Total Retail Solution Version 9

Transcription

1 Total Retail Solution Version 9 User's Guide (9.05)

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3 Total Retail Solution Version 9 User's Guide

4 Copyright 2006 JMM Software. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

5 Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Introduction About This Manual Updates Technical Support* Contacting Us Postal Mail:...11 Telephone: WWW:...11 Chapter 2 - Database Structure Brief Descriptions Customers Sales Repairs Leads Classes Sections Enrollments Accounts/Layaways Account Transactions Serialized Inventory Orders Order Items Chapter 3 Basic Program Navigation The Database Notebook The Database Toolbar Data Entry (Entering New Records) Types of data Entry Fields:...28 Adding Customers...29 Adding Sales, Repairs, and Leads...29 Entering Parts and Labor on the Repair Screen...30 Repair Notifications and Other Special Buttons...30 Adding Classes...31 Adding Sections...31 Enrolling customers in classes...32 Adding customers to a class waiting list...33 Moving customers from the waiting list to the enrolled list...33 Copying Students from one section to another...33 Un-Enrolling customers from classes/waiting lists...33 Sorting the Enrollment/Waiting Lists...34 Sending class notifications...34 Manually Adding New Layaways, Store Charges, and Store Credits...34 Manually Adding Transactions to Store Charges and Layaways

6 Modifying your Drop-Down Lists Modifying Records Modifying Customers, Sales, Repairs, Leads, Classes, Sections, and Accounts...37 Modifying Enrollments...37 Modifying Account Transactions...38 Modifying Orders...38 Deleting Records Single Record...38 Old Records...38 Undeleting Classes...39 Navigating Through Database Records Going to the first or last record...40 Going to the next or previous record...40 The Customer History Screen...40 Jumping to a Customer s Sales, Repairs, Leads, Enrollments, Accounts/Layaways or POS Sales...40 Jumping Back to a Customer s Record from a Sale, Repair, Lead, Enrollment, or POS Sale...40 Jump to a Repair by Repair Number...40 Jumping to a Particular Customer...41 Jump to another Customer Account...41 Working with the Serialized Inventory Database Chapter 4 - Searching for Database Records Quick Search Complex Search SQL Search EZ Customer Search Repair/Special Order Reminders...46 Jumping to a Customer Special Searches Special Searches for Customers...46 Special Searches for Repairs...47 Special Searches for Classes...47 Special Searches for Orders...47 Special Searches for Accounts...47 Special Searches for Leads...47 Customer Super Search Switching Between a Found Set and the Entire Database Chapter 5 - Creating Reports (Non-POS) Listing a Found Set Mailing Labels Printing a Set of Mailing Labels...52 Printing a Single Mailing Label...52 Printing a Repair Label...52 Avery Label Spacing...52 Phone Lists Class Reports Enrollment list for a class section...53 List of all classes and sections scheduled...53 Class success report...54 Serialized Sales Reports

7 Sales summary...54 Sales report by salesperson...54 Commission report for a salesperson...54 Repair Reports Repair report by technician...55 To-Do List...55 Custom Query Reports Entering Date Ranges Viewing and Printing Text Reports Chapter 6 - Printing Printing Database Screens Class Info Sheets To create or edit a class info sheet...59 To print a class info sheet...59 Invoices, Confirmations, Quotes, and Statements Footers...60 Chapter 7 Point Of Sale Starting a New Sale New anonymous sale...61 New sale for a customer...61 Answering initial prompts...62 Entering items into a POS Sale Barcode Scanner...63 Enter Unlisted Item...63 Search for Item by Description...65 Editing/Modifying an Item that has already been entered Editing an Item...65 Increasing the Quantity of an Item...65 Adding an Item Discount...65 Discounting by Dollar Amount...65 Compound Discounts...65 Deleting an Item from a POS Sale Sale Discounts Billing At Cost Entering Returned Items Returning a Serialized Item Gift Certificates Sell Gift Certificate...66 Use Gift Certificate...67 Gift Cards Selling A Gift Card...67 Using A Gift Card...67 Adding Additional Funds To A Gift Card...67 Checking Gift Card Balance...68 Managing Gift Cards...68 Manually Activating New Cards...68 Manual Gift Card Transactions...68 Totaling Up the Sale

8 Entering Tender (Payment) Finishing the Sale Processing Refunds Canceling a Sale Put On Layaway Feature Putting a POS Sale on Layaway...71 POS Layaway Pickup...71 POS Layaway Payments...71 Manage POS Layaways...71 Suspend Sale Feature Suspending a Sale...71 Recalling a Suspended Sale...72 Manage Suspended Sales...72 Reprinting a Receipt Opening the Cash Drawer Deleting Tender Price Lookup Non-Sale Transactions Reviewing Records Jumping to a Sale...73 Over-Rings...74 Show Costs...74 Changing Costs...74 Changing the Sale Date...74 Entering Items from Other Databases Sales...74 Repairs...74 Class Enrollments...75 Layaway/Store Charge Payments...75 Redeeming a Layaway...75 Charging a Sale to a Store Account...75 Applying a Store Credit to a Sale...76 Customer Spending/Volume Accumulations Selecting which products are eligible for the accumulations...77 Viewing a customer s accumulations...77 Adding accumulation messages to receipts...77 Setting Goals for Accumulations...77 Customer Loyalty Cards/Keytags...77 Working with your Inventory Database Field Descriptions:...78 Entering/Editing/Navigating/Searching Products...80 Automatic Sequential Barcode Number Generation...80 FIFO (First In, First Out) Costs...80 Manually Adjusting Inventory Quantities...81 Importing Inventory Count Adjustments...81 Adding New Products Copying Items Entering Big Ticket Items...82 Jumping to an Item...82 Exiting the Product Screen...82 Using Inventory for Repair Parts:

9 Checking Stock Levels:...83 Mass Editing Products...83 Mass Deleting Products...83 Putting Products on Sale...83 Putting Products on Sale-2 nd Method...84 Kit Creation...84 Further Kit Information...85 Working with your Vendor Products Database Field Descriptions:...86 Entering/Editing/Navigating/Searching Vendor Products...87 Mass Editing Products...87 Adding Individual Vendor Products to your POS Products Database...87 Importing Products...87 Entering Re-Ordered Products Without an Order Drawer Balances Point Of Sale Reports HTML-Based Reports...90 Cash Accountability (POS>Reports>Cash Accountability)...90 Sales Breakdown By Department (POS>Reports>Sales Breakdown By Department)...91 Profit By Department (POS>Reports>Profit By Department)...91 Re-Order Lists (POS>Reports>Re-Order Lists)...92 Purchase Orders (POS>Reports>Purchase Orders)...92 Inventory Reports...92 Stock Turnover Report...93 POS Sales by Salesperson (POS>Reports>Sales By Salesperson)...93 Unlisted Items Sold (POS>Reports>Unlisted Items)...94 Best Sellers (POS>Reports>Best Sellers)...94 Biggest Spenders (POS>Reports>Biggest Spenders)...94 POS Sales by Hour (POS->Reports->Sales By Hour)...94 QuickBooks Export (IIF File Method Obsolete) Data That Can Be Exported...95 Setting Up QuickBooks...95 Setting QuickBooks Export Options...96 Exporting the Data from TRS...97 Importing the Data Into QuickBooks...97 Exporting/Importing POS Sales Exporting from TRS...97 Importing Exported TRS Sales Back into TRS...97 Importing E-Commerce Sales from Key To The Web...97 Exporting POS Products (Inventory) Point Of Sale Options Hardware Tab Taxes Tab Department Options Tab Printing Tab Inventory Tab Cust Rewards Tab Misc. Options Tab Setting Clerk Passwords Barcode Labels Selecting label size Printing Labels Customizing the Function Keys

10 Credit Card Processing Credit Card Setup Processing a Credit Card Payment/Credit Customer Wish Lists (Gift Registry) Creating/Editing/Printing Selling items on the wish list Chapter 8 Miscellaneous Repairs Screen Setup and Usage Finishing the Repair Using the Search for Part button Screen Designer Configuration Wizard Daily Reminders Selecting from Multiple Databases Exporting Mailing Labels for a Found Set Interface to DAZzle Shipping Software Bulk ing Bulk Etiquette Generating an List Preferences Merging Customer Records Using Merge Two Customers Utility Using Duplicate Customer Find/Merge Order Handling Database Creating a New Stock Order With Auto-Order (POS Only) Creating a New Stock Order Manually Adding Items to an Order Deleting Items from an Order Printing a Purchase Order Sending Orders Electronically Special Orders Checking In Orders Manual SQL Update Commands Backups Backing Up your Data Restoring From a Backup Security Firebird Security User Security Security Disk (Override) Action logging Internet Menu Exiting TRS

11 Chapter 1 - Introduction About This Manual This user s guide is for TRS Version 9, and includes instructions for using the Point Of Sale (POS) features. If you have purchased TRS 9 without the Point Of Sale module, then please disregard the parts of the manual that refer to Point Of Sale or POS. Updates Total Retail Solution will continue to evolve over time. We are dedicated to providing you with a program that has the features that you want! We are always happy to hear any and all suggestions for new features and improvements, so that we can release new versions of the program that just get better and better! If you have any suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact us. Updates to Total Retail Solution version 9 will be periodically released. These are free to registered users of TRS 9. Updates within version 9 are available for download from the JMM Software web site at: Other new versions of TRS beyond version 9 will be available at a discounted price to registered users of a previous version. Technical Support* Telephone: Telephone technical support is provided free of charge to owners of the software for 6 months from the date of receipt. After the first 6 months, telephone technical support may be obtained by purchasing an annual support contract, or on a per incident basis. You will receive a letter with more details when your free support period expires. See below under Contacting Us for technical support phone numbers. technical support is provided free of charge. your questions to the address shown below. *Note: This technical support information applies to customers who purchased TRS directly from JMM Software. If you purchased TRS from a reseller, your support terms may be different. Please contact your reseller about your support options. Contacting Us If you need to contact us for any reason, we can currently be contacted as follows. For up-to-date contact info, please visit our web site a shown below. Postal Mail: JMM Software 316 El Portal Way San Jose, CA Telephone: Phone: (408) Fax: (703) SALES@JMMSOFTWARE.COM SUPPORT@JMMSOFTWARE.COM WWW: 11

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13 Chapter 2 - Database Structure Total Retail Solution is divided into several different databases that all work together. Below is a brief description of most of them. Brief Descriptions The Customers database, as you would guess, stores information about your customers. Each record in the database stores a customer's name, address, address, phone numbers, date added, last activity date, notes, classification information, and some spare fields for your own use. Each record in the Sales database stores information about the sale of a single large-ticket or serialized item, such as a sewing machine, vacuum cleaner, etc. It keeps track of who purchased it, the price paid, what salesperson sold it, the commission made, etc. The Repairs database stores information about the repairs that you do. Each record keeps track of what the customer brought it in, what the service request is, who performed the work, what was done, the prices for parts and labor, etc. The Leads database keeps track of sales leads. This is one of the most valuable parts of the program. When you demonstrate a sewing machine, vacuum, or other product, you fill in a record in this database to keep track of some information about the potential customer, such as the product demonstrated, the price quoted, the demo length, the current status, notes about the customer or demo, etc. The Classes database keeps track of classes that you offer. Each record in this database keeps track of the name of the class, and a description of the class. The Section database keeps track of each time you offer a class. For instance, if you have a class called "Beginning Sewing", and you offer it 5 different times, each of those times is a "section". Each record in this database stores information about the dates and times of the section, the name of the instructor, the price, the maximum number of students, etc. The Enrollment database keeps track of who is enrolled in the sections of your classes. Each enrollment record keeps track of who is enrolled, what class and section they are enrolled in, whether or not they have paid for the class yet, etc. The Accounts/Layaways database keeps track of your layaways and store charges. It keeps track of all of the important information about the account and all of the payments/transactions associated with it. With layaways, it also stores the original amount of the purchase and shows you how much is still due. The Serialized Inventory database keeps track of your inventory that you keep track of by serial number. These items would generally be the items that you would enter into the sales database. If you have the Point Of Sale module, this is not where you would enter the inventory for smaller items, such as notions. That will be discussed in chapter 7. The Orders database is what allows you to do your ordering. If you have the Point Of Sale module, it will do automatic ordering for you, based on stock levels. The Orders database keeps track of what you ordered, when the shipment was received, and much more information. There is a Point Of Sale database also. This database is discussed in chapter 7. Now, we will discuss each of these databases in detail, describing each of the database fields, and what they are used for. 13

14 Customers Each record in the customer database has the following fields: First Name, Last Name, Address, City, State, Zip: These fields are self-explanatory. They hold the customer's name and address information. State holds a 2-character state abbreviation. Zip holds a 5-digit zip code, the longer zip+4 zip code, or a Canadian postal code. There is also a field on the customer screen, entitled Fast Zip Lookup. When entering a new customer, if you fill in the zip code in that field and press TAB, it will automatically look up the city and state for you if you have that zip code set up in your zip code list (see the section on modifying lists on page 36). Company: This field stores the customer s associated company. Country: This field stores the customer s country. This field stores the customer s internet address. Home Telephone: This field holds the customer's home phone number. Work Telephone: This field holds a second phone number for the customer. Date Added: This date is set when the customer is added to your database for the first time. It allows you to see who your long-time customers are. If you want, you can manually change this date at any time. Last Activity Date: This date gets updated every time a customer does something in your store, such as buying a sewing machine, bringing in a repair, enrolling in a class, or making purchases via Point Of Sale. This allows you to see who your active customers are and who hasn t been in your store in a while. 14

15 Birthday: This field is to keep track of the customer s birthday. Although is stores a complete date, including year, it is best (for easier searching) if you always use the same year (such as 2000) as the year in this date. Classification: You may use this field however you want to classify customers. It holds up to 10 characters, which you can define in any way you want. For instance, you may want to use the field to keep track of how the customer got into your customer database, such as LE for leads, SA for sale, RE for repair, or MA if the customer asked to be put on your mailing list. Spare 1, Spare 2, Spare Check: These are extra fields for you to define however you want. You can use them to store any other information about your customers that you want. The labels on these fields can be changed via the Preferences dialog box (See page 117). Note: If you upgraded from version 2, then the Spare Check field will contain data from the Interested In Classes checkbox from that version. POS Tax Exempt, Tax Exempt 2, Tax Exempt 3: Use these checkboxes to designate a customer as tax-exempt, or exempt from specific taxes and not others. When you start a new POS sale for this customer, it will ask you if this sale is to be taxexempt. If so, all of the items will be rung up as non-taxable, as defined by these fields. The When customer is exempt from Tax 1, make them exempt for all taxes setting in POS->Options/Taxes further defines the tax exempt setup. This setting is on by default, so to select tax exemptions separately for the 3 taxes, turn this option off. POS Discount: Use this checkbox to designate a set discount for a customer. When you start a new POS sale for this customer, it will ask you if this sale is subject to the set discount. If so, all of the items will be rung up with the discount. Expires: This is the expiration date for the above POS Discount. Once the entered date has passed, TRS will no longer prompt you for discounts when ringing up a sale for the customer. Inactive: If you check this box, this customer will be considered inactive. You can still enter sales, etc. for this customer, but the software will not print or export mailing labels for them, or add them to lists. Notes: Use this field to store any additional notes that you would like to keep about the customer. Credit Limit, Terms: Fill in these fields to establish a line of credit for your customer. Credit Limit is the maximum total combined balances on any credit accounts. Terms is the number of days that they have too pay off any charges. Bad Check: If a customer writes a bad check, you can check this box to specify that fact. In the future, if that customer tries to write another check, the clerk will be prompted with a warning. Accumulations: This field is handled automatically by TRS. It keeps track of how much the customer has accumulated in dollars spent, and volume purchases (such as yardage, etc.). Please see page 76 for more information on how this is used. Assign Card: This button prompts you to scan a customer loyalty card or keytag., It assigns the barcode (or magnetic strip) on that card to this customer. You can then easily enter a POS Sale for this customer by scanning this card instead of searching for the customer. Wish List: This feature is gift registry where you can create a list of items this customer would like to have so when friends and/or family want to purchase a gift they will know exactly what to buy. Special Pricing: Stores a list of specific items (with price and expiration date) this customer may purchase for a special price. Tax Exempt 2 & 3: You can use these fields (and the Tax Exempt box above) to refine the tax rates that apply to this customer. 15

16 Sales The following fields are in the sales database: Date Purchased: In this field, enter the date on which the product was purchased. Price: Here, you enter the price that the customer paid for the product. Store: If you are entering data for more than one store, you can use this field to specify at which store the product was purchased. Type: Use this field to specify what type of product the customer bought. This field holds up to 15 characters, but we recommend that you use short abbreviations for your product types to minimize data entry errors. For instance, SM for sewing machine, SE for serger, VAC for vacuum, SW for software, etc. Make, Model: This is where you enter the make and model of the product purchased. Tax Rate: This field stores the sales tax rate that was in effect when the machine was sold. When entering a new sale, this field is filled in automatically for you, according to the default tax rate. You can set the default tax rate by choosing Edit>Preferences from the TRS menu. Although this field is filled in automatically, you can change it at any time by simply changing the value in the sales form. Serial #: Use this field to store the serial number of the product purchased. Trade-In Machine: If the customer is trading in an old machine, enter the make and/or model of the trade-in. Trade-In Value: When doing a trade-in, enter the amount of credit that the customer is getting for their old machine. Salespersons, % of commission: Use these fields to keep track of who sold the product. It supports up to 3 salespersons, and keeps track of what percentage of the commission each gets. The salesperson fields each hold up to 5 characters. We suggest using the salesperson's initials. Be consistent, and use the same salesperson code in all sales records. The % of commission field holds numbers from 0% to 100%. For example, let's say Mary Jones did most of the sales work, and demonstrated the machine, and the customer leaves to think about it. The customer comes back on Mary's day off, and Susan Roberts gives the customer some additional information and writes up the sale. You may want to give Mary 75% of the commission, and Susan 25%. So, you would enter "MJ" in the first Salesperson field, and "75" in the first % of commission field. You would put "SR" in the second Salesperson field, and "25" in the second % of commission field. Total Commission: Here is where you enter the total commission paid for the sale. If, in the above example, you enter for the total commission, Mary Jones would get $150 commission, and Susan Roberts would get $50 commission. 16

17 This field can be calculated automatically. You can specify the manner in which it is calculated in POS>Options, on the Misc. Options tab. Method of Payment: Here, you can specify how the customer paid for the product. Notes: Use this field to enter any notes that you may have about this sale. These notes may include free items that you promised the customer, or anything else that you want to add. Cost: This field stores the wholesale price that you paid for the product. Warranty Ends: This field stores the ending date of the warranty for the product. Warranty: Use this field to store the details about the warranty. Repairs The following fields are in the repairs database: Date In: In this field, enter the date that the customer brought the machine in for repair. Checked In By: In this field, enter the name or initials of the clerk that checked in the repair. Make, Model, Serial #: This is where you enter the make and model of the product to be repaired, along with the serial number. Store: If you do repairs for several stores all at the same location, you can use this field to identify which store the repair came from. 17

18 Service Request: This is where you enter what the customer says is wrong with the machine, or what they want done. These can be set up ahead of time, and simply selected from a list (by clicking the Select button) to make entry easier (see Modifying Lists on page 36). Accessories Checked In: This is where you enter which accessories the customer brought in with the machine. These can also be set up ahead of time (see Modifying Lists on page 36) for faster entry (by clicking the Select button). Labor Estimate, Parts Estimate: When you have an estimate for the work to be done, enter it in these 2 fields. These estimates can be filled in automatically, based on the Service Request. You can set up the estimate for each service request when you set them up (see above). Date Promised: In this field, enter the date that the repair was promised to be completed. Date Completed: This is where you enter the date that the repair was completed. Date Picked Up: In this field, enter the date that the machine was picked up. Technician: This field is used to keep track of who repaired the machine. It can hold up to 10 characters, and is best to use the technician's first name or initials, and to be consistent. Work Performed: Use this field to specify what work the technician actually performed on the machine. Warranty Ends: This field stores the ending date of the warranty for the work performed. Parts, Labor, Price: Use these fields to enter what parts were used, to break down the labor, and to store the price for each part and labor item. Tax Rates: These fields store the part and labor tax rates that were in effect when the repair was done. When entering a new repair, these fields are filled in automatically for you, according to the default tax rates. You can set the default tax rates by choosing Edit>Preferences from the TRS menu. Although these fields are filled in automatically, you can change them at any time by simply changing the values in the repair form. Method of Payment: Here, you can specify how the customer paid for the repair. Totals: The totals fields are calculated automatically. They are not for user input. 18

19 Leads These are the fields in the lead database: Demo Date: This is where you enter the date that you demonstrated the product. Make, Model: This is where you enter the make and model of the product that was demonstrated. Salesperson: This 5-character field is used to keep track of who demonstrated the product. It is best to use the salesperson's initials, and to be consistent. Demo Length: Here, you specify how extensive the demonstration was. You can use this 10-character field however you want, but it is best to use consistent codes here, such as FULL, PARTIAL, BRIEF, DEPOSIT, etc. Price Quoted: In this field, you enter the price that you quoted to the customer for the product. Price Range: This field keeps track of the customer's price range for the machine. This is a 20-character-based field which you can use however you want. Machine to sell: If the customer has a machine to sell (not a trade-in), you can keep track of it here. Machine to Trade In: This is where you specify any machine that the customer has to trade in. Status of Lead: Here, you can specify the status of the lead. For example, you could enter BE-BACK, THINKING, SOLD, etc. Use it however you want, but again, it is best to be consistent. Next Follow-up Date: Here, you can specify what date you d like to follow up on the lead. If you fill in this field, you will be reminded when your leads are due for follow-up. Hot Lead: You can check this box if this is one of your "hot leads". This may be a customer whom you want to contact again quickly. Notes: Here, you can enter any additional information that you like about the customer, demonstration, or anything else. 19

20 Contact Log: Enter information in this field any time you contact the customer. This helps to keep track of when you last talked to them, etc. Use this field however you want. Classes Here are the fields in the class database: Class Name: This is where you specify the name of the class, such as "Beginning Sewing" or "Advanced Quilting". Description: Here, you give a brief description of the class. Default Kit: If you have a supply kit that goes with the class, enter it here. This field is repeated in Sections below, and when a new section is added for a class, it inherits the default kit, which can then be overridden. 20

21 Sections The following fields are in the section database: Price: Here, you enter the price for this section of the class. Maximum Students: You may enter the maximum number of students that may enroll in the section here. Be sure and enter a value here, and don't leave it at 0, unless you don't want to let people sign up for the section yet. If you enter a value of 99999, the section will have unlimited enrollment. Instructor: This is where you enter the name of the instructor of the section. There is room to enter the full name of the instructor here. Location: If you have more than one class location, you can use this field to specify where the class will be held. Kit: If you have a supply kit that goes with the class, enter it here. It can be automatically added to the POS ticket when adding the class fees. Start Date: In this field, you specify the date that the class starts. End Date: In this field, you specify the date that the class ends. This information is used by TRS to automatically delete sections that have ended. It is highly recommended that you fill in this field if you want to be able to take advantage of this feature. Schedule: This is where you specify the dates and times for the section. You can enter this information in any way you choose. In-Store Notes: You can use this area to enter any extra information about the section. These notes do not print on the class enrollment confirmation. 21

22 Enrollments These are the fields in the enrollment database: Paid: Check this box if/when the customer has paid for the class. Salesclerk: This 5-character field is used to keep track of who enrolled the customer. It is best to use the person's initials, and to be consistent. Method of Payment: Here, you can specify how the customer paid for the class. Notes: Here, you enter any additional information that you need to keep track of about the customer or enrollment. Accounts/Layaways Some of the fields below refer only to store charges, and some only to layaways: Date Started: This is the date that the account or layaway was started. This would usually refer to the date the sale was made. 22

23 Due Date: This field is only applicable to store charge accounts. It is only displayed when the Store Charge/Credit checkbox is checked (see below), and the account has a negative balance. This is the date that payment is due. Description: Use this field to record what was purchased or any other brief description. Notes: Use this field to record any other useful information that you may have about this layaway or account. It allows a longer, more detailed description. Store Charge/Credit: Check this box if this is a store charge or credit. If it is unchecked, then it is a layaway. Salesperson: Use this field to record either the person who made the sale, or the person who opened the account. Layaway Amount: This field appears for layaways only. It is the original amount of the purchase or the total amount needed for the purchase to be paid off. Payments Received: This field appears for layaways only. It is the total amount of payments that have been made toward the layaway. This value is calculated automatically from the transactions (see below). Balance Due: This field appears for layaways only. It is the amount of money that the customer still needs to pay on the layaway. It is the layaway amount minus the payments received. It is also calculated automatically. Account Balance: This field appears for store charges only. It is the current account balance for this account. It is calculated automatically from the charges and payments made. Account Transactions These are the fields available for entering information about a single transaction on an account (payment or charge): Date: This is the date that the payment or charge was made. Amount: This is the amount of the payment or charge. Clerk: This is the clerk who rung up the payment or charge. Notes: Use this field for any other additional information that you need to enter about this payment or charge. 23

24 Serialized Inventory Each record in the Serialized Inventory database has the following fields: Make, Model: These fields are self-explanatory. They hold the make and model of the item. Serial Number: This is where you would enter or scan the serial number. No serial number may be entered more than once for each model. Cost: Here, you enter the wholesale price that you paid for the item. Date Received: Here, you can enter the date on which you received the item. Notes: This field allows you to enter any notes that you may have regarding this machine, such as it being a demo unit, or a location code. Orders Each record in the Orders database has the following fields: Order Date: This is the date that the order was actually placed. Do not fill in this field until you have actually placed the order with the vendor. Received Date: This is the date that the order was actually delivered to you. Vendor: This is where you would enter the vendor from which you are ordering. Please see Modifying Your Drop-Down Lists in Chapter 3 for information on setting up your vendors. Ordered By: This is where you enter who placed the order. For Store: If you have multiple stores, and you do all of your ordering from one store, you can designate which store this order is for, if you so choose. Ship Method: Use this field to specify to the vendor, your preferred carrier, and/or shipping method. 24

25 Freight Amount: If the vendor has a fixed shipping cost, or you know the shipping cost in advance, you may enter it here. If entered, it will be added to the order total. Terms/Payment: Here, you can specify either the credit terms that you have with the vendor, or how you are paying for the order. Notes: Here, you can enter any other notes that you have about this order. This info will print on the purchase order. Date Picked Up (Special Orders Only): This is where you enter when the customer picked up the special order. Paid? (Special Orders Only): Check this box if the special order has been paid for. Special Order Date (Special Orders Only): This field is used to specify when the customer ordered the item(s), as opposed to when the store ordered it/them. Order Items Each item within an order has the following fields: Vendor Part #: This is for the part number of the item, which the vendor uses to reference the item. Barcode: This is for the barcode number that is printed on the item. This is especially important for those with Point Of Sale, because it is necessary for automatically checking in stock. Cost: This is the price that you pay for a single one of the item. This is the amount that is printed on the purchase order and used to calculate the order total. Retail: This is the retail price of the item. Note: This field occupies the same space on the screen as the Cost field. You can switch between displaying the Cost and Retail field by clicking the Show Wholesale or Show Retail button. # Ordered: This is how many of the item you are ordering. Item Total: This is automatically calculated for you by multiplying the cost by the number ordered. # Received: This is how many of the item you have received so far. # Backorder: This how many of the item are on backorder. Description: This is the description of the item, which will be printed on the purchase order. 25

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27 Chapter 3 Basic Program Navigation Most of the databases in TRS work in a very similar manner to each other. This chapter will give you some general information about how to get around in TRS, how to enter new records into the database, modify existing records, delete records, and navigate through records. The Database Notebook The database notebook makes it easy to switch between one record type (customers, sales, repairs, leads, etc.) and another. The database notebook tabs are shown below. To switch between one type of record and another, simply click on the appropriate notebook tab with the mouse. Alternatively, you may switch between tabs with the keyboard by holding down the Alt key and pressing the corresponding number of the tab. The Database Toolbar The database toolbar is used for almost all of your database activities. It is shown below. The buttons on the database toolbar are described below, with the associated keyboard shortcuts Go to the first record (Shortcut key: Ctrl-F) Go to the previous record (Shortcut key: Ctrl-P) Go to the next record (Shortcut key: Ctrl-N) Go to the last record (Shortcut key: Ctrl-L) Insert a new record (Shortcut key: Ctrl-I) + Delete the current record (Shortcut key: Ctrl-D) 0 5 b r ü Edit the current record (Shortcut key: Ctrl-E) Post (Save) modifications (Shortcut key: Ctrl-O) Cancel modifications (Shortcut key: Ctrl-A) Refresh data (Shortcut key: Ctrl-R) If you ever forget what any of the buttons on the toolbar mean while using the program, you can find out by placing the mouse cursor over the button, without clicking, and holding it there for a few seconds. 27

28 Data Entry (Entering New Records) Types of data Entry Fields: There are several types of data entry fields in TRS which you use to enter information into your databases. The different types are shown below: The figure above shows a simple text entry field. This is the type of data entry field with which you should be the most familiar. To enter data into this type of field, you either use the tab key to move the cursor to the field, or click on it with the mouse. Then, you can simply type in the information. Some of the text entry fields are for entering dates. In the date fields, you may enter the dates in one of several ways. The following are valid ways of entering dates: MM/DD/YY MM/DD/YYYY MMDDYY MMDDYYYY MMDD If you leave out the slashes, as in the last three formats, you MUST enter two digits for month and two digits for day. So, for example, February 7, 2000 would be entered as or If you are entering the slashes, then you can leave out the leading zeros. For example, you could enter the above date as 2/7/2000. If you enter it as MMDD (leaving off the year), then the current year is assumed. The figure above shows a drop-down list. This type of data entry field is used for fields that have a certain set of values that you want to choose from each time. This makes data entry easier because you don t have to type them in each time. You only have to choose the desired entry from the list. To display the list, you click on the u button to the right of the text area. The list will drop down. You can use the scrollbar to scroll through the items if the list is longer than the box. To select an item from the list, click on it with the mouse. To add items to the list, please see page 36. Some of the drop-down list fields have a regular text entry field directly above it, linked to the same database field. This allows you the choice of either selecting a value from the list, or entering a value that is not in the list. Try not to do this unless you really need to use a value that you will probably not need to use again often. 28

29 The figure above shows a memo field. A memo field is used to make it easier to enter longer amounts of text. They are the same as a regular text entry field, except that you can enter multiple lines. You can use the Enter key to go to the next line. The figure above shows a checkbox. These types of fields have only 2 states, checked and unchecked. To toggle the value of this type of field, you either use the tab key to move the cursor to the field and then press the spacebar, or you simply click on it with the mouse. Adding Customers To add a new customer, begin by clicking on the Customers tab on the screen. Then, click on the + button on the database toolbar. You can then start entering the information as shown above. When you are finished entering the information, you save it by clicking on the b button on the database toolbar. Adding Sales, Repairs, and Leads The first step in entering a new sale, repair, or lead record is to display a customer. You should first search to see if the customer is already in your database by using the EZ Customer Search outlined on page 45. If not, you should add the customer to the database first. If you have just entered a new customer, then the customer is already being displayed. If you are entering a sale, repair, or lead for a customer that is already in the database, display that customer by either searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). The new record that you enter will automatically be linked to the customer that is displayed when you choose to enter a new record. Therefore, you must make sure that the correct customer is displayed on the screen. Once a customer is displayed on the screen, a new sale, repair, or lead may be added. The easiest way is to click on one of the 3 leftmost buttons on the bottom left hand side of the customer screen, as shown in the figure above. Once you have performed one of these 2 steps, you will be entering a new sale, repair, or lead for the customer. You can now begin filling in the fields as described above. When you are finished entering the information, you save it by clicking on the b button on the database toolbar. For repairs there is also another way to add a new record. If the customer purchased the machine from you, you can automatically start a repair for the machine. When you have the sale on the screen, you will see a button on the screen that says, New Repair for This Machine. If you click on this button, you will be taken to the repair screen, and a new repair will be started. The date in, make, model, and serial number will all be entered automatically. From there, you can finish entering the information and save the repair. Similarly, if the customer has had the same machine repaired by your store in the past, you can bring up that previous repair, and click on the button labeled New Repair for Same Machine, and achieve the same result. After saving a repair, you can then print out a claim check for the customer by clicking on the button labeled Claim Check. If you have purchased the POS module, there will be one more step after saving a new sale or repair. A message box will be displayed, asking you if you want to add the sale or repair to the current POS ticket. Please see chapter 7 for more information about this. 29

30 Entering Parts and Labor on the Repair Screen If you have your repair parts and labor codes entered into you product inventory database, you can use your inventory to enter parts and labor to the repair screen. If you have the cursor in either the box marked Scan Part or Scan Labor, you can scan in a barcode or type in a code. If the number matches something in your inventory, then it will be automatically entered into part or labor column. For parts, it will also prompt you for the quantity and decrement your inventory for that item. Please see chapter 7 for details on entering things into your product inventory database. There is also another way to use your inventory database to enter parts into your repair screen. If you click on the button labeled Search for a part on the repair screen, you will be asked to enter part of the description for the part. Enter part of the description and hit Enter. You will then see a list of matching items. You can then double-click on the desired item, and it will be entered into the repair screen. Standard labor charges for Work Performed can be quickly added to a repair by clicking the Select button shown above. Labor charges are selected from a list you create (see below) which fills in the Work Performed, Labor description and Labor Price fields. To create or edit a list of the work performed labor charges, click the Edit Lists item on the menu bar at the top of the screen and choose Repair Work Performed. Repair Notifications and Other Special Buttons The Enter Estimates button speeds data entry by taking you directly to the Labor Estimate, Parts Estimate and Promise Date fields. Once entered, the next steps in the transaction are offered Creating a POS ticket and ing the estimate to the customer. The Make Repair Complete button allows a repair to be quickly closed out. On a pop-up window the current date is presented for acceptance or editing and then the chance to create a POS ticket or pickup reminder is given. 30

31 The Estimate button allows you to send an to the customer with their estimate information. Note: The JMM Suite must be installed and configured for this feature to work. The Send Completed button allows you to send a reminder to the customer to let them know that the machine is ready for pickup. Note: The JMM Suite must be installed and configured for this feature to work. The Pickup Reminder button allows you to send an additional reminder to customers who have not picked up their machines. You can send a reminder to the customer for the current repair, all completed repairs, or all repairs older than a certain date or amount of time lapse since completion. Note: The JMM Suite must be installed and configured for this feature to work. Adding Classes To add a new class, begin by clicking on the Classes tab on the screen. Then, click on the + button on the database toolbar. You can then start entering the information as described above. When you are finished entering the information, you save it by clicking on the b button on the database toolbar. Adding Sections The first step in entering a new section is to display the class that this section is for. If you have just entered a new class, then the class is already being displayed. If you are entering a section for a class that is already in the database, display that class by either searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). The new section that you enter will automatically be linked to the class that was displayed when you choose to enter a new section. Therefore, you must make sure that the correct class is displayed on the screen. Once the class is displayed on the screen, a new section may be added by one of two methods. The first is by switching to the Sections tab on the database notebook and then clicking on the + button on the database toolbar. The second, and easier way is to click on the New Section For This Class button on the bottom left hand side of the class screen. Once you have performed one of these 2 steps, you will be entering a new section for the class. You can now begin filling in the fields as described above. When you are finished entering the information, you save it by clicking on the b button on the database toolbar. 31

32 Another way to enter a new section is to copy it from another existing section of the same class. To do this, first bring up the section of the class that you want to copy. From there, click on the button labeled Copy Section as shown above. A new section will be created with the same details. Enrolling customers in classes The first step in enrolling a customer in a class is to display a customer. If you have just entered a new customer, then the customer is already being displayed. If you are entering an enrollment for a customer that is already in the database, display that customer by either searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). The new enrollment that you enter will automatically be linked to the customer that was displayed when you choose to enter a new enrollment. Therefore, before you choose to enter a new enrollment, make sure that the correct customer is displayed on the screen. The second step in enrolling a customer is to display the section that the customer wishes to enroll in. You can do this by either searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). When you have the section displayed, you should see a button with the customer s name on it, as shown in the figure above. Click on this button to enroll the customer. The enrollment screen, as shown in the above figure, will now appear. You can now enter the information. When you are finished entering the information, click on the OK button to save it. Once the enrollment is saved in the database, you will be asked if you would like to print an enrollment confirmation. If you would, select Yes. Next, you are asked if you would like to print a class info sheet. Please see page 59 for more information about class info sheets. 32

33 If the customer has an address entered into their customer record, you will next be asked if you would like to send the customer an confirmation. This feature requires the JMM Suite, which can be downloaded from the Customers Only Login section of the JMM Software website. Please see the user s guide for the Suite for more information about this feature. If you have purchased the POS module, there will be one more step. A message box will be displayed, asking you if you want to add the class enrollment fees to the current POS ticket. Please see chapter 7 for more information about this. Adding customers to a class waiting list The first step in putting a customer on the waiting list for a class is to display a customer. If you have just entered a new customer, then the customer is already being displayed. If you are entering an enrollment for a customer that is already in the database, display that customer by either searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). The customer that gets put on the waiting list is the customer that was displayed when you choose to do so. Therefore, before you choose to add someone to the waiting list, make sure that the correct customer is displayed on the screen. The second step is to display the section that the customer wishes to enroll in. You can do this by either searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). When you have the section displayed, you should see a button with the customer s name on it, as shown in the figure above. Click on this button to add the customer to the waiting list. The enrollment screen, as shown in the above section on enrolling a customer, will now appear. You can now enter the information. When you are finished entering the information, click on the OK button to save it. Moving customers from the waiting list to the enrolled list When a space in the class frees up, you can move a student from the waiting list to the enrolled list by simply selecting the desired student and clicking the button labeled ^ Move To Enrolled ^. The enrollment screen, as shown in the above section on enrolling a customer, will now appear again so that you can modify the information. When you are finished entering the information, click on the OK button to save it. Once the enrollment is saved in the database, you will be asked if you would like to print an enrollment confirmation. If you would, select Yes. Next, you are asked if you would like to print a class info sheet. Please see page 59 for more information about class info sheets. If you have purchased the POS module, there will be one more step. A message box will be displayed, asking you if you want to add the class enrollment fees to the current POS ticket. Please see chapter 7 for more information about this. Copying Students from one section to another The Copy Students button enables you to easily copy an entire section of enrolled students and/or students on the waiting list to another section of the same class. This is particularly handy for setting up Block of the Month Clubs. You can use this method by enrolling all the BOM customers just once, and then copy them all forward to the future months of the club. Un-Enrolling customers from classes/waiting lists When you have a class section up on the screen, you can un-enroll a customer from the section by first selecting the desired customer with the mouse and then clicking on the button labeled Un-Enroll Selected Student. 33

34 If you have purchased the POS module, there will be one more step. A message box will be displayed, asking you if you want to refund class fees. If you select Yes, it will add a class fee refund to the POS, just like it added the class fees when they enrolled. Likewise, if you would like to remove a customer from the waiting list, simply click on the button labeled Remove From Wait List. Sorting the Enrollment/Waiting Lists You can change the display order of the enrollment and waiting lists by clicking on a column head. For example, clicking on the Last Name heading will display the students alphabetically by last name. Clicking Last Name displays contents in alphabetical order by last name. Sending class notifications TRS also gives you the ability to send custom notifications for class sections. When you click on the Notifications button on the Sections screen, you are given the option to send a class reminder , a class cancellation notice, or any other general to all of the enrolled customers. The class reminders and cancellation notifications can be customized with your own template. The notification feature requires the JMM Suite, which can be downloaded from the Customers Only Login section of the JMM Software website. Please see the user s guide for the Suite for more information about this feature. Manually Adding New Layaways, Store Charges, and Store Credits Note: If you are using the POS version of TRS, then most of the things in this section will not normally need to be done. Most of the layaway, store charge, and store credit activity will be done from the POS screen (see chapter 7). This section is only for manually adding new accounts. The first step in opening a new store charge/credit account or layaway is to display a customer. You should first search to see if the customer is already in your database by using the EZ Customer Search outlined on page 45. If not, you should add the customer to the database first. If you have just entered a new customer, then the customer is already being displayed. If you are entering a store charge/credit/layaway for a customer that is already in the database, display that customer by either searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). The new record that you enter will automatically be linked to the customer that is displayed when you choose to enter a new record. Therefore, you must make sure that the correct customer is displayed on the screen. 34

35 Once a customer is displayed on the screen, click on the new Layaway/Charge/Credit button on the customer screen. You will then be presented with a dialog box as shown above. Click on the appropriate button to specify which type of account you want to create. Next, you will be presented with a dialog box, which will allow you to enter the information about the store charge or layaway as described above. When you are finished entering the information, you save it by clicking on the OK button. Next, you will be asked if you would like to enter an initial down payment, initial charge, or initial credit (depending on whether this is a layaway, store charge, or store credit). If you would like to do so, then select Yes. See below for more information on entering payments and charges. The most common time that you will want to create a layaway, however, is when you are selling a large ticket item. TRS makes it very easy to create a layaway for the item by taking a deposit. To do this, once you have entered the sale (see page 29) and saved it, you can simply click on the button labeled Take Deposit, and a new layaway will be automatically created for it. Similarly, you can take a deposit on a repair by clicking the Take Deposit button as well. 35

36 Manually Adding Transactions to Store Charges and Layaways Note: If you are using the POS version of TRS, then most of the things in this section will not normally need to be done. Most of the layaway, store charge, and store credit activity will be done from the POS screen (see chapter 7). This section is only for manually adding new account transactions. When you have a store charge on the screen, you will see two buttons labeled Enter Payment and Enter Charge. Use Enter Payment to enter a payment on the account, and Enter Charge if the customer charges/debits the account. If you are displaying a Layaway, the second button is labeled Apply Payments To Sale. You would use this button once the customer is ready to pay off the remaining balance and pick up their merchandise. Regardless of which button you click, you will be presented with a dialog box that will allow you to enter the date, amount, clerk, and notes, as shown above. When you have finished entering the information, click OK. If you have purchased the POS module, the transaction will now be added to the current POS ticket (or a new POS ticket). Please see chapter 7 for more information about this. Note that if you cancel the POS sale before completing it, or if you overring the completed sale, the account transaction will be deleted as well. Modifying your Drop-Down Lists One of the first things that you will need to do after installing TRS will be to set up your drop-down lists. You need to decide what values will come up when you drop down a list when entering and modifying records. The drop-down lists can be initially set up, as well as modified at any time by following these instructions. (You can find more information about this in the Getting Started Guide.) 36

37 Select Edit Lists from the TRS menu bar, and then select the list that you want to modify. You will now see the values that are currently in the list. If you are setting this list up for the first time, there may be no entries in the list. If you want to modify a particular entry, select it with the mouse, so that it is highlighted, type in the new value, and then hit <enter>. To delete an entry from the list, select it with the mouse, so that it is highlighted, and then click the button labeled Delete Selected Row. Select Yes when it asks if you want to delete it. To add a new entry to the list, click the button labeled Add Blank Row. A new row will appear, where you can type in the new value to add to the list. When you finish typing the entry, hit <enter> on the keyboard. To change the order in which many of the lists display on the screen, click on a column heading. You can also print the list by clicking Report (Print). The LISTORDER field is there so that you can specify the order in which the items will come up in your drop-down lists. Entering this info is optional. To set the list order, simply enter numbers into this field. The items in your drop-downs will appear in order, according to the numerical order of the LISTORDER field. Some lists, such as Models and Sources will have additional fields that are used by other parts of the software. You may have to scroll to the right to see and enter all of the fields. Modifying Records Modifying Customers, Sales, Repairs, Leads, Classes, Sections, and Accounts To modify a record of any of these types, follow these steps: 1. Display the record that you want to modify. See searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). 2. Click on the t button on the database toolbar. 3. You can now edit the information on the screen. When the cursor is on a field that you want to edit, you can type over or append to the text already in the field. You can choose new values from the drop-down lists. You can also check and uncheck the checkboxes on some forms by clicking on them with the mouse. 4. When you are finished editing the record, you save your modifications by clicking on the b button on the database toolbar. If you change your mind and want to abandon the changes that you have made, simply click on the X button on the database toolbar. 5. The updated record will be displayed on the screen. Modifying Enrollments To modify an enrollment, follow these steps: 1. Display the section that contains the enrollment that you want to modify. See searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). 2. Click on the enrollment in the listbox that you want to modify. 3. Click on the Edit Enrollment button in the lower right hand corner of the screen. 4. The enrollment form will be displayed on the screen. You can now edit the information. When the cursor is on a field that you want to edit, you can type over or append to the text already in the field. You can check and uncheck the paid checkbox by clicking on it with the mouse. 5. When you are finished editing the record, you save your modifications by clicking on the OK button on the screen. If you change your mind and want to abandon the changes that you have made, simply click on the Cancel button. 37

38 Modifying Account Transactions To modify a transaction for a store charge or layaway, follow these steps: 1. Display the account that contains the transaction that you want to modify. See searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). 2. Click on the transaction in the listbox that you want to modify. 3. Click on the t button on the toolbar that is just above the transactions list. 4. You can now edit the information directly in the listbox. When the cursor is on a field that you want to edit, you can type over or append to the text already in the field. Click the Edit Transaction Notes button to make changes to the Notes field. 5. When you are finished editing the record, you save your modifications by clicking on the b button on the toolbar. If you change your mind and want to abandon the changes that you have made, simply click on the X button. Modifying Orders Modifying an order is basically the same as modifying any other type of record. One point does bear mentioning, however. If you are entering data into the order header, and then switch to entering items for the order, the order will be automatically Saved. If you go back to the header, it will no longer be in Edit mode. If you need to modify the header after entering the items, you will have to put it back into insert mode by clicking on the t button on the database toolbar. Please see page 119 for more details on the Orders database. Deleting Records There are 2 different ways to delete records from the database. The first is to delete a single record. The second is to delete all records of a particular type that are older than a certain date. Each will be discussed in detail here. Single Record To delete a single record from the database, follow these steps: 1. Display on the screen the record that you want to delete. See searching (page 43), or navigating (page 40). 2. Click on the button on the database toolbar. 3. You will be prompted with a confirmation message box, which will ask you if you really want to delete this record. If you do, click on the "Yes" button, or press the Enter key. If you do not want to delete the record, click on the "No" button. 4. The record will be deleted from the database. WARNING: If you delete a customer from the database, all sale, repair, lead, and enrollment records for that customer will be deleted. If you do this, this data will be lost forever. Any reports (other than Point Of Sale) that you run (see page 51) will not include these deleted records. It is best not to delete a customer unless you are absolutely sure that any sale, repair, lead, and enrollment records for that customer are no longer needed. When you delete a customer, their Point Of Sale records will remain in the database, but they will no longer be linked to the customer. If you delete a section record, all enrollment records for that section will be deleted as well. If you delete a class record, all of its sections, and in turn, their enrollments will be deleted. Old Records Occasionally, you may want to delete sales, repairs, leads, section, enrollments, POS sales, specials or special orders that have been picked up, that are old and that you no longer need. You can do this in the following way: 38

39 1. From the Maintenance menu, select the entry that corresponds to the type of record that you want to delete, as shown in the below figure. 2. Enter the cutoff date for deleting records. For example, if you want to delete all sales from before 1/1/96, you would enter that date into the field. Warning: You should consider keeping old records for as long as possible, so that you can do reports against the data. Once you have deleted these old records, they will no longer show up in any reports. Before using this operation, please make sure that you no longer need to keep the data that you are deleting. Undeleting Classes When classes and sections are deleted, they are really just moved to an archive. Because accidentally deleting a class would cause the loss of a lot of enrollment data, you can undelete deleted classes and sections in most cases. To undelete a class or section, go to the TRS menu, select Maintenance>Undelete, and then either Class Section or Entire Class. You will be presented with a list of deleted classes or sections. Double click on the one that you want to undelete, and it will be restored. 39

40 Note: If the deleted class s class number or section s section number has been re-used for another class or section since it was deleted, you will no longer be able to restore the deleted one. Eventually, you will have a lot of deleted classes built up in the archive. If you would like to clear out the deleted classes, select Maintenance>Purge Deleted Classes from the TRS menu. Once you do this, the archived classes will be permanently deleted and can no longer be restored. Navigating Through Database Records This section will show you how to move from one record to the next in the databases. Going to the first or last record You can display the first or last record in any of the databases by clicking on the < or > buttons on the database toolbar respectively. Note: If you are currently displaying a found set of records (see page 43), the First and Last commands will take you to the first and last records in the found set, not the entire database Going to the next or previous record When any type of record is displayed, you can navigate through the records in the database, by going to the next or previous record in the database. To go to the next record in a database, you can click on the 4 or 3 buttons respectively on the toolbar. If either of these buttons are grayed out, it means that you are already at the first or last record in the database. Note: If you are currently displaying a found set of records (see page 43), the Next and Previous commands will take you to the next and previous records in the found set, not the entire database The Customer History Screen When you first start TRS, you will be on the customer screen. On the right hand side of the screen is a large button that says, Show History. When you click on this button, the right side of the screen will show a complete history of everything that the customer has done in the store. You can go to any of the records on the right by simply double-clicking on it. To hide the history again, right-click on the history window and select Hide from the pop-up menu. You can also resize the individual parts of the history screen by dragging them larger with the mouse. Jumping to a Customer s Sales, Repairs, Leads, Enrollments, Accounts/Layaways or POS Sales When a customer is displayed on the screen, you can see the listboxes on the right that show the customer s sales, repairs, leads, enrollments, accounts and POS sales. You can jump directly to any of these records by simply double-clicking on the entry in the listbox. Jumping Back to a Customer s Record from a Sale, Repair, Lead, Enrollment, or POS Sale Whenever you are displaying a sale, repair, lead, enrollment, account, or POS sale, you can quickly jump to the corresponding customer s customer record. On the screens, you will find a button that says, Go to this customer. Click on this button, and TRS will take you directly to that customer s record. To go to an enrollment s customer, select the particular enrollment from the listbox on the sections screen. Then, click on the button that says, Go to selected customer. This will take you to that enrollment s customer. Jump to a Repair by Repair Number The repair database shows the repair number on the screen. The repair number is also printed on the repair invoice. If you know the repair number, you can now jump directly to the repair by doing the following: In the upper left part of the repair 40

41 screen, there is an input box labeled Jump to repair #. Place the cursor in that box, type in the repair number, and hit Enter. If the repair number that you entered is valid, you will be taken directly to that repair. Jumping to a Particular Customer From the Customer screen, you can jump to a customer quickly by clicking the Jump to Cust # button and entering or scanning their customer number, or by scanning their customer loyalty card (see page 77). Jump to another Customer Account From the Accounts/Layaways screen you can jump to another customer s account by clicking the Jump to Acct # buttom and entering a customer number. Working with the Serialized Inventory Database The Serialized Inventory database allows you to keep track of your sewing machine and other big-ticket merchandise inventory by serial number. There is a tab on the screen, called Serialized Inventory. This is where you add, delete, and edit your serialized items. NOTE: Before you can use serialized inventory, you must enter all of the Makes and Models for the serialized items that you sell (Edit Lists>Makes and Edit Lists>Models). Now, on to the Serialized Inventory screen When you click on the Serialized Inventory tab, you will be taken to that screen. The first thing that you need to do is select a make and model from the listboxes in the upper left corner of the screen. This is the make and model that you will be working on. If your models do not show up, or if there are some missing for the selected model, then you did not enter their makes correctly as instructed above. Once you have chosen the make an model, you can add, delete, and edit your items. To add a new serial number, click on the Add New Serial # button. You will then be prompted to enter the serial number that you would like to add. Next, you will be prompted to add any notes that you may have about this particular machine (such as if it s a demo model, or where it s located). The item will then be added to the list of serial numbers for that particular make and model. To delete a serial number, simply select it by clicking on it with the mouse, and then click the button labeled Delete Selected Serial #. You will be asked to confirm that you do indeed intend to delete that serial number. If you answer Yes, then that serial number will be deleted. You can also edit the notes for any serial number by selecting it as above and clicking on the button labeled Edit Notes for Selected Row. You will then be presented with a screen where you can edit the notes for that machine. You can also edit any of the fields in the grid by clicking on the yellow triangle icon on the database toolbar, as in other databases, and then directly editing the grid data. Click on the checkmark to save. This is how you set the Cost and Date Received fields. If you click on the Show All Makes & Models button, then the list will show ALL of the machines in your inventory, including all makes and models, rather than just the make and model selected. You can also refresh the shown inventory list at any time by clicking on the button labeled Refresh List. This may me necessary, for example, if the list is modified by another station on your network, or if you sell one of the machines. 41

42 You can print the current inventory list at any time by selecting the button labeled Print This Inventory List. The list will then come up in HTML format. See the above section of chapter 7 titled HTML-Based Reports for further instructions. You also have the option of printing a barcode label of a machine s Serial Number by clicking on the button labeled Barcode. Now, once you have your inventory entered, you can select serial numbers from a list from the Sales screen. When you are entering a sale, first select the correct make and model. Then, click on the button labeled Select From List to select a serial number. When you save the sale (click on the check mark), the serial number will be removed from your inventory. Also, if you delete a sale or click the Return This Machine button, you will be asked if you would like to add the machine back into your inventory. Likewise, if you edit a sale and change the make, model, and/or serial number, you will be asked if you d like to add the old machine back to your inventory and if you d like to delete the new machine from your inventory. You can also search your serialized inventory by one of two ways: By serial number or by notes. To search by serial number, click on the button titled Search for a Serial #. You will be prompted for the serial number. If the serial number that you enter is in the database, then it will bring it up. Searching by notes works the same way. If you click the Search Notes button, you will be prompted to enter part of the notes. If what you enter matches some of what s in the notes field, then any machines that match will come up. 42

43 Chapter 4 - Searching for Database Records This chapter will show you how to use TRS to find database records by using different search methods. TRS has THREE basic methods of searching: Quick, Complex, and SQL. E-Z Customer Search is a fourth option for finding customers. It offers the fastest way to find a customer. You can also jump directly to a customer if you have their customer number. Quick Search Quick searches are fast and easy. They are used for day-to-day finding of things. To do a quick search of a database, you first select the tab on the database notebook that corresponds to the database that you wish to search. Then, click on the button that says, Quick Search. You will be presented with a quick search form, as shown below. All you have to do is fill in the fields with what you are looking for and click "Find". TRS will bring up all records that match everything you typed in! For numeric fields, you have to type in the number exactly for it to find the record. For text fields, you can enter partial values. For example, if you type in lu in the Last Name field, it would find customers with last names Lu, McClure, Ludwig, Desilu, and others. 43

44 The checkbox values work as follows: If you leave the checkbox with the gray checkmark in it, it will not search on that field at all. If you put a dark checkmark in the box, it will find all records that have the checkbox checked. If you leave no checkmark in the box, then it will find records that have the checkbox unchecked. Keep clicking on the checkbox to toggle between the three values. The customer quick search has a checkbox labeled Sort By Zip Code. If you check this box, the results will come up in zip code order for printing mailing labels. Complex Search Complex searches offer more flexibility for searching for more specific groups using and/or logic. In a complex search, you add your search conditions one at a time, and click "OK. TRS will bring up all records that match your conditions. To do a quick search of a database, you first select the tab on the database notebook that corresponds to the database that you wish to search. Then, click on the button that says, Complex Search. On the next screen, click the button that says, Search Assistant. You will be presented with a complex search form, as shown in the following figure. You can begin adding search conditions at this time. To add a search condition, you first select the field to search by in the first listbox. Next, you click on the desired condition in the second listbox. Then, you enter the value to search for in the Value space. For example, let s say you want to find all customers who have a zip code starting with 954. You would select Zip from the first listbox, Starts With in the second listbox, and 954 (without the quotes) in the Value space. Lastly, you click on the Add button with the mouse. The search condition will appear in the listbox at the bottom. You can continue adding search conditions until you have completely defined your search. If you make a mistake, you can remove any of your search conditions by selecting it from the listbox, and clicking on the Remove button. You can also specify which fields you would like to sort by. You do this by selecting a field from the Field listbox, and then clicking the Sort By button. That field will then be added to the list of fields to sort on. You can sort by multiple fields. For instance, if you wanted to sort by last name, then first name, you would simply add both of these fields, in that order. 44

45 When you have finished entering your search conditions, you have to select a join mode for your search. This is done with the Join Mode buttons in the lower left corner of the screen. And means that you want to find only records that meet EVERY SINGLE ONE of your search conditions. Or means that you want to find all records that meet AT LEAST ONE of your search conditions. When you have selected this, click on the Ok button. Now, you will see the SQL version of your search (See the next section) on the screen. Click on the Ok button to perform the search. The results of the search will appear on the screen. SQL Search SQL searches are for advanced users who want to write their own queries using Structured Query Language (SQL). To do an SQL search of a database, you first select the tab on the database notebook that corresponds to the database that you wish to search. Then, click on the button that says, Complex Search. Here, you can enter your SQL query. The Structured Query Language (SQL) is too complex to discuss here. If you are interested in learning how to write your own SQL queries, you can study the SQL generated by your complex searches as explained above. There are also many books on writing SQL queries, which you can find in any well-stocked computer section of a book store. EZ Customer Search This is the easiest and quickest method to search for a particular customer. You can begin an EZ Customer search by clicking on the E-Z Customer Search button on the customer screen. The first thing to happen when you begin the search is that a dialog box appears which asks you for the customer's telephone number. If you have the customer's telephone available, enter it here.(you can enter just the last 4 digits if you like. TRS will show you all the customers who match). If you do not have the customer's phone number available, simply leave it blank. In any case, either press the Enter key, or click on the OK button with the mouse when you are done. If you entered a phone number, TRS will now search the customer database by phone number. If it finds a customer with the phone number that you entered, it will display it in a listbox, as described below. If it does not find the phone number, or you did not enter one, then it continues to the next step. The next step is to look for your customer by last name. You will be presented with a dialog box that asks you to enter the customer's last name. Enter the customer's last name in this dialog box, and then either press the Enter key, or click on the OK button with the mouse. TRS will now search the database for all customers whose last name matches the one that you just entered. If there were any matches, TRS displays a listbox as shown above, containing all of the customers who match your search. You can scroll through the listbox with the scrollbar on the listbox. If you see the desired customer in the listbox, doubleclick on it with the mouse. The customer that you selected will be displayed on the screen. If you do not see the customer that you were looking for, click on the Cancel button. The search was unsuccessful. 45

46 Repair/Special Order Reminders When you use EZ Customer search to bring up a customer, TRS automatically checks to see if the customer has any repairs or special orders to be picked up. If they do, then a reminder will be displayed on the screen. Jumping to a Customer If you have the customer s customer number you can jump directly to the customer by clicking on the button labeled Jump to Cust # on the customer screen. From there, you can either type in or scan the customer number, and the customer will be brought up. To facilitate the ability to scan the customer number, you can print a customer number barcode label by clicking the button labeled Barcode on the customer screen. This, you can place on a customer card for later scanning. You can also scan a customer s customer loyalty card using this function if you have assigned one to them (see page 77). Special Searches TRS has several special searches that make finding certain information easy, that would otherwise be difficult to find. Special Searches for Customers By Amount Spent Use this special search to find all customers who have spent a certain amount on money (through POS) over a given period of time. Select Special Searches>Customers>By Amount Spent from the TRS menu. You will be prompted to enter the date range for which you would like to total the customers spending. Next, you will be asked to enter the amount of money that the customers need to have spent to come up in the search. After you have entered the information, the customers will be found. If you are not already on the Customers tab, go there to see the found customers. Who has bought this item? Use this special search to find all customers who have purchased a particular item (through POS) within a certain period of time. Select Special Searches>Customers>Who has bought this item? from the TRS menu. You will be prompted to enter the date range for which you would like to search. Next, you will be asked to enter/scan the barcode number for the product. Once you have done this, TRS will do the search and bring up the customers who have purchased that item. If you are not already on the Customers tab, go there to see the found customers. Has this customer bought this item? This is a quick way to find out whether or not a particular customer has purchased a particular item. First, to the Customer tab, and bring up the desired customer. Select Special Searches>Customers>Has this customer bought this item? from 46

47 the TRS menu. When prompted, scan or enter the barcode of the product. TRS will tell you whether or not the customer has purchased the item. If they have, you will be given the option to view the sale. Who has taken Classes? This will search for all customers who have enrolled in a Class, based on a time period.. Select Special Searches>Customers>Who has taken classes? from the TRS menu. You will be prompted to enter the date range for which you would like to search. Once you have done this, TRS will do the search and bring up the customers who have purchased that item. If you are not already on the Customers tab, go there to see the found customers. Special Searches for Repairs Overdue Use this search to bring up all repairs that are past their Date Promised, but have not been completed. Special Searches for Classes Time To Cancel This search will bring up all class sections that are past their Low Enrollment Cancel Date and have not reached their minimum enrollment count. Special Searches for Orders All Incomplete Orders Use this special search to find all orders that are incomplete (not all items have come in). Simply select Special Searches>Orders>All Incomplete Orders from the TRS menu. Orders Containing a Certain Item Use this special search to find all orders that contain a particular item. Simply select Special Searches>Orders>Containing a Certain Item from the TRS menu, and enter/scan the barcode number when prompted. You will then be asked whether or not to include orders where the items have already been received. Answer Yes or No, and the order(s) will be found. Special Orders Not Picked Up Use this special search to find all special orders that have been received, but have not yet been picked up by the customer. Special Searches for Accounts Charge accounts with money owed Use this special search to find all charge accounts where the customer still owes money, even if the account is not past due. Select Special Searches>Accounts>Charge Accounts with Money Owed from the TRS menu. Overdue charge accounts Use this special search to find all charge accounts where the customer still owes money, and the account is past due. Select Special Searches>Accounts>Overdue Charge Accounts from the TRS menu. Store credit accounts with money in them Use this special search to find all store credit accounts that customers have that have money in them. Select Special Searches>Accounts>Store Credit Accounts With Money In Them from the TRS menu. Layaway accounts with money in them Use this special search to find all layaway accounts that customers have that have not been redeemed. Select Special Searches>Accounts>Layaway Accounts With Money In Them from the TRS menu. Special Searches for Leads Time to Follow Up Use this special search to find all leads that have reached or passed their Next Followup Date. 47

48 Customer Super Search The Customer Super Search is a powerful tool that allows you to build a search for group of customers step-by-step, based on multiple parts of the database. It allows you to see the results of your search each step of the way, and then add customers to or subtract customers from the result, until you have the exact customers that you want. The usage of this function is best illustrated by an example: Let s say that you want to send a special mailing to all customers who have had a machine in for repair in the past year, but have NOT purchased a new machine in the past year. And let s say you DO NOT want this mailing to go to any customers who reside out of state. 1) We well begin by clearing out the results of any previous super search, by selecting Special Searches->Customer Super Search->Start Over. 2) The first thing that we want to do with our search is add all customers who have had a machine repaired in the past year. Go to the Repairs tab and click Complex Search. Use the Search Assistant to bring up all repairs that have Date Completed greater than one year ago today. When you complete the search, and TRS has told you how many repairs that it found, select Special Searches->Customer Super Search->Add Current Found Set To Result (while still on the Repairs tab). You will then be told how many customers you are about to add to the results, and asked whether or not to continue, as shown above. Click Yes. 48

49 Next, you will be shown a summary of the new results, and you are given the chance to either keep the results or revert back to the previous results, as shown above. Click Keep the new results. You will then see a confirmation that the results were accepted. 3) Now, we want to remove all customers from the results that have bought a machine in the past year. Go to the Sales tab and click Complex Search. Use the Search Assistant to bring up all sales that have Date Purchased greater than one year ago today. When you complete the search, and TRS has told you how many sales it found, select Special Searches- >Customer Super Search->Remove Current Found Set From Result (while still on the Sales tab). Click Yes and Keep the new results, as in step 2 above. 3) Finally, we want to remove all customers that do not reside in our state. Go to the Customers tab and click Complex Search. Use the Search Assistant to bring up all customers where their state does not equal your state. When you complete the search, and TRS has told you how many customers it found, select Special Searches->Customer Super Search- >Remove Current Found Set From Result (while still on the Customers tab). Click Yes and Keep the new results, as in step 2 above. 4) Now that you have finished building your search, select Special Searches->Customer Super Search->Done Make Result The Current Customer Found Set. TRS will tell you the final number of customers found. Note: you MUST complete this step to make the Super Search results the current customer found set in order to do anything with the results. 5) Now, you can do anything that you can otherwise do with a found set of customers, such as print mailing labels, print a phone list, send a bulk , etc. At any time during the Customer Super Search process, you can check and see the number of customers in the current found set by selecting Special Searches->Customer Super Search->Check Current Results from the TRS menu. Switching Between a Found Set and the Entire Database When you have a current "found set" of any type of record, the navigation techniques outlined on page 40 only work within that found set. If you would like to go back to browsing through the entire database, you would use the View Options buttons as shown in the figure below. If you want to be looking at only your found set of records, select the Search radio button. If you want to see all on the records in the database, select the All Records/Add/Edit/Delete radio button. 49

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51 Chapter 5 - Creating Reports (Non-POS) TRS has several built-in reports that you can run against your databases that will give you your data in an easy-to-read format. It also has the ability to print out mailing labels and phone lists for found sets of customers, sales, repairs, leads, and enrollments. Each of these functions will be explained in detail in this chapter. Note: The reports explained in this chapter are not related to the Point Of Sale system. For information on the Point Of Sale reports, please see chapter 7. Listing a Found Set One you have done a search of the customer, sale, repair, lead, class, section, layaway/account, or order database, you can simply select Reports>List Found Set from the TRS menu. Next, you will see a screen that will allow you to select which fields you want to see in the report: Check the boxes next to the fields that you want in the report, then click OK. You will see a listing of the found records, and then you can print them out if necessary. 51

52 Mailing Labels Printing a Set of Mailing Labels TRS will print out mailing labels for any found set of customers, sales, repairs, leads, or enrollments. It is designed to print on all Avery(R) "30/sheet" laser or ink jet labels. The labels are each 1" x 2 5/8". Some sample Avery(R) product numbers are 5160, 5260, 5160B, 5970, 5971, 5972, 5980, 5982, 5983, and All of the above product numbers are compatible, and possibly more. The other option for printing mailing labels is on the Zebra/Eltron LP2622, LP2722, or LP2824 label printer. Printing mailing labels is very easy: 1. Display a found set of customers, sales, repairs, leads, or enrollments. If you want to print mailing labels for your entire mailing list, go to the Customers screen, select the Quick Search button, and then click OK, without entering any search parameters. 2. Select Reports>Mailing labels for found set from the TRS menu. You will be asked whether or not to exclude customers with addresses. You will then be given the option of skipping some number of labels (in case you need to continue a partially completed print job). Next, you will be asked whether or not you are printing them on a label printer. If you select No, then it will print on the above mentioned Avery labels. If you select Yes, then the labels will be printed on the label printer. If this is the case, then skip steps 3 and 4. They are for the Avery labels only. 3. Load your blank mailing label sheets into your printer. Note: TRS will print 30 mailing labels per sheet, so divide the number of records in the found set by 30 to calculate the number of sheets that you will need. 4. Click "OK" on the Print Setup dialog box to begin printing. If you search by any database other than customers, TRS will automatically weed out any duplicate customers when printing the mailing labels if a single customer record is attached to multiple detail records (i.e. one customer with multiple repairs). It also automatically sorts the mailing labels in zip code order, as may be necessary for bulk mailing. To sort by zip codes when searching from the customer database, please see page 44. Printing a Single Mailing Label If you have a label printer, it is very easy to print a single mailing label for a customer. Simply bring the customer up on the customer screen. There is a button on the customer screen that says, Label. Simply click this button, and the mailing label will be printed. Printing a Repair Label If you have a label printer, you can print a special repair label for a repair. It prints the repair number, make, model, and phone number, in addition to the customer s name and address. Simply bring the repair up on the repair screen. There is a button on the customer screen that says, Repair Label. Simply click this button, and the repair label will be printed. Avery Label Spacing On some printers (some inkjet printers in particular), the Avery mailing labels do not print spaced correctly. This is due to the printer driver not reporting the correct number of pixels per inch to the application. To fix this, you need to manually set the number of vertical pixels per inch. To do so, follow these steps: 1) Select Edit>Label Spacing>Manually Set Label Spacing from the TRS menu. 2) Click Yes to get past the warning. 3) You will then be presented with a message box with the instructions, which are continued below. Click Ok to get past the instructions. 4) You may be told that the file VPPI.TXT does not exist and asks if you would like to create it. If you are asked this, choose Yes. 52

53 5) Enter the number of vertical pixels per inch into the notepad window that comes up. If you don t know this, I suggest starting at the DPI rating of your printer. If you do not know the DPI rating for your printer, then I suggest starting at ) Select File>Save from the Notepad window. 7) Select File>Exit to exit Notepad. 8) Try printing mailing labels again. If the labels are too far apart, repeat steps 1-7, but decrease the number. If they are too close together, increase the number. Repeat until your labels are printing with the correct spacing. To make your label spacing go back to automatic, simply select Edit>Label Spacing>Reset Label Spacing to Automatic from the TRS menu. Phone Lists Just like the mailing labels, TRS will print out a phone list for any found set of customers, sales, repairs, leads, or enrollments. Follow these steps to print a phone list: 1. Display a found set of customers, sales, repairs, leads, or enrollments. 2. Select Reports>Phone list for found set from the TRS menu. 3. You will be asked whether or not to exclude customers with addresses. 4. See Viewing and Printing Reports on page 57 for what to do next. TRS will automatically weed out any duplicate customers when creating the phone list. Class Reports Enrollment list for a class section This function allows you to print out an enrollment list for any section in your database. It displays the names of each customer who is enrolled in the section, as well as whether or not they have paid for the class, and their phone number. The customers will be listed in alphabetical order. To create an enrollment list follow these steps: 1. Display a class section on the screen. 2. Select Reports>Classes>Enrollment list for current section from the TRS menu. 3. You will be asked whether or not to print the list in alphabetical order. Select either Yes or No. 4. You will be asked whether or not to print the enrollment notes. Select either Yes or No. 5. See Viewing and Printing Reports on page 57 for what to do next. List of all classes and sections scheduled This function allows you to print out a list of all classes and section that you have scheduled. It displays each class in your database, and its description, along with information about each section that you have scheduled. To create this report follow these steps: 1. Select Reports>Classes>List of all classes and sections currently scheduled from the TRS menu. 2. See Viewing and Printing Reports on page 57 for what to do next. 53

54 Class success report This function allows you to print out a report that tells you how well each of your classes is doing financially. It displays each class in your database, along with the number of enrollments and total revenue brought in by the class. It also shows what percentage of total enrollments and total revenue each class contributed. To create this report follow these steps: 1. Select Reports>Classes>Classes success report from the TRS menu. 2. A dialog box will be displayed, where you select which dates you want the report to cover. Enter a date range, as described in Entering Date Ranges on page 56. If you want the report to cover all dates, leave the space blank. Click on "OK" or press the Enter key. 3. See Viewing and Printing Reports on page 57 for what to do next. Serialized Sales Reports Note: These reports are only for serialized sales (based on records on the Sales tab). These are NOT Point Of Sale reports. Please see Chapter 7 for information about POS reports. Sales summary This function allows you to print out a report that shows the success of each serialized product that you sell. It shows you how many of each product you sold, the percentage of total number of sales, the total revenue from each product, and the percentage of total revenue. To create this report follow these steps: 1. Select Reports>Sales>Sales summary from the TRS menu. 2. A dialog box will be displayed, where you select which dates you want the report to cover. Enter a date range, as described in Entering Date Ranges on page 56. If you want the report to cover all dates, leave the space blank. Click on "OK" or press the Enter key. 3. You will then be asked whether or not you want it to report revenues after trade-ins. Answer either yes or no. 4. See Viewing and Printing Reports on page 57 for what to do next. Sales report by salesperson This function allows you to print out a report that shows you how well each of your salespeople did over a period of time. It shows you how many machines each salesperson sold, the percentage of total number of sales, the total revenue from each salesperson, and the percentage of total revenue. To create this report follow these steps: 1. Select Reports>Sales>Sales report by salesperson from the TRS menu. 2. A dialog box will be displayed, where you select which dates you want the report to cover. Enter a date range, as described in Entering Date Ranges on page 56. If you want the report to cover all dates, leave the space blank. Click on "OK" or press the Enter key. 3. You will then be asked whether or not you want it to report revenues after trade-ins. Answer either yes or no. 4. See Viewing and Printing Reports on page 57 for what to do next. You may notice that the number of sales for each person may display a fractional number. This is because sales are sometimes split between 2 or 3 salespersons. Commission report for a salesperson This function allows you to create a report that shows how much commission a particular salesperson made for a particular time period. It lists each sale by that salesperson, showing how much commission he/she earned, the date of the sale, the customer's last name, the machine sold, and the percentage of the total commission that the salesperson got for the sale. It also shows the total commission for the salesperson for the time period. To create this report follow these steps: 54

55 1. Select Reports>Sales>Commission report for a salesperson from the TRS menu. 2. You will see a dialog box where you enter the salesperson code for the desired salesperson. Enter in here what you have entered under Salesperson in your sales records, and press Enter or click "OK". 3. You will see a dialog box where you enter the full name of the salesperson for which you are creating the report. Enter it here and press Enter or click "OK". 4. A dialog box will be displayed, where you select which dates you want the report to cover. Enter a date range, as described in Entering Date Ranges on page 56. If you want the report to cover all dates, leave the space blank. Click on "OK" or press the Enter key. 5. See Viewing and Printing Reports on page 57 for what to do next. Repair Reports Repair report by technician This function allows you to create a report that shows a summary of your repairs over a time period, summarized by technician. It shows how many repairs each technician completed, the percentage of total repairs that he/she did, the total revenue in parts and labor that each technician brought in, and the percentages of total revenue in parts and labor. To create this report follow these steps: 1. Select Reports>Repairs>Repair report by technician from the TRS menu. 2. A dialog box will be displayed, where you select which dates you want the report to cover. Enter a date range, as described in Entering Date Ranges on page 56. If you want the report to cover all dates, leave the space blank. Click on "OK" or press the Enter key. 3. See Viewing and Printing Text Reports on page 57 for what to do next. To-Do List This function will create a list of all repairs that have not been completed. For each repair, it shows the repair #, date in, customer name, phone number, make, model, serial number, store, and service request. To create this report follow these steps: 1. Select Reports>Repairs>To-Do List from the TRS menu. 55

56 2. You will be asked in which order you would like the repairs listed (by date in, or date promised). 3. Your report will come up in your web browser. Custom Query Reports If you know how to write SQL queries, you can get reports for just about any data in TRS. You can do this as follows: 1) Select File>Custom Query Report from the TRS menu. 2) You will be presented with the above screen, where you can enter your SQL query. You can save your query for later use with the Save button. Likewise, you can load a previously saved query with the Load button. When you are done, click the Execute! button. 3) You will be presented with a list of the fields that you selected in your query (see page 51 for what to do from here). Entering Date Ranges 56

57 Most reports in TRS will prompt you for a date range using a standard Windows graphical calendar (see image above). You can simply click on the starting and ending dates and TRS will fill in the selected information. However, there are occasions in TRS that you will need to manually type in a date range. Instructions for this follow: The basic format for entering date ranges is MM/DD/YY MM/DD/YY. So, if you wanted your report to cover the entire month of July, 1998, you would enter 7/1/98 7/31/98. If you want your report to cover all dates from a certain date forward, you can enter it in the form of MM/DD/YY. So, if you wanted your report to cover all dates including and after July 1, 1998, you would enter 7/1/98. Likewise, if you want your report to cover all dates from a certain date back, you can enter it in the form of - MM/DD/YY. So, if you wanted your report to cover all dates through July 1, 1998, you would enter - 7/1/98. If you want your report to cover only one day, you can simply enter that date into the field. If you want your report to cover all dates, leave the field blank. All of these, of course, should be entered without the quotes. Viewing and Printing Text Reports Once you have specified that you want to create a report and have entered the required information, you will see a window that looks like the figure above. From this window, you can make any modifications that you like before printing it out. There are 2 different print buttons, Print Normally, for use with your laser/inkjet printer and Print Direct To Printer for printing on your 40 column receipt printer. It is also possible to bring the report up in Microsoft WordPad instead, click the View in Wordpad button. If you don t want to print it out, just click the Cancel button. In some cases, the text will be too big to display on the screen, but you can still print it or view it in WordPad.. 57

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59 Chapter 6 - Printing Printing Database Screens Whenever a record is displayed on the screen, you can print it by selecting File>Print... from the TRS menu. When the print dialog box appears, click on "OK" to print. Optionally, you can choose a different printer before clicking "OK". Class Info Sheets With TRS, you can keep a class info sheet for each of your classes. This info sheet can contain whatever information about the class that you deem important for the student to know before arriving, such as a supply list for the class. To create or edit a class info sheet 1. Display the class for which you want to create or edit the info sheet. 2. Click on the Edit Info Sheet button. 3. A text editor will come up, which will allow you to enter or edit the info sheet. You can copy and paste text from another program into this window if you like. This is useful if you are creating class documents in another program and don t want to do double-typing. 4. When you have finished editing the info sheet, click the Save and Exit button. To print a class info sheet 1. Display the class for which you want to print the info sheet, or display any of the section of the class. 2. Click the Print Info Sheet button. 3. See Viewing and Printing Reports in the previous chapter for what to do next. Invoices, Confirmations, Quotes, and Statements With TRS, you can easily print invoices for sales and repairs. You can also print class enrollment confirmations and sales quotes. From the Layaway/Accounts screen, you can also print a statement of the account. To print an invoice for a sale or repair, you first display the record on the screen. Then, simply click on the Invoice button. You will then have the option of printing in either plain text or HTML format. Use plain text if you are printing to a receipt printer. The HTML format is perfect for printing invoices on 8.5 x 11 paper using your inkjet or laser printer. To print a class enrollment confirmation, first display the section, then click on the customer whose confirmation you want to print. Next, click on the Enrollment Confirmation button. To print a sales quote from the leads database, simply bring up the lead and click on the Print Quote button. To print a layaway or account statement, bring the layaway or account up on the screen and click on the Print Account button. See Viewing and Printing Reports in the previous chapter for what to do next. 59

60 Footers Many of the printouts can have a customized footer at the bottom. This can be used to specify return policies, class cancellation policies, repair warranty info, etc. You can create footers for sales invoices, repair invoices, lead quotes, class enrollment confirmations, special order confirmations, and POS receipts. Simply select the File menu, then the desired footer. TRS will then open a text editor, which will allow you to enter or modify the footer. When you are finished, click the Save and Exit button. 60

61 Chapter 7 Point Of Sale The Point Of Sale Screen Starting a New Sale The first step in ringing up a sale is telling the software to start a new sale. There are two ways of doing this. You can start a new sale that is attached to a customer, or start an anonymous sale that is not attached to any customer. Both methods are described below: New anonymous sale If you do not need to attach the sale to a customer, you can start the sale as anonymous. You do this by either clicking on the button titled New Anon. Sale, or pressing the associated function key on the keyboard. A new sale will be started, but you will not see any customer s name on the screen. New sale for a customer If you want to attach the sale to a customer, you can do that by one of three methods. The easiest way is to click on the E-Z Customer Search button on the POS screen. See page 45 for more information on doing an E-Z Customer Search. When you have found and selected the customer, a new sale will be started for that customer. Note that if you have started an anonymous sale, and after entering some items, you decide that you want to link it to a customer, you can do so at any time by using the E-Z Customer Search button. You will not lose any of the items that you have already entered. 61

62 The second method of starting a POS sale for a customer is to click the Scan Cust # button on the POS screen. You will be prompted to enter or scan the customer number. If you do this, a POS sale will be started for the appropriate customer. Also, if you have assigned the customer a loyalty card, you can scan that card here instead. The third method of starting a new sale for a customer is from the Customer tab of the database notebook. If you have a customer on the screen, you can click on the POS button at the bottom of the customer screen. Clicking this button will take you to the POS screen and start a new sale for the customer. Answering initial prompts When you start a new sale by one of the above methods, there may be one or more prompts that you will need to respond to before proceeding with ringing up items: Clerk Logon Or If you have turned the Require Clerk Logon option turned on (see page 106), you will be prompted to either select your clerk code from a list, or type it in. Which prompt you get is determined by whether or not the Clerk Logon Selected From List option is set (see page 106). Clerk Password If you have turned on the Require Clerk Password option (see page 106), then you will be prompted to enter your clerk password after selecting/entering your clerk code. Enter your password and either press <Enter> or click Ok. 62

63 Category Selection You can select to categorize your sales by turning on the Prompt for POS Category option (see page 106). If you have turned this option on, you will be presented with the above screen, where you can select the category for this sale. To set up your categories, select Edit Lists>POS Categories from the TRS menu. Entering items into a POS Sale There are three main ways of entering items into a POS sale. Barcode Scanner The first and easiest way is to scan them in with a barcode scanner. If you purchased a barcode scanner from us or have another compatible barcode scanner, you can simply scan in each item, and it will be added to the sale. Before scanning an item, make sure that the cursor is in the Next Item text entry field at the top of the POS screen. Even if you do not have a barcode scanner hooked up, you can enter the barcode number in the entry field by hand and press the Enter key. It will have the same effect. Enter Unlisted Item If an item is not in your products database, you can still enter it into a POS sale by clicking on the Enter Unlisted Item button or pressing the associated function key. You will first be asked whether or not you would like to add the new item to your POS Products database. This can be useful when you are first getting your inventory entered. It allows you to add items to your inventory database as you sell them. If 63

64 you answer No to this question, you will be sent directly to the Edit Entry screen further down. If you answer Yes, then you will be presented with the following screen, where you can add the new item: Fill in the fields on this screen (if the item already has a UPC barcode on it, you can scan it into the UPC field). When you are done, click the OK button. The item will be added to your POS Products database. You will then be presented with the Edit Entry dialog box that allows you to enter/modify the information about the item FOR THIS SALE ONLY, as shown below. The Description field is where you enter a description of the item. Quantity is the number of that item that the customer is purchasing. Unit Price is the price of the item (the price for one). The Tax 1, Tax 2, and Tax 3 checkboxes specify which taxes apply to this item. Leave a checkbox checked if the item is subject to that particular tax. Uncheck it otherwise. If you 64

65 are giving a discount for that particular item, you can enter the percent off in the Discount field. Use the Department # field to specify the numeric department number for the item, or select the department name from the drop-down list. When you have entered all of the information, click on the OK button or press Enter. The item will be entered into the sale. Search for Item by Description If you are ringing up a sale, and you don t have the barcode available to scan, you can search for the item by it s description. Simply select the Search For Item option from the POS screen, and you will be asked to enter part of the item s description. TRS will then show you a list of items that match what you entered. When you find the one that you want, simply doubleclick on it, and it will be added to the sale. Editing/Modifying an Item that has already been entered After entering an item, you there are a couple of ways that you can modify the item. Editing an Item The most general way to modify an item is with the edit function. You do so by clicking on the Edit button on the POS screen or by pressing the associated function key on the keyboard. If you have just entered an item, you will be editing the last item that you entered. If you want to edit a different item, click on the Item ID of the item that you want to edit, then select Edit. You will be presented with the same dialog box as described in Enter Unlisted Item above. Here, you can change any of the values. Increasing the Quantity of an Item If you have just entered an item and you would like to increase the quantity, the fastest way is with the + Qty button. If you click this button or press the associated function key on the keyboard, the quantity of the item will be increased by one. If you want to increase the quantity of an item other than the one you just entered, you can first select it as described above. Adding an Item Discount After entering an item, you can easily give a discount on that particular item with the Item Discount button. Clicking on this button or pressing it s associated function key on the keyboard will present you with a dialog box, asking you for the percent off for the item. After you enter the percentage, click OK or press Enter. The item will be updated, reflecting the discount. Alternatively, you can enter the discount percentage, and THEN press the Item Discount button. Again, if you want to add an item discount for an item other than the one you just entered, you can first select it as described above. Discounting by Dollar Amount Instead of discounting by a percentage, you may want to discount it by a certain fixed amount of money. After entering an item, you can do this with the Discount By $ Amt button. Clicking on this button or pressing it s associated function key on the keyboard will present you with a dialog box, asking you for the amount off for the item. After you enter the amount, click OK or press Enter. The discount will be automatically calculated, and the item will be updated, reflecting the discount. Again, if you want to add a discount for an item other than the one you just entered, you can first select it as described above. Compound Discounts It is also possible to do a compound discount in TRS. That is, let s say that you ring up a POS sale, and it has items in it that are discounted. Now, you want to give an additional 5% discount on top of the discounts already entered. You can do that by clicking Compound Discount and entering the percentage. All items that are already in the sale will be given the specified discount, on top of any other discounts already entered. Deleting an Item from a POS Sale If you accidentally enter an item that you want to delete, it is very easy to do so. Simply click on the button labeled Delete or press its associated function key on the keyboard. The item will be removed from the sale. As always, if you want to delete an item other than the one you just entered, you can first select it as described above. Sale Discounts At times, you may want to give a discount on an entire sale, rather than on just certain items. In this case, you would want to use the Sale Discount function. To enter a discount for an entire sale, use the Sale Discount button. Clicking on this button or pressing it s associated function key on the keyboard will present you with a dialog box, asking you for the percent off for 65

66 the sale. After you enter the percentage, click OK or press Enter. You will then see the discount percentage displayed in the upper left hand corner of the POS screen. Alternatively, you can enter the discount percentage, and THEN press the Sale Discount button. Note: If you also have item discounts in the same sale, the sale discount will be applied as follows: A) If you enter a Sale Discount at the beginning of the sale, then every item that you subsequently scan/enter will be automatically given that same discount as an item discount. B) If a customer has a set discount, it will be handled the same as in A) above. C) If you enter a Sale Discount in the middle or at the end of a sale, it will go back and enter the item discounts for all of the previously entered items, then continue as in A) above for new items that are scanned/entered. D) In the case of C) above, if there is already and item discount for an item when a sale discount is entered, the item with get WHICHEVER DISCOUNT IS GREATER. So, for example, if an item already has a 10% discount, and you enter a sale discount for 20%, the item's discount will be bumped up to 20%. But, if the item had an item discount of 20%, and you enter a sale discount for 10%, that particular item would stay at 20%. The two discounts are NOT compounded or combined in any way. If you want to do a compound discount, see above. E) If there is a Sale Discount in effect, and you scan an item that has a preset discount (under Inventory>Edit Specials), again the GREATER discount will be given, as in D) above. Again, the two discounts are NOT compounded or combined in any way. F) If you need to reduce, increase, or eliminate the discount on an item that has PREVIOUSLY been entered with a Sale Discount, you can do so by using the Item Discount function (or Edit function) to change or remove the discount. In this case, the subsequent Item Discount or Edit will ALWAYS override the Sale Discount, even if it's lower. G) Non-sale transactions, such as Layaways, Store Credit/Charges, Gift Certificates, etc. will not be discounted. Billing At Cost In the case that you may want to ring up a sale billed at wholesale cost rather than retail, simply check the box labeled Bill at Cost on the POS screen after you start the sale. Any items that you add to the sale thereafter will come up at the cost that you have defined in your inventory database. Entering Returned Items If you are accepting the return of an item, it is a simple process to enter it as such. The first step is to select the Return Next Item button by either clicking on it or pressing the associated function key on the keyboard. Once you have done that, the next item that you scan or enter (by unlisted item) will be entered as a return, rather than a sale of the item. You can also change an item that has already been entered to a return by using the Edit function (see the section earlier in this chapter) and entering a negative quantity. Returning a Serialized Item If the item being returned was originally entered in the Sales tab, access that sale record and click on the Return This Machine button. The system will automatically jump to this screen and add it to the POS ticket with a quantity of -1. Then it will give you the option to delete the serialized sale record and return the machine to serialized inventory. Gift Certificates TRS gives you the option of accepting either gift certificates or gift cards. This option is set in POS->Options, on the Misc. Options tab. If you have chosen Gift Cards, then the Gift Certificates buttons will not show. It is very easy to process gift certificates with TRS Point Of Sale. You can sell and accept gift certificates with the easy functions described below: Sell Gift Certificate If a customer asks to purchase a gift certificate, you can do so by clicking on the Sell Gift Cert. button on the POS screen or by pressing it s associated function key on the keyboard. You will then be presented with a dialog box, asking you for the 66

67 amount of the gift certificate. Enter the amount and click OK or press Enter. You will see the gift certificate entered into the sale. Use Gift Certificate If a customer presents a gift certificate as payment for all or part of a purchase, you can enter it by clicking on the Use Gift Cert. button on the POS screen or by pressing it s associated function key on the keyboard. You will then be presented with a dialog box, asking you for the amount of the gift certificate. Enter the amount and click OK or press Enter. You will see the gift certificate entered into the sale. Note: If the Select Card or Gift Certificate Each Time box is checked in the POS->Options-Misc. Options tab, when you click on the Use Gift Cert. button (above), you can then select Gift Card or Gift Certificate as the payment. Typically, this option would be used during the transition period from Gift Certificates to Gift Cards. Gift Cards TRS gives you the option of accepting either gift certificates or gift cards. This option is set in POS->Options, on the Misc. Options tab. If you have chosen Gift Certificates, then the Gift Cards buttons will not show. Because gift cards are processed entirely within TRS, there is not monthly or per-transaction charge to pay to an outside gift card processing company, nor do you need a special gift card terminal. Your only expense is the cost of the cards themselves. JMM Software sells custom-printed gift cards that are guaranteed to work with TRS. Please call for pricing. Gift cards are available with either a barcode or a magnetic stripe. We recommend using a barcode to prevent problems with demagnetization. Gift cards do not have any value until they are activated in TRS. You specify at the time you sell the cards how much they are worth, and TRS tracks the balance on the card. This allows you to prominently display the gift cards at the checkout counter or elsewhere in your store without worrying too much about theft. It is very easy to process gift cards with TRS Point Of Sale. You can sell and accept gift cards with the easy functions described below: Selling A Gift Card If a customer asks to purchase a gift card, you can do so by clicking on the Sell Gift Card button on the POS screen. You will then be asked to scan or swipe the gift card. Next, you will be presented with a dialog box, asking you for the amount of the gift card. Enter the amount and click OK or press Enter. You will see the gift card entered into the sale. The gift card is now activated in the system, but if you cancel the sale before completing it, or if you overring the sale after it is completed, the gift card will be deactivated. The customer s receipt will include the card starting balance, as well as the card reference number contained in the barcode or magnetic stripe, in case the card is lost or stolen. Using A Gift Card If a customer presents a gift certificate as payment for all or part of a purchase, you can enter it by clicking on the Use Gift Card button on the POS screen. You will then be asked to scan or swipe the gift card. You will then be presented with a dialog box, asking you how much money to apply from the gift card to the sale. The default amount to use is either the amount of the sale, or the remaining balance on the card, whichever is less. Enter the amount and click OK or press Enter. Note: TRS will not allow you to enter an amount greater than the card balance. If the amount applied was less than the amount of the sale, you can now enter any additional tender to complete the sale. If the amount applied was the full amount of the sale, then the sale will be completed. The receipt will include the gift card reference number, as well as the balance remaining. Note: If the Select Card or Gift Certificate Each Time box is checked in the POS->Options-Misc. Options tab, when you click on the Use Gift Card button (above), you can then select Gift Card or Gift Certificate as the payment. Typically, this option would be used during the transition period from Gift Certificates to Gift Cards. Adding Additional Funds To A Gift Card If a customer would like to add funds to an existing gift card, simply follow the above steps under Selling A Gift Card. TRS will recognize it as an existing activated gift card, and will add funds to it instead of activating a new one. 67

68 Checking Gift Card Balance If a customer wants to know the balance remaining on their gift card without buying anything, you can very easily check that for them by selecting POS->Gift Cards->Check Balance from the TRS menu. Simply scan or swipe the card when prompted, and TRS will tell you the current balance. Managing Gift Cards If you select POS->Gift Cards->Gift Card Manager from the TRS menu, you will be presented with a screen that will allow you to look at all of your activated gift cards and see all of the information about them, including transaction history. You can also delete or modify gift cards and transactions from this screen. Manually Activating New Cards In most cases, you will not need to do this, as gift cards are automatically activated when you sell them. However, if you need to activate a new gift card without selling it, you can do so by selecting POS->Gift Cards->Manually Activate New Card from the TRS menu. The procedure is basically the same as Selling A Gift Card above. Manual Gift Card Transactions Again, this function will rarely be needed, as gift card transactions are handled automatically by POS. However if for some reason you need to manually add for subtract money to/from a gift card, you can do so by selecting selecting POS->Gift Cards->Manual Transaction from the TRS menu. You will be asked to scan/swipe the card and then prompted for the amount of the transaction (a positive number is a credit, and a negative number is a debit) and a description of the transaction. Totaling Up the Sale After you have finished entering all of the items for the sale, it is time to ring up the grand total. You do this simply by clicking on the Total button, or by pressing it s associated function key on the keyboard. You will then see the subtotal, discount (if you entered a sale discount), tax, and total displayed on the screen. Print as Invoice You can check on this box at any point during a POS transaction, as long as the sale hasn t been completed. When the box is checked, and the sale is completed, TRS will not print the standard POS receipt to your receipt printer. Instead, an HTML formatted page will be generated and then opened in a built-in browser. This page is designed to be printed on 8.5 x 11 paper and you can then click Print, then select one of your computer s installed printers. Entering Tender (Payment) After you have presented the total to the customer, it is time to collect payment. You enter the payment by using one of the four payment buttons, titled Cash, Check, Credit Card, or Misc. Tender. Cash, Check, and Credit Card are selfexplanatory. Misc. Tender can be used for any other type of tender that you accept, such as financing, travelers checks, or any other type of payment that you want to keep track of separately. Click on any of these buttons or press their associated function key on the keyboard. After selecting one of these options, you will be presented with a dialog box, asking for the amount tendered. If they are paying the exact amount due, you can save time by not entering anything here, and just hitting Enter. It will assume that they are paying the exact amount still due. Alternatively, you can enter the tender amount, and THEN press one of the tender buttons. You can enter any combination of payment types. For instance, for a $20 purchase, you can enter $15 paid by check and $5 paid in cash. After you enter a payment, you will see the total tendered so far in the lower right hand corner of the POS screen. If the customer has not paid the full amount due yet, you will also see the amount still due just below the tendered amount. If you select Credit Card as the tender type, and you are using credit card processing through PC Authorize, the credit card authorization window will be displayed for you to swipe the card. Please see page 111 for more information on this process. If you have the Automatically Finish Sale option (see page 97) turned on, the sale will be automatically completed once enough money has been tendered. Please see the next section for more details on finishing the sale. Note: If you enter any additional items for the sale after entering tender, any tender entered so far will be automatically deleted. 68

69 Finishing the Sale Once enough money has been paid, you can finish the sale by clicking on the Finish Sale button or pressing the associated function key on the keyboard. Note that if you have the Automatically Finish Sale option (see page 97) turned on, selecting this option is not necessary. Finishing the sale does several things: 1. Updates your inventory to reflect the items purchased/returned. 2. Warns you about items on which you are low on stock or completely out. 3. Opens the electronic cash drawer if you have one installed. 4. Stores the sale data in the database 5. Prints out the receipt if you have a receipt printer installed. 6. Clears the screen so that you re ready for the next sale. Processing Refunds If you are ready to finish the sale, and a refund is due to the customer, select the Process Refund option. Unlike the Finish Sale option, this option will not be done automatically. You must either click on the Process Refund button or press the associated function key on the keyboard. After selecting this option, you will be presented with a dialog box as shown above, asking how the refund is to be repaid. Select the appropriate button, depending on whether the refund will be repaid by cash, check, credit card credit, some form of miscellaneous tender, or store credit. If you select Credit Card as the refund type, and you are using credit card processing through PC Authorize, the credit card authorization window will be displayed for you to swipe the card. Please see page 111 for more information on this process. For all refund types except Store Credit, the rest of what happens is the same as in Finish Sale above. The rest of this section will be about how to handle store credits. If you are giving store credit for the items returned, you have two options. If you do not wish to track your store credits in the software as accounts, then you should NOT use the Process Refund option. You should use the Sell Gift Certificate option, and enter an amount equal to the amount due to the customer. This will bring the sale to a zero balance. You can then finish the sale by choosing the Finish Sale option. If you DO wish to track your store credits as accounts, then you should use the Process Refund option and select Store Credit as the refund type. In order to do this, the sale must be attached to the customer who is getting the credit. If you started the sale as an anonymous sale, you can attach a customer via the E-Z Customer Search feature. 69

70 After you have selected Process Refund, and then selected Store Credit, you will be presented with a list of accounts that this customer has, if any, as shown above. You may select an existing account by clicking on it with the mouse and then clicking Ok. If you wish to create a new account, then simply select Create New Store Credit Account at the top of the list. If you select to create a new account, you will be prompted to enter an initial description, the clerk, and optional notes. Next, you will be presented with the Credit To Account screen as shown above. Fill in the requested information and click Ok. The amount to credit will be filled in automatically, but you can modify it if desired. Once you have entered this information and click Ok, the sale will be completed as normal. 70

71 If you select Gift Card as the refund type, TRS will prompt you to scan a gift card to issue to the customer. This can be a new gift card, or an existing card, in which case, TRS will simply add to the balance on the card. Canceling a Sale If you have started ringing up a sale, and decide that you want to cancel it, you can do so by simply selecting the Cancel Sale option. Either click on the Cancel Sale button or press the associated function key on the keyboard. This will clear the screen, and no data will be stored. Note: If you have already Finished the sale (see previous two sections), then it is too late for this option. If you need to cancel a sale after it has been finished, see the Over-Ring function later in this chapter. Put On Layaway Feature You can use the Put On Layaway button to put the current POS Sale on layaway and receive an initial payment for the sale. You can layaway as many sales as you want and can keep them on layaway indefinitely. Putting a POS Sale on Layaway Once you have scanned or entered all the items that will go on layaway, simply click the Put On Layaway button. TRS will give you a dialog box where you can add notes, the sales clerk and the ability to adjust some of the sale details. Once you re done and you click OK, TRS will ask if you want to take an initial down payment. If you choose No, the sale is now on layaway and you can begin ringing up another sale. If you choose Yes, TRS will prompt you for the initial payment amount and will start a new POS sale for the customer. You can now complete this sale as you would any other POS sale. POS Layaway Pickup When the customer is ready to make their final payment and pickup their layaway, you will use the Layaway Pickup button. You will be given a list of all your layaways you ll select the appropriate one. TRS will ask you to apply the payments made and you re now ready to finish this sale. POS Layaway Payments If your customer wants to make an additional, partial payment on their layaway, you can access this record easily from the Customers screen. Once you ve found to correct customer record, click the Show History button and you ll see the POS Layaway under the Accts section. Simply double-click the record and you ll be brought to the Accounts/Layaways section of TRS where you can use the Enter Payment button which is located near the Transactions area. Manage POS Layaways If you need to cancel a POS Layaway or view the items that are on POS Layaway, you can do so from the Manage Suspended Sales/Layaways area located under Maintenance from the top TRS menu bar. Suspend Sale Feature TRS allows you to suspend sales for later recall. Use this feature to free up the system for another sale without canceling the sale that is currently on the screen. It is also useful for classes and seminars to allow your customers to keep a running tab for payment at the end. You can suspend as many sales as you want and can keep them suspended indefinitely. Suspending a Sale Suspending a sale is very simple. Simply click on the Suspend Sale button on the POS screen. It will ask you to confirm that you want to suspend the sale. Click Yes, and the sale will be suspended. Although you can suspend sales whether or not they are linked to a customer, it is highly recommended that you link the sale to the customer before suspending it. Otherwise, it may be difficult to tell your suspended sales apart. 71

72 Recalling a Suspended Sale There are two different ways to resume a suspended sale. The first method is by clicking the Recall Sale button on the POS screen. You will be presented with a list of suspended sales. Select the correct sale from the list and then click Ok. The sale will be brought up on the screen. From here, you can add items, ring it through, or anything else that you would do with a POS sale. The second way to recall a sale is as follows: Bring a customer up on the customer screen. Click on the new POS Sale button. If the customer has any suspended sales, it will ask you if you want to recall a suspended sale. Select Yes. You will see a list of suspended sales for that customer only. The rest is the same as above. Manage Suspended Sales If you need to cancel a Suspended Sale or view the items that are on Suspended status, you can do so from the Manage Suspended Sales/Layaways area located under Maintenance from the top TRS menu bar. Reprinting a Receipt After finishing a sale, there may be times when you want or need to reprint a receipt, such as if your receipt printer jams, etc. To reprint a receipt, simply click on the Reprint Last Receipt button or press the associated function key on the keyboard. If you need to reprint a receipt other than the very last one, you can do that as well. Go to the Review POS screen, and bring up the desired sale. Click the button on that screen labeled Reprint This Receipt or choose the Reprint As Invoice button to generate a receipt that is formatted for 8.5 x 11 paper. Opening the Cash Drawer There may be times when you want to open the cash drawer without ringing up a sale (such as to make change, etc.). To do this, simply click on the Open Cash Drawer button or press the associated function key on the keyboard. Deleting Tender If you make a mistake in entering tender and need to start the tender over again, simply click on the Delete Tender button or press the associated function key on the keyboard. Note: If you enter any additional items for the sale after entering any tender, any tender entered so far will be automatically deleted. Price Lookup There may be times when you want to look up the price or description of an item without actually entering it into a sale. You can do so with this option. Click on the Price Lookup button or press the associated function key on the keyboard. You will be presented with a dialog box, asking you to enter or scan the barcode/item id. After scanning the item or typing the item id and pressing Enter, you will either be shown the description and price of the item, as shown above, or told that the item is not in the database. Non-Sale Transactions Use these functions whenever you need to add or remove money to/from the cash drawer when it is not related to a sale. The most common use of this is to remove money from the register at the end of the day to deposit at the bank. Other uses might be to add money to the drawer if you have given a lot of refunds, take money out to buy something for the store, etc. 72

73 If you are adding money to the drawer, select Money In. If removing money from the drawer, select Money Out. Click on the appropriate button, or press the associated function key on the keyboard. Do NOT start a new sale before selecting either of these options. Non-Sale transactions are not part of a sale. After selecting one of the above options, you will be asked to enter the amount of money transferred IN or OUT of the drawer. Enter the amount and Click OK or press Enter. Next, you will be asked to enter a department code for this transaction. Department codes for non-sale transactions are always negative numbers, less than 10. The codes 1 through 10 are reserved for system use. So, you can use the numbers 11, -12, -13, etc. You should decide ahead of time how you want to use your non-sale department codes. You should dedicate one negative department code to each reason that you have for adding or removing money from the drawer. You can have an almost unlimited number of these codes. Next, you will be asked to enter an optional description or memo about this transaction. This can be extremely useful later on when reviewing records. Enter something here or not, then click on OK or press Enter. Next, you will be asked what kind of money you are adding/removing. Select the appropriate button. Lastly, you will be asked whether or not to update the drawer totals (see page 89). Select Yes or No, depending on your preference (in most cases, you should select Yes ). Reviewing Records Go to the Review POS tab to go back and view completed sales. Please see chapters 3 and 4 for more information about how to navigate and search records. Jumping to a Sale If you want to jump to a particular sale in the database, and you know the sale number (It s printed on the receipt), you can easily go to that sale. Click on the Jump to a Sale button on the Review POS screen and enter the number of the sale. You will be taken directly to that sale record. 73

74 Over-Rings If you realize that you have made a mistake on a sale after it has already been finished, you can mark that sale as an overring. The sale information will still be in your database, but the data from it will no longer show up in your reports. To mark a sale as an over-ring, simply click on the button marked Over-Ring This Sale. You will be asked to confirm that this is what you really want to do. Select Yes if you are sure. Next, you will be asked whether you want to update the drawer totals to reflect the fact that this is an over-ring. If this is a recent sale, and would otherwise cause your drawer totals to be off, then you should select Yes. If this is an older sale that won t affect your current drawer totals, then you should select No. Next, you will be asked if you want to update the inventory. If you select Yes, any items purchased in that sale will be added back into inventory, and any items returned in the sale will be subtracted back out. After this, you will see the Over-Ring? checkbox with a checkmark in it. This tells you that this sale is marked as an overring. If you have accidentally marked a sale as an over-ring and want to restore it to normal status, then you should select the Restore This Sale option. To restore a sale as an over-ring, simply click on this button. You will be asked to confirm that this is what you really want to do. Select Yes if you are sure. Again, you will be asked if you want to update the inventory. You will now see the checkbox unchecked, to indicate that this is NOT an over-ring. Show Costs To display the Unit Cost for each item, click the Show Costs button. You will be prompted to enter the password. The Unit Cost column will appear beside the Unit Price column. Press the Hide Costs button to remove the Unit Cost column from the screen. Changing Costs If a cost shown on the Review POS screen is incorrect, you can modify it by selecting the item with the mouse and then clicking the button labeled Change Cost for Selected Item. You will be prompted to enter the new cost. Changing the Sale Date On occasion, it may be necessary to modify a sale s date. This may be necessary if you accidentally had your computer s clock set to the wrong data when ringing some sales, or if you need to re-ring a sale for a previous date to correct something. To do this, click the button labeled Change next to the date field on the Review POS screen. You will be prompted to enter the new date for the sale. Entering Items from Other Databases One of the greatest features of TRS is that you can easily enter the sales of big-ticket items, repairs, class enrollments, and layaways/store charges directly into the Point Of Sale system! Here s how to do it: Sales After you save a sale record (from the Sales tab, not POS), you are asked whether you would like to add the sale to the current Point Of Sale ticket. If you would like to add a sale to a Point Of Sale ticket at any other time, simply click on the Add to POS Ticket button on the sale screen. If you select Yes when it asks you if you would like to add it, then you are switched to the Point Of Sale screen. The sewing machine, etc. will be added to the POS ticket, and if there is a trade-in for the sale, then it will be automatically subtracted also. From there, you can add other items, and proceed with the sale as normal. Repairs After you save a repair record, you are asked whether you would like to add the repair to the current Point Of Sale ticket. (If you would like to add a repair to a Point Of Sale ticket at any other time, simply click on the Add to POS Ticket button on 74

75 the repair screen.) If you select Yes when it asks you if you would like to add it, you will be prompted whether to set Date Picked Up to today s date. Once you select Yes or No you will be switched to the Point Of Sale screen. The repair parts and labor will be added to the POS ticket as two separate items: Parts and Labor. From there, you can add other items, and proceed with the sale as normal. Class Enrollments After you enroll a customer in a class, you are asked whether you would like to add the class enrollment fees to the current Point Of Sale ticket. If you would like to add the class fees to a Point Of Sale ticket at any other time, simply click on the Add to POS Ticket button on the section screen. If you select Yes when it asks you if you would like to add it, then you are switched to the Point Of Sale screen. The class fees will be added to the POS ticket. If you have designated a kit for the class, you will also be asked whether or not to add the kit to the POS ticket. From there, you can add other items, and proceed with the sale as normal. Layaway/Store Charge Payments Each time you record a payment on a layaway or store charge, you are asked whether you would like to add the transaction to the current Point Of Sale ticket. (If you would like to add the transaction to a Point Of Sale ticket at any other time, simply click on the Add Transaction to POS Ticket button on the screen.) If you select Yes when it asks you if you would like to add it, then you are switched to the Point Of Sale screen. The payment information will be added to the POS ticket so that the customer can pay for the deposit. From there, you can add other items, and proceed with the sale as normal. Redeeming a Layaway When the customer comes in to pay for the rest of a layaway and pick up their merchandise, then it is time to redeem the payments that they have made so far on the layaway. The first thing that you do is to ring up the sale for the items that they had on layaway. Once you have done so, and you have the total, there are two ways to apply the layaway payments. One way is from the Layaways/Accounts screen. To do it this way, follow these steps: 1. Go to the layaway account for the customer. You can do this by going to the customer on the Customers tab of the database notebook and then double-clicking on the correct layaway account. 2. When you get to the correct layaway, click on the Apply Payments To Sale button. 3. Enter the total amount of the payments that the customer has made, as shown in the Payments Received field on the screen, along with the clerk an notes information if you so desire. 4. You are then asked if you would like to add the transaction to the current POS ticket. Select Yes. You are then switched back to the Point Of Sale screen. The deposits will be subtracted from the POS ticket. 5. If you select Total again, it will show how much money the customer still owes for their final payment. From there, you can add other items, and proceed with the sale as normal. The second (and easier) way to apply layaway payments to a sale is directly from the POS screen: 1. Make sure that the POS sale is linked to the correct customer. If it is not, you can do so by using the E-Z Customer Search button on the POS screen. 2. Once the items are entered for the sale, click on the button labeled, Apply Layaway/Credit/Charge. 3. Click on the button labeled Apply layaway payments to this sale. 4. Select the desired Layaway account and click Ok. 5. On the next screen, make sure that the Amount To Apply is correct. If not, modify it as appropriate. Enter the clerk and notes if desired and click Ok. 6. If you select Total again, it will show how much money the customer still owes for their final payment. From there, you can add other items, and proceed with the sale as normal. Charging a Sale to a Store Account If you allow customers to charge purchases to in-store accounts, then read this section. This is how to charge a sale and create a customer account for it: The first thing that you do is to ring up the sale for the items that the customer is purchasing. Once you have done so, and you have the total, there are two ways to charge the sale. One way is from the Layaways/Accounts screen. To do it this way, follow these steps: 1. First, you must create the charge account. If you are adding this sale to an existing store account, then you can skip to step Please see page 33 for instructions on creating a new store charge account. 75

76 3. When you are asked for the initial charge, enter the amount of the sale total. If the customer is only charging PART of the amount of the sale, then enter the amount charged only. 4. If you are adding the sale to an existing account, then simply go to that charge account, hit the Enter Charge button, and enter the amount of the charge, along with the clerk an notes information if you so desire. 5. Next, you are asked if you would like to add the transaction to the current POS ticket. Select Yes. 6. You are then switched back to the Point Of Sale screen. The charged amount will be subtracted from the POS ticket. 7. If you select Total again, it will show a zero balance, unless they only charged part of the total, in which case it will show how much money the customer still owes. 8. From there, you can finish the sale as normal. The second (and easier) way to charge a sale to a store account is directly from the POS screen: 1. Make sure that the POS sale is linked to the correct customer. If it is not, you can do so by using the E-Z Customer Search button on the POS screen. 2. Once the items are entered for the sale, click on the button labeled, Apply Layaway/Credit/Charge. 3. Click on the button labeled Charge all/part to a Store Charge Account. 4. If you will be creating a new charge account for the customer, select Create New Charge Account from the top of the list, click Ok, and continue with step 5. If you will be adding to an existing charge account, select it from the list and skip to step Enter a description for the account. Optionally enter the salesperson and any notes. Click Ok. 6. On the next screen, make sure that the Amount To Charge is correct. If not, modify it as appropriate. Enter the clerk and notes if desired and click Ok. 7. If you charged the entire sale to the charge account, then the sale should be completed. Otherwise, if you select Total again, it will show how much money the customer still owes. From there, you can enter the remaining tender and finish the sale. Applying a Store Credit to a Sale If you keep track of your store credits in your Layaways/Accounts database, then read this section. This is how to apply money from a store credit account to a POS sale: 1. Go to the credit account for the customer. You can do this by going to the customer on the Customers tab of the database notebook and then double-clicking on the correct credit account. 2. When you get to the correct layaway, click on the Enter Charge button. 3. Enter the amount of the credit that the customer wishes to apply to the sale. 4. You are then asked if you would like to add the transaction to the current POS ticket. Select Yes. You are then switched back to the Point Of Sale screen. The store credit will be subtracted from the POS ticket. 5. If the store credit covers the entire purchase, the sale should be finished. Otherwise, if you select Total again, it will show how much money the customer still owes. From there, you can add other items or finish ringing the sale out. The second (and easier) way to apply a store credit to a sale is directly from the POS screen: 1. Make sure that the POS sale is linked to the correct customer. If it is not, you can do so by using the E-Z Customer Search button on the POS screen. 2. Once the items are entered for the sale, click on the button labeled, Apply Layaway/Credit/Charge. 3. Click on the button labeled Use a Store Credit. 4. Select the desired Store Credit account and click Ok. 5. On the next screen, make sure that the Amount To Apply is correct. If not, modify it as appropriate. Enter the clerk and notes if desired and click Ok. 6. If the store credit covers the entire purchase, the sale should be finished. Otherwise, if you select Total again, it will show how much money the customer still owes. From there, you can add other items or finish ringing the sale out. Customer Spending/Volume Accumulations TRS will keep track of your customers accumulations of dollars spent and volume (such as number of yards) purchased. This can be used as an incentive program. When a customer reaches a certain goal of dollars spent or volume purchased, you could issue the customer a store credit, gift certificate, coupon, or other incentive, and start their accumulation again at zero. 76

77 Selecting which products are eligible for the accumulations The first step in putting this feature into execution is to decide what products are eligible for these accumulations. This is done on the Inventory>Edit POS Products screen. You can specify whether each product is eligible for the money accumulation and/or volume accumulation. See page 79 for more on setting this option in your product database. Once you have defined products that are eligible, TRS will take over from there, and automatically add to the customers accumulations with every purchase. Viewing a customer s accumulations If you bring up a customer on the Customers tab, the customer s current accumulations will be displayed there. These can be edited, but for the most part, you should let TRS handle these fields automatically. Adding accumulation messages to receipts You can have TRS automatically print messages at the bottom of the POS receipts, notifying the customer of how much they have accumulated in spending and/or volume. Please see page 105 for more details on setting these up. Setting Goals for Accumulations If you use the customer accumulations for a customer loyalty program, you can set a goal for each the accumulations in POS- >Options. You can set the goal level and tell TRS to pop up a special message to the clerk when the goal is reached by a customer. You can also have TRS issue a free gift card as a reward or give the customer a discount in their customer record with an optional discount expiration date. For more information about setting up accumulation goals, please see page 105. Customer Loyalty Cards/Keytags TRS allows you to assign a customer loyalty cards or keychain tags to your customer. This is an easy way to tag your POS sales to the correct customer, without having to ask them for their phone number, etc. and type it in. If you make the card/keytag part of a customer loyalty/rewards program, your customers will be happy to use them. JMM Software sells custom-printed customer loyalty cards and keytags that are guaranteed to work with TRS. Please call for pricing. If you buy them elsewhere, they are not guaranteed to work. If you do decide to purchase them elsewhere, make sure that the barcodes on them begin with the letters CLC in all upper case. You can assign a loyalty card or keytag to a customer by clicking on the Assign Card button on the Customer screen and scanning the barcode on the card or keytag. Once the card has been assigned, you can scan the card instead of entering/scanning the customer number when using the Jump To Cust # button on the Customers screen or the Scan Cust # button on the POS screen. 77

78 Working with your Inventory Database Your inventory database is an integral part of your Point Of Sale system. This database stores all of the important information about the products that you sell. Field Descriptions: Here are the descriptions for the different fields that are in the inventory database: UPC Code/Item ID: In most cases, this is the UPC code (barcode) that is printed on the product. If the product does not have a UPC code, you can pick your own Item ID and put it here instead. Description: Here, you put a description of the product. This description will be printed on the customers receipts, and also displayed on the pole display. Note: If you enter more than one line here, only the first line will display on the pole display when the item is entered. In-Store Notes: In this field, you can enter any additional in-store notes about the product. Unlike the Description field, these notes will not be printed or displayed for the customer. Preferred Vendor: Here, you enter the name of the vendor from which you prefer to order this product. This field has a drop-down listbox, so you can set up your re-order sources ahead of time to speed up data entry. Please see page 36 for more information about how to set this up. Prompt For Qty?: If you check this box, TRS will prompt you for the quantity each time you enter this item into a POS sale. This is very useful for things such as fabric and other merchandise that is sold by the yard, or is generally purchased in a quantity other than 1. 78

79 Accumulates $: If you check this box, this product will be eligible to count toward the customer s accumulation of money spent in your store. See page 76 for more information about accumulations. Accumulates Vol: This field is basically the same as Accumulates $, but is for the volume accumulation, rather than the money accumulation. See page 76 for more information about accumulations. Price: Enter the retail price of the item here. If you enter 0 (zero) for the price, you will be prompted for the price whenever you scan the item to ring it up. Note: Individual customers can be given special pricing on certain merchandise. Click the Special Pricing button at the bottom of the customer screen to bring up the window for entering this information. Tax1/Tax2/Tax3: Use these checkboxes to specify whether the product is taxable, and which taxes apply to it. Most users will only need to use Tax1. However, if you are in an area where different products are taxed at different rates, you can use Tax2 and Tax3. Please see page 101 for instructions on setting your tax rates. Current Inventory: This is a display-only field that shows how many of this product you have in stock. To adjust inventory levels, see page 81. # On Order: This field is not editable. It tells you how many of this item you already have on order (not counting special orders). Last Sold: TRS will show you the last date that you had a POS Sale for this item. The Show button is next to the Last Sold field and show or hides that field. When Last Sold is shown, TRS must calculate that value for every product. The calculation causes performance delays, especially over a network, and the field be kept hidden in most situations. Date Added: This is the date that the item was added to your POS Products database. Warning Level: This field tells the software when to warn you that you are low on stock. For instance, if you set this value at 3, then as soon as you have 3 of the item left in stock, you will get a warning. This field is also used when generating reorder lists. Only products that have inventory below or at the warning level will come up on the re-order lists. Set the warning level at 1 if you never want to be warned about the stock level for this product. Wanted Level: This field is used when generating re-order lists. It is the amount of this product that you want to have in stock. For instance, if you have the wanted level set at 10, and the current inventory is at 4, then the re-order list will tell you to order 6 of this product. Department # / Name: These fields are used to categorize your products. Before entering your inventory, you should decide how you want to set up your departments. You do this by selecting Edit Lists>Department Names from the TRS menu. Department numbers are grouped into major categories, with 100 departments per major category. For instance, let s say that you have departments for scissors, needles, pins, and patches, but they are all under the general category of notions. So, you could make notions be the 100 s category. You could set your scissors as department 101, needles as department 102, and so on. If your next major category is thread, then you could make that category 200, and each of the manufacturers could be a different department in the 200 range. When you print out your sales report by department, your departments will be subtotaled by major category, so be sure and set up your departments in a meaningful way. When entering the department, you can either type in the department number, or select the department name from the drop-down list. Location: Use this field if you would like to specify where in your store the product is located. This could be something like Notions Wall, or perhaps a bin location for small parts. Pop-Up Messages: If you add a pop-up message for a product, that message will be displayed to the clerk each time that item is sold. It is especially useful for add-on sales, by noting companion products or accessories that the customer may want to purchase at the same time. To add a pop-up message for a product, simply click the button labeled Add Message. You will be prompted to enter the message. To delete a message, simply highlight it with the mouse, and click on the button labeled Delete Selected Message. Sources: This grid shows the prices and minimum order quantities for this product from all of your vendors. These values can not be edited directly from this screen, but if you double-click on a row, you will be taken to the Edit Vendor Products screen, where you can edit the vendor info for that item. Please see page

80 Entering/Editing/Navigating/Searching Products To get to the screen where you can enter new products, edit existing products, and view your inventory, select Inventory > Edit POS Products from the TRS menu. This will bring up the products screen. The way that you enter, edit, navigate, and search the database is the same as all of the other databases. Please see chapters 3 and 4 for information on how to do these things. Automatic Sequential Barcode Number Generation When entering an item into inventory that does not come pre-barcoded from the manufacturer, you can enter your own barcode number for the item, or let TRS generate one for you. If you leave the barcode number field blank, TRS will do this, provided that you have set up the options for the automatic generation. Please see page 104 for instructions for setting these options. FIFO (First In, First Out) Costs TRS tracks costs of products purchased and sold in a First In, First Out fashion. That means that it know exactly how much you paid for each piece of inventory in your store, even if you bought some at one price, and others at another price, etc. When you sell the products, TRS takes the products out if inventory in the order that you received them, and assigns the correct costs when storing the sale data. Here s an example: Let s say you carry a particular type of zippers. You bought 3 of them at $1.25, then 4 more at $1.35, then finally 2 more at $1.19. Your FIFO Costs would look like this Now, let s say somebody comes in and buys 5 of these zippers. Since the 1.25 were the first ones purchased ( First In ), they are the first ones taken out of inventory when sold ( First Out ). So, those 3 are taken out of inventory, along with two 1.35, since they were the next ones purchased. The 5 purchased had a total cost of $6.45. This information is stored with the sale data for use in reports. Your FIFO costs will now look like this: You can see the current status of your FIFO costs by clicking the FIFO Costs button on the POS screen. You will be presented with the following screen: 80

81 If you need to, you can adjust the Cost and Vendor columns directly from this screen. Manually Adjusting Inventory Quantities To adjust inventory quantities, click the Adjust button on the inventory screen as shown above. A menu will pop up, giving you a choice of adjusting the inventory either up or down (by entering the difference in inventory), or setting the inventory count to a specified level. If you selected Up or Down, you will be prompted to enter the difference in inventory. If you select Set Level, you will be prompted to enter the new inventory level. If you are increasing the inventory quantity, or setting it to a higher level, you will be prompted to enter the cost of the additional items, so that it can be recorded correctly in the item s FIFO Costs (see the previous topic). Importing Inventory Count Adjustments If you have purchased a Portable Data Terminal for taking inventory, you can also import data from the terminal, which will update your inventory counts to the correct levels and generate a variance report. The instructions for doing this are included with the unit, so will not be repeated here. 81

82 Adding New Products To add a new item to your database, use the Add New Product button. You ll enter all the details of that item, including the source (Vendor), Vendor part number and your cost. If you do not enter a barcode, TRS will offer to generate one automatically. New products to be added to the inventory may all need to have the same default settings. Set defaults for the above seven items by clicking POS>Options, going to the Inventory tab, and setting the value or checking the boxes as needed. Copying Items When entering a lot of similar products, it may be easiest to copy one product to another, and only change the fields that are different (such as the barcode number). To do this, click the button labeled Copy Item to New Item on the Edit POS Products screen. A new item will be created, with the barcode number left blank for you to enter/scan. Then, you can make any other modifications as appropriate and save the record as normal. Entering Big Ticket Items If you want to track the inventory for your big-ticket items, such as sewing machines, vacuums, cabinets, software, etc., there are a couple of additional steps. You must select an Item ID for each model of big-ticket item that you sell. Make one entry in the product database for each model and enter the chosen Item ID in the Barcode/Item ID field. Next, go to Edit Lists> Models from the TRS Menu. Next to the model number in the list is a space to enter the Item ID and Department for this model. If you enter these correctly, then when you add sales of these items to your POS tickets, it will track the inventory correctly. Jumping to an Item If you know exactly which product you want to view/edit, you can quickly jump to that item by clicking the Jump To An Item button on the products screen. You will be asked to scan the item or enter the Item ID. You will be either taken directly to the corresponding item or told that the item is not in the database. Exiting the Product Screen When you are finished working with the product screen, simply click on the Done button to close the window. Using Inventory for Repair Parts: If you have the Point Of Sale module, then the repair screen has an extra option on it. There is a text entry field above the parts area of the repair screen. If you place the cursor in this box, then you can scan parts or enter their Item ID, and it will fill in the parts automatically, provided that you have entered them into your products database. The parts that you use will also be subtracted from your inventory if you enter them this way. 82

83 Checking Stock Levels: You can always check stock levels by going into Edit Products. However, you may wish to prevent employees from going in and modifying your products, but still let them check stock levels. For this purpose, there is a function for checking stock levels from the TRS menu. To check stock levels, select Inventory>Check Inventory, and then either By Barcode # or By Description. If you select By Barcode #, simply scan or type in the barcode number of the product that you would like to check. If you select By Description, then simply enter part of the description. You will then see a list of all products that contain the string that you entered. Select the desired product from the list. You will then be shown the current inventory level, the number on order, your warning level, and your wanted level. If you have multiple stores databases set up in the Database Administrator, you will be prompted to check all stores. If you answer Yes, then TRS will check the other stores databases to display their inventory level for the product. Mass Editing Products Occasionally, you may have reason to make a single change to a group of products at once. You can do this as follows: 1. From the Edit POS Products screen, do a search to find the exact group of products that you want to edit. You can do this using either Complex Search or Quick Search. 2. Click on the button labeled Mass Edit on the screen. 3. You will be presented with a dialog box that shows all of the fields for your products. Here, you can enter the values for the mass edit. For any field that you fill in, all of the records in your previous search will get that value. Any fields that you leave blank will be unaffected. 4. Click OK. Mass Deleting Products Occasionally, you may have reason to delete a group of products at once. You can do this as follows: 1. From the Edit POS Products screen, do a search to find the exact group of products that you want to delete. You can do this using either Complex Search or Quick Search. 2. Click on the button labeled Mass Delete on the screen. 3. The following dialog box displays. 4. Click Yes to remove these records from Vendor Products or click No if you wish to leave all the vendor information in the vendor database. 5. A warning displays alerting you that you are about to permanently delete products; click Yes to go ahead and delete the items. Putting Products on Sale From time to time, you may want to put products on sale for a period of time. Do this by selecting Inventory>Edit Specials from the TRS menu. 83

84 On this screen, you can enter both individual products and entire departments that are on sale. To add a new item or product, click on the corresponding button that says, Add Blank Row. Fill in either the UPC code or department number, as appropriate, the percentage off, and the start and end dates. If you leave the Start Date blank, it means beginning immediately. If you leave the end date blank, then the sale does not end until you either delete the special or enter an end date. In the case that you have a product on sale, and its department is also on sale, the product discount takes precedence, and the department discount does not apply. To delete a special, select the row, and click the Delete Row button. To go to a particular item or department, use the Jump to an Item button. Putting Products on Sale-2 nd Method You can put any barcoded item or group of items on sale from the Edit POS Products window. After doing a search for an item or items you can click the Put On Sale button to add the group to your Specials list. Kit Creation At times, you may want to create kits, made up of other items in your inventory, or divide a single item into multiple smaller pieces. This can be done by selecting Inventory>Kit Creation from the TRS menu. You will be asked whether or not you want to make more of a previously created kit, or create a new kit from scratch. If you decide to load a previously created kit, you will be prompted to enter the barcode number of the kit, as well as how many more you are going to create. Next, you will see the below screen. If you loaded an existing kit, the screen will be already filled in for you. 84

85 The top part of this screen ( Source Items ) is where you enter the component items of the kit. You can either scan in items, or manually enter the information on the lines. When asked for the quantity, you should enter the TOTAL quantity for ALL of the kits that you are making together. Next, go down to the New Item screen and enter the information about the new kit item. Here, you can enter the barcode number (either a current barcode number or a new one), part number, and description. When you enter the How many did you create number, the Price and Cost fields will be calculated automatically. When you are done, simply click the Ok button. The source items will be subtracted from your inventory, and the new item(s) will be added. If the number that you entered into the Barcode # field does not yet exist in your database, then you will be prompted to add it as a new item. Next, you will be given the opportunity to print barcode labels for the kits. Finally, you will be asked if you would like to save the kit definition for next time. If you answer Yes, then you will be able to easily make more if this same kit at a later date. Further Kit Information It is important that when creating a kit you enter ALL the items in the kit during the kit creation process. You can always go back and edit the kit definition the next time you make more of that particular kit, but those changes will only affect the kits put together from that point forward. You cannot, without some difficulty, go back and edit the contents of the kits that were created before the change. If you need to make adjustments to the contents of kits already created, please contact Technical Support for instructions. It is strongly recommended that you save your kit definition when prompted. This will enable you to, at a later date, go back to that kit definition and see the kit s contents. After you ve created a kit, your inventory is updated immediately and a barcode is assigned to the kit. If you remove a kit from your inventory, either by deleting the kit barcode or updating the kit barcode inventory, the items in the kit (kit contents) are NOT updated. If you delete a kit and return the kit contents to stock, you need to update the inventory of the kit contents manually. If you update a kit s inventory due to shrinkage, there is no need to manually update the inventory of the kit contents as it was adjusted during the initial kit creation. Once your kit barcode is generated, you can treat this item like any other barcode item. For example, you can adjust your price and description in the Edit POS Products window. 85

86 Working with your Vendor Products Database The vendor products database where you specify the product information that is specific to a particular vendor, such as part numbers and prices. This information is linked back to your inventory database via the UPC/Barcode field. That is, if you have the UPC/Barcode field filled out to match a product in your inventory database, then the vendor order quantities and prices will be shown in the Sources grid on the products screen. Field Descriptions: Here are the descriptions for the different fields that are in the vendor products database: Vendor: Here, you enter the name of the vendor for this entry. This field has a drop-down listbox, so you can set up your re-order sources ahead of time to speed up data entry. Please see page 36 for more information about how to set this up. Part #: This is where you enter the vendor s part number that you would use when ordering this item from them. UPC/Barcode #: In most cases, this is the UPC code (barcode) that is printed on the product. If the product does not have a UPC code, you can pick your own Item ID and put it here instead. As was mentioned above, this field is used to link the item back to your products database to provide cost information. OEM Part #: This is an optional field. It is most often used for repair parts. When there is more than one equivalent replacement part, made by different manufacturers, there is often an OEM part number that references all such parts. This is where you would enter that number. Manufacturer Part #: Another optional field. If you have the manufacturer s part, you can enter it here. Description: Here, you put a description of the product. 86

87 Qty per Part #: This field is used when a vendor s part number refers to a box/bolt/lot/etc. of the item, rather than just one individual item. For instance, if when you order 1 of the part number, you receive a box of 10, you would enter 10 here. Otherwise, enter 1 if the part number refers to a single item. Sugg. Retail: Enter the suggested retail price of the item here. Start Date: Here, you would enter the date when you acquired the price. It is useful for knowing how old the price is. Price Expires: If you have an expiration date for the price, you can enter it here. Min Qty / Qty2 / Qty3: In these fields, you would enter the minimum order quantity, and the quantity required for up to two price breaks. Cost / Cost2 / Cost3: In these fields, you would enter the costs related to the above three fields. The cost is defined as PER ITEM. Entering/Editing/Navigating/Searching Vendor Products To get to the screen where you can enter/view the above, select Inventory>Edit Vendor Products from the TRS menu. This will bring up the vendor products screen. The way that you enter, edit, navigate, and search the database is the same as all of the other databases. Please see chapters 3 and 4 for information on how to do these things. Mass Editing Products Occasionally, you may have reason to make a single change to a group of products at once. You can do this as follows: 1. From the Edit Vendor Products screen, do a search to find the exact group of products that you want to edit. You can do this using either Complex Search or Quick Search. 2. Click on the button labeled Mass Edit on the screen. 3. You will be presented with a dialog box that shows all of the fields for your products. Here, you can enter the values for the mass edit. For any field that you fill in, all of the records in your previous search will get that value. Any fields that you leave blank will be unaffected. 4. Click OK. Adding Individual Vendor Products to your POS Products Database If you have an item in your vendor products database that you have not yet entered into your POS products database, you can do so easily. Simply bring up the item on the vendor products screen, and click the button labeled, Add/Edit in POS Products. If there is no item with the same UPC/Barcode number in your POS Products, you will be presented with a screen where you can edit/enter the product information. If the product already exists in your POS Products database, it will take you to the POS Products database and jump directly to that product. From there, you can edit the record if you choose. Importing Products To speed up getting products into your POS Products and Vendor Products database, they may be imported from either a data file supplied by a vendor, or another TRS database. Importing From a Vendor File To import from vendor-supplied data, you will first need a vendor import file in the correct format for importing into TRS. JMM Software has preformatted import files for many vendors. Please contact technical support for a current list of which vendors are available. If you have a vendor-supplied file that is not yet in the TRS import format, please contact technical support about getting it converted. Once you have the file in the correct format, select Inventory>Import Vendor Products from the TRS menu. You will then see the following screen: 87

88 First, click the Browse button to select the vendor import file. Then, click the Select button to select the vendor for which you are importing data. If the vendor does not appear in the list, use the Edit Lists>Vendors (Sources) function from the TRS menu first, in order to add the vendor. The next 3 options should be self explanatory. Contact technical support if you have any questions. Importing From Another TRS Database The other way of importing products is to import it from another TRS database. This is very useful if you have multiple stores, and you want to keep them the same with the same products in each store. If you use it for this purpose, you should designate one store as the master for inventory changes, and use it to update your other stores. Before you can import products from another TRS database, you must add a connection for it with the TRS Database Administrator. (See page 114) To do the import, select Inventory>Import from Another Store/Database from the TRS menu. You will then be presented with a list of databases from which you can import. Once you select the desired database, you will see the following screen: 88

89 On this screen, simply select which database (or both) that you would like to import. Once you make your selection, the data will be imported. Note: Inventory counts will not be imported, since they are unlikely to be the same from one store to the next. For products that were already in the database, the data will be updated. Entering Re-Ordered Products Without an Order If you are not using the Orders database to create your orders, you can enter reordered products easily anyway. Select Inventory>Enter Re-Ordered Products from the TRS menu. You will be asked to either scan the barcode or enter the Item ID for the product. You will then be asked to enter the quantity of this product that you got in, as well as the cost and what vendor you received it from. You can enter a negative quantity received if you want to decrease your stock by a certain amount. After you enter the number, you will be told what your current stock should now be, as well as the description, price, and cost for the item. This would be a good time to verify that the database matches the number that you actually have in stock, so that you can make adjustments if necessary. If you need to edit the item, click the Edit This Item button or press F1. You can enter another reordered item by clicking that button or pressing F3. If you are done entering reordered products, then click I m Done or press F5. Drawer Balances 89

90 As you make sales throughout the day, TRS keeps track of how much money you should have in the cash drawer in the form of cash, checks, credit card slips, and miscellaneous tender. You can view and edit these numbers at any time by selecting POS>View/Change Drawer Balances from the TRS menu. The Current column shows how much money you should have of each type of tender. If you want to change one of them, simply enter the new value in the New column and click OK or press Enter. To print the drawer balances, click the Print button. Point Of Sale Reports This section describes the information contained in each of the POS reports. To access the POS reports, select POS>Reports from the TRS menu and then select the report that you would like to run. For more information on entering date ranges and on viewing and printing the reports, please see page 56. HTML-Based Reports Most of the POS reports are HTML-based The reason for this is that it gives you a much more professional-looking report, and gives much better formatting options. TRS has a built-in HTML browser/editor, and this is where your HTML reports will be displayed, unless you specify (in Edit>Preferences) that you want to use your computer s default web browser instead. Note that when VERY LARGE reports are generated, it may take some time to load and display your report. This is normal, and you should simply wait. Eventually, your report will be displayed. Again, this only happens for VERY LARGE reports. If you want to save your report to a file, you can do so by clicking Save. Note that Microsoft Excel can open HTML files, so if you have the need for additional formatting or calculations, this a good way to do it. Not all reports are HTML-Based. Cash Accountability (POS>Reports>Cash Accountability) The Cash Accountability report is your basic financial report. It is the report that will give you the numbers that you need for your accounting. When you select this report, you will be prompted for the date range. If you leave the date range blank when it asks for it, the report will be run for the current day only. But, you can run the report for any range of time. If you have the Prompt For POS Category option turned on (see page 106), you will next be prompted to select the category. If you select a category, the report will only take into account the sales for that one category. If you do not select a category, it will take all sales into account, regardless of category. The report is in two sections: 90

91 The first section of this report tells you about your transactions for the day, broken down by the type of tender. It shows you the amount of cash you received that day, the number of sales where you received cash, the amount of cash that was refunded that day, the number of times that cash refunds were given, and finally, the net cash amount (received minus returned). The same information is given for checks, credit cards, and misc. tender. After all of these, it shows the total amount of money received of all types, the total amount of money returned, and finally, the net total. The second section of the report shows the accountability for the net total at the end of the first section. It first shows the amount of taxable sales, taxable returns, and net taxable sales (sales minus returns). It then shows the same information for nontaxable sales and sales tax. It then shows the total sales and the total sales and tax collected. The report then gets into non-sale items. You now see the same information for layaways, store charges, gift certificates, and other non-sale transactions. Finally, it shows the net total receipts for all of the above items. The report also shows the gross sales before discounts and the amount of discounts given. The lines on the report are also letter-coded, so that you can see how the calculations were made. Sales Breakdown By Department (POS>Reports>Sales Breakdown By Department) NOTE: This is an obsolete report that should no longer be used. The numbers on this report are based only on the prices listed in the product database. It does not take into account things such as overridden prices, price changes, discounts, etc. You should use the Profit By Department report below instead. This report is so that you can see how much money each of your departments and categories is bringing in. If you leave the date range blank when it asks for it, the report will be run for the current day only. But, you can run the report for any range of time by specifying a date range. This report shows your sales for the time period specified, and breaks them down by departments, subtotaled by major categories. It shows how much money came in for each department and what percentage of the total that was. At the end of the report, it shows the grand total for all departments. Profit By Department (POS>Reports>Profit By Department) 91

92 This report is so that you can see not only how much money each of your departments is bringing in, but it takes cost into account to calculate profit. If you leave the date range blank when it asks for it, the report will be run for the entire history. But, you can run the report for any range of time by specifying a date range. This report may be run for a single POS category or all categories. You may also choose to break it down by individual or major departments. This report shows your sales for the time period specified, and breaks them down by department. For each department, it shows how many items you sold, the retail value, the amount of discounts given, the net sales (after discounts), the cost, the profit, and the profit margin percentage. At the bottom of the report, it shows the grand totals for all departments. The percentages in parentheses throughout the report are the percentages of these grand totals. Re-Order Lists (POS>Reports>Re-Order Lists) This report is designed to help you with your ordering. When you select this report, it first asks you to enter the name of the vendor for which you would like to run the report. If you leave this blank, then the report will be run for all vendors. For each product, the report shows the vendor s part number, the description of the item, how many of the item you currently have in stock (according to the database), how many are already on order, and how many you should order (according to the Wanted level that you set in the products database). Purchase Orders (POS>Reports>Purchase Orders) Note: This feature is NOT part of the Orders database. You should only use this feature if you do not want to save information about the order. If you want to keep track of orders, please see page 119 instead. If you simply want to generate a non-tracked purchase order, follow these simple steps: 1) From the TRS menu, select POS>Reports>Purchase Orders. 2) You will then be asked to select a vendor from the list. Select one and click OK. 3) You will then be asked whether or not to add all items below the warning level. If you select Yes, then TRS will automatically add all of the items from your inventory for this vendor that are below the warning level. It will automatically enter the number to order so that it will bring your stock up to your wanted level. 4) Next, you will see an order form, where you can modify your order. Here, you can modify the items in the list by simply placing the cursor in the appropriate place and changing the information. When you update the cost or quantity, the Order Total at the bottom will not be updated until you click on the Update Total button. 5) To add a new item to the list, simply select the Add New Item button. You will be prompted to enter or scan the barcode number for the item to enter. If you leave it blank, then TRS will simply add a blank row to the bottom of the order form, which you can fill in manually. Otherwise, it will fill in the info automatically. 6) To delete a row from the order form, place the cursor anywhere on the row that you want to delete, and click on the Delete Current Row button. 7) When you are satisfied with your order, click on the Done button. 8) Next, you will be prompted to enter the terms or method of payment for this purchase order. Enter/modify it here, and select OK. 9) TRS will now generate your purchase order. The purchase order will be generated in HTML format, and your computer s default HTML editor* will be used to bring up the purchase order for further editing**. Several things have been left blank for you to fill in yourself, such as PO Number and shipping info. 10) When you are satisfied with your final purchase order, you can print it and/or save it to a HTML file. *Note: The preferred HTML editor to use is Netscape Composer, which is part of Netscape Communicator. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for more information. **Note: Once you are at the point where you are editing the HTML Purchase Order, you are simply editing text. If you make any changes to the prices or quantities, or if you add or delete rows, the total will NOT be automatically updated. You must modify the total yourself. If you want the total to be calculated correctly, you must finalize your order BEFORE you click Done on the order form. Inventory Reports There are two different inventory reports that you can run. The first is a complete listing of all of the products that you select, including all of the information about those products. The second report is a summary of your inventory, subtotaled by department. 92

93 To run the Inventory report, follow these steps: 1) Select Inventory>Edit Products from the TRS menu to go to the Products screen. 2) If you want to run the report for your entire inventory, then make sure that the All Records/Add/Delete radio button is selected. Note: This is not recommended. Running this report for your entire inventory will produce a VERY LARGE report, usually over 100 pages! Instead, click on the Search button, and do a search to select the subset of products for which you would like to run the report. 3) When the search is finished, click on the button labeled, Inventory Report. Select either Standard or Custom. If you select Custom the Select Fields for Report screen displays. Click the checkbox beside each field you would like contained in the report. Creating a custom report allows you to select both inventory and vendor information, such as part number, cost, or minimum order. 4) Your report will be generated in HTML format. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for further instructions. To run the Inventory Summary report, follow these steps: 1) Select POS>Reports>Inventory Summary from the TRS menu. 2) Select from the following options: Paid Cost What you actually paid for the goods. Replacement Cost What it would cost you to replace the goods from the Preferred Vendor. Both. Neither. The option you choose signigicantly impacts the amount of time it takes to generate the report. Choosing Neither is the fastest running report, Paid or Replacement Cost will increase the time, and choosing Both will take much longer. 3) Your report will be generated in HTML format. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for further instructions. Stock Turnover Report The stock turnover report gives you information about how your stock is selling by how many times you have turned over your stock for the item in a given period of time. This is very useful when ordering and adjusting your wanted stock level. For each item, the report tells you the vendor, barcode number, number sold, number of times that the stock turned over, the total wholesale value, total retail value, and profit for the item over the time period. There are two different ways to run a stock turnover report To run the Stock Turnover report for your entire inventory database or a specific vendor: 1. Select POS>Reports>Stock Turnover from the TRS menu. 2. You will be asked to select a vendor form your vendor list. If you want to run the report for ALL products, simply click OK without selecting a vendor. 3. Enter the date range for the report when asked. 4. You will be asked whether or not the report should include items that did not sell at all. Select either Yes or No. 5. Your report will be generated in HTML format. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for further instructions. To run the Stock Turnover report for only selected products: 1. Select Inventory>Edit Products from the TRS menu to go to the Products screen. 2. Click on either the Quick Search or Complex Search button, and do a search to select the subset of products for which you would like to run the report. 3. When the search is finished, click on the button labeled, Turnover Report. 4. Select the found set, which is all the items gathered in the search or the current item, which is any single product from the products found by the search. Move the black pointer on the left of the items to the single item you want in the report. 5. Enter the date range for the report when asked. 6. You will be asked whether or not the report should include items that did not sell at all. Select either Yes or No. 7. Your report will be generated in HTML format. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for further instructions. POS Sales by Salesperson (POS>Reports>Sales By Salesperson) The stock turnover report gives you information about your sales, broken down by salesperson. For each salesperson, the report tells you the number of items sold, the total retail value, the amount in discounts, net sales, cost, profit, and profit margin. It will also optionally calculate commission. 93

94 To run this report: 1. Select POS>Reports>Sales By Salesperson from the TRS menu. 2. Enter the date range for the report when asked. 3. You will be asked whether or not the report should include a commission calculation. Select either Yes or No. 4. If you select Yes, you will also be asked the commission rate, and how to calculate commission. 5. Your report will be generated in HTML format. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for further instructions. Unlisted Items Sold (POS>Reports>Unlisted Items) The Unlisted Items report gives you a listing of every time someone used the Unlisted Item function on the POS screen. Since the usage of unlisted items can cause inventory levels to be off (if the item was really in the product database, but wasn t scanned), this report will help you to identify what products are not being scanned, so that you can correct the situation. To run this report: 1. Select POS>Reports>Unlisted Items from the TRS menu. 2. Enter the date range for the report when asked. 3. Your report will be generated in HTML format. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for further instructions. Best Sellers (POS>Reports>Best Sellers) This report gives you a listing of the best selling products for a period of time. To run this report: 1. Select POS>Reports>Best Sellers from the TRS menu. 2. Enter the date range for the report when asked. 3. Enter the number of products that you want to see on the report. 4. Your report will be generated in HTML format. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for further instructions. Biggest Spenders (POS>Reports>Biggest Spenders) This report will give you a list of your best customers, based on dollars spent for a period of time. To run this report: 1. Select POS>Reports>Biggest Spenders from the TRS menu. 2. Enter the date range for the report when asked. 3. Enter the number of customers that you want to see on the report. 4. Your report will be generated in HTML format. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for further instructions. POS Sales by Hour (POS->Reports->Sales By Hour) This report is very similar to the Profit By Department and Sales By Salesperson report, except that it gives you information about your sales, broken down by hour of the day. It is useful for helping you adjust store hours and staffing levels for the most efficient use of your resources. For each hour of the day, the report tells you the number of items sold, the total retail value, the amount in discounts, net sales, cost, profit, and profit margin. To run this report: 1. Select POS->Reports->Sales By Hour from the TRS menu. 2. Enter the date range for the report when asked. 3. Your report will be generated in HTML format. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for further instructions. 94

95 QuickBooks Export (IIF File Method Obsolete) NOTE: The feature listed here is an old method of exporting to Quickbooks. It is highly recommended that you instead use the newer TRS->Quickbooks conduit program (TRS_QB) instead. You can download TRS_QB from the JMM Software website and install it. For more information on using TRS_QB, please refer to its own documentation. The below information DOES NOT apply to TRS_QB, and can therefore be disregarded if you are using it. Total Retail Solution allows you to export your accounting data to Intuit s IIF file format. The resulting file can then be imported into their QuickBooks software. This feature has so far only been tested with QuickBooks It may work unofficially with earlier versions of QuickBooks, but QuickBooks 2000 is currently the only version officially supported at the time of this writing. Data That Can Be Exported When you export data from Total Retail Solution, you have a choice of what data to export. When you export the data, it will export data for each day for which the query is run. For each day, there are several different things that you can choose to export: Sales/Taxes: If you choose to export sales/taxes, a single deposit will be made into a selected account for money that you collected due to sales and sales tax for each day. This amount corresponds to line (Y) in the cash accountability report. This deposit will be split between sales and taxes in the appropriate amounts. These amounts correspond to lines (X), and the tax amounts under line (V). The deposit will be listed under Cash Sales. Layaways: If you choose to export layaways, a single deposit (or debit) will be made into a selected account for the money that you collected/paid out due to layaways for each day. This amount corresponds to line (EE) in the cash accountability report. Store Charges/Credits: If you choose to export store credits and charges, a single deposit (or debit) will be made into a selected account for the money that you collected/paid out due to store charges and credits for each day. This amount corresponds to line (HH) in the cash accountability report. Gift Certificates: If you choose to export gift certificates, a single deposit (or debit) will be made into a selected account for the money that you collected from selling gift certificates and customers using them for each day. This amount corresponds to line (KK) in the cash accountability report. Other Non-Sale: If you choose to export other non-sale transactions, a single deposit (or debit) will be made into a selected account for the money that you collected/paid out due to other non-sale transactions for each day. This amount corresponds to line (NN) in the cash accountability report. If you choose to export all five items, the total amount deposited should correspond to lines (O) and (OO) in the cash accountability report, which is the total amount of money collected/paid out for the day. Setting Up QuickBooks Before you can import data into QuickBooks, it may need to be set up with the correct accounts to which you will be exporting. In particular, you will need the following accounts, depending on what data you export: One or more accounts for which to deposit funds. You can use the same account for all five items listed above, or you can select different accounts for each one. These are the accounts that the money will actually go into. It is easiest to just use the default account that QuickBooks creates for you called Undeposited Funds. If you wish to use this default account, and you haven t deleted it, then you don t need to do anything here. Otherwise, you will need to create the accounts that you wish to use for the incoming/outgoing funds. An income account for sales. You can use the default account that QuickBooks creates for you called Sales, or a different one. One or more tax liability accounts for the sales tax(es) that you collect. It is easiest to use the default account that QuickBooks creates for you called Sales Tax Payable, but you may use another one. You can use the same tax account for each tax that you collect, or separate accounts for each tax. A vendor for each tax agency to which you pay sales tax. The default is State Board of Equalization. A category/transfer account for layaways. If you want to keep track of the money that your customers have in layaway accounts as a balance account in QuickBooks, they you can make this a bank account. Otherwise, it can simply be an income account. 95

96 A category/transfer account for store credits/charges. If you want to keep track of the money that your customers have in store credit and charge accounts as a balance account in QuickBooks, they you can make this a bank account. Otherwise, it can simply be an income account. A category/transfer account for gift certificates. If you want to keep track of the money that your customers are holding in gift certificates as a balance account in QuickBooks, they you can make this a bank account. Otherwise, it can simply be an income account. A category/transfer account for other non-sale transactions. If you want to keep track of this money as a balance account in QuickBooks, they you can make this a bank account. Otherwise, it can simply be an income account. Setting QuickBooks Export Options Before you can export data for QuickBooks, you must set up the export options. This is where you tell TRS the names of the accounts to which you want to export. To do this, select POS>Export Accounting Data>QuickBooks Setup from the TRS menu. You will be prompted to enter the security disk, after which, you will see the following screen: Each section (Sales/Taxes, Layaways, etc.) has a checkbox to enable or disable the export of that data. If the box is checked, then the corresponding data will be export. Otherwise, it will be skipped. In the fields labeled Money Account, you will enter the name of the account to which the deposit will be entered, as described above in Setting Up QuickBooks. The fields labeled Sales Account, Layaway Account, etc. are for the names of the category/transfer accounts, also explained in Setting Up QuickBooks above. The tax accounts and tax agency names are set up the same way. The tax accounts are the tax liability accounts for each of your sales taxes, and the tax agency names are the vendor names for the tax agencies. 96

97 Each of the account names and tax names must EXACTLY match the names of accounts that you have set up in QuickBooks. Otherwise, you may get unpredictable results from the import. Exporting the Data from TRS Once you have set up both QuickBooks and TRS, exporting the data is simple: 1. Select POS>Export Accounting Data>Export to QuickBooks from the TRS menu. 2. You will be presented with a dialog box asking you for the date range for which to export. If you are only exporting for the current day, you can leave it blank. 3. When the data has been exported, you will see a dialog box where you can select where to save the export file. The default file name is trs.iif. You may change the file name if you wish, but be sure and leave the.iif extension. You can save the file to a floppy disk, or to your hard drive, but remember where you saved the file. Importing the Data Into QuickBooks Importing the data into QuickBooks 2000 is also very simple: 1. Select File>Utilities>Import from the QuickBooks 2000 menu. 2. You will be presented with a dialog box to select the file to import. Use this to find the file that you exported, and click Open. 3. When the data has been imported, you will get a confirmation message. If you get any error messages, then it means that the import was unsuccessful, or only partially successful. If this happens, it s probably because of incorrect account names. Exporting/Importing POS Sales This feature allows you to export POS sales from one system, and import them into another one. This is especially useful if you are doing remote sales, such as at a show. You can copy your database file onto a laptop or other computer, take it to the show, and then when you get back, export the sales to a floppy disk. You can then import them back into your main system. Exporting from TRS To export sales, first go to the Review POS tab. Next, do a search (either Quick Search or Complex Search) to bring up the POS sales that you would like to export (in most cases, you would search by date). Then, click the button on the Review POS screen that says, Export Found Set. TRS will export the records, and then ask you where you want to save the files. Enter the destination drive or directory and hit <Enter>. TRS will save two files. One (POSSALES.DBF) contains the POS Sale header info, and the other (LINEITEMS.DBF) contains the individual line items. Importing Exported TRS Sales Back into TRS To import the sales back into your main database, take the disk with the export files to your main system. Select POS>Import Sales>From TRS Export from the TRS menu. You will be prompted to enter the location of the files. Once you do that, you will be asked whether or not you would like TRS to update the inventory totals to reflect the products sold. Answer Yes or No. the sales will then be imported. Importing E-Commerce Sales from Key To The Web Key To The Web is an E-Commerce provider that provides a shopping cart to retailers. JMM Software and Key To The Web have developed an interface between TRS and their shopping cart application, so that you can download your online sales directly into TRS. For more information about their offerings, please visit their web site at: Initial Setup The first step is to set up the import options. To do this, select Internet>Internet Setup from the TRS menu, then switch to the Key To The Web tab. 97

98 Your Userid and Password are assigned by Key To The Web. Please contact them for this information. The rest of the options should be self explanatory. Contact technical support if you have any questions. One note, however: It is important that the Shipping is Taxable and Handling is Taxable options be set the same as in your Key To The Web shopping cart in order for TRS to calculate the sales tax correctly. Importing Sales When you are ready to import your sales, select POS>Import Sales>From Key To The Web>Direct Download from the TRS menu. You will be presented with a screen that will allow you to select the dates for which you would like to download data: Select the desired dates and click OK. You will then see the following screen: 98

99 Click the Begin Download button to begin the download. When the download is completed, the Status field will say Success. At that point, you can review the data that was downloaded in the large text box. If you are satisfied and want to import the downloaded sales, click the Ok button. You will then be asked whether or not you want to update your inventory to reflect the products sold. In order for this to work correctly, your SKU numbers in your shopping cart must EXACTLY match your barcode numbers in TRS. Once you have answered this question, the sales will be imported into TRS. Exporting POS Products (Inventory) This feature allows you to export your inventory database into ASCII format. First, go into Inventory>Edit POS Products. Do a search to bring up the products that you want to export. Click the button labeled Export Products. When prompted for the format, choose All fields, tab delimited. You will then be prompted to select where you would like to save the export file. Point Of Sale Options This section describes the different options that you can set for the Point Of Sale system. To access the POS options screen, select POS>Options from the TRS menu. You will be asked to insert the security disk before you can access the options. The POS Options screen is divided into several different tabs. The options that you can set on each tab are described below: 99

100 Hardware Tab Receipt Printer Attached: Turn this option on if you have a receipt printer attached to your system. Receipt Printer: To select which of your Windows printers to use for receipts, click the Select button. Select the printer and click OK. Receipt Printer Type: Use this drop-down box to select the model of the receipt printer that you have. Cash Drawer Attached: Turn this option on if you have an electronic cash drawer attached to your receipt printer. Override Open Code: In most cases, you will just leave this blank. It s only needed if you have a non-supported cash drawer and you need to send it a special code. Label Printer: To select which of your Windows printers is the label printer, click the Select button. Select the printer and click OK. Label Printer Type: Use these radio buttons to select which type of label printer you have. Eltron/Zebra refers to the Eltron/Zebra 2622/2722/2824 label printers, and Cognitive refers to Cognitive Solutions Blaster Advantage label printers. Send Special Code Now: Use this button to send special one-time commands to a printer (for setup and/or troubleshooting). Pole Display Attached: If you have a customer pole display attached to your system, turn this option on. Pole Display Port: Here, you enter the port to which your pole display is attached, such as COM1. Alternately, you can define the pole display as a Windows printer on the serial port, and enter the name here. (This may be necessary for Windows 2000 and XP). Pole Display New Sale Message: If you would like your pole display to display a message whenever a new POS sale is started, such as a welcome message, you can enter it here. Pole Display End Of Sale Message: If you would like your pole display to display a particular message whenever a POS sale is completed, you can enter it here. Be aware, however, that this message is displayed INSTEAD of the change amount. If you enter a message here, then the change amount will NOT come up on the pole display. 100

101 Taxes Tab Tax1, Tax2, Tax3 Names/Rates: Use these fields, to define your taxes and rates. Most businesses will only need to use Tax 1, but if you have the need for different tax rates for different products, then you can use the other two taxes. For each tax that you have, fill in the name and tax rate. Which taxes apply to : Use these checkboxes to specify which of the above taxes apply to class fees, repair parts, repair labor, and serialized items in your jurisdiction. Which taxes are selected by default on a new item: Use these checkboxes to specify which of the above taxes will be automatically checked when entering a new item into your POS Products database. Always Round Sales Tax Up: Some states require that sales tax is always rounded up to the next full penny. If your state requires this then check the box. When the box is unchecked, normal mathematical rounding occurs. When customer is exempt from Tax 1, make them exempt for all taxes: This checkbox is on by default. To set indivual tax rates to exempt for individual customers, turn this option off. 101

102 Department Options Tab Department For Class Fees/Repair Parts/Repair Labor: In these fields, enter the department numbers that you would like to use when you add any of these things to a POS ticket. Require Department for Unlisted Items: Check this box to require the salesclerks to enter a department when entering an unlisted item into a POS sale. Printing Tab Print Barcode Numbers on Receipts: If you check this box, TRS will print the barcode number for each item on the receipt, along with the description. This can be helpful for returns, so that you know exactly what items the customer bought, even if the description is ambiguous. Print Customer Address on Receipt: If you check this box, TRS will print the customer s address on the POS receipts. 102

103 Print Customer Phone Number on Receipt: If you check this box, TRS will print the customer s home phone number on the POS receipts. Print Discounts Rounded to Nearest Percent: This checkbox, when checked, will cause TRS to print receipts with the discounts rounded to the nearest percent. This option does NOT affect any actual calculations. Print masked customer copy of credit card receipt on TM-U200: This option is only for owners of the Epson TM-U200. It is highly advised that this box be checked if using either PCCharge or PCAuthorize software. This forces the printer to hide the credit card number on the customer s copy of their receipt. Print masked MERCHANT copy of credit card receipt: This option masks the credit card receipt on the portion of the receipt the merchant keeps. Print Item Count Checking this box will cause the number of items that the customer has purchased to print on the receipt. Automatically Check Print As Invoice on new sale This option is useful if you use a full-size piece of paper for all of your invoices, instead of using a receipt printer. If this option is checked, then the Print As Invoice button will be automatically checked whenever you start a new sale. Print how many copies of receipt? You can select additional copies of receipts to be printed automatically after each transaction. Print Mail labels on 2.25 Labels: Turn this option on if you are printing your Eltron/Zebra mailing labels on the 2.25 x 1.25 labels. If this option is off, then it will assume that you are using 1 x 3 labels. Mail Labels 12-point Font: Turn this option on to print mailing labels with a 12-point font instead of the default 10-point font. Note: This option only affects Zebra/Eltron label printers. Print Store Name on Barcode Labels: Turn this option on if you want your store name to be printed on your barcode Print Customer Address on Repair Label: Turn this option on if you want the customer s address to be printed on your repair labels. Print Vendor Part Number on Barcode Label Use this option if you d like your barcodes to also print the preferred vendor s part number. Date Code Encoding: If you leave this field blank, the date codes that print on your barcode labels will simply use regular numbers for the data. For example, October 7, 2001 will be encoded as If you enter a string of 10 unique characters, they will be used as a substitution code for the date encoding. For example, if you used ABCDEFGHIJ as your code, then the above date would be encoded as BAAHAB. Eltron/Zebra Horizontal Offset: This setting allows you to push the printing over on your barcode labels. Enter the amount of space (in dots) that you want to appear to the left of the actual printing. Use Black Headings in HTML Reports: If this is checked, HTML reports will print with black table headings, which looks nice. However, if you want to save ink/tone, you can uncheck this box to make them print with white headings. 103

104 Inventory Tab Auto Barcode Number Generation: These options are used to automatically generate unique barcode numbers when entering new products on the Edit POS Products screen. In the first field, specify a unique prefix to use for your in-store barcode numbers. In the second field, specify how may additional digits (after the prefix) you want to use for your generated barcode numbers. If you want the numbering to start at a specific number, enter it here (without the prefix). Thereafter, TRS will keep track of the last number used. Disable Low Stock / Out of Stock Warnings: Use this option to turn off the warnings that tell you that you are low on stock or out of stock on items as you sell them. Hide Costs When Entering Reordered Products: This option relates to the function Inventory>Enter Reordered Products. If this box is left unchecked, then the message box at the end that specifies the new quantity in stock will display the cost. If this box is checked, then the cost is not shown. Allow non-case-sensitive scanning: If you check this box, then the POS screen will accept barcodes in either upper or lower case, and if a product matches in either case, then it will use that product. This feature is useful for combating the problem of Num Lock always reversing the case of your barcodes. Defaults for New Products: These settings let you specify the default values for certain fields in the POS Products database when entering new products. 104

105 Cust Rewards Tab This screen allows you to set up a customer rewards program for your store. Money Accumulation Printing: Check the box labeled Print Money Accumulation on Receipt to print a message at the bottom of each receipt, stating how much spending the customer has accumulated (see page 76 for more info on accumulations). Use the Prefix and Suffix fields to specify what you would like the message to say. The Prefix is printed before the amount, and the suffix is printed after. Example: If you want the receipt to say, You have accumulated $35.67 in spending., then you would enter You have accumulated in the Prefix field, and in spending. in the Suffix field. Volume Accumulation Printing: The box works the same as the Money Accumulation Printing settings above, but for the Volume accumulations. Money/Volume Accumulation Goal: Here, you can set goals for your customer rewards program. The Goal Amount field is where you enter the amount of money or volume that a customer must accumulate in order to earn his/her reward. Check the Enabled checkbox to enable the reward. You have the option of selecting one of 3 reward types. If you select Message Only, TRS will simply pop up a message to the salesclerk when the goal is reached. If you select Gift Card, TRS will issue a free gift card to the customer when the goal is reached. If you select this option, another option will appear which will allow you to specify the amount of the gift card. If you select Customer Discount, TRS will give the customer a standing discount on their customer record, which will apply to future POS sales, just like any other customer discount. If you select this option, you will be presented with two 105

106 additional options, which will allow you to specify the amount of the discount, and an optional expiration date for the discount. If you check the box labeled Clear Accumulation When Goal Reached, TRS will subtract the goal amount from the customer s accumulation when the goal is reached, allowing them to start over. It is highly recommended that you check this box. Otherwise, TRS will continue to offer the reward with every POS sale once the goal is reached. Popup Message the place to enter a message to pop up for the salesclerk when the goal is reached. Likewise, Receipt Message specifies a special message that you can have print on the customer s receipt when the goal is reached. Both of these things are available, regardless of the reward type. Disable Customer Accumulations: Checking this box will prevent the accumulations at the bottom of the customer screen from being updated. If you do not care about these values, this can speed up the finishing of POS sales. Disallow Accumulations for Discounted Items: Checking this box will prevent TRS from adding discounted items to a customer s accumulations. Misc. Options Tab Require Clerk Logon: Turn this option on if you want to require your salesclerks to log on each time they start a POS sale. Require Clerk Password: Turn this option on if you want to require your salesclerks to enter their password each time they log on. Clerk Logon Selected From List: Turn this option on if you would like your salesclerks to log on by selecting their logon from a list. Otherwise, they will be prompted to type in their login name. Prompt for POS Category: If this box is checked, you will be prompted, each time a POS sale is started, to select a category for the sale. You can also type a category in the Always Use The Following For This Station field and that value will be used for every POS sale at this station. 106

107 Use The Following For Key To The Web Import: The value placed in this field will be included on every POS sale record imported from your Key To The Web website. This field is optional, but helps to track, sort and report web orders separately from store orders. Automatically Finish Sale : If you turn this option on, then you do not need to hit the Finish Sale button to complete a sale. The sale will be automatically rung out when enough money has been tendered. Allow cash back on gift cards?: Check this box if you allow cash back when a customer partially uses a gift card. If you leave it unchecked, any remaining balance must remain on the card for use at a future time. Disable POS Screen Scrollbar: This option will disable TRS having a scroll bar on the POS screen.. Most users will not be effected by this setting. Mark class enrollments as paid when adding to POS: This option will force TRS to mark a customers enrollment record as Paid T if you add their class fees to a POS ticket. Show Popup when Customer has a Store Credit: This option lets you enable or disable the TRS popup message that a customer has a store credit available. Do you use gift certificates or gift cards?: Use this setting to specify which of these two your store uses. This setting will affect which buttons appear on the POS screen. Select Card or Gift Certificate Each Time (Use Only): Check this box to add the options of Gift Card or Gift Certificate on the POS screen when taking a gift certificate or gift card for payment. Serialized Auto Commission Calculation: These settings will allow you to have TRS automatically fill in the commission field on the serialized sale screen, based on a specified combination of selling price, wholesale cost, and trade-in amount, multiplied by a specified percentage. Discounts: These check boxes allow you to define items that will be discountable. Setting Clerk Passwords If you have opted to have your salesclerks log in each time they start a sale and enter their passwords each time also, then you will need to set each of the clerks passwords. To do this, select Security>Set Clerk Password from the TRS menu. You will be presented with a list of clerks (to set up this list, see page 36). Select from the list the clerk for whom you want to set the password by double-clicking on it. You will then be asked to enter the password. Remember that passwords are casesensitive and only letters and numbers are allowed. Barcode Labels If you have purchased the barcode label printer, then you can use this feature to print barcode labels directly from the TRS software. Selecting label size If you are using the Eltron/Zebra label printer, you can select which size label you are using by selecting POS>Set Barcode Label Size from the TRS menu. Check the box for the barcode label that you are using. [KF2] Note: If you are using the Cognitive Solutions label printer, do not use this screen. Always use Cognitive Solutions labels with part number Printing Labels To print barcode labels, select POS>Print Barcode Labels from the TRS menu. The first thing that you will be asked is to enter the barcode number or scan the item. After you enter or scan the barcode number, you will be asked whether or not to include the price and description on the labels. To print this information, you must have the 2.25 x 1.25 labels. If you select Yes, then the label will include, the barcode, price, description, and your 107

108 store s name. Then you will be asked whether or not to include a date code on the label. If you select, Yes, then a date code will be printed as well (Please see page 103 for more information on date encoding). Next, you will be asked how many (of the same) labels you want to print. After you enter the number of labels to print, it will print the barcode labels. You also have the option of printing barcode labels for items directly from either the Edit POS Products screen or the Edit Vendor Products. When you are on either of these screens and you have a product up, simply click on the button that says, Print Barcodes and follow the above steps. When the price of an item is less than $ on a barcode label the font for the price is increased to make it more readable. To turn this option off go to POS>Options>Printing and uncheck the box Print Price Large When Possible. Customizing the Function Keys If you would like to change which functions are associated with which buttons on the POS screen, then select POS> Customize Function Keys from the TRS menu. You will be asked to insert the security disk. After doing so, you will be presented with a dialog box that allows you to change the function key mapping. To change a key mapping, enter the number of the function that you want to assign to the function key. The key on the right shows you the numbers to enter for each function. For example, if you want the F2 key to map to the Total function, then you would enter the number 9 in the box labeled F2. When you are finished changing the key mappings, select OK to save the changes or Cancel to cancel the changes. Note: If you are using a programmed POS Keyboard, don t change any of the function key assignments for any of the functions that are on the keyboard. If you do, those keyboard functions may no longer work. 108

109 Credit Card Processing Total Retail Solution can process credit card payments and credits via PC Authorize or PC Charge. These are an additional piece of software that you must purchase if you require credit card processing through Total Retail Solution. Most major banks and credit card processors accept credit card processing through these products, though some do not. Please contact your credit card company to make sure that they are compatible with either PC Authorize or PC Charge Payment Server. Note: At the time of this writing, PC Authorize has been discontinued, and the only option now is PCCharge Payment Server. Credit Card Setup Before setting up TRS to process credit cards, you must set up PCAuthorize or PCCharge and get it working on your computer and successfully processing credit cards through its own interface. If you need help with this, please contact the appropriate software vendor (this is Verifone if you are using PCCharge; PCAuthorize is no longer supported by the vendor). Once you have the credit card software installed and running, and you have verified that you can process payments with it, you are ready to set up Total Retail Solution for credit card processing. Select POS>Credit Cards>Setup from the TRS menu. On the General tab, select whether you are using PCAuthorize, PCCharge Payment Server, or None. If you select None, then no credit card processing will be done by TRS. Otherwise, the next step is to select the PCAuthorize tab or the PCCharge Payment Server tab, depending on which one you are using. You only need to fill in the tab corresponding to your particular credit card software. PC Authorize Note: When you are selecting the types of credit cards that you accept in the PCAuthorize software, make sure that Private Label is checked, even if you do not accept private label cards. This is necessary to process magnetic stripe data through PC Authorize. 109

110 On the PCAuthorize tab, you will select whether you are using the single version of PC Authorize or the multi-station hub version. Select the appropriate type. If you are using the single version of PC Authorize, you should select DDE for the Inter-Application Protocol and PCAuthorize for the Application Name (these are the defaults). If you are using the hub version, these values will depend on how you have the hub server and client software set up. Please refer to the PCAuthorize documentation. PCCharge Payment Server On the PCCharge Payment Server tab, you must first select the method of communicating with PCCharge. It is recommended that you first try using TCP/IP, as it is simpler to set up, especially for multiple terminals. If you are having trouble with the TCP/IP communication, then XML may work better for you. TCP/IP: If you use the TCP/IP communication method, you must enable TCP/IP communication in PCCharge, as follows: From the PCCharge menu, select Setup>Preferences. Click on the Advanced button. Check the box that says, Use TCP/IP Connection. You can leave the default port as Back on the PCCharge Payment Server tab in TRS, you can leave the default port there as well (31419), but if you change the port number in one place, you must change it in both places. For PCCharge Host, you will fill in the name of the computer that is running PCCharge Payment Server. If it is on the same computer, the leave this setting as localhost. XML: If you select XMP as the communication method, the PCCharge Host and PCCharge Port will be replaced with a field called File Path. In this field, you must fill in the path the the PCCharge temp folder. This is usually found under the main PCCharge installation folder. For example, if PCCharge is installed in C:\Program Files\active-charge, then this setting will most likely be C:\Program Files\active-charge\temp. If you do not know where the correct folder is, please contact PCCharge technical support. If PCCharge is on a different computer, then this should be the network path to the temp folder on the PCCharge server. Merchant Number: In this field, you must enter your credit card merchant number. This can be found at the bottom of the main screen in the PCCharge application, in a wide listbox. Write down the number contained in this dropdown box after the name of the processor. Processor: Select the name of the credit card processor from the dropdown. PCCharge User: If you only have one user for PCCharge (this would be the case if you are only processing credit cards from one station), then this should most likely be USER1. Otherwise, enter the user name that this station will be using (you would have set these up in the PCCharge application). 110

111 Processing a Credit Card Payment/Credit Before processing a credit card, make sure that PCAuthorize or PCCharge is running. There are three ways to begin a credit card authorization with Total Retail Solution. The first is to ring up a POS sale and enter credit card tender. The second way is to process a refund and select Credit Card as the refund type. The third way is to manually process a payment or credit. This is done by selecting POS>Credit Cards>Manual Charge/Credit. Once you do one of the above steps, you will see an authorization screen (Note: the below screen is for PCCharge Payment Server. If you are using PCAuthorize, the screen will have fewer options on it). In most cases, if you are ringing out a POS sale, the only thing that you need to do when you get this screen is swipe the credit card. However, if you are doing a manual transaction, you will need to also fill in the amount. If you enter a positive amount, then a charge will be made to the card. If you enter a negative number, a credit will be issued. If the card is not available to swipe, you will need to fill in the account number and expiration date (in the format of MMDD, with no slash in between). Filling in the CVV2/CVC2 value may help you get better processing rates and help protect you from being liable for fraud, especially for mail order and internet transactions (note: this varies by credit card processor, so contact your provider for more information about this). There are also additional optional fields that you can fill in. Some of these may be automatically filled in for you based on the customer information. Filling in these fields may also help you get better processing rates and help protect you from being liable for fraud, especially for mail order and internet transactions (note: this varies by credit card processor, so contact your provider for more information about this). When you have finished entering the information, click the Authorize button. If you swipe the card, you do not need to enter the account number or expiration date, and you do not need to click the Authorize button. Next, you will see a window that says, Getting Authorization. This window will stay there until the authorization is complete. If the authorization was successful, you will get a message box that says, Approved. Otherwise, the error message will be displayed in the Messages box. If you initiated the authorization through a POS tender or refund, the charge draft for the customer to sign will be part of the regular receipt. If this was a manual charge/credit, then a standalone credit card draft will be printed on your receipt printer. If you have 2-ply paper in your receipt printer, have the customer sign the receipt, and give him/her the bottom copy. 111

112 Alternately, you can use 1-ply paper and simply use the Reprint Last Receipt function on the POS screen to print a second copy for the customer to sign. Note: When you do a manual charge/credit, nothing will be entered into the POS system, and the charge/credit will NOT come out on the POS reports. Batch Processing: TRS processes the credit card authorizations, but does not process the batches itself. Please use the PC Authorize or PCCharge software to process your batches. Please see the software documentation for more information. Customer Wish Lists (Gift Registry) TRS has the ability to store wish lists for customers. This works like a gift registry at a department store. Creating/Editing/Printing To create a wish list, or edit an existing one, you first bring up the customer on the Customers tab. Then, click on the Wish List button at the bottom of the screen. When you click on the button, you will be taken to the wish list screen: To add a new item to the customer s wish list, simply click the Add New Item button. You will then be prompted to enter or scan the product s barcode number. You will then be prompted to enter the quantity desired, as well as any notes that the customer would like to leave about the product. To remove an item from the wish list, select the item with the mouse, so that it s highlighted in blue, then click the button labeled Delete Current Row To print the wish list, click the Print button. You will be asked whether or not to print the already purchased quantities. If the gift recipient wants to see a copy of their wish list later, they may not want to see what has already been purchased for them. Selling items on the wish list When a gift giver is purchasing items for someone from a wish list, they should bring the wish list up to the POS station with the products that they are purchasing. At the top of the wish list, it will show the receiver s customer number as shown: 112

113 When you are at the POS screen, click on the button labeled Gift as shown: You will then be prompted to enter the customer number of the gift recipient. Enter the number from the top of the wish list printout. Note: This may be done either before or after scanning the items, but it must be done before the sale is completed. When the sale is completed, any items that were sold that were on the customer s wish list will be updated to reflect that they were purchased for the recipient. 113

114 Chapter 8 Miscellaneous Repairs Screen Setup and Usage Before entering new repairs you should define your Service Requests and Accessories Lists. Service Request Go to Edit Lists>Repair Service Requests. Enter a new record by clicking the + at the top of the window. Now enter the Short Name for this record. The Short Name is what will you will see when checking in a repair. Now enter your Parts Estimate and Labor Estimate. These numbers will automatically fill in the Estimates fields when entering new repairs. Now enter the Description. This is the text that will be entered in the repair estimate. Accessories Go to Edit Lists>Repair Accessories. Click the Add Blank Row button and enter an item that your customers will likely bring in with their machine repair. You can enter as many accessories as you like. Once you ve set up your Service Requests and Accessories, entering new repairs into TRS will be easy and quick. Finishing the Repair When you ve completed the repair, you can enter Parts and Labor details. You have a bit of freedom on how this is done. You can use Barcodes for either parts or labor and simply scan or type these numbers in the Scan Part and Scan Labor boxes. You are also able to simply type in each repair and labor item in one of the 10 boxes below the Scan fields. TRS will compute the taxes for each category and you are now able to add this repair to a POS ticket. Optionally, you can print a detailed invoice for your customer with the Invoice button. The details of the parts and labor for the repair will appear on this invoice. On the POS receipt, only the summary of each category will print. Using the Search for Part button When adding parts to a Repair, you have the option of searching by Description or by Part #. The difference between the two is distinct. If you choose Description, you will be searching from your POS Products database. This means the items need to have barcodes assigned and have already been added to your POS Products. If you choose to search by Part#, TRS allows you to search from your Vendor Products database. The benefit is the item doesn t need to have a barcode assigned before using it on your repairs. This can be very beneficial if you don t want to have thousands of repair items in your POS Products that you don t normally sell individually. The downside is that any items used in Repairs that do not have barcodes and are not in your POS Products database cannot be tracked. Because they simply exist in Vendor Products only, there is no inventory count assigned or tracked. Screen Designer TRS allows you to change the default layout of each screen to suit your liking. Access the Screen Designer from Edit> Screen Designer>Begin. Any button or text field can be moved to the location you choose. You can abort your current manipulations by going back to the Screen Designer and choosing Abort. A button must be active for it to be movable. For example, in the Point of Sale screen, you ll need to have an active sale started before you can move most of the buttons. Once complete, you can simply Cancel the sale. When you have finished moving the screen elements around to your liking, select Edit>Screen Designer>Finish. This will save your changes. If you later want to reset everything to their original locations, simply select Edit>Screen Designer>Permanently Reset To Default. 114

115 Configuration Wizard The first time TRS is started you will be prompted with a Configuration Wizard. This will allow you to define some of the screens that will be visible. For example, if your store doesn t do Repairs you will uncheck the box that refers to Repairs & Maintenance. You are able to change these settings after the initial setup by going to Edit>Configuration Wizard. Daily Reminders When you first start TRS (unless it has been disabled in the Edit>Preferences screen), you will be presented with the above screen, which will show you a list of things that should be done or need attention. If you would like to see the detail of any of the reminders, simply click on the View button next to the item. In most cases a special search will be done that will bring up the database records needing attention. You can also bring up this screen at any time by clicking the Reminders button on the screen, as shown above. Selecting from Multiple Databases This is an advanced feature that not everyone will have a need for. You can have several database aliases defined in the Database Administrator, and select which one you want when you start TRS. What this allows you to do is have several different copies of the TRS database on your server (or on other servers) and you can choose which one you want when TRS starts. If you only have one database alias defined in Database Administrator, then the selector screen will not come up when you start TRS. However, if you have more than one defined, you will see a screen come up that will list all of the aliases that 115

116 you have available, and you can then select whichever one you want to use. Please see the installation guide for details on using the Database Administrator. Again, not everyone will have a need for this feature. The most common reasons to have this feature would be to connect to different databases for different stores, or to have a practice database along with your regular database. Exporting Mailing Labels for a Found Set If you do large mass mailings to your customers, the most economical method of mailing them is often through a mailing company. Usually, you will give them a diskette with your customers names and addresses on it, and they will print the labels themselves. TRS allows you to export a DBASE (.DBF) file that contains the customers names and addresses for any found set of customers, sales, repairs, or leads. To do this, you first do a search on customers, sales, repairs, or leads to get the set of customers to mail to. If you want to export your entire mailing list, go to the Customers screen, select the Quick Search button, and then click OK, without entering any search parameters. Next, select File>Export Mailing Labels for Found Set from the TRS menu. You will be asked whether or not to exclude customers with addresses. TRS will then present you with a Save As dialog box so that you can select where to save the file. You can save it to your hard drive, or if the file is small enough, to your floppy drive. Interface to DAZzle Shipping Software TRS interfaces to DAZzle shipping software (used by Endicia Internet Postage) from the Customer tab. DAZzle must first be installed in the following directory: C:\Program Files\Envelope Manager\DAZzle\. To send a customer address to DAZzle, access the desired customer in the Customer tab and press Ctrl-Alt-E on the keyboard. Bulk ing The great thing about having your customers addresses in your database is that you can now send out promotions, notifications, etc. TRS allows you to generate an list for any of the same found sets that you can use to print/export mailing labels. Bulk ing is possible once you have downloaded, installed and set up the JMM Suit from the customer-only area of the JMM web site, To begin bulk ing, create a found set of customers using a search method previously described. Next, on the menu bar at the top of the screen click the File >Send Bulk to Found Set option. The JMM Bulk er window will open to allow you to create the message or use an existing message and it to your customers. Bulk Etiquette The last thing that you want your business to become known as is a spammer. A spammer is a person or company who sends out mass unsolicited s without any regard to the appropriateness. Please heed the following guidelines so that your company will not earn a negative image. Do not put addresses into your database unless the customer has given you explicit permission to them. If you have a mailing list sign-up card that includes a space for address, be sure to make it clear that by giving you their address, they are granting you permission to them on occasion with promotions, etc. Do NOT purchase lists of addresses from companies that sell them, however tempting it may be. This is the ultimate in junk , and the use of purchased lists will give you a negative image. Also, be aware that unsolicited is most likely against your Internet Service Provider s Terms of Service, and could get your account terminated. NEVER give or sell your customers addresses to any other person or company. Your customers are trusting you to use their address for your own use only. Do not violate that trust by subjecting them to spammers. In any bulk that you send out, always give clear instruction for requesting removal from your list. Always honor these requests promptly. Immediately remove their address from your database, so that they will never get another from you. 116

117 Only things to your customers that relate DIRECTLY to your business. Although it may be with good intentions, never send out things such as jokes, virus warnings, etc. These things are often seen as unprofessional, and in general are bad etiquette. Even if you follow these guidelines, there may still be some customers that may complain about receiving from you. Be prepared to apologize for any inconvenience and promptly remove their address from your database. When ing to a list of customers, always enter their addresses into the BCC field, instead of the To or CC field. BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy If you were to enter the list of addresses in the To or CC field, then every customer who got the would see a list of all of the recipients. This is not a good thing. It is both annoying, as well as a breach of privacy for your customers. If you use the BCC field, then your customers won t see who else the message went to. Because a To address is required by the mail servers, simply enter your own address here instead. Generating an List 1. First, do a search on customers, sales, repairs, or leads to get the set of customers to mail to. If you want to to your entire mailing list, go to the Customers screen, select the Quick Search button, and then click OK, without entering any search parameters. 2. Select File> List for Found Set from the TRS menu. 3. TRS will then start Notepad. In the Notepad window will be a list of addresses, separated by commas. 4. From the Notepad menu, select Edit>Select All. This will highlight the list of addresses. 5. From the Notepad menu, select Edit>Copy. This will copy all of the address into the Windows clipboard. 6. Paste this list into your application s BCC field and enter your own address in the To field, as described above, under Etiquette. Most, but not all applications will support pasting in a comma-separated list of addresses. 7. Finish your message and send it. Preferences There are a few options that you can set for the TRS program that are not specific to Point Of Sale. They are explained here. To set these options, select Edit>Preferences from the TRS menu. 117

118 The Additional Contact Info lines are used to enter any additional contact information about your store, such as phone number, web site URL, etc. This information will be printed at the top of any printouts/receipts. Do not put your store s address in here, as the software already knows your store s address and will include it automatically on the printouts/receipts. The Default State field is an option to have the state entered automatically when you enter new customers addresses. If you enter a state abbreviation here, then whenever you enter a new customer, the state part of their address will be entered automatically. If they live in a different state, then you can change it. Use Windows Default Web Browser for HTML Reports? will let you decide how your computer will open the TRS HTML based reports. Some users will need to check this option On if they have trouble saving HTML reports from within TRS. The Fast Zip Lookup City Name defines how TRS will fill in the city name when adding a new customer. If you have your zip codes set up from Edit Lists>Zip Codes, and use the Fast Zip Code Lookup on the Customers screen, this option will allow you to decide how TRS capitalizes the city name. Next are the default tax rates. The Parts/Merchandise field is where you enter your local sales tax rate. The Labor field can be used if your state charges tax on labor for repairs. The Spare Field Names section is used for the spare fields on the customer page. Here, you can set what you would like the spare fields to be called. If you set the names of these fields here, then the names will appear on the customer page of the database notebook. The Mono Display? checkbox is used to specify that you are using a monochrome display. If you check this box, the color scheme is changed slightly to be more readable on a non-color display. If the Automatically Clear Inactive Status checkbox is checked, then any time a customer has activity, the Inactive checkbox will be cleared. If the Show reminders on startup checkbox is checked, then each time TRS is started, the daily reminders window will come up. See page 115 for more information about the daily reminders window. If the Multi-Store? checkbox is checked, the Multi-Store menu and functions are enabled. Check the Print store info on reports? checkbox to print store number, name and address on reports. Merging Customer Records Sometimes, you will find that you have the same person in your customer database twice. Often, both customer records will have a history (linked sales, repairs, classes, etc.). When this happens, TRS can remove one of the customer records, and at the same time, merge the histories of the two customers into the one customer record that you are keeping. You can do this a couple ways: Using Merge Two Customers Utility 1) Bring up the two customers that you want to merge. Write down their customer numbers. 2) Manually edit the customer record that you want to keep, and add any information from the customer record that you want to delete. (Only the history fields merge; therefore, you should evaluate the informational fields phone numbers, adress, and so forth - and perform any needed changes on the customer account you will be keeping.) 3) Select Maintenance>Merge two customers from the TRS menu. 4) You will be asked to enter the customer number of the customer that you want to keep, then the customer that you want do delete. 5) You will get a final confirmation prompt, telling you which two customers you are merging, and asking you if you are sure. Click Yes to complete the task. 118

119 Using Duplicate Customer Find/Merge This method finds the duplicate customer records for you. You can run the program just to find out how many duplicates are in the system, or to create a list of them, as well as have the system automatically merge the records for you. In the automatic merge feature, the system keeps the smallest customer number. The history transactions will be merged together into that record. The system does not merge the informational fields, such as address, phone numbers, or address. You can use the duplicates list report to determine any changes you d like to make to the customer that will be kept before running the merge. To run the program, select Maintenance->Duplicate Customer Find/Merge from the TRS menu. Following the screens screens that appear, select the desired options. You can perform a strict or a loose search, and from that display how many duplicates exist, print a report listing the duplicate records, or have the system automatically find and merge the duplicates found by the search. Order Handling Database TRS s order handling database makes it very easy to keep track of all of your orders. Creating a New Stock Order With Auto-Order (POS Only) The Auto-Order feature of TRS allows you to generate an order automatically, based on stock levels. The re-ordering decisions are made by finding products that are below your preset stock warning level and ordering enough to bring your total stock up to your preset stock wanted level. To generate an Auto-Order, do the following: 119

120 1. Go to the Orders tab on the database notebook. 2. Click on the Auto-Order button. 3. You will be presented with a list of your vendors. Select a vendor from the list and click Ok. 4. Next, you will be asked whether or not you only want to add products for which this vendor is the preferred vendor. If you answer No, then it will add all products that this vendor carries, regardless of whether or not it is the preferred vendor for those products. 5. If you are already displaying an open order, you will be asked whether you want to add the items to the current order or start a new order. Make your selection. 6. TRS will ask you if you want to add all products below the stock warning level. Select Yes. 7. If any of the items in your product inventory database does not have it s cost listed, you will get a warning telling you so. If this happens, you will need to enter the costs manually. 8. The order will be generated for you. 9. Click on the 5 icon on the database toolbar to edit the order to fill in the rest of the header information. If you are not placing the order today, then leave the Order Date field blank for now. It should not be filled in until you actually place the order. For a description of the header fields, see page 24. Click on the check mark on the database toolbar to save the changes. 10. Look over the items in the order and make sure that everything looks correct. Also verify that you agree with the ordering decisions that it made. You can edit the items to change the number ordered, cost, etc. See Adding Items to an Order below to add to this order. Creating a New Stock Order Manually If you do not have the Point Of Sale module, or you wish to generate an order manually, do the following to create a new order: 1. Go to the Orders tab on the database notebook. 2. Click on the + button. On the database toolbar. 3. A new order will be started for you. Fill in the header fields and then click on the check mark on the database toolbar to save the data. 4. See Adding Items to an Order below. Adding Items to an Order There are three ways to add new items to an order. To add an item manually, simply click on the Add Blank Row button on the order screen. A blank row will be added to the bottom of the item list. Here, you can enter the info manually. The better way to add items to an order is to either scan or type in the barcode number or part number into the appropriate entry field above the item list. If you typed the number in by hand, press <Enter>. TRS will look for items in your product inventory database whose barcode number or part number matches what you entered. If it finds exactly one item that matches, then it will automatically choose that one. If it finds more than one, you will be presented with a list to choose from. The third way to add an item is to search by the item s description. Simply select the Add by searching option from the order screen, and you will be asked to enter part of the item s description. TRS will then show you a list of items that match what you entered. When you find the one that you want, simply double-click on it. Next, you will be prompted to enter how many of this item you would like to order. Enter the number and press <Enter> or click Ok. You will then be prompted to verify/enter the cost. If you have the cost listed in your products database, then that will be the default value. After entering/verifying the cost, and press <Enter> or click Ok. The item will be entered. At any time, you can double-click on either the barcode number or part number, and jump directly to the Edit POS Products or Edit Vendor Products screen respectively to view that item. Deleting Items from an Order To delete an item from an order, select it with the mouse and click on the button labeled Delete Row. 120

121 Printing a Purchase Order Once you have created your order, the next logical step is to print a purchase order. To do this, simply click on the button on the orders screen labeled Print Purchase Order. If you get an error message saying Vendor Not Found, it either means that either you did not select a vendor, or you entered one that is not in your vendor list. The purchase order will be generated anyway, but none of the vendor-specific info will be on it. You will next be presented with a dialog box asking you which order you would like the items listed. Select the appropriate button to make your selection. The purchase order will be generated in HTML format, and your computer s default HTML editor* will be used to bring up the purchase order for further editing**. Select File>Print from the web browser s menu to print the purchase order. In addition to the items in the actual order, the printed purchase order will also contain any items included in any linked special orders. See the below section on special orders for more info. *Note: The preferred HTML editor to use is Netscape Composer, which is part of Netscape Communicator. Please see HTML-Based Reports above for more information. **Note: Once you are at the point where you are editing the HTML Purchase Order, you are simply editing text. If you make any changes to the prices or quantities, or if you add or delete rows, the total will NOT be automatically updated and the changes will NOT be reflected in the order database. If you want the changes to be updated in the database, you must go back to the order, make the changes there, and then re-generate the purchase order. Sending Orders Electronically If a particular vendor is able to accept orders by , you may be able to send your orders electronically. To set up a vendor for this feature, you need to fill in the fields for Electronic Order Sending on the vendor setup screen (Edit Lists>Vendors (Sources) from the TRS menu). The values for these fields will depend on the particular vendor. Please see our web site at for more info, or contact technical support. When you are ready to send your order, click the button labeled Send Order Electronically on the order screen. You will be asked if there are any special delivery instructions, which you can enter at that time. You will then be taken to the final screen that allows you to send the order, which appears as follows: 121

122 From here, simply click the Send Now button to send the order. Special Orders In addition to regular stock orders, TRS also handles special orders for customers. Special orders are basically the same as stock orders, except for a few differences. First of all, they are linked to a customer. They have two extra fields (Date Picked Up and Paid). They can also be linked to a stock order, so that you can combine them together on one order to the vendor. Creating a New Special Order To create a new special order for a customer, bring up the customer on the screen and click on the new Special Order button. A new order will be started. The rest is just like creating a stock order, as described above. If you want to place the order for this special order by itself, and not combine it with a stock order, you can print a purchase order for it now. Once a special order is linked to a stock order, you can click on the Go to Master Order button to be taken directly to the master order. To unlink a special order, simply click on the button that says, Unlink. When you print the purchase order for the master order, it will include the items on all linked special orders. You will also see the items from any linked special orders on the screen, below the regular stock items. For special orders, the item grid will, by default, display the retail price of the item (if you have entered the barcode, and it s an item that s already in your POS Products database, it will look it up and display it here). If you want to view/enter the wholesale cost, simply click the Show Wholesale button as shown below: 122

123 The grid will then show the wholesale cost, allowing you to edit it. Note: The retail price can not be edited here, as it is only a lookup field, and not actually stored in the order. Printing a Special Order Confirmation Once you have entered a special order for a customer, you can print out a special order confirmation for the customer to take with them. Simply click on the button labeled Print Confirmation, which is located just below the Ring Up Sale button. Combining Special Orders with Stock Orders If you want to link a single special order to a stock order, do the following: 1. Make sure that the vendor for this special order is set correctly. The vendor for the special order must match the vendor for the stock order to which you want to link it. 2. Click on the button that says, Link. 3. You will be presented with a list of open stock orders for the special order s vendor. If the list is empty, it means that there are no open orders for this vendor. Open orders are stock orders for which the order has not yet been placed. An order is considered placed when the Order Date field has been filled it. Therefore, if the stock order has the order date filled in, you can not link to it. This is why it s important to not fill in the order date until you actually place the order. 4. Select the desired stock order and click Ok. 5. The order is now linked. If you want to link several special orders to a stock order, do the following: 1. Make sure that the vendors for the special orders are set correctly. The vendors for the special orders must match the vendor for the stock order to which you want to link them. 2. Click on the button that says, E-Z Order Link. 3. You will be asked to select a vendor. Select the vendor for which you want to link orders and click Ok. 4. You will be presented with a list of open stock orders on the left, and a list of unlinked special orders on the right, for the vendor that you selected. 5. On the left, select the desired stock order to which you want to link. On the right, select one or more special order to link to the master order, and click Ok. 6. The orders are now linked. Finding the Unlinked Special Order A special search function is provided for finding special orders which are not linked to a regular inventory order. Click Special Searches>Orders>Unlinked Special Orders to search for and display these orders. Ringing Up a Special Order You can ring up a special order either before or after the merchandise is picked up, depending on your store policy. To ring up a special order, click on the button labeled, Ring Up Sale. A new POS sale will be created, and each of the items will be added to the sale. Before each item is added, it will pop up an item edit window, where you can modify any info before it is 123

124 added. Make sure that the price is correct before clicking Ok. You can then finish ringing up the sale, just like any other POS sale. When you ring up the sale, the inventory for the items purchased will not be decreased because they were never in your inventory to begin with. Checking In Orders The final task with any order is to check the merchandise in once it arrives. Checking in an order does three things: First, it updates the stock count for the items to reflect the new inventory levels (this part is only done for stock orders, as items in special orders never end up in your stock). Second, it updates the received count for each item in the order and sets the backorder count as well. Third, it sets the Date Received for the order. When the merchandise arrives, grab the packing list and follow these steps: 1. Go to the order screen and click on the button titled Jump to order. 2. Find the PO Number on the packing list and enter it when prompted. You will be taken to the order. 3. Click on the button labeled Check In / Receive Stock. If the order has special orders linked to it, you will check in each of the special orders first. As each special order is checked in, make a notation on the packing list how many were allocated to special orders and put the special order merchandise aside for the customer. This way, you will know how many are left when checking in the actual stock order, which will be checked in last, after all of the special orders have been checked in. For each special order, as well as the stock order, follow these steps: 1. You will be given a choice of whether to start the quantity received at zero, or the number ordered. If you choose to start with zero, you will need to enter the number received for every item that your got in. If you choose to start with the number ordered, then you will go through and change the number received for any items which you did NOT receive in full. 2. You will be presented with a stock check-in form, as shown below, listing each of the items in the order. Check the number in the # Received column against the shipped quantity on the packing list. If you got in less than were ordered, modify the number in this column. If this is a linked special order, be sure to note on the packing list how many were allocated to the special order. If this is the stock order, you should enter the number that were left after checking in any special orders. 3. If you need to print barcode labels for any of the items in the order, simply highlight the desired row with the mouse and click the button labeled, Print Barcode Labels for Selected Row. To print barcodes for multiple items, click in the Label box for each item you want to print. Then click the Print Barcode Labels for All Marked. 4. When you have finished verifying/modifying the # received for each item, click the Check In Now! button. 5. If any of the items that you ordered did not have the barcode number filled in, you will be given the option to enter one (or have one generated automatically). If the barcode number does not exist in your inventory, you will also be given the opportunity add it at this time. 6. You will be asked if you would like to generate a check-in report. Note: You can also print this report before clicking the Check In Now! button by simply clicking the Print Report button. If any of the items did not come in, the number that did not come in will be marked as backordered in the order. If this is the stock order, the inventory levels will be increased to the appropriate level. Also, the Date Received field will be set to the current date. 124

125 Manual SQL Update Commands You can use this feature to manually enter an SQL Update/Delete/Etc. command against the TRS database. CAUTION: This can be a very dangerous feature. Do not use this feature unless you are absolutely sure about what you are doing. You can erase or damage a lot of data very quickly. If in doubt, contact technical support first. Always make a backup copy of your database before using this feature. To run an SQL command against the database, select File>Manual SQL Update from the TRS menu. Type in your command here. You can use the Save and Load buttons to save a query for later use or load a previously saved query. Click the Execute button to execute the command. Backups Since you will be running your business on this system, it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that you make frequent backups of your data. You may have never suffered a hard drive crash before, but it DOES happen to everyone eventually! Total Retail Solution comes with a backup utility. To use it, start the program called Backup / Data Sender from the Total Retail Solution program group. PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THE ADVICE TO BACK UP YOUR DATA!!! YOU WILL BE VERY SORRY IF YOU DON T DO IT!!! It is also a very good idea to keep hard copies of all of your invoices around for a while. That way, if you do lose some data from a hard drive crash, you can re-enter it from your hard copies. 125

126 Backing Up your Data You can back up your database by following these steps: 1. When you start the TRS backup utility, you should by default be on the Backup tab. If you are not, switch to that tab. 2. In the first big listbox, select the database that you would like to back up. In most cases, there will be only one listed, but if you have more than one database defined in the Database Administrator, then there will be more than one choice here. 3. The user name is automatically set to SYSDBA, and cannot be changed, since only the database administrator is allowed to back up the database. Enter the password for the SYSDBA user in the Password field. 4. In the field labeled Backup Drive/Path, enter the destination drive or folder for the backup. Do not enter the filename here as that will be entered in the next field. 5. In the Backup Filename field, a default filename will be generated automatically, based on today s date. You may override the filename if you wish. Backup filenames should end with the extension.zip. 6. Click the button labeled Backup to begin the backup process. 7. When the backup is complete, you will be given a message, confirming that the backup was successful. If the backup was unsuccessful, you will be told that and given the option of viewing the backup log to see what went wrong. 126

127 Restoring From a Backup Restoring a database from a backup is similar to backing up: 1. Switch to the Restore tab. 2. Select the source backup file by clicking the Browse button and finding the backup file that you wish to restore. It should have the extension.zip. 3. Select the destination drive to which to restore the database. 4. Find the destination folder to which you want to restore the database. Note: The destination folder that you select MUST be empty (no files in it). This is to protect you from accidentally overwriting data. If you want to restore to a folder that already contains files, the safest thing to do is to rename the existing folder and create a new empty folder with the same original name, in case the restore fails and you need to go back to the original one. 5. The user name is automatically set to SYSDBA, and cannot be changed, since only the database administrator is allowed to restore a database. Enter the password for the SYSDBA user in the Password field. 6. Click the button labeled Restore to begin the restore process. 7. When the restore is complete, you will be given a message, confirming that the restore was successful. If the restore was unsuccessful, you will be told that and given the option of viewing the restore log to see what went wrong. Security There are three different types of security built into TRS. The first is the Firebird (previously named Interbase) database security, which controls overall access to the database. The second is user security, which allows you to specify which functions of the program are accessible by which employees. The third is the security disk which is used to override the TRS security system in case you forget the administrator passwords. Each of these will be explained below: Firebird Security The Firebird database system has it s own security layer. This controls overall access to the database, and in turn, the TRS software. When you first start the TRS software, you will be presented with a dialog box that asks you for a user name and password. When the software is first installed, there is only one defined user name and password. The user name is sysdba, and the password is masterkey. It is strongly advised that you change the password for the sysdba user as soon 127

128 as possible. Otherwise, anyone reading this manual could gain access to your database system. You can continue to use the sysdba user name and password each time you start TRS, or you can create other users. Firebird security is handled by the IB_SQL program, which is under the Total Retail Solution program group on the start menu. Changing Passwords To change a password, first start the IB_SQL program, and: 1. go to the Connection tab: 2. Fill in the Database field with the path to the database file, or click on the button with the 3 dots to browse for the file. In the default installation, this path should be C:\Program Files\TRS6\Data\DATA600.FDB. 3. The Username field must be SYSDBA. Fill in the Password field with the current password for SYSDBA ( masterkey if it hasn t been changed yet). 4. Click on the icon to connect to the database. 5. Click on the icon (the one on the far right, not the one with the question mark by it) to go the User Account Management screen: 128

129 6. Select the Modify radio button. Fill in the Userid (such as SYSDBA) of the user who s password you want to change. Fill in the new password under the Password field. 7. Click Ok. Adding New Firebird Users Note: This is an advanced function. Most TRS users can simply use the default SYSDBA user account that is set up automatically, and do NOT need to bother with this function. Please contact technical support if you think you have a need to do this. There are two main steps that you must complete to add a new user. First, you must add the user as a new Firebird user. Adding new Firebird users is almost exactly the same as changing passwords. The only difference is that in step 6, you will select the Add radio button, instead of Modify. Do not fill in the Group field. The last 3 Name fields are optional. Second, you must grant the new user permission to access the TRS database. This is done via TRS directly. 1. Select File>Authorize New Database Logon from the TRS menu. You will be presented with the following prompt: 2. Enter the Userid of the user that you just created in IB_SQL, and click OK. 3. You will see the following confirmation message: 129

130 User Security Setting up employees To set up your employees and their access levels, select Security>Edit Employees/Clerks/Salespeople from the TRS menu. You will see the above screen. Adding, editing, and deleting employees is the same as any other database in TRS. Clerk ID is the main identifier for the employee. It is recommended that you make this as short as possible for easy entry. Initials are a good choice. Another good choice is to use a 2-digit number. Entry WILL be case-sensitive, so if you use letters, it s probably a good idea to use lower case letters, to eliminate the need for using the Shift key when entering it later. Name is simply the employee s name. List Order is the order in which you want the employees to show up in drop-down lists. Security Level is the level of access that this employee will have. Levels 0 and 1 are special levels. Security level 1 is an administrator, and anyone with this level will have access to ALL functions of TRS. There are some functions that can ONLY be performed by an administrator. Security level 0 is the lowest level of access. Employees with this level can only access unprotected functions. Click the Edit Security Levels button to specify what functions each security level may access (see the below section). To set the employee s password, click the Set Password button. Once an initial password has been assigned on this screen, employees can change their own passwords by selecting Security>Set Clerk Password from the TRS menu. 130

131 Editing Security Levels To set which functions each security level can access, either click the Edit Security Levels button from the Employee Editor screen, or select Security>Edit Security Levels from the TRS menu. You will see the following screen: On this screen, select the security level that you would like to edit. To add a new security level, select Add New Security Level. If you add a new security level, do not use level numbers 0 or 1, as these are reserved for system use. Selecting security level 0 has a special function. If you select level 0, you will be selecting which functions are UNPROTECTED. Unprotected functions are available to EVERYONE, without even having to enter a security code. A default configuration for unprotected functions has been set up with common choices. Once you have selected the level or added a new one, you will see the following screen: 131

132 On this screen, simply check the boxes next to the functions that you would like employees with this security level to be able to access. Uncheck any that you want to prevent them from accessing. When you are finished, click the Update Now button to save the changes. Entering Security Codes When you attempt to access a protected function, TRS will prompt you for your security code with the following dialog box: In this box, enter your Clerk ID, a dash, then your password. This allows you to ender both at one time with a single prompt. If you enter your security code correctly, and you have a security level that has been given access to the function that you selected, then you will be allowed to perform it. Otherwise, the action will be aborted. Continuous Login If you plan on accessing several protected functions, it may be faster and easier to simply log in with your security code. You can do this by selecting Security>Continuous Login from the TRS menu. You will be prompted for your security code. Once you have entered it correctly, the title bar of TRS will display who is logged on. When you are finished, be sure to select Security>Log Out from the TRS menu. Otherwise, anyone else who came by could access your functions as you. 132

133 Security Disk (Override) Your TRS software comes with a security disk (this is the same disk as your registration disk). If the passwords of all of your administrators have been forgotten or lost, you can use the security disk to override the security prompt. This is especially useful for getting into the security setting to reassign lost passwords. To override the security dialog, simply click on the button labeled Override. You will see the above prompt. Simply put your security disk into the specified drive and click OK or press Enter. If your security disk in the drive and is valid, you will be able to access the function. Note that the Override button only works for individual function access. It does not work for a continuous login. Action logging Some functions of TRS are logged in the database. To view these logs, simply select File>View Logs from the TRS menu. You will see the following screen: To find the log entries that you re interested in, select the category from the Entry Type listbox. If you want all types of logs, select 0 All Types. You may also specify a start and end date in the fields above the listbox. After selecting your criteria, click the Find button to bring up the log entries. The log entries will be shown on the right hand portion of the screen. Note that the format of the log entries will vary, depending on the type of log entry. You can use the arrows in the toolbar to scroll through the search results. When you are finished viewing logs, click Done. 133

134 Internet Menu If you have a default web browser installed on your system, you can take advantage of the options on the Internet menu. If you select Internet>JMM Software Home Page, from the TRS menu, you will be taken to our main web page. Internet Setup option is used for setting some options that are needed for features such as electronic order sending. This screen has two tabs as shown below. The tab has the following fields: The Name field is usually your company s name. It is the name that should appear on the From line of your s. The Address is where you would enter your address. The Outgoing Mail Server field is where you would enter your outgoing mail server for sending . You can get this value from your internet service provider. The Mail Server User ID field is used by some internet service providers, but not all. Check with your ISP to see if you need to enter anything here. For information about the Key To The Web tab, please see page 97. Exiting TRS To exit the TRS program, simply select File>Exit from the TRS menu 134