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- Screenfile RE_RUN.SCN Screen# 01
-
- In this section we will be looking at how to make the last pay cycle permanent
- and how backups are made. Running the pay cycle causes a switch to be set in
- the configuration file which indicates there are now two copies of the employee
- file, as described in the above message. This message appears when you next
- access the employee update program after running the pay cycle (example, when
- you start keying in hours or making any other changes for the next pay). If
- your employees are all salaried and you have no reason to access the employee
- update program between pay cycles then this message will appear in the pay
- cycle program before you run the next pay cycle. This message keeps on
- appearing until such time as you clear the configuration switch by replying to
- messages on the next few screens in such a way that the output from the last
- pay cycle is copied over to the input directory (which makes the last pay cycle
- permanent).
-
- Screenfile RE_RUN.SCN Screen# 02
-
- Some people find the above message a little confusing at first. It looks a
- little more complex than it is because we tried to word in such a way that it
- could not be misinterpreted, we may have gone a little too far on the side of
- caution and may re-write it for a future release.
-
- If you press Y at this point the remaining screens in this section will be
- skipped and you will be looking at the employee records that were input to the
- last pay cycle. You only need to press Y if you know there was an entry error
- in the last pay cycle and you want to fix it then re-run it. If you do press Y
- then the message will repeat next time you access either the employee update
- program or the pay cycle program. If you are intending to re-run the pay cycle
- then reply Y each time it repeats untill AFTER the pay cycle has been re-run
- correctly.
-
- Normally, everything in the last pay cycle will be fine and you can press N to
- make that last pay cycle permanent, then you will not see this message again
- until after then next pay cycle.
-
- Screenfile RE_RUN.SCN Screen# 03
-
- Before doing the copy we give you an extra chance to access the original input
- file in case you arrived here in error by giving the wrong response to the
- question on the previous screen (which has scrolled to the top of this screen).
- If you arrived here intentionally then press Y at the message "Normal Reply is
- Y to Copy, else N to access the OLD file". Before the input directory is
- overwritten with the output you are asked if you "Want to create a backup on a
- diskette NOW ?", normally you would reply Y.
-
- Screenfile RE_RUN.SCN Screen# 04
-
- Unless your employee file is too large to fit on a diskette then reply Y to the
- message "O.K. to back up file FULL SIZE ? (Press Y or N )". The file names
- and sizes are then displayed and you are asked which disk you want the backup
- on. In most cases the reply will be A, but if you have lots of spare space on
- your hard disk you can reply C or D or whichever hard disk you want to use.
- This is a backup of your employee files only, it is not a backup of your entire
- hard disk.
-
- Normally diskettes are the preferred backup medium because if something goes
- wrong on the hard disk (head crash etc.) you may not be able to access any of
- the files on it, and if you do not regularly backup the entire hard disk (as
- most people do not) you will then lose your pay backups as well as the
- originals. The diskette needs to have been already formatted, you can either
- buy them pre-formatted (at extra cost) or if you prefer to buy the regular
- unformatted diskettes then format them first with the DOS FORMAT command.
- Because each backup is kept in a seperate directory named for the pay date you
- can store more than one backup on a diskette. You can store as many as will
- fit without overwriting the previous backup. If there is not sufficient space
- on the diskette you will be told about it by the program before it starts the
- backup and given an opportunity to replace it with a new diskette.
-
- Backing up the entire hard disk regularly is not a substitute for making
- individual backups of your employee files. A backup of the entire disk can
- only restore the most recent employee files (and then with some difficulty in
- finding individual files on the big backup). Using PAYROLL USA's backup of
- employee files means you can quickly restore the input to a pay cycle of your
- choice that might have been a week ago, 3 weeks ago, 3 months ago, etc. How
- many you keep is up to you, you probably should keep at least the whole of the
- last quarter plus this quarter to date, you probably do not need to keep more
- than the last 12 or 13 months. Backups are like insurance, you probably will
- not need to restore them but they are darned handy to have around if the need
- arises. Old backup diskettes can be re-used, the easiest way is to just re-
- FORMAT them when the files they contain are too old to be needed any longer.
-
- Screenfile RE_RUN.SCN Screen# 05
-
- Because some of our users have multiple employee files we have started writing
- and checking internal disk labels. If you have this situation you should use a
- seperate series of backup diskettes for each employee file. You can still put
- more than one backup on a diskette, but every backup on that diskette should be
- of the same group of employees. On the above screen we had inserted a diskette
- that was labelled incorrectly.
-
- Screenfile RE_RUN.SCN Screen# 06
-
- Before writing a backup on the incorrectly labelled diskette we are shown a
- directory of it and given an opportunity to replace it. This directory shows
- there are no files other than the label on the ANTHISTLE diskette (because the
- label is more than 8 characters long it is shown here as though it were a file
- called ANTHISTL.E). We decide to use the diskette so the program changes the
- internal label from ANTHISTLE to SMITH (so it will not be queried again next
- time it is used for SMITH) then it does the backup on it. After the backup
- (which is of the input directory) the employee files are copied from the output
- directory to the input directory and will be used from this point on.
-
- If necessary, backups made in this way can be later restored as a menu choice
- from the Utilities sub menu of the main PAYUSA menu, full instructions appear
- on the screen as the restore is done (we suggest you press Print Screen to
- print them out the first time you do a restore). If, instead of using this
- method, you used PKZIP or similar to make a compressed backup of large employee
- files, or if you used the DOS backup to make a full size backup of large files
- that will not fit on one diskette, then see the documentation file BACKUP.TXT
- for instructions on how to restore those backups.
-