CU Newsletter August 2008

Welcome to the CU Newsletter. Our goal is to keep you informed about new product offerings and the many features and benefits of CU software products and services. ~David Schaer, Director of Product Management and Marketing

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In this issue:

TIMS Version 3.4.2
New Features and Enhancements
Now Ready for General Release!

TIMS Industrial Version 3.4
The latest version of TIMS Industrial includes enhancements to a variety of core modules plus new systems for comprehensive A/R management and integrated credit card processing

Advanced Cylinder Management (ACM)
P/O Tracking

Computers Unlimited’s V3.4 ACM product continues to pave the way in cylinder tracking technologies. The logic used in Order Entry for purchase orders now applies to RF Front Counter by allowing you to enter hardgood and/or gas P/Os, whether or not the Blanket P/O system (ZZ 351 – P/O Tracking) is activated. You may select the P/O information function at any time during the order process to verify or change the customer P/O numbers on an order. For new orders, customer P/O information automatically displays as if you were entering the order in Order Entry, taking into consideration the Blanket P/O system if activated. For existing orders, P/O numbers from that order display and the system allows you to change them.

Retest Date
Improved ACM retest date functionality advances tracking capabilities by providing the ability to alert operators upon returning a non-vendor owned out of test cylinder (cylinders whose Ownership flag in the Cylinder File is either Distributor or Customer). In specified programs, ACM now warns you when a cylinder needs to be retested. The following programs that contain retest date validation are identified in the Cylinder Configuration File on a program by program basis:
• Order Entry
• Fill cylinders function of RF Update Cylinders
• Ship to vendor function of RF Update Cylinders
• Receive from vendor function of RF Update Cylinders
• RF Front Counter
• Customer stops option of CU Mobile
• End of day/Scan truck unload option of CU Mobile

In addition, the RF Re-qualify cylinders option of RF Update Cylinders now requires that you enter a future retest date.

Untrack Customers/Items
The convenient new Untrack Customers/Items program saves time and money by allowing you to change customers and items from being tracked by ACM to not being tracked (Tracking method field on the Cylinder tab in the Customer File is set to Balance forward), without calling on the assistance of Computers Unlimited. When a customer wishes to change a customer from ACM to balance forward and when changing an item from tracked to untracked, the program automatically performs all of the necessary changes to numerous TIMS tables. The program checks for open orders and unhandled cylinder exceptions and requires that orders be posted and exceptions handled before changing the customers/items.

RF Verify/Change Cylinders
You may now inquire on a tag ID in RF Verify/Change Cylinders and the program no longer alerts you about required fields unless you make a change to that cylinder. However, if you make a change to the cylinder, the program prompts you to enter the required fields before saving any changes.

Customer Owned and Contested Report Changes
If a cylinder is contested or customer owned, that information now prints on the following reports:

• Customer Cylinder & Cylinder Days Report
• Customer Cylinder Serial Number Report

Diver Trend Models
New fields were added to the cylinder file table and cylinder file history table for use with a new Diver trend model for ACM. Diver looks at the time between modifications to a cylinder record in these tables. The ACM trends model allows you to analyze changes in cylinder balances and status over a period of time by a variety of metrics including gas item and branch location, which assists you in uncovering surplus stock and identifying shortages in cylinder allocation.

RF Branch Transfers to Cylinder Transfers Table
New programming writes RF cylinder transfer transactions to a cylinder transfer table for Diver to report off of. The Diver model allows you to run reports on branch to branch transfers for cylinders processed in RF applications.

Same Tag ID on Same Order
Providing that you enter the return first and the ship second, the system now allows you to enter the same tag ID on an order twice. This allows customers to bring in an empty cylinder and have that same cylinder filled again all on one order.

Allow Returns to Create a Negative Customer Balance
New programming allows you to enter return 888888 cylinders for customers that do not have any untied cylinders or balance forward quantities to tie against.

Only Ship Customer Owned Cylinders to the Customer Owner
New programming controls whether you let a customer owned cylinder be shipped to only the customer that owns the cylinder or to any customer. If the Only ship customer owned cylinders to the customer owner check box on the System tab in the Cylinder Configuration File is selected, customer owned cylinders are only allowed to be shipped to the customer that owns the cylinder. A customer owned cylinder has the Ownership field on the Details tab in the Cylinder File set to Customer and the cylinder owner is the value in the Customer field. Only orders for that particular customer may be placed for this tag ID.

Deletion of tag IDs in Order Entry
Now when you delete a tag ID, the entry turns red instead of immediately being removed from the list. The system does not allow you to modify deleted tag IDs; however, you can undelete a tag ID if applicable and the text turns back to black.

RF Fill
The Fill cylinders option of ACM’s RF Update Cylinders program now updates quantities in the Inventory File, providing the ability to control quantities on gas items. Also when you fill cylinders, the system updates average cost, FIFO buckets, MTD and YTD receiving information and quantity on hand, and it provides a new inventory audit transaction for the History ledger function of Inventory Display.

The program continues to update the Cylinder File record to show new gas contents and cylinder status and optionally writes out fill activity to the filled cylinders table.

A/R Manager
With a sleek new user-interface, improved structure and integration possibilities, TIMS Cash Application is on course to become much more than a tool for applying receipts. It is evolving into a more powerful solution for managing all aspects of accounts receivable, compelling a new name, TIMS A/R Manager. TIMS A/R Manager V3.4 streamlines and accelerates the process of applying receipts and boasts improved tools for balancing. Completely customizable to your job function, you can sort and filter the data to meet your daily needs, as well as save the view for future sessions. Mouse functionality is available with retention of 10-key capabilities when practical. A/R Manager offers more information per check and distribution for fast and accurate balancing, such as the check amount, check balance, distribution amount, payments applied, reapplied adjustment balance and cash remaining. Information is now stored in a single table, eliminating data discrepancies, and invoice, order and claim information is easily accessed via a click of a tab. Also included is the ability to change aging values, adjust and move distribution amounts and view pending A/R through Customer Centric Inquiry or Account Inquiry, making A/R Manager an indispensable asset for cash application.

On the horizon for A/R Manager is a highly flexible and revolutionary tool for analyzing, working and tracking accounts receivable. This innovative approach to credit and collections allows you to design work flows that include the following:

• Queues – collection agents set up either individually or in a group
• Work items – past due A/R by apply-to number for a certain responsible party
• Generation strategy – the criteria for when A/R is to be collected
• Distribution strategy – the criteria for who is to work/collect on A/R

Determine the work you need to accomplish (i.e. customer or range of customers who are past due by a defined number of days) and who will be responsible for it. Or, devise a different strategy for A/R that is over a specific dollar amount (i.e. collect A/R valuing $1,000 at one day past due). The system quickly and easily adapts to all your collection needs by identifying the A/R that meets your strategy criteria and creating applicable work items for you to distribute and apply a level of priority. Through A/R Manager’s work flow system, you can design new ways to drive your collection agency's efficiency and recovery to higher levels. Find out what makes A/R Manager a special class of credit and collection software, and why the best is yet to come.

Credit Card System
The perfect solution to your credit order needs. The powerful new add-on Credit Card system software integrates a credit card machine with TIMS Order Entry, cylinder rent invoices, lease invoices and more. The system can store credit card number and information for future transactions and post to a separate G/L account. Rather than using the accounts receivable G/L account in the A/R to G/L Cross Reference File for charge transactions or using the cash G/L account in option AR 17 for cash sales, credit card amounts post to the G/L account defined in option ZZ 363 – Credit Card System. The program provides a Merchant File that ties TIMS to the credit card merchant. The Credit Card Type File stores credit card types that are accepted in TIMS (i.e. American Express, VISA, etc.) The file also ensures valid credit card types, and card number lengths are entered in the Credit Card Auto-Pay File and in Order Entry.

If you want to select credit cards in Order Entry at the time of the order or automatically pay rent invoices and/or lease invoices by credit card, add credit card information to the Credit Card Auto-Pay File. The file stores credit card number and information for a particular customer. Once added, information is stored on the merchant’s system, so there is no liability. Two new fields in the Customer File define whether or not the system automatically pays a customer’s rent and/or lease invoice by credit card.

Processing orders via credit card in Order Entry is then a snap:
• Manually input credit card information
• Swipe credit card
• Select credit card from Auto-Pay File

For ease of use, the program stores credit card invoices into a separate spool file and the Invoice Journal and Sales Journal report separate credit card sales subtotals. When you post invoices, a Credit Card Completion Report lists all invoices paid by credit card.

To stay on target with order processing productivity at your company, please consider the Credit Card system add-on software. The return will far outweigh the cost. Contact Computers Unlimited for more information today.

Customer Centric
Customer Centric (CC) delivers even more information and user control in TIMS V3.4, with a new form, additional columns and enhanced filtering. A new Rental Activity form offers various views of your customers’ rental agreements, status and billing information. You can quickly filter the rental activity to view information such as active rentals, a particular rental number or a range of rental agreements. Other valuable data added to CC include:

• Number of days outstanding and past due
• Original ship-to customer number and ship-to address information
• Leased quantity for the rental group/item and the cylinder net balance
• Department name and contested status/date of cylinders (ACM only)
• Tag ID required flag (ACM only)
• Customer’s email address/fax number defaults on emailed/faxed documents
• UPS Online Tracking information (add-on software only)

New filtering and display controls offer data views that are not only versatile, but also crucial to maintaining classified information. Added customer filters allow you to search by the order number, P/O number, and invoice number for even faster access to a customer’s account. A new Auto feature allows you to let the system determine whether to auto hide a column based on a set of criteria. For example, on various Receivable forms, you can choose to view the Ship-to Customer Number column and then select the Auto check box to auto hide the data if the ship-to customer is the same as the bill-to customer (customer currently being viewed in CCI). If the ship-to customer is different than the bill-to customer, the system displays the column of information.

Finally, use the new show_inquiry_cost identifier to grant/restrict access to cost and gross margin information, ensuring the security of confidential data.

Inventory Management

Contract File
The Gross Margin Contract Pricing add-on software allows you to base customer special pricing on a gross margin percent for regular, future, product category and supplier/discount code contracts. The programming is available for purchase from Computers Unlimited.

Physical Inventory
Although functionality has changed very little, the new look and feel of Physical Inventory promises to please. Terminology in the program was updated based on customer requests. In addition, Physical Inventory offers the following new functions in V3.4:

• Multiple physical counts at one location can be merged
• Merge adds physical counts together
• Separate physical locations by bin location, supplier, item range, etc.
• Copy existing physical counts
• Quantity/cost update warning
• Scroll/find feature in Full screen entry

Inventory File
Item ZZZ Rent is now hardcoded in the system so that it does not post cost amounts to the G/L and any cost is disregarded in Order Entry. Previously, the system allowed the user to assign a cost in the Inventory File, which displayed in Order Entry and on the Invoice Journal.

TIMS now prohibits you from adding an inventory item with a supplier code of three slashes (///). Because the system does not allow you to bring up items with this supplier code in the Inventory File, Order Entry, the Assembly File, etc., the ability to add items with this supplier code was removed.

Mobile Delivery
Mobile Delivery V3.4 maximizes the effectiveness of your drivers while streamlining dispatching through new automated processes and added information. Dispatchers can now readily identify who entered an order in TIMS by their initials and can quickly download orders by either destination branch or origination branch for all companies.

Enhanced Customer Stops and Orders forms clearly display a customer’s city/state/zip information, suspended status and cash on delivery (COD) status, providing the driver with even more delivery instruction. This information also prints on the receipt as does the volume for either fixed, bulk or variable gases per a new flag in the CU Mobile Configuration File.

Also assisting the driver in prompt and smooth deliveries is the ability to return all non-bulk rentals at a customer’s site and an add-on option to upload the received by name to TIMS during end of day processing. Please refer to Order Processing for more information on this useful tracking tool.

Using Bluetooth technology on the new wireless RFID tag reader, drivers can freely read RFID tags, eliminating the issue of worn or broken cables. Additionally, improved logging allows the driver to easily determine why the checkhostdate function failed, minimizing time spent troubleshooting.

Order Processing
A new, optional add-on software feature allows you to prompt for the name of the person signing for the ordered items when filing in Order Entry. The name entered in Order Entry prints after the text, “Signed by,” on the picking ticket and invoice. In addition, if you have Mobile Delivery, CU Mobile requires a received by name when signing off on an order and then uploads the received by name to TIMS when you select to upload to dispatcher during the end of day processing.

Truck Distribution
A new Missing Route Report was added in V3.4 so that you can easily identify those customers/patients that were not assigned a route.

Utilities

Batch System

Improvements in the batch log list make it simple to distinguish at a glance which batches had errors and which did not. The list of batch logs now displays one of the following three icons, depending on what the log contains:

• AB icon – No errors or warnings occurred in the batch
• Yellow warning triangle – Alerts you that the batch log contains warnings as defined in the Error strings folder
• Red stop sign – Alerts you that an error occurred in this batch log as defined in the Error strings folder.

When submitting a batch to run immediately, whether from the All batches or Daily view folder, the program now prompts you to provide confirmation indicating you know the batch will run ASAP.

In addition, if you run a batch job that ends in error causing the scheduler to pause, the system forces a re-verification of status when you submit another batch. The system does not allow you to submit another batch until the scheduler service is ready.

The scheduler also records if an e-mail was sent to Computers Unlimited regarding a batch error. By default, the maximum size of the e-mail sent is now unlimited. If you wish to limit the size of batch e-mails that can be sent to you, please contact Computers Unlimited.

Notes
In order to maximize flexibility, Notes in V3.4 was modified to allow you to tie Accounts receivable notes to any document number and no longer just the invoice number. This expanded feature allows you to remind users in Account Inquiry and A/R Manager of information concerning a selected document.

In addition, robust refresh capabilities were added to Notes in order to resolve refreshing issues when multiple users use Notes at the same time. The Notes program now automatically refreshes and prevents you from saving a note if it was changed in a different session by another user. In addition, when a note is deleted, the program automatically removes the note from the grid, not allowing a second user to edit the note. Choose the Refresh data function on the Edit menu or click the icon on the toolbar to refresh the following information:

• See newly added notes without having to close down Notes and re-enter
• Update the grid, removing any notes deleted by other users
• Update categories with changes from multiple Notes sessions Also in V3.4, the following enhancements were made:
• When editing notes, the Save button now both saves and closes a note.
• When using the Delete key to delete a note, the program now asks for a delete confirmation
• Ability to filter on categories when looking up notes
• If you select the Delete permanent check box for Notes in the Authorizations File, the program automatically selects the Delete and Change check boxes as well.

Re-Process Collated Files
This handy new program was developed for instances when something goes wrong while printing files created from the Collator system, such as a paper jam or power outage. Since collator files generally are very large in size, the process of reprinting the files was wasteful, time consuming, difficult and often required the assistance of Computers Unlimited. This new program eliminates the inconvenience and speeds up the process by allowing you to reprocess the files from a certain starting point.