ReesNews

The F9 key now has a new search option available. B for combined, allows you to select on multiple fields, such as stock group, stock type, stock discount group, supplier, code and location, or a combination of any of the above.

This has been added to provide you with a more specific search facility, so that you can easily limit your search, for example Group 4 – Glue, from supplier BOND.

A dollar ($) search on the dollar value ($) has been added to the Shift+F4 and Shift+F5 function keys. These function keys display invoice and quote lists and previously allowed you to select by client code, alpha, number, date or reference as well as view a selected invoice/quote.

Two new features have been added into the ReesPay program. The first feature provides the ability to re-create your PAYE file and reports for a month should you forget to perform a PAYE period end at the correct time. The new routine will recalculate the amounts based on a date range that you determine. Then after you have created your IRfile and/or reports, you then re-run the routine to calculate this current month’s figures to date. This saves having to manually edit the IRfile or report prior to sending to the IRD. ReesPay menu option is 27.3 (the password = SEER). You should always then run option 19.2 to check the recalculation values.

The second new feature allows you to recreate your DC file for the previous pay (i.e. after a pay end update) should you forget create the file when doing your payroll. To create a DC file from your pay history use ReesPay menu option 27.1 ‘Create Bank D/C File’ and select L for the last option ‘Current or Last pay’.

To use these two features your payroll program must be dated 21 October 2003 or later (see main menu of ReesPay, on the top right hand side under today’s date). To update your payroll to this version use ReesPay menu option 28.8 ‘Download ReesPay update from the Web’.

Are you sick and tired of someone else pinching your Purchase Order number before you have finalised your order? Well now you can allocate the Purchase Order number when you start an order so that the number you start with will remain as yours. To activate the allocation of the purchase order number when commencing your Purchase order, go to Rees2000 menu 5.14 Set up Options and answer ‘Y’ to the question ‘When adding a new P/O ALLOCATE the P/O number at the start?’

There is also another new change to Purchase Orders for when you are returning items on a purchase order. If all detailed lines have negative quantities, instead of printing the words ‘Purchase Order’ at the top of the order, the words ‘Request for Credit’ will appear instead.

Most of you will be familiar with the 4 Seasons Home & Leisure stores that are now well established throughout NZ and which we wrote about in a previous newsletter. The initial 14 stores were established in November 1999. Rees Software & Systems Ltd was chosen as the supplier for the franchiser and franchisee store software. In 1999, because of the time constraints we elected to provide automated communications between branches and head office (for data transfer) using pcAnywhere, a commercial remote communications package. This has proven reasonably reliable, however it is dependent on the telephone lines in the franchisees premises and franchiser being set up correctly and also requires 2 toll calls to each franchise every working day of the year. As the group has grown their requirements for data exchange has increased. This has added up to a considerable expense and also increased the number of failed transfers that required manual intervention. Rees Software & Systems Ltd was invited to come up with a better solution.

The solution we devised was to use high speed Internet at the franchises and franchiser to transfer the data and also use automatic scheduled e-mails to send reports to the franchisees during the day. The software was duly written, tested and then installed in September. From the first day of operation it has proved 100% reliable and resulted in a significant saving in time and cost. It also provides far better security as it removes all possibility of the system being compromised by hackers. This is the type of use that the Internet was designed for rather than the hype that surrounded the .com boom and bust.

We have a new member to our team, Pamela Blalock. Pamela joined us at the start of October as a software developer. Pamela moved to NZ in 2002 from Boston, USA with her husband John. Pamela’s role is to undertake specific R&D projects for our company.

Do you have a requirement for Sales staff to create orders while visiting customers or walking around the warehouse? Then our new Saleslink Mobile interface may be of interest to you.

We have recently written an interface for our Rees2000 program to accept into our Sales Orders Module, orders entered remotely onto a Palm running the Saleslink Mobile software. Once in the Rees2000 database the order quantities can be confirmed and Invoices automatically produced.

Saleslink Mobile is a portable ordering / invoicing system that allows transactions to be entered from any location, be it onsite with a sales representative or from a sales van or warehouse environment. The transfer of the order details can either be done by placing the Palm in a cradle attached to a central PC or by transmitting the order directly to the central PC. If the transmitting option is used it is possible to use a combination of cell phone and Palm OS handheld computer in a single device (several such devices are now on the market).

The Rees2000 interface has the ability to make available to the Palm a summary of the company’s customer and stock details in a format that can be accessed by the Saleslink Mobile software for enquiry purposes and also can be used to create the detailed order. It is possible to limit the information each sales Representative receives in their Palm (for example just transfer the details for those customers who have been allocated to that rep).

New sales created on the Palm are sent to a central PC in your offices. The Saleslink Mobile software on this central PC then checks the receipt of the order, keeps statistics of orders received and makes the order information available to the Rees2000 interface program.

The Rees2000 interface program runs in the background and automatically polls the server at predetermined intervals, checking for unprocessed orders (The checking interval can range from every few seconds to several hours). If unprocessed orders are found these are then automatically converted into a Sales Order in the Rees2000 database and the order is printed.

When the goods have been dispatched the quantity sent is confirmed in the Rees2000 Sales Order module and an Invoice created. Any unsent goods can be left on Back Order for future dispatch.

Saleslink Mobile is a solution marketed by I.T. Link and includes the software for the Palm plus the software for a central PC that is used to collect the order information and make it available to the Rees2000 interface program.

Contact details for I.T Link are:

Oliver Huggins

I.T. Link Limited
P O Box 1333
Christchurch
Phone: +64 3 374 6490
Fax: +64 3 374 6493
Email: Oliver@itlink.co.nz
Web: www.itlink.co.nz

In October the ITM Group Support Office facilitated 3 seminars in different locations for the members of the group using Rees2000. Over 50 participants attended the seminars from ITM stores throughout the country. Andrew Ryan-Kidd represented ITM Support Office and Peter Rees represented Rees Software & Systems Ltd. The format of the seminars was that the attendees send in questions prior to attending and these would be answered, then a general discussion and exchange of ideas would follow. The feedback received after the seminars were that they were very successful. From Rees Software & Systems Ltd perspective they were a valuable insight into how Rees software was being used and it also highlighted some common questions.

The most common questions & answers:

Q) When I get a new version of Rees2000 from the Internet, how do I know what has changed?

A) On the first menu of Rees2000, press F1 to bring up the help screen, and then click the mouse on "Recent Changes".

Q) In Set up Client (1.1) H)istory transactions – to be able to select a date range to print?

A) Use the P)rint option instead of H)istory and select the date range.

Q) How do we stocktake items that have multiple locations – the Rees system only allows for one location in the stock set up (2.1)?

A) For all the stock items that have multiple locations, set their location to something like "MULTI", then print out a separate stock take list (2.11.7) for that location and stock take them separately.

Q) How can we change a client code and all the history too?

A) Use option 1.13.1. Change client code or option 1.13.19 to Merge clients together.

Q) How can we change a stock code and all the history with it?

A) Use option 2.13.1. Change Stock code. Use options 2.13.13 and/or 2.13.15 to delete stock items.

Q) How do you deal with 2 suppliers for the same product?

A) Turn on the option to "Track multiple suppliers for stock items".

Q) When I send a message to workstations using 14.9 only some of the workstations get the message?

A) Windows NT, 2000 & XP workstations will always get the message. For Windows 95 & 98 you need to ensure the "WinPopUp" program supplied with Windows is installed and running.

Q) How do I change the delivery address in Invoicing?

A) When you have entered the invoice lines before you P)rint or F)ile the invoice use A)ddr to change the delivery address.

Q) How do I do sub-totals on an invoice?

A) On the line you want the sub-total to appear use a stock code where the first character is a backslash character (\). When the invoice is printed a subtotal will print. You can have multiple sub-totals on your invoices (and quotes).

Q) We want to print negative Purchase Orders that print "Request for Credit" instead of "Purchase Order" – how can we do this?

A) Download a version of Rees2000 23-Oct-2003 or later. Negative P/O’s now print as "Request for Credit".

We have changed the layout of the Job Costing Set up Options (menu option 6.14). This was done as it was extremely confusing to understand what settings were related to invoicing and what related to job cost set ups and reports. So we redesigned the layout so that all invoicing options are now placed together on page two of the set up screen.

There is a new set up option (6.14 page2) available in the Job costing module that enables you to invoice your labour in a summary format showing a new line per labour rate. Previously labour could be summarised on the invoice either in total or by stock code.

If you have the security module you now have the ability to not display the costs on the stock set up screen for specific users. The option is only available if you have the security module and is found under Rees2000 menu option 14.15 User Maintenance.

Please note that this only excludes the cost displaying in the Set up Stock screen (menu 2.1) and the F9 Stock lookup. There are numerous screens available that still allow you to view the cost of stock items.

Do you have a code that you use for one-off purchases that you wish to sell to a client with specific mark-ups based on their client buy prices?

You can have a stock code set up so that when you enter the cost price the sell price will automatically calculate for you based on the sell price (1-6) mark-up set for that client or job.

eg. Code ‘NS’ Non stock

%

Sell price 1 100 M (mark up on cost)

2 60 M

3 25 D (discount on price 1)

etc

If you have the settings selected to mark up based on sell price, then when you enter the code NS on either an invoice, quote or job you will be asked to enter the cost of the item, then the sell price will automatically calculate based on your set mark ups. For example should you enter a cost of $100 and the client/job is set as sell price 1 then $200 will be charged, if on sell price 3 $150 will be charged.

To use this feature you need to activate the following settings:

Rees2000 menu option 14.14 password = SETUP, near the base of page 1 the following questions:

‘On stock set up ask "Enter cost on invoice"?’ to ‘Y’; and ‘% is MarkUp To Calc Sell Price (not Cost)’ to ‘Y’

Then under the specific stock code in Rees2000 menu option 2.1 Set up Stock, the questions:

‘Enter cost on Invoice?’ to ‘Y’; and ‘MarkUp % to calculate Selling Price’ to ‘0.00’

Did you know that you have the ability to embed dates, times and user name/terminal in your macros?

Macros are set up under Rees2000 menu option 14.7 ‘Edit Macro File’ and allow for a quick key to insert specific text or enter key commands...

&DATE Inserts the PC’s current date at the time used

&TIME Inserts the PC’s current time

&NAME Inserts the PC’s User Name/Terminal

&JODESC1 Inserts the current Job description Line 1

&JODESC2 Inserts the current Job description Line 2

&JOVALI Inserts the value of the Job Invoices to date

&JOVAL Inserts the value of the Job to date

&END Takes you to the end of the line

&CNTLW Inserts the CNTL+W function used in Rees (i.e. save)

&ESC Inserts the ESC function

&PGUP Inserts the Page Up function

&PGDN Inserts the Page Down function (i.e. drops you to the end of the line or page)