D-BIT SYSTEMS (Pty) Ltd RegNo: 87/0332407 7 Boskruin Business Park Bosbok Rd Boskruin South Africa PO Box 1950 Randpark Ridge 2156 South Africa Tel: +27 11 791-4550 Fax: +27 11 791-4566 Web: www.d-bit.co.za Date: 26 June, 2002 Page: 1 of 11 D-BIT Fixed Assets Tech Note: Upgrade Instructions for V4.0 Version 4.0 of D-BIT Fixed Assets has many enhancements and is typical of our commitment to continual development of our products. Users of earlier versions of the product, will know that depreciation methods were defined as formulae to the system and the entire product was period-based. Ie each period, the formula would be executed and the depreciation for that period would be calculated. V4.0 represents a departure from this methodology, allowing users to set up unique rules to cater for different methods of calculation, and ability to view the entire life cycle of the asset at any time. Ie. The depreciation is calculated for the life of the asset. As with any major change in methodology, the upgrading of prior versions data must be done in conjunction with a review of the setup of the product. These instructions will help you with the mechanical aspect of converting to the new methodology, but you will have to take responsibility for the intellectual review of your methods of depreciation in terms of the new power available in V4.0. 1. Install D-BIT Fixed Assets V4.0. When you open a pre-v4.0 company, the system will automatically detect that an upgrade is required and perform the following tasks: Save your existing FIDEPR formula to text files in a subdirectory V3.0-Backup below the company data files. Save the existing FIDEPR.<Ext> database in a subdirectory V3.0-Backup below the company data files. Replace FIDEPR.<Ext> with the new V4 default formulae. Manipulate data fields in FISETT.<Ext> to facilitate V4.0 features (eg 100% business use). Create new Field Mask entries in FICONF.<Ext> Create.TXT files (for use later in these instructions) containing your existing Book and Tax Methods. Import templates are adjusted for ease of upgrade. The existing depreciation and tax allowances are locked The system will provide progress messages from time-to-time as this process may take a long time depending on the size of the register being converted. When the company has opened, proceed with step two. 2. Use Explorer to navigate to the company s data directory and locate the two files: V3BookMethods.txt V3TaxMethods.txt
Page: 2 of 11 That were created by the upgrade process. Open both files in Notepad (or similar text editor). The files will look similar to the following: The columns display the Asset Number, the Formula (Book or tax per the file name) and the recovery percentage. In the above example, you can see that we depreciate at 16.66%, 33.33%, 25.00% and 20% using a formula called BOOKFORMULA. This is where YOU take responsibility for the intellectual review of your methods of depreciation in terms of the new power available in V4.0. Examine your formula to establish how depreciation was being calculated. Once this has been established, the next task is to define the V4.0 RULE that will do the same thing. Note: For this document, we will assume that the BOOKFORMULA was performing a standard Straight Line depreciation calculation. 3. Switch to the open Fixed Assets company, and select Maintenance, Rules Maintenance from the menu. The upgrade will have placed common rules into the system already, so again for purposes of demonstration, we will copy an existing rule. 3.1 Click on the finder and select Straight Line 20. The screen will display similar to the following:
Page: 3 of 11 3.2 In 2 above, we established that in addition to a 20% straight line method, we need a 16.66% method, so over-type the Rule Code field with an appropriate name perhaps as follows: And then press the enter key. The system will ask you: Click on the Yes button. The system will prompt: Click on the No button. Modify the Description and the Recovery Percent fields to reflect the new method. Click on the SAVE button to store the new method in the system. 3.3 Highlight the Rule Code and copy it to the clip-board by pressing Ctrl-C Switch back to the Notepad displaying V3BookMethods.txt (or V3TaxMethods.txt). Press Ctrl-H to invoke the Replace window and paste (by pressing Ctrl-V ) the Rule Code into the Replace with: field and wrap the pasted rule code with inverted comma s as follows:
Page: 4 of 11 Click into the Notepad document and copy (by pressing Ctrl-C ) the equivalent V3.0 Formula and recovery percent as follows. Paste the V3.0 Formula and recovery percent into the Find what: field of the Replace window. It will now look similar to this: Click the Replace All button. The notepad document will then be modified to look similar to this:
Page: 5 of 11 3.4 Repeat these steps until you have defined all the Rule Codes in V4.0 required to cater for all the methods of depreciation you had in prior versions. It is easy to check, simply scanning through the Notepad document will highlight methods that have not been converted. In our example, our final file looks like this: 3.5 Save the Notepad document. 4. Switch to the open Fixed Assets company, and select Maintenance, Asset Maintenance from the menu. 4.1 From the Tool Bar, select File, Import. The import template should have been set up by the upgrade procedure and look like this:
Page: 6 of 11 Change the Import File (by clicking on the yellow folder button) to V3BookMethods.txt (or V3TaxMethods.txt), and then click on the Import button. NB: When processing V3TaxMethods.txt, be sure to change the import template to FISETT.TaxForm 5. From the Fixed Assets Main Menu, select Configuration, Utilities, Misc.Import/Export. Select FIAD00 from the File droplist and mark Import data into selected file. Click OK.
Page: 7 of 11 Change the Import File (by clicking on the yellow folder button) to V3BookMethods.txt (or V3TaxMethods.txt), and then click on the Import button. NB: When processing V3TaxMethods.txt, do NOT change the import template 䀖 it must be FIAD00.RuleCode. 6. 6. To check it out select Maintenance, Asset Maintenance from the menu. Use the finder to locate and select an asset we have chosen asset 7229, which in the preceding steps was to depreciate at 16.66%. Click on the Calculate Depreciation button. The system will recalculate the asset and fill in the values on the Values tab. Here Again, this is where YOU take responsibility for the intellectual review of your methods of depreciation in terms of the new power available in V4.0. NOTE: If the Trace calculation switch is not activated in Rules Maintenance, you may have to switch the trace on and then press re-calculate again to proceed!. Click on the Print Queries icon The calculation trace window will show the results of the calculation. Here Check the results and adjust the depreciation rules until the calculation meets your needs. 7. When you are satisfied that the calculations are correct, we need to re-process (as a dummy period end) the last period so that the V4.0 Asset register will recognize the locked depreciation GL transactions that have already been sent to the GL by the prior version.
Page: 8 of 11 7.1 Select Processing, Lock Register from the menu and change the Period end date to be the same as the Date of last period end. Tick On the option to Recalculate all depreciation. Click Next and then Process. Note that this first run may take some time as the register must do a lot of work. 7.2 Select Processing, Processing Checklist. Highlight Print Calculation Queries and double click. The Print Calculation Queries window will appear. Turn the option to print queries to screen On and click on the Print Queries button. You should have no queries. If you have queries, resolve them by unlocking the register, making the required changes and then re-locking and re-printing the queries until all queries are resolved. An example of an incomplete conversion will result in a query similar to this: 7.3 Highlight Accept Locked Register from the Processing Checklist and double click. Select Next, Enter YES and Process. Close the Processing Checklist. 7.4 Select Processing, GL Transactions from the menu. Click on the Release button, and answer Yes to the prompt. As this will be the first time V4.0 is releasing transactions, you must indicate which GL format the system must use. Select the format from the GL Release Setup Window. And click OK
Page: 9 of 11 The selected GL s release window will appear. Click on the Release button to generate the output file. 8. To add the default Rules to Category Maintenance, go to Processing, Special Processing. Using the finder, select the group ALL, if the group does not exist, then move your cursor over the words Group Name until the pointer changes to an hourglass and then click to invoke Group Maintenance. 9. Create a new group called all and do not add anything to the Selection Criteria.
Page: 10 of 11 10. Using the finder, scroll down until you find the formula FICATT_SYNC. Then select to Include sold/scrapped/merged/transferred assets. Then click on Next. 11. The next screen will highlight the selected assets. Click on Process.
Page: 11 of 11 12. Go to Maintenance, Category Maintenance and select the Attach screen. The formula goes though each asset and attaches the first Book Rule and Tax Rule found for each Category and attaches these to the default Book and Tax Rules and adds them to the table. If the formula finds another Book or Tax Rule for the same Category, it will add it the table as well. This is where YOU take responsibility for the intellectual review of the default methods of depreciation attached to the Categories and must decide which Rule/s must be deleted from the table. Remove the extra rules by positioning your cursor on the rule your wish to delete, double click on the rule and the click on delete to remove it. 13. You are now ready to proceed. We recommend that you make a backup of the company data at this point. Please advise of any errata in these instructions or where the instructions are not entirely clear Regards D-BIT Support