Sage Accpac Community

Hello from Sage Summit!

garrick — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:00:00 GMT

As I write this week's blog, I'm sitting in the Support Center at the 4th Annual Sage Summit at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. For all of you who attended, hopefully you had a chance to come by the Support Center, and talk to one of us.

For those of you who don't know, Sage Summit is a chance for customers like you to meet other customers, as well as people from Sage. Here's just a few things you can do:

Have a problem with your program? Come see us in Support.
Have a new feature you'd like to see in the program? Go to a Product Management roundtable.
Want to meet other customers, and see how they feel about the product? The Meet and Greets are perfect for that.
Need an addon that does something Accpac doesn't do out of the box? Attend the tradeshow, see what's available.
Want to learn about different products? Signup for a session.

As you can see, there's lots to do, and lots to eat (at one point, there were barrels of popcorn lining the tradeshow floor).

Unfortunately, by the time you read this, Sage Summit will be over, but I hope to see you all there next year!

Information Highway

Tyrone — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:15:00 GMT

Nowadays you can basically do everything on the internet. You can read the news, you can buy a car, or you can access your bank accounts. Next thing you know, you'll be putting on a pair of goggles and going on a 3D virtual vacation using the internet. So just like everything else, you should be able to access your Accpac information through the internet.

https://kb.accpac.com

Our Knowledge Base. The Knowledge Base contains answers to many questions or issues that you may have in regards to the Accpac program. This is the first place you should check when you have an issue.

http://support.accpac.com/

You will need your Sage Username and Password to access this site. In here, you can access the technical center and your Sage account by going to the Clients menu near the top of the window.

http://support.accpac.com/techsupport/
Point to the Clients menu and click the Client Support Center option to go to Technical Center. There is where the Product Updates and various documentations are located. Keep your software up-to-date by installing the latest Product Updates.

http://support.accpac.com/myaccount
Point to the Clients menu and click the My Products and Services option. Here, you can check your account and contact information. This is also where you can download the installation files for the latest version of the software plus their activation codes. But more importanly, this is where you can access your payroll tax updates.

http://ideascopeanywhere.com/Sage%2DAccpac/
Use this link if you have any suggestions on how to improve the product.

http://www.sageaccpac.com/community/
If you are reading this blog, you probably know about this site already.

http://www.sageaccpac.com/products/
Another website with lots of documentations such as compatibility charts and system requirements.

Personally, I find myself visiting these sites very often. If you have any questions about Accpac, you should be able to find your answer in one of them.

Three simple tips to make Accpac run faster on Terminal Services

Jay Converse — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:58:00 GMT

The tips below will make your experience on a Terminal Server session a little snappier. The database and the programs aren't really running faster, but it sure feels that way when they start up.

1. As an administrator on the terminal server, go to Control Panel/System/Advanced, click Settings, and select "Adjust for best Performance". It turns off all the silly slides and animations and shadows. I use this setting on all my systems, including my laptop. Animations are fine for games, but they don't help your business. Don't get me started on Vista again....

2. In the Accpac ASxxxA\ENG folder, where xx is your version like 53, 54, or 55, look for IMAGE1.JPG and IMAGE2.JPG and delete them. You'll lose the pretty blue "A" backgrounds, but if you're connecting to the terminal server on a DSL or slower connection, the Accpac logon screens will load much faster.

3. This last one takes a little work, but is worth it. Once you've seen one splashscreen, you've seen them all. For each user who logs in, you need to add this registry key:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ACCPAC INTERNATIONAL, INC.\ACCPAC\DESKTOP]
"splashscreen"="no"

You can do it three different ways:

a). Login as each user, run Regedit, and add the string value "splashscreen" set to "no" as in the key above.

b). Put the lines above into a text file with an REG extension, then start Accpac from a batch file instead of running Accpac.Exe. Assuming you put the REG file into the same folder as Accpac, the batch file would look something like this:

@echo off

cd \Accpac\Programs\Runtime

regedit /s nosplash.reg

start Accpac.exe

c). Add the REG file to the Accpac Startup folder, either on its own, or with another simple batch file containing "regedit /s nosplash.reg".

How's Your Data?

garrick — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:00:00 GMT

Despite what some people may tell you, everybody makes mistakes once and a while. Machines can make mistakes too. These mistakes can be caused by a simple thing like a typo, to something that's as mysterious as your high school cafeteria's "Meatloaf Surprise." To minimize the impact of these mistakes, Accpac has the Data Integrity Check.

What does Data Integrity Check do? It looks for mistakes and inconsistencies within your Accpac database. Some common things Data Integrity Checks for:

Inconsistent Totals
Locked Fiscal Periods that may not need to be locked
Users that the program refers to, but don't exist
Invalid values for certain fields

To use the Data Integrity Check, go to Administrative Services, and then Data Integrity. You can choose to check just a couple of modules, or all of them. The more you choose to check, the longer it will take. If you want to check everything, it's a good idea to leave it over night.

For certain modules, you'll notice the Application Options button becomes available. Click it for a list of additional checks. There’s also an option to Fix Minor Errors. Before selecting that, make a backup of the data. When you're ready to start, click the Check... button. Once the scanning is done, the report will come up. If you checked the Fix Minor Errors, anything the system corrected will have a "Fixed" next to the error. For all other errors, you may be able to correct them yourself, or search our Knowledge base for the error to find out exactly what it means.

Just because there's an error, it doesn't mean the end of the world, it may just be bad historical data from 7 years ago and that won't affect your daily processing. It can't check for everything, but we update Data Integrity to check for more and more with each new version of Sage Accpac. Data Integrity isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean we can't try to make it perfect!

Payroll Update or Upgrade

Tyrone — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:15:00 GMT

Just in case you didn't already know, support for Sage Accpac ERP 5.3 has been discontinued back in September. The only versions that we currently support are 5.4 and 5.5. But if you are still using the payroll for version 5.3, don't worry, you don't have to panic just yet.

Discontinuing the support means tax updates for version 5.3 will no longer be available after December 31, 2008. So if you want to continue to use Accpac to calculate your 2009 payroll, you will have to upgrade to one of the supported versions. However, we will still provide an update so you can file your 2008 taxes. It will include all the up to date changes that you will need for your submission. For example, if there are any changes to the format of the W2 or T4 forms, we will include those required changes in the 5.3 update. But again, the 5.3 payroll update will NOT include tax tables for your 2009 payroll calculations.

The year end tax updates are usually released close to the end of the year, some time in December. They will be available for download at www.sageaccpac.com/myaccount. If more changes are made after that, usually another update will be released in January.

If you are planning to continue using payroll in 2009, you may want to start planning for the upgrade now. Cause as your know, year end could be a very busy time and I don't think you want to get caught trying to do your Sage Accpac ERP upgrade on New Year's Eve.

I don't get this new economy

Jay Converse — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:15:00 GMT

It's been a couple decades since I got my BA in Economics. So I'll admit, I'm probably a little rusty on some of the concepts. But what happened to me this weekend made me wonder how much I've forgotten.

On Saturday evening, our DVD player died. No big deal, it cost only $30 two years ago at one of those "first 50 people of the morning" Walmart sales. So, Sunday morning, I went back to Walmart. This time I went really wild and upgraded to the $38 model. I had to ask the clerk if it came with a remote, it was so cheap.

When I got it home, not only did it have a remote, the remote came with batteries. And it even came with a cable to hook to the TV. It ran great. All this for $38 (plus tax). I love this new economy! My only complaint was that it had an HDMI connector (which is for High Def pictures), but not an HDMI cable. No problem, in the afternoon I went over to the nearest electronics discounter to get the flavor of cable for my TV.

You could probably guess how much the cable was. $45. My jaw dropped. I don't get it. There's something wrong with having an incredibly complex box of electronics (and a remote and a battery and instructions in three languages) cost less then 5 feet of copper wire and some plastic wrapping. So no, I didn't purchase the cable. I'm not sure if I'm being principled or cheap.

Back to School

garrick — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Remember the first day of high school? You were probably forced to take Math, Science and English. You probably asked yourself "When will I ever use Shakespeare or Thermal Dynamics? What's the point? Who cares?" With Sage Software University (sagesoftwareuniversity.com), you can take whatever classes you want, you'll know why you're doing it, and odds are, your boss will care.

Here's some types of courses you can take advantage of:

Tech Tuesdays - Usually happens on the second Tuesday of every month, and the sessions are an hour long. An analyst from Customer Support will give an overview of a certain function of Accpac. Upcoming Tech Tuesdays: there's one for Bank Reconciliation on November 4 (hosted by me!), and another for using Macros on December 9 (not hosted by me, but still a good course). Best of all, if your company is on a Priority Software Support plan, it's free!
Anytime Learning - This is an online course, and offers much more in depth information on different modules of Accpac. You can replay the sessions anytime from 6 - 12 months. There's course material you can print out, and there's quizzes along the way too to see how much of the material you're picking up.
Lunch & Learn - Similar to Tech Tuesdays, a short one hour online session, showing a function in Accpac. This is usually led by one of our trainers.
Realtime - This is an instructor led online course. Definitely a better alternative to Anytime Learning for those of you who learn better from a real person, rather than just listening to a recording.

So, take the time to explore the Sage Software University, and see what classes are offered, and hopefully you can learn a couple of things which can make your day to day job just a little bit easier.

Accruing More Than the Maximum

Tyrone — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:15:00 GMT

Have you noticed the new option, Calc Max Carry-over based on Remaining Balance, under the Employee tab when setting up an accrual in Payroll version 5.5? No? Yes, but you don't know what it does? The last thing you want to do is to shortchange your employees of their vacations and cause an uproar.

If you do not select the option, the program will behave the same as previous versions; which means, if your vacation has been accruing correctly, you don't want to change anything to mess anything up. So what's the difference between the two? Let me explain it with an example.

Let's say you set up your employees to have a beginning balance of 50 hours, and you set the Maximum Carry-Over to 100. If the employee accruals 80 hours during the year and did not take any vacations:

130 hours will be carried over to the next year if you do not select the Calc Max Carry-over based on Remaining Balance option. The employee will end up carrying over more hours than the hours set in the Maximum Carry-Over field. In this method, the program allows the user to carry over the unused portion of the hours accrued during the year up to the specified maximum carry-over, plus the unused portion carried over from previous year. In other words, the program compares the Maximum Carry-Over field to the unused hours accrued during the year only, ignoring the beginning balance.

On the other hand, 100 hours will be carried over with the option selected. In this method, the program compares the unused amounts accrued during the year PLUS the beginning balance (the entire unused hours) with the Maximum Carry-Over field. The amount that is carried over will never exceed the number set in the Maximum Carry-Over field in this scenario.

So make sure you set your vacation accruals properly, otherwise you could end up being at work when you could be spending an extra few days on the beach in Hawaii!

Don't use Dbdumps for scheduled backups (with one exception)

Jay Converse — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:17:00 GMT

Many times on the technical forums I've seen postings like "my client was doing his nightly backup, and the Dbdump failed with error number etc., etc.". The error is typically something silly like a hard drive that's filled up, but that's not the point here.

Don't use Dbdumps for scheduled backups. Why?

First, it takes longer to Dbdump it than to either copy it or use a commercial backup program.

Second, when you Dbload it, it can take 5 to 30 times longer than to just copy or restore.

Third, when you Dbload your data, you lose an important feature that a forensic data analysis needs - Accpac ERP's hidden audit fields. As you should know, every time any record in any table is updated, these audit fields get the user, date, and time of the latest update. I can't tell you how many times this has helped me solve arguments about "who added that invoice?", or "who changed the description of that account?".

The one exception to this rule is if you use your Dbdumps for offline analysis, like one of my big publicly traded clients does. After each month-end close, they dbdump the data, then dbload it into a "month-end" company. This lets them continue normal processing, while being able to analyse the financial and operational numbers at the exact point of month-end.

There may be other exceptions to this rule, I'm open to suggestions.

Try a left-handed mouse, you may like it

Jay Converse — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:47:00 GMT

Two of my kids and I are left-handed, so it kind of makes sense that we would use a left-handed mouse at my house. But my wife is strongly right-handed, and she only started using the mouse left-handed because she was tired of flipping it back and forth over the keyboard.

The other day we were chatting about her day at work, and she told me how nobody in the office likes to use her computer.

"Why?", I asked.

"Because my mouse is on the left side"

"Wait a minute, you're right-handed".

"Yeah, but I got used to it the other way. And you know what? Some things are faster now that I can use both hands at the same time. Like typing numbers into Excel with the numeric keypad and my right hand, and moving and clicking the mouse with my left. Kind of like playing a piano. And you know what's even better?"

"No, what".

"Everybody stays off from my computer!"

Yes, Virginia, Vista still sucks

Jay Converse — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:14:00 GMT

It's been almost two years since Vista was released to the public, and according to Microsoft, it's the best and safest and coolest version of Windows ever.

So, I need a show of hands - how many of you are using it at work? C'mon, don't be shy. Anybody?

You there in the back, why are you using Vista?

"Um, it came installed on my PC".

"Well, do you like it?"

"It's OK, I guess. It's lots prettier, that transparent window thing is pretty cool".

"Anthing else?"

"I like the new clock."

"Has it made you more productive?"

"I don't know, I mostly just use Excel and Word. I guess it's about the same."

"So, is anybody else in the office using Vista? Anybody?"

Not in my world, they're not. We've only had one client that moved all of their PCs to Vista. Their next purchase was a terminal server for all their people to use, because their accounting system (Accpac ERP, of course), the PBX, and the plant security systems didn't run on Vista. In the succeeding two years, Accpac ERP has been upgraded to run OK, but the other two haven't, so they still need their terminal server. Cost of hardware and software to upgrade 30 PCs to Vista? Around $60,000, and that doesn't include the user's time wasted learning the new screens. Benefits? $0.

Don't get me wrong, Vista is good for some people. Like my daughter, she's a sophomore at an art college, she needs all the fancy stuff.

But not me, I work for a living. Auto companies understand this. Some people need pickup trucks, some people want sports cars. Why doesn't Microsoft understand this?

Keep Up the Hard Work!

garrick — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

So your boss has decided everybody has worked really hard this month, and everybody gets a bonus of $500 on their next paycheck. Happens all the time, right? Well, when it finally does happen, Timecards is how you would do it.

First, you will need an Earning setup for your bonus. In Earnings and Deductions in Payroll Setup, enter in a new code/description/short description. Here's the rest of the settings:

Category: Earning
Type: Salary & Wages
Employee Calc. Method: This one varies, but for the example above, use Flat
Frequency: Unless your boss really does want to give you a bonus every month, switch this to Quarterly
Level: Unless you have a good reason, this level should be the same as your standard earning
Starts: This one doesn't really matter for this

In addition to this, you will want to check Print Earning/Deduction on Check. If you're running Canadian Payroll, select Non-Periodic Payment. That makes your taxes calculate as expected.

In the Employee tab, add all the applicable taxes. If you choose to skip this part, employees will get the $500, but will have to pay the taxes later when they do income taxes.

In the G/L Dist tab, add in a GL Distribution code, and its respective GL Accounts.

Now, in Payroll Timecards, pull up each employee who's getting the bonus. In Timecard, it just needs a unique number, like "1". The Period End Date should be fairly self explanatory. In the grid below, add the new Bonus Earning, and under Rate/Amt/Pct, put the amount of the bonus in. Add this, and repeat for every employee.

When you calculate payroll, do it as normal, and ensure the Quarterly Earning checkbox is selected, and when you print your checks, voila! You and all your co-workers have their bonus! Don't spend it all in one place!

P.S. We've identified a potential problem with Job-Related Payroll Timecards, so if you use these, along with FLSA OT in US Payroll, or Regular Rate Hourly/Salary Hours in Canadian Payroll, check your Payroll Job Register and PJC Detailed Transaction Report have values which are reasonable and expected. Be sure to apply Solution 25786 to prevent this from happening in the future.

Help Cut Company Costs

Tyrone — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:40:00 GMT

With the slumping economy, cutting spending is on top of everybody's list. Start by reducing the amount of paper you use everyday. Use the File or Preview option when you print your reports. E-mailing invoices and statements to your clients can also be a fast and cost-effective way of conducting business. So here's a question for you to see how familiar you are with Sage Accpac ERP. How many ways are there to change the print destination?

The answer is 3... but wait, there's more to it. Do you know there's also an option to setup print destinations for each customer when you print Invoices, Statements or Letters, called the Delivery Method? This will help you send out information quickly and efficiently.

As you may already know, there are four options within the Print Destination: Printer, Preview, File, and E-mail. But do you know there are 3 different ways to access it? The first one is through the File menu. That should be quite easy to locate. The second one is through the Page setup icon on the tool bar. Once you bring the Page Setup window up, you will see the Print Destination button. Finally, and I bet that you don't know this, you can access the Printer Destination setup by double-clicking its icon at the bottom right-hand corner of the Sage Accpac ERP window. The Printer Destination will show as a printer when it is set to Printer, a magnifying glass when it is set to Preview, a hard drive when it is set to File and a letter when it is set to E-mail. A pretty handy way to change the print destination, isn't it?

Some customers may like to receive invoices through e-mail, but some may like to receive them in mail. What do you do then? Well, when you are printing invoices, statements, or letters, there is something called the Delivery Method. Selecting Print Destination as the Delivery Method will print to the option that you have selected in the Print Destination setup. However, if you change it to Customer, the program will print to the option that you have selected in the customer setup. For the customer setup, you can access the Delivery Method option under the Processing tab within the Customer icon. You can select from Mail, E-mail, or Contact's E-mail. Mail actually refers back to what you have setup in the Print Destination. But with Mail and E-mail, you can set up the program so that it sends the documents to the e-mail address that you have set under the Address tab or the Contact tab.

Just imagine how much paper you can save when you can access these options quickly and change the Print Destination to something other than Printer. Not only can you save your company money by saving lots of paper, you can also help save the environment by saving all those trees!

Know What You've Lost Lately?

garrick — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Everybody loses things, at least once and a while, be it keys or socks. What if you had 1000 socks, would you know when you lost 1? How would you know? Easy, you would count them, and after you get a number, you would know, I lost a sock, I now only have 999 socks.

Why not do the same thing with your inventory? It's not good when something is lost, but wouldn't you rather know about it? Doing a Physical Inventory can let you know what you've lost (or somehow gained), and can give you a better idea of what you have to sell.

Start by going to IC Physical Inventory, and Generate Inventory Worksheet. Using the criteria, narrow down what needs to be counted. Now, print out the Inventory Worksheet, and hand it out to whoever's doing the actual count.

Once you get the counts back, in Physical Inventory Quantities enter in the quantities counted. The Quantity Variance column will tell you if you have more or less than what's recorded in the system. Also, if you were unable to count an item, but want to update your quantities for all the other items, change its Status from "Ready to Post" to "On Hold."

Before you post the Inventory, print an Inventory Reconciliation Report to have a record of all the different counts. Once you're comfortable that the numbers are accurate, go to Post Inventory Reconciliation, fill in the fields (look in F1 help if you're not sure what each field does), and boom! Your inventory is now up to date!

Check out Chapter 6, Lesson 6 in the Workbook located in the System Manager Online Documentation if you would like some practice doing this. Now, if only I could find a use for that sock with no pair...

What is a Macro?

Tyrone — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:15:00 GMT

A number of clients have called and asked if we have a Cash Flow report. The program may not have a Cash Flow report, but it does have a Cash Flow macro. So... what is a macro? A macro is a file that can run through a series of commands instead of having to go through them step by step. It is true that creating a macro could be quite complicated, but we've included some macros that you may find useful.

Macros are located in the macro folder inside the Sage Accpac folder. By default, this directory is C:\Program Files\Sage Software\Sage Accpac\Macros. One of the more common Macros that you may use is the Cash Flow marco that I have mentioned above. To run the Marco, first logon to your company in Accpac first. Then within the company, you select the Macro menu and click the Run option. Finally, in the Run Macro window, browse to the Macros folder. Click on cashflow and then the Open button to start the macro. After that, the macro should run. Once you make your selections, you should see the results on screen.

Another macro that you may find useful is the Getrates macro. Running this macro will automatically retrieve the foreign exchange rates from the internet and import them into your company. However, keep in mind that if you are using version 5.5, you will need to run the Propagate function within the Database setup to have the rates in the company database updated. Otherwise, you may run into an issue where some of the screens in the company may not show the updated rate.

You may have noticed in the Run Macro window that the macros have a .avb extension. However, if you look in the Macros folder through your Windows Explorer, you will notice that there are a couple of Excel files also. These are also macros, just a different type of macro.

Budget.xls is a common one that I find a lot of clients use. Simply double click on the file to run it, or open Excel and browse to the file to open it. You may run into a warning message if you have the Macro Security set to High. Follow the onscreen instructions or simply set the Macro Security to Low. You can change the setting by going under the Tools menu in Excel. Highlight Macro and click on Security, and you will be able to change the setting there.

The macros that you can use are not limited to just the ones within the Macro folder. If you would like to try to create your own macros, you can refer to Chapter 13: Using Macros in the System Manager User Guide for more information.

Sage Accpac Dashboards

Hugo Croft-Levesque — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 22:01:00 GMT

As part of our commitment to being truly transparent in our dealings with our business partners and customers, I feel it is important to inform you of some reports we’ve received from customers when using the new Dashboard feature included with Sage Accpac ERP 5.5.

Summary of issues:

The installation process is pretty seamless, but the first time dashboards are used, one of 2 things may happen:

1. Error 404 (Page cannot be displayed) or other security related messages
2. No company appears in the drop down menu of the Logon box

Issue one (1) is mostly due to the complexity of creating Permission settings for an “IIS process user”. A Knowledge base article has been created for it (click here to read)

Issue two (2) - this issue will come up for dashboard users on busy production servers where memory is always a constraint.

The Support team is able to walk users through a series of steps in order to do a proper diagnostic, and fix the issue - if you or your customers experience this issue, please contact our support team for assistance.

The two problems with this solution are:

• It involved changing a value in the “Boot.ini” file of the server, which some people may be reluctant to do
• It is temporary, and very short term – only by addressing the bigger issue of how Accpac is designed will we solve it permanently

We have also received reports of performance being slow when using Accpac Dashboards:

Example of poor performance: on a 40 gig database, the dashboard times out after 2 hours. We have been able to improve this by as much as five times faster - it’s not as fast as we want it to be, but it’s a bit more realistic…our support team will soon be able to provide the performance improvements via a hotfix for those who need it.
I would much rather be writing about something positive, but I think you can appreciate the need to be up-front about this. Rest assured that we are working very hard to solve these in a sustainable way – and I’ll be happy to let you know as soon as we’re ready. The timeline is still unknown, but it is a priority for us to solve this ASAP.

On a related topic, we have decided to hold off shipping the Dashboard Customization Toolkit (that lets users create and modify dashboards using Business Object’s Xcelcius) until we resolve these issues.

Comments and feedback are of course welcome.
Regards,
Hugo

Go with the Flow

Tyrone — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:16:00 GMT

Since the modules are intertwined with each other, trying to understand how information flow between them can be quite confusing. When will information flow from Bank Services to General Ledger? Will information flow oppositely from General Ledger back to Bank Services? First, let's talk about how information flows into Bank Services. Then, we can discuss if any of the information flows out of Bank Services and back into the other modules.

When you post an invoice in Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable, the subledgers will send the transaction information to GL and create a journal entry there. Similarly, posting a payment or a receipt will create a journal entry in GL. In addition to the journal entries, since receipts and payments affect the bank control accounts, they will also send information to Bank Services. This way, Bank Services can centralize all the payments and receipts information so you can preoperly maintain your bank information and perform your bank reconciliation.

However, when you post a journal entry in General Ledger that affects the bank control account, is the information sent to Bank Services? The answer is NO. And I repeat, NO, information is not sent to Bank Services when you post to a bank control account in GL. Alternatively, you can post your entry within Bank Services so that it sends the information to GL and create a journal entry in GL.

Confused yet? Yes? Basically, the only direction that the information does not flow is from GL to Bank Services. Other than that, the information flows in both direction. Information will also go from Bank Services back to AR or AP. For example, if you have a NSF deposit and you reverse it in Bank Services, Bank Services will send this information back to AR. AR will in turn use this information to reverse the customer payment and restore the paid invoice to an outstanding status.

Clear as mud? Good. We can get into the Operations Management Suite next time.

Is Refund Entry the Same as Return Customer Checks?

Tyrone — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 22:28:00 GMT

"Aren't these two functions the same?" somebody from another department was asking me the other day. They do sound similar, don't they? So under what circumstances do you use each of them?

Refund Entry is added recently in version 5.4. Refund Entry lets you easily refund customers’ unapplied credits – and if you’re refunding by check, you can actually print a check through Refund Entry so you no longer have to do it in Accounts Payable. That way, the refund check can be tied to the original payment from the customer. So what are unapplied credits? They’re documents that show a negative amount in Accounts Receivable, such as credit notes, prepayments, unapplied cash, and receipts.

So for example, if a customer owes you $900, but sends you a $1000 payment, you can use Refund Entry to return the extra $100. First, post the $1000 payment against the invoice and the program will create a receipt of $-100. Then in Refund Entry, select the receipt and the Payment Type. If you need a check to be printed, make sure you click on the Check Payment button and select the Print Check option -- the Print Check button at the bottom of the window will become available after saving the entry.

Similarly, if you’ve posted a receipt where you can’t identify the invoice or a prepayment that was never applied, you can simply reverse these transactions using Refund Entry.

Return Customer Checks in Bank Services is also used for reversing, but it only reverses the customer payment in full, and you won’t be able to print a check for the reversal. Use it in a situation where there is a NSF check, or when your customer voids a check, to reverse the payment and reinstate the invoice as outstanding again.

What about a situation where an invoice has been paid in full and the customer wants to return the item? You can’t do a refund if it doesn’t have a credit balance, and you can’t reverse it in Bank Services because the payment has been deposited and it needs to remain in Bank for reconciling. I recommend creating a Credit Note in Accounts Receivable to offset the invoice so you won’t overstate your sales. Now, you can go into Refund Entry and create a refund for this Credit Note.

I hope I was able to paint a clearer picture on how to use Refund Entry and when to use it.

The Other Half of Import/Export

garrick — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

You're now an expert using the export function. Lets move on to making you an expert in the import function.

We'll start by making a template for import. The easiest way to create an import template is to input 1 entry into the screen you're working with (So if you want to create an import template for IC Items, input one of your items in manually first). Based on last week's blog, create an export file with the following:

Only export the fields available for import (the fields without the "+" symbols)
Export only the record you are using with the Set Criteria function (in my example it would be just the one Item)

Open this newly created file in Excel, and you should see multiple worksheets, and columns. Based on the entries from one item you exported, you should see where the data for each column goes. Note that for Excel, some of the fields are not recognized unless a apostrophe (') is in front of the field.

My suggestion before you start an actual import, make a backup of your database. Imports done incorrectly can sometimes have adverse and difficult to reverse effects on your data.

Time for the actual import. On the screen where you actually want to import the data, go to File, Import. Your type is Excel, and next to that is a menu for 3 different options: Insert, Update, Insert/Update. Input the file location directly below.

Next comes the flexible/complicated part. Think of each part of the top grid as each seperate worksheet. Selecting different parts will change the field options directly below it.

Because the import was created from an export file, the system automatically knows which column is for which field. If you want one of the fields to get data from a different column, right-click the contents, and select the appropriate column. There are other fields which are not columns too:

<Value...> allows the input of a literal value, like "1" or "abc".
<Default Value> allows the input of automatic values. For example, in IC, if you have a default Unit of Measure defined as Ea., and you're importing Items, by selecting <Default Value>, the system will automatically populate Ea. into each item imported.

If you're going to reuse this as a template for future imports, you can save this with the Save Script... button, and then load it again with the Load Script... button.

Once you're done all this setup, press the OK button, and the import should start. Once it's done, bring it up in the system to make sure everything is correct.

Congratulations! You're now an expert in both import and export! Go ahead and get those items into the system and start your new company!

Half of Import/Export

garrick — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

You've just started a new company in Accpac. You have a massive Item Status report printed from your old company. You're using this report to input your item information into Accpac manually, and you're only on page 10. STOP! Make life easier for yourself, use the export/import function.

What the export function does, is it can extract information from Accpac into a file (like Excel). The import function is the exact opposite, where it can use information from a file, and input it directly into Accpac.

We'll start with the Export function. Lets use the IC Items as an example. Open the IC Items screen, and go to File, Export... The export screen comes up. Specify the type of file at the top. I generally find the Excel file format to be the easiest to work with. Next is the file location and name. In this case, probably something like "C:\Items.xls".

The section below should light up now, showing which items should be available for export. Each header in this section can be opened, and individual pieces of information can be selected for export. To help decide which fields to select, go to File, Display Export Fields. A new screen should come up. The name of each field should be fairly descriptive, the * next to some fields means it's a key field, and the + next to the rest means the fields are only for export. Here's a quick explanation of the Type column:

String(x) - This is a general text field, most characters are accepted. x is the length, spaces included.
Boolean - TRUE or FALSE
Integer - Any whole number, both negative and positive.
Long - Similar to Integer, but can be much bigger.
Decimal(x,y) - Any decimal number. x is the length, and y is the number of decimals. So Decimal(4,2) could be 12.34.
Date - Pretty self explanatory, the date format will depend on your regional setting.

So, based on this information, you can select the fields you want to export. For now, lets just do all of them. Once you're more comfortable with this, you can select the fields you want, and save the settings using the Save Criteria function, and load them again with the Load Criteria function.

There's also the Set Criteria function, which allows you to isolate which records are exported. This works exactly the same way as the criteria function in the finder (we talk about this in the Using the Finder blog).

Press Ok, and the program should export all the information to the specified file. Congratulations, you've just finished your first export! Next week, the other half of the equation, import...

The Little Details of GL

garrick — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A lot of people call into support, saying that they've lost something. Unfortunately, we can't help you find that remote control that's probably tucked between the cushions of your couch, but we can help you keep track of, and hopefully prevent the loss of your Accpac transactions.

So, you have a GL Transaction, and you have no idea where it's from, what it's for. One of the first hints you can look at is the Source Ledger and Description. If the batch was generated from another module, the source ledger will match, and the description will generally say something like: O/E Generated Batch.

Next is the drilldown function. You've figured out the batch came from OE, but you want to know which shipment created this batch? Open the GL Entry, and click the drilldown button (the button next to the entry number that looks like a drill). Assuming the Shipment wasn't deleted, it should come up. From there, you can further drilldown to the Order. (If you do this on a batch from AP, it will pull up the AP Batch, and so forth).

If you want to be able to instantly recognize Order Numbers from the GL Batches, you can setup GL Integration to populate numbers from OE into the GL Batch. In the OE Setup, in the GL Integration tab, you can define many of the fields in OE to go into different descriptions/comments in the GL Batches. The GL Integration tab is available in all the other Sage Accpac ERP modules as well, like AR and IC.

Hopefully these tips will give you one less thing to look for, and try leaving the remote control on the coffee table next time.

The Key to Quick Data Entry, Part 2

garrick — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

So you've already incorporated all the hot-keys from Part 1, and you still want to move faster. Take some time to setup Quick Mode, and you can do exactly that.

Note that Quick Mode is currently only available in AP and AR Invoice Entry. Basically what quick mode does is when you create new entries, the information selected for Quick Mode will be copied to the new entry, and doesn't need to be entered again.

Lets work with AR Invoice Entry (AP Invoice Entry will be setup the same way). Open AR Invoice Entry, and go to the Settings menu at the top, and click the "Quick Mode..." menu item. The screen that pops up is separated into two sides, Quick Mode for Entries, and Quick Mode for Lines.

Say you want to create 50 Invoices for the same customer, and they're all for the same date. Activate Quick Mode for Entries, and select Customer Number, Document Type, and Document Date. Close the screen, and enter in the first AR Invoice like you would normally. After adding this entry, the system will create a new entry for you, but instead of giving you a blank entry, it will leave still have the same Customer Number, Document Type, and Document
Type.

Give it a try, and hopefully this helps to speed up your day!

The Key to Quick Data Entry

Tyrone — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:20:00 GMT

I have heard many clients comment on how much time it takes when they have to take their hands off the keyboard to use the mouse when they are doing data entry. As you may recall, we talked about the F1 Help key and F5 Finder key in previous blogs. There are actually more than just two function keys. Many of these function keys may help you speed up your data entry process.

Let's take the A/R Payment Entry window for an example (and most windows work pretty much the same way). If you place your cursor in the Batch Number box, which has the navigation buttons, you can use the Page Up and Page Down key to scroll to the next record. Hold the Ctrl key and press the Page Down key and BAM, you get to the last record.

Next to the Navigation buttons is a magnifying class icon, which allows you to bring up the F5 key . Once you bring the Finder up, you can use the Up Arrow key or Down Arrow key to scroll through the records quickly. Also in the window, you will notice that some of the letters for the functions are underlined. Like any other Windows application, hold the Alt key and press underlined letter to perform that function.

Back to the Batch Number box, the last icon you see should be an upwards pointing triangle. We call that the Zoom button. Place your cursor into the box and with the F9 key, you can zoom into the details for it. Lastly, whenever you see the double blue arrows, use the F7 key to display the details to the record.

As you can see, there are many functions that can be accessed without having the need to take your hands off the keyboard. However, there's one more function that I have not mentioned and I will leave that for you to figure it out. What function key accesses the Month Calendar? (It's next to the F5 key!)

Automate and Get a Longer Coffee Break

garrick — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Ever wish all your work could be done for you, and you can just sit back, put your feet up with your cup of coffee and relax? Accpac can't quite do that, but here's a couple of things you can do to help you automate some of your daily processes:

The Startup folder - Did you know you can have Accpac start multiple screens and reports for you when you logon? To do this, from the Main Accpac desktop, first select the company name at the top of the screen in the left hand side. Now in the right hand side, you should see several icons listing your modules, like AR and GL. From there, right-click and create a new folder and call it "Startup". Now drag whatever icons you want to have start automatically when you start Accpac. The next time you logon to Accpac, the OE screen, or the GL Batch List screen, or whatever other icons you have in there will start automatically!

Recurring Entries - In AP/AR/GL, you can create recurring entries which make it easier to process transactions which consistently occur, like bank charges, or AR Customer Invoices.

To allow for AR Recurring Charges, in the AR Setup Options, under the Processing tab, the Process Recurring Charges option needs to be selected. Then you need to close and re-open the company for the change to take effect. For AP and GL, the recurring entries are already available.

To setup the schedules to control the frequency of these transactions, go to Common Services -> Scheduling -> Schedules. Depending on the module, you can setup the recurring charge by going through:
- General Ledger Setup -> Recurring Entries
- Accounts Receivable Customers -> Recurring Charges
- Accounts Payable Vendors -> Recurring Payables
In each of these screens, fill out the information (most things are self explanatory, and are just like the regular entry screens, but if you have any problems, try using the F1 help). Now, the next time you logon to Accpac, the Reminder List will come up, and you can create batches much more quickly, and on time!

You can't quite take a vacation and let Accpac do all the work, but hopefully these tips can at least get you a longer coffee break!

Security Check

Tyrone — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:30:00 GMT

Unlawful employees stealing confidential information, disgruntled workers sabotaging company information. Do these nightmares sound all too familiar? However, just a simple click of an option when setting up the database may put all these nightmares away and bring you a good night’s sleep.

When you are setting up the System Database, there’s an option for Enable Application Security. If you select that option, you will notice that you are now required to enter a password to open a company. So now, you can setup user accounts for each employee that will be using Accpac.

There are three different account types, Admin, User, and Timecard. Only the username Admin is all powerful and can access some functions such as Restart Maintenance and Data activation. Everybody else has to have a type of User or Timecard account. You can setup the User type accounts to access most of the functions within the program. However, what functions it can access will depend on what’s been setup in the Security Groups.

Different from previous versions, Sage Accpac 5.5 Timecard type users no long require a Timecard Users license to access the program. Timecards users are setup for employees to enter their own timecards, and they will have access to that function only.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many many more customizations that you can do to each individual user. I would suggest going through Chapter 6 and 7 of the System Manager Administrator Guide to start with.