressing space again will re-start the scroll. Pressing "Q" will stop the report and send you direct to the AGAIN-KEEP-FINISH box. When the report has finished, you will press the key "NEXT", and then you will go to the AGAIN-KEEP-FINISH box. The PRINTER option will appear only if you have told the "Set Headers etc." program that you have 1 printer. If you have two printers (and have told the Customise program about them), you will get instead options labelled PTR-1 and PTR-2. These will refer respectively to the printers which you have configured within DOS as PRN: (or LPT1:) and LPT2:. If you have three printers you will also get an option PTR-3 which will refer to DOS device LPT3:. Selecting a printer will result in the report being printed on that printer. Make sure the printer has paper and is switched on first, of course. After the report has finished printing on the printer, you will go to the AGAIN-KEEP-FINISH box. The NO-PRINT key on the SCREEN-PRINTER-NO-PRINT box does not print at all, and sends you straight to the AGAIN-KEEP-FINISH box. ┌───────────────────┐ │ AGAIN KEEP FINISH │ └───────────────────┘ The AGAIN option takes you back to the SCREEN-PRINTER-NO-PRINT box. This enables you to print the report as often as required. The KEEP option exits, leaving the spool file on disk. You may wish to do this to print the report at a more convenient time, using, for example, the DOS command "PRINT filename" (the PRINT command is described in the DOS manual which came with your computer). The name of the spool file can be chosen and entered when you keep the file. The default name is the program's name plus ".S1". E.g. the Trial Balance spool file is PARTRIAL.S1. The more likely reason to keep a spool file is to edit it (in any word-processor which will allow you to edit an ASCII file, e.g. WordStar). After you have finished with the file, delete it, otherwise the next time you run that report, the new report will be appended to the old. (If editing, note that the £ pound sign may be shown as "^\" or such-like by your word-processor.) You may also wish to KEEP reports so that they will accumulate. The next time the same report program is run, the new report will be ADDED to the end of the old report. This is particularly useful to Batch Print reports which require the paper to be changed in the printer. The FINISH key exits after deleting the spool file. You will be given a warning if you are about to delete a spool file which you have not printed at all. There are various printer errors such as "Out of Paper", "Printer Off- line", and "Printer Error" (usually switched off), which can appear on the screen. You should correct the fault and press the space bar to continue in this case. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1.05 On-screen Help │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You can press F1 (function key F-1) at any time to get context-sensitive help. This will appear in a box on the screen. You can amend this help message (this is especially useful for a systems manager leaving instructions for other operators). ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1.06 Pop-up calculator │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You can press F2 at any time to get a pop-up calculator in the top-left corner of the screen. Escape exits from the calculator. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1.07 Pop-up System Status │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You can press F5 at any time to be told the number of records in each file. Some of this will make immediate sense, for example the number of customers on file. Some of the information needs a little interpretation. For example, the number of Nominal transactions does not report the number of vouchers, but the total count of voucher lines. You can press F7 at any time to be told the amount of free computer memory and disk space. You are also told how many users are on a multi-user system. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1.08 Accessing DOS commands within Page │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You can press F10 (function key F-10) at any time to get a window into DOS. This will give you a screen ready to enter DOS commands (at the "$" prompt which temporarily replaces the usual DOS prompt). You can run other programs inside Page, if you have enough memory on your computer (e.g. WordStar can be run). Do NOT attempt your data backup with this DOS-window, though! (You would be backing-up OPEN files, which would not restore correctly.) ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1.09 Backup (Data Security) │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You must regularly take BACKUP (security) copies of your data (your stock files, etc.) Your data files are, in DOS notation, "PAGE*.D*". Backup after exiting from Page. You should exit properly. If the computer crashes, or is switched off or re-booted while Page is still running (even if "idle" at a menu), then data may be damaged, and you continue to use it at your own risk. (If in doubt, restore from backup.) You will usually be running with VERIFY ON (explained in your DOS manual, which came with your computer). If you have any problems at all, we have expert staff who can assist. (Available to registered users only.) On a hard disk, you will need to copy your data to a safe place. The simplest example is backup onto a blank floppy in drive A. The command is simply: COPY C:\PAGE\PAGE*.D* A: If you need to go back to a previous copy of your data (e.g. your working disk is damaged), simply reverse the backup procedure. (In this case, by using COPY A:\ C:\PAGE) Note that this backup and restore procedure does NOT use the programs called "BACKUP" and "RESTORE" supplied with DOS, and will only work if your data is small enough to fit onto a single floppy disk. You can also use the BACKUP and RESTORE programs supplied with DOS to do your backups, and will need to if you must split backup data over several disks (and haven't bought yourself a better backup utility than DOS's BACKUP!) If you are going to use these DOS programs, then refer to your DOS manual. The suggested backup using BACKUP is: BACKUP C:\PAGE\PAGE*.D* A: and to restore using RESTORE: RESTORE A: C:\PAGE\PAGE*.D* but check that your DOS programs work this way. Always keep more than one backup copy of your data. (If you rely on just one backup floppy, imagine what would happen if the computer crashed while you were doing backup, and corrupted not only the live data, but also destroyed the only backup you had!) You will want to backup your data before you try anything drastic, such as altering the format of your sales invoices. This would enable you to print as many dummy invoices as required, and know that restoring your data will erase all the file changes you have made during testing. Computer disks (media) are not infallible. You must take regular copies of your files to safeguard against losing all your accounts information. Some problems, such as the machine failing, will damage (corrupt) your data so that it cannot be read. Untrained operators can easily ruin your files by removing data disks or rebooting the machine while Page is running (i.e. your files are open). Other hazards, such as fire and earthquake, can destroy computer files as easily as they can destroy paper. When properly managed, however, computer files are safer than paper files, simply because it is so simple to make regular complete copies. You should take backups of data at least: A) Every day, at the end of the day, on alternate disks (see below). B) Every month, just before the end-of-month routines. C) Every year, just before the end-of-period to change month and year. Your daily backup should be done alternatively on two disks. Day one on the "ODD" disk, day two on the "EVEN" disk, and day three on the "ODD" disk etc. The disks could equally be called "A" and "B", or whatever you like. "ODD" and "EVEN" seem acceptable to most people, though make sure your people don't assume that the "ODD" disk must be used on the 19th of the month or other odd numbers; "ODD" and "EVEN" must be used strictly on consecutive working days. (If you want to be very safe with your data, then you will use three alternate daily disks. "Son" is the last backup done. "Father" is the previous backup. "Grandfather" is the oldest backup from the day before yesterday, counting in working days. When the next backup is done, it is done onto the Grandfather disk, which becomes the new Son. The old Son is relabelled Father, and the old Father becomes the new Grandfather. Proper disk labelling must be strictly enforced. The Grandfather-Son terminology dates back to mainframes.) Always label your backup disks clearly; you should have: A) ODD B) EVEN C) MONTH D) YEAR On hard-disk systems, where the backup onto floppies takes more than one floppy, you will have to read "disks" above as "sets of disks", e.g. you would have "ODD-1", "ODD-2" and "ODD-3". Always keep backup disks well away from the computer, so that disaster does not strike both at once. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 1.10 Multi-user use │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Page Financial Controller is an inherently multi-user piece of software. It will support up to 64 simultaneous users on any DOS-compatible network or DOS-compatible multi-user operating system. If the DOS SHARE command has been set before starting Page, then Page will start in multi-user mode. (If SHARE has not been set, then Page will only start in single-user mode.) On most networks, Page must first be started on the server before being run on the slave terminals. Page locks at record level, to ensure the most efficient operation. If one terminal cannot access a record because another terminal has the record locked, then the message "Waiting for Database" will flash until the the other terminal has finished with the record and unlocked it. Spool files, instead of having the suffix always ".S1", will have a suffix including the number of the operator who created the spool file. When configuring your network, you may need to set a FILES option with a value of at least 20 per session. Even if SHARE is set, you can force Page to start in single-user mode by starting with the parameter PAGE U=777 (single-user mode is considerably faster than multi-user, if only one operator at a time is logged into Page). ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2 Ledgers │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Main Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌─────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Sales Ledger and Invoicing │█ │ Purchase Ledger │█ │ Nominal Ledger and Cashbook │█ │ Stock (Inventory) & B-O-M │█ │ Sales Order Processing │█ │ Purchase Order Processing │█ │ Job Costing │█ │ Data Import/Export │█ │ Utilities │█ │ Exit from Accounts to DOS │█ │ │█ └─────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The current option will be high-lighted on the computer screen. You can select that option by pressing Enter (or Return, as it is labelled on some machines). You can select different options by moving up or down with the cursor keys (arrow keys), or by pressing the first letter of the option which you desire. Escape will not exit Page from the Main Menu, but will return to this Main Menu from a sub-menu. Always exit from Page properly. Otherwise your data files may very possibly be corrupted. The Page tutorial will have taken you through the various techniques for moving between menus. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.01 Sales Ledger │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Sales Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Sales Invoices │█ │ Debtors Schedule (Receivables) │█ │ Customer Records, Add/Enquire │█ │ List Customers │█ │ Receipts from Customers │█ │ Print Customer Statements │█ │ Month's Transactions Report │█ │ Label Printing for Customers │█ │ Turnover Reports │█ │ Credit Limits Report │█ │ Despatch Address for Customer │█ │ Special Prices/Discounts Menu │█ │ Sales Historic Analysis Menu │█ │ Exit to Page Main Menu │█ │ │█ └────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ When first setting up the system, you will probably want all outstanding sales invoices individually recorded. You will usually want to first set up the customers, then re-input outstanding invoices into the system, then adjust the Nominal Accounts' balances. You may well find it useful, if you make a lot of cash sales where your customers pay immediately, to have a dummy customer with the code CASH and the name CASH SALES, with a blank address. The normal work done in the Sales Ledger is the production of invoices to customers, the printing of customer statements, and the entry of payments from customers. If you want to change the layout of the printed invoices and statements you will find the layout programs in the Utilities Section of this manual. All reports may be run as required. The Sales Transaction Report will be kept at the month end, for audit purposes. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.01.01 Sales Invoicing in detail │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Sample screen while creating a sales invoice: ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Sales Invoices Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Customer code: SMITH01 ▄ Invoice Heading Date: 20/01/90 Name: SMITH AND SMITH LTD ▄ Nominal (Analysis) account for Addr: 38 TWIST LANE █ Net Sales: 1000 ▄ DREWSBURY █ Sales UK HANTS █ Notes: SO15 3QT█ Our Ref: █ Customer Ref: ▄ ▄ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀ Goods Description Stock Code Qty £ Unit £ Total VAT ============================== ============ ====== ======== ========== === KARERIGHT FLANGE 089/12 ▄ KRT-089-12SP▄ 10▄ 18.50▄ 185.00▄ 1▄ LIGHT FILTER NO. 388 █ L-FILTER-388█ 50█ 2.13█ 106.50█ 1█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀ First select Invoice or Credit Note. Sales Invoicing has the extra options of QUOTE or PROFORMA. These options only produce a print-out; the details are not stored on the computer after printing. These quotes or proformas are numbered, but you are not restricted to using a number once only. You can also "drive" a sales invoice from an existing sales order, by selecting the SALES- ORDER option, and then entering the order number. This will generate an invoice as normal. Then select account (credit) or cash sale. Enter the customer, or create him at the time. Customers created whilst invoicing will be assumed as VAT liable. You will possibly want to "tidy" such customers later using the normal customer file program, for such other details as the contact name. Set the invoice heading date. This will be used to calculate ages of invoices on the Debtors Report. Enter stock codes, or create them at the time. When selling stock, you will get out-of-stock warnings if relevant. If you enter blank stock codes, then you may enter non-stock item lines. If you enter zero quantities as sold, then the line will be considered a free-format remark. For each line, you may specify a Nominal Ledger Sales Account, which may be different for each line. You can give a discount on the total net invoice value, by entering "DISC%n" in the description field of a stock item or non-stock line. "n" is any number. For example, entering DISC%5 or DISC%20 will calculate 5% or 20% discounts respectively. A description of this discount is printed on the invoice line. The discount is calculated as a percentage of the net value entered so far on the invoice. (For this type of discount on an S-O-P invoice, create the dummy stock item with a high code, so it sorts to the end.) You will get an over-credit-limit warning, if the customer has a credit limit set (not zero), and would exceed it. You may reject the invoice, rather than updating the files (as you may do for each line at the time). You will be allowed to amend the VAT total. (This is only useful when entering your old invoices when starting the system, or entering invoices written in a manual book and entered later in the office, because you must enter any VAT mistakes which you have already given a customer.) You may enter "Our Ref", e.g. a job number, and the customer reference if he wants it quoted. Finally, confirm the invoice (or CRN) number. Duplicate numbers are not allowed. When all the invoices have been entered, and you exit from the program, you will be given the usual spool-print prompts to print all the invoices at once. The layout of invoice print-outs is changed elsewhere; see the section on Utility Programs. Sample print-out of a typical sales invoice: ---- set your own company heading here, or leave blank ---- Invoice to: INVOICE 1 Our Ref: job/1 Smith & Jones Your Ref: SJ/5656/John Smith 1118 Long Road Little Puddlington Customer: SMITH Hants RG33 8CW Date: 16/01/88 Goods Description Stock Code Qty £ Unit £ Total VAT ============================== ============ ======== ========== =========== === Cuddly Bear (Large) CUDDLY 1 11.00 11.00 1 Teddy Bear Picnic Set PICNIC 1 4.49 4.49 1 Repair of dolly dresses and bear noses (two) 1 10.00 10.00 1 Collected by Mr. Whyte ---- set the invoice format, using the layout program ---- ============ Net Goods : 25.49 VAT @17.50% : 3.82 ============ Total : 29.31 ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.02 Purchase Ledger │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Purchases Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Purchase Invoice Acceptance │█ │ Creditors Schedule (Payables) │█ │ Supplier Records, Add/Enquire │█ │ List Suppliers │█ │ Enter Payments to Suppliers │█ │ Remittance Advices │█ │ Month's Transactions Report │█ │ Purchase History Analysis Menu │█ │ Exit to Page Main Menu │█ │ │█ └────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ The Purchase Ledger holds details of suppliers and purchases. When first setting-up the Purchase Ledger, you will probably create all the existing suppliers, and then enter the outstanding invoices against their accounts. The standard functions of the Purchase Ledger are acceptance of suppliers' invoices and credit notes, and the recording of cash payments. It is assumed that purchase invoices relating to goods for resale are entered when, or after, the stock has been received, so as to enable the program to update the stock levels. When a supplier sends you an invoice, you enter it into the Purchase Invoice program. There is no report from this program. Any stock bought is added to the stock file. Each line of the invoice will have detailed entries sent to the Nominal Ledger. It is assumed that payments are recorded onto the system after the payment has been made, or (usually) after the cheque has been authorised and made out; this enables a remittance advice to be printed, if required. All the reports from the Purchase Ledger may be run at any time, and as often as required. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.03 Nominal Ledger and Cashbook │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Nominal Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌─────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Bank/Cash Receipts (Shop/Till) │█ │ Bank/Cash Payments (Petty Cash) │█ │ Add/Enquire Nominal Accounts │█ │ Journal (Voucher) Double-Entry │█ │ VAT Menu │█ │ Basic Ratios (Profits etc) │█ │ Monthly Vouchers Listing │█ │ History for Selected Account │█ │ List of Nominal Accounts │█ │ Trial Balance Printing │█ │ Profit and Loss Report │█ │ All Year Vouchers Listing │█ │ Budgets Menu │█ │ Exit to Page Main Menu │█ │ │█ └─────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ You will, if not content with the pre-set Nominal Accounts, first want to set up your own other accounts, probably for different overheads. Your initial balances input into the computer system should, if possible, be matched to your previous manual system before abandoning your manual system of accounting. You will probably input your day-to-day work using the Bank/Cash (Shop/Till sales and Petty Cash Buys) programs, and only use the Journal (Voucher) Entry program directly for more complex transactions. You will also, of course, have vouchers being automatically created for any Sales or Purchase Ledger transactions. You can run the Cashbook/Nominal Reports at any time. The Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports will probably be retained at each month end. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.04 Stock (Inventory) Control │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Stock Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Add/Enquire on Stock Items │█ │ Quantities in Hand Adjustments │█ │ Change Selling Prices by %age │█ │ Set the Way Stock File is used │█ │ Print Selling Price List │█ │ Valuation of Stock Report │█ │ Re-Order Levels Report │█ │ Monthly Movements Report │█ │ Description Search among Items │█ │ Supplier's Items Report │█ │ Transactions for Month │█ │ Item Profitability Report │█ │ Locations of Items Report │█ │ Parts Explosion / BOM Menu │█ │ Exit to Page Main Menu │█ │ │█ └────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ You will use the Set-the-Way program usually once, and usually only when first setting up your system. Here you will tell the system whether you are a service industry or a stock-based one. A service industry will only use the Page stock system as a product file, if at all. This will enable product descriptions to be easily called up for Sales Invoicing, for example. You may add stock items, or amend their details, at any time. You may also delete items (which are, for example, obsolete) when their balances-in-hand are zero. Order Processing, both sales and purchases, can create "ONE-OFF" stock items. These are temporary codes on the stock file, which refer to things which will only exist as descriptions on the stock file so long as the order is out- standing. These one-off items will be ignored on most stock reports. You can also create new stock items while using the adjustments program or while using the sales or purchase invoice programs. (Items automatically created outside the Stock Records program will be assumed as VAT rate 1, and details such as re-order levels will be zero.) The Stock Adjustments program enables you to adjust stock (e.g. for breakages), and to set new levels on a stock-take. Retailers may have sales figures automatically calculated on a stock-take. The Adjustments program also enables you to record details of sales and purchases if you are only using the stock control module. (Normally, stock sales and purchases will be done automatically via the Sales and Purchases invoice programs.) All stock reports may be run at any time. The description will be shortened in many reports (just like in Sage Financial Controller, trademark acknowledged) to fit the report lines within 80 columns. The end-of-month routine will set all monthly records of stock sales, purchases and adjustments back to zero. The stock monthly movements and transactions reports, if required, should therefore be run before the month end. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.05 Sales Order Processing │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page S-O-P Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Sales Order Input │█ │ Print Order Acknowledgements │█ │ Print Despatch Notes │█ │ List Items on Sales Orders │█ │ List Outstanding Sales Orders │█ │ List Overdue Sales Orders │█ │ Allocate stock to Orders │█ │ List Allocatable Orders │█ │ List Allocated Orders │█ │ Picking List by Customer │█ │ Picking List by Stock Item │█ │ Set heading for Purch Order/Desp Note │█ │ Set last Order Numbers used │█ │ Exit to Page Main Menu │█ │ │█ └───────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Each order is composed of two sections: the Header, and the Detail Line(s). Each order has one header, which consists of general information such as order number, due date, the customer code, and whether or not it is a "priority" order. The detail lines each have the quantities and quoted prices of a stock item or non-stock item. Non-stock items are created as temporary, or one-off, stock items. They exist on the stock file only so long as the order is outstanding, and are automatically erased when the order is complete. One-off stock items are the way to deal with non-stock items such as orders for labour, advertising space, etc. The Order Input programs are quite complex, and it is worth while doing some practice on a test-data disk unless you feel very confident. You will need to keep it clear in your mind what you are doing, and whether you are entering headers or details. You first enter the header, and have an order number assigned (or choose the number yourself). You then enter the detail line(s) for that order. When you subsequently wish to enter, process, or print that order, then you will call it up by its order number. The first thing you will do with each order is to input the header information (by using the MODE key to select ADD and HEADER). You will then probably immediately enter the detail line(s). (By using the MODE key to select ADD and DETAIL.) You may create stock items as required, using one-off dummy stock records to represent non-stock items on the order. If the work has already been done, or the goods already despatched, then you can mark the detail line as allocated immediately. An extra despatch address may be appended to an order. You can then print an order acknowledgement, if required. There are three reports which can be run as often as required. These are the List Items on Orders Report, the Outstanding Orders Report, and the Overdue Orders Report. Before a Sales Order can be processed any further, the detail lines must be "allocated". Regarding stock items, this means that the stock is ear-marked for that order (i.e. still physically in stock but not available to another order). There is an Allocatable Orders Report, which shows which orders could be allocated stock. For non-stock items, allocated is the same as meaning the work has been done; it is clearly pointless to expect the Allocatable Report to tell you if work can be done, as non-stock "items" such as labour will not have their stock levels controlled. For such non-stock items, you need to rely on actually telling the computer when work has been done. Detail lines can be allocated by using the order input program, or using the Allocate program. The Allocate program has options to de-allocate orders, and to automatically allocate stock to orders (in order of priority). There is an Allocated Orders Report, which tells you which orders are therefore ready for despatch and invoicing. The Sales Despatch Note prints out the items allocated to an order. (I.e. you can part-despatch an order.) There are two Picking List reports. There is a Picking List by Item, intended for bulk picking from a warehouse, and showing all the allocated stock totalled by item. There is also a Picking List by Customer, intended for the packing room, showing the goods on a customer's order. The Sales Invoicing program is then used, selecting to produce an invoice from a Sales order (the SALES-ORDER key), and entering the order number. When the invoice is printed, the order is complete, and is later automatically erased. Sales orders are driven by the concept of "allocating" stock to an order. It is only when stock is allocated to a sales order that the order can be invoiced and completed. For non-stock items, such as labour, you should record the non-stock item as allocated when the work is done. You can either allocate within the sales order input program, or within the Allocate program itself. There is a program to set heading lines to be printed at the top of Sales Despatch Notes, Sales Order Acknowledgements, and Purchase Orders. You will want to leave these lines blank if you will be printing onto your own preprinted headed stationery. If you are going to print onto blank paper, then you will set your own address, telephone number, VAT number, etc. There is a program to set the last Sales and/or Purchase Order number used. Order processing will automatically set the last order numbers to 0, and increment the numbers by 1 each time an order is input (i.e. the order numbers will be 1, 2, 3, etc. unless changed). You will use this program if you already have a series of order numbers issued, and want the computer to continue with this series. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.06 Purchase Order Processing │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page P-O-P Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Purchase Orders Input │█ │ Print Purchase Order │█ │ Enter Goods Received (Purchase Order) │█ │ List Items on Purchase Orders │█ │ List Outstanding Purchase Orders │█ │ List Overdue Purchase Orders │█ │ Set heading for Purch Order/Desp Note │█ │ Set last Order Numbers used │█ │ Exit to Page Main Menu │█ │ │█ └───────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Each order is composed of two sections: the Header, and the Detail Line(s). Each order has one header, which consists of general information such as order number, due date, the supplier code, and whether or not it is a "priority" order. The detail lines each have the quantities and quoted prices of a stock item or non-stock item. Non-stock items are created as temporary, or one-off, stock items. They exist on the stock file only so long as the order is outstanding, and are automatically erased when the order is complete. One-off stock items are the way to deal with non-stock items such as orders for labour, advertising space, etc. The Order Input programs are quite complex, and it is worth while doing some practice on a test-data disk unless you feel very confident. You will need to keep it clear in your mind what you are doing, and whether you are entering headers or details. You first enter the header, and have an order number assigned (or choose the number yourself). You then enter the detail line(s) for that order. When you subsequently wish to enter, process, or print that order, then you will call it up by its order number. The first thing you will do with each order is to input the header information (by using the MODE key to select ADD and HEADER). You will then probably immediately enter the detail line(s). (By using the MODE key to select ADD and DETAIL.) You may create stock items as required, using one-off dummy stock records to represent non-stock items on the order. If the work has already been done for you, or the goods are received, then you can mark the detail line as received immediately. An extra delivery address may be appended to an order. You can then print a Purchase Order, if required. There are three reports which can be run as often as required. These are the List Items on Orders Report, the Outstanding Orders Report, and the Overdue Orders Report. Before a Purchase Order can be processed any further, the detail lines must be "received". Stock items will have actually come from the supplier. Non- stock items (e.g. advertisements that you have placed) are marked as received when you get the service. Detail lines can be marked as received using the order input program, or using the Purchase Orders Received program. The Purchase Invoicing program is then used, selecting to process invoices from a Purchase order (the PURCH-ORDER key), and entering the order number. When the invoice is entered, the order is complete, and is later automatically erased. Purchase orders are driven by the concept of "receiving" the stock. You can mark it as received either within the purchase order input program, or using the orders-received program. Non-stock items are to be marked as received when the work or service is done for you. There is a program to set heading lines to be printed at the top of Sales Despatch Notes, Sales Order Acknowledgements, and Purchase Orders. You will want to leave these lines blank if you will be printing onto your own preprinted headed stationery. If you are going to print onto blank paper, then you will set your own address, telephone number, VAT number, etc. There is a program to set the last Sales and/or Purchase Order number used. Order processing will automatically set the last order numbers to 0, and increment the numbers by 1 each time an order is input (i.e. the order numbers will be 1, 2, 3, etc. unless changed). You will use this program if you already have a series of order numbers issued, and want the computer to continue with this series. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.07 Job Costing │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Job Cost Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌───────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Job Entry or Change │█ │ Cost entry for Job │█ │ List Jobs on file │█ │ Report on selected Job │█ │ Make Job into Sales Order │█ │ Alter a Cost Line on Job │█ │ Exit to Page Main Menu │█ │ │█ └───────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ First enter the main details for your Jobs, or the Job Headers as they are sometimes called. Then enter the cost lines as they are incurred. Purchase invoices which as designated as being assigned to a Job will also create cost lines. You can come back later and alter cost lines. You can produce reports on Jobs and their status at any time. When a Job is complete, you either delete it (after printing out its details), or convert it into a completed sales order ready to produce a sales invoice to the customer. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.08 Data Export (ASCII file) │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Data Export Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ╔════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗ ║The exported data includes the following, with date-exported at the end. ║ ║STOCK: code, description, sell price, vat code, cost price, rol, roq, month-║ ║ to-date sold, purchased, and adjusted, current stock, and T/O YTD. ║ ║CUSTOMER: code, name, address, tel, contact, UK?, credit limit, despatch ║ ║ name & address, turnovers MTD, YTD & last year. ║ ║SUPPLIER: as CUSTOMER, without credit limit or despatch details. ║ ║S & P INV: customer, type I=inv C=CRN A=cash, number, flag A=cash sale, date║ ║ cust ref, our ref, gross amt, VAT amt, outst'g amt, paid MTD. ║ ║NOM ACCT: code, Profit/Loss, desc, current bal, QTD, MTD, last year. ║ ║VOUCHERS: N/L acct, voucher no, desc, date, amt (-ve for credits). ║ ╚════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ ┌────────────────────┐ │EXIT HELP AMEND HELP│ └────────────────────┘ This function is found in the Data Import/Export Menu. Data is exported as comma-delimited ascii. This is a suitable format to be read into most spreadsheets and graphics programs. Typical uses of this functions would be to export Nominal Ledger balances into a spreadsheet, or to export customer addresses into a mail-merge file for use by a word-processor. Take care if you will have data which includes quote marks (") in your export file. If you had, for example, a customer called: JOHN SMITH TRADING AS "BEN'S PLACE" then your export file might include: ...,"SMITH","JOHN SMITH TRADING AS "BEN'S PLACE"",519,... when your importing spreadsheet or mail-merge utility was expecting to split up imported lines into data fields by tracking pairs of quote marks. This would result in either an explicit error, or at least all the data fields after the extra quotes being misplaced by a field. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.09 Utilities │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Utilities Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Month (Quarter/Year) End │█ │ Company Name, VAT, Printers │█ │ Layout Invoices and Statements │█ │ Password Set/Change │█ │ Spooled Report Printing │█ │ Users Report (Multi-user) │█ │ Various Unusual Parameters │█ │ Exit to Page Main Menu │█ │ │█ └────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ These Utility programs will generally be used far less frequently than the Ledger programs. Quite often, only the System Manager will use these Utilities, and other operators will never use them at all. The Various Unusual Parameters include: (1) the ability to set "Irish" VAT, with rate selectable on each invoice line, (2) changing the default Nominal accounts for VAT, (3) allowing trade invoice layouts and debtor letters, and (4) disabling Sales and Purchase Histories (to save disk space). ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.09.01 Month/Quarter/Year End │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Your usual month-end procedure will include: Run a stock valuation report, if need be after a stock check, and enter valuation figures into the Nominal Ledger accounts for stock-in-hand and stock usage. The Page Stock Valuation Report has an option to automatically update the Nominal Ledger. If you have decided to set a number of stock accounts in the Nominal, however, you will wish to calculate the Nominal entries yourself and enter them manually. (For example: the Stock Valuation Report says £100,000 in stock. The Nominal Stock-in-Hand account says £140,000. You should therefore do a Cashbook Voucher to credit the Stock-in-Hand account by £-40,000, and debit the Stock Usage account by £40,000.) Use the voucher listing program to show all entries to your bank/cash accounts, and reconcile to your bank statements/cheque stubs/petty cash box contents. Run any other stock reports you need for management information, particularly the stock movements reports, which will be zeroised at month-end. Run the sales debtors list, and the sales transaction report, and their counterparts in purchases. Keep these reports for audit purposes. Run a full Nominal vouchers listing for the month, and a Trial Balance, and keep these also. Most people will want to run the Voucher Listing report for the single account for the bank current account, and match it to their bank statement. (In actual fact, the monthly transactions to the bank account are usually covered by the end of one bank monthly statement and the start of another.) Before running the month-end, check you have taken a backup of your data. The program will: Reset to zero stock transactions Erase paid-off sales and purchase transactions, and age others 1 month Erase Nominal vouchers, and zeroise month-to-date figures. Remove any Month-End Cut-Off date that you have entered. The program has end-of-quarter and end-of-year options. The year-end will automatically perform a quarter-end, and the quarter-end will do a month-end. The year- and quarter-ends reset these period-to-date accumulators in the Nominal Ledger. VAT balances must be cleared to zero before quarter-end. The year-end asks you whether you want the Nominal Balances ERASED, or if you want a Profit-and-Loss (retained) Control calculated as a BALANCE. If you opt for a balance, then enter (or create at the time) this Nominal Account. If you opt for the ERASE, you will want to re-enter your Nominal Account Balances. These are all zeroised at year end, for your convenience, as you may well wish to incorporate end-of-year adjustments. You can enter balances direct into Nominal Account files, until you have made the first voucher entry. If you opt for the BALANCE, then your Balance-Sheet accounts will retain their values, and the balance will accrue to the Profit-and-Loss account which you have specified. There is a month-end cut-off facility offered in the month-end program. It enables you to cope with this typical problem: It is the 1st July and you want to create sales invoices dated the 1st July, and which will automatically create Nominal Vouchers dated July. But you have not yet finished entering all of June's work, such as petty cash into the system. In fact you are fairly sure that you will receive, over the next week, some purchase invoices dated in June. You will want all these to go into the June Nominal Ledger. What do you do? You go into the month end program, and set the last day ("cut off day") as 30/06/88, or whatever is the last day of the month. You do not actually run the month end at this point, and do not close the month or other period. You can then carry on entering transactions, both sales and purchases, and their heading dates can be either in June or July. When you run a Voucher Listing, you will find that those transactions with a July date will show as not yet posted, nor will their values affect the Trial Balance or Profit and Loss. When you have finished entering all the June transactions, then set the "todays" date in the system as 30/06/88 (by exiting from, and re-entering Page). Run the normal end of month reports as usual. (That is why you set the date: so that the report headings carry the correct putative date for future reference.) Then run the month end (or appropriate period end) as usual. You will find that all the July Vouchers will be there and then posted to their correct accounts. There are a three things to bear in mind. Firstly, any stock movements will go into the open month; in the above example all the stock additions and subtractions would go into June, and all be shown on the one Stock Monthly Report. Secondly, this forward posting only operates for one month at most. (We, for example, have just received a supplier's invoice in July, bearing a heading date of May. It came in an envelope with a franking date in August, as well! We cannot do better, in such unusual circumstances, than put the transaction into our accounts with a July heading date, and clearly write on the invoice what we have done and why. All reasonable auditors and VAT inspectors will accept these "circumstances beyond your control" events within sensible limits.) Thirdly, if you forward-post around a year-end, you may encounter audit problems. In the stock example above, the stock value in the nominal would be debited in the first financial year, but the sales nominal account would be credited in the next year. If you forward-post around a year, then the next nominal transaction number will follow the highest forward posting, instead of starting again at transaction number one as usual. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.09.02 Company Header Details │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This program will probably be used only once, when you first start using Page. Once you have set your company name, it will appear on all screens and reports. You also need to tell the software if you are not VAT-registered. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.09.03 Layout Sales Invoices and Statements │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Before changing your invoice layout, which will probably require printing a lot of dummy invoices, backup your data. The invoice and statement layout files are PAGE04.DTD and PAGE05.DTD respectively. The second (trade) invoice layout is PAGE16.DTD, and the debtor-letter layout is PAGE17.DTD. When you restore your data after testing, do not restore these old backups over the new layout files! Your typical operation would be 1) backup all your PAGE*.D* files, your "first" backup, 2) layout your invoices and/or statements, doing as many test invoices as you like, 3) backup the new PAGE04.DTD and PAGE05.DTD files, your "second" backup, 4) restore all PAGE*.D* files from your first backup, and 5) restore the new PAGE04.DTD and PAGE05.DTD files from your second backup. These documents may be up to 80 characters wide, and 72 deep. Indicate that they should end by a form-feed if they are to print on the paper length which you are using as standard (almost certainly 66 lines per page on 11" paper). (72 lines per page is 12" paper, which a few people use for invoices.) When you enter the program, you will be given the choice of working on your invoice or statement layout. You may edit the document on the screen using the cursor keys, the insert and delete keys, the Home, End, PgUp and PgDn keys, and the codes Control-N to insert a line and Control-Y to delete a line. The tilde character ("~") is used on the screen to mark where data (e.g. an address line, or an amount) is to be output, and the length to show. You can enter the escape character as a valid part of your invoice or statement layout (it will show on the screen as a back-pointing arrow). This is because escape is used in printer controls such as enlarged print. Invoice layout being amended on the screen: Invoice to: ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ Our Ref: ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Your Ref: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Customer: ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ Date: ~~~~~~~~ Goods Description Stock Code Qty £ Unit £ Total VAT ============================== ============ ======== ========== =========== === ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ [Insert OFF] │ │ │ │ Finish by Control-Q Line 1 Column 1 │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ When you have finished editing the layout, you press Control-Q. You are then given the chance to "match" data fields to positions on the layout. (I.e. you have indicated by a string of "~~~" characters where you want some output to go, but you have still to tell/confirm which data field it is to be.) If there was already a data field at the position where the program finds the tilde characters, then you will be offered this data to confirm. After all the fields are matched, you may choose to store the new layout, or to abandon it if you have got lost and made errors. If you store the layout, you will be asked to confirm the page length and whether or not to finish printing each document with a page-break character to the printer. (The usual way is to have 66 lines per page with a page break. The option to change this is to enable users to have a certain degree of ability to keep formats close to their pre-existing document formats.) Invoice data fields: "Invoice" or "Credit" Invoice Number Customer Name Invoice Address 1 (of 3) Invoice Address 2 (of 3) Invoice Address 3 (of 3) Post Code Customer (Despatch) Name Despatch Address 1 (of 3) Despatch Address 2 (of 3) Despatch Address 3 (of 3) Despatch Post Code Customer Code on Sales Ledger Heading/Tax-Point Date Line - Goods/Service Description Line - Stock Code (if used) Line - Quantity Line - Unit net price (as sold) Line - Unit gross price (incl VAT) Line - Total net amount Line - VAT Rate Line - Item RRP Line - discount (%age off RRP) Line - total gross Line - VAT amount Invoice total net amount VAT Rate 1 Percentage Invoice total VAT amount Invoice total gross amount Our Order/Job/etc. Reference Customer Order Reference Customer Total Gross Balance to Date Customer Notes (especially credit card number) ALSO Net and VAT breakdowns for VAT rates 0-3 All the above data fields are optional; you do not have to use any or all of them on your invoices. You may set the length of the output field as the number of tildes. If you set a field too short then the output will be cut down when the invoice is produced. Be careful about the length of the description field on each line. When you enter service descriptions, non-stock items, or remarks on the screen when creating invoices, you will be able to enter 44 characters, as well as having a stock code of 20 characters. Because relatively few people actually use the whole widths of these fields, the standard invoice layout supplied with the software allows a 30-character description and a 12-character code. (A detail line then fits neatly into a format 80-characters wide.) If this "default" layout does not suit you, then amend it. Service industries may well choose to allow 44 characters to be input and printed for invoice item descriptions, with no space at all for stock codes. Stock-based users will tend to keep to the invoice layout as supplied with the software of 30 characters stock description, then two spaces, and then the 12 character stock code, unless they have larger than usual codes. Those fields marked "Line" are the detail lines of the invoice, or the individual lines each showing a service, stock item, product or remark which make up the body of the invoice. These are treated in a special way. You only mark tildes "~~~" for the fields of the first (top) detail line, and leave the other detail lines blank. E.g. if you will allow 30 detail lines on each page of your invoices, then put the tildes to show the description, unit price, VAT rate and other fields on the top line, and allow 29 blank lines underneath. (If you were to order 30 detail lines but only show 20 blank lines on the layout, the likely result would be that the totals at the bottom of the invoice would be lost.) You are asked to input/confirm the number of detail lines on each invoice page when finishing the layout. Statement layout being amended on the screen: To: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ STATEMENT OF ACCOUNT as at: ~~~~~~~~ Customer: ~~~~~~~~ ==================== Number Date Amt Billed Amt Paid Balance Custmr Ref ====== ======== =========== =========== =========== ========== ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ [Insert OFF] │ │ │ │ Finish by Control-Q Line 1 Column 1 │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Statements are altered in a similar way to invoices. The fields are: Statement printed date Customer Code on Sales Ledger Customer Name Invoice Address 1 (of 3) Invoice Address 2 (of 3) Invoice Address 3 (of 3) Post Code Line - Invoice/Credit Number Line - Transaction Date Line - Gross Transaction Amount Line - Amount Paid/Used this Month Line - Transaction Outstanding Balance Line - Customer Order Ref Total Balance Outstanding Customer Notes Current Month Name (e.g. "FEB") + Current Month Aged Balance 1-month-old Month Name (e.g. "JAN") + 1-month-old Month Aged Balance 2-month-old Month Name (e.g. "DEC") + 2-month-old Month Aged Balance 3-month-old Month Name (e.g. "NOV") + 3-month-old Month Aged Balance 4-month-old Month Name (e.g. "OCT") + 4-month-old Month Aged Balance 5-month-old Month Name (e.g. "SEP") + 5-month-old Month Aged Balance 6-month-old Month Name (e.g. "AUG") + 6-month-old Month Aged Balance ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.09.04 Passwords │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ You can set two levels of password. The lower level of password lets the user into Page, excepting the Nominal Ledger (usually the private part of a company's accounts), and a few other obvious programs (such as the password program itself). The higher level of password lets the user into any program. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.09.05 Spooled Reports, Deferred Printing │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This program allows you to print any spool files which have been kept on disk (by using the "KEEP" option when printing a spool-file, as described earlier in this manual). You are also given the option of only printing part of a spool file (e.g. from page 21 to page 25 only). ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.09.06 Multi-User Users Report │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This program is only of use in multi-user mode. It tells you which operators are logged into Page, and who is locking which records from which files. There is also an option to "zap" all locks currently set in the database. As explained on the screen, and in the help message for this program, this is a very dangerous option if mis-used. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.10 Sales Discounts │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Sales Prices Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Sales Price Bands & Price Breaks Set │█ │ Sales Price Bands by Customer Report │█ │ Sales Price Breaks Report │█ │ Customer Special Price Set │█ │ Customer Special Prices Report │█ │ Exit to Page Sales Menu │█ │ │█ └──────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ You have the option of setting a customer within a "Price Band" of 0 to 9. Each stock item can be assigned different prices for each price band. There is a report available of stock prices for each band. These prices are automatically used in sales invoicing. You can set "Price Breaks" for each stock item. For example, each item can have different prices for single sales, over 10, over 50, over 100 sold, etc. These prices breaks are automatically used in sales invoicing. Price Breaks only apply to customers in Price Band 0. You can set "Special Prices" for each stock item for each customer, in effect giving any selected customer his own price list. These prices are used in sales invoicing. Special Prices override Price Bands. There are also three ("A", "B" and "C") discounts which can be set for each stock item. The sales invoice program also allows a percentage discount against the net amount of an invoice so far by means of a DISC%5 type line. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.11 Sales Historic Analysis │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Sales Histories Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Sales Analysis (History) by Item │█ │ Sales Analysis (History) by Customer │█ │ Customer Sales Transaction History │█ │ Value of Transactions by Category │█ │ Item Turnover values, month & year │█ │ Category turnovers, value & qty │█ │ Erase Old Sales Analysis Details │█ │ Exit to Page Sales Menu │█ │ │█ └──────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ You can run a report to show you all products which a customer has bought via sales invoicing. You can also run a report to show all customers who have bought a selected item. There is also a report to show all invoices issued to a selected customer. The storage of all the sales histories can take up a great deal of disk space. There is therefore the option to erase old histories prior to a date which you select. The Purchase Historic Analysis is a smaller version of the Sales History in reverse. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.12 Budgets │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Budgets Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌───────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Budget Deviation Report │█ │ Budgets Listing │█ │ Budgets Set-Up │█ │ Exit to Page Nominal Menu │█ │ │█ └───────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ You can set a budget figure for each nominal account. You can then run various reports comparing the actual figures recorded in your accounts against the budgets. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 2.13 Parts Explosion/BOM │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ Page Parts/BOM Menu Oddstock Autoparts 20th January 1990 │█ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ ┌────────────────────────────────┐▄ │ │█ │ Assembly Execution or Report │█ │ Component Usage Report │█ │ Product Costing Report │█ │ Set Product/Component relation │█ │ Dis-assemble Product down │█ │ Invoice Line Kit-List │█ │ Exit to Page Stock Menu │█ │ │█ └────────────────────────────────┘█ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ These programs let you do computation on materials which go into a product, or parts which go into an item. You can have up to twelve levels of components going into sub-assemblies, and sub-assemblies going into products. Both stock and non-stock components can go into a bill of materials. For example, you can include labour in a product costing by making some such dummy "stock item" as "Quarter hour labour", and setting it as not having its stock level controlled. Here is an example of a three-level assembly: Level 1.........} MOTOR Finished Product} * * ******************************************* * * * * * * * * (4) Level 2......} ENGINE CASE BASE SCREWS Subassemblies} * * & Components} * * ************************ *********************** * * * * * * * (4) * (4) * (8) * * * (2) Level 3...} SIDEPLATE FLANGE SCREWS PLATE FLANGE SCREWS Components} There is a program to set the Product/Component relationships, and to specify how many of which go into what. You can also produce a report for a selected item showing either what goes into it, or what it goes into. You can also produce a "Kit List and Costing" for a product. This shows all the base-level (lowest level) components which go into the selected product. Their costs are multiplied by their quantities to give a costing for the product itself. You also have the actual assembly program. This can be asked to (a) only report on the components, and the various levels of assembly, which go into the selected product, and say whether there are sufficient components available to assemble the product. Option (b) is to just execute the assembly, if possible, taking the components out of stock, and putting the completed product into stock. Option (c) combines both options (a) and (b). Bill of Materials is quite complex. It can be difficult sometimes to see the best way to use the software to meet the needs of a particular business. In any case of doubt, it is well worth while experimenting on a test-data disk. It is also perfectly feasible to have the Page software tailored to suit any particular business. (We can, purely as an example, tailor the software to take the parts explosion down to over 1000 levels.) The Invoice Line Kit-List is a specialised system, entirely distinct from the other parts of B-O-M. It is used to automatically produce a multiple-line entry in a sales invoice. The typical usage would be a garage who needed to enter just an EXHAUST as a line-entry, but wanted the invoice to itemise all the components such as EXHAUST-FRONT, EXHAUST-REAR and EXHAUST-CENTRE on the printed invoice, and needed all the components to be subtracted from stock. ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 3 Accounting notes │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ If your VAT quarter does not match your financial quarter, then your VAT office will change it for you, at no charge. The VAT-quarters program will show you the VAT to date, provided your VAT quarters match your financial quarters. Retain your sales and purchase monthly transactions reports. Also your list of Cashbook vouchers, from just before you run the month-end. The four specific reports that you will wish to keep are: (1) the Sales Transaction Report for Current Month entries in Audit order, (2) the Purchase Transaction Report for the Current Month, (3) the Nominal Voucher List for all entries, and (4) the Voucher List for your Bank account. If you allow early-settlement ("cash") discounts, then you may wish to set a non-standard VAT rate (e.g. a VAT rate of 14.25%, if you allow a 5% early settlement discount, because a 5% ESD is the same as a 5.26% finance charge, which is not liable to VAT). If you are going to use the VAT-paid procedure for small firms, rather than the VAT-payable procedure, then you will instead wish to calculate these values from the final part of the sales and purchase transaction reports, which show invoices paid in the current month. Naturally, in a cash business, the VAT-paid and payable figures will be very close. [See the README.111 file, or the latest README.nnn file for more notes on VAT.] You allow customers a sales discount by entering the discount as a payment, and specifying a discount Nominal account as the "Bank" account. You allow contras, where a customer also sells to you, and a sales invoice is part matched by a purchase invoice, by opening a Nominal contras account. It is used, by both the sales and purchase cash programs as a "Bank" account. You can journal out small amounts. E.g. a customer pays £2 against a £1.99p invoice. Produce an invoice for 1p, where the sales account is a Charges-to-Profit Nominal account. Sell a non-stock item named "journal", and keep the invoice for your records (do not send it to the customer). If the customer were to pay £2 against a £2.01 invoice, pay off the £2 in the normal way. Also enter 1p using the Charges-to-Profit account as a "Bank" account. You cannot amend "auditable transactions" once entered and accepted. Most specifically, you cannot alter the values of invoices and credit notes after an "ACCEPT" key has been pressed. This is necessary to produce an auditable system and, if you ask us to "tailor" the software to by-pass audit checks as some of our customers have done, then you take the risk that your computer records will not be accepted as correct. (Otherwise you could run reports to give to your auditors and tax people, and then amend the entries and hope the discrepancies would be over-looked in the carried-forward figures. Whether or not you actually did it, the mere fact that you could do so would entail extra checking.) If you need to amend or cancel invoices or credit notes, you can only do so by raising additional counter-balancing credits or invoices. If you want to keep weekly accounts, rather than monthly, then you can do a "month" end every week. All you will need to do then is to mark on any "month" report that it really meant "week". It will not matter to your data that you have done 52 "month" ends in a year. [See the README.111 file, or whatever, for more details on VAT.] ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ 4 Errors and problems │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Page Financial Controller is supplied to you with no known errors. Unfortunately, there are a host of things which can go wrong with your accounts, though through no fault of the software! One problem likely to occur is if you run out of disk space. The first symptom of this often is reports being truncated (losing their ends). It is your responsibility to ensure that you always have sufficient space available. You may also get messages of the sort "unable to add record", when you have run out of space. You may also get messages such as "Disk full", and "Disk full or bad". Such messages may mean that, instead of being literally out of space, there is an error on the disk drive or media. The "Disk full" error on a non-full disk may indicate that the remaining disk space is damaged. The "Disk full or bad" message is self- explanatory. On a few occasions, a disk error will corrupt data, which will then continue to give a bad-disk message, even when the disk problem has been corrected. The message "Error Writing Device A: (or C: or B:), Abort, Retry, Ignore?" indicates a disk write error, and the counterpart is an "Error Reading.." message. These may indicate faults in the disk, or the disk drive. All you can do is correct the fault, and restore data from your last backup. Check suspect disks with CHKDSK (described in your DOS manual, supplied with your computer). Over 50% of computer problems stem from uneven electricity, and over 50% of problems involve disk drives or disk media (i.e. considerable overlap.) If your system has problems opening files, then check your disk with the MS-DOS CHKDSK utility. If Page stops suddenly with error messages such as "divide overflow", "b-tree fatal error", or "division by zero", then you almost certainly have a computer failure, disk failure, or your electricity supply has hiccuped. These may occasionally also be caused by lack of disk space, particularly when CHKDSK will tell you there are broken chains on your disk. Most problems will require you to restore your data files from backup. If Page is stopped, without exiting to DOS from the menu properly, your files will not be closed properly and they will be corrupted (damaged). In such a case, you will have to re-store them from your stored (backup) copies. If your printer does not work at all, check the MODE command (in your DOS manual). Also the printer dip-switches. Also see the sections on reports and spooling, in this manual. If your reports start on the right page, and then skip part of a page when moving to the second page, you are misusing your printer. You should be aligning the paper to top-of-form, and then resetting the printer's line-counter. Most printers need the off-line/on-line switch toggled off and on for this. If you ask your printer specifically for continuous A4 paper, and notice it "creeping" (each page is a little further away from the top of the paper), your printer has obeyed you too literally, and supplied you exact A4 paper. No printer or software (that we know of) can use it. 70-line computer paper is 70 times 1/6 inch, which is 11 2/3 inches - very close to A4, but not quite. Check your printer dip-switches are set to the right length, if your paper creeps. Some switches set 12" or 11 2/3" paper, instead of 11". (66 lines set at 1/6" per line fits the normal 11" computer paper.) If a report seems to have run twice, and when you print it there are two copies following, it is practically certain that the previous time that someone ran that report they used the spooling "KEEP" option. This will make copies of reports accumulate until someone selects the spooler "FINISH" option which will delete the whole accumulated spool file for that report. If the computer suddenly crashes (stops), or the keyboard "dies", or the screen fills with gibberish, then there are a rich variety of explanations. 1) Not 100% IBM-compatible computer OR non-standard TIMER or GRAPHICS chip. Try removing any time utilities. 2) Hardware error. Including loose cables and chips, or RAM failure. These can be almost impossible to trace when intermittent. The absolute worst is intermittent disk-drive failure, prevalent with certain very cheap computers. 3) Media error. Floppy disks have a limited life. So too do hard disks. You must backup regularly. 4) Electricity problems. These can cause the machine to stop. Even worse is when the disk drive thinks it has written to disk, but a power hiccup has intervened, resulting in corrupt (damaged) data. Electric problems come as spikes, peaks, dips or troughs. All are dangerous to your data. 5) Corrupt data. If data was damaged earlier by any problem, it may lay undetected at the time, but abort programs later. Possibly an "asciiz" string looses the terminating zero, so the array is written by the program throughout memory. Possibly an impossible value was left in a numeric field. 6) Corrupt programs. The area of disk where the program resides is damaged for any of the above reasons. 7) Third party programs (someone else's software, often games or public domain utilities) go hay-wire and damage the disk. Some TSR programs are likely to abort Page (although the commercial ones such as Sidekick are fine). 8) Operators "just looking" inside files out of curiosity. Allowing non- programmers access to tools such as Norton Utilities and PC-Tools is like giving guns to children as playthings. Even ordinary word-processors can access any (repeat any!) DOS data file. Few operators confess even to "just looking". "Latent corruption" means that your data files have been damaged, possibly in a small way at some indefinite time in the past. DOS is not a secure operating system, in the way that many minicomputer operating systems are; DOS does not guarantee file integrity. Data files can be damaged outside Page (as well as by hardware failure, crashes, etc. while Page is running) because Page data files are open and unprotected the same as all files under DOS. This corruption will often lay hidden until that part of the file is processed. (Year End is often a worrying time for computer departments, because the year- end processing deletes a lot of data, which is a thorough test of file integrity.) "Incipient corruption" is very similar to latent corruption; it often implies that the software has been able to recover from the current file error, but has not been able to fix the problem automatically. This will sometimes cure itself, with the normal addition/deletion of data. Unfortunately, a corruption may equally spread by accretion in the file. If the corruption does not go away of its own accord, then you must restore data from a time prior to the corruption, and re-input subsequent work. This is really a matter of you taking an informed guess as to when any damage might have happened. The usual cause is one of 2, 3, or 4 above. Please report any other problems to the authors. We are always eager to improve our software, whether this entails adding features or generally improving the software's ease of use. It is often of assistance to enclose, with your suggestions, sample reports and Print-Screen dumps of the computer's screen. We will naturally observe complete professional confidentiality with any of our clients' company information which is entrusted to us.