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REES SOFTWARE & SYSTEMS LIMITED
 

 

Index for Other ReesNews Issues.

ReesNews

Volume 1, Issue 12 20 February 1999

ReesEasy version 11

We have been busy in the last few months programming new features and enhancements for ReesEasy, in preparation for the release of version 11. We expect to implement this version in all new software sites in 1999, with an official launch date of 1 March 1999. Enclosed with this newsletter is a brochure detailing all new features that have been introduced in ReesEasy since version 10. For pricing details, please contact our offices.

This Issue

0800 number and support policy

Rees Software & Systems Ltd have recently set up an 0800 number for sales and support. The number is

0800 REES EZ (0800 7337 39)

All help desk calls, either for software or hardware support, will be charged on a time-related basis in six-minute blocks, at $90 per hour. The exception is support for the General Ledger module, which will be charged at $120 per hour.

After-hours support is available; however, it will be charged at $180 per hour, with a minimum charge of $60 for each call.

Support given by phone, fax, and e-mail is all charged on the same basis. All prices are GST-exclusive, and are subject to change without prior notice.

Rees helpdesk

Rees Software & Systems Ltd are proud to announce the appointment of Tony Ameye as a full-time member of our support team. Tony has 25 years experience in the industry, including experience in adult education training, and programming in languages such as Clipper and Access. Welcome aboard, Tony!

ReesEasy interfacing with Microsoft Office

Our programmers have done considerable work on enabling ReesEasy to interface directly with programs in the Microsoft Office family. We believe that clients may find this useful in developing customised reports, graphing, and mail merges. If you are interested in seeing development in this area, please contact Rees Software.

Software products and updates

Most updates for our software products are now available on our Web site. Our site will be continually updated with the latest versions for you to download, and we recommend that you obtain your updates by this method if possible.

ReesEasy Versions 9 or lower, Easy Billing, Easy GST/Cashbook, Easy Panel & Paint, Easy Stock, Easy Invoicing, and Easy General Ledger programs have now had their source code archived. We are therefore not able to make any further changes to these software packages in the future. All these programs are able to be updates to be year-2000 compliant, with a small update fee of $100 (plus GST) per program.

After ReesEasy 11 is released (1/3/99), RE 10 will only be updated if a problem with it is discovered in the future.

If you require an update and are unable to download it from the Internet or via e-mail, a minimum charge of $5 plus GST will be charged for postage of an update or $10 plus GST for couriering of an update.

Attention: All year – 2000 update Easy Billing/Easy Cashbook/ Easy Panel & Paint clients

If you have updated Easy Billing, Easy Cashbook, or Easy Panel & Paint for the year 2000, you need to carry out the following procedure to ensure that your system does not have year-2000 problems.

For EASY BILLING/EASY PANEL & PAINT: Exit to DOS, CD to the directory in which your program is stored, and enter the command eb limit. Then change the date to the year 2099.

For EASY GST/CASHBOOK: Exit to DOS, CD to the directory in which your program is stored, and enter the command cr limit. Then change the date to the year 2099.

The year 2000

With New Year’s Eve 1999 fast approaching, and the Government’s new Y2KL Readiness Commission being set up, everyone seems to be getting on the bandwagon to ensure their systems are year-2000 compliant.

Users of ReesEasy should have received a letter from us on the subject in the last few months. Easy Billing, Easy GST/Cashbook, Easy Paint & Panel, Easy Invoicing and Easy Stock users have been sent update notices advising that an update is required to allow this software to operate effectively in the new century.

However, your accounting software is far from being the only possible source of year-2000 problems. You may have problems with application software such s word processors and spreadsheets. All your hardware and software should be checked for year-2000 compliance.

It is our company’s policy not to guarantee any product that we sell as resellers. We are able to carry out limited tests, if required by clients, for a charge of $90 per hour. We also have some information on year-2000 compliance of products from various manufacturers, such as Microsoft, which we have obtained from the Internet. We can provide you with copies of this information if you require it.

Should your company require year-2000 check, our company would take every care in investigating your compliance, and provide our opinion on your situation, along with our recommendations to further safeguard your business.

Easy Payroll 1999 update

The upcoming update to Easy Payroll will support IRD requirements for the new taxation year. More details of the changes will be supplied with the annual update disk. If you have any queries regarding the Internet connection to the IRD, please contact your local IRD branch.

Backups

Every time we write an article on backups we believe that we have said it all, thrashed the subject to death and that everyone should be clear on the importance of a good backup.

However, early in December we had a client who experienced computer hardware problems. Due to a chain of errors the client was left with a system dated February 1997. The client had to re-setup their system and re-enter data to bring them up to date. So, it won’t happen to you? Here’s the list of what went wrong:

1. one tape/disk to back up on.

2. a backup set up without a compare option to check that it worked.

3. not having checked that what they were backing up was what they should have been backing up.

Our recommendation is that you have at least five sets of backup media e.g. floppy, zip or tape. You might have one for each day of the week and continually rotate them. Having a compare option turned on in the backup will check t see that you can actually read the information off the media and that the backup is not actually pointless. Also it is generally a good idea to have at least one backup stored off-site, in the event of fire or theft. Remember the price of a backup disk, or the time is takes to backup, is generally a lot less than the hassle of re-keying or restarting from scratch. If you find that your backup is taking too long or requires too many disks, there are ways to speed it up or to run it unattended at night. Should you have any questions on the above, please contact Rees Software & Systems Ltd and ask for Shaun, or contact your local trustworthy computer company.

Debt collection

During recent times several businesses have had to look at the issue of debt collection. Unfortunately it is not a pleasant task, and can be quite costly. A client recently sent us a cop of the Romalpa Clause, and a note that must be displayed in a prominent position in view of your clients to enable you to add the costs of debt collection to their accounts. The clauses are as follows:

Romalpa Clause

The Customer agrees that the supplier shall retain title in the supplied goods until payment is received in full.

Overdue Accounts

In the event of you r account not being paid we reserve the right to add all costs of collection to your account.

If you wish to have one or both of these clauses on the bottom of every invoice you produce, enter this in section 4.14 (Invoicing Setup), under Notes on Page 1 of the setup screen.

Webbed Easy - Matthew Thomas

On 23 November 1998 I arrived for work at Rees Software with a mission: to revamp their Web site. Two weeks later, Rees had a new site, and I knew more about accounting software than I ever thought I’d learn.

The new site,  features comprehensive information about the ReesEasy and Easy Payroll software packages; a form which allows potential customers to order a free demo of Rees software on-line; an Updates section, allowing existing customers to download the latest updates for Rees software; a section on the company itself (including a complete archive of the ReesNews newsletters); and a support section offering comprehensive help for customers with Rees software packages.

Perhaps the most useful section of the site for existing customers is the Updates section. This allows existing Rees software owners to download the latest versions of software and help files as soon as they are released, instead of having to arrange for physical delivery of the update.

The site took two weeks to produce, and (at last count) consists of 1200 automatically generated Web pages, 68 manually created Web pages, six executable programs, five main sections, four background colours, three graphics, two help files, and a partridge in a pear tree. (Well, ok, maybe not the partridge.) Meanwhile, I’m working here until the end of the university holidays, revamping the help files for ReesEasy versions 10 and 11, writing and editing Rees advertising material, and generally making myself useful.

If you’re interested in getting a Web site for your own business, the first thing to do is ask yourself why. Is the site just going to be an advertisement? If so, that’s fine, but even though there are millions of people using the Web, very few of them are going to visit your site unless you have something useful to offer. Detailed product information, especially for products which have many technical specifications (such as building parts or motor vehicles), can be one draw-card; if your customers have the convenience of being able to find out all about your products without leaving their desk, chances are they’ll then go on to buy from your company too.

Next, you need to get yourself a Web hosting account – ISPs (Internet Service Providers) such as Tasman Solutions, PlaNET, and IHUG provide such accounts. They should also be able to arrange for you to get your own domain name, which will usually take the form company-name.co.nz, so that your site address will be http://company-name.co.nz?. (For more on domain names, see the article ‘Setting up e-mail for your business’ later in this newsletter.) Having an account without a domain name, and having your site as a directory on a server belonging to your ISP (so that your address is something like http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~company-name?) is cheaper, but the branding of your site won’t e as professional.

Finally, you need to get a Web designer (such as myself) to help you decide exactly what you will be providing on your Web site, and how it will be organised and presented – and then to actually implement it.

It is tempting, too, to just leave your site once it is made – for example, after Rees’s previous site was developed in 1996, it remained almost untouched for two years. It should be providing something new on it every month, at least, for people to remain interested in it so they will continue to visit. You also need to invest in some site promotion – listing your site on appropriate Web directories, putting the address on you business cards, submitting the site address to Web search engines and so on, otherwise your potential customers won’t know that is exists. Getting a Web site is an investment, and like all investments, should not be gone into lightly.

Setting up e-mail for your business

The majority of businesses now either have, or are in the process of acquiring, e-mail facilities. E-mail (electronic mail) is a fast, low-cost, simple, and easy-to-use way of communicating with business colleagues, suppliers, clients, family, and friends anywhere around the world.

Not only can e-mail e sued to send messages outside of the office, it can also be an effective way of communicating internally. Gone are the days of the message stuck on the desk, that can get lost or misplaced.

One way of setting up e-mail is to register a domain name. A domain name is an address which identifies your business to the Internet.

To register a domain name you should contact an ISP (Internet Service Provider). There is usually an initial setup charge, and from then on a yearly fee to maintain you domain name.

Once you have set up a domain name it is easy to install an e-mail server. An e-mail server is a computer program that controls the distribution of e-mail. It is set up to connect to the Internet every hour (for example) to check for new messages. When an incoming message arrives, the server will send it to the appropriate person in your organisation, so it appears in their e-mail program; when an outgoing message is sent, the server will direct it on the first step of its journey to the recipient. All this runs in the background; all the user needs to do is to type the e-mail and click send.

Is your payroll up-to-date?

You will probably already know that as from April this year, the procedure for informing the IRD about PAYE tax charged to your employees will change. No longer will you supply the IRD with annual totals of pay received and tax paid – instead, you are required to send IR345 and IR346 forms which contain information on the pay received, and tax paid, by each employee.

But is your payroll system ready for the task? Of pi are a user of Easy Payroll, it will be. Not only is Easy Payroll fully featured and easy to use, but the latest version – which will be released in March – is also ready for the new PAYE system. It will allow you either to produce files for sending to the IRD over the Internet, or to print the IR345 and IR346 forms for sending to the IRD manually.

There are other reasons to switch to Easy Payroll. Each employee can have up to six pay-rates, and calculated overtime rates, apprenticeship hours, and departments can all be used. Easy Payroll supports daily, weekly, fortnightly, and monthly pays, standard pays, contract payment (for example, commission, payment per kilogram, or payment by percentage), a variety or payment methods, holiday pays, taxable and non-taxable allowances, tax deductions, sick pay, student loan repayments, and child support. Other allowances or deductions can be designed to suit your business.

Not only does Easy Payroll print all your pay advice slips, but is comes with a wide variety of reports, including a pay cheque list, period and year-to-date PAYE lists, employee labels, sick pay and holiday pay accrual, employee hours, and many more. Easy Payroll interfaces with ReesEasy’s Job Costing module, to save time when entering labour for jobs. Context-sensitive help is available at the touch of a button. And of course, the latest version of Easy Payroll includes this year’s new tax codes and tax rates. If you are interested in trying out a demo of Easy Payroll, contact Rees Software & Systems Ltd, or fill our the demo application form on our web site.

The end of an era

With the technology changes of the past five years, and as it has become more common for our clients to have access to the Internet, this newsletter will be the last newsletter to be published in paper form. All future newsletters will be posted to our Web site. If you do not have access to the Internet, you can provide us with suitable e-mail address and we will send it to you by that method.

Is your UPS providing the protection it should?

An Uninterruptible Power Supply, or UPS for short, is a device that provides protection against power fluctuations, spikes, and failures. We have been selling and recommending UPSes for several years, and many of our clients have taken our advice and have purchased one. Since it is just a box that sits on the floor out of the way, beeping occasionally, it is not generally something that people who use it think a lot about.

However, a UPS contains a number of batteries, and like normal batteries, these do not last forever. The life expectancy of UPS batteries is usually 3-6 years. It is a good idea to test your UPS every 6 months, to ensure that it is providing the protection you need.

Testing your US is simple. All you need to do is take your computer to the point where you would normally turn it off (for example, shutting down Windows 95 or 98 so that the message ‘It’s now sage to turn off your computer’ is displayed). Then turn the power to the UPS off, to simulate a power failure. The computer should stay on and the UPS should beep. To give the UPS a thorough test, leave it running like this for about five minutes.

If the computer does not stay on when you carry out this test, then we would recommend getting the UPS checked out. Should you have any questions, please contact Rees Software or your UPS supplier.