Introduction Congratulations! by Purchasing Bookmanager You Have Made a Very Important Decision for Your Bookstore

Bookmanager v10.3.161109

Introduction Congratulations! By purchasing Bookmanager you have made a very important decision for your bookstore. Now comes the next important step—taking the initiative to implement this tool in a way that will help you achieve your goals.

Bookmanager will help you:

• Organize the enormous amount of information that must be maintained in a bookstore.

• Make your business more efficient so it can grow.

• Develop procedures that you can follow to provide a consistent level of quality and service for your clients.

• Integrate information from publishers and suppliers, thereby streamlining your communication with them.

If you are already in business, you will have established many routines, and Bookmanager will affect almost all of them. It is important to be open to change and to accept new ideas. Although learning to use Bookmanager may initially require more time and effort, once you become familiar with the various routines, your workload will diminish.

Bookmanager will not make your business succeed - you will! You have the ideas, and Bookmanager is the vehicle to implement them.

Remember that we are here to assist you during the transition, and we will attempt to answer any questions that you may have about Bookmanager, and how it affects your business. Our technical support staff is available to answer any questions.

This manual outlines features and functions included with v10.3.161109 and was updated November 10, 2016. Some features outlined here may be missing if you have an older version.

Bookmanager support Monday to Friday 8:00 am – 4:00 pm PST Phone: (250)-763-4415

[email protected] bookmanager.com

TBM Bookmanager Ltd. 411 Bernard Ave Kelowna BC Canada V1Y 6N8 Contents INTRODUCTION �� 1 Bookmanager support...... 1 The Big Picture...... 14

GETTING STARTED �� 14 Choose the Bookmanager server...... 14 Which version of Windows?...... 15 Installing and starting Bookmanager...... 15 Create a Bookmanager desktop shortcut...... 15 Firewalls and Anti-Virus programs...... 16 Start Bookmanager for the first time...... 16 Setting the size of the Bookmanager window...... 16 Accessing Bookmanager from another computer...... 17 If you need to restart the server computer...... 18 Starting up Bookmanager on networked computers...... 19 Shutting down for the day...... 19 Bookmanager Basics...... 19 Where is the mouse? ...... 19 Starting Bookmanager more than once...... 19 Bookmanager’s Main Menu...... 20 Moving around within Bookmanager...... 21 Entering and Editing data...... 22 Installing the Receipt printer and cash drawer �� 23 Adding or Changing the Message on your Receipts...... 24 Setting up other Printers...... 24 Installing and using a bar code scanner...... 25 Backups...... 25 Why Backup?...... 25 Choosing the right Backup methods for your store...... 26 Scheduling your backup...... 28 Restoring data from a backup...... 28 Initial Setup...... 28 Important options in a) General...... 29 Option h) Month end settings...... 30 Option j) Tax Tables...... 30 Building a classification file...... 32 Entering new classifications...... 32 Linking your Classes to BISACs...... 33 Verify your store information...... 34 Setting up passwords and clerk codes...... 34 Why use passwords?...... 35 How to set up a password system...... 35 How to eradicate the password system...... 36 Setting up the areas with restricted access...... 36 Logging in ...... 37 Removing yourself as the default user...... 37 POS Clerk Codes...... 37 Disabling Clerk Codes and Passwords System-wide...... 37 Entering your store’s existing data...... 38 Entering new stock only...... 38 Establishing your implementation strategy...... 38 Get the Point-of-Sale operating...... 38 Decide what will be inventoried...... 38 Ordering and reordering...... 39 Processing orders...... 39 Paying bills...... 40 Returns...... 40 Customer tracking...... 40 General Ledger Accounting...... 40 Understanding Bookmanager Files Map...... 41

ORDERS...... 43 The Orders screen...... 43 Setting up Ordering defaults...... 43 Building pending orders...... 45 From the Orders file...... 45 Ordering from the Inventory file...... 48 Reordering from a report...... 49 Special Orders...... 53 Searching the Orders file...... 57 Practical searching tips...... 58 Copying an order...... 58 Transferring an order...... 58 Orders Reports...... 58 a) General orders reports...... 58 b) Pending orders...... 59 c) Special orders...... 59 d) No-show orders now past their cancel date...... 60 e) Slow arrivers (orders not yet received)...... 60 f) S/O slips from no-show orders...... 61 INVENTORY �� 62 The Inventory Screen...... 62 Entering new titles in Inventory...... 68 Making changes to an existing Inventory card ��71 Searching in inventory...... 71 Ordering and reserving from Inventory...... 75 Maintaining stock levels...... 75 Printing book labels...... 77 Stock count/Inventory Reconciliation...... 78 Step-by-step reconciliation...... 78 Other Xtra options...... 87 Analysis of remainders and sale items...... 87 Recalculating Inventory costs...... 88 Updating the Inventory Rcv/Sld fields...... 88 Standardize author punctuation...... 88 Print book labels for all inventory On Hand...... 88 Promotional items...... 89

SUPPLIERS �� 90 The Suppliers screen...... 90 Entering supplier information...... 90 Changing supplier codes...... 93 Merging supplier codes...... 93 Currency codes and settings...... 93 Xtra option...... 94 EDI Ordering with Bookmanager...... 94 What you need first: a SAN...... 94 Second step to EDI: A Pubnet (BookNet) account...... 95 EDI Codes and Terms...... 95

POINT-OF-SALE �� 97 The POS Screen...... 97 Setting the POS Defaults...... 97 Setup for printing invoices ...... 104 Creating a New Transaction...... 105 Managing Conditions of the Sale...... 108 Multiple Copies...... 108 Price Changes...... 108 Applying Itemized Discounts...... 108 Changing Taxes on an Item...... 109 Other Options...... 110 Returning an Item...... 112 Selling Out of Stock Items...... 112 Selling Items Not Entered into Bookmanager...... 113 Charging Shipping...... 114 Other Specialty Sales in the POS...... 115 Tendering Options...... 115 Editing/adding tendering options...... 115 Discounts & Coupons...... 116 Deposits, Credit Notes, & Gift Certificates...... 116 Multiple Tenders...... 117 Foreign Cash...... 117 Paid Out Transactions...... 118 Printing Options...... 118 Searching in the POS...... 120 Editing transactions...... 121 Held and Quote transactions...... 121 Creating a Held Transaction...... 122 Creating a Quote...... 122 Finding a Held or Quote transaction...... 123 Completing a Held Transaction...... 123 Working with and completing a Quote transaction...... 123 Managing Held Transactions...... 126 Sales & Payments On Account...... 127 Other Commands in POS...... 128 Znosale: opening the cash drawer...... 128 Total...... 128 Qsales...... 128 Lock...... 128 Gift Receipt...... 129 @Edt (alternate edit)...... 129 Delete...... 129 Copy...... 129 Totaling the Day’s Sales...... 130 Step 1: Preview or Subtotal...... 130 Step 2: Balancing...... 132 Step 3: Total Sales...... 133 Other Misc. POS Options...... 133 View/Print Receipt Tapes...... 134 Browse log of EDI received orders...... 134 Create tab-delimited invoice file ...... 135 Redo previous Total (by BatchID) ...... 135 Undo a previous Total (by BatchID)...... 135 Date-range POS subtotal report...... 136 Gift Cards...... 136 Station’s sales are with group# 00...... 136 Tracking Donations through the POS...... 137 Frequent Buyer Plan...... 137 The Set-up...... 137 Awarding Points...... 138 Overriding Awarded Points...... 138 Redeeming Points...... 139 Offsite Bookmanager Sales...... 142 1) Create an Offsite system on a USB Storage Device...... 142 2) Copy the Offsite system onto a laptop...... 145 3) Run the Offsite system and enter sales...... 147 4) Use the POS to total sales and transfer / create an export...... 147 5) Import the sales from the Offsite files...... 148 6) Total off the imported sales on the main system’s POS...... 149 Simultaneous Offsite events...... 149 GIFT CARDS...... 149 Gift Cards are important to your bottom line...... 150 Issuing and Redeeming...... 150 Closing gift card batches...... 153 Expiring Cards...... 153 Deleting Gift Card History...... 154 Lost and stolen cards...... 154 Transferring a gift card’s balance to On Account...... 154 “Zeroing” a card...... 155 Local vs. Remote card tracking...... 155 Multi-store gift card tracking...... 157 Gift Cards at Offsite Bookmanager Sales...... 157 General Ledger and Gift Cards...... 157 Income tax liability on gift cards...... 158 Gift Card Setup...... 158 The Gift Card Menu...... 158 Online Orders...... 162 The Online Order is for items you have in-stock...... 162 The Online Order is for items you need to order (not in-stock)...... 163 The Online Order is a mix of in-stock and items to be ordered...... 164 Request a Quote (Webstore Feature)...... 166

RETURNS...... 169 Overstock returns...... 169 Returns from Receiving...... 169 Creating pending returns...... 170 Using the Zrtn function...... 170 Returning items from Receiving...... 171 Batch overstock returns...... 171 Maneuvering in the Returns file...... 172 Indexing the file...... 172 Searching in the Returns file...... 172 Filtering the list...... 173 Add shipping charges to a claim...... 173 Returning items not received through Bookmanager �� 173 Finding out the total of a claim...... 174 Processing and printing returns...... 174 Making changes to claims...... 175 Editing in Returns...... 175 Voiding a claim...... 175 Deleting items...... 176 Deleting the DED from A/P...... 176 Xtra options...... 177

CUSTOMERS �� 178 The Customers screen...... 178 Customer setup options...... 181 Adding a new customer...... 182 Searching for customers...... 182 Customer filters...... 183 The filters screen...... 184 Using existing filters...... 184 Searching within a filtered list...... 185 Creating and modifying filters...... 185 Printing options in Customers...... 188 Printing mailing labels for a single customer...... 189 Exporting customers’ email addresses for outside use...... 190 Exporting a file...... 191 Customer file maintenance...... 192 Removing inactive customers...... 192 Editing and merging customer records...... 192 Customer messages...... 193 Xtra options...... 193 Managing Accounts receivable...... 193 Getting a total ...... 194 Reconciling payments ...... 194 Undoing reconciled items...... 194 Listing all customers’ account activity...... 195 Searching for an invoice...... 195 A/R printing options...... 195 Printing statements for customers...... 196 Updating the list of Holds...... 196 Using manual entries to balance accounts...... 197 Transferring an invoice...... 197 Credit Cards Storage and Safety...... 197 Initializing Credit Cards and Setting a Password...... 198 Manually Entering and Viewing Credit Cards...... 198 Setting up an account for Donations...... 199

ACCOUNTS PAYABLE �� 201 Overview...... 201 Getting an overall total of your payables...... 202 Organizing your payables list...... 202 Global marking...... 202 Accounts payable reports...... 203 Finding lost items in A/P...... 203 Managing payables for individual suppliers...... 204 Double-entry accounting for A/P ...... 205 Making changes to existing entries...... 205 Adding a new entry...... 206 Running an analysis report for a supplier...... 208 Marking invoices & making payments to suppliers...... 208 Telpay (Canada Only)...... 211 Voiding a payment...... 212 Reprinting a cheque...... 212 Post-dating and partial payments...... 213 Making payments by Credit Card...... 213 Other A/P printing options...... 219 Managing consignments through A/P...... 220

ORDER PROCESSING �� 224 Order Send Types (aka SndVia) ...... 224 Order Processing screen fields ...... 226 Additional on-screen fields...... 227 Reviewing your orders...... 229 Searching in Order Processing...... 229 Indexing the list...... 229 Filtering the list...... 230 Changing the status to OK √...... 230 Updating and Re-totaling...... 230 Processing Orders ...... 230 Mail/Fax Orders...... 231 Phone Orders...... 231 Email orders...... 231 Electronic Ordering via Netftp or Bknet (EDI Ordering)...... 232 Electronic Invoices...... 241 Miscellaneous options...... 241 Voiding a PO...... 241 Changing the status of an order...... 241

RECEIVING �� 243 Overview...... 243 Labelling in Bookmanager: To Label or Not to Label ��244 Label Printers and Label Stock...... 245 Labels Explained...... 245 Labelling Setup...... 247 The Receiving Process...... 248 Begin the Receiving session...... 249 1. Receiving Stock Not Ordered in Bookmanager...... 249 2. Receiving Stock Ordered in Bookmanager (no EDI)...... 252 3. Receiving with Electronic Invoices...... 259 4. Carton-Level Receiving...... 265 Correcting Mistakes...... 269 Xtr (Extra) Options...... 270 Exiting and Finalizing the Invoice...... 272 Process Receiving Session...... 272 Receiving from Foreign Suppliers...... 275 Receiving Remainders and Used Books...... 276 Remainders, Hurts and Bargain Books...... 276 Used Books...... 280 Accounts payable...... 284

REPORTS...... 285 1) Custom Inventory Reports...... 285 Working with a custom report...... 287 Xtra Options...... 289 Deleting in the custom reports...... 290 2) Inventory Reports...... 290 a) Inventory Stats (activity by month)...... 291 b) Mid-Month Inventory totals...... 291 c) Month-end Inventory totals (updated by Month-end)...... 291 d) Inventory Performance Report...... 292 e) Negative On-Hand...... 293 f) Items with more than 100 On-Hand...... 293 g) Items over $100...... 294 h) Items in stock for over 12 months...... 294 i) Items with no invoice history ...... 294 j) Suggested overstock returns...... 294 k) Backroom stock needed on floor...... 295 l) Pubstock fast-seller reorder report...... 296 m) Suggested Inventory deletions...... 296 3) Sales Reports...... 296 a) Bestseller report...... 296 b) Sales for an ISBN...... 297 c) Reorder Alert based on recent sales...... 297 d) Bestselling Authors...... 297 e) Sales by Rep...... 297 4) Orders reports...... 297 5) Supplier Reports...... 297 a) Supplier Sales/On-Hand Report...... 297 6) Gift Cards...... 299 M) Multi-store documents...... 299 R) Files in \Reports directory...... 299

TITLEBANK �� 300 Adding or Viewing a File...... 300 TitleBank Xtra Options...... 302

GENERAL LEDGER �� 304 Section overview...... 304 The General ledger screen...... 305 Bookkeeping & Accounting Basics...... 306 The significance of Bookmanager GL account numbers (codes)...... 312 Setting up and Preparing the GL ...... 316 Setting up GL Account codes...... 316 Reserved GL Account codes...... 317 Setting up GL Section Codes...... 318 Setting up GL Location codes...... 319 Setting up POS Tender Links...... 319 Setting up GL accounts for sales taxes...... 321 Class file GL Account codes...... 321 Decide on a Starting Month...... 321 Clean Up the A/P & A/R files...... 321 Set the starting month (Initialize) ...... 323 How Receiving, Returns and POS integrate with the GL ��324 Receiving posting to GL...... 324 Working with your GL...... 329 Viewing the GL...... 329 Adding new entries to your GL manually...... 331 Editing GL entries...... 332 Copy a transaction...... 333 Deleting a transaction...... 333 Filter the list ...... 334 Indexing the file ...... 334 Searching in your GL...... 335 Locking GL entries ...... 336 Setting up GL accounts...... 337 GL Total Command...... 339 GL Printing options ...... 340 Xtra commands...... 345 Accuracy Checklist...... 352 Multi-store users and the GL...... 354 GL Data Transfer...... 355 Locking Entries and Multi-store...... 355 Receiving multi-store stock transfers...... 356

F3 MESSAGING �� 358 Introduction...... 358 Emailing Setup...... 358 Sending a Test Email...... 360 Messaging basics...... 361 Moving to different documents and viewing them...... 361 Sending Emails...... 362 Messaging maintenance...... 364 Setup for faxing documents...... 364 Sending faxes...... 365 Status Indicator...... 366 Re-sending or canceling failed emails/faxes...... 366 Sending other documents...... 367

DATA TRANSFER �� 368 B) Bookmanager Backup...... 368 U) Update Bookmanager...... 369 O) Offsite Bookmanager...... 370 E) Edelweiss ordering import...... 370 Supplier, GL, A/P, and Customer File Import/Export ��373 F) Check ftp sites for new files...... 373 M) Set Inventory ‘changed’ flags (multi-store)...... 373 X) Title data import...... 373

MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS �� 374 1) Reindex file(s)...... 374 2) Agency Change...... 375 3) Benchmark test...... 375 4) Purge Deleted items from Inventory...... 376 5) Remove duplicate ISBNs from Inventory...... 376 6) Recalculate Inventory file Total-Received field ��376 7) Rebuild Inventory Received/Sold Fields...... 376 8) View System Errors log file...... 377 T) Test Network setup for proper file sharing...... 377 X) Browse any text file...... 377 Y) Global Changes to area codes...... 377 Z) Database repair utilities...... 378

SCHEDULER �� 379 Coordinating Scheduled routines...... 379 Adding and editing routines...... 379 List of the Routines...... 380 Working with your Scheduler and multiple Stations ��381 Checking the log...... 381

WEBSTORE �� 383 MULTI-STORE �� 384 Introduction...... 384 Multi-store Features...... 384 Multi-store setup...... 385 Setting up address files...... 385 Setting up defaults...... 386 Scheduler setup...... 388 Multi-store concepts...... 393 Viewing stock levels at other locations...... 393 Keeping title records up to date at all locations...... 393 Transferring stock...... 393 Cancellation dates...... 398 PUBSTOCK �� 399 Getting Pubstock data from Bookmanager...... 399 Knowing which Pubstock files are loaded ...... 400 Pubstock file maintenance...... 400 Setting viewing preferences...... 400 Basic and Extended Pubstock View Modes...... 402 Basic Mode...... 402 Extended Mode...... 403 Stock Conditions...... 404 Live Mode...... 404 Miscellaneous Pubstock window features ...... 405 Don’t see a vendor you frequently use?...... 405

TITLELINK...... 406 Searching...... 406 Keyword searching...... 406 Title searching...... 407 Author searching...... 407 ISBN searching...... 407 Supplier searching...... 407 Subject searching...... 408 Working with the Titlelink results ...... 408 Entering new ISBNs (catalogue entry)...... 408

BACKLIST AND BESTSELLERS �� 409 Downloading the files...... 409 Using the Bestseller file...... 409 Using the Backlist file...... 410 Using the Backlist with your Inventory card...... 410

BACKING UP DATA �� 411 UPDATING BOOKMANAGER �� 412 GETTING STARTED | The Big Picture

The Big Picture Bookmanager has been developed over many years based on the needs of independent booksellers who have chosen it for its power and flexibility. The myriad of features allows every store to use the system in the way that best suits their operation. There is no single approach for everyone, rather, a set of fundamentals and best practices that can be tweaked to suit each store’s unique needs.

Most bookstores want these basic items:

• An efficient system to take sales and keep track of basic banking.

• An inventory file that can be used to determine if a product is in stock or on order.

• An organized way to create orders and send them to suppliers.

• A system for managing customer orders.

• Something to keep track of customer purchases

• An efficient way to return unsold product.

• Simple and organized bill paying.

• A way of collecting all the store’s activity and preparing financial information.

To achieve these goals in Bookmanager you have to be committed to updating the system with virtually everything you do. Everything you order, receive, sell and return must be accounted for. If you want Bookmanager to help you reorder, you have to organize your product by categories and by vendor.

Getting started can be a challenge because you are beginning with an empty system that must be configured according to the way you run your store. You and your employees are learning to use a new program and develop an overall strategy.

Getting Started This section will help you install Bookmanager onto one computer. If you have a licence for using Bookmanager on more than one computer, there will also be information on how to access and use Bookmanager over a network. You will then be taken through the basic setup options that will help you get started with Bookmanager.

Choose the Bookmanager server Bookmanager is only installed onto one computer; other computers access both the program and data through a mapped network drive. The computer that holds the data will be nicknamed the “server” even though it may be just a regular PC.

14 GETTING STARTED | Installing and starting Bookmanager

Generally, the Bookmanager server should be the fastest computer you have. It should also be the computer that will be used the least for non-Bookmanager applications. The more applications that are running on a Bookmanager server, the more that computer’s resources are taxed. When the server computer locks up or is reset, the rest of the computers running Bookmanager will stop and possibly lose information being entered at the time. Nobody intentionally downloads a virus, but you can reduce your chances by limiting your Bookmanager server to basic tasks, and avoid opening emails or other gateways for viruses and ransomware. You want to avoid these situations because it can be time-consuming to recover the data and to get things going smoothly again.

Be sure that everyone knows which computer is the server (e.g. label it “Bookmanager Server”) and that it can be accessed easily in case of an issue.

Which version of Windows? If Bookmanager is to be used on a larger network (five or more stations), the fastest and most stable platform is Windows 7. You do not need a specialized or expensive “server” edition of Windows, though in very large environments (20+ stations), this may be required for networking purposes. Bookmanager is very stable and runs effectively on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10. Windows XP and Vista are being phased out by Microsoft. With their lapsed security support and degrading integration with newer versions of Windows, we recommend you choose Windows 7 or newer if possible.

Generally, if you are purchasing new computers you will be using the latest available desktop version of Windows. The Bookmanager server will work fine as both the server and a workstation, however, we recommend having a dedicated server if you expand your network beyond ten stations. You do not need high performance computers to run Bookmanager, as it requires very little in the way of RAM, CPU speed, and video card memory. That said, we recommend a minimum of 1GB of RAM, where 2GB or more will allow the fastest experience both in program and when utilizing the Webstore.

All current versions of Windows come pre-loaded with a Remote Desktop application that will allow you to work from home or remote locations, and is what we recommend when you want to work remotely.

Installing and starting Bookmanager A file called BMInstall.exe will be provided to you by us. Clicking this file will take you through the steps to install the program. We highly recommend that you choose C:\BM as the destination installation. Do not run BMINstall.exe on the other computers. Any computer that is not the server (the computer that hosts the BM folder) is called a Station, and these stations will access the copy of Bookmanager installed on the server via a Desktop shortcut.

Bookmanager is organized so that all the files and data required for operation are stored in a single folder, often called the BM Folder (e.g. C:\BM). Should you need to move the system to another computer, please contact us, as it is often not as simple as just moving the BM folder to a different computer. Antivirus, firewall, security, program shortcut, and network sharing options need tobe configured.

Create a Bookmanager desktop shortcut You now need to create a shortcut on your Windows desktop to access the program.

15 GETTING STARTED | Installing and starting Bookmanager

Select Computer or This PC from your Start menu or using the Desktop icon, then Local Disk (C:), then the BM folder. Locate and right-click on the BKMNGR.EXE file (sometimes listed simply as bkmngr, with the file type listed as application), then select Send to, and then Desktop (Create Shortcut). Close the window and you should see a new Bookmanager shortcut on your desktop.

Firewalls and Anti-Virus programs Before you start Bookmanager for the first time, you will likely be stopped by your anti-virus software because it does not recognize Bookmanager as one of the software giants. Bookmanager needs to use the Internet to connect to places and ftp sites, and this is seen as a possible threat to your computer. Most programs do this as well, but Bookmanager is not common enough so they are concerned we are a potentially harmful program. Pay attention to the messages and select to allow Bookmanager to run. In some setups you need to open the anti-virus software and set exceptions (we suggest allowing any programs contained within the BM folder to be excluded).

Virus protection is especially challenging on some networked systems because the program is continually being accessed from a different computer. If not configured correctly, this can make Bookmanager run very slowly (or not at all). We highly recommend free anti-virus software that is configured easily. Our favourites are AVGFree, Avast!, Microsoft Security Essentials, or the included Microsoft Defender. We have had major issues working with McAfee, Kaspersky, and Norton, as these programs often ignore exceptions and slow down network performance.

Start Bookmanager for the first time Double-click on the new shortcut, and your Bookmanager should start for the first time. Follow the prompts until the Main Menu appears.

Pressing the letter Exit will exit Bookmanager and take you back to the Windows desktop. This is the proper way to end a Bookmanager session on each of your stations to ensure your latest changes are properly saved. Using the X in the upper corner of the window will also close Bookmanager, but certain settings you may have changed might not be saved.

There will be more to setup within the Bookmanager program, but first we will cover the steps involved in getting Bookmanager working from other networked computers.

Setting the size of the Bookmanager window Your Bookmanager window will probably be too tiny to use comfortably, and the maximize button will not increase the text size of the program. Right click the very top bar of the window, click Properties, then choose Font, Lucida Console and Size 20, 24, or 28. You need to do this once at each station. While there, choose the Options tab and make sure that the Quick Edit Mode is enabled (to permit cut-and-paste actions), and that the Text Selection option Enable line wrapping selection is un- checked (Windows 10 only).

16 GETTING STARTED | Installing and starting Bookmanager

Accessing Bookmanager from another computer Setting up Windows networking is not difficult (just Google it!) but you may require some assistance from a network technician if you are not comfortable with computers. Basically, from each computer on the network you need to be able to navigate using the Computer or This PC icon, file broswer, or through the Start menu, to locate the server computer and then the Bookmanager folder (e.g. BM). A mapped network drive letter is then assigned to the network path so that the program and data is accessed using the drive letter assigned (e.g. F: or Z:).

TIP: You may not see the server computer or the BM folder until the BM folder on the server computer has been set to be shared (right-click the BM folder and use the sharing options). On some systems this can be complicated and you may need help to ensure the folder is setup for both reading from and writing to.

At one of the station computers, once at the File Browser or Computer, click the Computer or This PC folder on the left, then the Map Network Drive button at the top of the window (sometimes it is hidden under the Computer tab). You will be asked to choose a drive letter (usually something between F-Z). Save and close the window.

To verify the mapped drive is ready, use the Computer or This PC icon and look in the area called Net- work Locations. The name of the server will also have the drive letter you assigned shown in brackets (e.g. (F:) )

Double click this networked folder and you should find the BKMNGR (application) listed. Right-click it and choose Send to Desktop.

NOTE: If you do not create a mapped network drive letter, and instead use the network path (e.g. \\SERVER\BM\BKMNGR.EXE) to run Bookmanager, you will run into problems because accessing BM is not being done via a drive letter.

17 GETTING STARTED | Installing and starting Bookmanager

Assign unique station numbers (Important!) Before you use the Bookmanager icon on your desktop, you need to make a change so that this session of Bookmanager will be started with its own unique station ID number (0-99). Right-click on the icon, select Properties and then choose the Program or Shortcut tab. In the Cmd line or Target field you should see F:\BKMNGR.EXE. You need to click at the end of this and then add a space and a station number. If this is your first workstation, use 1 (e.g. BKMNGR.EXE 1). Click on OK to save this and close the window.

When a station starts Bookmanager, it passes this number to the program to identify the computer that started it. In this case it’s 1. On the server we did not supply a number, so the system will assume that to be station #0. You can also specify the target to be BKMNGR.EXE 0 on the server to get the same result.

When you start Bookmanager, the top right corner of the screen indicates what station number you are logged in as. If you start Bookmanager using a number that’s already in use, you will get an error saying that another computer is already running as that station, and it will force you to press R to quit the program.

Using the correct station number on each computer is also very important because this tells Bookman- ager to restore this computer’s personal settings for things like printers and point-of-sale preferences. There can be a lot of steps to customize each station, so you want to ensure that each computer always starts with the correct station number.

Once the station numbers have been assigned, you will also want to name them. Naming each station allows for your staff to more easily identify which work station is which. For example, if you have two computer stations running BM, one is the server computer and the other is perhaps where you will mainly charge sales, we suggest you name these computers SERVER and CASH DESK. To assign names, you need to be in the BM main menu screen. Press L for Login, and use the t or b to highlight the station you wish to edit. Press E for Edit and type in the name you would like to give this station (example: Cash Desk #1, Or Server, or Manager). Pick something that is applicable to the way your store runs. We recommend selecting names that will allow you to quickly identify the location of each computer.

If everything is correct you should now have Bookmanager running on two computers, each with a unique station number listed in the upper right corner of the screen. Each station should have a name in the login box in the centre of your main menu. Repeat these steps for any additional stations on your network.

If you need to restart the server computer Now that you have a network up and running you must pay special attention when restarting or shutting down the server. Any other stations using Bookmanager must exit before shutting down the server. Since your BM folder is located only on the server computer, it must be turned on for other Bookmanager stations to run and access files. The Bookmanager program does not need to be running on the server for other stations to run Bookmanager, just the computer itself.

18 GETTING STARTED | Bookmanager Basics

Starting up Bookmanager on networked computers

Please take a moment to understand this because it is one of the most common support calls we get, and if your staff is not aware of this procedure, then your system may be unnecessarily down while they try to understand the problem.

If the server computer is not running, clicking the Bookmanager icon on the other computers will generate an error. Some versions of Windows will recommend that you delete the icon, which is not good because you will need to repeat the earlier steps to recreate it!

If this error occurs, first be certain that the server computer is in fact turned on (it does not have to be running Bookmanager but it may help you troubleshoot). Next, on the failed networked station, use the Computer or This PC icon to access the Network Locations and look for the networked BM folder named with the drive letter you have been using (e.g. F:). This may have a red X indicating it is/was not accessible. Try double clicking it to re-establish the connection (the X will go away), then close the window and try the Bookmanager icon again.

If you still cannot run Bookmanager, you should power off all your computers, turn the server computer back on first, and wait for the desktop to load. Then, turn on all other stations on the network.

Finally, if you still have issues, try accessing the internet (do a Google search) at both the server and the networked computers; if this fails, then you may have cables unplugged or need to reset the router that connects them all.

Shutting down for the day All computers, except for the one designated as the server, can be turned off. The server is always best left running with Bookmanager at the Main Menu. Simply turn the monitor off to conserve electricity. Bookmanager is usually scheduled to run routines overnight, and by leaving it at the Main Menu, you will not have to run these routines manually the next morning when your business opens.

Bookmanager Basics

Where is the mouse? Bookmanager operates in the Command Prompt environment of your Windows computer. Most people using Windows are only familiar with the standard Windows graphical interface that also supports a mouse. You do not use the mouse in Bookmanager (except to cut-and-paste text). Most Bookman- ager users quickly get used to being mouseless, and many actually find it much faster to just use the keyboard rather than continually switch between the keyboard and mouse.

Starting Bookmanager more than once You may not realize when Bookmanager is running minimized, and instead of clicking the active session on the bottom of the screen, you will click the Bookmanager shortcut on your desktop. This will attempt to start another Bookmanager session as the same station number, and you will get the following error message:

19 GETTING STARTED | Bookmanager’s Main Menu

Press R to Quit this session, and instead select the active one from the Taskbar. It is possible to have more than one copy of Bookmanager running on your desktop as long as you run it with a separate station number. In this case, you must create a second desktop shortcut and change its Cmd line: or Target by adding a different station number after BKMNGR.EXE. This feature requires that your licence permits enough simultaneous Bookmanager sessions.

Bookmanager’s Main Menu This is where you will always begin your Bookmanager session, and where all of your main program options are found. At the very top of the screen you will see your store name. On the red bar at the top of the screen it will tell you which area of the program you are in (on the left side), and it will give you the current date, time, and your station number (on the right). The Bookmanager version number and date is listed on the Main Menu on the top left-hand side. Your program version is listed as v10.3.161019, where the last six digits correspond to the version date (yymmdd). In the below example, this version of Bookmanager is from October 19, 2016.

On the left side you will see a box containing your Main options, which are the main areas of the Bookmanager program. They are numbered 1 through 0, followed by a few other letters. To select one you can arrow t or arrow b and R, or you can simply press the desired key (the fastest method). The important tip to remember here, is that while you are in one of the Bookmanager screens, you can change to another Main Menu screen by pressing the associated number. For example, you can move from 3 Suppliers, to 2 Inventory and 8 Order Processing by pressing 3,2,8. You will memorize these numbers in no time, and this feature will help you manoeuvre through Bookmanager quickly and without a mouse.

There is also a box on the right called Tools. These are functions that can be run anywhere, anytime within the program by pressing the key(s) specified. In these instances, the @ symbol means to press A plus the key specified.

In the centre of the screen, the Logins area tells you which stations are currently running Bookman- ager, and ideally, you have also named these stations. At the bottom of the screen, a Next scheduled event box tells you which routine in the Scheduler is due to run next on this computer (normally, only one computer on the network has Scheduled routines set to run).

On the red bar at the bottom left of the screen you are told what drive and folder Bookmanager is being run from (eg. C:\BM), along with how much free memory (RAM) is available, displayed in megabytes.

This red bar along the bottom of your screen continually changes and will give you important tips

20 GETTING STARTED | Moving around within Bookmanager

as to what key strokes are possible, what is being done and if there is a problem with your action.

At the very top right corner of the screen will be a w0 and it will appear as green, grey or red. W stands for WebLink, which is the connection Bookmanager makes with our server at bookmanager. com. The number that follows identifies the station number on the network that is running the service. Only one computer on the network (usually the server) is setup to run WebLink. If the computer assigned to run WebLink is not running Bookmanager or it is unable to connect to our server, the W in the top right-hand corner of your Main Menu screen will appear in red (problem), otherwise it’s green (normal). A grey icon means there is an issue with the WebLink service itself, at which time you should contact us if a program restart does not resolve the issue. All stations see this because it helps them know if something is wrong.

The WebLink connection allows Bookmanager to communicate with our central server that is responsible for delivering electronic documents such as invoices, online orders, and order confirmations from your suppliers, as well as many other features you will find helpful.

Moving around within Bookmanager E is the universal Bookmanager key used to leave an area and return the previous screen. Sometimes you may be several levels deep; pressing E backs you up one screen at a time, and eventually it will take you back to the Main Menu.

E is also the key used to cancel the entry of data you started but decide not to keep; or, to stop a routine that may be in progress. E is the “I changed my mind” key!

Almost all Bookmanager screens will have a list of abbreviated options along the bottom of the screen. Press the first capitalized letter of the option to start the associated actions. For example, if Srch is a listed option, you press S to start a Search. Many of these will be consistent throughout the program and are quickly remembered.

Examples of these commonly used options include:

D for delete

E for Edit

H for History

N for New

P for Print

X for eXtra options

V for View

W for Webstore

In addition to the listed commands at the bottom of the screen, there are keys not listed that work

21 GETTING STARTED | Entering and Editing data

the same for most screens. Those anytime commands, listed on the Main Options menu, are initiated by pressing A and a letter, and can be pressed anytime, anywhere in Bookmanager without interrupting your current screen or field.

The t and b arrow keys move you through a file one record at a time. d initiates a “list mode” where several records are shown at once. Using u displays the previous records in the list. h moves to the first item listed, and e moves to the last. C+h starts the list from the top of the file and C+e moves you to the last page of records. d is the universal “save” key in Bookman- ager. It is like pressing R a bunch of times. You use it to save any changes, or to finish with the area you are in and move on to the next area or set of fields.

Entering and Editing data When you press Edit, your screen allows you to make changes to information. You are also in this “edit” mode when, for example, you Search and are asked to enter criteria for the search. Each box of data is called a field. You move from one to the next by using the t and b keys, even if the fields are visually not listed above and below each other. The r and l arrow keys move the cursor within a field. When you use the C key in combination with these keys, there are other more sophisticated manoeuvres to help you edit quickly.

The data you enter is saved when you:

• Press d

• Press R while inside the last field.

• Enter something into the last space of the last field.

The data you enter is canceled if you press E before any of the above three actions.

These are the fundamental keys used to navigate and edit information. These are some other shortcut keys while editing:

• CY erases the contents of a field

• CUndo restores the contents of a field provided that you have not left the field.

• CT removes the next word in the field.

• h and e move the cursor within the field.

• Ch and Ce move to the first and last fields.

Some fields will clear themselves as soon as you start typing. If you press the l before you start typing (or move from the first character), this will not happen.

u while editing is used in several places. Generally, this key is used to bring up other options or functions that relate to that field. When you are finished with the related function, the screen goes back to the point where you pressed u.

22 GETTING STARTED | Installing the Receipt printer and cash drawer

For example, you can u while in the Supplier Code field to see the information in 3 Suppliers for this supplier. In an inventory search, u in the Keywords field invokes the Titlelink lookup screen, that allows you bring up a wealth of title information from our online database.

These are the fundamentals of Bookmanager that will quickly become second nature. With these basics explained, you are now ready to explore and get the rest of the system setup.

Installing the Receipt printer and cash drawer The receipt printers that we supply connect to either one of the computer’s USB ports, or into your network using an ethernet cable. On a network, using either USB or ethernet ports, a printer may be connected to a different computer, and then shared on the network so that all stations have access to it. The printer is first installed through Windows - you will need to install a driver so the printer can be read by the computer. This will either be installed automatically by Windows when connecting the printer to your computer, or by downloading the driver file for that printer through the internet. When the driver for the printer has completed its installation in Windows, you will be able to find the printer listed in Bookmanager.

To set up the receipt printer in Bookmanager, go to A Setup, i) Printers, and arrow b to the receipt printer option. Type Passthru for the printer type, which will bring up a list of printers by name from the list of installed printers on this computer or network.

Important! It is highly recommended that you use Passthru instead of Windows when setting up the receipt printer. Printing will be quicker, and you will not have to deal with trying to set the cash drawer to open. The Windows setting will require you to use the exact drivers for each printer model. Keep it simple and use Passthru (but only for Receipt and Label printers)

After selecting the printer, you need to indicate if the printer is an Epson (Samsung printers are formatted the same as Epson), Star model, or Ithica model. A fourth and fifth option, Thermal and Non-receipt, can be used when you are printing to a full-sized printer or to troubleshoot off-brand receipt printers. On a full-sized printer, the output prints only onto the left side of the page, and a full page is used for each transaction.

The cash drawer has a cable (the size of a phone cable) that plugs into the back of the receipt printer. If you have purchased a Bixolon SRP-350 Plus iii model from us (the latest receipt printer model as of October 2015), your cable will plug into the bottom of the receipt printer. The back of the latest model has an ethernet cable port. When plugged in to the correct port, this allows the receipt printer to pass the command to open the cash drawer.

To make sure your settings are correct in order to open an attached cash drawer, go into the A Set- up function, select i) for Printers, and press R. Use the b to scroll down through the options for the receipt printer until you come to the “Open drawer” field. Make sure it is set to Yes. If you have selected the correct model in the printer settings, the drawer should open when you print a receipt. You can test this by going into 4 Point-of-Sale and trying a Znosale (use clerk code “A”). This should print a short “no sale” receipt, AND open the cash drawer.

23 GETTING STARTED | Setting up other Printers

Adding or Changing the Message on your Receipts You can add a message to your receipts by going into A Setup, f) POS, and then r) Receipt header and footer messages. Here you can type things such as your store’s name, address, email, web address, phone number, and any message you wish to add to your receipt. This text will print exactly as formatted in this box, so aligning text in the centre has to be done manually. d to save the changes you make.

You can also add a graphic logo for receipts, but this should be done only after you have accessed your Webstore where the graphic file is maintained. You can also work with us if you want to upload a receipt header logo immediately.

Setting up other Printers In Bookmanager you must indicate a printer for each type of printing process. The Main printer is where most printing occurs. Specialized routines such as printing cheques, invoices, receipts and labels can be setup to use the same or different printers.

NOTE: Because each workstation will have it’s own set of printing preferences, this screen must be setup on each computer running Bookmanager.

You will see that Bookmanager can use different printers assigned to different categories of printing. This gives you the ability to select a printer that best suits the task at hand. Or, you can have them all use the same printer. Leaving a port blank means that nothing will be sent to the printer.

You first install printers using the Add Printer option in the Windows Control Panel when complete, simply select the desired printer from the list in Bookmanager’s A Setup options. The list of installed printers appears whenever you change the printer is a to Windows or Passthru, or when you u while in the type connected to field. If a particular task will not be used (e.g. you do not print Cheques), you simply leave the type connected to field blank.

TIP: You can use the word “default” for any printer and Bookmanager will print to the default

24 GETTING STARTED | Installing and using a bar code scanner

printer established in Windows

File: When File is chosen as the destination, the default filename of Temp.txt is inserted into the type connected to field. Each time you print with this setting, the file temp.txt in the BM folder (i.e. where Bookmanager is) will be replaced with the contents of what you are printing. You can change this to save to any folder with any filename you desire, however filenames must end with the .txt file extension. To work with the file through Windows, or from a program such as Word or Notepad, you can look in the BM folder and open temp.txt. This feature is most often used for testing, and the outputs will often display odd characters that were meant as commands for printers to interpret.

Installing and using a bar code scanner The scanners we provide are preprogrammed to prefix (insert) a ~ (tilde) symbol before the number scanned, and then insert a return character after the product code. For example, if you open Windows Notepad and then scan a book you might see:

~1234567890

If the ~ is missing, then your scanner will only work in certain parts of Bookmanager. Generally, you will notice a problem when you are in Inventory and try to scan an item, and the screen changes to 9 Receiving. Bookmanager did not see the ~, so it processed the keys verbatim, and used Bookmanager shortcuts to change screens. With most book ISBNs, the first digit is a 9 (eg: 9780761169437), which is why Bookmanager would jump to 9 Receiving.

Programming sheets for the scanner models we provide are available from us, or from our website bookmanager.com, under the downloads section. Some keyboards do not support the ~ in an expected manner. It is possible to program the scanner to use a different prefix character, and then you must also use the A Setup, a) General option to match this character in Bookmanager (a station-specific setting).

If your normally operational scanner has suddenly changed behaviour, it could be that your Windows keyboard language setting has been mistakenly changed. This is often done by accident by pressing CS or left AS. Depending on your version of Windows, one of these hotkey shortcuts can be used to switch it back. The keyboard should be set to English (US), whereas the English (Canada) or English (French) setting can cause issues due to the accent marks needed for the French language. The current keyboard language is displayed in your Windows’ taskbar on the bottom right, close to where your date and time is displayed.

Backups Even though you haven’t even started using Bookmanager yet, a good backup procedure is crucial to keeping your data safe, and it should be established right from the beginning.

Why Backup? Simply put, you are the only one who will have a copy of the many years of data that will become essential for your business to operate from. Our motto; no backup, no job. Bookmanager’s backup routine provides multiple methods of backup (including an online service.) You should employ at least

25 GETTING STARTED | Backups

two backup strategies so that your chances of data loss are negligible.

Bookmanager offers a valuable, automatic online back-up service that is included in your yearly support subscription.

Choosing the right Backup methods for your store From the Main Menu, select Data transfer. Press R on option B) Bookmanager Backup so that you can choose the options to help you maintain copies of your data.

There are 5 methods of backing up available to you in this menu.

Option a) Create local backup.zip file We recommend that you schedule this option to happen daily even if you are using a non-Bookman- ager method to backup files (the Scheduler can be accessed from the Main Options menu). 90% of disaster recoveries can be done by restoring this file. This option creates a subfolder called Backup in the main BM folder and copies all files in the BM folder beginning with the letters DAT to this folder. It then creates a single file called backup.zip that contains all of the files in the Backup folder. DAT files contain your important working data only. POS sales tape reports are not included, nor are program files or documents such as invoices, confirmations and reports that are generally considered temporary. Warning: This backup is overwritten each time you run the routine. You should therefore not solely rely on it as a sufficient backup. Your computer’s hard drive could fail or be stolen, or your problem could have occured days prior, and today’s backup will not help you.

Option b) Copy backup.zip to drive/folder This step will copy the backup.zip file to another drive/folder (e.g. a USB Storage Device or portable hard drive). The filename backup.zip is changed to a date code and the file will begin with the letter B and have the extension .zip. For example, a backup done on February 17, 2016 will be called B160217a. zip. If more than one backup is done on the same day, the last letter (a) will be changed to “b” and so on. This means that your backup device will contain a separate set of data for each day that you ran the routine. If you had a problem from a few days back and only discovered it now, it is possible to restore data from before the problem occurred. Bookmanager does not remove old backups with this option, which means that the backup device will eventually become full. You will then have to manually delete old backups from the device to make room for new ones.

TIP: To verify that the drive/folder entered is valid, use the u button, which will show any files already stored on the device/drive. Your data is safer now that you have multiple backups. How- ever, if you do not remove the storage device from the computer, you are still subject to losing everything should someone steal the computer or there is a fire. To protect you from these situations you should have more than one backup device and rotate them (e.g.: take one backup set home.) USB Storage Devices are today’s choice for backing up data. They are also safer than copying files to another computer that cannot be taken offsite (in case of fire or theft.)USB Storage Devices are inexpensive and available in literally dozens of different shapes and sizes. The more expensive sticks have a larger capacity and can access and store data faster. Most computers have USB ports easily accessible at the front of the computer. Just insert a USB Storage Device and run the routine to backup. It is a good idea to have at least two USB Storage Devices

26 GETTING STARTED | Backups

so you can rotate them.

Option c) Send copy to bookmanager.com If you have subscribed to our yearly support service, a copy of your backup.zip should be scheduled to be sent to our server. We will retain the 10 most recent backups received. You will receive an email confirmation each time a backup is received (this can be disabled.) You will receive an email warning if we have not received a backup from you in two days (for your safety, this cannot be permanently disabled). You can view the status of your backups and download them from bookmanager.com under the Reports menu, and then the Backups sub menu. You must be logged with your store ID and password (or as an employee of the company).

IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that anyone who knows your store’s ID and password will have the ability to download your backup data. If you only want to permit certain people the ability to download backup files, you will need to create a separate user account for each. The Permissions area is used to link them to your company and give them various access rights. Please contact Bookmanager if you require assistance with the Permissions area.

Terms of use and our disclaimer: The online backup is desirable because it is safe from fire and theft. It also has support features built in that attempt to alert you if your backup procedure fails. If you use this service, please be sure to read the terms and conditions of use (at the end of this document,) so that you understand that it is still your responsibility to ensure your backup data is usable (a liability we cannot accept.)

Option d) ftp copy to Supplier: Stores that access the internet may be interested in having a copy of the backup.zip file sent to a remote computer (similar to sending a backup to bookmanager.com.) This is another form of offsite storage, and if done properly, can eliminate the need to copy files to a USB Storage Device. If you choose this option, your computer technician should provide you with the web address, as well as a username and password for storing the file. The name of the backup file sent will begin with the letters BM followed by 6 random numbers and then the extension .zip (e.g. BM123456.zip.)

IMPORTANT: Be forewarned that unless you receive regular verification from the person adminis- tering your ftp backups, you may not be aware of the routine ever failing until you lose data and find there is in fact no backup. Over the years we have encountered too many situations where the person in charge of backing up failed to realize that it had stopped working.

Option e) Make full copy onto drive/folder If you want to make a full copy of Bookmanager to another computer on the network, use the Map Network Drive (by right clicking My Computer) to select the desired computer (and folder) and then assign a drive letter to it (e.g. J:\). Enter this drive letter into option “e” on the Bookmanager Backup screen. Make sure there is enough room on the computer/drive because all files and sub-folders in the BM folder are copied. (You can use My Computer to view the living BM folder and right-click Prop- erties to see how much space your full copy of Bookmanager and its data is using.) The full copy of Bookmanager is always stored in a subfolder called BMCopy. This is done intentionally to reduce the chance of someone accidentally using the copy as though it were the real one.

27 GETTING STARTED | Initial Setup

NOTE: Subsequent copies made to the same folder will only copy files that are dated newer than the data files on the copy. This makes the update process much faster. However, if you used the BMCopy of Bookmanager on the same day that you want it refreshed from the main copy, it may be safer to delete the BMCopy folder, which will force a complete new copy and ensure that all files in the main copy are transferred. Having a full copy of Bookmanager copied to another computer on the network is another type of backup that can be used in case of disaster. However, it will only help you if your data loss was since the last backup (it does not provide multiple backups from several days.)

The critical data files in Bookmanager all begin with the letters DAT. There are hundreds of other files in the BM folder but these can either be reinstalled or their loss does not mean the end of your business. The BACKUP.ZIP file that is created and sent to our server contains only the DAT files.

Conclusion: We recommend that you schedule the above backups to happen each night, and this is the first routine you should add to your Scheduler area of Bookmanager.

Scheduling your backup At the server computer, go to the Main Menu and select Scheduler. Since you probably do not have anything in the Scheduler yet, it will automatically be prompting you to create a new routine. Other- wise you will press New to schedule a new event.

Under Frequency, select Every Day and then choose a time for the routine to run (using the 24-hr clock). Under Routines, select 1) Backup Bookmanager (options: ). Inside the brackets enter the letter(s) of the routines you saw earlier in the backup screen. For example, enter c to have a backup created and then sent to our server. [e.g.: Backup Bookmanager (options:abce )]

With this routine entered, you can leave Bookmanager at the Main Menu and the backup will be performed at the specified time. You can also highlight the routine and press Start to have it run now. If you always want to run it manually, you should highlight the routine and press Off. The word “Off” will appear next to the routine, meaning it will only run if you highlight it and select Start (i.e. it will not start at the specified time automatically). In this case, you would need to remember to go into the Scheduler each day to run it.

Start the backup now to ensure it is working as expected.

Restoring data from a backup If you do need to restore a backup, contact Bookmanager support for assistance. Restoring a backup from a crashed computer is considered a Bookmanager emergency, and is a perfect example of when you can call the after hours and weekend emergency support line (aka Michael’s cell phone!) at 250-212-3814.

Initial Setup As soon as you begin using Bookmanager, there are settings that need to be customized for each station you run. Just to get started, we will only cover the settings that should be checked before you begin entering your data. Other options such as Ordering and Point of Sale will be covered in the appropriate sections of this manual.

28 GETTING STARTED | Initial Setup

Some of these settings will be station specific, meaning that you will need to set them up at each computer on your network (printers, for example).

NOTE: The DATDEFLT.DBF and DATDEFLT.MEM files hold settings that are used by all computers. DATWS??.MEM files store information unique to each workstation. The workstations settings are not saved to the file until you exit Bookmanager. If a global setting does not appear to work on all computers, restart Bookmanager to ensure the most recent settings are being used.

When you add a new workstation to a network, or you change the station number a computer uses, the settings for station #0 will be copied to the new station file. You then customize these at the new computer.

From any place in Bookmanager, press A Setup to display the setup options screen.

Important options in a) General

e) The current month (number 1-12) This is a very important number that should not be changed. Bookmanager performs a month- end routine once each month. When Bookmanager is started, the current date for the computer is compared to this month number. If a new month has begun, then you will be prompted to perform Bookmanager’s Month-end maintenance procedure.

In changing this setting you can fool Bookmanager into not performing Month-end, or have it do Month-end again, however you must be aware of the consequences. Month-end is an essential procedure and it must never be avoided. For example, your Inventory screen shows a 14-month history of receiving/sales, and if you avoid or redo a Month-end, then the numbers in the columns will never match the actual month the activity took place (as shown in history).

f) Your country code (eg. CA=Canada, US=United States) Certain parts of Bookmanager compare your country code to the country of a supplier or customer so that appropriate actions can be taken.

When you use UK, the British pound symbol will be used instead of the North American $. The EU country code will use the Euro symbol.

m) Automatically check Titlelink for new ISBNs If you have subscribed to our Titlelink service, giving you instant access to over 15 million titles and products with bibliographic content, this option should be enabled with a Yes. Any new product that is scanned or entered into Bookmanager will first be looked up in our online database for a match. If a match is found, the item’s title, author, price, binding, publication date, etc., will be automatically inputed into Bookmanager, thus saving you the time of having to manually enter this data yourself. This feature is especially important when Receiving, as it can save your staff countless hours of tedious data entry.

29 GETTING STARTED | Initial Setup

Option h) Month end settings Go into the A Setup Option h) Month end. This is where you establish how long you want to keep specific information within your Bookmanager program. You will want to check these settings before you start using the program, and you may wish to extend some of them past their defaults to keep the information longer. Most stores will set these options to 60 months, except for the last two options, which are generally left at 6. Bookmanager’s Month End maintenance will clear out any information that is older than what you have specified. Please note that once the information has been deleted it cannot be retrieved, so make sure these settings are correct for your situation. 99 months means to never delete, and with the large hard drives available these days, may be a desirable option for many users.

Option j) Tax Tables Tax rates need to be verified to ensure that you are charging the correct amount when you conduct sales. To access the tax settings, go into A Setup, and press R when j) Tax tables is highlighted. This will take you into the Tax Setup screen. You may discover that the default settings do not need to be changed, but it is a good idea to take the time to go through and check them.

First, you will want to check the taxes listed under the Tax types, names and rates section found on the right hand side of your screen. There will be two default tax types listed. If these do not apply to your area, use the r key to access the right side of the screen, and Edit them to change the tax name, and/or the rate. Add any additional tax types/rates as needed. You should have a tax code for each type of tax you would charge on any given product in your store, including an EXEMPT rate used for excluding all taxes. Whatever you name the “exempt” rate will appear on customer invoices and receipts when it is used.

Pay special attention to the Pnts/Cpns column to the right of your tax rates. In some provinces/states you may be required to submit tax for the full amount prior to the redemption of points or coupons.

30 GETTING STARTED | Initial Setup

If this is the case, you need to make sure you enter either Points or Coupons to ensure that you are collecting the correct amount of tax. If you only need to collect tax on the subtotal after points or coupons are redeemed (most common), you can leave this field blank.

The left side of the box links the tax types on the right to different products and customer types. Each product in your inventory will have a Classification. Each product Classification is given a Tx code that corresponds to the product tax codes from the Tax Table setup.

For example (shown in the previous and next screenshots), here in British Columbia, there is only one tax applied to books (5% GST) and two taxes applied to other non-book items (5% GST + 7% PST). The book Classifications in the example Classification file have Product tax code 1 entered into the Tx field because our Product tax code of 1 corresponds to Tax Code a which is 5% GST. In the same vein, non-book Classifications have 2 in the Tx field to apply both a and b tax codes.

If you ever need one tax charged on top of another (i.e.: Tax 2 is calculated on the sum of the goods plus Tax 1), use the + (plus) symbol after putting both tax codes into the Product tax code field.

TIP: You can use u while in any of the Product tax code fields for guidance.

Assigning tax treatment based on Customers If you are selling out of province/state and into areas that require a different tax scheme, then you can go through the process of establishing settings for different customers based on their location. To do this you would press N for new while in the right side of the setups screen and create a two letter code (usually by province or state) and assign which taxes those new customers need to have. The code assigned to each customer will then be used to apply the appropriate taxes (or default to the primary one if a matching code is not found) when you are charging sales under this customer.

31 GETTING STARTED | Initial Setup

Building a classification file As you begin to enter your data into the Inventory file you will be asked to assign Classifications (categories) to each item in your store. These are what Bookmanager will use to organize the titles in your inventory.

NOTE: It is highly recommended that you set up this Classification list before you enter your titles to make data entry and receiving go much faster. Failing to do so will make it difficult to keep your inventory organized as you enter new titles, and any title without a proper Class may not have proper taxes applied if sold. Trying to classify products after they are added to the system creates much unnecessary work, as simply finding and grouping those titles is a challenge.

If set up and used properly, the settings in this Classification file (abbreviated as Class from now on) will help you find things within your store, build reports for specific groups of titles, and identify which groups are selling better that others. It is also the area where you establish which taxes, discounts, and points are to be charged for products in the Point-of-Sale.

Some classes will not need subclasses because they are specific enough on their own (i.e. GARDEN for gardening books), but for some class areas like fiction, there could be many different variations within the class (FICT – MYSTERY, FICT – SCIFI, FICT - ROMANCE etc.).

Entering new classifications Select the 4 Class file. The only thing in here to start with will be a blank classification.

To add a classification, select New, and then type in the description. The primary class has an eight character limit, and the secondary class also eight characters. The format used is CLASS-SUBCLASS. The Se (section) field is used to separate your inventory for POS reporting and GL (general ledger) purposes. Think of Se codes as a way to group classes and subclasses together. You may have a bunch of classes that encompass all your kids books, so you could assign all those classes the same section code to see how much of your sales come from just kids books in general. To begin with, it is probably easiest to leave Se blank. It can be filled in later before you start to perform sales. The Tx (tax) field determines which taxes should be charged when any items are sold in the POS. You can put in the tax number that applies using the tax codes you established in the POS setup.

Lastly, the Description field is used for your online Webstore. You may have classes that are abbreviated or not obvious to your customer, so the Description allows you to specify a more user friendly explanation of this Class. For example, you may have a Class called FICT -MYST CDN, which is how you group your Canadian mystery fiction. That abbreviated sub-class may not be obvious to customers, so you could write Fiction - Mysteries by Canadian Authors in the description, which will be displayed online. This field is larger than displayed, and accepts 60 characters.

That is all you need to enter for now, so d to save the new classification. The other fields relate to specific functions (such as discounting and frequent buyer points) which you may do in the future, but do not need to worry about for now. Continue to enter all the classifications you will use in your store. Don’t worry if you forget to add one now, as new ones can be added at any time.

We highly recommend deleting the blank Class at the top of the lift to prevent future items from

32 GETTING STARTED | Initial Setup

having a blank Class assigned. Without the blank class, the system will not allow you to save a new entry with a blank Class, and instead prompt you to specify one before you can save your changes.

If you decide to go with Bookmanager’s labeling system, these classes will be printed on those labels. With that in mind, it is best to name your classes after a physical location or genre grouping in your store, so staff can easily identify where books are to be shelved by just looking at the label and class.

Linking your Classes to BISACs This step can be done at any time, but will save your receiver countless hours of data entry through the years if done as soon as you create your Classes. Linking Classes with BISACs allows new product added to your inventory to be automatically assigned Classes based on the book’s BISAC code.

Upon publication, every book is assigned a BISAC code (Book Industry Standards and Communica- tions). The BISAC Subject Heading list is an industry-approved list of subject descriptors, each of which is represented by a nine-character alphanumeric code. The descriptor itself consists of two, three or four levels in the manner described below.

For example, the code for the descriptor representing general southern travel in the United States is TRV025070 and the related descriptor is TRAVEL / United States / South / General. There are 52 major sections, such as COMPUTERS, FICTION, HISTORY and TRUE CRIME. Within each major section are a number of detailed descriptors that represent sub-topics the BISAC Subject Codes Committee has deemed most appropriate for the major topic.

BISACs are updated once a year, but most often very little is added or changed, as the BISACs have been in effect for decades.

To link your store’s Classes to the industry standard BISACs, from the Main Options menu go to 2 Inventory. You must have at least one item in your Inventory to access the BISAC area, so New enter one now or press Edit on any existing entry. b to the BISAC field, shown below:

Press u to view your BISAC file. If this is a brand new system, you may not have the BISACfile downloaded yet, so select Update to download and import the most recent list. Once loaded, you are given the major subject headers (e.g.: FICTION) on the left, and use t b to navigate the list. The right side of the screen will display the sub-sections for the highlighted major subject header. Use r or R to get your cursor over to the right, where you can find the generic sub-sections and use Edit to assign them one of your store’s classes. Use u to select your Classes from the list.

33 GETTING STARTED | Setting up passwords and clerk codes

In the example above, under the FICTION major section, b until you find Science Fiction / General and select Edit. Here, you can assign this BISAC your FICT -SCIFI class by typing it in or using u to find it and R it into this field. Use d or R to save your change. This means that anytime a book with a BISAC subject starting with 028 (all the Science Fiction sub-sections) is added to your Inventory, either through ordering or receiving, it will automatically be assigned the FICT -SCIFI class. Without these links, you receiver would have to manually enter them for every single new item.

Go through the BISAC list and Edit each major section (the ones ending in 000) that would have a link to your Classes. Once you are finished, simply E to save your changes.

Looking back at your Inventory screen, you will notice that when you are not editing the currently displayed Inventory card, the BISAC will display as its English translation, rather than the code. This is for easy reference, and to help you if you are every having trouble deciding which class to assign this particular book (if it hasn’t been done so already).

NOTE: An updated BISAC list does not download automatically, so we suggest using Update to get a new file once a year, sometime in January (the list is generally released in December).

Verify your store information From the A Setup options select option q) Your Company Name, etc., and verify that all the information entered in these fields is accurate. Any changes to the name or address will require a call to us to change the serial number. This information is what is printed on invoices and payment documents. You can Edit the phone or fax numbers without our assistance, but keep in mind this is the information we have on file. If your phone number is not there, or is incorrect, please let us know so that we have accurate information for our records and your Webstore.

Setting up passwords and clerk codes Bookmanager has a password system, which can limit access and selected functions to only certain personnel. By default, Bookmanager will permit unrestricted access to all areas under a single clerk code; A.

When setting up a password system, you first define the areas that you want to control access to. Next, you decide which people have access to those areas. Only a person with Master access rights

34 GETTING STARTED | Setting up passwords and clerk codes

can add new people to the system or change the rights of access.

NOTE: If the Master password is lost, there is NOTHING that Bookmanager support staff can do to retrieve it. You will need to contact us to find out how to rebuild the list of passwords, or restore the file from a backup.

Why use passwords? Many bookstores are small enough that using passwords to access areas may seem too restricting and cumbersome. There are some areas in which you may find passwords are sensible, and you only have to limit those areas -- the rest of the program will remain as open as before with only a clerk code required to access them.

For example, there is generally no need for anyone to directly edit the On-Hand field in 2 Inventory - it would allow anyone to make untraceable changes to stock levels. Stock changes should always occur as a result of activity in other areas of Bookmanager - even when there is an adjustment due to shrinkage. Lack of historical information makes for very confusing situations and can affect other areas of Bookmanager.

The password system requires entry of a password only when the user tries to access an area that requires permission. After that, they no longer need to enter a password unless they exit Bookmanager, log out, or someone else uses the system and enters a different clerk ID when prompted. This makes the system less restrictive in use, yet it ensures that the data is being protected.

How to set up a password system Password settings are stored under A Setup, and s) Passwords & Clerk Codes. If you are a new Bookmanager user, only ID clerk A will be listed (below the *** Master *** entry). Otherwise, your previously defined clerk codes will be listed under the ID column.

By default, the ID A entry has been assigned the Master access right (with no password required). If you want a different ID to hold the Master access then use New to create a new ID or Edit an existing one. You will first be asked to enter the ID (A) and password (R on the blank password) for Master access. Once you have entered the new ID, you can activate Master access for it by selecting Rights, and putting an * next to Master. Now you should use Rights on the ID A to D the Master access for this ID (unless you want ID A to have Master access also).

NOTE: You may have more than one ID with Master access rights, but there must be at least one.

Next, use New, Edit, Delete and Password to build a list of ID entries -- one ID is used for each person who works in your store.

Unless you really don’t feel you need security, each entry should have a password assigned, otherwise you are defeating the purpose of the system. There is no need for anyone to know the others’ passwords, and certainly not the ones who have Master access.

Changing your password (especially the Master password) should be done occasionally, but Bookman- ager will not remind you to do this.

35 GETTING STARTED | Setting up passwords and clerk codes

How to eradicate the password system (If you mess up your password system beyond repair)

If you cannot regain access to the password system because you cannot use an ID letter that has Master access, then your only option is to delete the file holding the passwords. Please call Bookman- ager support for instructions on how to delete the file. The password system must then be rebuilt from scratch.

Setting up the areas with restricted access Once all the required ID letters have been entered, arrow up and highlight the ***Master*** entry (the one at the very top) and select Rights. You must then enter an ID with Master rights in order to gain access.

Use this entry to mark with an * (asterisk) the areas that you are interested in providing limited or audited access to. In some of these areas you may want to allow all people to have access, however you would like to ensure that they use only their own ID (by forcing them to input their password).

The areas you have marked (indicated by an asterisk) will now require a user ID and correct password before access is allowed. Any areas without an asterisk will be closed to all users except those with Master rights.

Next, move to each of the ID entries on the list and use the Rights command to enable/disable this person’s access to the area. If a person is not given access to an area, they will not be allowed in to that area. If a person is permitted access they will be allowed in upon successful input of their password.

Any person with Master access can make future changes to these rights, so in reality only one person (the big cheese) should have Master rights. Everyone else can only view the rights and use the Pass- word and Edit commands.

36 GETTING STARTED | Setting up passwords and clerk codes

NOTE: When the Master entry’s access areas are changed, all the other terminals on the system must exit and restart Bookmanager, otherwise the changes are not in effect at those stations.

Logging in If enabled, some areas such as editing the O/H field in 2 Inventory will not be available unless you have rights, yet you are not prompted to enter an ID. For these the 6 Log-in key is handy. This will log you in as the default user, and your code will be displayed in the upper-right corner of the screen. You can also use the 6 Log-in if you are creating a number of orders or making a bunch of changes, to save you from having to enter your clerk code every time a change is to be saved. It is good practice to 6 log yourself out before you walk away from the station.

Removing yourself as the default user To remove the user ID from the upper right corner of the screen (i.e. Log out) press the 6 Log in/ out key again. You are also automatically logged out when you exit Bookmanager.

Also, in the 4 Point-of-Sale when another person starts a transaction, the current logged in user is automatically logged out (unless they are the same person).

POS Clerk Codes Even if passwords are used, entering a clerk code for POS functions does not require password entry, as this would usually be annoying and unnecessary. However, when an ID is entered without a password, access to other restricted areas will still require a password unless that ID was previously entered with a password.

If you do want all new POS transactions to require a password, you need to put a * next to the POS New transactions line in the Passwords setup.

Disabling Clerk Codes and Passwords System-wide To disable being prompted for clerk codes anywhere in Bookmanager, you must set up your A Setup, and s) Passwords & Clerk Codes as outlined below:

First, create a clerk code using the letter Z, and give it Master rights. Next, you must delete all other clerk codes, removing each code’s rights (using Rights and D all the asterisks next to each area) before being able to Delete the codes themselves. Once all clerk codes (except for Z) have been removed, your Passwords area should look like the screenshot above. Exit out of Bookmanager on all your stations, and upon reopening, your changes will take effect, and no clerk codes will be required.

37 GETTING STARTED | Entering your store’s existing data

Entering your store’s existing data If you are an existing business with inventory already in the store, one of your first challenges will be getting your existing inventory into the Bookmanager system. It is highly recommended that you take the time to add your entire inventory into Bookmanager right away. The main reason you have chosen Bookmanager is to maintain accurate information on your business, and there is no better time than now to begin doing this.

There are two ways to enter your inventory into BM, and with both options we recommend using our support staff to help you through it.

Option 1) Working alongside our technical support team, they will work with the current system you are using (e.g.: excel spread sheets, or other POS software programs) to extract your inventory data and enter it into your new Bookmanager system.

Option 2) Manually entering all of your inventory to your new system through #9 Receiving. The process involves creating a supplier called OLD, creating a “dummy” (fake) invoice and manually receiving each item by scanning it into BM. This can be a complex process, so again, we recommend working with our team to help you through this step.

Entering new stock only If you decide you do not want to add your existing inventory into BM, the other option for getting stock into the program is to gradually add it by only receiving the new shipments that arrive in your store. For all the existing stock, you would just sell it by price point in the POS by entering a price and class in the Point-of-Sale (see the POS section page 113 of the manual for details). The disadvantage to this method is that you need to write down or record the product number of each item you sell for reordering purposes. If you are planning on entering stock this way, product labeling of the new stock becomes essential to help you differentiate between stock in the program (labeled) and stock that is not (without labels).

Establishing your implementation strategy You’ve got the system installed; and your inventory entered, what comes next?

Get the Point-of-Sale operating Most bookstores are interested in using the Point-of-Sale to record sales. This is where you can start using BM even before you enter a single title into the computer. This is especially true if your bookstore is already open for business. Bookmanager can sell product by simply entering a price and choosing a method of payment, using it like a simple cash register. This step will get you and your staff used to the Bookmanager basics, and when you are ready to track product by ISBN everyone will be comfortable with handling sales through Bookmanager.

Decide what will be inventoried It may not make sense to add every single item in your store to Inventory. It is obvious that books should be tracked, but tracking a rack of bookmarks or pencils may be too much work with no real benefit.

38 GETTING STARTED | Establishing your implementation strategy

Rather than tracking items such as these individually, they could be tracked by price point or a general skew number. To do this you would want to manually create an ISBN for pencils, at each price point, and then you can receive them and sell them using the product number (ISBN) you have selected. Details on how to receive these kinds of items can be found in the RECEIVING section of this manual.

Ordering and reordering This phase should be left out until you have lessened the workload from the initial inventory entry and receiving.

Ordering stock happens from three basic activities:

1. A customer requests a book not in stock.

2. Books need to be ordered from a catalogue of new titles or titles not currently in stock.

3. Existing stock has been sold and may need to be replenished.

Your goals will be to:

1. Become proficient at entering a customer’s request into the computer while they are present. You find the title, Order it and attach their name to the Order.

2. Use Mass entry in 1 Orders to record multiple items ordered from one supplier.

3. Get into the habit of reviewing sales on a daily basis and reordering selected items. Using the 0 Reports from the Main Menu, you would select option 1) Custom Inventory Reports. From here you would build a report to make reviewing recent sales very fast. If you don’t review you sales in this manner, then you have defeated one of the most important benefits Bookmanager offers.

4. Use the Website/Webstore to browse catalogues, search for individual titles, or browse genres to bulk up a section in your store. Stock orders can be made on the Webstore and transfered into your Bookmanager software to be submitted to a supplier.

5. For existing stores that are used to third party ordering and catalogues (like Edelweiss), you can often create orders there and export them into the Bookmanager software. The procedure for doing so can vary depending on the situation, so please work with Bookmanager support if this feature is new to you.

Processing orders Option 8) Order Processing from the Main Menu organizes everything you have placed on order, grouped by each supplier that will fulfill your order. You should review any orders you may have pending in here, and send them to your suppliers when minimums have been met. Bookmanager offers a variety of methods for sending orders. Some vendors accept orders electronically, but not all electronic ordering is the same. Until you are caught up, it’s probably easiest and fastest to just print orders and manually email, phone, or fax them in. During this time you will be learning about purchase order (PO)

39 GETTING STARTED | Establishing your implementation strategy

numbering, cancellation dates and so on.

As the stock you order starts to arrive, you will also be asking your receiving department to get ready for something new: searching for the POs you’ve generated and receiving them, instead of just entering everything in as new items. Eventually, everything you receive will already be on order in Bookmanager; but until then, there will be a mixture of both. You need to make sure that the receiver is aware that some POs will already exist in the system so they don’t duplicate entries in the orders file. If the receiver does not realize a PO exists and enters it as new, it will cause some confusion. If that occurs, then items will be on hand in the system, but will still show as being on order. Watch out for this and nip it early.

Paying bills Bookmanager’s 7 Accounts Payable is quite simple to learn, and most of the work is already done for you if you receive invoices correctly through 9 Receiving. Invoices from receiving will already be in the A/P file. When you are starting out, you can simply enter the invoice number and amount for earlier unpaid shipments that were not received in Bookmanager; mark the ones to be paid, and print a payment slip or cheque. You will be glad you started using this module early. Accounts Payable can manage everything from books, to rent, to your credit card statements.

Returns As soon as receiving starts, you will no doubt be short-shipped or receive damaged stock that must be returned. Zreturn is the command that puts a received item onto a claim form, which can then be printed, emailed or faxed. This step is needed in order to keep your Inventory count accurate, and to request proper credit from the supplier. This process will be explained further in the 5 Returns section of this manual.

Customer tracking By entering a customer special order you will already become familiar with entering names into your Customers file. Use the 6 Customers file to track customer information: purchases, returns, orders, credits etc.; set up discounts and points for your best accounts, as well as many other features.

General Ledger Accounting This is a large aspect of Bookmanager to learn and master, and we recommend you do not even look at using it until you have everything else running smoothly. Unless you are experienced with bookkeeping and the principles of accounting, our General Ledger may be too much to grasp. Keep in mind that if you decide to use it, your bookkeeper or accountant might have to learn the system as well, though it does follow industry standard practices. We use our GL to the point of generating a balanced and accurate year-end statement. Our accountant only deals with the finished reports. Most stores use the end-of-day and end-of-month Point-of-Sale reports to record sales. The Accounts payable check register gives details of payments. A year-end inventory report gives the value of the inventory at cost. Your bookkeeper will be used to entering this sort of summary information into one of the industry standard accounting packages.

40 GETTING STARTED | Understanding Bookmanager Files Map

Understanding Bookmanager Files Map This section explains the overall file layout and how each file relates to others.

The 2 Inventory file is the heart of the system and stores information about every item you have ever entered. The ISBN field in this file is the link to all other files in Bookmanager. Therefore, each record in Inventory must have an ISBN (or item code) that is unique from all others in the file.

The Inventory file stores basic information such as Title, Author, Price, current On Hand and preferred Supplier. The Supplier field is a three or four character code that links to records stored in 3 Suppliers.

The 3 Suppliers file holds basic information for anyone you order from, or who provides you with services. Each supplier’s Code must be unique and is used in several other files to link information to that supplier.

The 4 Class (or Classification) file stores a unique name for every section in your store. It links In- ventory to tax tables, and the General Ledger’s Account and Section codes. Each Inventory item has a Class that is validated from this file. We do not recommend having a blank class or any products linked to a blank class.

The 1 Orders file stores information for any product on pending order, ordered and received. Orders are linked to Inventory by ISBN. Each order must have a supplier code, which links to 3 Suppliers, telling the system who you are placing the order with. Orders with a Purchase Order number are linked to 8 Order Processing. Received orders contain an Invoice number that links to 7 Accounts Payable. Orders can be attached to a customer (e.g. to reserve a book on order for a customer) using the customer’s unique account number.

The 5 Returns file stores all activity related to the return of merchandise to your suppliers. Processed return claims are assigned unique claim numbers, which are linked to Accounts Payable.

The 6 Customers file holds basic information for anyone you sell to. This file is linked to Orders, Point- of-Sale, and Accounts Receivable [found within 6 Customers].

The 4 Point-of-Sale (POS) file stores information about every sale you make. If a sale is linked to a customer and the purchase is charged on account, then the transaction is linked to the Accounts Receivable file (accessed via 6 Customers, then A/R)

The 7 Accounts payable file keeps track of any invoices you’ve received, or any other payables that you have.

The 8 Order Processing file stores a summary for each order you place with a vendor, and it provides you with a status for each purchase order. This area is also used to prepare and send orders, and lookup past orders.

The 9 Receiving file is not actually a separate file, but rather a screen for processing all stock that comes into your store. It works primarily with the Orders file and retrieves active orders and updates their status. Receiving triggers activity such as printing price labels, printing customer special order slips and posting invoice totals to Accounts payable. It also updates your on hand figures in Inventory.

41 GETTING STARTED | Understanding Bookmanager Files Map

The = General Ledger file is where all financial activity resides, and is lined to both Accounts Payable and the POS. When an invoice is received or the day’s sales are totalled, entries are posted into the General Ledger file. As well, if you are using Bookmanager for accounting, this area is used forall accounting activity.

The - TitleBank file is a place where temporary title files obtained from various sources are stored. This file integrates with the Inventory file to ease the transfer of title information into Inventory.

The 3 Messaging file is where responses to Online Orders and emailed Invoices to customers are stored. It can also be used to create simple letters and then email, print or fax them. It is also where all Purchase Orders and Claims are copied to when emailing or faxing to Suppliers.

The Miscellaneous options contain a number of specific functions that you will need to do from time to time, including reindexing and mass agency (supplier) changes.

The Scheduler is where you can set up certain maintenance events to run at specified times.

The remainder of this manual will be devoted to each of these sections in detail. They will be listed in the same order as you find them in the Main Menu.

42 ORDERS | The Orders screen

Orders Bookmanager’s ordering system is designed to keep track of both special orders and regular stock orders. Reminders can be set for you to review any orders of particular interest. Many different reports can be created to suggest what to reorder and to determine what is already on order. Orders can be sent electronically via Pubnet (Bknet), FTP (Netftp), email, fax, telephone, or mail. Bookmanager maintains the status for each item on a PO.

Placing an order with a supplier basically requires two steps in Bookmanager:

1. Build the pending order.

2. Process & send the purchase order, which contains all the pending orders for a supplier.

Breaking the process into two steps allows for order minimums to be met over time and for last minute changes to be easily made. Pending orders are built through the 1 Orders file and/or the 2 Inventory file (recommended), and then they are processed/sent through 8 Order Processing. All orders and their statuses are stored in the 1 Orders file for later reference. This part of the manual will address the function of the 1 Orders file.

The Orders screen The 1 Orders screen displays a lot of information at once. When viewing a particular item, the inventory card is displayed in the top half of the screen. The bottom portion of the screen contains order details about the item such as pricing, cancellation date, supplier, and notes regarding the order.

When viewing the inventory card for an item in Orders, press R to change the upper half of the screen to a list mode. Pressing R again will show you the inventory card information of the currently highlighted item.

Remember that all the keystroke actions possible on a particular screen are listed at the bottom, and are triggered by the first capital letter of the function. The @ symbol means A.

Setting up Ordering defaults There are a few ordering preferences that should be addressed before tracking orders through Book- manager. These specifications are accessed from the A Setup menu, b) Ordering. Use the t b keys to highlight each option, make the desired changes, and press d to save them.

43 ORDERS | Setting up Ordering defaults

Ask for clerk code when ordering? This option requires a Yes or No answer. If you select Yes, Bookmanager will require an employee’s clerk code to place an order. This can be useful to see which staff member ordered which items. If you do not need to know who entered which orders, say No to this option.

Last PO# used (start at 1000) This option allows you to start your purchase orders from a certain number. If you have never processed an order through Bookmanager before, the first PO will have the number 1000. Bookmanager will attach consecutive numbers to subsequent POs until they reach the number 99999. At that point, PO numbers will begin at 1000 again. If you would like your purchase order numbers to start from a different number like 2500 instead, put the number 2499 in this field.

WARNING: We recommend that you do not change the last PO# used unless you absolutely need to, especially if you have already been processing orders through Bookmanager. This is to prevent you from re-using any active PO numbers. If an active PO number is re-used, both orders will be combined, even if they are from different suppliers.

Default # of days before cancelling an order (min 20) Most stores only want to wait for a certain length of time for an order to arrive from a supplier. If the order has not arrived in that length of time, it probably needs to be cancelled and reordered. You should enter the number of days that you are willing to wait for the majority of your orders. Most stores choose something around 60 days. Bookmanager will use this number of days to automatically calculate the cancellation date. You can always override this number at the time of order for frontlist orders that may not arrive for several months.

Display a warning when the qty ordered is exceeded by (# of copies) It is possible for someone entering an order to make a typing mistake with the number of copies. To prevent an excessively large quantity from being ordered by mistake, put a quantity that you would not generally exceed into this field. For example, if you set this option at 20 copies, and someone at- tempted to order 30, they would get a warning that they exceeded the maximum and a question if it is OK. Responding with Yes will allow 30 copies to be ordered, and No will prompt you to re-enter the quantity.

Default discount to use when ordering Specifies the percentage discount that will initially come up when creating a new order (generally left at 40% for books).

Default message to appear on PO Bookmanager allows you to put a message on the top of every purchase order that you send. This message is limited to one line, but can extend the whole width of a page. You may wish to put a standard message on every PO that you send, such as “Consolidate backorders unless shipped freight free”. This setup option allows you to specify this standard message. It can also be changed while you

44 ORDERS | Building pending orders

process the order.

Building pending orders As previously mentioned, the first step in ordering through Bookmanager is to create a pending order. This can be done in a number of ways, each of which will be explained in the following sections. Con- cisely, these are: ordering using the Webstore; choosing Order when highlighting/viewing an Inventory item from multiple areas of Bookmanager; using New from 1 Orders; or using Xtra (extra) while in a report to increase orders to meet MinOh (minimum on-hands).

From the Orders file When there are multiple orders to be entered, pending orders are generally built using the 1 Orders file, or through the Webstore (ordering by using the Webstore is covered in a separate dedicated document covering the Webstore and its features). Ordering or reordering multiple items at the same time is generally a task handled by the store’s buyer(s), and so this section is usually not pertinent to general floor staff. Floor staff normally create orders after doing keyword inventory searches based on titles, authors, and details provided by the customer.

When entering items to be ordered from multiple suppliers, it is best to use the New command in Orders. When entering several items to be ordered from the same supplier, it is best to use the Mass command. Mass entry allows you to pre-set certain defaults, saving you from having to repeatedly enter them.

New Entry Suppose you have a list of ISBNs to place on order. Some are already listed in Bookmanager’s Inventory, some are not, and each is from a different supplier. To begin, select 1 Orders from the Main Menu, and then press New. You will then be prompted to enter the quantity of the first item. For this example, select 2 then R.

Your cursor should now be in the Customer field. Only put a name here if the item is a special order. Press R.

Next, type or scan the ISBN into the ISBN field. If the item has previously been entered into- Book manager, the inventory card (in the upper half of the screen) will automatically be filled in, and your cursor will be flashing in the Customer field. If the item has never been entered into Bookmanager before, one of two things will happen. If you have subscribed to our Titlelink data service, title information will be pulled from our server and filled in automatically. Without this service, you will need to enter the title information manually, and the cursor will go to the price field in the inventory card portion of the screen. The hint bar at the bottom of the screen will tell you that the ISBN is new to system. Complete the inventory card, beginning with the retail price and moving through Title, Author, Edition, etc., and press d to save it. Your cursor will advance to the lower half of the screen where you can continue entering the order information.

Next, confirm that the supplier indicated is indeed correct by pressing R in that field. If you need to order this ISBN from a different supplier, simply type in that supplier’s code, or press u to search for the correct code. Pressing R on the supplier will place that supplier’s code into the supplier

45 ORDERS | Building pending orders

field. Soon, you will memorize each supplier’s code and it will become second nature. If you subscribe to our Pubstock data service, you will see a listing of this ISBN’s availability from any distribution source carrying it, along with its cost. This table is displayed in the lower right part of the screen and will automatically appear if you have an active subscription; provided that there is supplier availability for the product being ordered. For more information on Pubstock, please see the Pubstock section (page 398). Check that the Invoice Price (InvPr), discount, and selling price (Sell) are correct. The field just to the right of the Sell field is the PM (Profit Margin) on the item based on the invoice price, discount and selling price.

When everything is accurate, press d to save the entry. Enter your clerk code if required.

TIP: Pressing 6 before choosing to create a New order card will allow you to login your clerk code and password, preventing you from having to type it in before each entry.

If you incorrectly enter and save an order, highlight it on screen and Edt (edit) or Del (delete) it.

Automatic Selling Price Calculation Bookmanager has the ability to automatically calculate the selling price of an item based on the information in the InvPr and discount fields. Assuming that you would like to make at least a 40% profit margin (PM) on any given item, the selling price will be calculated automatically whenever the Sell field is zeroed out.

For example, let’s assume that you are ordering an item that sells for $10.00, and your discount on it is 25%. Enter 10.00 into the InvPr field, and 25 into the discount field that comes immediately after it. Next, enter 0 into the Sell field and press R. Bookmanager will automatically mark it up and calculate your selling price as $12.50, and show your profit margin as 40%.

An alternative way to enter the same item would be to put 7.50 in the InvPr field and 0 as the discount.

46 ORDERS | Building pending orders

Then, when you put 0 into the Sell field and press R, Bookmanager will calculate the selling price as $12.50, and your PM as 40%.

Both ways of entering the same item work because Bookmanager uses both the InvPr field and the discount field to calculate your cost on any item. So, $10.00 less 25% ($10 – $2.50 = $7.50) works out to a cost of $7.50, as does $7.50 less 0%.

If you wish to make a higher profit margin, such as 50%, type 50 into the PM field (immediately following the Sell field). Bookmanager will automatically change the selling price to $15.00.

When entering an order from a foreign supplier, Bookmanager will automatically convert the InvPr (entered in foreign funds) to the domestic currency selling price based on the currency exchange rate and markup rate, as specified for that supplier in the 3 Supplier file. If you buy one foreign dollar for $1.50 domestic, then specify that supplier’s Exch rate field as 1.5 and the Markup by field as 1.5.

Hint: Don’t worry about entering the correct prices/discounts into the order card if you do not know what they are. These fields are also accessible from 9 Receiving when the item arrives so you can match them to the supplier’s invoice. These prices are not set in stone!

Mass Entry The Mass order function in 1 Orders is useful when you are faced with entering large quantities of titles from a specific supplier, such as building a fall order from a publisher’s catalogue.

When you press Mass, type in the supplier code and press R. Next, Bookmanager asks for an Order number. This field should be left blank unless you are entering an order that has already been placed with a supplier or with a publisher’s representative. For the purpose of this example, we are entering items that have not yet been placed on order, so simply press R, and you will be taken to the Qty field of the new order. You will not have access to either the Order Date or the Cancel Date if you are creating a Pending order.

At this point, the preliminary information for this order has been entered. Bookmanager will be waiting for you to start entering the individual items starting with the Qty and ISBN, just as if you were creating a New order. Notice that the supplier field in the order list portion of the screen cannot be accessed, as it was specified in the Mass Entry Defaults. After pressing d to save the first entry, the cursor goes back to the Qty field, ready for the next item. Pressing E will end the Mass Entry function and return you to the original Orders screen.

Recording Manually Placed Orders through Mass Suppose you have placed an order with a supplier’s representative using a catalogue or order form, and the rep has taken it away with them. The purchase order should be entered into Bookmanager to accurately reflect what is on order, and to make the receiving process more efficient when the order arrives. The easiest way to do this is to use Mass order entry from the 1 Orders file.

After selecting Mass and entering your clerk ID, type in the supplier’s code into the first field. Then press R to advance to the Order# field. Because you are recording items that in reality are already on order with the supplier, the PO# given to the sales rep should be entered here.

47 ORDERS | Building pending orders

NOTE: When giving a PO# to a sales rep, do not use one that has already been used by Bookman- ager. You can find the last PO# used by going into 8 Order Processing and selecting Misc. This will prevent the manual order from being merged with one already entered into Bookmanager. You may even use letters instead of numbers to differentiate between orders placed with Bookman- ager and ones placed manually.

Whenever there is a PO# attached to an entry in the Orders file, Bookmanager assumes that the supplier has received your request for this title. Also notice that once the PO# has been entered into the Order# field, the status becomes Ordr, signifying that the items to be entered have already been ordered with the supplier.

Next, specify an Order Date. This can be the actual date that you placed the order with the sales rep, or the date the order is being entered into Bookmanager. The Cancel Date comes last, indicating when you told the sales rep to cancel any items not already shipped. Generally, a cancel date is 60 days from the day the order is placed, but you are free to choose any date you feel is appropriate. If these are to be new publications, make sure the cancel date is after all the titles have been published.

Now that all the Mass Entry Defaults have been entered, simply start entering the items in the manner described in the previous section. Notice that the Supl, PO#, Stat and Date fields are all inaccessible. Skipping these fields saves you from having to redundantly fill them every time, making the data entry process more efficient.

Separating Pending Orders for the same Supplier Bookmanager automatically groups together all pending orders for the same supplier. There will be times when you may need to create separate pending orders for the same supplier. For example, you may already have a pending order for one supplier that consists of general stock reorders. That supplier’s mass-market new release catalogue just arrived, and you want to order from it, but you do not want to mix new releases with the backlist titles. In this case, when starting to use the Mass routine, put in the supplier code followed by a space, and then a letter from A to Z (for example, PRH Z). When the time comes to send the order through 8 Order Processing, the orders will appear on separate lines and they can be processed separately, but Bookmanager will know that they should be ordered from the same supplier.

Only use numbers to separate your orders if you have an alternate shipping address, or if you are a Multi-Store user. In either of these cases, using a number will assign the corresponding address listed in your company information screen [found in A Setup, q) Your Company Name] as the shipping address. For example, when you create a pending order, separate it using a space and a 2 at the end of the supplier code. When the order is processed, the purchase order will use your second shipping address (or second store address) and regular billing address.

Ordering from the Inventory file Often times, and for most general staff, you will place something on order from the 2 Inventory file after performing an Inventory Search. This need arises most often when you are looking up a request from a customer. Imagine that a customer approaches you, requesting a book that has sold out or that you do not stock. At this point, simply press Order. An Order pick list will come up with a list of

48 ORDERS | Building pending orders

existing orders for the item, as well as a pending order line. By default, a new Pending Order line will be selected at the top of the list, and you simply have to type the order quantity desired. If you want to attach this order (often a customer order) to an existing order, whether it is Pending or already On Order with the supplier, simply arrow down to the desired order and type the quantity you would like to Reserve from that order for this customer. Bookmanager will automatically break out the quantity typed from the main order, and leave the remaining copies on order for floor stock.

Confirm the data in all the fields, just as if you were entering the order as New in the Orders file, and press d. (How to attach a customer’s name to the order will be addressed later in this section). You will then be asked for your clerk code. Once your clerk code is entered, notice that the Order History section of the screen starts with a pending entry for the number of copies specified, and there is the same number in either the S/O OO (Special Order On Order) or the P OO field (Pending On Order, with the field in green to signify the order has not yet been sent to the supplier).

You may also prefer to enter some orders through the 2 Inventory file if you only have a couple of different titles to order at the time, or if you notice something that you do not have that you think should be in stock.

Reordering from a report In the 0 Reports option located in the Main Options menu of Bookmanager, you will find several options for creating standard reports. There are six categories of reports you can use in this menu, and two of them will help you create lists of suggested items to reorder. They are 1) Custom Inventory Reports and 3) Sales Reports. Either of these categories will contain options that will help with reordering decisions in an efficient manner. Custom Inventory Reports comes preloaded with some useful tools, all of which can be modified to your liking, and any number of new reports can be added to the list.

1) Custom Inventory Reports

Sales Reports #1-5 To compile a sales report through this area go into 0 Reports from the Main Menu and go into 1 Custom Inventory Reports. The first options that appear are Sales Reports numbered 1 through 5, b to any of these and press R. Select Scope, and enter the date range for which you would like to see sales. If this is done on a daily basis, the range should be from yesterday’s date through to today’s date (all dates should be entered as mm/dd/yy, and you can specify a time if you need to be that precise). Confirm that the Types field contains what kinds of items you would like to see records for: S for Sales, A for Adjustments (books that have been manually adjusted out or in by your staff), and/or H for Holds (books put on hold for your customers but not yet purchased) and press R. Transfers only concern Multi-Store users (stock transfers between locations).

The Index by is the order in which the titles in the report will appear, and you can choose up to three indexes. Index options include Title, Class, ISBN etc. The primary field will be the way the report is generally indexed, and the secondary and tertiary ones will be how the report is indexed within the primary order. The index restricts the type of search that can be done within the report to only the primary index chosen. For example, if the primary index is Class, then a Search within the report can only be by Class. The ability to search within a report is not always of importance, depending on the

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purpose of the report, so do not let the restricted searching ability deter you from selecting a useful index. The most common Index By options are, and in this order: Class, Author, then Title. This is chosen usually to reflect the organizational hierarchy of product and how books are physically organized in your store (class = which shelf; author = author’s last name - generally how books are shelved in a section; then finally title = books by the same author are generally organized alphabetically by title).

The Columns can also be changed. When you press C, you are able to change how the information is presented to you. The options are presented in alphabetical order, so you can edit the prexisting columns by pressing b or t, and pressing R on the option you want in each field. Use the Help box to do more advanced options like expanding and contracting a column width, or Inserting a column field between two existing ones. The max width of the report can be whatever you like, as you can scroll infinitely to the right on the screen, but once you go over 79 (indicated in red), the report will no longer print completely on a standard 8.5”x11” letter sheet of paper. Pressing E will save the column changes and bring you back to the report.

NOTE: If you choose a Scope other than Sales from period or Sales inv# range, certain columns will produce no results. For example, you need a selected range of sales for the Sls (sales) columns to produce results, as this column needs a start and end date to tabulate sales from.

You are also able to edit the kind of information pulled into the report by pressing Filters and then selecting either Edit, Delete or New to change the filters. For the purpose of reordering items sold in a period, no filters are needed, so Delete any existing ones and press R. The Filters section should read No Filters.

Now Update the report. You will see some “scanned” and “matched” numbers compiling at the very bottom of the screen, and a Building report box on the right. When the update has completed, the available commands will reappear at the bottom of the screen. Press d to view the report. The list of matching titles will appear on the bottom half of the screen, with the inventory card for the currently highlighted item at the top. Scroll through the list using b, t, d and u, stopping when you come to an item that you would like to reorder. To place the item On Pending Order, select Order and enter a quantity, just as if you were ordering from 2 Inventory. Choose the supplier you would like to order it from, and any applicable letter codes you want to code that pending order with (e.g.: HCP, or HCP A if you want a letter code). When you are done, you have taken care of reordering any stock sold the previous day(s).

Custom Report 3A) Reorder: Below Min O/H

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You may want a minimum stock level for a number of items in your store (classics, certain kids books that you will always stock, local bestsellers, etc.). Such items can be flagged in Bookmanager, and a report can be created to find the items whose on hand level has fallen below the required stock level. Bookmanager can also increase your pending orders to meet the minimum stock levels with the touch of a button. Minimums are set up in the Inventory file by using the Min O/H field, and if an item falls below its minimum, it will be highlighted in red.

Running the Report If you choose to make use of the Min O/H field, you should run the 3A REORDER: BELOW MIN/OH report from time to time (approximately once a week). This report is accessed by selecting 0 Reports from the Main Menu, then choosing 1) Custom Inventory Reports. Highlight option 3A REORDER: BELOW MIN/OH and press R.

The Scope and Index can be changed in the same way explained in the Sales Report section, but the default looks at your entire inventory. By default, the filters are as shown, but others can be added as well. The first filter specifies that the report should include items whose stock level plus the number of copies coming into the store is less than the Minimum O/H set in Inventory. The second filter excludes any items whose Minimum O/H field is set to a value that is less than 1. This is because a minimum of zero is effectively no minimum, and a negative minimum O/H tells Bookmanager that this item should never be placed on order again.

Finally, Update the report and press d to view it on the screen. Now select Xtra and press a) In- crease orders to meet MinOH in Inventory.

Answer Yes, and Bookmanager will scan the items in the report, automatically creating pending orders. A list will be displayed showing each item and how many copies are being ordered to meet that minimum. The total number of books and their retail value will be shown at the bottom of the screen. Press any key to return to the report listing; E will exit the report. These orders have now been added to 8) Order Processing, and placed on order under their Default Supplier (indicated below by the green arrow):

Custom Report 3B) Reorder: O/S and Not On Order From time to time you may forget to reorder titles that have sold out. Running this report with the pre-built filters will list any items that have no stock on hand and none on order. Items regarded as “special orders only” (specified by the S/O classification) will be excluded, as will items that havea

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Min O/H of less than one (meaning they are flagged to not reorder). Of course, there may be items listed in your inventory file that you no longer carry or reorder because they simply do not sell. This report will exclude such items based on sales in the past five months. If you do not like the listing that this report provides, you can change the conditions of this report by selecting Filters from the Report Layout screen, then highlighting the appropriate filter and choosing to Edit or Delete an existing one, or add a New one. Update and view the custom report as you would with any other, and simply press Order on any items you want to bring back into the store.

Custom Report 3C) Reorder: Based on Sales Performance This is a report that you may use to determine what to reorder based on the sales for any item in the last two months. This report is designed to draw your attention to items that have low stock levels relative to sales. Therefore, based on the current sales trend, it may be possible for you to run out of this item soon unless you order more. We recommend that you Update this report every two to four weeks.

0) REPORTS- Option 3) Sales Reports There are five Sales Reports in this directory, and two of them that can help you with reorders, either on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. We will go through how to use those two order reports here, and explore the other three reports in the 0) Reports section of this manual

a) Bestseller report This report is customisable to show you a list of bestsellers based on the criteria you choose, and is generated through extracting entries from the 4 POS file. Press Update. From this screen you can select how you want this Bestseller report to be organized. You can select a date range (daily, weekly, etc), as well as a scope. The scope field is broken down into two sections- Class and Supplier. Putting information into either of these fields will allow you to sort the sales in the date range specified above from a specific class in your store (i.e. FICTION or BIOGRAPHY), or you can leave the class field blank and enter a Supplier code in the supplier field. This will sort your report to only show you best-selling titles by that supplier, for the date range specified.

If you leave both of these fields blank, the list will simply be generated based on the date range. Specify how you want the results grouped, using None, Class, or Supplier.

The next field will allow you to set a limit on how many titles you want to see. 10, 50, 100 etc. Or you can leave this field blank and it will bring up every title you have sold in the date range specified. There are also fields where you can exclude items that appear in the report. These exclusions work based on price or on # of copies sold.

When you have finished entering the relevant information and you want the report to generate, press d. This will bring up a list of your bestsellers. At the top of the screen you will see the date range you specified, and underneath that line it will indicate how many titles are in the report [for example “Top 50 titles in each group (with at least 1 copies sold)”]. Underneath this it will list your bestsellers numerically, from most to least sold. You can b to look at each of these titles individually. From here, if you press R on any of the highlighted titles, you will be brought to that item’s 2 Inventory listing. If you press R again it will show you the items inventory card at the top half of the screen, and the bottom half of the screen will be your report listing.

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From here you can use this report to Order books, or Edit the item’s inventory card. You can also just press b to scan through the report to see what has sold and how many copies, if you aren’t looking to re-order while looking at this report.

TIP: When viewing any Report in Bookmanager, press Print to bring up the print dialogue screen. Here, you can choose to print physical copies, email, create PDFs, etc.

c) Reorder Alert based on recent sales Updating this report will give you a list of items that were sold during a specified recent period (ex 1 day, 2 days, 5 days etc) and are now out of stock (O/H is 0). This report is useful to catch up on items that should have been reordered when they sold out, but were overlooked. This report can also be scheduled to update in the overnight routines, and will alert you to view it the morning you start Bookmanager.

Special Orders Managing customer special orders is an important part of ordering. Bookmanager can keep track of any special order from the time that the request is taken, to the time that the item is purchased.

Suppose a customer comes into the store looking for a specific book. Our suggested first step is to search for the item in Inventory (find more on searching under Inventory page 71) or by doing a Titlelink lookup search to determine if the book is available. If the book is not On-Hand, you can place an order by pressing Order on the highlighted title (just like a standard stock order discussed previously), and typing the quantity to order. When you get to the Customer field, enter the customer’s phone number, and if that finds no match, type in their last name comma first name (e.g.: smith, bob).

TIP: Don’t worry about capitalization, as Bookmanager will automatically capitalize the first letter of each word upon saving when entering new inventory or customer information. The same goes for phone numbers and hyphens; Bookmanager will add hyphens automatically!

If the customer already exists in Bookmanager, the 6 Customer screen will appear to confirm that you entered the correct customer. Press R to confirm, or Search for the correct one. If no similar customer names have been entered into Bookmanager, a Customer not found box appears with options to add the name as New, or press E to re-enter it. For this example, we will assume that the customer has no record in Bookmanager, so select to enter them as New. Record any information you wish to retain about the customer, at least entering their last and first name. Press d to save the entry.

NOTE: If the customer’s phone number was entered first into the Customer field of the order, it will already appear in the new customer entry.

The cursor will then be flashing in the PO# field. This is where you enter the customer’s purchase order number if they provide one for you. Most often, PO#’s are only provided/needed for school or institute orders, so you will usually just leave the PO# blank. Pressing R will advance your cursor to the next field, or enter the PO# number and press u to bring up the Customer PO Header box.

This is where you may enter any information relevant to the customer’s purchase order. At present, the information entered into these fields cannot be made into conditions for any reports; it is simply

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there for your information. Enter any particulars about the customer’s PO and press d to save them.

Confirm that all the other information regarding the order is correct (supplier, price, etc…). The large field in the lower right corner of the screen is reserved for any important details about the order, such as a possible deposit on the order, or certain times when the customer can be reached.

We highly recommend you utilize the Order Notes field for every customer order you make. Typing the supplier you created the order with, the price you quoted or estimated the customer, and the estimated pick-up time the customer can expect will save you from any disagreements down the road. If something goes wrong with an order (wrong price! took too long!), you will have this note to fall back on. Type exactly what you told the customer about the order so there is little “He said! She said!” misunderstandings. You can also use this area to say things like “Christmas present, do not call!”, as these notes are seen and printed at the time of receiving, and act as instructions to your staff.

Following these are the Review date fields, which will be described later. When you are satisfied with all the information you have entered, press d to save, and enter a clerk code if it is requested. The item is now on pending order for the customer you chose.

NOTE: Everything you put into the special order fields will appear on the slip or thermal label printed when the item is received, if you choose to print S/O slips.

Reserving Items The Rsv (Reserve) command has two functions. It can be used to put existing stock on hold in the 4 Point-of-Sale for a customer, or to reserve an already ordered item for them.

To reserve an already ordered item for a customer (one that has not yet been received), Search for that item in 2 Inventory. When the item is on the screen, select Reserve to bring up the Reserve for customer box.

Make sure the option reading Order reservation is highlighted and press R. The Order Reserve pick list will come up.

Use the t b keys to highlight the line that contains the order that you wish to reserve from (not the pending one). Enter the quantity that the customer has requested, along with their name, etc, just as if you were creating a new special order using Order. Press d to save the reservation. If you press Reserve on an item that is not on order, it acts the same as if you had just pressed Order. In a

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sense, the functions are interchangeable.

To reserve an item for a customer that is currently in stock, get the item on screen in Inventory, Re- ports, Orders, or anywhere in Bookmanager where you can see the inventory card, and again select Rsv. Highlight the Inventory reservation and press R.

The Inventory Reserve pick list will come up, with a list of existing held transactions for that item. Highlight an existing one if you wish to add to it, or highlight the topmost blank line to create a new one. Type in the number of copies you wish to reserve for the customer. Then type in the customer’s name, etc, completing the entry just like an order reservation. When you are finished, the POS will be updated accordingly. Please refer to the 4 Point-of-Sale section for more information on managing held transactions.

NOTE: If you select the Inventory Reservation option from the Reserve for customer box, and the item you are currently highlighting does not have a quantity in the AvailO/H field, a flashing red message will come up stating that there is no stock available.

Standing Orders If you carry magazines, you have probably had a customer ask if you can let them know whenever the new edition of a certain magazine comes out. Bookmanager can handle situations like this with what we call the “standing order”. Standing orders in Bookmanager can only be effective for items that have the same product number in the ISBN field. Therefore, if you get a new edition with a different ISBN/UPC/EAN number, you must Edit the ISBN field of the original inventory record so that it contains the new number.

That said, here is how you handle standing orders in Bookmanager. First, place the item on pending order. As you enter the order, be sure to put the customer’s name in the Cust field. In the CustPO field, enter the word STANDING and press R. When you press d to save the order, a message will appear explaining the STANDING order function.

Answer Yes to create the standing order, and No if you made a mistake. Selecting Yes will change the order from Pending to OnOrder, using the PO# STAND. When the item arrives, the receiving process will automatically create another standing order for the customer.

To cancel a STANDING order, simply look up the order under 6 Customers, in 2 Inventory, or in 1 Orders. Edit the order, arrow down to the PO# field, and blank out the word STANDING.

Also change the order Stat (status) field to COS (cancelled). It is also a good idea to leave a note in the orders notes field that the customer requested this standing order be halted. This method will retain a record of the cancelled standing order in case it needs to be referenced later. (see below screenshot)

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Reviewing Orders Bookmanager can also remind you of orders that need your attention. Suppose Jane Doe comes into your store one month before her sister’s birthday. She wants to place a special order for a book that will be a gift, but wants to be notified of the order’s status within two weeks so she can be sure that the book will arrive in time. You need a way to remind yourself to review this order and its status.

Flagging the order When creating the special order by using either the Order or Reserve command, the last two fields create a Review Date. The first of the two fields is the number of days from today you would like to review the order. The second field is the date (mm/dd/yy) you would like to review the order. Since Jane would like to be notified in two weeks, you can either put 14 in the field for the number of days, or enter a date that is two weeks from the current one. Entering information into either field will automatically update the other with the corresponding value. Pressing d will then save the order, and in two weeks the Review date field will be highlighted in grey and a red Orders are up for eview message will appear at the Main options screen.

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If you decide to flag an order for review after you have already entered the order, simply Srch for the item in inventory, orders, or customers; highlight it, and select Wrev (Review) to access the Review date/days.

Reviewing the flagged orders Bookmanager’s Main Menu will display a red reminder telling you that Orders are up for eview when the review date has been reached for an item or multiple items. To view these orders, press Review. Bookmanager will jump to the Orders screen, and display the list of all books up for review, sorted by review date, oldest to newest. Titles that have passed their review dates will be at the top of the list, and the review days will be a red negative number. The review date will also be highlighted in grey for those entries.

As you review each order, you can access the Review Date by selecting Wrev. If you wish to review the order again at a later date, change the review date to that day. If there is no need to review an order again, remove it from the review list by setting it to either the current date or to 0 (zero) days. Receiving an item will also remove the review date.

TIP: This function is also useful when an important new release has been ordered, and you want to be reminded a week before the proposed release date to verify that your order is going to be shipped on time. It will also help you keep tabs on orders placed for upcoming events.

Keep in mind that you may wish to set review dates only for items where it is very important to do so, or else you may find yourself frequently having long lists to review. It is also important to ensure that you clean up the items as you review them by setting new review dates, or by removing them from the list. This will prevent the reminder from appearing at Main Menu after you have already reviewed the necessary items.

NOTE: To print a slip for an order as a reminder, bring that order up in 1 Orders and select Print. Select 4) Receiving style special Order slip, and choose whether you want the slip to print on the Receipt printer or see a Preview. From the Preview screen press Print again and select one of the seven options available to you.

Searching the Orders file The Srch command in 1 Orders works in the same manner as it does in other areas of Bookmanager. In the case of searching by title, only the first fifteen characters of the title are used. Press R on the blank Recent search field to see your most recent orders, and t through the list to see older orders.

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Practical searching tips When information is needed on a single order for one particular item, we have found it best to search from 2 Inventory, and then use F (or History command) to select the desired order and R to jump to the Orders file to view this entry.

Looking up a specific customer’s order can be done from either 1 Orders or 6 Customers. With the latter, the F key (or History command) will allow you to highlight the desired order and press R to jump to the appropriate entry in the Orders file. The History (Hst) command will work like this from most areas of Bookmanager.

NOTE: Only orders that match the search criteria will be displayed in the list. Pressing R will expand the list to include the next entries in the sequence.

Copying an order The Cpy (Copy) command will copy the currently displayed order when you are in 1 Orders menu and create a new pending order. This command can be useful to cut down on order entry for multiple items with similar information. An example of this is a number of books within the same series that would all have the same author, supplier, and a similar title. The Cpy command is found in many places throughout Bookmanager. Refer to the tip area at the bottom of the screen to see when it is applicable.

Transferring an order The Trf (Transfer) command is really a simplified edit function that is used to transfer an existing order from one supplier to another without changing the PO# or status. For example, there may be a pending order for an item that was mistakenly entered with the wrong supplier code. To correct the mistake, bring the order up on the screen in the Orders file and select Trf. Enter the correct supplier code and press d to save the change. If you need to transfer the contents of an entire PO, it will be easier to do it from 8 Order Processing. Refer to Order Processing on page 241 for further instructions.

Orders Reports From the Main options menu, under 0) Reports, there are six reports available to you under 4) Orders Reports. Several of these order reports can also be accessed by pressing Prt while in 1 Orders. When a report is selected, the contents from the most recently updated report will be displayed. Press Update to update that report, or press Files to display a list of previously updated ones.

Each of these reports will provide you with various options for displaying the information on the screen, as well as the ability to Prt the information to your main printer or for exporting.

a) General orders reports General order reports are used when any of the other orders reports do not fit your needs. There are many different types of orders that can be included or excluded from a general orders report, mak-

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ing these reports very flexible. It is unnecessary to list all of the possibilities for these reports, but the following example should help explain how they work.

Suppose you would like to know how many dollars worth of product you have on order with a certain supplier. To determine the answer, access the Orders reports in one of the ways mentioned above. Select a) General orders reports, then push Update to create a new report. Since we are only concerned about items on order with one particular supplier, choose 3) Supplier (active) and press R. Choosing “active” as opposed to “all” will exclude any cancelled or received orders – ones that are not currently on order. You then need to enter a supplier code. Next, you will select the order in which you would like the listing to appear by selecting a Sort by. For this example, sorting by Order# may be the most useful way because it will also provide totals for each purchase order.

After selecting how you would like the report sorted, the Filter options appear. Since we want to know the value of all items currently on order with this supplier, there’s no need to make any filters Manda- tory. We do need to Exclude pending, cancelled and received orders, though. To do this, use the b to put your cursor in the field next to Pending Orders and press Exclude. Do the same in the fields next to Received Orders and Cancelled Orders. There is no need for a date range in this report because we are not interested in orders with a status falling within a certain month or week. The final option says Totals only? Putting a Yes in this field will only provide you with dollar values on order. Leave it at No if you want a listing of the actual titles on order. Press d to begin building the report. When the building is complete, the results will be displayed on the screen for you to scroll through. The basic inventory commands are available on the command menu at the bottom of the screen. View will show you the inventory card for the currently highlighted item, and Hst will show you the history for the item. You can Prt the report, or press Deletereport to delete the report altogether.

TIP: Most places in Bookmanager, when viewing a list of titles, pressing View will load the highlighted item’s inventory card on the top of the screen. b) Pending orders To generate a list of pending orders with one or all suppliers, select b) Pending Orders from the 4) Orders Reports menu. Choosing Files will display a list of previously updated reports for you to select from, or Update will allow you to create a new report. When selecting to Update the report, you will need to enter a supplier code. Leave the field blank to include all suppliers. Pressing R or d will build the report, and the matching items will be displayed on the screen when building is complete. The same commands are available for this report as for a general orders report. c) Special orders This report will give you a list of all active special orders, detailing much of the information found on an order record from 1 Orders. When Updating this report, choose the order in which you would like the titles to be listed: customer Name, Cust-type (customer type), Date entered or Title. Then choose which customer types to include in the list, referring to the Cust-Type field in the 6 Customer file. If you wish to include all customer types, leave this field blank. Otherwise, enter each type that you wish to include, without any separations such as spaces or commas. d will begin building the report.

NOTE: Customer Type is a way to group your customers, much like classes or section codes do

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for your inventory. Those groups will provide sales overviews on end-of-day sales tapes, and for reporting such as described above. More on Cust-Type under 6 Customers page 179. d) No-show orders now past their cancel date This report not only lists items on order that have aged past their cancellation date, it also scans the orders file and changes the status on any active orders past the cancellation date to CNW (cancelled no word).

This report should be Updated weekly to notify yourself of any orders that are past the cancellation date and have not yet been received. Such orders need to be addressed if the items are still needed. If a publication was postponed, or if the item was ordered with the wrong ISBN, you need to reorder. This is especially important to maintain good service and report with your customers. Bookmanager’s Month End process updates this report automatically just in case it fails to be updated more often.

TIP: To ensure that the No-show orders report and the special order slips associated with it are updated on a weekly basis, try updating the report through Bookmanager’s Scheduler. The routine is called Scan Orders for entries past cancel date. (See Scheduler page 379)

When you select to Update the report, Bookmanager will warn you that doing so may change the status of certain orders, and ask you if you wish to proceed with a Yes/No option. Selecting Yes will build the report, and it will generate slips for any special orders that were cancelled by the report. When the building is complete, a Documents found in the \REPORTS directory box will appear showing two filenames: CANCLORD.TXT (no show orders now past their cancel date) and CANCL_SO.TXT (special order slips for special orders just cancelled). Simply highlight the report you wish to look at and press R. Choosing to Print will send the report to your main printer.

NOTE: The Documents found in the \REPORTS directory box will reappear every time you exit and re-enter Bookmanager until both reports are either Printed or Deleted. e) Slow arrivers (orders not yet received) On occasion you will need to know if you have any orders that should have been received by now, but they have not yet reached their cancellation date. Such orders may have been lost by the supplier, or are new releases whose publication date has been postponed.

As with other reports in this area, use Update to refresh the contents. Specify the threshold age for an order under which all other orders will be excluded. Entering a supplier code or PO# will limit the report to only those items; leaving these two fields blank will include all items on order (not including backorders). Finally, select how you would like the list to be indexed.

Be aware that if an item’s publication date plus thirty days has not yet passed, the item will not be shown on the report. If the report appears to include a large number of new releases, check that their publication dates are accurate in the Inventory file. You can change the publication dates for all items on a certain PO (or pending order) by going into 8 Order Processing and searching for the PO. You then select Misc, Change publication dates. You will then be prompted to enter the new publication date for all items on the order.

60 ORDERS | Orders Reports f) S/O slips from no-show orders This report cannot be Updated on its own. It coincides with No-show orders now past their cancel date, and they are updated simultaneously. This listing can also be found in 0 Reports and b until the R) Files in \Reports directory is highlighted. Press R. Then you can b until you get to the CANCL_SO.TXT field and press enter. From here this information can be viewed and Printed. You can also view previous slips for cancelled special orders by selecting Files.

61 INVENTORY | The Inventory Screen

Inventory The inventory file is the heart of the Bookmanager program. It has links to every other area of Book- manager, and has a complete history of your stock. Any time you order, receive or return an item, this record will be updated. It is where you can search to find titles you currently carry and ones that you had in the past. Ordering of books that you have listed in Inventory requires a few simple keystrokes. There is no limit to the number of titles that you can store in this file, but for management purposes it should be carefully maintained so it has only the relevant titles. Old and outdated entries can be easily purged from the system. Inventory is accessed by pressing 2 Inventory from the Main options menu.

The Inventory Screen The inventory screen displays all the information about titles that you have entered into your system. The core information is listed at the top portion of the screen. Many of the fields are self-explanatory, but we will review the ones that are not obvious.

Cost code

To the right of the Price field you will find a PC (profit/cost code) field. At a glance this gives you a coded reference to your profit margin and average cost on the item. In the above example, the 4401176 tells you that if you sell this at the current price of $21.00, you will make a 44% profit margin, and that its average cost (from receiving) is $11.76. This field is automatically updated by your most

62 INVENTORY | The Inventory Screen

recent receiving records and current retail price for this item. More information on the cost is available in the History portion of the inventory screen.

Note field At the bottom of the inventory card’s fields there is a field that allows for a brief note regarding the highlighted item. This will give you a quick reference to any information that is important for this title. It is accessible when you are doing a New entry, or when you Edt (Edit) a title.; simply b until your cursor is in the Notes field. You have 56 characters max to work with in the Notes field. For example: you could specify a staff favourite here (staff pick Jim); an award this book has received (e.g.: 2016 Giller Longlist); or if this inventory item has a particularly long title or sub-title, the overflow from the Titl (title) field can go here.

NOTE: If a longer, more detailed note is necessary you can use the Msg (Message) command, which will give you access to 6 lines, 78 characters each, totalling 468 characters max. In future, this field will be visible in the inventory file.

You can also add special indicators into this Notes field that will allow you to discount items, or apply special pricing. Press u to see the available indicators and their functions.

If the indicator has been added in a correct format it will be in red type within the note field. The override code can be placed anywhere in the Notes field, but must be at least one space away from any other text for it to work.

TIP: Inputing //%0 in the Notes field will force an inventory item to never have a discount applied to it. For example, certain items may always be short discounted when ordered (e.g.: expensive textbooks, print-on-demand titles, etc.), or perhaps an item is a fundraiser calendar with the proceeds going to a local charity. In those situations, you would never want those item’s sell price to be discounted by any amount, so placing //%0 will ensure that no class file or POS discounts will be applied.

If you want to know how to set up discounts or sale prices for a batch of items, see the section on Inventory eXtra options, P) Promotional sale items at the end of this section.

On Hand/On Order indicators In the upper right portion of the screen there is a display of current inventory and order levels for the

63 INVENTORY | The Inventory Screen

highlighted item. These fields are as follows:

Total OH (Total on hand): This is the complete on hand total for this item, including all pending returns and held sales.

Min. OH (Minimum on hand): This is the minimum desired stock level for this item at all times. By default, all inventory has a blank Min O/H (no minimum). A Min O/H of -1 indicates that this item has been flagged as “do not order” and should not be ordered. If you attempt to order an item that has a Min O/H of -1 (or has been delisted or deleted), you will get a warning from the ordering screen that requires you to press E to override. When the Min O/H field is highlighted in red, the Avail OH (available on hand) is lower than the Min O/H.

Backroom If you have too many copies in stock to display on the shelf, you can add a portion to the backroom or overstock area of your store. This tells you how many you have in storage or not on the shelf for sale. You can schedule a routine to automatically check for backroom stock needed on floor (Main- taining Stock Levels page 76), or you can manually update an Inventory Report (page 295) to do the same.

PendRtns (Pending returns): This lists how many of this item you have ready to be sent back to your supplier. They are still listed in your total on hand because they have not been actually sent back yet. They do not appear as part of the available on hand (aOH or AvailOH) figure.

Held POS (Held in Point-Of-Sale/Customer reservations): This is the number of copies that are in “Held” sales in the POS. They are still in stock, but not available for other customers.

S/O OO (Special orders on order): The number of special orders (not for stock) that you have on order. These are orders reserved for customers. When a S/O is received, it usually becomes a Held sale in the POS.

P OO (Pending orders + Available on order): The field next to the P indicates any Pending stock orders for this item. These Pending orders are for stock, and not reserved for customers. This field is highlighted in green. Once an order has been sent to a supplier, it appears in the OO (on order, seen as aOO in other places) field. This is an easy way to gauge whether something is on its way to your store, or still waiting to be sent.

Avail OH (Available on hand): This is the quantity that you have on hand that is actually available for purchase. It refers to the Total

64 INVENTORY | The Inventory Screen

OH – PendRtns – Held POS . In the example below, this equation would be: 5 – 2 – 1 = 2.

When a customer asks about a particular title, and whether it is available for either purchasing or ordering, these are the fields you should refer to. The two Available (Avail OO and Avail OH) fields are the ones that are important when checking on a title for a customer.

In the side example, there are only two currently available for your customer because some items currently on hand are either being returned, or they are spoken for. Also, your total number on order is 7 copies, 2 of which of yet to be sent to the supplier, and 5 that should be on their way.

Monthly list of receiving and sales Across the middle of the screen you will see a display of the 14-month received and sold history. This gives you a quick look at how many copies of this title have been received or sold on a month-to- month basis. To the right of the monthly columns are the total number received and sold (including any from beyond 14 months ago).

If there is a negative number listed in the received column, this means that you returned that quantity in the month specified. A zero (0) in any column means that the net activity was zero. If you received a total of 12 copies in one month, but also returned 12, you would see a 0 listed, rather than a blank.

Colour Coded History When examining the 14-month sales and receiving history, it’s not obvious if you had stock during all or part of each month. For example, you may buy one copy and sell it a day or two later. You reorder and after a few days, stock arrives and it also quickly sells. Looking at the monthly history, it might appear that you are perfectly managing stock levels. However, it is entirely possible that you could have sold more copies if you always had at least one copy available. The colour coding option of the 14-month history will to help determine if sales opportunities were missed.

This display option can be toggled on or off, and is found in A Setup, under a) General. Option q) Colour code Inventory 14-month history based on stock levels? turns this colour coding on and off.

What the colours mean Green - in stock for all of the month (good).

65 INVENTORY | The Inventory Screen

Olive - in stock for at least 80% of the month (ok).

Red - in stock for less than 80% of the month (maybe not enough stocked).

Blue - not in stock because it was not yet published (no issue, just helpful to know at a glance).

Grey - published but never been carried (who cares?).

For titles that should be in stock most of the time, you should see consecutive green or olive months. Months in red indicate that you may have lost an opportunity for sales because you were out of stock up to 80% of the time.

Finally, if the current month appears in a bright color, it means that you went out of stock within the past seven days and have not reordered any.

Backlist information Below the two Monthly Receiving/Sales lines are also a series of grey numbers that correspond to sales of this title at participating bookstores, called the Backlist.

66 INVENTORY | The Inventory Screen

If stores choose to share sales (highly recommended!), they enable a scheduled routine that anonymously sends us their sales of ISBNs from the previous week. You can then add the Scheduler routine 34 Get Backlist from bookmanager.com to download a new Backlist file every Tuesday morning (the Backlist file is rebuilt every Monday afternoon). So far, we have over 240 independent stores sending us weekly sales data, which we use to build title ranking and bestsellers reports utilized by those participating stores. This extra bit of sales history is very helpful in predicting and keeping up with book selling trends, and is invaluable to buyers trying to ensure they have enough stock of a title for a coming influx of sales.

Capped by a right parentheses on the far left, you are given the number of stores that have sold at least one copy of this title in its history, in this case that number being 79. If this number is preceded with an N, this indicates that sales for this item have started in the last two weeks (a New title). If the right-handed bracket is replaced by a C, this indicates that at least 60% of the stores selling this book are Christian bookstores. If the bracket is replaced by a W, it means 60% of the stores selling this are from Western Canada (Saskatchewan and over), and an E means it’s selling predominantly in the East (Manitoba and over).

Under the Ttl column on the far right you see the total number sold during the past week (17 in this example).

If you do not wish to send us your anonymous weekly sales, that is perfectly fine and we respect your store’s desire for privacy. That said, you will not be privy to this peer sales information, and title search results will not be organized by rank (what is popular and selling amongst indies).

Last Sold and Last Received Below the Monthly Listing of Receiving and Sales and Peer Sales lines is a quick short-form showing the last time this item was received and the last time it was sold. In the above example, LR: Feb15- 16 LS:Feb14-16 means this item was last received February 15, 2016, and last sold February 14, 2016.

Pubstock information

If you have a subscription for Bookmanager’s Pubstock, you will see that information listed in the bottom right corner of the inventory screen. If it is not there, pressing the “,” (comma) should display it. This will give you important information on which vendors carry the ISBN you are looking at, and price and discount information. To make sure that your Pubstock window is always visible when you

67 INVENTORY | Entering new titles in Inventory

are in 2 Inventory, select the , (comma) key and press Minimize. This should ensure that your Pubstock window is always present for Supplier, price and availability information.

For more information on Pubstock and the information displayed, refer to Pubstock (page 398).

Display options The inventory screen can be switched between display modes by selecting the View command. This will switch the bottom half of the screen between either a list of titles or the history of the highlighted item. You can also press R to switch between these two views.

Viewing history While you are highlighting a title in your inventory file you have access to selective or complete history at any time. Pressing History will give you access to detailed history of purchase orders, sales or returns. You can t or b and press R to look at a specific type of history, or pick Complete to have access to all the information at once.

When you have chosen what type of history you want, your cursor will be highlighting a line at the bottom half of the screen. From here you can arrow up or down to find the exact history item you are looking for, and you can press R to be taken to the entry in the appropriate file. For example, if you are highlighting a line showing Orders history that refers to when it was received, pressing R will take you to that exact entry in the Orders file. The same applies for highlighting a particular Point-Of- Sale invoice or a claim in Returns: pressing R will take you to that entry in each of those screens.

If the history is already listed for an inventory card you also have the option to press F to move your cursor down into the history listings. Once you are in the list, you have the same options listed above.

Once you are familiar with using the history, switching between various areas of the program becomes quick and easy, and you will find just how well all the areas of Bookmanager are linked.

Entering new titles in Inventory

Using Titlelink to complete the Inventory card If you have a Titlelink subscription through Bookmanager, data entry becomes very simple. After performing a Titlelink search in Inventory, adding an item to your in-store Inventory file is as simple as Editing the entry and filling in required fields like Supl (supplier) and Clas (class). Before Editing the item, the inventory card will display ** ISBN is not in Inventory file ** in the monthly sales received field.

68 INVENTORY | Entering new titles in Inventory

Upon editing and a d save, that item will be added to your inventory. Ordering an item from a Titlelink search also adds it to your inventory. There really is no need to New add items manually into Inventory if you have Titlelink, unless the item in question is not found in the Titlelink database of over 18 million titles. These may be non-book items, or self published books.

If the information of an ISBN that is in your inventory ever seems incorrect (it was manually entered to begin with, perhaps with some mistakes), you can query that ISBN in our Titlelink database and fill in the results if desired. To do this, Edit the inventory item and arrow to the Title field. Press u to look this item up in Titlelink, and a preview of the resulting data search will be displayed. Pressing R will insert this data, or E to go back without inserting the data.

If you do not have a Titlelink subscription, contact our office for more information about this invaluable service. If you do have a subscription, refer to the Titlelink section (page 406) of this document for more detailed information on using it to its full potential.

If you do not have Titlelink, simply select New to enter a new title directly through the Inventory file. You will have the opportunity to enter all the information by pressing R after every field has been filled in. Be sure to remember to a enter a Class into the data by pressing R after each field or scrolling t b through the data fields. Please remember that each New entry must be saved by either pressing d, or by pressing R in the last available field.

NOTE: Any time you add a new ISBN anywhere in the system it will default to a new Inventory entry, and you will be required to complete a new Inventory card. Titlelink will enter most of the data in your new Inventory Card for you, if you subscribe to this service.

Mandatory fields It is usually best if you fill in as much of the Inventory as is possible, however there are a few critical fields that you are required to fill in. Your cursor will not advance past these fields until you do so.

• ISBN: You must enter a unique ISBN, UPC, EAN or product number for the item.

• Titl (Title): You must enter a title.

• Supl (Supplier): There are three supplier fields on the card, but you are only required to fill in the first (primary) one.

• Clas (Classification): You must enter one of the classifications listed in the 4 file.

If you do not have the actual item that you are entering, you may be missing some of this information when you create the inventory card. For this reason we suggest that you create an entry in 3 Supplier with the code ? , and called To Be Researched. If you do not know who supplies the item, this will allow you to put in a question mark for the time being, and will let you advance beyond the Supplier field. The same can be done for the classification field. We do not recommend that you create or have a blank class. This will let your staff know that these need to be researched if you wish to order the item.

69 INVENTORY | Entering new titles in Inventory

Other fields There are several other fields that are useful, but not mandatory. These fields will automatically be filled in if you subscribe to our Titlelink service, as the data will come straight from the supplier and be entered into your BM system.

• Auth (Author): The author field is best formatted as LAST NAME, FIRST NAME. In the case of multiple authors, we suggest inserting the primary author’s name in the Auth field, and any other contributors in the Note field. This will allow the full names to be inputed, and the those names will still be keyword searchable. If the names are short, you can use a pipe symbol “|” to separate the two author’s names.

• Ed (Edition): This is a two-character description of the book binding. Anything can be entered here, but you will want to use the industry accepted codes like MM for Mass market, TP or PB for trade paper, HC or TC for Hardcover, etc. Use OT (other) for non-book items.

• Pub (Publication Date): This should be entered if you know it. Format is [mm/dd/yy].

• Publ (Publisher): An abbreviated description of who published the book.

• BISAC (not labelled): This field proceeds the Class field, and will be automatically populated with the product’s BISAC code and description if the BISAC file has been downloaded. Linking your BISACs to your Classes and having this file downloaded is very import to overall efficiency, so if this has not been done, refer to Getting Started page 33.

• O/S Stat: A 2-4 character status code to show on invoices when out-of-stock. This field can also be used to force out of stock, not on order items that also do not have any Titlelink data or listing in our database to appear on your Webstore. For example, a t-shirt that you sell that you want listed on your Webstore but you don’t have any OH or OO. Type in the code BOS (backordered out-of-stock) here to achieve this.

• Weight: This field is for internal use only, and will not overwrite any weights of books already populated by Titlelink on the Webstore. If an item has a weight entered here, it will be added to other items with weights on the Point-Of-Sale screen and a total weight will be printed on invoices finalized there.

• Rtnbl (Returnable): If the item in non-returnable, put an N in this field, otherwise leave it blank. This will cause a warning message to appear if someone tries to return it to the supplier.

• Rcv (first received): This field is found above the title’s complete on hand table on the right. It displays the date this item was first received into inventory. If it has never been received, N/Y/R (not yet received) will be listed.

Each of these fields will provide useful information to you at a glance, making the maintenance of your inventory easier.

70 INVENTORY | Making changes to an existing Inventory card

Copying an existing entry If you need to enter a number of similar entries you can save yourself some data entry by using the Copy command. It will start a new entry that is filled in with all the information from the previous title, so all you need to do is change the appropriate fields. An example of when this is useful is if you are entering multiple titles from a series. By selecting copy, you would not have to re-type the series name (in the title field), author, supplier or classification.

Making changes to an existing Inventory card If you discover a mistake in an inventory record, or you have more information than was initially added, you can easily modify any record by selecting Edt (Edit). This will give you access to all the fields on that inventory record, so you can make the changes/additions, and just d to save. Just like with a New entry, Titlelink is accessible from the Edt mode by pressing u in the Titl field.

In the Edit mode you may have access to the Rcv, Sld, and Total OH fields. In very rare cases you may want to change these figures, but generally you should never change the information in these fields. If you do, there will be absolutely no history of the changes, and it could lead to confusion at a later date. Access to these fields can be restricted, and you can learn how in the section of the manual on Passwords & Clerk Codes (page 36). Usually you would be better off using the Adj (Adjust) command to record any changes to an item’s on hand.

Searching in inventory The Srch (Search) command makes it quick and easy to locate titles among the thousands you will have in your inventory. When you Srch in 2 Inventory, you will get an Inventory Search screen, which allows you to find items by Title, ISBN, Author, etc. Us the t b keys to navigate to the different fields.

Titlelink Searching If you have a subscription to Titlelink, the majority of your searches will be done by pressing u in the chosen search field. The first u will open the Titlelink preferences box, which usually only has to be set once and saved as defaults for subsequent searches. After this initial setup, pressing u twice will initiate a search. More detail on Titlelink Searching can be found at the end of this manual under the Titlelink section (page 406).

Titlelink searches query our database of over 18.7 million titles, and cross reference your existing inventory file. By default, you are returned the top 100 search results, and these results are sorted based on Forthcoming. This means that the first results shown when doing a Titlelink search will be ranked

71 INVENTORY | Searching in inventory

(popular) titles that have not yet released (NYR), then it will list ranked titles that have released, then after ranked titles have run out it will list results based on Pubdate (publication date).

NOTE: Rank is the Bookmanager term for a title’s sales or ordering popularity. Every week, we collect sales data from hundreds of independent stores, and with that data we can assign a selling/ordering rank to every item. The ISBN that sells the most that week gets a rank of 1, and the second most popular selling title gets a 2, and so on. Any titles that have not yet released but are a popular item on order will be assigned negative ranks. The larger the negative rank, the more popular of a pre-order it is (e.g.: A rank of -15 is a more popular pre-order than -8). Only stores that choose to anonymously send their weekly sales to us will get search results returned by rank.

Choosing to Sort results by Forthcoming rank is a time saver. Simply put, most customers are looking for books that are in circulation, and usually those that are selling well amongst other indie bookstores. This allows a customer to say they are looking for a book that was mentioned in the New York Times that has the word CATS in the title, and the search results won’t give you out-of-print cat breeding manuals from 1982. If that book on cats is indeed popular, it will likely be one of the top search results.

You can also choose to sort search results by Instock. This is fast becoming many stores’ preferred search method, as it puts what your store has on-order and in-stock at the top of the list first (sorted by Rank), then when it exhausts any in-store matches, it will default back to Forthcoming.

The Scope for your Titlelink search should usually be set to Both for Active and Inactive titles. This is to give you the most information possible, thus allowing you to give your customer some type of answer on the title they are looking for, even if it’s a simple, “It went out of print in 2006. Try looking for it at a used bookstore!” Customers appreciate any information when trying to find a less popular title, and will remember your business as not being a “dead end” in their quest.

TIP: After performing a Titlelink search, you can press Print to print out a slip of paper from your Receipt printer showing the details of the highlighted entry. This is handy to give to customers if they do not want to make a book order right away, and want to do some research on their own.

Searching just your Inventory File If you do not have a subscription to Titlelink, or would just like to search what you have in your inventory file (whether it’s in-stock, on-order, or just has a record), pressing R on any search field will perform an Inventory search. Be default, search results will be returned sorted first by what you have in-stock, then what you have on-order, then by the titles that have been selling well in your store.

Keyword searching Keyword searching should be the way 99% of your searches are done, just because of the flexibility of the field and where it looks for matches. Just like when you use Google to search for something online, the Keyword or main search box is where you usually start, and the same goes for Bookman- ager. There are times when Author or Title will be used and return better results, which will be covered later in this section. By default, Keyword searching looks at an inventory card’s ISBN, Title, Author, and Note fields.

72 INVENTORY | Searching in inventory

TIP: Pressing 2 anywhere, anytime in Bookmanager will bring up the inventory search box.

Entering one or more words into the Srch screen’s Keywords field will produce a list of only the titles that have those words in their inventory card. To save search box space and time, try truncating the keyword(s) (e.g. CHES instead of CHESTERFIELD). Bookmanager knows to search the file for matches that start with the letters entered as opposed to only titles with the complete word. Entering CHES will find all titles with CHESS, CHESTERFIELD, CHEST, etc. If you want to only search for the word entered and no more, add an exclamation point ! at the end of the word (e.g. CHESS! will only search for the word CHESS, which may help narrow your search results if you are only searching for chess game books). Searching for HARR POTT is effectively the same as searching for HARRY POTTER, and can help you save space for longer titles or difficult to spell words.

The keyword file should be rebuilt on a daily basis by setting a routine through the scheduler. Reindexing will also rebuild this file, but should only be used as a troubleshooting method and with advice from Bookmanager. Before you do that, however, you should check the settings in A Setup, m) Keyword searching fields. Here you will get a chance to choose which fields you want included in the keyword search, and the length of the words included (it defaults to words of 3 characters or more, so that words like “a”, “to”, “of”, etc., are ignored).

Dynamic updates to the Keyword Index By default, any changes made to your inventory will automatically update your keyword index so that they can be immediately searchable. You do not have to wait for the daily scheduled routine to rebuild and update it. That being said, do not remove the scheduler routine because the rebuild will still optimize the search after many dynamic changes have been done.

On slower computers, there may be a noticeable difference in performance if you are making many changes at once. If the slowed performance is a noticeable issue, you can disable dynamic keyword updates under A Setup, m) Keyword searching fields, and by saying No to Dynamically update the keyword index?. For example, you might turn this off to do many inventory changes and then rebuild the index (or let it happen overnight).

Rebuilding the Keyword file manually If you need to rebuild the keyword file on the spot, you can go to the Main Menu, select Miscellaneous, and then 1) Reindex file(s). Arrow down to the last option (Keyword lookup), and put Reindex next to it. The keyword file should start rebuilding immediately. If you run on a network, the other stations do not need to be out of Bookmanager while you are rebuilding this file. This quick reindex option can be handy if you get the “keyword file is missing” error when you try a search.

Scheduling the Keyword update Rebuilding the Keyword file can be set up as a Scheduled routine to run overnight. To set this up, from the Main Menu go into Scheduler, and select New. For frequency enter Every Day, and then select a time (using the 24 hr clock). From the list of routines, select 4 Update keyword searching file. This routine will be added to your scheduled events, and it will run at the time you have specified. You can also highlight it and select Start to have it run immediately if it ever needs to be rebuilt.

73 INVENTORY | Searching in inventory

Searching by Title Very occasionally, searching for something generic in the Keywords field will return too many results to quickly scroll through. In those instances, using the Title or Author search fields can be handy. For example, a customer is looking for a book titled “Smith”. In the keywords search box, SMITH will return results with SMITH as an author, title, as well as auto-complete it and bring up results like SMITHEREENS and SMITHING. The customer knows the title of the book is simply SMITH, so using the Title search field, you could search for SMITH! to see only book titles containing that single word.

Searching by Author When you type in the name of an author in the Inventory Search screen and press R as opposed to u, you will get a list of all the matches for that name in an Authors box. To the right of that box there is an Author’s titles box highlighting the available titles, listed in alphabetical order, for the highlighted author. You can r into that field to highlight the titles, or b through the list of authors. If the author you are looking for is not in your system, it will be at the top of the Authors list with (New) next to it. Again, pressing R only returns results from your own inventory file, so this list may be incomplete if you do not have the data in your own system.

For example, if you type in SMITH, you will get an Authors box containing a list of all the authors named Smith, and a list of the Author’s titles on the right hand side. If you have typed SMITH, JOHN into the search, you will only get the exact match in the Authors box, and his titles only will be listed.

Indexing the file When you search using R in Bookmanager, the resulting list will always have an index (sequence) that it follows. For example, if you search by title, the resulting list will be indexed alphabetically by title. If you search by supplier, the resulting list will be sorted by supplier code, listed alphabetically by title within each code.

The Inventory screen will always let you know the current index. If you look at the screen, you will see one of the field headers highlighted in red, as well as the field in the Inventory card above. If the Title field is in red, you know the list is sorted by title. If the Class field is red, then the list is by Classifica- tion, sorted by title within the class.

The index can also be changed without using the search command. If you select indx, you will get a box listing the different ways you can index the file.

You can use your cursor to highlight a different index, and press R to select it. You will notice that the field associated with the new index you have chosen will be highlighted in red, and that the list will now follow this sequence.

Inventory search options When you are in another area of Bookmanager (not in the Inventory file) there is a fast and convenient way to instantly access your inventory search options. From anywhere in the program, you select 2 Inventory Search, and you will be taken immediately to the Inventory Search screen. You will have all the same search options that you are familiar with, without having to first go to 2 Inventory and

74 INVENTORY | Ordering and reserving from Inventory

pressing Search.

If you are highlighting an entry in another file, pressing the 2 key twice will take you immediately to that entry in the Inventory file (linking by ISBN), quickly giving you access to the complete history of any item in any part of Bookmanager.

Another useful function of the 2 search is when you are adding or editing a record in another file. For example, if you were in Point-of-Sale entering a New item, but for some reason you did not have the proper ISBN, in the ISBN field you could use the 2 search to find it by title, author, etc. Once the 2 has located the correct title, just R a few times and the correct ISBN will be posted into the ISBN field in the POS file.

Scanning a book (without Searching) If you have a book in your hand and you want to see its inventory information, there is a fast way to find it. On the main Inventory screen, just scan either the barcode on the book, or the Bookmanager barcode label, and you should be taken to that item immediately. You do not even need to bother pressing Srch first. This shortcut works from most areas of Bookmanager that accepts ISBNs.

Ordering and reserving from Inventory Both ordering and reserving from the inventory file are discussed in detail in theOrders section of the manual (page 48 and page 54). Whether the item to be ordered was located using a u Titlelink search or an R search, pressing Order or Rsv (reserve) will bring up the ordering/reserving screen.

Maintaining stock levels Bookmanager allows you access to your stock levels for each item you list in Inventory. If you are using Receiving, Returns and Point-of-sale properly, you should rarely need to use the following options to change on hand levels because your inventory figures should always be up-to-date. That said, there are a few instances when it is okay to manually adjust inventory.

Adjusting stock The Adj (Adjust) command gives you access to the Adjust Quantities box, which will provide three options (and an adjust reason) for this ISBN:

• Min O/H: If this is a popular title you can set a minimum quantity that you always want in stock. Enter that number here.

• Backroom: If you have too many copies to display, you can enter a number here that represents how many you have in the backroom, or storage area, of your store. If you need to pull the Backroom stock to put it on the floor, just Adj again, and put 0 (zero) in the Backroom field.

TIP: The backroom stock indicator isn’t just for an actual back room. Some stores use it to indicate their window display stock, or perhaps they store their overstock somewhere in the store that is still accessible and seen by customers. Product that is in a back room has no chance at selling,

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whereas anything accessible by your customers on the floor is fair game.

• On Hand: If you discover that the aOH total is incorrect, and there is no explanation for it, you can type in the actual total you have On Hand. This is usually how you deal with lost or stolen (suspected or otherwise) product. Negative adjustments are considered a loss, and will affect your daily profits. So, if you are adjusting a book that was meant to be returned, this process will negatively affect your reported profits for the day, rather than be marked as a proper return with credit expected. USE SPARINGLY

• Reason: This is only used if you are adjusting the On Hand. You can type in a brief description of why you made the adjustment (ie. Stolen, MIA, damaged etc.).

If you choose to adjust an item’s on hand, the adjustment will be visible in the sales history of the particular item. Adj is usually used in cases where the On Hand is incorrect, and an examination of the history does not indicate why. It is a quick and easy way to reset the Inventory level to the correct amount.

As discussed under the Orders section of the manual (page 50), you can set up a report that will compare the number on hand and on order to the Min O/H level. If the Min O/H is greater than these two numbers, the items will appear on this report for reordering.

In the Scheduler you can set up a routine that will check to see if you need any backroom stock on the floor. In Scheduler, set up a New routine, and specify a Frequency (probably Every day) and a Time. The routine you want is 12 Check for Backroom stock needed on floor. If you set this to happen, each morning you will get a list of items that you have in the Backroom, but not on the floor.

Using Qsales Using Qsales is an effective way of removing things from Inventory if you are not actually using the Point-of-sale, but you still want to manage you inventory levels.

When you sell an item, you can either keep the book label or record the ISBN. Once you have time to enter these into the computer, in 2 Inventory you can select Qsls (Qsales). This will take you to a list of items you have sold. If you are not already in the ISBN field, type New. If you need to change the quantity from “1”, just t into the field and change it to what it should be. Now you can either scan in the ISBN (if you have a barcode for it), or type it in manually. The quantity you have specified will be removed from your inventory. Continue entering each ISBN until you are done.

As you enter the sales, you will see the O/H column being reduced. Should you wish to reorder on of the sales, pressing Order R in the ISBN field will create a pending order for the item listed on the previous line.

When you are in the ISBN field in Qsales there is also an option to Import from either a delimited file or a portable scanner.

When you are finished entering the sales you can simply E back to the main Inventory screen.

NOTE: If you plan on using Qsales, please contact us first to make certain this operation is in-

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tended. Very rarely does Qsales need to be used, if ever, as your sales should be recorded through 4 Point-Of-Sale, even for offsite events.

Printing book labels Although you will usually be printing labels while actively receiving (recommended) or through the Process Receiving Session, there are a number of labeling options available through the Inventory file.

Printing labels for a single item The easiest ways to print a label for an item in Inventory is to simply type Lbl (Label), and then type the quantity (number) of labels you need. Bookmanager will produce a label based on whatever label settings you have (either Thermal or Laser). You will have several options before the label is printed (as always, d to print).

Label type refers to how the label pricing will appear. Sale will print the price extra large, in a discount style, whereas Regular will print a standard sized price. The title has to have a sale price attached to it in order for the Sale label style to print. This discount is from a Note special indicator or a Class file discount modifier.

Use today’s date for the date code? is an important option, as by default, no date code will be printed on a label printed from Inventory, and not receiving. This is because Bookmanager does not know which receiving session you want the label for (there could be more than one entry in History). To get the proper date code on the label, you need to first select Hst to bring up the orders history, highlight the invoice it was received on (or your best guess), and then select Lbl. In this case, because Bookmanager knows what invoice it was received on, it is able to produce the date code. If you are in a hurry or just want to attach today’s date to the label, put a Yes in the Use today’s date for the date code? box. We do not recommend printing labels without some kind of date code.

Printing labels with no price Bookmanager allows you to print a label with no price on it, even when the item has a selling price in inventory. When you select Lbl, you can change the price to 0.00, and when the label prints, there will be no pricing information on it. This allows you to red sticker items with a pricing gun, in the area where the price would normally print.

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Printing labels for all stock on hand Selecting Xtra, D) Print book labels for all inventory On Hand, you will be able to do just that. You can stop it before it does the whole file by pressing E at any time.

Stock count/Inventory Reconciliation The Inventory Reconciliation feature helps you compare the items counted in your store to what Bookmanager has listed on hand. This will reveal any discrepancies caused by errors in receiving or Point-of-sale, theft, or items that have been lost. It allows you to make adjustments to reset your Inventory to its correct levels. We recommend that you do this process when your in-store stock levels are at their lowest (i.e. after post-Christmas returns, usually February - April) to lessen the workload.

All reconciliation routines in Bookmanager are found in 2 Inventory under Xtra, R) Inventory quantity O/H reconciliation.

Your goal is to scan the ISBN of every item in your store into the reconciliation file, and then compare the items where the counted total does not match the actual on hand figure. Once you have checked into the items that do not match, and corrected any that need correcting, a routine can be run that goes through the reconciliation file and adjusts your Inventory file totals to match the counted values. The last step is to do a report listing the adjustments made (this step is optional, but recommended to ensure the count was done properly).

There are two ways to perform the actual count. You can move each item to your workstation(s) and manually scan or type them into the reconciliation file. The other option is to upload an offsite copy of Bookmanager onto a laptop or group of laptops and go around your store using those standalone copies of Bookmanager to scan your inventory. Counts are then exported from the Bookmanager copies and imported back into your main system. You should contact Bookmanager support for advice on which method may suit your needs the best, or if this is your first time doing Inventory.

NOTE: You do not have to close your store or cease sales while doing Inventory. In fact, we recommend, if possible and staffing allows, to keep the doors and Point-Of-Sale open during this process. Any book sales that happen during the reconciliation process will be accounted for and easily dealt with at the end of this process. However, we do encourage you to stop all receiving during this process. This is to eliminate the need to re-scan anything that would be received, and cut down on potential mistakes made from complicating the reconciliation process.

Step-by-step reconciliation It is critical that you follow these steps in order when doing your inventory count. Not doing so will possibly result in an inaccurate count, which negates the whole process.

WARNING: We highly recommend that you do not receive any new products in 9) Receiving during Inventory reconciliation. If you do, that product would have to be re-added and scanned back into Inventory after the count, thus creating more work and possible errors.

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Step 1: Prepare the Inventory file From the Main Menu, access the inventory reconciliation screen by selecting 2 Inventory, Xtra, and then R) Inventory quantity O/H reconciliation. This will open the Reconciliation file.

WARNING: The following steps (A & B) are absolutely critical! If either step is missed, the entire inventory count could be useless. All the counted figures could be wrong, and there is little that can be done about it after the fact. You would have to re-start the whole procedure from the very beginning.

A) Purge the old list (if one exists) Any previous data must be removed from the file. To accomplish this, from the Reconciliation file select Xtra, and then 6) Purge the list (finished reconciling). You should now have an empty reconciliation file.

B) Reset the counted flag In the reconciliation file select Xtra, and 1) Reset Inventory ‘counted’ flag to not counted (entire file or class). It will then ask you to Enter Class to be reset. If you are only reconciling a single section, you can enter a particular class, or leave the space blank to reset the entire inventory, and then press R. Normally you would reset the entire inventory. This process will take at most a few minutes, and it internally (within the data file) resets all items to “not counted”. This does not affect your on-hands, rather the “counted” data field is separate.

At this point, Inventory Reconciliation is ready for all main, networked stations running Bookmanager. If you would like to perform the count on laptops so you do not need to carry stock from the shelves to your main stations, follow the below steps. If not, skip ahead to Step 2: Start counting your In- ventory.

Make a Copy of Bookmanager for Remote Computers Now that the “main/server” station is prepared for inventory reconciliation, you can make a “remote” or “offsite” copy of your Bookmanager program. To do this, it is easiest to use a USB storage device to get Bookmanager from your sever onto a laptop’s hard drive.

NOTE: These remote or offsite versions of Bookmanager DOT NOT COMMUNICATE OR UPDATE WITH YOUR MAIN SYSTEM AND STATIONS. The only actions that should be performed on these copies of Bookmanager are Inventory Reconciliation. Any new sales, customers, or orders will not be transfered.

Bookmanager v10.2.140324 (March 24, 2014) and newer With the latest version of Bookmanager, you can utilize the built in Offsite Bookmanager module to create a copy of the program suitable for inventory. The advantage of using the Offsite system is its file size and speed in making the initial copy. The Offsite version of Bookmanager is stripped down to its essentials, much like a backup, but also has all its application/executable files.

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From the Main Options menu, select Data Transfer, then O) Offsite Bookmanager (create offsite Bookmanager or import offsite sales). Select the first optionX ) Create an offsite POS system and wait while Bookmanager calculates the next series of invoice numbers to use. Normally, this module is used to create a system for Offsite sales, so there are options that are irrelevant to our current task at hand. Skip the first four options until you are at Create system in drive/folder. This is where we specify the drive letter assigned to your USB storage device. At this time, insert a preferably empty USB memory device into the computer you are working on, and if the Windows Autoplay box pops up, click the option “Open Folder to View Files”. If that box does not automatically pop up, use the Windows Start Menu or Computer/This PC icon on the desktop to navigate to where you can see the Devices and Drives on this computer. (see screenshot)

Here, make note of the Drive Letter assigned to this USB storage device. In this example, the drive letter is D: , and this device is listing 8.59GB free out of 14.4GB available. You will need at most 1GB of free space for Bookmanager, but often it is around 100MB for this Offsite copy.

With the drive letter noted, go back into Bookmanager and type that letter and colon into the Cre- ate system in drive/folder field. The last two options are again not pertinent, so leave them as No and press d to begin creating the Offsite copy. The system will warn you not to do sales while this process is running, but ignore that message and press Yes.

NOTE: Any processes that involve copying the Bookmanager system, or querying large files like your inventory or a wide sales date range, will run fastest on your main “server” computer. This is because files can be worked with directly off the hard drive, rather than being copied over the network in the case of a station. Again, these routines typically run at least 10x faster on the server.

After a few minutes, Bookmanager will inform you if it has completed the process successfully. You should now have a folder called BMoffsite on your USB storage device.

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WARNING: The copy of Bookmanager you have made and put onto the laptop MUST be the same version as the Bookmanager you are running on your server computer. DO NOT do any updates to your main version (live copy) of Bookmanager until the inventory reconciliation process is complete.

Safely remove the USB Storage Device from your main computer by using the Eject or Safely Remove functions from Windows. Insert the USB Storage Device into the laptop(s) you want to use for Inventory Reconciliation. Once again, either use the Windows Autoplay dialogue box to open the folder to view its files, or use the Windows Start button or file browsers to find the USB storage device and open the drive to view its files.

WARNING: Never run Bookmanager directly from a USB memory device. Never ever. Don’t even think about it. On the off chance that the device is accidentally removed during Inventory, or you have a static charge on your hand and touch the device and give it a little shock, or the laptop loses power and goes into sudden sleep mode, YOU WILL LOSE YOUR FILES AND PROGRESS, AND HAVE TO START OVER AGAIN. This happens more often than you’d think, so heed our advice!

With the above warning heeded, you will copy the BMoffsite folder from the USB storage device and paste it onto your laptop’s hard drive C:. This can be done by right clicking the BMoffsite folder and selecting Copy, then navigate to your C: drive, right click, and select Paste.

With the folder copied onto your laptop’s hard drive, it is time to create a desktop shortcut for this copy. Navigate to your laptop’s hard drive C:, find the folder named BMoffsite, and double click it to open. Inside, scroll through the folders and files until you find the one called bkmngr.exe or simply bkmngr. It will be an application file type. Right click this file and select Send to, then Desktop (create shortcut). You should now have a desktop shortcut for this Offsite Bookmanager system.

Double click the desktop shortcut to open the Offsite Bookmanager program, and allow the system to reindex its files. After reindexing is complete, you will be ready to start scanning in your Inventory.

Repeat the above process for any other laptops you would like to use for inventory. Offsite copies of Bookmanager do not count as station licences, so you can run as many BMOffsite copies simultaneously as you would like (or you have barcode scanners for!).

Versions of Bookmanager older than v10.2.140324 (March 23, 2014 and older) If you have an older version of Bookmanager and cannot/do not want to update, you will have to create a full copy of Bookmanager to perform Inventory Reconciliation on. This is done very much the same as above, so we recommend you read it before continuing, with the only difference being that you use the Backup module to create a copy, not the Offsite module.

From the Main Options menu, go to Data Transfer, then to B) Bookmanager Backup. Select option e) Make full copy onto drive\folder and type in the drive letter of the USB storage device plugged into the main computer. This process could take up to 10 minutes depending on how large your BM folder is. You may need a device with over 2GB of storage if you have a large inventory and/or many years of sales history.

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After the backup copy has been made, eject/safely remove the USB storage device and insert it into the laptop. Copy the BMCopy folder from the USB storage device onto the hard drive of the laptop.

Create a desktop shortcut like mentioned above. By default, station number 0 will be assigned to this shortcut, and for most users this means your server station. It is best to change the station number of this copy of Bookmanager to prevent potential issues with downloading invoices or files meant for your main system. To do this, right-click the desktop shortcut you just created, and select Properties. Under the Shortcut tab, find the Target line and append a space plus an unused station number to this line. For example, C:\BMCopy\bkmngr.exe becomes C:\BMCopy\bkmngr. exe 49. The station number is arbitrary, just choose something not used already in your main store.

The first time (or any time) you open this copy of Bookmanager, the program may complain that it suspects this isn’t your real (in-store) copy of Bookmanager, and downloading of invoices and We- bLink will be suspended to prevent any data mix-ups. This is a good thing, and WebLink should not be re-enabled.

Step 2: Start counting your Inventory On a network, using your main Bookmanager server or stations, any number of computers may be used to enter data. All data is added to a master reconciliation file.

Go into 2 Inventory, Xtra, then R) Inventory quantity O/H reconciliation. Select New and start scanning/typing in the ISBNs. Scanning the same item several times enters multiple quantities. If you have a large quantity of the same ISBN to scan, you can t to get to the quantity field to change the number you enter with the Edit command. You can also type in a scan quantity in the blank ISBN scan field and press R. The quantity will move from the ISBN scan field to the Count field, where you can now scan the product’s ISBN in the ISBN field. Watch out for books that look similar, but have different bar codes (e.g.. a series). If you need to modify a previous entry, just use E to access the list, and then you can Edit the item you wish to change, or Delete it. Selecting New again will allow you to continue entering ISBNs.

When an ISBN entered is already in the file (e.g. from an earlier scan in another area of the store), the original entry is located, and the counted quantity is automatically appended and adjusted.

If you scan a product code that is not in your current Inventory, Bookmanager will stop and a warning message, “[invalid product code] not found. Keep?” will be displayed. The vast majority of the time, this message is telling you that you have scanned the incorrect barcode or label on the product, so it is best to press No and look for another barcode to scan. If this is a Mass Market paperback title, sometimes the barcode printed on the back of the book is the EAN, and the proper ISBN barcode is actually printed on the front inside cover.

If you scan an invalid barcode and receive the above message, Bookmanager will not allow you to advance or scan the next book until this issue is resolved (by pressing No or Yes). As such, it is best

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practice to keep one eye on the Bookmanager screen while scanning shelves, as you could encounter this error and keep scanning without realizing Bookmanager has stopped and is waiting for you to resolve the past issue. You would then have to go back and rescan everything after the error.

You can be audibly notified if a scan error has occurred, thus saving you from having to visually check your Bookmanager screen after scanning. This is enabled through the reconciliation’s Xtra option S) Sound settings. Here, you can enable sounds to be played through your computer speakers for various actions while reconciling. You can also pair a Bluetooth ear-piece with your computer so the sound doesn’t play aloud. If you want sounds, enable the first option Play a sound when:, then select Yes on the actions you want a unique sound played for. Most often you only want item scanned is not in Inventory enabled, as that is what halts the reconciliation process. You can also enable the bottom option Item scanned is over __ months old if you want to do an overstock/returns pull while taking inventory.

If you have tried all available barcodes and still get the Not Found error, you can choose Yes to add the item to the reconciliation file. This is an odd occurrence, as all stock should have been received or inputed into Inventory. You will have actions available at the end of the count to resolves these “added” titles.

TIP: Remember to scan anything you want to be in your inventory. That includes window displays, Backroom stock, customer Helds and Special Orders, staff holds, etc. Anything you do not want in your inventory, don’t scan! This is a good time to purge some of your old or ratty inventory that you were going to recycle or donate anyway.

For those using laptops... Since this Offsite or Copy version of Bookmanager is not accessing your “live” Bookmanager, you will want to be very careful to avoid “double counting”. We recommend assigning every staff using a laptop to their own section, and to keep track of the sections scanned with a master section sheet that everyone updates whenever they finish an area. Rather than scratching your head wondering if a section was done, just reference the sheet!

TIP: As you proceed through each section, scan books from the top shelf to the bottom, from left to right. DO NOT MOVE books on the shelf once you have scanned them. Leaving them in order will make it easier to locate scanned items that have no match in the Inventory file (usually an error or incorrect barcode scanned).

Once you are confident you have scanned all of your products in-store, you will need to get the inventory onto your main Bookmanager system. You will export these counts onto your USB storage device and transfer them into your live Bookmanager.

On the laptop version of Bookmanager, go into 2 Inventory, Xtra, then R) Inventory quantity O/H reconciliation. Press Xtra again, and select option E) Export the counts to a text file. You have the ability to name the file, but it must end in .txt. If you are using more than one laptop, you’ll want to designate the file name differently than other laptops (i.e. isbns1.txt, isbns2.txt) so that you don’t get them mixed up and so the files get imported correctly. Bookmanager will then create the file, and save it inside the BMcopy or BMoffsite folder on the laptop’s C: drive.

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Navigate to the laptop’s C: drive, find the BMcopy or BMoffsite folder, and open it. Scroll through the list of files and folders until you find the file named isbns1.txt (or whatever filename you gave it). Some- times it is quicker to find the file by sorting the files in this folder by the Date Modified column. That isbns1.txt file should be on top. Right click the file, and select Copy. Now navigate back to your USB storage device, open it up to view its files, and right click Paste the isbns1.txt file here. This device can now be safely removed or ejected, and inserted into your main server computer running Bookmanager.

On your server computer, navigate to the just inserted USB storage device and open the folder. Right click on the isbns1.txt text file, select Copy, then go into the BM folder on this server computer’s C: hard drive, right click and select Paste. In the live Bookmanager on your server, enter the inventory reconciliation file like before. Select import, and type in the name of the file (i.e. isbns1.txt). Select option 1) Process normally. Bookmanager will now import the file, and add the counts and ISBNs to the main reconciliation file on your main networked computers. From this point on you can continue with the rest of the Inventory Reconciliation procedures below, or repeat the above steps for any other laptops with counts to be exported.

The remaining steps should be followed regardless of which way the data was entered.

Step 3: Finding lost ISBNs This step finds items that were scanned, but for which no matches were found in 2 Inventory, and so that “not found. Keep?” warning message was displayed and you selected Yes. To locate these items, use the Print command (in the Reconciliation file) and select 2) ISBNs not found in Inventory. The printout will list the books that were not found, showing you what the Previous and Next titles were on the shelf. Take the printout to the shelf and use this list to locate the books for the missing ISBNs. This will only work if you have scanned the books in order, and you did not move the books. Bring these books to the computer and Search for the bad ISBN, and then Edit it to the correct the ISBN in the Reconciliation file. Or, you can Delete the bad ISBN entry, and re-enter it if necessary. Either way, you should deal with all of the lost ISBNs to clean up the Reconciliation file, and to make the list accurate.

At this time, do not be overly concerned if the counts do not match the inventory on-hand. Most stores have the same product in different locations in the store, and a review of the mismatched counts is only relevant when the count is complete. Getting your count 95% complete is the goal here, as any loose ends can and should be dealt with at the very end to save time and allow your regular store operations (like receiving) to resume as soon as possible.

The Filter command will place all the discrepancies at the top of the screen, eliminating the need to d through thousands of entries to find the differences. The Edit command can correct either the count or ISBN.

Up to this point, your inventory file has not been adjusted in any way. You are merely building a huge list of what you have in your store. Only when the count is complete will you make adjustments to the inventory O/H file.

Be sure to count backroom stock, special orders, returns, items on display, and any other items that may not be in their typical location.

Books in stock, but not in Bookmanager’s inventory, should be added as New to the Inventory file. Don’t

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worry that the on-hand is zero; it will later be adjusted to the actual count, provided you entered the count and ISBN into the reconciliation file. Again, this should happen rarely, if at all, as all products should be received through 9) Receiving to allow for proper costs and profit margins.

Proceed to the next step when you are confident everything has been counted. Don’t worry, missed sections or books can always be added, as nothing has been finalized yet.

Step 4: Add items not counted This is an extremely important step in determining your shrinkage.

This step locates items that your Inventory file lists as on hand, and which have not yet been entered into the Reconciliation file. Run the Xtra option 2) Find ISBNs with stock O/H that have not been counted. This will add a list of items that have not yet been scanned or counted into your reconciliation file. You can try and locate these items in your store now, but most times it is easiest to do this at the end, after the adjustment, as you review all your adjustments class by class. If any are indeed found, adjusting the counted figure for these items now will save time later. Items that cannot be located represent shrinkage due to theft, loss, mistakes, etc.

Step 5: Adjust your inventory This is the step that completes the reconciliation. Once you have counted all items in your store, and added items not scanned or counted, you are ready to complete the procedure. Please note that for the majority of your items, the counted figure should match the O/H. Look through the list to check this. If none of the counted figures match the related O/H, then an error was probably made at the beginning of the reconciliation (ie. you did not reset the counted flag). Contact us if you are concerned that this may have happened.

Run Xtra option 3) Automatically adjust inventory O/H to counted and post difference. This will take the counts and apply them to the Inventory O/H. You will be given the option to print a list of the adjustments, but there is a better way to do this (see next step), so say No to this printed list.

Account for sales down during reconciliation If you remained open and selling during reconciliation, you will need to account for anything that was sold that could throw your count off. For example, if an item was scanned into reconciliation (count = 1; aOH = 1) but then sold (aOH now = 0), running the mass adjust routine will adjust the on-hand for this item from 0 (correct) back up to 1 (incorrect) to match the count. You have of course sold this item, so the count should be 0, but the reconciliation file doesn’t know this.

To rectify this, you need to create a Custom Inventory Report that will display the sales done during reconciliation. From the Main Menu, Select 0 Reports, 1) Custom Inventory Reports, and press New to create a new report. Name the report “Sales Done During Inventory” and press R. For the Scope, select Sales from period and enter the day you started your reconciliation into the first date field, and the day you finished scanning into the second field. Change the Types: to S (for Sales). The Index is arbitrary. Press R on No Filters. Make sure the Columns of data displayed include a Sls (Sales) column. Select Update and d to view the items that have sold.

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Next, you will need to do a little sleuthing to find out if any corrective adjustments need to be made to items that have sold. You use the sales history for an item to determine this. Select History on the first item on your list, then choose Sales. Press E to go back to the list view, then immediately select View to switch to the Sales History view for the bottom half of the screen. Here, you want to look to see if both a sale and an adjustment occurred within your reconciliation period.

In the above example, this item was scanned then sold within the reconciliation period, so its On Hand needs to be adjusted back to 0 to be correct. You can visually see that its total sales history does not make sense: you can see a total received of 3, and a total sold of 1, but the sold/received months clearly show three sales over the past 14 months. To correct this, simply Adjust the On Hand back to 0 to cancel out the reconciliation adjustment. Your sales history should now look like this:

You can use your b to advance to the next item sold on your list, and quickly glance at the sales history to see if an adjustment was made. If no recent adjustment was made, no action is needed, so b to the next item. Repeat this process until you reach the bottom of the list.

Once the adjustments are made, your inventory should be mostly accurate. Now time to tie up any loose ends and check your work. The next steps are optional but highly recommended.

Step 6 (Optional): Print a list of the discrepancies by class From the Main Menu, Select 0 Reports, 1) Custom Inventory Reports, and press New to create a new report. Name the report “Adjustments Done During Inventory”, or something like that so you can easily find it the next time you do inventory, and press R. For the Scope, select Sales from period and enter the date that you ran the adjustment routine into the first and second date fields (ignore the time, as the default will include the whole day). Change the Types: to A (for Adjustments). The Index should be by Class, Author, then Title. Press R on No Filters. Make sure the Columns of data displayed include a Sls (Sales) column, which in this case means the Adjusted quantity. The aOH column will show your new, live On-Hand count. Update the report, and d to view. The report will be organized by Class then author’s last name, which should reflect how and where your books are physically shelved. Select Print and then Normal text (as viewed) to get a list preview. Pressing Print again will allow you to send this document to your main printer.

86 INVENTORY | Other Xtra options

The Sls column represents the net adjustment made during inventory. Positive figures mean you gained On-Hands, and negative figures represent losses or shrinkage. We recommend that you take this printed list and have a final walk around the store and check any of the larger adjustments (3 or more is typically kind of weird). Since the report is sorted by class and then author’s last name, it should be easy to go section by section to double check some of the large losses (or gains) to make sure the initial scan was done correctly. It is not uncommon for a row on a shelf to be missed, or a display, so reviewing this printout will help you tie up these loose ends. As you go around and double check your work, mark any corrections you need to make on the paper copy, and when you are done, take it back to Bookmanager. The printed report will be in the same order as the Custom Inventory report you just created, so you can arrow through the report in Bookmanager and manually Adjust any corrections you made on the paper copy. There is no point in making the changes to the 2 Inventory reconciliation file after you have already made the mass adjustments to your inventory.

Once this is done, you should now have a very accurate and finalized inventory count, and a freshly Updated Custom Inventory report will represent your shrinkage since the last time you took Inventory.

Step 7 (Optional): Run the inventory totals report Again, this step is optional, but it is useful to show the value of your inventory now that the On-Hands are accurate. Select 0 Reports from the main menu, and select 2) Inventory Reports. Select b) Mid- Month Inventory totals. You can then Update this report. This report will give you the value of your inventory as of the moment, and is suitable for year-end and accounting purposes.

After the reconciliation You may find items that were scanned incorrectly, or not scanned at all. These will now appear over time, often as negative on hands when an item is sold. This indicates you missed scanning the item, and it was then adjusted to zero. You should Adj these items back to the correct O/H.

Other Xtra options Bookmanager has a number of other specialized Inventory options that are all accessible by selecting Xtra from 2 Inventory. These are functions designed to help you manage and maintain your stock.

Analysis of remainders and sale items There is a function that allows you to track the performance of a particular shipment of remainders, hurts, or sale items. Use this method if you are okay with receiving these remainders not under title, but a generic product number that is tied to the shipment. Basically, you assign a shipment of remainders a single unique ISBN, and when you receive them you divide the invoice total by the number of items to determine an average cost per item. Receive however many you have at this cost, and don’t worry too much about the retail total at this point.

Generally, you will want to label each item with a generic sale sticker (created above), and mark it with an appropriate selling price based on its condition. After you have received the shipment, Edt the Inventory card’s retail sell price to $0.00. This means that when you sell the item in POS it will ask you to enter a price, which you then read off the sale sticker.

87 INVENTORY | Other Xtra options

To get a report to analyze the sales for this item (i.e. the shipment), just bring it up in Inventory and select Xtra, and select B) Bulk-purchase Profit Analysis. This will generate a report that gives you a weekly summary comparing your retail sales to the cost of the items, showing you how much you are actually earning on this shipment. It will also inform you how many you have remaining in stock, and what they are worth. This is a useful way of identifying when the sales of a particular remainder shipment have peaked, and indicates that the items may need to be either marked down further, or removed from the shelves. Once a shipment has generated enough revenue, and sales have slowed down, it’s time to “mark ‘em down and move ‘em out!”

Recalculating Inventory costs The Xtra option F) Recalculate Cost of each ISBN in Inventory allows you to use actual Receiving history to update the PC field on the Inventory card. It will not affect any items that have been locked by inserting an L into the Inventory card’s single character PC field. This will update the Inventory cost account in the General Ledger (usually acct 140), so if you are not using the GL this function is not necessary.

This same function will run automatically as part of your Month End System Maintenance, or can also be set up in the Scheduler, so it may not be necessary to run it manually.

Updating the Inventory Rcv/Sld fields Sometimes it is possible for the Rcv and Sld rows in the Inventory file to get out of sync with the actual history of the item. This can occur because of mistakes made while editing or during computer crashes. To correct this, you have two routines that can be run. Xtra option A) Rebuild this Title’s Rcvd/Sold/TtlRcv/TtlRtn/1stRcvd fields gives you two options for rebuilding, depending on how much of the data is out of sync. The first option, a) Just rebuild the 12-month Receive and Sold information, will run quicker and just looks at the last year of history. If your totals columns appear to be out, and the item in question has a complicated history (many returns, adjustments, etc.) you will need to run the more involved b) Also rebuild First received, Total received, Total returned routine to rebuild all the fields using your available history. Bookmanager will use the actual Orders, POS, and Returns history for this item to re-insert the proper figures into these fields. These routines can take a while (10+ minutes) to run.

Standardize author punctuation If you are noticing that there are authors in your Inventory file that have been entered in an incorrect format, the Xtra option C) Standardize author punctuation should correct this throughout the file. If you run this function it will go through the file and set each author to the industry standard Lastname, Firstname format.

Print book labels for all inventory On Hand This routine is not commonly used, and may only be useful for new users after a mass data import has been done, or if a user has just started using a label printer. There are usually better ways of printing labels en masse, so please consult Bookmanager support for better alternatives.

88 INVENTORY | Other Xtra options

Promotional items If you are having a store-wide sale on selected products not conveniently grouped by class, Bookman- ager gives you an easy way to compile a list of the sale items, and have the sale prices or discounts applied or removed.

From the Xtra options there is a P) Promotional sale items (build/review) option that allows for batch entry of price/discount overrides. Use the New command, t to enter a five character Event name (how you want to group or manage this list of ISBNs), press R, and start scanning the ISBNs you are putting on sale. For each ISBN, indicate either a price or discount override for each item. If you are using a discount %, by entering it on the first item it will be repeated for all new items.

You can also import a group of ISBNs built through a Custom Inventory Report, from your Webstore, or from a notepad/text/Excel spreadsheet by pressing Batch. This will allow you to name a batch, set your discount, and import your list of ISBNs. The imported file can also contain a column with the desired percentage or price discount instead of entering it through Bookmanager. The imported file needs to be tab or comma delimited, with the column headers typed exactly as follows (the order the columns appear in is not important, nor is the type-case): ISBN, PRICE, DISC. ISBNs should appear without dashes; Prices should appear without dollar signs (e.g.: 8.99); and percentage discounts (DISC) should appear without percentage symbols (e.g.: 25 = 25% off). Pressing u on the File with ISBNS field will launch the Windows File Browser and allow you to select the file to import. Alternatively, if you save the file in the main BM folder, you can simply type in the filename here (e.g.: summersale. txt or summersale.csv).

When you wish to start the sale, highlight an item on the Event and use Update to a) Mark inventory items with sale price/disc. This will add the sale indicators in the Inventory Notes field for all of the entries under the Event. The Inventory items will now be set up in the POS and Webstore to override regular pricing.

When the sale is over, select Update again and then choose to b) Remove sale price/discount from inventory items. The entries can now be Del from the promotional file.

NOTE: The Event column permits grouping items for occasions when you have more than one event starting or ending. The field will be blank, but entering the same event name for a group of items on sale for the same duration will cause the Update command to only effect items with the same Event listing.

The commands Apply and Remove affect only the currently highlighted ISBN.

You can print sale labels for all items under an Event by pressing Xtra and selecting c) Print thermal SALE labels for all items in stock (max 20 per title).

As a final tip, Keyword Searching in 2 Inventory can display a list of all presently discounted items by searching for //% or //$ (use //$ when searching for price-based promotions). This works provided that the Keyword Setup (A Setup, m) includes the Notes field. Also remember to update the keyword search file (usually done nightly in the Scheduler) to successfully perform these searches.

89 SUPPLIERS | The Suppliers screen

Suppliers The 3 Suppliers file is an important part of your Bookmanager program. It is where you store information about all the companies that you order from or who provide you services. Bookmanager is constantly accessing this file to verify information as you work in Receiving, Orders, Inventory, etc. This area also is where your Webstore takes certain information to determine prices on items that need to be ordered.

The Suppliers screen The top section of the screen contains the name and address information for the supplier. In the upper left corner you will find the unique supplier code, and the GL account information. The middle left section contains contact information such as phone numbers and emails, and to the right of that you will see information regarding payment terms, minimum orders, currency exchange, etc. If you are logged in and your clerk ID has the proper rights, the bottom right corner will display a brief record of your purchases and returns history.

Xtra contains two options for specifying defaults. The first option, Electronic Ordering Setup, is used to set up your ordering defaults with this supplier, whether it be electronic ordering or traditional methods. The second option, Setup Inventory feeds to online services, is used to configure data feeds to online retailers such as Amazon or ABE. This second option will be discussed in the Used Books section (page 280), as most users utilizing this feature will do so for their used product.

Entering supplier information Use New to add an entry to the file, or Edt to modify an existing one. In either case, you will get access to a number of fields. The first five fields (in the upper left corner) are not marked, but they are:

90 SUPPLIERS | The Suppliers screen

• Supplier code: This needs to be a unique code referring to this supplier. It is best to use the three or four digit industry standard codes for the major supplier/distributors, which can be found online at bookmanager.com. On our website, use the B2B (business to business) menu to either keyword search or filter our business directory. If the supplier has an industry standard code, it will be found in parentheses next to the listing name. (see screenshot)

• A/P supplier: Normally will be the same code as above, but in the case where all the accounts payable information should be posted to a separate supplier, put that supplier code here instead.

• Default GL code: The GL account code that accounting activity for this supplier will use. It is overridden by the classification file when you receive. Usually this should be left at the default (acct 140).

• Default GL section code: Normally left blank. Refer to the GL section for more information.

• Default GL location: Normally left blank. Refer to the GL section for more information.

After these main fields, you get into the supplier’s address information. Enter in the correct address, and also add a Returns and Payments address. If all three addresses are the same, you can enter the first one, and just enter through Returns and Payments: the first address should be filled into the other fields automatically.

It is important that you enter the correct SAN into that field. This number is critical when you do electronic ordering, and it also is a unique number that identifies this supplier throughout the book industry. Most suppliers should have a valid SAN number, and can be found in our B2B business directory on bookmanager.com or by contacting the supplier directly.

NOTE: SAN stands for Standard Address Number, and they are issued by Bowker in New Jersey, USA. SANs are unique to the book industry, and you must apply for one if you are a bookstore looking to order from most major or even minor distributors or suppliers. SAN applications can be found on our website, under the downloads page, or you can contact us for forms and advice. Applications are then sent directly to Bowker to the email address [email protected]

Many of the remaining fields are obvious and do not require an explanation, nor are necessarily mandatory (but act as helpful references for you and your staff). Here is a description of those less obvious

91 SUPPLIERS | The Suppliers screen fields that remain:

• Acct: Your account number with this supplier. Will appear on claims from returns, POs, cheques, etc.

• Shipto#: Leave this as your address default unless you want product shipped to a different address. If you do want a separate shipping address, enter one in A Setup, q) Your company name, and then put the corresponding number in here (eg. 2 if you have set up a second address). It will be used on POs to this supplier.

• Billto#: Same as previous, except for billing information.

• Order via: The default method used for ordering with this supplier, as used in 8 Order Process- ing. This option can be overridden in Order Processing for an individual order, but this should indicate the usual method. More information on these options is listed in the Order Processing section of the manual (page 230).

• POs use: Usually set to iSBN. If you order using UPC (ie. for music or gift suppliers), change this setting. For items that do not have UPCs, ISBNs will still be used with this setting.

• MinOrdQty/Retail: Either set a minimum number of copies, or minimum retail value, for placing an order with this supplier. Sometimes the minimums are just there to get free freight, other times suppliers will not ship until a minimum is met. Orders are tagged with a √ (OK) status in 8 Order Processing when they meet this set minimum.

• PO Sort: Indicates the order of items on the POs you send, and can be set to either Title or isbn.

• B/O?: Whether you want to have backorders with this supplier. If you say No, backorders will be cancelled during electronic ordering. Selecting B will backorder only items that have not yet been published. You do have a chance to override this in Order Processing for a particular order.

• __ day canc: Unfilled orders are considered and flagged as cancelled after the set number of days (minimum 20 days).

• Type: Type of vendor. This determines the letter to use for 13th digit of the ISBN, and is set up under A Setup, y) Stock conditions. For example, this setting would be used for a supplier of remainder/hurts books, where the last digit could be replaced by an R to keep the remainder stock distinct from your new books. This can also be used for used book suppliers.

• Ship: The preferred shipping method (normally left blank). It is used only on printed POs.

• Passwrd: Password used for EDI ordering and other electronic access to the supplier.

• Invoices due __ days from EOM: When you should submit payment for received invoices (ie. 30 days).

• Tax: Leave this blank for your default, or use a tax code from the tax tables. Press u to access your tax tables.

92 SUPPLIERS | Changing supplier codes

• Crncy: The two digit currency code for this supplier (e.g.: CA for Canada). This can also be used to define different pricing structures for remainder/hurts distributors. SeeCurrency codes and settings below for further details.

Complete as much of this information as you can, as once you have entered it, you will not need to be changed too often. This information will be visible in many areas of Bookmanager.

Changing supplier codes When you select Edt and change a supplier’s code and press d, Bookmanager will ask you if you want to change the code throughout Bookmanager. This will ensure that all the history with this supplier is put under the correct (new) supplier code. If you say No, it will not change the code.

WARNING: If you accidentally change a Supplier code and realize it part way through, while the system is making the change (as this process can take a few minutes), DO NOT PRESS E, IN- TERRUPT THE PROCESS, OR CLOSE THE BOOKMANAGER WINDOW. If you do, products and orders under this supplier will be partially changed and under two codes, and you will have to contact Bookmanager to fix this.

TIP: Any change to supplier codes should be done on the server station, as this routine has a large amount of places to check and change, and will take a long time to run. Intensive processes like this will run at least ten times faster from the server computer.

Merging supplier codes If one company is taken over by an existing company, the easiest way to move all the product across is to merge the supplier codes. Find the supplier that is being replaced using Srch, and then Edt. Change the supplier code to the existing supplier where the product is now supposed to go to. You will get a red warning message telling you exactly what is about to happen. The current card will be deleted, and all the historical entries will be moved to the new supplier code. Consider this very carefully before saying Yes or No as this is not reversible!

WARNING: If you accidentally merge a Supplier code and realize it part way through, while the system is making the change (as this process can take a few minutes), DO NOT PRESS E ,IN- TERRUPT THE PROCESS, OR CLOSE THE BOOKMANAGER WINDOW. If you do, products and orders under this supplier will be partially merged and under two codes. This situation cannot be fixed or reversed, and you will have to restore from a Backup and lose any current sales/orders.

Currency codes and settings Some businesses deal with suppliers from outside of their own country, and will therefore be getting invoices in another currency. The Suppliers file has a place where you can set these rates.

The Crncy field contains a two-character code for the currency used by this supplier. Bookmanager will allow you to define a code, and then to modify the Exch (exchange rate), Markup, as well as the SD (short discount) for this supplier to make sure products are priced to guarantee a minimum profit margin.

93 SUPPLIERS | Xtra option

If you assign a currency code at a particular Exch, Markup, and SD, it will affect all other suppliers set to the same code. For example, if a bookstore in Canada sets up a currency code called US, and assigns it an exchange rate, markup, and short discount, all suppliers using the US code will have the same settings. The Exch should always be your current bank rate. The Markup is often the same, although you can set it a little higher if you want to ensure you are making enough to cover ordering from a foreign country (e.g.: duties or processing fees). The SD is the profit margin to use when the supplier’s discount is below the number entered in this field. For example, if you enter 30 in the SD field, and a particular title has only a 10% discount from a supplier (normally 40%), Bookmanager will automatically increase the sell price of that item so that you will make a minimum 30% profit. Keep in mind, this change in the sell price does not affect items in-stock, rather this is used in your Pubstock to determine an estimated sell price for items to be ordered, as well as on your Webstore to quote customers on items that need to be ordered. The SD field is normally set anywhere between 20 - 35, and is entirely a store’s personal preference.

NOTE: The currency and SD settings are essential to 9) Receiving for determining whether you are setting your selling prices high enough. They are also used extensively in the = General ledger.

Xtra option This is a quick way to access the ordering setup options for this supplier. You can also get access to these in 8 Order Processing, but this requires a pending or sent order being in the system. If you do not have any orders listed yet, you can add these settings through Suppliers by selecting Xtra, and then setting the order method.

Order sending methods available are: Mail, Phone, Fax, Email, Netftp (using Bookmanager’s FTP service), Bknet (using BookNet/Pubnet’s FTP service), and interS (interstore transfer, used for Multi-store users).

This area is where you will enter in the information to set up your EDI ordering through BookNet/ Pubnet or NetFTP accounts.

EDI Ordering with Bookmanager The majority of vendors are set up for electronic (EDI) ordering, except for a handful that may be running smaller operations and can’t spare the time/resources to get it going. We highly recommend that you order electronically with any vendors that offer it. EDI ordering allows for the supreme efficiency of Electronic Receiving (see 9 Receiving page 259), instant order confirmations, with some vendors even giving you better discounts if you send via EDI.

Simply put, EDI ordering will save you time when sending and receiving orders, it will also be more efficient and time-saving for the suppliers themselves, and you could be offered better discounts.

What you need first: a SAN As mentioned earlier, a SAN is a unique seven-digit identifier used to signify a specific address of an organization in (or served by) the publishing industry. You need one of these in order to do any EDI ordering, so if you don’t have one, you can fill out a form downloaded from bookmanager.com. There is a different form depending on if your store is located in Canada or the USA. There is no fee to get a

94 SUPPLIERS | EDI Ordering with Bookmanager

SAN if you are a Canadian bookstore. There is a one-time $50 charge if you are a US store. After you have filled out the form and sent it to either [email protected] or faxed to 908-219-0188, it takes a maximum five days to process. Once you hear back from Bowker, call us here at Bookmanager right away so we can update our contact info with your new SAN.

Second step to EDI: A Pubnet (BookNet) account BookNet is simply the Canadian division of Pubnet, so the terms are basically interchangeable. For a one-time $50 fee (Canadian stores) or $75 fee (US stores), you get one set of login credentials that allows you to order via EDI with all the top vendors (Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Scholastic, and many more). There are two forms to fill out, again found on bookmanager. com’s Downloads page. For Canadian stores, send applications off to chuck.lamantia@nielsen. com (ph: 877-428-1990); for American stores, send applications to [email protected] or fax to 973-331-2695. Now you patiently wait to receive an email from Pubnet with the exciting “Welcome to Pubnet!” subject line. (This could take a few days as well). Once you get that email, call us at Bookmanager right away and we can help you update your 3 Suppliers file for the vendors that do EDI through BookNet/Pubnet.

Once your BookNet/Pubnet account has been created, you will need to contact your vendors and tell them that you a) have a SAN and, b) have a Pubnet account and are ready to start sending EDI through that. The reason we stress you call each and every vendor that you deal with is because they will need to flick a switch on their end for orders to come in properly. If you don’t, you run therisk of electronic files getting caught/lost in limbo. Even if you don’t get a BookNet/Pubnet account and do your ordering directly through the vendor’s or our own FTP sites, you will definitely still need to call each of those vendors and give them a heads up.

TIP: We strongly encourage you to use the same three or four digit industry standard vendor codes you see listed in Pubstock and on bookmanager.com within your own Bookmanager software.

What exactly is the difference between Netftp and Bknet in your Bookmanager system? There are three ways to EDI order through Bookmanager: the first is using a vendor’s own FTP site (e.g.: ftp1.in- grambook.com), or through our own site (ftp.client.bookmanager.com) or through BookNet/Pub- net’s site (ftp-edi.pubnet.org). If you see SendVia Netftp that could mean through us, or through the vendor directly, and if you ever see SendVia Bknet, well, that means just through BookNet/Pubnet.

EDI Codes and Terms

Document Code Document Type 850 Purchase Order 855 Purchase Order Acknowledgment 856 Carton Level Invoice (ASN) 810 Electronic Invoice 997 Functional acknowledgment

95 SUPPLIERS | EDI Ordering with Bookmanager

Status Code Explanation Pend Pending - order not yet submitted to vendor Ordr On Order OMai Ordered via Mail OFax Order sent via Fax OPhn Ordered via phone OBkn Ordered via BookNet OEml Ordered via email ONet Ordered via Netftp OInt On Order InterStore purchase order OAck Order Acknowledged by vendor OCnf Order Confirmed by vendor OShp Invoiced / Shipped Rcvd Received BOS Back ordered / Out-of-Stock BNYP Back ordered / Not Yet Published BRP Back ordered / Reprinting BITO Back ordered / Import To Order COS Cancelled Out-of-stock CNYP Cancelled / Not Yet Published CNOP Cancelled / Not Our Publication CNR Cancelled / No Rights COP Cancelled / Out-of-Print CNL Cancelled / No Listing CNW Cancelled / No Word COSI Cancelled / Out-of-stock Indefinitely CPXL Cancelled Publication CRP Cancelled Reprinting CITO Cancelled / Import To Order Cnfrm Order Confirmed Invcd Invoiced & shipped RcvP! Received part of the order AC-Ship Acknowledged & shipped

For a complete listing of supplier codes, which order method each supplier accepts, and their corresponding SANs, please contact Bookmanager or see our Downloads page on bookmanager.com

96 POINT-OF-SALE | The POS Screen

Point-of-Sale Bookmanager’s Point-of-Sale (POS for short) is more than just a cash register. It not only records sales for inventory tracking, it links those sales to your customers and their accounts receivable (for invoicing and credits) found in the 6 Customer file. Through the POS, you can generate invoices, issue and redeem gift cards, manage special orders and customer Helds, create Quotes, track points through a frequent buyer program, and even exchange foreign currency. Also, daily sales totals are kept here for financial tracking and analysis purposes.

The POS Screen The 4 Point-of-Sale screen displays all the information relevant to an individual transaction. The top half of the screen shows particulars about the customer making the purchase (or return), such as name, address, purchase order number, etc. The bottom half of the screen contains particulars about the items sold or returned, such as title, quantity, price, discount, etc. When a transaction is completed, the bottom half of the screen also displays the amount owed for the purchase and the payment method. As with all other screens in Bookmanager, the available commands are located along the bottom of the screen.

The top right-hand corner of the screen is reserved for specific information such as the clerk code of the employee who conducted the transaction, the date and time the transaction was conducted or altered, the invoice number, the transaction’s status, and the net profit margin on this transaction.

Setting the POS Defaults The POS has many settings that should be reviewed before you begin to conduct sales.

To customize the way you would like the POS module to operate, select A Setup and choose f) POS (Point-of-sale) to modify the Point-of-Sale Setup. Each option within this setup area is modified by

97 POINT-OF-SALE | Setting the POS Defaults

highlighting the appropriately lettered line and pressing R, or by simply pressing the correct letter. a) Sales are started with cursor in the: Refers to the field where your cursor starts in each time you press New to create a new transaction. If you would like most of your transactions to be linked to a customer’s name, then choose Shipto. If you do not track customer purchases, or do not use the built in frequent buyer program, then choose iSBN. This is a station specific setting, meaning that you can have different options at different -ter minals throughout your store. b) Sales (not linked to a customer) default to tender: The default setting here is Cash. You can also choose OnAcct to default to the On Account tender. The Pinpad option is selected if you have Chase Paymentech integration, covered later in this section under Pinpad Setup (page 104). This is a station specific setting. c) Sales linked to a customer default to tender : Ask yourself whether most of the sales in which you enter a customer’s name will be cash, card, or on account purchases. Choosing Cash, Pinpad or OnAcct will save you from scrolling through available tenders when you complete a sale. This is a station specific setting. d) Customer linked sales (not tendered OnAcct) are printed as: Many times you will enter a customer’s name in the To field of a sale, yet the customer is not making an On Account purchase. This option allows you to select Invoices or Receipts as the default printing option. This is a station specific setting. e) Customer-linked sales (tendered OnAcct) are printed as: Much like option D), you are given the option of selecting Invoices or Receipts as the default printing options for sales tendered On Account. This is a station specific setting. f) Station’s sales are totalled as group #: Only modified if you wish to obtain separate End of Day totals from multiple POS stations. E.g.: If you have two POS stations, and would like to see separate sales totals from each station, modify this option at both stations. One station should reflect group #00 while the other reflects #01.

NOTE: A station’s sales can only be edited/deleted by a station set with the same group number. For example, a station with this option set to group #03 can only be modified by stations that also have this option set to group #03. If another station with a different group number tries to modify that sale, Bookmanager will give you a warning and not allow changes to be made. g) Last Invoice number used: Only modified if you want Bookmanager to assign consecutive invoice/transaction numbers beginning from a certain point. Bookmanager will start at invoice #100000 by default, with #100000 being the

98 POINT-OF-SALE | Setting the POS Defaults

lowest you can go, or start with letters A - Z followed by 5 digits (e.g. B12345), and work up sequen- tially from there. Letter H is reserved for Held transactions, and cannot be specified here. Generally there is no need to change this option, unless you are initially transitioning from another POS system. h) POS customer display pole port: Only used if a POS display pole is attached to this computer. Enter the printer port number (eg. COM1, COM2, etc.), and the model number. Pressing u in the model number field will display which display pole models are supported, and their corresponding number. Please call Bookmanager support for more information if you have a POS display pole, as only certain models and connections are supported. This option is station specific. i) Sales tax tables: This is where the tax system is set up, and was introduced earlier in the manual under Getting Started (page 30). To properly apply taxes to any item sold through Bookmanager, these tables must cross reference the type of tax with each tax region sold to and each type of product sold. Suppose your bookstore operates in British Columbia, selling product to every other province, as well as to the United States. When a book is sold to a customer in Alberta, the taxes applied to that item are different than if it were staying in-province or going to Newfoundland or Oregon. The applied taxes are also different if the item is not a book, or if it is a shipping charge.

When a POS transaction is started with a customer, Bookmanager checks the Tx field in the 6 Cus- tomer file for which of the Cust Tax Codes from the table is there. Customers from similar tax regions have the same Cust Tax Code in the Tx field. If no customer is entered or the customer Tx field is blank, then the Default tax rules are used. For each item sold, Bookmanager then checks the Product Tax Code from the POS transaction (the T column), and compares it to the same Product Tax Code in the Tax Setup to determine which tax to apply. Be aware that the Product Tax Code that appears in the T column of the POS transaction is simply taken from the Tx field for that item’s Class as it appears in the 4 Classification file.

(See next page for example screenshot): If one of the items being purchased has a Product Tax Code 1, and the customer is from BC (which is also the Default tax code rules in this example) the tax table requires that only GST (tax code name “a”) be applied to that item. If the same customer purchases an item with a Product Tax Code 2, the tax table will specify both GST and PST (tax codes a and b, listed as ab under the tax to apply table) to be applied to it. You can specify more complex taxing situations using the B and 3 Product Tax Codes.

Selling Outside of Your Area If you are located in a province/state that charges provinvial/state/city and government sales taxes separately depending on where the customer is purchasing from, the following examples will help you construct your tax table setup. Selling items to a province with HST will be described separately.

The initial tax table setup that was discussed and pictured earlier will accommodate any provincial customers you may have (except in Alberta), but the table needs to be modified for any customers living in the USA or in a different province than your own.

99 POINT-OF-SALE | Setting the POS Defaults

As an example, to set up a tax code used by Canadian stores to sell to customers in the US, create a Cust Tax Code called US for American customers. While your cursor is in the Customer tax codes area, select New and enter US. Since US customers do not have to pay any Canadian tax if you are shipping from Canada, enter Tax Code “e” (tax EXEMPT with a rate of 0.000) into the Tax to Apply fields, and press d. Next, find your American customers in the 6 Customer file and Edit the tax code (Tx) field to show US.

The below example tax set up is how a bookstore in British Columbia, Canada, should be configured. Books are PST exempt, which is why there is a Product Tax Code 1 and 2 that is used throughout the system and class file.

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TIP: You can run an Xtra routine from the Tax Setup to scan your 6 Customers for any tax codes assigned under the customer’s Tx1# and Tx2# that do not have entries within your Customer tax codes. This is a specialized feature designed to find orphaned tax codes, and can be helpful when tax rules change (e.g.: the introduction of a harmonized sales tax). Please contact Bookmanager support for guidance with this feature.

Selling to the Provinces with HST To set up customers from areas with HST, go back to the Tax Setup and use the r to access the Tax Types, Names and Rates section to the right of the Tax Setup. Now select New and enter c for a third type of tax. Specify the tax name as HST, the Tax Rate as 13.00, and whatever your GL account number is for collected HST, pressing d to save the new tax. Use the l to go back to the left half of the Tax Setup and select New, entering a code for HST customers; this example will use the Cust Tax Code ON (for Ontario). Enter Tax Code a under the Product Tax Code 1 and Tax Code c under Product Tax Codes 2. Anything with Product Tax Code 1 (such as books) sold to a customer with the Cust Tax Code ON will have 5% GST applied to it. Anything with the Product Tax Code 2 will have HST applied to it. Press d to save this new Cust Tax Code, and be sure that all HST customers have their corresponding province code in the Tx field in the 6 Customer file.

Selling From the Provinces with HST The tax system for a store in an HST area is completely different from that of any other area in Can- ada. A store in Nova Scotia never has to charge PST, and never charges HST to any customers outside of an HST area.

The blank “default” Cust Tax Code will be the initial setup for any newly entered customers as well as local customers, and will apply 5% GST on any items with a Product Tax Code of 1 such as books. Everything else (non-book items) sold to such a customer will have 13% HST applied, and therefore Product Tax Code 2, which uses Tax Type c. A new Cust Tax Code, such as CA, should be created and given to any customers from within Canada, but outside an HST area. This CA code would only charge GST (code a) for any products, book or non-book.

US Stores Bookstores selling in the US will configure their tax tables using the above examples, and have complete control over not only codes and rates, but the GL account code names and locations. For example, the system defaults to GL account 347 GST on Sales for Tax Code a, and account 341 PST on Sales for Tax Code b. The tax code letters, names, account codes and GL account names can be edited to reflect your state and city tax rates and names. Pressing u in the GL Act (GL account) field will give you quick access to your GL accounts, where you can Edit and rename to your pleasing.

Other Situations When in the Pnts (points) and Cpns (coupons) column, you can distinguish for what special items tax might be applied to. It is usually left blank, but if frequent buyer points redeemed are taxable, put P here. If coupons redeemed are taxable put C here. If tax applies only after a threshold, put the amount here (eg: 4 for $4.00). Check with your provincial/state tax laws to see what applies to you, or contact Bookmanager for assistance.

101 POINT-OF-SALE | Setting the POS Defaults j) Default sales tax for products: The type of tax that automatically appears in the Tx column of the 4 Class file when adding a New class. This should be the tax most often applied to most of your products. k) Foreign Currency Exchange Rate: Refers to how much you would multiply one foreign currency unit to get the equivalent in your currency. This exchange is used in the POS and is separate from exchange rates set in 3 Suppliers. l) Setup tendering names (disable/enable, change tender name): This option will allow you to Edit the POS Tender Links that can also be set up from the General Led- ger module. This will change which options are available when you are finalizing sales in 4) Point of Sale. Use Edit to access, to tb change fields, and d to save. The options available for editing are:

• InUse: Whether this tendering option will be available to select in the POS. Yes/No toggle.

• Tender: The name of the tendering option as it will appear in POS. Credit cards are generally the only names that are changed, and we advise that you leave all other fields as is.

• Act: The GL account code that the tendering option uses and posts to. Press u here to access and edit your account codes. The defaults use industry standard account codes, so most do not need to be Edited.

• Se: The section code this tender’s sales appear under. Section code activity is found in the General Ledger and POS End of Day Sales Tapes. To edit or create section codes, you can access them through 4 Class, the = General Ledger, or by pressing u on the Se field here. It is handy to create a unique Section code for each credit/debit card type for easy separation at

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the end of day. (see below screenshot)

• GL Name: The extended GL account code name. Again, edit by pressing u in the Act field.

• Type: All System tenders are those that link to vital operations, whereas Custom tenders are those that are not mandatory and can be customized (such as credit cards).

NOTE: Bookmanager will automatically round cash transactions to the nearest 5¢ to accommodate provinces/states that are phasing out the 1¢ penny. This setting is enabled by default. To disable this, make sure you set the POS Tender option PennyAdj to No. n) Calculate weights for shipments? The default setting is No. Setting this option to Yes will add the weights (as recorded on the Inventory card) of any items sold on the transaction for ease of calculating shipping charges. o) Prompt to select Ship/BO/Canc when sold qty is more than On- Hand?: Set this to Yes if you want it to give you the option to cancel or backorder if you sell more than what you have on hand. In most cases this should be left as Yes, as selling stock into a negative on-hand is usually a mistake. p) Check for other conditions of the scanned 13-digit EAN: The default is set to Yes, which means if you carry stock designated as used, remainder, collectible, etc., you will be prompted to choose what version or condition of an item you would like to sell. For example: if you scan the full ISBN in 4) Point of Sale and you have no stock of the new condition copy, this will prompt you to choose if you would like to sell the ‘remainder’ or alternate edition copy, if there is stock available of that alternate condition ISBN. If you do not sell different conditions of books, this setting will not affect anything if left on. r) Receipt header and footer messages Type in any message that you want to appear on the top and bottom of each receipt you print. Usu- ally your store name, address, phone #, email, store hours, and website on the top, and a message outlining your returns and exchanges policy on the bottom. Messages will print exactly as formatted here, so alignment, spelling, and capitalization matters. s) Gift receipt message When you press Gift twice after charging a sale in 4) Point of Sale, a gift receipt will print from your receipt printer. This receipt includes your store’s information, an invoice number pointing to the sale, and a custom message at the bottom. No book titles or prices will be listed on this gift receipt. You can edit the bottom message and customize it in this field. Press CW to save any changes.

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t) Logo setup for receipt printer (enabled/disabled) For use with the Samsung Bixolon receipt printers only. If you would like your store’s graphic logo to be printed on each receipt you can enable that setting here. You will be required to use your Book- manager website or Webstore (Setup menu -> Receipt Logo sub-menu) to upload the image, and we recommend giving us a call to help you enable this setting and configure the image for best quality.

u) Setup pinpad payment device This option is if you use Chase Paymentech Verifone credit/debit card terminals. Please contact us at Bookmanager to help you with this setting. The models currently supported are Verifone vx810, vx820, and vx820 Duet.

Setup for printing invoices If you are printing invoices for sales on account or to institutions you will need to check a few additional options. Go into A Setup, g) POS Invoice Format.

Remittance address and Shipped from address: By default, the setting is 1, taken from the top of q) Your Company Name, etc., where the default is Billing Address #1 (of #). If you wish to use a different address for either of these settings, set up an additional address in your q) Your Company Name, etc. To do this, go into A Setup and select q) Your Company Name, etc. Press New and fill in the information for your second address. Once you have set up a new address, put the appropriate number into this field.

# invoice copies: The default is 1. Enter a 2 if you need an extra copy of every invoice you print. This can also be altered on a per invoice basis when you finalize the transaction.

Invoice Paper Type:

Form Plain Graphics

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This option will depend on whether you use pre-printed forms or plain letter size paper. If you use forms, select Form, and any framing lines and graphics will be omitted. For plain copier paper, select Graphics for best results. Selecting Plain will print with simplified ASCII frames.

Auth/UPC on 2nd line: This lets you select whether you want an author and/or a UPC listed below on the second line of each line item on a transaction. This option is sometimes helpful for teachers and librarians. The default is None.

Show Section totals? Choose whether you want a subtotal by section code (from the classification file) to appear at the bottom of your invoice. The default is No.

Show tax codes? Choose whether you want your Bookmanager tax code (a, b, c, x, etc.) printed next to each line item, thus identifying the taxation used on each item.

Language... Print invoices in either English or French. This does not include quotes or proforma invoices.

Statement paper type: The Statement paper type refers to statements that you will print for your customers from Accounts Receivable (A/R). As with invoices, use Graphics (or Plain) if you are using plain paper. Use Form if you have pre-printed Bookmanager statement forms. Select Custom if you have a custom-made form with your address pre-printed on it.

Creating a New Transaction A POS transaction can be broken into four basic steps:

• Enter a customer’s name (if you are interested in tracking their purchases, providing a frequent buyer program, or printing/emailing a detailed invoice).

• Enter the item(s) being purchased, including discounts.

• Selecting the form of payment(s), aka tendering.

• Printing, emailing, or exporting either a receipt or invoice.

The New command is the most frequently used 4 Point-of-Sale command. Every time a customer brings a book to counter for purchase, you will be creating a new transaction. For this example, we will assume that a customer named Jane Doe with phone number 123-4567 is purchasing one copy of two different books.

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To begin, press New and enter your clerk code. (The letter A will work if you have not set up any clerk codes yet. Refer to Getting Started page 34 to do so). By default, your cursor will be ready in the To field. If you changed your default and your cursor is flashing inthe ISBN field, press the t key twice until the To field is available.

Type in Jane’s phone number first into the To field and press R. If the phone number is in your system, a list of possible matching customers will be displayed. If not, the bottom of the screen will display a message saying “No phone or acct# matching. Try by name.”, at which time you should now type in the customer’s Lastname, Firstname. Again, if there is a match at this point, a list of results will be displayed, and you can select using R from that list. If that name finds no matches, a “Customer not found” box will display, giving you two options: New to add, E to redo. Press New to add this customer to your 6 Customers file without interrupting the sale.

If you started by typing the customer’s phone number, Bookmanager will remember that and insert it into the Phn1 field, as well as the customer’s name you typed. Bookmanager will auto-capitalize the first letter of names upon a d save. Complete the customer card on the screen with as much detail as you want, entering at least their name (Last-name, First-name), and press d to save and continue back to POS.

TIP: If you press R or d on the blank To field, your cursor will skip down to the ISBN field, ready for product to be scanned. Sales do not have to have a customer or account name attached.

The newly added Jane Doe will now be entered in the To field in POS. Most times, you will now press d to skip to the ISBN field to begin scanning in product. Pressing R instead will advance you through other fields before you begin scanning product. If the customer has a purchase order number, place that in the PO# field. The next long field can be used to attach a message that will print on the invoice. The message will also be visible in the A/R file. The Via field is for the shipping method you will use, if any, and the Terms field is for your required terms of purchase. The Via and Terms fields can have defaults set in the 6 Customer file. None of these fields are mandatory, but are helpful with institution and school accounts.

After you R or d through these fields, your cursor should be in the ISBN field.

TIP: If you need to access/edit the customer’s full account, you can press u in the To field.

Scan or type in the ISBN of Jane’s first book. Bookmanager will recognize the item if it is in your inventory, and prompt you for the next ISBN.

NOTE: If you are not able to find the ISBN on the book, use u or the 2 Inventory Search to find the title. Once the required title is on the screen, press R to select that title as the one you want to sell. The ISBN will be inserted into the sale.

Enter the remaining items. If you need to modify or remove any of the scanned items, simply use the t to arrow up and highlight the line item, then press Edit or Delete.

TIP: When you are highlighting a line item, or viewing a Held or History POS transaction, you can press l or r to toggle the default Clas field to a PM (profit margin) field for each item.

106 POINT-OF-SALE | Creating a New Transaction

Once you have entered all the items, press R or d on the blank ISBN field to advance to Tendering.

The Tendering options should appear on the left side of the screen. Jane is paying with cash, so use the t and b keys, or the associated hotkey letter (C in this case) to highlight Cash, and put in the exact amount she has given you. Pressing d will bring up the Print/Finalize Transaction screen on the right. This screen will only appear if you have a customer name in the To field. Here, you can select what type of document you want to print (receipt, invoice, shiplabel, etc.) and where you want to send it (printer, email, fax, etc.). You should have previously set your default print finalize type in A Setup, so most often you will press d here to print a Receipt or Invoice.

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If you have a receipt printer and cash drawer connected, and chose to print a Receipt, the cash drawer should now pop open. Bookmanager will go back to the initial POS screen, and display the change you need to give if the customer provided anything greater than the total sale amount. The sale will now be assigned an invoice number (whereas before completion, it has a Held Inv# beginning with an H), and the Stat (status) will be changed from HELD to Current.

TIP: Pressing u from the Tendering options will complete the sale without printing anything.

Managing Conditions of the Sale Conditions of a sale consist of the quantity, price, discount, taxes, points and PO# that are specific to each ISBN recorded in a sale. After ISBNs have been entered into a sale, their conditions can be altered prior to choosing a tender. Simply highlight the ISBN whose conditions need to be changed using t b, and press Edit. The t and b keys will manoeuvre left/right among the available fields, and d will save the changes. Some of these conditions can also be altered prior to entering each ISBN.

Multiple Copies Bookmanager assumes single copy sale for each ISBN scanned into a POS transaction. If Jane brings 12 copies of a certain book to the counter for purchase, we can save time by altering the quantity before scanning the ISBN. Once your cursor is in the ISBN field, type in 12, then a + or *, and then R. Notice the quantity field change from 1 to 12. Now scan the ISBN. You will be prompted for the next ISBN, and you can complete the sale as usual. For quantities under six, you may find it faster to just scan the original ISBN however many times.

Price Changes If you wish to sell an item at a different price than what is specified in your inventory file, you can access the price field prior to scanning in the ISBN. For example, Jane wants to purchase a book that is priced at $15.99, but you want to give her a special one-time offer of $13.99. Once your cursor is in the ISBN field, press the b twice until your cursor is in the price field. Type in 13.99 and press d to get back to the ISBN field in order to scan the book. Complete the sale as usual.

Applying Itemized Discounts Suppose Jane discovers a slightly damaged book on the shelf, and requests a ten percent discount if she purchases it. To apply a discount to this item, begin the sale as usual. Once your cursor is in the ISBN field, before scanning the ISBN, type in 1 0 / and R. The discount field (labelled as%% ) will now contain 10.

Sometimes you may need to apply a ten percent discount to the entire sale. To create a repeating ten percent discount, type 10// (or //10) and then press R. Notice the 10 in the discount field has an asterisk next to it, meaning that each ISBN will automatically have a ten percent discount.

Alternatively, you can first enter all the items being sold into the transaction, and then highlight an item listed in the sale. Type / or press Edit to access the discount field. Type in 10 and press the 5 (repeat) key. A menu will display allowing you to change discounts at one amount to another en masse. Leaving the from field blank will grab all items not yet discounted. You can change all the discounts, or just those from the highlighted line and down.

108 POINT-OF-SALE | Managing Conditions of the Sale

TIP: The 5 repeat key can be used in many fields in Bookmanager to repeat or remember data.

The above method gives you more control over how to apply discounts to an entire sale, but if you want a quick way to just change all discounts on a sale to a minimum amount, type /// plus the discount needed, and press R. For example, after scanning all products, type ///10 on a new line and press R to apply a 10% discount to all items on the sale, and also apply that discount to any items to be scanned.

NOTE: Both the 5 repeat key and /// shortcut will apply discounts intelligently, ensuring that your customer will be given the best deal possible. These functions will not overwrite any higher discounts. For example, if you have an item on a sale already with a 25% discount, using the ///10 discount function will not change that item’s discount to 10%, but will leave it at its higher 25%.

Setting a Default Discount for a Customer A default discount can be set for any particular customer to be applied to anything they purchase. For example, many stores will give school orders a discount, or provide their employees with a discount on anything they purchase.

To set this up in Bookmanager, go to the 6 Customer file. Srch for the customer and Edt, or if they are not in the file add them as New. Once you are in the Customer card, move to the Disc (discount) field and enter the percentage discount that you will always want to give this customer. In POS, the %% field should contain the discount specified on each item sold. Any item with a percentage discount different than the customer’s default discount will use the higher discount.

Changing Taxes on an Item Taxes cannot be changed prior to entering an ISBN within a transaction. Once you have scanned in an ISBN, press the t until the desired line is highlighted. Press Edit and use the t b keys to access

109 POINT-OF-SALE | Managing Conditions of the Sale

the T tax field. Choose 1, 2, B or 3, depending on what taxes you need to charge. If you do not wish to apply any taxes to it, press D to blank out the tax field. Once you have corrected the applied tax, press d to continue with the sale.

If each item in the transaction requires the same taxes applied to it, highlight the first item in the list and use the Edit command. Enter the correct tax code and press 5 (repeat) to apply it to the entire sale.

Making a Customer Tax Exempt Some customers may be exempt from certain taxes. To make a customer exempt from tax, go into the 6 Customer file. Srch for that customer and Edt their record. Use the b key to access the Tx1# or Tx2# field (depending on which one they are exempt from). Type in either their exemption number (if they give you one), or just the word EXEMPT. Press d to save the entry.

Now try a New sale for this customer. The exempted tax should not be applied to this sale.

Other Options Notice that after using the t key to highlight an ISBN already entered into a sale, a line item specific command menu appears at the bottom of the screen. Some of those commands have already been explained; the remaining options are addressed here.

• Adj (Adjust): Brings up the Inventory adjustment options. You can adjust the item’s Minimum, Backroom, or O/H (On Hand) stock level.

• B/O (Backorder): The B/O command will display a Status Codes box. Use the t b keys to highlight the status you would like to apply to the item and press R. Only the Sell/Ship status will charge the item on the transaction. Note that this function is only available when a customer is attached to the transaction.

• @Edt (alternate edit): The @ symbol in Bookmanager means the A key. Pressing A Edit here will allow you to edit the 2 Inventory card for the highlighted item, rather than the POS line item details accessed by just pressing Edit.

• indx (Index): Allows you to choose how to list the titles. The blank option is for the order the titles were scanned, where Title, ISBN, and Customer PO sort options are also available.

• Ord (Order): The Ord command will bring up an order function so that you may place a pending order for the highlighted item.

• Rsv (Reserve): Similar to the Ord command, but it will default to an item already on order if one exists, and also insert the customer’s account into the order.

• Srch (Search): Will allow you to find an item within the transaction. Search by ISBN, price, or a word within the title. You can also scan the ISBN in POS instead of using the Srch command.

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• Trf (Transfer): The Trf command will allow you to transfer the highlighted item to another Held invoice. If there are no other current Held sales for this customer, you will only be given the option to create a new invoice. Otherwise, a list of available Held sales to transfer to will be displayed.

• @Ttl (A Total): Will total the customer’s purchases of the highlighted ISBN for the last five years, and display a sales history table showing years and months.

• View: Acts as a toggle button between the POS screen and the inventory card for the currently highlighted item. Pressing it once will display the inventory card in the top half of the POS screen. Pressing it a second time will restore the POS information.

• Xtra (Extra Options): Displays the extra options available for this transaction. Most of these options are highly specialized, and generally not used in day-to-day operations. The options are:

a) Re-apply the Ship / Backorder status based on Inventory availability: Used to restore the original order status if it was modified.

b) Export the ISBNs to ISBNS.TXT file: Creates a very basic .txt notepad file of simply the ISBNS from this transaction. The file is saved in the root BM folder, with the filename ISBNS.txt. If there is already a file there with this name, it will be overwritten.

c) Automatically create Orders file entries for items on backorder: Will automatically scan the transaction for any items with a backorder status (a b after the item’s Qty) and create orders for those items.

d) Reconcile these items by scanning them: An extremely handy function for verifying whether all the items in a large transaction are present, without the need to print off and check through a list. Upon entering this option, a new screen will be loaded that will display all the items on this invoice, with the fields Sold, Scan, and Diff (difference). Once here, press New and start scanning the physical books. When you are done, press E and then Filter. If you have missing items, or too many books scanned, the Filter command will display any discrepancies (in the Diff column) at the top of this list. If your scanned count matches what is on the invoice, then a message at the bottom There are no discrepancies (Filter cancelled) will be displayed. This reconciliation process does not make changes to your active invoice, rather it is a tool to quickly assess that your transaction has all of its items present.

TIP: The above reconciliation feature is very useful for school and institutional sales, where large POs amassed over a span of time are finally picked up and put through in the POS. This is much more efficient than checking, line by line, books off a list and sorting through physical piles, trying to find matches.

e) Consolidate lines that are duplicates (qtys are added to one line.): Again, a handy option for larger POs built over a long period of time, where multiple lines for the same ISBN are present. This will consolidate duplicate ISBNs and their quantities into a single line.

111 POINT-OF-SALE | Returning an Item

• -rtrn (return toggle): By pressing the - (minus) key when highlighting an item, the Qty of that item will be turned to the negative, thus making it a return sale. For example, if the item currently has 3 in the Qty field, pressing - will make it -3, and that customer would be refunded for three copies of that item. More on return sales in the next section.

Returning an Item If a customer decides they do not want an item that they have purchased, it needs to be returned through the POS. By recording the return sale in the 4 Point-of-Sale, inventory levels are adjusted accordingly and sales records remain accurate.

Start a New transaction in the usual way. If a customer account or name was used for the original purchase, it is best to enter it again here. That said, returns do not require anything in the To field. When you are prompted for an ISBN, pressing the – (minus) key and R will put a -1 in the quantity field. Typing -3 and R will put a -3 in the quantity field. Now scan the book’s barcode into the ISBN field. You can also scan in the book first and then highlight it and press the - key.

TIP: To make every item in the transaction default to a negative quantity before scanning in an ISBN, press the - key twice before pressing R. To return every item after scanning in the ISBNs, highlight the first item in the list. Press Edit and then the 5 (repeat) key.

POS returns have a default tender of Cash Ref (cash refund), but can be tendered as CrOnAcct (credit On Account), or credit/debit card refunds. Simply use the arrow keys to highlight the appropriate tender, and press d. The chosen tender is reflected in the daily sales totals, as well as in the customer’s A/R (if tendered as CrOnAcct).

Selling Out of Stock Items It is possible to sell an item in Bookmanager even if the Avail O/H level is at zero or lower. In day- to-day operations, usually it is a mistake to sell something into a negative on-hand, but it is allowed with a manual override. When you sell such an item within a customer linked transaction in the 4 POS, a Status Codes box will appear. To choose a status, use the t b keys to highlight the appropriate one and press R.

112 POINT-OF-SALE | Selling Items Not Entered into Bookmanager

Only when you use the Sell status does the transaction actually charge the customer for the item and reduce the Total O/H by the number of copies sold. This can cause the O/H figure to enter negative levels, so be careful about selling items that are out of stock.

When you sell something that is not on-hand or is in a negative on-hand state, it will cause a few major problems that will not only negatively affect your store, but all users sharing sales data for title ranking purposes. For one, selling an item not on-hand will cause Bookmanager to assume a 100% profit margin for that item, simply because there is no receiving record. Second, when your weekly sales report is sent to Bookmanager, all sales are included, so this can skew the sales ranking for titles, with those rankings used to drive your search results and Webstore. This is an especially troubling issue if multiple stores are selling the same item that is not in stock (likely in the case of pre-selling a title not yet released). Pre-sales of titles should be handled in a different fashion, covered later in this section.

WARNING: If an item’s Total O/H falls into the negative (-1 for example) and then the item is received through 9 Receiving (3 copies for example), the O/H will increase from the negative value (from –1 to 2 for example).

Selecting any of the other statuses will list the item in the transaction with the chosen status in the Pt and Total column rather than its extended cost including tax. This option allows you to notify your customer of any orders that have been backordered or cancelled.

If you select a backorder status, the reserve pick list will come up on the bottom half of the screen to give you an opportunity to put this item on order for the customer. If it is already on order, simply press E to return to the 4 POS screen. Notice the small b to the right of the Qty, signifying “backorder”.

Selling Items Not Entered into Bookmanager There may be occasions when you wish to sell an item for which you are not tracking inventory levels. For example, you may carry hundreds of various bookmarks, and it is simply too tedious to receive and track sales for them individually. Bookmanager allows you to sell items generically by entering in a price and a classification, as opposed to scanning in an ISBN.

Let’s assume you are selling a bookmark. In this case it is $2.99, and belongs to the BOOKMARK classification in your 4 Classification File. To reflect both the price and classification, type 2.99BOOKMA. This will fill the ISBN field, show a generic bookmark sale for $2.99, and prompt you for the next item. Even though “BOOKMA” is not the complete classification, Bookmanager finds the correct one because no other classes start with “BOOKMA”.

TIP: If you have a classification like bookmark that you will be frequently using, you can speed up the process by changing the “Bookmark” class so it is called “1BOOKMARK” or “BM”. This way, you can enter 2.991 or 2.99bm to quickly have it sell a bookmark worth 2.99.

Sometimes you may wish to conduct a miscellaneous type of sale that does not come from a specific classification in your store. In order to do this you must first create a New class in the 4 Classifica- tion File.

Once in the 4 Classification File, select New. Press the M once and type in the word SALE followed by the R key. You may wish to give this class a separate Se (Section) code (e.g.: SA). Specify the

113 POINT-OF-SALE | Charging Shipping

default tax applied to miscellaneous sale item in the TX column, then any default discount or points. d to save the new class.

Now, whenever you wish to sell a miscellaneous item within a sale, simply type in the price into the ISBN field and press R. Bookmanager reads a space after the price and applies the sale to the class you just created in the 4 Classification File (because we put a space before the word SALE).

Many stores just starting with Bookmanager gradually enter their inventory into the program, and therefore conduct a lot of these types of sales at the beginning. This allows them to obtain accurate End-of-day sales totals, even though Bookmanager is not yet tracking their entire inventory. Over time, the miscellaneous sale should become less frequent, with the hopes that 99.9% of your sales eventually be linked to received stock.

Charging Shipping Within Bookmanager, shipping charges are tracked as a particular ISBN that is never received, and never has an On-Hand level. In order to be able to charge shipping to a customer, you must first create an ISBN for Shipping in Bookmanager’s Inventory file.

Setting Up the Shipping ISBN: As with any new inventory item within Bookmanager, it must have a valid Supplier and Classifi- cation. Press 4 to access the Classification file, and enter in a new classification called SHIP- PING. It should have a unique section code (e.g.: SH) so as to obtain a subtotal for shipping charges at the end of the day. Make sure the taxes are also set up correctly, and inserting 0 (zero) into the %% discount field will prevent this item from ever being discounted by accident.

Once you are in 2 Inventory press New. Enter 0 (zero) into the ISBN field, and leave the price at 0.00 (because shipping charges will vary between invoices). Enter the Titl as SHIPPING, leave the Auth field blank and keep pressing R until you get to the Suppl field. Put in your own store’s supplier code. In the Class field, type in the SHIPPING classification you just created and proceed to the Note field. At the very beginning of this field put two carats (^^) by holding down S and pressing 6 twice. Doing this will tell Bookmanager not to track an On-Hand figure for this item, but to continue recording its sales history. Press d to save this new inventory card.

Now that Shipping charges have been assigned an ISBN, you can now add them to a transaction. Begin a new transaction in the 4 Point-of-Sale. After you have scanned in all the items being sold,

114 POINT-OF-SALE | Other Specialty Sales in the POS

press 0 (zero) and then R while in the last blank ISBN field. You will then be prompted to enter the amount charged for shipping. Do so, and press R. Now tender the transaction as required. Notice that on the printed invoice the shipping charges appear as freight in the same area as the sub-total and taxes, rather than in the list of items sold. This is because Bookmanager is programmed to place the title and dollar value for the ISBN 0 (zero) in that spot on the invoice. Shipping charges appear on the receipt just as a regular item.

Other Specialty Sales in the POS As outlined earlier, Bookmanager has some special functions that can be triggered by certain ISBNs, Classes, or characters in the Notes field of an inventory item. If your store deals with used books and issues trade-in credit/cash back, there is a unique ISBN and function to handle that situation (see the Used Books section of the manual, page 280). There are also special “sales” situations (buy two get a third free for calendars) that Bookmanager can be set up to automatically handle and calculate. These functions are more involved and often require some discussion before implementing, so if one of these topics peaks your interest, give Bookmanager support a call and we can guide you though the setup.

Tendering Options There are many ways that a customer can pay for their books. The steps taken for various tenders will be outlined here. Options like Cash and Cheque are self-explanatory, and our discussion here will be limited to the other options that are not so obvious.

NOTE: There is a note field accessed after selecting any tender and pressing R. This field can be used to enter any additional information about a tender, such as a cheque number, coupon number, brief explanation, etc. Anything entered into this note field is also printed on receipts and invoices.

Editing/adding tendering options If you need to modify the listed tendering options, you must change them in the A Setup or from the General Ledger. If you have just installed Bookmanager for the first time this will probably be the case with your credit card options, which will default to a generic card 1, card 2, etc. You will probably want to change these to their proper names.

To do this, press A Setup, f) POS (Point-of-sale), and l) Setup tendering names. You can also access this area from the = General Ledger by selecting Accts, and then b until POS Tender links is highlighted.

You will now see all the available tender options. Press b t to highlight the ones you need to change, and Edit them. For example, you can replace card 1 with Visa. If you do not use the GL (you have not initialized it), that is all you need to change and you can d to save. If you do use the GL or are planning on to, it is important that you assign the correct account code (Act) to this tendering option. This ensures that the posting of these entries will go to the right place in Bookmanager’s GL. Consult the General Ledger section (page 316) for a better understanding of how to set up and use account codes. For now, it is probably defaulting to Acct 100, which is your basic bank account.

Assigning Section Codes to your tenders is not mandatory, but can be valuable for sales reports. Using

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a square bracket [ can help you visually separate your Tendering section codes from your regular Class/ Inventory section codes. (see below screenshot)

Discounts & Coupons Suppose you want to give a $5.00 discount on an entire purchase. Instead of taking that amount off of each item by changing the selling price, type 5.00 in the top Discount tendering option and press R. Five dollars will be taken off the subtotal and the balance owing will default to cash, or you can pick the appropriate tender.

Coupons work the same way. Simply type the value of the coupon in the Coupon tendering option before choosing a form of payment. Complete the sale as usual. Both coupons and discounts are recorded and totalled separately in the End-of-day totals.

Deposits, Credit Notes, & Gift Certificates The Deposit and CrNote Rdm/Iss (credit note redeem/issue) tenders are turned off by default, as there are better methods to handling these situations. These tenders have limited traceability, hence why they are left off on a new system. That said, they can be used if a more simplistic systemfor handling your pre-pays and credits is desired. For most users, we recommend using the OnAcct (On Account) tendering instead of credits and deposits, which will be discussed later in this section.

Deposits are issued when a customer is prepaying an order, and redeemed when they pick up the order. Credit notes are issued when a return creates a negative balance owing, and redeemed when the next purchase occurs. Credit notes and Deposits are basically printed IOUs, and should be treated like cash, as they are not tracked in the system with a running balance.

The GiftCert (gift certificates) tender is used if your store uses a paper system that is not tracked or integrated within Bookmanager. You use this tender to both issue and redeem gift certificates, and the note field attached to this tender can be used to insert your assigned gift certificate number (if you provide them, which can allow a basic level of traceability).

The GiftCard tender is an internal function, and will be lumped in with the regular GiftCert tender at

116 POINT-OF-SALE | Tendering Options

the POS. It is utilized in the background if you have tracked, Bookmanager issued gift card numbers and/or cards. For more information on Bookmanager’s Gift Card Program, please contact our support team.

All Tendering options can be toggled between Issued and Redeemed by pressing the - (minus) key. This information is not retained in the customer’s history because they are tendering options, not ISBNs that are sell-able. That said, the direction (positive or negative) of the tender amount will illustrate if it was an issued or redeemed amount. Tendering information is kept attached to any particular sale with a customer’s name until the Month-end routines are run.

Multiple Tenders It is possible for a customer to pay for a transaction with multiple tenders, and Bookmanager will automatically do the math to make things easy.

For example, let’s say a customer makes a purchase that comes to $39.86. She wants to pay $20.00 cash and the rest on Visa. When tendering the transaction, highlight Cash and type 20.00, and then t or b to the Visa option and press R to make sure you have entered in the correct amounts. Press d to complete the transaction.

Conversely, if the customer wanted to pay $19.86 on Visa and the rest in cash, you would enter in the amount on Visa first and then t or b to Cash. Type in the amount of cash given to you by the customer and press R. The change will default to Change due. Press d to complete the transaction and bring up the printing options.

This technique can be used on two or more tenders, using OnAcct, GiftCert, and so on. The only situation Bookmanager cannot handle clearly in a single transaction is using multiple credit cards of the same type (i.e. Visa). In that case, you will have to do the math on your own (or using the handy 7 calculator!).

Foreign Cash If your business is located near a bordering country, sometimes a tourist will come into your store and purchase something with foreign money. Bookmanager can automatically convert one currency to another based on a pre-set exchange rate. The exchange rate is located in the A Set-up Options, f) POS (Point-of-sale), and k) Foreign Currency Exchange Rate. For the next example, we will be a bookstore in Canada that accepts US dollars, and we will use an exchange rate of 1.38.

Let’s assume an American tourist would like to purchase a book for $19.99 and pay in US dollars. Be- gin a New transaction in the normal fashion. In this example, the sale comes to $21.39 total. When you get to the Tendering options, use the b key to highlight FrnCsh. This tender should show that the customer owes $15.50 US dollars and the value of exchange is $5.89. If you are given $20.00US, type 20.00 in the FrnCsh field and press R. The exchange on $20.00 is $7.60 and the customer’s change is $6.21CDN. Pressing d at this point would print a receipt.

Only one currency can be set at a time, so if you accept more than one foreign currency, please contact us for advice.

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Paid Out Transactions The paid out can be used when you need to take some cash from the drawer to make a quick purchase of supplies. For this example, we will say that you needed to take out some cash to buy some postage for a mail order.

When you come back from the store with a receipt for the postage, create a New transaction in the 4 POS. Bypass the To and ISBN fields by pressing R to bring up the tendering options. Press Paid Out option, or b to the appropriate field, and type in the amount of the postage including taxes. This should also be the amount missing from the till after replacing any change. Press R to attach a Tender Note to the Paid Out, just to remind yourself or your bookkeeper what this was at a glance (in this example, you might type “MAIL” or “CAN POST” in the line). Press d to print a Paid Out receipt, stapling it to the receipt for the postage and placing it in the till to be accounted for when you balance your POS.

Printing Options Once a tender has been chosen for a customer linked sale, pressing d will access the Finalize Transaction options. The printing options appear in the upper right-hand portion of the screen for your confirmation. The first three options are skipped over by default, as these are your defaults and usually only need to be set once or changed for special cases. Your cursor will default in the first column, which wants to know what document type you want to print. You have the option of:

R Receipt: information of sale including a line for each title bought, the price, the customers information, and any receipt messages you have included.

i Invoice: complete with Remittance, Sold to and Ship to addresses in an 8.5x11 format.

S Ship Label: A label/print out with the customer’s contact information.

N Notice: The status of each ISBN on the order/sale and any other information pertaining to that invoice will print. Used most often when emailing a customer, or replying to online/large school orders. The information on the notice form is completely customisable, so contact Bookmanager for information.

P Proforma: Formatted like an invoice, a proforma is a quote giving your customer all the information needed to pay you, while not putting anything in the A/R or finalizing the transaction (the sale is kept as a HELD).

L Pick List: This option is also used when creating a customer order in the Point-of-Sale, or viewing an Online order. For items that are In-Stock, a pick list will print just those items so you can take it around the store, find those items, then hold them at the front. The pick list includes the essential information to find a book: ISBN, title, author, class, and available On-Hand.

K Packing Slip: Similar to an invoice but only showing the ISBN and Quantity (no dollar amounts).

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M Manifest: This is a special feature used to handle a large quantity of orders being shipped out from a third party (i.e. not out of your bookstore). Please contact Bookmanager if you think you need to use this feature.

The second Destination column is where you want your document to go. All of the standard Bookman- ager printers are listed (including your label printer), as well as options to send the document as an email, fax, or have it sent to your Webstore or smart phone/device as a pick list. When your cursor is in a field, your available “printing” options will display below for reference. Your options are:

Number of Document type Printer driver / copies / send email address / format options

Document destination

R RctPrnt: Receipt printer. The printer driver will be shown on the last line of this row.

i InvPrnt: Invoice printer. Use A Setup, i) Printers to change these first three options.

M MainPrt: Main printer. Usually set as your main desktop printer, with documents formatted to fit 8.5”x11” letter sized paper.

119 POINT-OF-SALE | Searching in the POS

P Preview: Lets you preview the document first on-screen. From the preview, you can choose to send the job to a printer, or access even more printing options (such as exporting to a PDF).

F Fax: Can be used to print a document to be manually faxed, or if you have a MyFax. com account, you can fax it directly from Bookmanager.

E Email: Only available if you have configured Bookmanager to be able to send emails (covered in F3 Messaging page 358). The email address attached to the customer’s account will be used by default, but you can type a different address in the last input box on this row.

S ShipPrt: If you have specified a specific ship label printer in the printer setup options, select this to use that printer. Normally this option is only selected for use with the ShipLabl (ship label) document type.

T Thermal: Send the job to your thermal barcode label printer. Again, normally this option is only selected for use with the ShipLabl (ship label) document type.

W Webstor: Send the ISBN contents of this transaction to your Webstore to be viewed as a list of titles. From there, the list can be named, saved, shared, or featured on your Webstore as Site Content (viewable to customers). This option is normally used with the Pick List document type.

X EDI: Used by Multi-Stores. This is the option used to send an electronic stock transfer document to another location. Refer to the Multi-Store section (page 394) for detail.

The third column is the number of copies you want printed or sent. In the case of an email, this space allows you to specify whether you want to send the document, save it, or edit it before sending it. The default for emailing is B, both send and save.

When you are satisfied with all of the printing options, press d to print. The transaction will now have either a Held or Current (finalized) status, depending on the type of document chosen.

If you need another printed copy, make sure that transaction is displayed on the screen, and press Print. The same options will come up again, and d will print another copy, or you can edit the columns to print alternate information.

Searching in the POS There are several quick Search options in the POS that help you to find transactions after the fact.

• Section: Allows you to find either Held, Current, Locked, or Online sales.

• Date: Finds a list of historical transactions from a starting date.

• Invoice#: Searches by exact invoice number.

120 POINT-OF-SALE | Editing transactions

• ISBN: Will list all transactions of any type that contain this ISBN. If you have the actual item in your hand, you can achieve the same thing by scanning the barcode in POS without first Searching.

• Customer: Shows you a list of all transactions in your POS under a particular customer’s name, phone number, or account number.

When you search by either Date or Section, you will also get a Filter option. This lets you search within what you have specified to find only transactions containing a specific amount, a tendering type, or for Voided transactions only. If you select Summary for the filter, it will only list the first line of each transaction. Using Section, inputing O for online orders, and pressing R will list all your current (new) online orders (see Online Orders page 162).

When you d to complete the search, you will be taken to a list of all transactions matching the search. Find the correct one, and R to show the full transaction.

Editing transactions If you find something wrong with any Current POS transaction, you will be able to Edit to fix it. Se- lecting Edit will take you back into the transaction, and you can change it to your liking. When you are finished editing, it will be assigned a new invoice number, and you will find that it has automatically voided the original invoice.

If a transaction is no longer Current, as it has been totalled and is listed with a status of History, you cannot edit the main details of the sale, including the To field, products, or tendering details. If you attempt to Edit a History transaction, you will get the warning, Can’t alter a History transaction (it has been totalled off). To edit a historical transaction, you either need to undo the daily total it is under, or more preferably, Copy the transaction to create an offsetting transaction that corrects the mistake and leaves the original entry as is for reference purposes. Depending on the mistake or situation, please consult Bookmanager support if you unsure which procedure would be best.

NOTE: If you have set up different group numbers for each POS station, you can only edit a transaction using a station with the same group number. The group number (Gp) of a transaction is displayed in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

Held and Quote transactions Bookmanager has the ability to place POS transactions in a held, or temporary status, until such time as they are completed or deleted. The most simple application is when a customer wants you to hold an item for pickup at a later time. Quotes are similar to helds, and act to inform your customer how much the items on a sale will cost if they choose to buy them.

Held transactions are reduced from your Available O/H levels, and are not included in the day’s sales totals. Quotes are not reduced from your Available O/H levels, and are also not included in the day’s sales totals. Proforma invoices created in the Point-of-Sale are also saved as held transactions. Online orders and quote requests from your Webstore are also a form of Held sale.

Bookmanager also has the ability to automatically create held transactions for special order items

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once they are received through 9 Receiving. These held transactions are attached to the special order customer’s name, and are only created if the a) Add S/Os to POS option in the Process Receiving Session is enabled. This option is highly recommended to reduce redundancy.

Creating a Held Transaction Begin a Held transaction just as you would a sale. Be sure to attach a customer’s name. Scan or type in the ISBNs as usual, but when you reach the end of the items, do not press R to access the Ten- dering Options. Instead, press E twice to bring up four options in the Transaction interrupted box.

Choosing Resume with transaction will do exactly that. Choosing Delete transaction will delete the transaction you are working on. To place these items on hold, use t b to highlight H) save as Held transaction and press R. Notice the Stat area in the top right-hand corner of the screen. The status will say Held. Since the items in a Held are no longer available for sale, the Avail OH quantity in inventory is adjusted accordingly. This is so you will not mistakenly tell a different customer that this item is available.

Held transactions have temporary invoice numbers that begin with H. Once a Held has been tendered, it will be assigned a new final invoice number in sequence with your normal sales.

TIP: It is not mandatory to attach a customer’s name to a held sale. Follow the above steps, but omit adding a customer to the To field. These “generic” Held sales can be useful for short term, “Day Holds”. Day Holds is simply our term for holding stock for pickup within the same day. They are easily browsed from the POS, and it’s a good idea to clear them every few days so inventory doesn’t get locked up or forgotten about.

Creating a Quote Begin a Quote transaction just as you would a sale. Before you start scanning products, type Q (upper or lower case) into the To field and press R. Say Yes to Make this new transaction a Quote? Now you can attach a customer’s name to this quote by entering them into the To field. After attaching a customer, d and proceed to enter items into this Quote, regardless of their Avail OH levels.

Alternatively, Quotes can also be created similar to a Held. Start by attaching a customer name and scan or type in the ISBNs as usual, but when you reach the end of the items, do not press R to access the Tendering Options. Instead, press E twice to bring up four options in the Transaction interrupted box.

To create a Quote, use t b to highlight Q) save as Quote and press R, or press Quote. No- tice the Stat area in the top right-hand corner of the screen. The status will say Quote. The Qty’s of product in a Quote will be in red, signifying that these products have not been adjusted from their Avail OH. Quotes have invoice numbers that begin with Q.

Quotes should be viewed as work orders, meaning that they should never be tendered the way a Held is finalized. Working with and finalizing a Quote will be discussed in detail later in this section.

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Finding a Held or Quote transaction Finding Helds or Quotes can be done many ways, so it really comes down to personal preference. Use your Search options in POS to find the proper invoice by customer, invoice number or ISBN. A quick way to locate Helds/Quotes is to scan one of the Held/Quote item’s ISBN/barcode in the POS, before you even type New. This will bring up any Held or Quote sales that contain that item. You can also Search for Section: H to get a list of all your Held transactions, Section: Q for Quotes, sorted by date. Lastly, you can access Helds/Quotes by looking up the customer in 6 Customers and F, or History then Sales down into their Sales History, and pressing R on any item within the Held/Quote to load the transaction in the POS. Within a customer’s Sales History, Quotes are displayed at the top in olive text, followed by Helds in bright white text, with completed sales/invoices listed last in grey text.

Completing a Held Transaction With the Held displayed in the POS, select Edit to modify/complete the transaction. Most often a clerk ID will be required. Press R to be prompted for another ISBN, or use the t b to edit any of the details of the sale, including the customer name, PO#, notes, discounts, etc. If the customer is not adding any items to their purchase, press R a second time to move to Tendering and complete the sale.

Working with and completing a Quote transaction Quotes are a more involved form of Held, and give you more tools to track and finalize an ongoing transaction. Quotes can contain items that are both in-stock and on-order, and will dynamically update as items are sold and received. This way, Quotes can be used to quickly assess which items are ready for pickup, have been picked up, and are still on-order. You can consider the Quote function a form of a “work order”.

WARNING: The intended use of Quotes is to never Tender/Finalize them. Rather, the Quote is kept indefinitely as a reference to the original request. Periodic maintenance can be run to remove old Quotes that have been completed, but manual deletion or Tendering of Quotes is not necessary.

To work with a Quote, bring it up in the POS and select Edit. Here, you can perform the same actions as you would with a normal Held sale, adding or removing items, adjusting discounts and quantities, etc. When you are finished making any necessary changes, select E until you are presented with the Transaction interrupted box, and select Q) save as Quote. You can now select Print to create a paper or email copy of the Quote for your customer, with Q for Quote as the document format.

Finalizing a Quote Once the customer has approved of the Quote, you will need to “complete” it by transferring its in- stock contents to a new Held sale for invoicing, and place any items that need to be ordered on-order. There are specialized functions within the Quote to make this process fast and easy, whether the Quote contains three items or 300.

Bring up the Quote once again and select Edit to get inside. If you have any items that need to be ordered, you have two choices: You can use the Rsv (reserve) function on each item that needs to be ordered to manually create orders one by one; or, if there are many items to be ordered, you may

123 POINT-OF-SALE | Held and Quote transactions

find it more efficient to create orders automatically using a special extra option routine. Withyour cursor highlighting any item within the Quote, select Xtra. Next, select b) Create Pending Orders for selected items.

For your first option, you will most often want to create orders for only backordered items (those not in-stock), so B for Backordered is the default. Selecting All will create orders for every item on the Quote, except for those with a cancelled status. Next, you can specify a single supplier to order all the items under, or leave the field blank to place those items on order with their default supplier indicated in 2 Inventory.

Using a specific supplier can be helpful if you want a little more control over which supplier each item will go to. For example, you may have a “suggested orders” or “orders for review” supplier set up in your 3 Suppliers. In this example, we’ll say our “orders for review” supplier is ! (an exclamation). Inputing that here will allow you to go into 8 Order Processing, look up supplier !, and then delegate from there which supplier each item should go to using the Edit function.

Your last option is whether you want an order separator used for the items placed on-order. We recommend using a separator if you choose to leave the previous supplier field blank, so you can easily go to 8 Order Processing and review these entries before merging them with previously created pending orders for each supplier. Without a separator, these new orders will be added to any existing orders for each supplier.

After the routine has run, you will be shown how many items were ordered, plus a tip on how to easily find these new entries, regardless of supplier or order separator used.

Dealing with items that are in-stock For items that are in-stock, there is a similar extra function that will make your job easy. With your cursor highlighting any item within the Quote, select Xtra. Next, select c) Create Held invoice for selected items. Any items on this quote with available on-hands will now be copied to a new Held transaction. This way, those items will be taken out of your Avail OH and officially Held for pickup for your customer, keeping your original Quote intact for reference in case an issue arises down the road.

Checking in on the progress of a Quote You will see that a Quote has an extra block of columns not found within regular Held or completed transactions. The below screenshot shows that progress box. In this example, no action has been taken yet, or the Quote is currently being built:

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Notice how all the columns are empty, signifying that no items on this specific Quote have been ordered, Held, or sold. This is how a Quote would look at the start.

After going through the previous steps to create order reservations and a Held sale for items in-stock, the progress box will display as so:

The Sld (sold) column is still empty, but all items now have quantities in the Ord (on-order) and Hld (Held) columns. As orders for out-of-stock items arrive, this Quote will update and move those quantities to the Hld column. When the customer picks up items from this Quote, those item’s lines will be moved from Hld to Sld. This way, you can quickly see the entire status of a Quote in one area. Once all quantities of the Quote are listed in the Sld column, you know the Quote has been fulfilled entirely. Keep in mind that items marked as cancelled, or simply not purchased (taken off hold and

125 POINT-OF-SALE | Held and Quote transactions

shelved/sent back), will not have any indicators in the Sld column.

Once this Quote or work order has been completed, you can delete it, but most stores will find manual deletion of Quotes unnecessary. Rather, we recommend keeping the Quote as a record for the short-term (for example, the current school year), and instead Edit the completed Quote and insert “Completed” plus the date into the Note field of the Quote.

Currently, it is up to the store to remove/delete completed Quotes. Stores may keep these original Quotes for quick reference later, with no effect on your current inventory on-hands. Whatever your routine, its best to stay consistent to avoid confusion about how you are maintaining your Quotes and transactions.

Managing Held Transactions Since Held transactions are kept indefinitely unless they are completed or deleted, and your Avail OH is affected by Helds, periodic maintenance of them is required. Searching in the POS by Section and specifying H can generate a list of held transactions. When the list of Helds appears on the screen, pressing Print will bring up the Held Transaction Report box.

Specify Complete or Summary as the first option. Summary will include only one line per held transaction (only the first ISBN listed) and Complete will include multiple lines per transaction (one for each ISBN). Use the Customer types if you wish to limit the list to only customers who have a particular number (as set up in the 6) Customer file). Leave the field blank to include all customers. The Sort by option allows you to choose the order of the printed list. By typing (or scanning) an ISBN into the last field you will get a list of all the Held transactions for a particular ISBN.

TIP: A common practice with managing Helds is to print a Held Transaction Report once a week. We recommend selecting Complete, blank customer types, sort by Date, and printing the list out on a paper copy. Then, you can go through the list oldest to newest to do call-backs and verify

126 POINT-OF-SALE | Sales & Payments On Account

that customers still want their books on hold. This way, customers are reminded of any Helds/ Special Orders they have forgotten to pick up, and your Helds list doesn’t get too long (and old).

Now the job is to make sure that what is on the list is actually what you have put aside for people on your pick-up or Helds shelf. Some transactions may have to be Deleted. Others that are getting old may need to be followed up on with a quick phone call to the customer; a book should not be sitting on a reserve shelf with no one to pick it up. The frequency with which you do maintenance on your held transactions is up to you, but we suggest weekly maintenance to keep things going smoothly.

The above process can be applied to Quotes as well, but is less detrimental, as Quotes do not affect your on-hands the way Helds do.

Sales & Payments On Account If you decide to allow customers to prepay for items (not yet released titles, short discount special orders, etc.) or want to give credit to any customers, purchases and payments on account will be a frequent occurrence. You can either charge a customer’s account (OnAcct) for payment later, or make a payment on their account (PmntOnAcct) to pay off an existing balance or for a prepayment. The OnAcct tendering option is used for both situations, but will change automatically depending on whether the sale is a charge or a payment.

WARNING: We highly recommend that you do not sell anything through the POS that is not actually leaving the store at that time, or selling into negative on-hands. You may be tempted to do this to handle “pre-sales” of a not yet released or to be ordered title, but using the On Account feature is a much better solution for this situation. Pre-selling skews your own store’s data and sales, but also effects everybody’s sales ranking data if you choose to submit weekly sales.

To charge a customer’s account for the goods in POS rather than taking payment upfront, conduct the sale as usual (with a customer’s account entered) until you reach the Tendering options. Tender the transaction as OnAcct and press d. While in the Print/Finalize Transaction options, print an Invoice to place the sale on the customer’s account for payment at a later date. This will update the customer’s Accounts Receivable information that is accessed through 6 Customers, A/R. The printed invoice is also a good paper record for the store to keep, and we recommend having the customer sign this document to confirm that they are taking goods and planning to pay later. A simple Receipt format can also be used, but provides less information about payment terms and due date.

To record a payment on a customer’s account, begin a regular sale with the customer’s name. When you get to the ISBN field, leave it blank and press R to access the Tendering options. Highlight the PmntOnAcct tender, type in the value of the payment, and t b select the tender for how the payment is being made. You generally do not need an invoice copy for a payment, so select u to complete the transaction without printing an invoice. If the customer, or your bookkeeper does require a copy of the payment, then d as usual for your printing options and to total the transaction.

NOTE: The OnAcct, PmntOnAcct, and CrOnAcct tendering options are only available if a customer’s name or account is entered in the To field in POS.

Charges to a customer’s account will appear under the A/R field in 6 Customers, as well as in POS for quick view (see below screenshot). A charge to their account will appear as a positive value, mean-

127 POINT-OF-SALE | Other Commands in POS

ing that it is a positive asset to your business (they owe you). A positive value in red means that the amount owing is past its due date, or the account is on credit hold. Credits and payments on account will appear as negative values (you owe them), and be highlighted in neon orange.

Other Commands in POS

Znosale: opening the cash drawer Suppose someone asks you to make change for the parking meter in front of your store. How do you open the cash drawer quickly without doing an actual sale? Press Znosale once in the 4 Point-of- Sale and enter your clerk ID. The cash drawer will open and a No Sale receipt will print on the receipt printer. It’s good practice to have staff sign the No Sale receipt and add a reason for opening the drawer without making a sale, and include the receipt in with daily receipts and tapes.

Total For longer transactions that may not have the total listed on screen, select Total. The Subtotal area will list N/A, and the total amount due area will say Press when this is needed to be done. The totals will then be displayed in their usual spot in the upper-right area of the screen.

Qsales As discussed earlier, Qsales (page 76) is a way of entering sales and adjusting inventory out without finalizing transactions. Please refer to that section of the manual for more information, and we suggest you discuss this with Bookmanager support staff before doing so. Qsales can be accessed both in 2 Inventory and in 4 POS.

Lock Locking allows you to prevent any further changes to be made to a Held invoice. This feature is

128 POINT-OF-SALE | Other Commands in POS

handy when creating large, school or institutional orders where a certain list or total of books must be maintained, with no additions or changes after it has been built, and before it is tendered. Pressing Lock toggles the lock on and off.

Gift Receipt Pressing GftRct will bring you back into a completed sale and allow you to highlight any item sold. Once highlighted, pressing GftRct a second time will prompt you Yes or No to print a small slip from your receipt printer. The Gift Receipt contains all the pertinent information from the original sale should the item need to be returned or exchanged. Your Gift Receipt will include your store’s receipt header info, invoice number for the original sale, and a unique Gift Receipt footer message specified in A Setup, f) POS, s) Gift receipt message. Gift Receipts do not contain item totals or costs, and can only be printed one item at a time.

@Edt (alternate edit) After a sale been tendered, and if it has a customer name attached, you have the ability to go back and edit certain parts of that invoice that don’t effect the total, even if the transaction is part of a totalled day and therefore History. Pressing A Edit allows you to modify that transaction’s Via, Terms, PO#, and Invoice Note fields. Again, this is different than simply pressing Edit, as the standard Edit allows you to make changes to any detail on an invoice, and only if it has a status of Held or Current.

Delete If a sale gets completed, but you realize it must be voided entirely, highlight the transaction and Delete it. You will be asked to confirm or deny the action by choosing Yes or No. Press Yes and then enter your clerk code. Specify if you need a Void receipt when prompted, a good practice for new or staff in training. The transaction will still be visible, but its status will shown as Void. As a form of accountability, after a sale has been completed, it can never be fully removed from the system, only marked as voided. You can only Delete Held and Current transactions. Those marked as History cannot be altered or deleted.

Copy The Copy command is used to copy any transaction and all its details to a new sale. SImply look up any transaction, Held, Current, or History, and press Copy. Your cursor will begin on the line containing the first ISBN sold, waiting for you to make any changes. The customer information will also be copied. Edit any ISBN information by using Edit, Delete, or press R to add more ISBNs to the sale. You can change the customer information by t to those fields. Tender and complete the transaction as required.

TIP: The Copy function is a quick way to handle returns or exchanges. In the case of a return on a full transaction, you can simply copy the original, and use the - (minus) key on each invoice item to reverse the quantities, thus creating a return. This way, all original customer information and discounts/taxation/points will be as it was with the original sale.

129 POINT-OF-SALE | Totaling the Day’s Sales

Totaling the Day’s Sales At the end of every day, the credit card slips, debit slips, invoices, cash, cheques, etc. must equal what is recorded in Bookmanager’s 4 Point-of-Sale. Totalling the sales within Bookmanager should be done at the end of every day, or at least once a week. The Month-end routine will total the POS to maintain accurate monthly sales figures. Finalizing the day’s transactions by following these steps will make every sale for that day into a permanent historical entry in your POS file, as well as produce some very detailed printed reports.

Step 1: Preview or Subtotal When you have closed up at the end of the day (or feel free to check mid-day totals on busier days), go into 4 Point-of-Sale and select Misc to access the POS Misc. Options. Choose either Preview day’s tenders or Sub-total day’s sales. Each report is similar but provides varying levels of detail, so try one of each to see the difference in information that each provides.

WARNING: We recommend that general staff use the Preview day’s tenders option, as it only shows carded transactions, and no cash. This is better for accountability and will reduce the chance of employee dishonesty. Cash should be counted using a double-blind procedure to ensure that only the business owners are privy to how much physical cash comes in each day. For more information and our recommendation on working with cash to ensure full accountability, please contact Bookmanager support.

It is a good idea to run these reports prior to actually totalling your sales because it gives you a chance to find mistakes in your daily sales and make corrections. Once you have done the actual total, you will no longer be able to change any sales from that day and on the total tape.

TIP: The most common reason your totals are out is due to an incorrect Tender being selected. For example, a sale put through on your debit/credit card pinpad using a debit card could have been mistakenly tendered as Visa in Bookmanager. When you check your credit/debit totals slip from your machine with Bookmanager’s totals, you’d see both Debit and Visa entries as being out. In fact, all that would need to be done is the offending transaction in Bookmanager located, Edited, and re-tendered under Debit to fix the problem.

Both Preview day’s tenders and Sub-total day’s sales have the same options to choose from before creating the report. The default Send report to option is Screen, which will simply display the total on the screen (thus saving paper). Pressing Printer will print the total on the specified main printer; pressing Receipt will print the total on the receipt printer. Next, specify Yes or No (default) to opening the cash drawer, and confirm the group number for which you would like a total. Leaving the group number blank will total all groups. If you want to see totals up to a certain point, enter that in the Total up to Invoice # field, or leave it blank or at zero to see up to the most recent transaction. You can also narrow your totals by Customer Type or Clerk Codes with the next fields (separate multiples with no spaces). The last option is specialized for those doing a lot of business out of province/state.

The default settings for previewing/sub-totalling (so pressing d as soon as you select one of these reports without changing any of the options) is to view the report on-screen, not opening the cash drawer, for all groups and current invoices, for all customers and clerks.

130 POINT-OF-SALE | Totaling the Day’s Sales

If you choose to view the total on-screen, the t b, or u d keys will scroll up and down through the tape. Pressing Print on the screen preview will allow you to print the report.

Preview Day’s Tenders This option will provide you with only the totals for each type of applied tender, excluding cash sales. For example, it will show Paid Out, Gift Cards, On Account, Debit, Visa, MasterCard, Credit Notes, and Cheques totals to balance against.

The preview contains less information than the sub-total because no “cash on hand” or sales revenue information is provided. It also excludes sales statistics that are normally present on the sub-total and total reports. As mentioned before, due to this lack of detail, the preview also helps to prevent employee dishonesty.

Subtotal Day’s Sales This option can be password protected because it contains more confidential information about the day’s sales. Not only are the day’s tenders included, but you can also see amounts for Sales per hour, Sales by section (determined by the Se column in the 4 Classification file), Sales by customer type (determined by the Customer Type field in 6 Customers), Sales by Clerk, and Taxes totals. If your clerk ID allows it, you will also see GL details on the right hand side of the report.

131 POINT-OF-SALE | Totaling the Day’s Sales

Unbalanced Transactions On occasion, when attempting to do a sub-total, you may be alerted to a List of unbalanced transactions that must be edited before totalling can complete. If this happens, make note of the six-digit invoice number in the left column of the list and press E as suggested. Press E once more to return to the main POS screen and perform a Search by Invoice#, using the invoice number(s) you just wrote down.

When the transaction appears on the screen, the next action to take depends upon the situation. If the transaction seems to be previously voided, is a duplicate, or did not even take place, simply Delete it. If the transaction looks accurate, it should be edited and tendered in the same way as before. With all of the unbalanced transactions taken care of, a sub-total can be completed successfully.

NOTE: Unbalanced Transactions are a rare occurrence, and their cause is hard to pin-point. Usu- ally they are a result of a brief network issue, where your POS data file is only partially updated due to the brief network drop. If you find that Unbalanced Transactions are a common occurrence, please contact Bookmanager support to troubleshoot your network and computer configuration.

Step 2: Balancing The common procedure for balancing involves printing a transaction totals preview from your debit/ credit card payment pinpad, then comparing those totals for each card type to your Bookmanager’s totals. If they match up, there is no need to do anything more; simply move on to totalling your POS in Bookmanager, and settling your totals on your payment pinpad.

If the totals don’t match, the next step is to see how many transactions are indeed out. This is easy to do, as both your pinpad print out and Bookmanager will list how many transactions occurred under each card type. For example, if your pinpad printout lists 6 Debits and 15 Visas, and Bookmanager lists 7 Debits and 14 Visas, it’s obvious that one of your Visa transactions in Bookmanager was tendered

132 POINT-OF-SALE | Other Misc. POS Options

under Debit by mistake. Subtracting the pinpad Visa total amount from the Bookmanager Visa total amount, or the pinpad Debit total from the Bookmanager Debit total, will give you the transaction total you are wanting to find and modify in POS.

If more than one transaction is out (i.e. pinpad Debit = 16, Bookmanager Debit = 21), then you will have to use your saved pinpad merchant copy receipts from the day and go one by one through them alongside your list of Bookmanager transactions to find which ones were tendered incorrectly (or not entered at all).

You can Search for and Edit any transactions in POS to correct them if needed. In this case, we will assume that a sale totalling $20.00 was tendered incorrectly as Visa instead of Cash. Such a situation would cause Bookmanager’s Visa totals to be $20.00 more than the total on the Visa machine, and Cash totals to be $20.00 less than what you actually have. To determine which transaction may have been tendered incorrectly, press Search while in the 4 POS, and highlight Date, making sure the transaction date is correct. In the Filter field type in 20.00 and R. If any matches are found, they will be listed. Use the b t to highlight the one you wish to modify and press R. When the transaction is shown full screen, Edit it and tender as Cash instead of Visa. Now your totals should balance with your payment pinpad totals.

Step 3: Total Sales Once your pinpad totals match Bookmanager’s, it is time to finalize the day’s sales by selecting Misc, then Total sales (finalizes transactions). The final total should be printed to either the main Printer or the Receipt printer for auditing purposes, but you also have the Screen option if you want to email the tapes via the Print function. You can also specify if you want the cash drawer to be opened, and what group number you are finalizing totals for (again, leave it blank for all groups to be included). When you have pressed R from the group number field, or d prior to that field, the final total will be printed. This total will mirror the detail of information found on the sub-total report. Finalizing the sales also changes their status in POS from Current to History, and prevents them from being edited or deleted.

NOTE: You can make the Total Sales function to happen automatically overnight via the Scheduler in Bookmanager. This can be useful if you do not wish any of your employees to see the information in the report. Be sure to have your staff balance your tenders by using either the Preview or Subtotal prior to going home each day. You can then print off the Totalled Sales Report the next day or at your convenience.

Totaling only a portion of your sales It is possible to total your POS up to a particular invoice number. This option is useful when you realize that you forgot to total off at the end of your previous day, but in the meantime you have added current sales. If you want the total to only include the previous day, find the last invoice number from the day in POS. When you total your sales, put this number in the Total up to Invoice # field. This will tell Bookmanager to total up to and including that number, and leave all subsequent invoices as Current.

Other Misc. POS Options There are several other Misc (miscellaneous) options accessed from POS, including a directory of your

133 POINT-OF-SALE | Other Misc. POS Options

end-of-day total receipt tapes, and a Gift Cards management area.

View/Print Receipt Tapes On occasion, you may need to view totals and details from a previous day or month. From the POS Misc. command, select View/Print Receipt Tapes. By default, a list of the current year’s sales tapes will be displayed, each named according to the date they were generated (e.g.: 160315A.TXT = March 15, 2016). If more than one total was generated in the same day, they will all have the same date, but the first one will end with an A, the second with a B, and so on. Highlight the tape you wish to view by using the t b keys, and press R.

If you want to view deep into your history, or view your Month-End tapes, b or t until .. is highlighted. Press R. This will bring up the files sorted by year, as well as a file called MONTHLY. You can b or t and press R on the appropriate file. Selecting MONTHLY will allow you view your Month-end archives, named by year then month (e.g.: 1602_TTL.TXT = February 2016).

When the particular tape is displayed, use the t b or u d keys to browse its details. Notice that there is also a section at the bottom of the tape called Details, where every transaction in the total is listed, including ISBNs, discounts, customer account numbers, and taxes. To locate a particular invoice or amount, simply select the Search command and type in the information you wish to find. If the first occurrence of that information is not what you are looking for, press AgainSrch to look for the next occurrence. AgainSrch can be used as many times as the specified information occurs.

Selecting Print will bring up options for printing a copy or portion of the tape. When the tape printing options come up, first select one of four options: 1) Only the highlighted transaction, or 2) End-of-day totals (with Tendering details), or 3) End-of-day totals (no Tendering details), or 4) Entire Tape depending on what you would like to print. Most often, option 2) End-of-day totals (with Tendering details) will be desired, as it includes your tendering overview plus line by line details for each of your tenders (credit cards, gift cards, on account charges, etc.) with their linked invoice numbers. Option 4) Entire Tape will print everything you see on the previous preview screen, including every individual transaction with line by line details including product numbers and taxes. Next, b or t to the printer you would like the information to print to. Your options are Receipt, Main or Screen (with export options). Press R on the printer to finish the print job.

Browse log of EDI received orders This is a log of inter-store transfers between Multi-store locations, and will give the message EDI2\

134 POINT-OF-SALE | Other Misc. POS Options

EDIORD.* doesn’t exist if you are not a Multi-Store operation.

Create tab-delimited invoice file This option allows you to export an invoice or range of invoices and their details to a file that can be opened as a spreadsheet in programs like Excel.

By default, the exported file will be saved in your BM folder, within the EDI folder, and named InvTab. txt. If you want it saved to a different location, or named differently, specify that under the Save to file field. Despite it being a text (.txt) file, you can open it in Excel or another spreadsheet program and it will format into columns and rows. If you have used this export feature before, you have the option to create a new file (Yes) or overwrite the existing one (No). If this is your first use, this option is unavailable. The remaining fields are standard and self-explanatory. The last field, File format, is for specialized use, so try it out to see the formatting and layout difference, or call Bookmanager support for more information.

Redo previous Total (by BatchID) If you are using the General Ledger and you discover that the day’s sales were not posted properly, this option can be used to make sure they get posted. Using this option requires that you go into the Database repair utilities to get the correct BatchID number for that day. This probably will require assistance from Bookmanager support, as it is not common practice and damage can be done if proper steps aren’t taken. If you know how to locate the BatchID, enter it here and the GL transaction should be posted for that day. This option can only be used when the day in question is part of the current month i.e. Month End has not been run in the meantime.

Undo a previous Total (by BatchID) If you have accidentally totaled your sales for the day and would like to undo that total, you can do so here. Using this option requires that you go into the Database repair utilities to get the correct BatchID number for that day. This usually will require assistance from Bookmanager support, but a brief outline of that procedure is below.

From the Main Options menu, go to M Miscellaneous, then Z) Database repair utilities. From here, press R on the blank Enter name of DBF file to work with field. b through the list of database files and pressR on DATPOS.DBF. Press C e to get to the very end of the file (the most recent transactions). u to quickly move up through transactions from newest to oldest, until you locate the chunk of invoices for the date you would like to undo. Once those invoices are located, make note

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of the letter under the BATCH_ID column. IMPORTANT: BatchID is case sensitive, so make note if it is upper or lower case. If the BatchID is indeed a capital letter, you will have to press S + LETTER in the BatchID field back in POS to target the correct range of transactions.

Date-range POS subtotal report This function produces the same results as Sub-total day’s sales, except you can specify a date range to see the details of your sales over that period. You will be asked to send the report to a Printer, or Receipt or Screen. You can specify a group # or leave this column blank to view all groups. Next, type the date range you would like to view (mm/dd/yy). The option Include itemized list of tenders (and full GL posting)? can be toggled depending on if you just want tendering totals, or each line item that makes up each tender. Press d when you are ready to view the report.

Gift Cards All Gift Card related information is found at the end of this chapter, and only pertains to those using Bookmanager issued gift card numbers and tracking. Paper gift certificates are treated like cash in Bookmanager.

Station’s sales are with group# 00 This setting should only be changed if you want different computers to tender sales under different group numbers. This setting can also be adjusted in your A Setup options under f) POS (Point-of- sale). This option is mostly commonly changed on the fly if you need to edit sales done with a certain group number at a station that has a different group number than the original sale (a common occurrence with Offsite Sales). Please call Bookmanager support if you would like to change these automatic settings because it will have implications across your POS systems.

136 POINT-OF-SALE | Tracking Donations through the POS

Tracking Donations through the POS Any products or gift cards that are to be donated should be recorded and tracked through the Book- manager POS. This process is simple, yet revolves around the creation of a donations customer account. Please see the Donations overview (page 199) in the 6 Customers section of this manual for details.

Frequent Buyer Plan Independent booksellers should offer extra customer incentives to thrive in an increasingly competitive marketplace, and Bookmanager provides a customizable Frequent Buyer Plan to help you give something back to your customers, and more importantly, encourage brand loyalty and return business. Essentially, it works as a points system that provides in-store credit once a specified points threshold is reached. No card is required; instead, points are linked to their customer records, eliminating the annoyance of presenting your customer with yet another card for them to carry around and remember. Our motto is “No cost, no card!”, and it works wonders presenting your customers with such an easy and quick-to-join loyalty program.

The Set-up To set up your own Frequent Buyer Plan within Bookmanager, go to the A Setup options. Select t) Frequent Buyer Points. The first thing to do is to put a Yes in the first field answering the first option: Frequent buyer plan is enabled? Second, choose Yes (recommended) or No if you want new customers to be automatically set up as a frequent buyer. Next, decide how many points are given per dollar spent. Each point in Bookmanager is equal to one penny ($0.01), so the math is easy here. Specify the Minimum accumulated points before redemption threshold, meaning how many points a customer must earn before they can cash them in. Again, since a point is a penny, 1000 points would mean the customer must accumulate $10.00 in points before they can use them. To help you decide on suitable levels, read the example provided on the setup screen.

The next option asks at what maximum discount level prevents points from being awarded. For example, if you were to enter 10 into this field, any items sold with more than a ten percent discount (discounted as %%, tendered coupon, or tendered discount) would not receive any points.

No points for items on sale? refers to any sale items given a sale price code through the Inventory file. If you specify No in this field, points will be given for sale items. Specifying Yes here will not award points for sale items.

The final option, Points are deleted if customer is inactive for over __ months, allows you to put an expiry date on awarded points. For instance, if you were to enter the number 24 into this field and a customer did not purchase anything under their name for two years, their points would be set back to zero at the end of those two years. This is under the assumption that if they have not bought anything in two years, they are certainly not a frequent buyer. Entering 999 effectively disables this feature.

Once you have answered each option to your satisfaction, press d. You will be asked if you would like to automatically make each customer existing in the 6 Customer file a frequent buyer. Saying Yes (recommended) will automatically put a Y in the specified field in each customer card, whereas choosing No will allow you to do it yourself. When the screen changes back to the original Setup Op- tions, you are ready to go!

137 POINT-OF-SALE | Frequent Buyer Plan

Awarding Points In order for a customer to earn points, they must purchase something under their name in the 4 Point- of-Sale. If a customer wishes to participate in the Frequent Buyer Plan, you must make sure they are entered in the Customer file, making sure to specify Yes in the FB? (Frequent Buyer) field, and attach their name to a sale. If you specified New customers are automatically a frequent buyer? Yes in the setup options, then simply adding a new customer through orders, 4 POS, or 6 Customers will enable them to collect points.

Begin a New sale in the 4 Point-of-Sale, and assign a customer to the sale. When the list of possible customer matches comes up, make sure the correct name is highlighted and R to confirm.

Continue and tender the sale in the regular manner. Notice the Points area in the upper right part of the screen. It should display the points earned on this sale as well as the total points, including this sale, prior to any redemption. The customer’s total points are also reflected in the Points field in the 6 Customer file.

TIP: Explaining your frequent buyer program to your customers in terms of points can be confusing. A point is an arbitrary term, and often has no tangible meaning to your customer. We highly recommend you always refer to your customers’ points in terms of dollars. For example, if your customer has 613 points and your threshold for redemption is 1500, say to them, “You have $6.13 in points, and you need to get to $15 to redeem ‘em!”. This sales approach is less corporate and more friendly than challenging your customers to do mental math on the spot. In the same vein, when you are initially explaining/selling your points program to new customers, explain it in as simple and tangible terms as possible. For example, if your threshold is 1000 points, and you award 5 points for every dollar, you can convey this extremely simply by saying, “Give us your name and phone number, and after you spend $200, you get a $10 credit. No cost, no card, it’s that easy!” Points are displayed in dollar amounts on receipts to convey this as well.

Overriding Awarded Points There are three ways to override the value of points awarded to any customer:

• Through the 4 Classification file to specify certain point values for certain classes, or to make a class exempt from points.

• Editing the Pt field (points per dollar for a particular item) while completing a sale.

• Editing the Points field total directly in the 6 Customer file. This may require permissions set up in the A Setup, s) Passwords & Clerk Codes.

Through the Classification File: Perhaps some classifications in your store make a lower than usual margin, such as magazines. In these instances, awarding the default number of points per dollar spent may not be as profitable. You can specify a different number of points per dollar for these classifications. Perhaps you have a class called MAG in your 4 Classification file for which you would like to award three points (cents) per dollar as opposed to the five points you specified in the set-up. Srch for MAG in the 4. When MAG

138 POINT-OF-SALE | Frequent Buyer Plan

is highlighted press Edt and use the b key to access the Pnts (Points) field. Type the number 3 into that field and press d to save the change. Now anything sold from the Magazine classification will only earn three points per dollar spent when it is scanned into the POS. When a class’s Pnts field is blank, it uses the default points per dollar value from the set-up.

Editing the Point Field in POS: While conducting a sale in Bookmanager’s 4 Point-of-Sale, notice that the Pt field displays the points per dollar earned for that item. To change that value after an item has been scanned, and prior to tendering, use the t key twice to highlight the ISBN and press Edit. Use the b key to access the Pt field and type in the number of points per dollar you would like to award for this particular item. You can only award a maximum of twice the default. If you blank out the Pt field by pressing the space bar or D and then press R, Bookmanager will re-enter the default number of points. When you have completed the change, pressing R twice will advance the cursor to the next available ISBN field.

Editing the Points Field in 6 Customers: Within Bookmanager’s 6 Customers file, each customer card has a Points field next to the FB field. Changes to a customer’s total points accumulated can be done by using the Edt command and using the b key to access it. Type in the total number of points you would like this customer to have. You will then be asked if you are sure; answer Yes or No. When you are satisfied with the change, press d to save.

NOTE: If the Frequent Buyer Points area has been restricted by passwords, you must log in using your clerk code by pressing the 6 key before attempting to Edit, otherwise you will not get access to this field. If it is not password protected, any employee in your store will be able to change a customer’s points total. We recommend password protecting this area and only giving access to a select few staff/or management personnel.

This capability is useful for stores that already have some kind of customer reward program before they install Bookmanager’s Frequent Buyer Plan. By editing the Points field in the 6 Customer file, you can record a value of points that have been carried over from the previous plan for each customer.

Redeeming Points Once a customer reaches the points threshold, they will receive their specified redemption the next time they make a purchase. Therefore, a customer cannot reach the threshold and redeem points in the same transaction.

Bookmanager will alert you when a customer is able to redeem points prior to bringing up the tendering options and balance owing. Suppose you have set the threshold for redemption at 1000 points ($10), and a customer comes into the store already with 1101 points ($11.01). They want to buy a $8.99 item. Create a New transaction as usual, enter their name and the item they wish to purchase, and press R in the last blank ISBN field. This would normally bring up the tendering options for you to choose how they are paying for the item. Since their accumulated points were more than the redemption threshold, Bookmanager will not display the tendering options yet; instead, a red box will appear alerting you to the Customer Point Redemption.

139 POINT-OF-SALE | Frequent Buyer Plan

The Customer Point Redemption alert will tell you how much can be redeemed against this purchase, and asks if the customer would like to redeem their points now. Selecting Yes will reduce the subtotal by the amount shown and display the tendering options. Notice that the value redeemed automatically appears in the appropriate spot at the top of the tendering box. The only thing left to do is finish the transaction by selecting the form of payment (if there is a balance owing), or simply press d on the Cash tender of 0.00 if the points cover the entire purchase, and print a receipt. Selecting No will not redeem any value against the purchase and will award points for this sale. This way, customers have the choice to keep building points past the threshold until the time they choose to redeem.

NOTE: If the Points to be redeemed is greater than the subtotal of the purchase, taxes will not have to be charged on the sale (as was the case in the above example and screenshot). This is because the purchase was discounted 100%, and therefore a “donation”. Most provinces/states treat donations as tax exempt.

Partial Redemption

140 POINT-OF-SALE | Frequent Buyer Plan

As with the previous example, there were more points available than the purchase subtotal. In this case, only $8.99 in points was needed to complete the transaction, so the remaining $2.02 in points will remain in their accumulated points, plus there will be an additional $0.45 in points earned for the item on that sale. Their new points total will now be $2.47, and they will have to build back up to $10 to redeem once again.

Donating Points If a customer ever wants to donate any accumulated points to another account or customer, that can be easily done from the 6 Customers area. Look up the customer wanting to donate their points, and Edit their account. b into the FB field, and type Donate. Next, search for the customer to receive the points in the next field, either by phone number, name, or account number. A selection box will allow you to find the customer you are after, and press R to insert their account. Press d to save your changes. If the current donor customer has existing points, you will be asked if you want to transfer any current points accumulated to the donor recipient. If you say No, any points on the donor account will remain saved in the background for use by this customer until they are redeemed. Now, any points earned by this customer will be automatically transfered to the recipients account.

Frequent Buyer Analysis Report You can generate a summary report of your total Frequent Buyer Point activity, broken down by month. This can give you an idea of how successful your program is, and if you need to adjust your points threshold or the number of points given per dollar spent. To access this report, go to A Setup, t) Frequent Buyer Points. b down to Generate the Frequent Buyer Analysis report now? and type Yes. Depending on the size of your customer database, this report could take several minutes to create. The below preview will be generated, giving you some basic stats on your program over the past 24 months, and a redemption summary over the past 14 months:

141 POINT-OF-SALE | Offsite Bookmanager Sales

Offsite Bookmanager Sales Your Bookmanager system can be copied to a laptop computer for use at an offsite sales event or book table. This allows you to record sales and customers that will be later imported into your main system at the store.

WARNING: Offsite Bookmanager is meant for sales only. Any ordering, receiving, returning, or reports created within the Offsite module will not be transfered back to your main system. Only new completed sales and new customers will be transfered, with new customer special orders and new Helds not included in the transfer.

The basic steps are: 1. Create an Offsite system onto a USB Storage Device.

2. Copy that Offsite system onto a laptop.

3. Run the Offsite system and enter sales.

4. Use the Offsite system to total sales and transfer / create an export file.

5. Import the Offsite sales into the main system.

6. Total off the imported sales on the main system.

1) Create an Offsite system on a USB Storage Device This can be done on any Bookmanager station, but the routine will create the copy quickest from your main server station. From the Main Options menu, select D Data Transfer, then O) Offsite Bookmanager. Select the first option, X) Create an Offsite POS system.

Bookmanager will take a second to calculate which invoice number to start Offsite sales with, then will present the Create Offsite menu before a system can be exported.

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Offsite BM will use station # Choose a Station number that is not being used at the store. Having a unique number for Offsite events will allow you to save certain settings, such as receipt printer defaults, so that they will only have to be configured once, even for subsequent Offsite events. Use u to view existing station numbers. The default is 20.

Sales are recorded with Group # Choose a Group number not used at the main store (usually, the main store uses Group 00). When sales from the Offsite event are imported into the main system, the POS Group number helps to separate and identify sales done at an event. The default is 99. Specifying a unique Offsite POS group number will also help with isolating and creating various reports you may need later on. Sticking with the same group number each time the Offsite system is used can help keep those reports and sales consistent and organized.

NOTE: If you do not use a different Group number, be aware that the Offsite system being created will contain Current sales in its POS that would be later exported (causing duplicates when imported into the main system). We therefore strongly urge you to use a different Group number for the Offsite sales for this reason alone.

Invoice number to start from The first number in the Invoice number to start from field was automatically calculated and inserted by Bookmanager, and often does not need to be manually inputted, as it will be updated by the next field.

The reason the Invoice numbers of your Offsite system should be adjusted is to account for sales done at the main store during the Offsite event. A good rule of thumb is to estimate how many invoices/ transactions are going to be done at your main store between the time you create your Offsite system and when you import the sales after the event. This way, invoices can be browsed chronologically, and no Invoice number conflicts between the two systems will occur.

This will reduce the chance that the main and Offsite system will use the same invoice numbers. When sales are imported, if there are duplicate invoice numbers, the Offsite invoices will be renumbered to avoid any conflicts. Renumbering does no real harm, but can cause confusion. For Offsite On-Account sales, this may also confuse the accounting departments. The automatically calculated Invoice number to start from for the Offsite system is based on your store’s sales for the past three days. We do not recommend advancing invoices numbers by too many because it will make browsing the point- of-sale less useful in the future (e.g. listings by invoice number usually also follows a date sequence).

In the above screenshot example, Bookmanager will advance the Offsite’s Starting Invoice number by 653. This number can be manually adjusted, and we recommend doing so if you can provide a better estimate of the sales gap. For example, if the Offsite event was this evening, and you were going to transfer the Offsite sales back into Bookmanager before more sales are done at the main store, then the estimated 653 invoices is overkill. On the flip side, if your Offsite event is still three days away, and you’re estimating a higher than normal sales volume at the main store (i.e. a sale), then the 653 invoice gap will likely be too small.

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TIP: We highly recommend you create the Offsite POS system as close to your Offsite event as possible. This will make it easier to estimate Invoice number gaps, and also provide your Offsite POS system with the most recent and up-to-date inventory and customers information. If you create an Offsite system, THEN receive new product at the main store, those new products will not be in the Offsite system.

Create system in drive/folder The next step is to specify where to create the system, using a drive/folder path. At this point, insert your USB Storage Device into an available port on the computer you are working on. Most times, Windows’ AutoPlay Detect will provide a pop-up window that will allow you to browse the inserted USB device’s files and folders. All you are after at this point is the storage device’s drive letter. If the AutoPlay window does not appear, you can find the device’s drive letter by checking under Computer (XP, Vista, Windows 7) or This PC (Windows 8, 8.1, and 10). [see screenshot]

Make sure your device has enough free space to copy the Offsite POS system to. This varies, and can be anywhere between 200MB to 2GB, depending on how long you’ve been using Bookmanager, and how large your inventory. Having at least 2GB is your safe benchmark.

Enter this drive letter (D: in this example) and press R to validate it. u will allow you view the

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drive’s current contents.

NOTE: If you do not specify a drive, the Offsite system will still be created. It will be stored in a folder under your current Bookmanager folder (e.g. C:\BM) called BMoffsite (e.g. C:\BM\BMoff- site). You can later navigate to this folder and then manually copy it to a USB Storage Device or another computer on the network.

Remove existing files first? The option Remove existing files first? will remove old BMoffsite files and folders that could confuse you when copying over the new BMoffsite folder to your laptop. This is not necessary, but is a recommended step to keep your drive free of old Bookmanager data.

Copy Pubstock file? Copy Pubstock file? will significantly add to the time it takes to create an Offsite POS copy. Unless you want to see current Pubstock information when you are at the event, you can save time by not copying this file. Many stores using the Offsite POS for Offsite sales events do not need access to stock data for their events, but it can be helpful to have if you expect to be doing book searches and research.

The BMoffsite folder is almost identical to the existing system, except for some of the historical files such as sales tapes and electronic documents. It would not be useful as a replacement for a working system at the store, and should not be used in lieu of a proper backup. Certain station-specific setting files are removed (except for the station number used at the event) and other changes are made to prevent things such as running WebLink at the event (a BIG “no no”) or having scheduled routines run by mistake. If WebLink is running, Electronic Invoice and Online Orders could be imported into the Offsite system by mistake.

Once you have entered in your settings and preferences for the Offsite copy, press d and the process will begin.

NOTE: It is best to not do sales on other stations until this process completes. That said, it will do no real harm to run this process while the store is in full operation. You will know it is done when a flag/notification pops up at the bottom saying: “The store\BMoffsite folder with offsite files has been created on X:\”

2) Copy the Offsite system onto a laptop Check to make sure the BMoffsite folder exists on the USB Storage Device. Verify that the date on this folder is current, especially if you did not choose to remove old files first and you have multiple BMoffsite folders.

Remove the USB Storage Device safely. Do not just pull the stick out, rather, right click on the USB Storage Device icon and select Eject or Safely Remove, or use the Windows toolbar to Safely Remove Hardware. Insert it into a USB port on the laptop. Use the Computer or This PC icons to navigate to the USB Storage Device and locate the BMoffsite folder. Right-click the folder and select Copy, then navigate to the laptop’s Local Disk (C:), position the mouse arrow on some white space, then right-click and select Paste.

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If you have used Offsite Bookmanager on this laptop before, you will likely have a preexisting BMoff- site folder already on the C: drive. Upon pasting the new BMoffsite folder, you will be prompted to replace the old one. [see screenshot below]

Depending on your version of Windows, this prompt will either have the one option, Replace the files in the destination, that will overwrite the old folder and its contents. In other versions, the message will ask if you want to Merge the folders (say yes or select that option). Then, it will ask you what to do with the 40-60 conflicts arising. Select the check box at the bottom that says “Do this for all ## of conflicts”, and select Copy and Replace. The idea being, you want to replace all existing files and folders with your latest BMoffsite folder you just created.

Alternatively, you can first delete the old BMoffsite folder from your laptop’s hard drive, thencopy over the new folder. This method may be simpler to some users, as you will receive no prompts about replacing old files.

Once these processes have completed, Eject and remove the USB Storage Device, as it will no longer be needed.

WARNING: Never run Bookmanager, Offsite Bookmanager, or a Backup copy of Bookmanager from a USB Storage device. Never. Ever. If the device is ejected incorrectly, removed prematurely,

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a static shock from your finger jolts it, or your computer powers down unexpectedly, part or all of the data on your device can be lost. In this situation, there is nothing we can do to recover your data, and you will lose your sales and new customers from the Offsite event.

If you have created a BMoffsite folder on this laptop before, you will likely already have a desktop shortcut for the program. You can use that shortcut now to open the program.

If this is the first time BMoffsite is running on this laptop, navigate to the new BMoffsite folder on your C: drive, and open it to view its contents. Here, locate the file bkmngr.exe (or simply bkmngr, the application file). Right-click it, and select Send to, then Desktop (create shortcut). Go to your desktop, right-click the shortcut, and select Properties. Under the Font tab, select the Lucida Console, and a Size anywhere between 20 - 28, depending on your screen size. Click Ok. Right-click the shortcut a second time, and select Rename. It’s a good idea to name this shortcut something like OFFSITE, so that it never gets confused with your main system.

NOTE: If you are using more than one computer at an Offsite event, and they are networked (advanced!), the shortcuts to start Bookmanager will need to have unique station numbers assigned.

Double-click the desktop shortcut for Offsite Bookmanager, and the program will open and want to Reindex for the first time. If it does not reindex the first time you open it, then an above stepwas missed or done incorrectly, and you are likely opening an old version of the Offsite. If this happens, stop and try copying the BMoffsite folder from the USB Storage Device again onto your C: drive.

The window that opens should look just like your normal Bookmanager, except that is will say *** Offsite POS *** at the top next to your store name.

3) Run the Offsite system and enter sales Before starting to enter sales, and for the first time creating an Offsite system on this laptop, you may want to set up (or disable) printers. Again, if you copy and replace this BMoffsite folder on this laptop the next time you do an event, all your station specific settings (window size, printers, etc.) will be remembered. Use A Setup then i) Printers to change those settings.

Use the Offsite system for complete sales only! If you use the Offsite system to order, reserve stock, create Held sales, add new ISBNs, or receive stock, any of these and other non-POS related activities will not be transferred back to your main system. Essentially, only the completed sales done at the event are transferred, which includes A/R activity and new customers linked to sales.

Bookmanager Gift Cards and On Account charges/credits can be used at Offsites, as well as a customer’s Frequent Buyer Points. If a new customer is added to the system, a sale must be recorded under their account for the new account to transfer over. Simply adding a customer in 6 Customers will not transfer back to the main system.

4) Use the POS to total sales and transfer / create an export When the event is over you need to total the Offsite sales and either transfer them via an internet connection to your main system (recommended), or create export data to import back into your main system. You can use any internet connection to transfer, wireless or wired.

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Go to 4 POS, Miscellaneous, and select Total offsite sales (and create export data). There are no printing options here, rather, you can print tapes once you import the sales onto your main system. By default, the group number you used to create your Offsite (and subsequent sales) will be inputted automatically into the Totals for Group # field, so that is usually left as is. Press d to continue.

If you have internet on the laptop, it is easiest to just have the Offsite file sent to bookmanager. com, which will then send them to your main store’s WebLink. Your main system will download the file and store it in the EDI folder for processing. Under the option Upload file to your main system (internet must be avail)? , input Yes to do this.

If you do not have an internet connection, you will create a file to import into your main system. This is done using the next field, Copy offsite sales file to drive/folder:. If left blank, the Offsite file will be created in the EDI folder of your BMoffsite folder. Otherwise, insert a USB USB Storage Device into the laptop, make note of the drive letter, and type that here (e.g.: D:). Press R to create the transfer.

TIP: The Offsite files begin with off then a five digit random number followed by .zip. For example, off52260.zip

5) Import the sales from the Offsite files Back at your store, you need to import and/or process the Offsite file on your main Bookmanager system. From the Main Options menu, select Data Transfer, O) Offsite Bookmanager (create offsite Bookmanager or import offsite sales), then I) Import sales from an offsite POS file. If the file was transfered via the internet, press R on the default EDI\off*.zip. If you do Offsites often, a list of files will be shown; Bookmanager retains the files from the past couple of months. Usually, you will select the topmost (most recent) one. (When in doubt - look at the Date column to verify you are about to process the right file.) The files within will then be unpacked to show a preview list of the items sold. If these are correct, the next stage will add them (and any new customers or changes to existing customers) to your POS.

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If the file was not sent via the internet, you will need to manually add the Offsite file for import. Insert the USB Storage Device with the off#####.zip file on it into the computer you are working on, make note of the USB Device’s drive letter, and then type that drive letter into the Location of offsite file: field (e.g.: D:), and press R. After processing the file, it will be copied to your main BM folder’s EDI folder in the unlikely case it needs to be accessed again.

During this process, any customers with new account numbers will be added. While importing invoices, any transactions with duplicate invoice numbers will be renumbered using the next unique number. A log of the results can be optionally saved.

WARNING: There is no quick means to remove sales once they are imported (each sale must be manually deleted). It is therefore wise to carefully review the list of sales before proceeding. If imported sales need to edited, you will be initially blocked from this process because your current POS Group number will not match what was used at the event. In this case, you need to use the POS Miscellaneous screen and use the option Station’s sales are with group# 00 and temporarily change your Group number to that of the Offsite’s (but remember to change it back afterwards).

6) Total off the imported sales on the main system’s POS. The imported sales are brought in using the POS Group number used at the Offsite event. It is at this point that Inventory levels are adjusted. These sales are now Current and will become part of the end-of-day total at the store. If different POS Group numbers were used at the event, separate totals can be generated, or they can be lumped into one total (i.e. at the end of the day, leave the Group number blank to total all open sales, including the offsite sales). If you want to total your Offsite sales now, simply use the Total sales (finalizes transactions) option from Miscellanous in 4 POS, and remember to enter your Offsite sales’ Group number (likely 99) to total just those sales.

Simultaneous Offsite events The BMoffsite system created on the USB Storage Device can be used to create an Offsite system on more than one laptop, to be used simultaneously. Perhaps you have two events going on over the same weekend. You may want to consider changing the starting invoice number on each system so that they will remain unique when the data is later imported to the main system. If you do not care about invoice numbers (e.g. sales will not be charged on account), then having transactions renumbered is generally not a concern.

GIFT CARDS If you purchase Bookmanager issued gift cards or just the numbers themselves, there is an integrated tracking and storage system within the program that can be used to confidently manage thousands of cards and balances. The integrated gift card system is currently only compatible with Bookmanager issued numbers, and cannot be made to work with preexisting numbers or cards. Our gift card service covers the entire process, from design to manufacturing, so you are guaranteed a good quality product with little setup or hassle on your end. For more information on our Gift Card program and pricing, and for examples of our cards, see Gift Cards under our Products menu at bookmanager.com.

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Gift Cards are important to your bottom line It’s no secret that not all gift cards are redeemed. Some of our stores have hundreds of thousands in unredeemed cards and many are in the tens of thousands. Our historical data reveals that about 11% of the total value put onto cards will never be redeemed (higher if you also use gift cards as promotions). If you sell $10,000 in cards in one year (the current average for small\medium stores) you will likely have received $1,100 in cash that will never be claimed. This “profit” repeats every year.

If you think gift cards are unethical (as some do), consider the many thoughtful but totally useless gifts we give and receive from time to time. Money was in essence wasted on something that was not useful. It’s the thought that counts, and that’s why gift cards are appreciated and widely used. Make sure your store is able to make someone happy with a tasteful gift card. They are great for promotions, too. Our bookstore likes giving them out instead of books for donation because the recipient needs to come in to discover the store, and could become a new loyal customer as a result.

Issuing and Redeeming Selling a gift card is similar to selling a book. Scan the gift card bar code into the POS screen where you would normally scan an ISBN. The balance on the card will then be retrieved and shown in a window that permits issuing and redeeming amounts to and from the card. If the card has never been used, you are provided with a single field to enter the initial amount to issue. [see previous screenshot] If the card is already active, you can add to the balance or enter an amount to redeem. Use d or R to save your choice and return to the POS screen. The gift card should now appear along with any other items on the sale. Proceed to the tendering screen and then complete the sale as you would normally.

New gift cards (loading) can be added any time in a transaction, and along with any other normal product you want to sell. When redeeming a gift card, you scan the card last, after regular product has been scanned. Bookmanager will then calculate the redemption amount automatically based on

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the total of the transaction.

Before completing a transaction you may alter the amount to be issued or redeemed on a card by highlighting the entry and using the standard Edit command. Delete will remove the card leaving the original balance on the card.

You may sell and redeem multiple cards in a single transaction, however you are not allowed to have the same gift card appear more than once in a transaction.

Loading Fees Each time a card is loaded with a value of $10 or more, a 40 cents ($0.40 CAD) loading fee will be billed to your account. Cards loaded with a value under $10 will be charged 20 cents ($0.20 CAD). Loading fees will be billed semi-annually, on December 31st and July 31st, with an online report available to track usage and charges.

Fully redeemed cards When a card is fully redeemed, you can take it back from the customer. Cards may be recycled (issued again to another customer) except that the card will have a history of prior use. This does not effect the card in any way, nor will the customer be able to see any previous history. In our experience, and on average, gift cards get 2-3 cycles of use before they become too tattered and worn to be issued again.

Partial and small card balances You can redeem amounts from gift cards up to a maximum of the amount of the current sale. If this will result in a balance of less than $5 on the card, then you are allowed to redeem the entire amount on the card by entering that amount into the redemption field. In this case, the Cash Refund tender is used to refund the unused balance, or you can place the remainder OnAcct.

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Most stores have a policy to not refund any balances on Gift Cards. Rather, the card is returned to the customer for future use. Please consult your store’s policy on cash refunds for small gift card balances.

Topping up gift cards Gift cards can be topped up with additional funds. Begin a transaction as usual, and after scanning the card, move into the Card refill amount (if not redeeming) field that adds to the balance in the card. Topping up cards will incur standard loading fees.

Checking card balances and history A gift card can be scanned from most screens within Bookmanager. The gift card screen with the card’s balance will overlay your current screen.

Once the card’s balance is shown, you can use the Show card history? Audit option to list each of the transactions associated with the card.

Cards must be presented at time of use The physical plastic gift cards contain no information about the card’s balance or history. Rather, Bookmanager uses the unique barcoded number printed on the card to obtain the information stored on your server and mirrored on our servers. For this reason, we highly recommend that the physical gift card itself be present at the time of redemption, to reduce the chance of a stolen or counterfeit number being used. It is very difficult and unlikely that your physical gift card be reproduced exactly, with a working barcode, and a number that is activated and carries a balance.

That said, card numbers can be entered manually if the card or the scanner is damaged, or upon exceptional occasions where the physical card itself cannot be presented. For example, a good customer of yours (one who has an account in your system, and shops regularly) has lost their card. If that customer knew who gave them the card, and the card was purchased with an account attached to it, you could look them up in 6 Customers. Again, you can always fall back on your policy of not

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replacing lost or stolen cards, but helping out a good customer when there is no obvious malicious intent goes a long way. The POS system tracks detailed activity on every card, so if a customer contests the balance on a card, you can verify it.

Entering card numbers manually If you manually enter a card number, be careful not to transpose numbers, as you may accidentally be altering the balance on a different card. A safeguard check-digit formula is applied to each card’s barcode to reduce the chance of transposing numbers, but again, even with transposing, there is a slim possibility of recalling a different balance.

Possible abuse A gift card is issued in one transaction, and then redeemed in another transaction. If the first transaction is part of a current day’s sales, it can be voided just like any sale. This action will result in the card now having a negative (over-redeemed) balance.

The end-of-day POS totalling report will identify any cards that have a negative balance from the day’s activity. It is important to determine the cause of this situation and remedy it.

A gift card could also be redeemed at an Offsite event, and before the Offsite sales have been transfered back to the main system, that same card could be used again at the main store. Once Offsite sales are transfered, the totalling report would identify that card as having a negative balance, so you could once again remedy or at least be aware of the situation.

Closing gift card batches When you total the POS, Bookmanager will automatically compare your local and online gift card balances, and if they match, send a command to our servers to close the online batch.

Once an online (remote) batch has been closed, none of the transactions within the batch can ever be modified again. Again, the end-of-day report compares the local and remote activity to ensure they balance, so any issues will be displayed immediately. It is your responsibility to identify, find and rectify any differences between local and online records.

If it was not possible to close the remote batch at the same time as the local one (e.g. Internet was down), then the next end-of-day closing will discover that the local and remote closing totals do not match (e.g. the remote batch included two days of activity). However, adding the two-day local records should compare with the remote batch total, so Bookmanager will rectify the issue on its own.

Expiring Cards Depending on provincial/state laws, gift cards may not be allowed to expire. In fact, most provinces in Canada no longer allow gift cards to have an expiration. If your area allows expiry dates, and you decide to implement them, make certain your policy is displayed on the physical cards. Cards can be designed with an “expiry date” space to hand write the date upon issuing. Bookmanager does not provide a means to automatically expire cards, but you can get a list of cards inactive for a specified amount of time. You can then use the report and create a POS transaction that redeems (zeros) the

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balances on selected cards.

Deleting Gift Card History At the end of each month (month-end), gift card balances are tallied, and those with a zero balance that were last redeemed at least as far back as you keep sales data will be deleted from the system (and not before). For example, if your sale records are not deleted until they are three years old, a gift card issued five years ago and redeemed three years ago will only now be deleted. If the card never reaches a zero balance, the transactions associated with it will never be deleted from the system.

Lost and stolen cards If a customer reports a card lost or stolen, there is little you can do unless the customer purchased or used the card and provided their name at the time of transaction. We recommend that stores attach a name and phone number to the purchase of gift cards as an added safety net for situations like this. If the gift card is indeed a gift, we recommend attaching the gift card recipient’s name and/or phone number to the initial transaction.

If a card was purchased or partially redeemed on a transaction linked to a customer, then you can look up the customer’s sales history to locate the gift card number. You can verify the balance on the card by checking its history.

With the card number and balance noted, you can begin a new POS transaction, scan a fresh replacement gift card, and type the amount to transfer into the Amount to issue on card field. Then enter the old card number on the next line and redeem its value. The tendering screen should show a zero balance, allowing you to complete the transaction. All redeem/reissue transactions should be linked to a customer in case the old card is later found and the balance (now zero) is challenged. For maximum security, the customer could sign a printed receipt of the transaction for your records.

NOTE: Printed receipts of any gift card transaction show the card’s new balance but do not dis- close the card’s full number. This is to discourage fraudulent use of the card’s balance.

If a customer reports a card lost and you are unable to find a card sale associated with their name, then it is virtually impossible to help them unless they have the original sales receipt, which you could use to obtain the invoice number. Be suspicious if they only provide you with the card’s number, because it is very unlikely for people to go to the trouble of recording those numbers. Are they guessing and possibly providing the number from another person’s active card?

Whatever measure you take, when you redeem a card’s balance and do not have the card in your possession, it may show up months later only to be contested.

Transferring a gift card’s balance to On Account It is possible to take the balance of a gift card and transfer it as a credit on a customer’s account. This is a handy feature for small balances remaining where you do not allow cash back, or if a customer insists on not wanting to carry around the physical card.

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Start a new transaction, input the customer’s name, and enter through to the tendering screen. Do not sell anything or scan the card in the ISBN field of the previous screen. t up to the GiftCertRdm tendering option. As soon as you highlight it, the system will change the tender to GiftCertIss, which is not what we want for this situation. Instead, press the - (minus) key to toggle the tender to Gift- CertRdm (redeem). Type in the full balance on the gift card, press R, and either type or scan the gift card number into the field next to the amount (the tender note field). The familiar gift card redemption window will appear and allow you to redeem the balance. Press d. By default, your cursor will now highlight Cash Ref (refund), so t to select PmntOnAcct instead and press d to finalize. The balance on the card will now be zeroed, and this customer’s account will have a credit amount in their A/R.

“Zeroing” a card Occasionally, you may want to “zero” a card’s balance, or effectively wipe it of any value. This is similar to the above process of transferring a card’s balance to On Account. The only difference is instead of tendering the transaction as PmntOnAcct, you will select your Cash Clearing or Internal tendering option, to have the funds transfered to a GL holding account. Depending on your local legislation, this process may not be legal, as many provinces/states have now ruled that gift cards cannot expire.

Local vs. Remote card tracking Bookmanager uses an online Remote service for storing all gift card activity. Gift card activity and card balances are also stored in your Local copy of Bookmanager in the same manner all other Book- manager data is stored. The online service can be viewed as a backup system (or vice versa) in case your local records become damaged. Bookmanager uses the two sets of data to ensure balances are not being altered without proper reporting. The End-of-day POS totalling routine compares activity and there are reports to test and audit balances.

The online service requires an internet connection. Each time a gift card is scanned or settled, there is a slight delay while the remotely stored balance is obtained. If the request fails due to technical or

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internet problems, the online service is automatically disabled so that you can continue transactions.

From this point on, card balances are now being obtained from your local records (offline). This information should be the same as the online data, provided that you have performed periodic checks to verify that the two are in balance, and that you are Totalling Sales and performing Month-End.

When the technical/internet problems are solved, the Gift Cards menu in 4 POS, Miscellaneous has an option to re-enable online tracking, simply by selecting 8) Resume online mode (Internet now working) and typing Yes:

Once back online, all of the local activity will be submitted to the remote system. If you do an end- of-day total while offline, Bookmanager will first attempt to restore the connection and upload the local transactions prior to closing the day. However, if it is unable to connect, the day’s sales are still closed, but the remote records are not. The sales tape will warn of this condition.

Relying only on local records

WARNING: We highly recommend you do not use Local gift card storage as your permanent setting. Local mode is only meant as a temporary solution while experiencing internet issues. Bookmanager is not accountable or responsible for any data loss that could occur if you choose to rely on local records only.

Before using the local gift card tracking system, carefully consider the liability you are faced with to maintain proper card balances at all times. A daily and tested backup system becomes even more essential. A system crash, program flaw, or accidental deletion without a recent backup causes con- siderable inconvenience for things like lost orders and receiving, but a partial or complete loss of gift card balances is virtually impossible to recover from. When loyal customers return to your store to use their cards, how will you know how much to give them?

We have provided the Local gift card mode as a standby for technical issues. If you choose to use Local mode as your primary storage mode, with proper backup you will reduce your risks considerably. However, our experience shows that, even with sincere intentions, backups have failed due to lacka- daisical testing.

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Multi-store gift card tracking It is not possible to rely on local data for card balances if you operate multiple stores and permit customers to use gift cards at different locations. Each store locally retains only the activity generated at the store. Therefore, when offline, the sum of a card’s local activity only determines the current balance on the card.

For example, if a customer purchases a gift card at one store, then redeems it elsewhere, if they come back to the original store and you are working offline for some reason, they will be able to redeem the card again for possibly more than what is left on the card. This is unlikely if the card was fully redeemed (e.g. the other store would have retained the physical card) but partial redemptions could pose a problem.

It is therefore not wise to use the Local mode in a multi-store situation unless you are prepared to accept unlikely but possible overuse of cards. There will be times when this is unavoidable (e.g.: your internet access goes down), but it must be kept to a minimum.

Gift Cards at Offsite Bookmanager Sales It is possible to accept and sell gift cards on a computer running Offsite Bookmanager. If internet is available, remote balances can be obtained to ensure that the correct card balances are used. Otherwise, make sure your local data is as up to date as possible. Any and all remote posting of gift card activity is disabled without internet. As well, the end-of-day total routine from the Offiste POS will not close online batches. The gift card sales are included in the data to be transferred back to the main system, and in that process they are posted to the local and online gift card tracking systems.

Home copies of Bookmanager and Gift Cards Owners who take a backup copy of Bookmanager and reinstall it on their home computer should be aware of the consequences from any gift card activity or end-of-day totalling done from the home system. Our server will accept all requests from the home system, which could send “bogus” records and close gift card batches unintentionally. Your home system should be set to “Local mode” for gift cards to prevent this from happening.

TIP: We recommend you do not use a backup copy of Bookmanager for home use, rather, set up a Remote Desktop application to connect to your live copy of Bookmanager at your store. This is how most stores (Bookmanager staff included) work from home. Call us for advice on this matter.

General Ledger and Gift Cards In Bookmanager’s General Ledger, account 324 is used to track the running total for all outstanding gift cards. You can change this account number by going into the = General Ledger and then pressing Account Codes and pressing R. From here you can b or t to highlight the field you wish to edit and press Edit.

Each time the POS is totalled off (closing the current batch), a record is added to the General Ledger with the net amount of activity for the day (e.g. Issued amounts – Redeemed amounts = Net activity). Whenever a financial statement or account Total is generated, account 324 will indicate the grand

157 POINT-OF-SALE | GIFT CARDS

total of all gift cards that have balances. If you use another accounting system, you should be making daily entries of the activity so that the same total can be obtained.

Online totals (or local totals if you do not use the online service) are also being maintained by a separate filing system. You can obtain this balance at any time by entering 4 POS, pressing Misc, b and selecting the Gift Cards menu. Select option 4) OUTSTANDING Gift Card reports (excludes open batches). Comparing the totals from each of these sources is the most accurate way to verify that data has not been lost, damaged, or altered without your knowledge.

Example: If a system crash resulted in data loss or corruption in the POS transaction file, there could be gift cards transactions lost and this would alter the total of outstanding gift cards and the balances on some cards. The balances on the General Ledger and the outstanding cards report would now be different, indicating a problem.

Our online gift card services were built with strict integrity rules, however, it is your responsibility to ensure that the online totals are always in agreement with your accounting totals.

Income tax liability on gift cards A heads up on this growing phenomenon. If your accounting system treats unredeemed gift cards as a liability (they are), then you likely have not reported any of it as revenue. Each year this liability grows (the 11% mentioned earlier) but in fact will never have to be fully repaid with goods. This means that when you sell or close your business, the final income statement must retire this liability, which requires 100% of the outstanding cards to be deemed as taxable income (even though you spent the “tax-free” cash long ago). To avoid a sudden income tax bill, each year your accountant can claim a percentage of unredeemed cards as income so that you pay the taxman a bit every year instead of some obscene amount decades later. Better still, report a larger amount in a year when you have little or no profit (it may not cost you any tax).

Gift Card Setup The A Setup, u) Gift Cards has only one option to change, toggling either Local, Remote, or Tem- poraryLocal tracking. Set this to the desired option when you first start using gift cards. We highly recommend you use Remote. When you first enable Remote tracking, Bookmanager must scan your local records for any gift cards that may have been issued locally and then send those records to our servers.

The TemporaryLocal option is the option used when your internet goes down, or if you know you are going to be experiencing a lapse in internet connectivity. This option is also set from the Gift Cards Misc menu from 4 POS, by toggling 8) Switch to offline mode (Internet problems). If you wish to temporarily change from Remote to Local tracking (e.g.: your internet is down), do not select the Local option. Be sure to use the TemporaryLocal option, otherwise all of your local transactions will be resent to our server upon switching back to Remote, potentially causing your remote and local systems to go out of sync.

The Gift Card Menu In 4 POS, Misc, choose Gift Cards from the menu. All gift card auditing, settings, and analysis are

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done from here. Because of the sensitive nature of gift cards, if you at all unsure of any process or routine being run here, please contact Bookmanager support for assistance.

1) Gift Card inquiry (or scan a card at any time in BM) This option provides a screen to enter or scan a gift card and check the card’s balance and history.

TIP: You can scan a gift card from almost anywhere in Bookmanager to get the same information.

After scanning/entering a card to see its balance, you have the option to see a detail of the card’s activity. Local history will list what your local records have on file for the card, and Remote will show the activity according to our server. In a single store operation these two should always agree, but in a multi-store operation they may differ if the card was being used at more than one location; therefore only the Remote balances should be considered complete. The Audit option is the same as Remote except it provides more details about each transaction including the IP address of the computer that did the transaction.

2) Get open batch DETAILS (online & local) Use this report to see the gift card activity that has occurred since you last totalled off the POS. With both local and remote activity shown, it can be used to reconcile the two (they should always agree).

3) Get closed-batch TOTALS (online) You can choose a year or a year + month and you will get a list of all batches that have been closed (at all locations). If you have problems reconciling your bookkeeping to the online totals, this may be helpful because each closed batch should have appeared on a corresponding end-of-day total report. Use the Detail command to show a listing of individual transactions for the batch

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4) OUTSTANDING Gift Card reports This report has several options and is designed to help you reconcile gift cards. It may be especially useful in a multi-store environment.

The Details report can be very long if you choose all active gift cards. If you plan to expire cards that have not been used for a long period, b to Include only cards inactive since and choose a date to get only cards that are now very old. From this report you may choose to expire certain cards by creating a POS transaction that fully redeems each one. You can use the Print command from this report to export all the cards to a file, to then import back into the POS for easier data entry. Call Bookmanager support for more information on expiring gift cards in the POS.

5) GiftCard usage analysis This report will give a monthly breakdown of card use. For multi-stores, the report can only make financial sense if all locations are included. Use the single store-level report when you want to know how much gift card activity is happening at each location.

6) Close an online open batch You should never need to use this option because the end-of-day totalling closes open batches automatically. The option is provided for very unusual cases. Please contact Bookmanager if you think you need to use this setting.

7) Re-post any local transactions that are missing from your online records In the rare case where our server’s records do not match your individual card sales, this routine will send

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every gift card transaction done on or after the date your specify. The server compares its records and adds ones that were not on the server. If the record is found but it is part of a closed batch, changes will be ignored because closed batches cannot be altered under any circumstances.

Records that are added will become part of the current open batch regardless of the date the transaction occurred. This means that special handling may be required when you close the batch and reconcile it against accounting records. Run an open batch inquiry to see the transactions that were added.

WARNING: Please consult Bookmanager support before running this routine, as it is rare it is ever needed, and may be a symptom of other issues within your system.

8) Switch to offline mode (Internet problems) This is a toggle option that can be used to switch your storage mode from Remote to TemporaryLocal. It is most often used when you know you will be soon experiencing a lapse in internet connectivity, or restore your Remote mode after internet becomes available again. This toggle is similar to the A Setup, u) Gift Cards option.

9) Compare local and online Gift Cards for integrity This report may take a while to complete because it must compare each gift card to see that the local and online records match. In a multi-store situation, it compares only the activity done by the store doing the report. This means that if any cards are found with mismatched balances, the card balance shown may not be the card’s real balance because it may have been used at other locations. That said, if there are any cards listed on this report it means that you have some disagreement between your records and those online.

Stores with a single location are recommended to use this report a few times a year to make sure both Local and Remote records agree. If there is a difference discovered, running either7 ) Re-post any local transactions that are missing from your online records or Z) Re-post any online transactions that are missing from your local records will often remedy the disagreements. Consult Bookmanager support if you are unsure which option to use.

N) Get cards with negative balances This report will show any cards that have been redeemed for more than total value issued on the card. The POS has safeguards to prevent this from happening, but there are rare situations where it is possible.

Z) Re-post any online transactions that are missing from your local records If you have found any discrepancies in your local and online transactions, you can enter into this option and re-post to make corrections.

WARNING: Please consult Bookmanager support before running this routine, as it is rare it is ever needed, and may be a symptom of other issues within your system.

161 POINT-OF-SALE | Online Orders

Online Orders If you have a consumer enabled Webstore, orders placed online can be transfered instantly to your POS as a special Held sale. The Webstore aspect of an online order will be discussed in a separate document focusing on the Webstore, so for the purposes of this manual, only the Bookmanager software end of things will be outlined.

Before working with NewOnline orders, you will need to specify a few setup options. From A Setup, select v) Webstore.

You must have the first optionEnable communications with your Webstore at bookmanager.com? set to Yes. The other options are personal preferences, but the settings above are our recommenda- tions. Finally, under your Webstore Settings on the actual Webstore, you must enable an Ordering option called Submitted orders will automatically generate a Held Sale in my Bookmanager system in order to most effectively manage these transactions.

NewOnline orders will appear in your Bookmanager software as soon as they are placed online. Keep watch for new orders either in your email inbox, or by looking for Online:X (where the X is how many new Online orders you have) in the upper right hand corner of your Bookmanager software.

To access NewOnline orders, go to 4 POS, select Search, and under Section, enter O for Online, and press R on the blank Filter field. All new online orders will be listed, so select one and press R to view it.

There are three unique online order scenarios:

The Online Order is for items you have in-stock In this case, you don’t even need to Edit the NewOnline order. Simply select Print, and type L for Picklist and press d to send an itemized list of the order to your main printer. Use this printout to find the requested books, and tuck the printout in one of the books once all are found, as the printout

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also includes the customer’s name and account number at the top. You can also view a Picklist on your mobile device (tablet, phone, etc.) if that is more convenient. Select L for Picklist, but instead of selecting M for your Main Printer as the destination, select W for Webstore, and d. You will then be asked to select from a list which device you want to view the Picklist on. If you have not yet set up a Connection ID for your mobile device to communicate with Bookmanager and your Webstore, please refer to the Webstore manual or call Bookmanager support.

Set the books aside in your appropriate customer holds area, and head back to your Bookmanager software. The NewOnline order should still be up on your screen, and if not, you can easily Search for it again. With the order up, select Print again, but this time type N for notice. This will send an order confirmation back to you customer. If nothing on the order was out of the ordinary or needed clarification, press d to send the confirmation. You can b to the third Print/Finalize Transaction field and input an E for Edit, Send & Save if you would like to modify the default email notification before being sent.

NOTE: As soon as the customer places an online order, they will receive an emailed initial order confirmation. This initial confirmation is just there to explain that you have received theorder, and will respond back once the order has been finalized or shipped. This is why it is necessary to send a second order confirmation once you are certain you can fulfill their order.

The last step is to mark the NewOnline order as done by pressing Lock. The NewOnline in red should disappear and all you will be left with is a standard Held transaction.

The Online Order is for items you need to order (not in-stock) All the items in this order will have a b for backorder following the quantity wanted for each item. For example, 3b means that the customer wants three copies of the item, but they need to be ordered.

In this case, there is nothing to print right off the bat, as there is nothing to pick from your shelves. Instead, select Edit to get into the order. From here, highlight the item(s) needing to be ordered, and press Reserve. Type the number of copies requested by the customer (3 in the above example), and b to the Supl field to input which source you are ordering from. Make sure to select the Supplier that results in the Sell price your customer was quoted on this order. You can also leave a note in the notes field if need be (such as “X-mas present, do not call!”). Press d to save the order and jump back to Point-of-Sale, where you can continue with this Reserve process for the remaining items needing

163 POINT-OF-SALE | Online Orders

to be ordered. Notice that the red b quantities will change to the standard green text once dealt with. Price will appear in red if the order or stock Sell price is different from what the customer was quoted. This usually means you need to have a look at the order Sell price again to make sure you got the details correct.

Once all items are on-order, the transaction should be finalized for future reference, and the customer sent an order confirmation. Press R until you are at the Tendering screen. Here, select OnAcct or Cash and press d (the amount should be zero dollars, and the tendering method is moot, as no payment is being taken). This will bring up the Print/Finalize Transaction box. Type i for Invoice, and b twice and enter 0 for the number of copies to print. On the next line below this Invoice line, enter an N for Notice, and d to send an email to the customer notifying them that their items have been ordered. The NewOnline status will be cleared.

The Online Order is a mix of in-stock and items to be ordered In this situation, the above processes stay almost the same, with a few nuances at the end to separate the order.

First, Print a L Picklist so you can find the items in-stock. Once you have pulled (and confirmed) the in-stock items, head back to Bookmanager to deal with the items that need to be ordered (including any items that you couldn’t find that should have been in-stock). Edit into the NewOnline order, Reserve the backordered items, then E and choose Hold transaction. Select Print again and send the customer a N Notice. Bookmanager will format the notice in a way that shows which items are ready for pickup (in-stock) and those that need to be ordered. [see screenshot]

164 POINT-OF-SALE | Online Orders

With the items picked and ordered, the final step is to separate the Online order into items that have been ordered and those that are in-stock and ready for pick up. To do this, select Edit to once again get back into the order. One by one, highlight the items that are in-stock, and press Transfer. For the first item, select {create new invoice} and press R. For all subsequent in-stock items, press Transfer and press R to group them all on the same, newly created held invoice. Once this is done and all in-stock items are transfered, you should only be left with items that have been ordered. d to Tendering and u on Cash or OnAcct ($0.00) to finalize the transaction and clear the NewOnline status of the order.

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Example of the first confirmation email a customer immediately receives when they place an online order:

Request a Quote (Webstore Feature) If you have enabled a consumer Webstore and allowed your customers to make purchases there, they will be given three options after items have been added to their cart. The most common action, Proceed to checkout, results in a standard NewOnline order, as outlined in the previous section. Customers can also choose to Request a quote, which appears in Bookmanager very similarly to a standard NewOnline order with a few differences.

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An online order quote will appear in Bookmanager the same way as a standard NewOnline order will, with an Online indicator appearing in the upper right portion of the screen. Quotes are searched and loaded in the POS the same way as standard online orders. The word Quote will appear in red in the Via field on the 4 POS Held transaction. The word *Quote* highlighted in red will also appear at the beginning of the invoice note field, along with the online order number; and if the customer added any special instructions, those will appear on the rest of this note line. You should always check your store’s email after receiving a quote, as only so many characters of the customer’s special instructions may appear in the invoice note field, whereas the email confirmation will show the complete message. [see screenshots on next page]

Many institutions and schools will find use for this request a quote option on the Webstore. Though regular online orders are not finalized until they are done so by staff, your customers may rightfully assume that submitting an online order means it is final. The quote allows for clear distinction to the customer that changes can be made, and that nothing is final.

Quotes can be changed or finalized the normal way using Edit in the Point-of-Sale. An online quote is no different from a regular NewOnline order; it is the customer’s perception and the simple wording change that differentiates this from a standard order.

Most often, you should be changing an Online Order Quote to a standard POS Quote. Edit into the NewOnline Held sale, press E, and select Q) save as Quote. For more information on working with Quotes, refer to Working with and completing a Quote transaction on page 123.

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Below is a sample email the customer receives, and a sample email that the store receives:

168 RETURNS | Overstock returns

Returns Product that has been allocated for return to suppliers is stored in 5 Returns, both before and after processing. Items can be added to this file from other areas of the program like 2 Inventory or 9 Re- ceiving, or as a batch directly into 5 Returns. When they are added to the file, they become pending returns. When you first enter the Returns file, you will see items that are pending (not processed yet) listed alphabetically by supplier, followed by the processed returns starting with the most recently processed return numbers.

Returns fall into two general categories: those that you do periodically to keep the inventory free of stale stock (overstock returns), and those that are done immediately upon receiving because of damage in shipping, a mis-shipment, short shipment, etc.

Overstock returns Identifying and processing these are one of the most loathed yet essential aspects to a bookstore, and Bookmanager has several tools that will make things easier than you might expect. Reports can be used to select items that have been in stock too long, or do not have strong enough sales to warrant keeping them. If you label your product (recommended simply for returns sake alone!), you can also periodically pull books by using the date code listed on the label. Once you have identified what needs to go back, they are scanned into pending returns for quick and easy processing.

Returns from Receiving There are a number of reasons that you will need to return items immediately after Receiving them. Damage in shipping, or errors by suppliers are constantly occurring, and these situations need to be dealt with immediately. Bookmanager makes it easy to return these directly from the Receiving file, and separates them from other returns to the same supplier so they do not get mixed up with your

169 RETURNS | Creating pending returns

overstock returns. Claims can then be emailed or faxed back to the supplier immediately, eliminating the need to interrupt your day by calling the supplier’s customer service department.

Creating pending returns There are several ways to add items to the Returns file for processing. The most common method for creating pending returns is to use the Zrtn (Return) function that is available from just about anywhere in Bookmanager. Bookmanager support staff commonly refer to returning books as “zedding” them. This command will allow you to pick the invoice the item is being returned from, and to customize the reason for return. The other method is to use the New function directly in 5 Returns. This is designed to deal efficiently with overstock returns en masse.

Using the Zrtn function This is the standard method for entering an item to the returns file to be processed later. It is available from almost anywhere in Bookmanager.

The first step is to locate the item by 2 searching for it, or by scanning it in 2 Inventory, and then selecting Zrtn. The bottom of your screen will change to show you the receiving history of the item, with all the invoices you have received on listed. Bookmanager will always put a ** beside the supplier code for the entry that seems to be the best choice for returns (the highest cost for credit). If you want to return on a different invoice, simply use b t to select the correct invoice number and press R or type the quantity you want to return.

NOTE: Some of the invoices listed may have an OV (over) listed next to the supplier code. This indicates that this invoice is over 1 year old, and therefore your supplier is unlikely to allow any returns referencing this invoice number. Bookmanager will not choose an invoice by default if it is over 1 year old, but you can override its decision to choose one of these invoices anyway.

170 RETURNS | Creating pending returns

The next step is to indicate the quantity that you want to return, simply by typing it and pressing R. You will now be taken to the Reasons field. This is a 30-character field for each return entry that is used to explain why the item is being returned to the publisher. On the right of the screen you will see a list of the most common reasons for return. You can choose one by entering the number or letter associated with the reason, and pressing R. The reason will be inserted into the field where you can either modify it, or press R again to accept it as is. If none of the standard reasons seems to apply, you can simply type in an explanation for why you are returning the item.

After you have entered the reason, you will get a chance to modify the price and/or the discount. Generally, these are left alone, as they will reflect the values from the original invoice, so you are often pressing d after inputing a Reason. When you d you will complete the entry, adding it to the pending items in 5 Returns.

The Supl code field in this window has space for an extra character that can be used to separate pending returns to the same supplier. Let’s suppose that you have a number of overstock returns waiting to go back to Penguin Random House, but you have a few items that you want to send back immediately. Instead of using PRH as the supplier code, use PRH A. This will create a separate pending claim to PRH. You can use any letter to create as many of these separate claims as you would realistically need. There are a few exceptions:

• Do not use R or P as the additional letters, as these are reserved for items done in Receiving, and items for which you need Permission to return.

• Do not use numbers as the extra characters, as these are generally reserved for stores who have multiple locations (Multi-Store).

Returning items from Receiving When you are receiving stock from your suppliers, a number of cases for returning/making claims for items immediately will present themselves. Items are short-shipped, they arrive damaged, the wrong item is shipped, or they come in at the wrong price. The Receiving section of the manual gives a full explanation of how to create and process returns for items in Receiving (page 257).

Batch overstock returns If you have done an inventory pull of old stock, the easiest method for entering these into the Returns file is to go into 5 Returns and select New. By default, your cursor will go into the ISBN field, and your first step is to verify that the Supl field has the correct supplier listed. If it does not, you will need to t into this field and enter the correct supplier code. The Qty will default to 1 copy, but you can change this if it is necessary (or scan the same item multiple times). Once you b back in the ISBN field, you can simply scan the item or type in the ISBN. Bookmanager will automatically pick the best invoice to use, and your cursor will be back in the ISBN field waiting for the next item, assigning it the last

171 RETURNS | Maneuvering in the Returns file

supplier used. Scan all the items you want to return to that supplier, and E after you have entered the last item. There should now be a list of pending returns for the supplier.

NOTE: If you do not have Receiving history for an item scanned, you will get a message telling you there are no invoices available. You can then proceed with the return, but there will be no invoice number associated with this item.

If you have a Pubstock subscription, you can enable a feature that will automatically check to see if the item being returned is still being carried by that supplier. Occasionally, ISBNs will change publishers/distributors. An ISBN you initially bought from RAI nine months ago may now be carried SSC, and depending on the supplier, you may have to return it to the new distributor rather than the one you initially purchased from. Before scanning any items in 5 Returns, you can press Xtra and select 1) Enable checking Pubstock for New entries. Again, this may only be required for a few suppliers/ wholesalers, so check with your rep first to see if this is necessary.

Maneuvering in the Returns file The 5 Returns file contains both items that have and have not been processed. When you first enter Returns, you will see the Pending returns sorted by supplier, followed by the processed claims sorted by Claim number (with the most recent ones listed first).

Indexing the file When you select indx (Index) you are given four different options for sorting the file:

• Entry#: Titles are listed in the sequence in which they were entered into the file.

• ISBN: Items are listed in numerical order.

• Return#: This is the usual way the file appears, with Pending items listed first (alphabetically by supplier), and then by Return number, with the most recent ones listed first.

• Supplier: This brings all entries together by Supplier code whether they are Pending or have been processed (assigned a claim number).

As with other areas of Bookmanager, when you have selected an index in Returns, you will see the current index highlighted in red on your screen.

Searching in the Returns file When you Search in the Returns file, you are taken into a Search For field where you have several options:

• Leave the field blank and R to get a list of all pending returns, starting with the first supplier.

• Enter a suppler code to get all items for that supplier, starting with the Pending returns, followed by previously completed claims for that supplier.

172 RETURNS | Add shipping charges to a claim

• If you type in a claim number, the list will start at that claim. A second field will pop up that allows you to find a specific ISBN or keyword within the claim.

• Use an ISBN to locate all occurrences of this ISBN within the file. Alternatively, you can scan a barcode in the returns file to achieve the same thing. You do not even need to Search first.

After you have completed a search, the index will have changed to your search method. You will see that the current index is again highlighted in red.

Filtering the list If you want your list to only contain items from the highlighted order, you can use the Filter command. Using this command on a pending return will change your screen to show only the pending return for this supplier. Doing it on a processed claim will filter the list to show only the items on that claim number. Pressing Filter a second time will return you to a full listing of all items in the file.

Add shipping charges to a claim If you are returning something to a supplier that is due to their error, you may want them to reimburse you for the shipping charges. The ISBN 0 is reserved throughout Bookmanager for shipping charges. If you have not yet set up an Inventory card for shipping, you should do so now. Refer to Point-of-Sale (page 114) for instructions on this.

To add shipping to a pending return, go into 5 Returns and press New. Set the Supl field to the correct code, leave the Qty at 1, and enter 0 for the ISBN. The cursor will move into the Reasons field and you will have two choices.

• Return shipping costs: Simply adds your cost of shipping the items back to the supplier.

• ChargeBack of orig. shipping: Allows you to ask for credit on the shipping from the supplier’s invoice.

You can select the desired type of shipping charge and complete the entry. When you print the claim form, the shipping amount will appear at the bottom of the claim.

Returning items not received through Bookmanager Bookmanager has the ability to return items that were not received through the program; that is, items that have no receiving history. In this case, when you are doing a Zrtn on an item, instead of getting a pick list of invoices to choose from, you will see a single line saying Use this line if no history available. You can then proceed through the return as you normally would, choosing a quantity, price and discount.

When you process this item, the resulting claim will obviously not reference an invoice number, and the invoice date will be the day the claim was done.

173 RETURNS | Finding out the total of a claim

Finding out the total of a claim If you ever want to discover the total value of a claim without having to print a copy, just press Ttl for the Total command. This can be used on a pending claim to show you what the total is before you actually process it, or on a processed claim to give you a quick indication of its value. Besides the total of the claim, this function will give you the number of books on the claim, the total list (selling) price of all items, the net price of all items (before tax or shipping), the GST, and any shipping added to the claim. It will be listed in the bottom left corner of the Returns screen.

We recommend that you use the Ttl command often when doing larger returns. Counting out a stack of 20-40 items at a time, scanning them in, then doing Ttl and making sure you scanned the same number as you stacked will help reduce errors. Incorrect scanning in returns, even with just a few items, can quickly add up to expensive mistakes. For example, if you forget to scan a few hardcovers, but send them back to the suppler anyway, often times you won’t get credit for those items. It pays to be careful here.

Processing and printing returns The Prt (Print) command has multiple uses within the returns file. It can be used to process a claim, ask for permission to return, or print a list of items on the pending claim.

When you select Prt, you are taken to a Print Return box, and your cursor will be in the Type field. You have three options at this point.

• Claim: This is the most common type you will choose. The return is processed, a claim number is assigned, and all the appropriate files in Bookmanager are updated. You will get a printed copy of the claim form to enclose with the books you are returning. The inventory file has its OH, Rcv (receiving) and Sld (sold) fields modified. A Ded (deduction) entry is added to Accounts Payable (waiting to be replaced by a supplier’s credit note). The Returns figures in 3 Suppliers are updated.

• Permission: A claim number is not generated. Instead, the form’s claim number will be PERM P. The items are left in the returns file with a P after the supplier code (eg. RAN P). A Permission to Return form is generated, and you can send this to the supplier. If a previous Permission entry exists it will not add to it, instead it will assign the first available letter (starting with A). Items are not actually taken out of Inventory. Once permission is received from the supplier, Prt again, and select Claim to complete the return.

• List: Will print a list of all items on the Pending return. Items are not removed from the Inven- tory OH. This list can be used to pull stock if you have not yet done so.

174 RETURNS | Making changes to claims

Once you have selected the printing Type, you have a number of other options:

• Sort: Title, Class, isbn, Price, and Author, depending on your supplier’s preference.

• List by price point: Defaults to No. Select Yes if you want the titles listed, and then a summary of items by price point (eg. 121 items @ 4.95 each and 40% discount). Say Only if you want the summary by price point without the titles being listed (sometimes used for magazines).

• Format Submission: How would you like this document submitted? Leave blank if you are going to print it, or select Fax, Email, or Preview (pdf). Emailing from Bookmanager must be configured for Email to work correctly.

• # printed copies to (your printers name): Input the number of copies of the claim you would like printed.

• # shipping labels to: insert the number of ship labels you would like and where it will print. Shiplabel will print on standard paper on your desktop printer, and Thermal will print on specially sized label stock for the Cognitive Thermal Label printers.

Making changes to claims There are a number of options for making changes to items once they have been entered into Returns. Be aware that any changes you make to claims that have already been processed will affect entries in the 7 Accounts payable file. You should always check your totals in A/P after you have used any of the following options on processed claims.

Editing in Returns For both pending and processed claims, the Edt option allows you to change information on an item. If it is a pending item you can freely change the supplier, quantity, price, discount and invoice information. If the claim has already been processed (it has a claim number), you will not have access to the supplier field. In this case, the Accounts payable entry will also be changed as long as it has not been included in a payment.

Voiding a claim Simply find an item from the claim in question and select Void. This will remove the claim from accounts payable, and it will place all the items from the claim back on pending return. This is useful if you find that you want to add items to a claim after you have processed it. Once you Void it, you can just add more items to the claim before you process it again. It is good practice to first Search for any pending claims under that supplier, and add a supplier separating character to those entries if they do not already have one. Otherwise, voiding a claim will combine any other pending claims with the newly voided (now pending) ones.

If the claim you are voiding has already been taken against a payment, Bookmanager will not delete the A/P entry. This would be a problem if you were to print the claim a second time because it could duplicate the entry. If you are not sure whether a voided claim still exists in the A/P, you can search for it in 7 Accounts payable under the correct supplier and claim number, and you may need to Del.

175 RETURNS | Deleting items

Deleting items If you want to completely remove an entry from the returns file, you can do so by selecting the Del command. If it is a pending return, you will immediately be given three options:

• No: You changed your mind, you do not want to delete this line!

• Yes: Delete just the highlighted item from the return.

• All: Delete every item under this supplier code and separator.

As is the case with voiding returns, you need to be aware of Accounts Payable entries if you are using Del for items on a processed claim (one that already has a claim number). You will immediately be warned that deleting will add the items back to inventory, and that you need to E to continue. What follows are the three options listed above. In this case, if you select All, each item on this claim number will be deleted.

If you choose to delete from a processed claim, the DED entry in A/P is not automatically modified. This includes when you delete a single item from a claim containing many titles: the DED total in A/P will not be reduced. The Total command will update the claim total in A/P as long as it is not paid or locked. In rare cases, the claim entry may be missing from A/P; Total will also recreate the entry. If the DED is linked to a payment in A/P, deleting items will not touch the A/P at all. The only time deleting from returns will update A/P is if you are highlighting the last item listed on a claim that is not associated with a payment. In this instance, the DED will be removed from the Accounts payable file.

Deleting the DED from A/P If you want to delete all the items on a return and remove the DED from A/P, it is probably easiest to do this through 7 Accounts payable. You can search for the supplier, and b or t to highlight the relevant claim number and select Del. It will ask you if you want to Delete this entry (and its GL related entries)?, and you should say Yes.

You will then see a red warning box telling you that there are related entries in Returns, and you must select what you want done with them. You will have three options that will have three different effects:

• Keep: The claim will be removed from the Accounts payable, but the entries will remain in the Returns file listed under the claim number they were assigned.

• Delete: All the entries on this claim in the Returns file will be deleted and added back to your Inventory on hand.

• VoidOnly: The items on the claim will be voided, meaning they will still be in your Returns file, but they will be pending returns. They will be listed with the supplier code under which they were processed, so it is possible that if you already have pending returns for this supplier, these items will be combined with them. If they were originally separated from the regular returns (eg. Under PRH A), they will be separated again in the pending returns file.

176 RETURNS | Deleting items

When you choose either of the last two options, you will be warned that the items are about to be added back to inventory.

Choosing to delete the DED in this manner will completely remove the item from your Accounts payable and General Ledger files.

Xtra options Selecting Xtra gives you five options for the currently highlighted return.

1) Enable checking Pubstock for New entries If you have a Pubstock subscription, you can enable a feature that will automatically check to see if the item being returned is still being carried by that supplier. Occasionally, ISBNs will change publishers/distributors. An ISBN you initially bought from RAI nine months ago may now be carried SSC, and depending on the supplier, you may have to return it to the new distributor rather than the one you initially purchased from. Before scanning any items in 5 Returns, you can press Xtra and select 1) Enable checking Pubstock for New entries. Again, this may only be required for a few suppliers/ wholesalers, so check with your rep first to see if this is necessary.

2) Sort items on claim This allows you to list the items on a pending or processed claim in order by Title, Class or ISBN.

3) Change discount for all items on claim Occasionally, you will need to standardise the discount on every single item under a claim. This will overwrite the discounts attached to items when they were received, but not change the original order history. This change is only effective in Returns.

4) (Specialty) Create a POS return for items on this claim This will transfer all the items and their quantities to a held sale in POS.

5) Export ISBNs on this claim to ISBNS.TXT This will create a very basic text file containing only the ISBNs on this claim, each on their own line. No other information is included, only ISBNs. The file will be named ISBNS.TXT, and found in your BM folder.

177 CUSTOMERS | The Customers screen

Customers Bookmanager provides an effective way of managing your customers and tracking their purchase history with your business. The 6 Customers screen provides many features, including: maintenance of Accounts Receivable (A/R); encrypted credit card storage; printing shipping labels; history of orders, purchases, and returns; and a way of filtering out certain customers for reports and email blasts. 6 Customers is an effective contact management system.

The Customers screen

The top section of the 6 Customers screen contains all the information about your customer, including their account number, address, credit status and limit, total sales history, brief notes, etc. The bottom part of the Customers screen contains the history of all active A/R, recent sales, and complete orders this customer has made in your store. As with other areas of Bookmanager, the history can be accessed with both the Hst or T commands, and R on a particular line will take you to that entry in the appropriate area (4 POS or 1 Orders). If you press d in Customers, the upper right portion of the screen will change between showing the information about that customer and a list of customers for you to scroll through. Pressing R on a customer will bring their complete information back on screen.

The purpose of many of the available fields is obvious, but here is a brief overview of what the others mean:

• Attn: The attention field is generally used for companies. You can have it appear on a mailing label to identify to whom a shipment should go.

• Act: The customer’s account number. This will be automatically assigned by Bookmanager

178 CUSTOMERS | The Customers screen

under two potential formats: using the customer’s name, or an assigned number. See the setup options in the next sub-section for more information.

• Customer Type (field not labeled): This is a single-character field next to the account number. You can use it to separate different customer groups within your store. For example, 3 could be assigned to churches, 4 for schools, 5 for book clubs, etc. You can have a breakdown on your end-of-day POS tape for sales from each type, and they are also useful when using Custom- er Filters to pare down your customer list. By default, all sales finalized without a customer account attached get a blank customer type, and all new customers or general customers’ sales are assigned a customer type of 1. This way, you can quickly identify how much of your business is from walk-ins and how much is from frequent buyers.

• Name: For consistency, usually entered Lastname, Firstname. The first letters of new customer names will be auto-capitalized upon a save.

• Phn1, Phn2 (not labeled), Emai & Fax: Phone number fields can be entered with or without dashes, as Bookmanager will insert dashes automatically upon saving. The Ph1, Ph2, and Email fields are searched when you are doing a Srch. The Email field will be used when you want to send receipts or other email messages to customers.

• FB?: Whether or not this customer participates in your frequent buyer rewards program. See the 4 POS section (page 137) for more information about setting this up.

179 CUSTOMERS | The Customers screen

• Points: Their current balance of frequent buyer points. Each point is worth $0.01. If the customer is set to donate their points to another account, that account number and name will be listed here.

• SAN: For wholesalers selling to other bookstores, use your correct SAN here. Not usually used by general booksellers. The SAN field is also used for the online account number if a customer has placed an order on your Webstore. This number starts with a U followed by a unique six-digit number.

• Rep: When a customer places an online order, their online account is flagged with EDI in this field. If you want to see all the customers in your system that has placed an online order, you can create a Customer Filter selecting only those with EDI in the Rep field.

• Clas: These are four “customer interest/class” fields where you can group customers further by any keywords you choose. These are very useful when using the Customer Filters to shorten a list, and can be keyword searched when you do a Srch in Customers. For example, put Book- club in one of the Clas fields for book club accounts. You can then Srch for “Bookclub” and have all your clubs quickly listed. Another use of this field is for marking customers who do not want to receive any email notifications or newsletters from your business. You could tag those customers with NOSPAM, then create an email blast Customer Filter, with an Exclude filter that would omit any customers with NOSPAM in one of the Clas fields. More on Customer Filters later in this section.

• Get Deposit?: If you have this set to Yes, you will be reminded to get a deposit when you reserve or order a book for this customer.

• Combine POs?: Select Yes if orders with different PO#’s will be posted to a single invoice in the POS. This option is helpful for school accounts that place many small orders. Rather than having dozens of separate Held invoices, you could have all new orders combined into a single Held invoice.

• Shp: The default shipping method preferred for this customer. For example, if UPS is the needed courier for all orders, type that here so your staff knows and invoices reflect that.

• Terms: These are their on account terms, usually set to Net 30.

• CreditLim: Use this to set a purchase limit for your accounts. Put in a dollar value (in retail dollars), or set to 0 for no limit, or –1 if you do not want to allow this customer to make purchases on account (a warning will be displayed in POS). Setting this to -3 will enable an “alert for terms”, which will display a message in the POS when the customer is attached to a sale. This is used to alert the cashier to check the customer’s file for any special instructions. Setting a dollar value will not prevent on account charges over this amount. However, a warning will be displayed in the POS when a customer’s current on-account total has exceeded this limit.

• A/R Ttl: This will display a summary of this customer’s Accounts Receivable in dollars. A positive number means they have a balance owing, and a negative value means they have a credit. Next to this field is the customer’s OnHold Status, which can be manually set, and is also updated automatically by a routine in the scheduler that scans your customers for over-

180 CUSTOMERS | Customer setup options

due invoices on account. [Blank] means they are OK; H means they are on credit hold, and the word OnHold will display highlighted in orange, along with a warning message in the POS whenever this customer is used for purchases; and O is for credit override mode, meaning that if the customer has a balance owing that is older than your established terms, an H (credit hold) status will not be applied here. This is useful for certain customers that always pay, but outside of the default terms established for all other customers.

• Last Active: Automatically updated by POS or Orders.

• Sls: Retail sales totals for this customer for the past three years, updated automatically from POS. These fields can be edited if the correct login with permissions in used.

• Tx: Tax code for this customer. Leave blank for the default, or link it to a Cust Tax Code in the Tax Setup (page 30) for out of province/state customers.

• Tx1 & Tx2: Exemption fields. If you customer is exempt from either of these taxes, enter their exemption number here, or just the word Exempt.

• Disc: A discount percentage that will be applied to all sales for this customer.

• Card#: If you would like to securely store credit cards for a customer, do so here. Card numbers are encrypted, and can be accessed and decrypted only with a master password. If a card has been attached to an account, this field will display the card type and last four digits. Multiple cards can be stored, and are normally accessed by pressing View in 6 Customers. More on credit card storage later in this section.

• Note: A brief note about this customer. 66 characters max over 2 lines. A more detailed note is available by selecting Msg.

• Billto: You can put in a different billing account number for this customer. For example, if this is a school, you could put the Billto as the school district’s account. Any on account sales will show up in this customer’s history, but the invoice will be posted to the specified Billto’s A/R.

Customer setup options There are a couple of setup options you should look at before you start adding customers in Book- manager. You can access them by selecting A Setup, and d) Customer and A/R.

• Customer Interest fields…: This means whether you need the Clas fields in 6 Customers to be valid 4 Classes. By default you will see 1234, meaning that each of the four fields will be

181 CUSTOMERS | Adding a new customer

checked against the 4 Class file. If you were to blank this out, it would not validate any of these fields, meaning you could enter anything you want.

• Default for Get Deposit field: This will default to No, meaning that you do not want to get a deposit from most new customers. If you want all new customers to default to Yes, change this setting.

• Default credit limit for new customers: Leave at 0 if you want all new customers to have unlimited on account privileges, or set a dollar value. Again, entering a dollar value will not prevent the customer from exceeding this limit, rather a warning will be displayed. Set to –1 if you do not want new customers to have on account privileges.

• Last assigned customer acct#: If you leave this at 0, then all new accounts will have numbers based on their names (ie. SMITHJI for Smith, Jim). Set it to a number like 1000 if you want to assign a number-based system.

• Customer keyword search (Basic or eXtended): Selecting eXtended will index address, class, email, and notes fields. This will allow you to keyword Srch those fields in 6 Customers. Ex- tended mode takes longer to rebuild the keyword indexes, but most stores have that routine set overnight, so this is often a non-issue.

Adding a new customer Selecting New will give you access to a new customer card. When you are adding a customer “on the fly” while creating orders and from 1 Orders or 4 POS, just the name and phone number and d will add them quickly. Bookmanager will automatically assign them a customer account number, so if you want to give them a particular number you have to Edt just after you have entered them, and change the account number. Say Yes when it asks if you want the account number changed. You will get a warning if an existing customer has that same account number, and in this case you will say No, do not merge.

We do not generally recommend that you use phone numbers as account numbers for two reasons. First, too many people may share the same phone number (a family, or people from the same business), and this may confuse things. Second, the phone number field is a searchable field in Bookman- ager, so you should always be able to find them by typing the phone number anyway.

If you are adding a bunch of similar customers, you may find it easier to use the Cpy command and just change whichever fields need to be different.

Searching for customers The Srch command will give you many ways to find customers. If you search by name, type in as much of the name as you know, and you should get a list of any matches. For example, if you were searching for SMITH, JIM, you could either type in the full name in this format to find just him, or type SMITH to get a list of all the Smiths. You will have a list of matches in the upper right corner of the screen, and you can arrow through it and press R to select the customer you want.

When you search by phone number, you do not need to type in the area code or dashes, meaning

182 CUSTOMERS | Customer filters

that a customer whose phone number is 250-555-4444 only needs to be Srch for 5554444 and it will find the correct customer.

In order to search by account number, you need to know the exact customer account, and when you enter it that will be the only match listed.

You can enter any other information located in the Customer fields to search for that customer, including their address or city, email address, Class, and Customer notes.

NOTE: The large Msg field attached to each customer is not keyword searchable.

Customer filters 6 Customers has a filter system that provides powerful ways of selecting and sorting customers. Fil- tered lists are useful when you want to work with only a particular section of your Customers database. Once the list is filtered, you can export email addresses for use in mass email programs, generate a customized mailing list, export any field in a spreadsheet format, or simply print the list. The filters can also be used to locate your best customers, or your most infrequent ones.

When customer accounts are used with the Point-of-Sale, the customer filters can build target-mar- keting lists based on purchase history.

For example, Customer Filters can build lists of customers who:

• Purchased a specific title.

• Purchased any books by a certain author.

• Purchased books in a specific category.

• Purchased a certain amount in the last year.

• Match one or more of many different conditions such as “Only ones with a postal code” and/ or “those who live in Kelowna”.

• Live on “Watt” road.

• Have a telephone exchange of “763”.

• Have the first name “Irene”

• Have an email address ending in @sd23.bc.ca (a common school district email form).

You access the filters by selecting Flt from the 6 Customers screen. Here you will get a list of previously built filters, and you will have the option to build new ones.

183 CUSTOMERS | Customer filters

The filters screen The left part of your screen is where your cursor will begin. This is the list of existing filters, sorted alphabetically by Description, and each filter will have a unique number (like 001). You can scroll through this list with b t.

As you move through the filters, the right portion of the screen will indicate the way each filter is sorted (Indexed by), the date it was last Updated, and the number of customer Entries in the filter. The lower right portion of the screen are the Conditions, or the parameters that dictate which customers are included. This design allows you to create, organize and save several different filters so they can be accessed quickly and updated time and time again.

Using existing filters Filters are not updated automatically, so you need to update a filter each time you want to use it. That way, if any new customers are added since you last updated the filter, they will now be included if they match the conditions. If the Updated date is the current date, you can just use R without updating the file.

All you need to do to work with an existing filter is highlight it and press Upd (Update). This will have Bookmanager look through your file for matches, and when it is done it will say Filter has been updated, and you can press R to work with this list. If it tells you that no matches were found, then you must modify the filter conditions because you have no customers who match these ones. In the red bar at the top of your screen it will list the filter name, how it is indexed, when it was updated, and how many entries are in the filter. This indicator will always let you know that you are working with a filter, as it will say 6 Customers if you are in your regular customer file. If you were to print at this point, only these customers would be included.

The order of the customers will depend on the index you have chosen. It will be listed at the top of the screen. You can change these by going into filters and selecting indx. This will show you your available indexes, and allow you to change the one you are using. You can index by: Name, Postal Code, Entry Date (when the customer was added), Last Active, Sales YTD (year to date), SalesLastYear (the previous year’s sales), Sales TTL (total sales), and Points.

184 CUSTOMERS | Customer filters

Searching within a filtered list When you use Srch from within a filtered list, you will not see your usual search options. You are only able to search by however the list is indexed. For example, if the list is indexed by name, you will only be able to search by customer name.

Creating and modifying filters You cannot harm or change the data in your customer file when you are playing with the filter conditions, so we encourage you to experiment and learn by trial and error.

To create a new filter, go into Flt and select New. First you must give the filter an abbreviated name (eg. EmailList).

TIP: If you have an extensive filtered list, but you have some that you use more frequently, add a M before the name (eg. “ M EmailList”). Because the space is listed before any letters alphabetically, these entries will always appear at the top of the list.

Here is an example of one kind of filter you can use. Go into 6 Customers, and press Filter. From here, you can New, then name your filter (Best Custs in our example), choose how you want to index them [ g) SalesYTD lists your top spenders year to date], and lastly select L) SalesTtl = ###### from the large list of available filter conditions. The SalesYTD filter means “year to date”, which can also be used to find your big spenders for just the current year. From here, enter the greater than sign (>), and put in a dollar amount you want to start at. You may want to tweak this number if you get too many or too few matches. In our example, 1500 seemed like a good start (and a pretty decent customer!). Change this filter from a Mandatory to an include by pressing i while the filter is highlighted.

From here, we need to remove the big school and institution spenders if we want to identify just the everyday top customers. Mosaic Books gives instant discounts to schools and organizations, and we group all our schools with a customer type of 3.

185 CUSTOMERS | Customer filters

After adding that first filter to grab customers spending over 1500 in your store over the year, press New to add another filter, this time p) Customer type $ ??????????. Here, enter any customer types you’d like to exclude, like staff, schools, or book clubs. In our example, we are simply going to type 3 for schools and organizations, and press R. Next, you’ll need to type Xclude to change the filter from a Mandatory to an Exclude. Press R one last time to save all your changes, and Update to run the filtered report.

Once updated, the report will have a little check mark beside the name, and you can press R to see the results. The results aren’t a line by line list by default; rather, each customer’s account at a time. If you press d, you will get a list view. In this example, the first entry will be your best customer. If you b once, that will be your second best, and so on.

Selecting a filter condition When you are selecting your filter conditions, your screen will show a long list of available options. b t through the list and press R to select. In the example above, we were looking for the best customers, so chose L) SalesTtl = ######. As soon as you press R, you will need to choose the operand by typing in the appropriate symbol. The filters use Boolean logic, which means each symbol represents the following:

= (equal to): This means that the field you are referring to must contain a match for what you enter. Note that CITY=KEL will find both KELOWNA and KELLOG.

# (not equal to): The opposite of above.

> (greater than): The matches will be larger than, alphabetically after, or after the date specified.

< (less than): The opposite of above.

$ (contained within): This is a special form of logic that works only for fields that contain characters (letters and/or numbers). It will find any customers with an occurrence of what you put in the field. For example, NOTE $ BIG will actually find any customer with the word “big” in their note field. Customers with a note containing BIG, TOOBIG, and BIGGER would all be included on the filtered list.

Back to explaining the example, we want to change the = to >. After pressing R, a number must be entered. We used 1500 to finish the condition, the result is Sales Ttl > 1500, which means we will only include customers who have purchased more than $1500 of product from you over the years.

With the condition complete, you can select R to finish the process. The filter will now be on your list and ready to use.

Using multiple conditions If you were going to mail something to these “best” customers, you would want to eliminate the ones without postal codes. To do this, go back into Flt and use your r to get back to the conditions. Use New to access the available filter conditions, and select d) Must have a postal code. You will now

186 CUSTOMERS | Customer filters

have three conditions listed for this filter. When you update the list again you will re-scan the file, and this time the list will show you all your best customers who also have postal codes, excluding schools and organizations.

You can remove conditions from a filter by using Del when you are in your list of conditions. If you remove all the conditions it will bring up the list of available conditions, which you can just E from.

While you are browsing the conditions, you can change the operand for an existing condition by selecting Edt.

Understanding the Include/Exclude/Mandatory conditions Each condition can be set to include, eXclude or Mandatory. When using multiple conditions, you must have a clear understanding of their purpose. These can be changed by using the commands include, Xclude or Mandatory. When you enter a new condition (as done in the example above) it will default to Mandatory.

Consider the following conditions:

SalesYTD > 1500

CITY = KELOWNA

Do you mean, “Show me both customers in Kelowna AND those who spent over $1500”, or do you mean, “Show me only customers in Kelowna who spent over $1500”? You would need to be more specific:

Include SalesYTD > 1500

Include CITY = KELOWNA

This translates to, “Show me customers who have spent over $1500 and/or those who live in Kelowna.”

Otherwise:

Include SalesYTD > 1500

Mandatory CITY = KELOWNA

This means, “Show me customers who have spent over $1500, but they MUST also be from Kelowna.”

You can also add a third filter:

Include SalesYTD > 1500

Mandatory CITY = KELOWNA

Exclude Postal Code = V1Y

This means the same as before, but this time there will be no customers with a V1Y prefix in their

187 CUSTOMERS | Printing options in Customers

postal code.

It does not matter which order you put the conditions in. Internally, they are always processed properly.

If you use two conditions that cancel each other out, you will get the No matches found message when you update. For example, if you use the following conditions:

Include CITY = KELOWNA

Mandatory CITY = PENTICTON

This will result in no matches because it is impossible for both conditions to exist for a customer. How- ever, if they were both set to Include, you would get matches for both conditions.

Filtered lists can be very useful for organizing mailing or emailing lists. Once you have a filtered list of customers, the Prt (Print) options will only include the customers in the list, and include more than just physical print jobs.

Printing options in Customers There are a number of informative reports and lists that can be printed from Bookmanager. Selecting Prt in the 6 Customers file accesses these options.

• Customer’s active orders: This will give you a list of current orders for the highlighted customer.

• Customer’s sales for a period: This will give you a list of sales for the highlighted customer over a selected date range and/or PO#.

• Customer’s POS invoicing history: This will give you a brief list of all transaction and A/R activity for this customer over a selected date range. You can choose to include only certain types of transactions (Invoice, Credit, Payment, Adjust, Writeoff, Deduction, Held).

• Email [email protected] (using your email client): This will launch your default email client program with the email address on file for the highlighted customer inputed into the To: field.

• Mailing labels (thermal printer): This will print mailing labels using the Cognitive Thermal Label printer, on our custom rolled label stock. If no customer filter is in use, this will print labels for your entire customer database, otherwise use a filter to narrow down your selection.

• Mailing labels (laser sheets 30/page 3 per column by 10 rows): Same as above, except using our 8.5 x 11 laser label sheets.

• Generate an email list file for use by an external application: This will create a file called email.txt in your root BM Folder containing only email addresses separated by semicolons. This list can then be used in external mass email applications like MailChimp. Again, if no filter is selected, this will create a list of all email addresses in your Customer database.

188 CUSTOMERS | Printing options in Customers

• List (detailed 13/page 3 lines per customer): This will create a print preview displaying detailed information for each customer in your Customer database or filtered list. Details include: Name, account number, address, phone and fax numbers, customer type, date entered, date last active, sales YTD, previous year’s sales, notes, and messages.

• List (One line per cust. Acct#,name,contact,phone1 & 2,notes): Same as above, just less detail and on fewer pages.

• List (One line per cust. Acct#,name,contact,phone1 & 2,email)

• Export customers in tab-delimited format: This will allow you to choose which Customer fields to export, and create a spreadsheet type file for export. More on this later in this section.

• Frequent Buyer Reports: This will allow you to see the frequent buyer point activity for this customer, and can be used for auditing purposes. There is also an option to see all your current customers who are set to donate their points, and who they are donating to.

Printing mailing labels for a single customer If you ever just need a quick label for one customer, you do not need to use the print option. Just highlight the customer and select Lbl (Label). This will give you three label options for this customer:

• Envelope: This will print onto an envelope fed into your laser printer. If it does not print properly, or not in the correct space, you may need to use the Setup envelope option and change the settings for your situation. The Page orientation command should be left as it is unless you know what the correct setting should be for your printer.

• Label: This will do a simple mailing label to the printer you specify in your A Setup, i) Printers under MailLabel. This is most convenient using the Cognitive Thermal Label printer. The Attn will automatically come up on this label. If you do not want it, blank it out and continue. You can also add an Attn for just this instance by typing in whatever you want (it will not change the actual Customer’s Attn field).

• ShipLabel: This will print to the ShipLabel printer specified in your A Setup, i) Printers. You will have a chance to enter a Ref#, which could be an invoice, a PO#, etc. This works well with standard 8.5”x11” printer paper, with three “labels” per page.

• Thermal ShipLabel: (on Cognitive DLX 2 inch DT ): This will print a sepcially formatted ship label to your thermal label printer if you have one set-up through A Set-up menu option i) Printers. You will also need our custom ship label stock to go with the printer. This label stock is about four times taller than a standard label, and makes large shipments and returns more efficient.

Bookmanager will tell you what printer will process the job to the right of each option listed above. If any of these are incorrect, you will need to go into A Setup, i) Printers to change them.

189 CUSTOMERS | Printing options in Customers

Exporting customers’ email addresses for outside use If you have been entering email addresses into 6 Customers, you can use a Customer Filter and a print option mentioned in the previous section to export those email addresses for external use.

Within 6 Customers, select Filters, then New to build a new filter. Name the filter Email List or something obvious for future use and press R. The next option is asking for an index, but since we are exporting this list for external use, the index is irrelevant, so just press R. With the list of available filters now open, select 5) email = ???????????????????? from the bottom of the list and press R. Now insert a $ (dollar sign) into the next field, which will tell Bookmanager to search within the entire Email field. With your cursor in the next large field, simply type in an @ symbol and press R. What this filter will do is search your customer file’s email fields and only grab those customers that have something with an @ symbol anywhere in that field. The one commonality with email addresses is that they always contain an @ symbol, so in effect this will ensure that only customers with proper email addresses will be selected. By default, this filter will be set to Mandatory, which is what we want.

Often times when sending out email promotions, certain customers will request that they be removed from your mailing list. You may not want to remove their email address from your system, as they could be an online customer or want to be notified by email when they order with you. You can use the customer’s Class fields to mark those customers so they are not included when you build an email blast.

Simply choose a term that you will insert into the Customer Class field to identify those not wanting any email blasts. In the above example, we have used NOSPAM as our keyword.

Back in Filters, you can add to your email list filter to eXclude those customers marked with NOSPAM or your chosen keyword. Your end filter should look like this:

190 CUSTOMERS | Printing options in Customers

With the filter created, Update it and press R to view the results. Immediately select Print, and choose the option Generate an email list file for use by an external application. Rather than generating an email list from your entire customer file, this list will now only be generated using those entries selected by the filter you created, excluding those marked for NOSPAM. The file is saved in your BM Folder, and named email.txt, which can be opened with Notepad.

Feel free to add to this filter to whittle it down even more, such as a last active date to eliminate those who are no longer shopping with you. [see below]

Exporting a file Sometimes you may need your customer database in a format that is easily opened and organized in a common spreadsheet program such as Excel. For example, you may have a company producing promotional material for your store, and they need your address list to send it out. In this case, from Prt select Export customers in tab-delimited format. A red window will pop-up with this message:

Normally, you first use the ilter command to select/create a selected list of customers. Do you still want to work with the entire file?

Select Yes if you want to work with the entire file. If you want a filtered list select No, and E back into your customer file to create a filter.

Once you have made your selection, you will see a list of fields:

191 CUSTOMERS | Customer file maintenance

The ones with * next to them will be included in the exported file. If you want to add a field, just b or t and R to put a * next to it. To remove a * highlight the line and press R. Once you have the fields you want, d to proceed to the next step.

Next you need to choose a file format. Generally, you would want to leave itat Tab delimited (all the fields separated by tabs), but you can also choose Comma delimited (separated by quotes and commas) or Fixed length (forces fields of the same length). Both Tab delimited and Comma delimited files can be read by spreadsheet programs like Excel.

Once you have chosen the file type, you have a chance to choose a file name. It defaults to Cust.txt, but you can change it to whatever you want. If you create a file with an extension of .csv, programs like Excel may have an easier time of first opening it. Using the default filename, when you d to process, it will create a file called Cust.txt in your BM Folder.

TIP: If you need to put the file on a USB Storage Device, type the drive’s path and chosen filename under the File field. For example: E:\MailOut.csv

Customer file maintenance As you use 6 Customers, you will find that periodic maintenance of the database will keep it clean and accurate.

Removing inactive customers If you have used Bookmanager for some time, you may find that your 6 Customers is polluted with many customers who are no longer active in your system. There is a routine in the Scheduler that can be set up to remove inactive customers, and it can be scheduled to happen overnight. To add this routine, select New from your Scheduler, and input the frequency with which you would like the routine to occur. You can choose only once, or a day of the week, or a date of the month, and then you choose a time of day (in 24hrs time) you want the routine to run. The date and time are not imperative, unless you want this routine to run on a regular basis. You then want to select routine 19) Remove Customers inactive for over 999 months, and choose the number of months (example 48, or inactive for 4 years). We recommend you run this routine monthly. Press Start to manually run the routine at any time.

If you find a single customer in the file that you want to remove, all you need to do is select Delete. As long as there is no active links to other files, you will be able to delete this record. You will get a warning if these links exist, but you can still choose to delete the record if you wish. Once the link to other files is broken, it cannot be re-established. For example, if you were to add the customer back to your file, the links in the POS file would not be connected to the customer again.

Editing and merging customer records Any changes to information can be done easily by using the Edt command. This will give you access to all the fields, allowing changes to be made. Certain fields can only be accessed with certain clerk code permissions.

Bookmanager will also allow you to merge two different customer accounts. This is useful when you

192 CUSTOMERS | Managing Accounts receivable

find that a customer has been added to the file twice, and now they have separate history records and points that you want joined. To merge the accounts, make note of the account number you want to keep. Then, find the one that you want to eliminate and select Edt. t to the Act field and then enter the account number you noted before and want to keep, and d. You will get a warning that you are merging this account with another one. Check to see that it is merging with the correct account, and proceed accordingly. All the information will now be under the right account number, and the other entry will be deleted. Information will be merged, so if the account you chose to keep had no Phn2, but the secondary account did, then the newly merged account would have retained that phone number under Phn2. Frequent Buyer Points and complete history will be merged.

Customer messages Bookmanager allows you to place detailed messages on your customer records. When you choose Msg from 6 Customers, you have access to 15 lines of text. This will appear on the customer record when you are looking at it.

These are useful in a number of instances. For example, if you have a customer who owes you money, you can put in the dates that you contacted them, and that they said “a cheque is on the way”. If there has been a complication with an order that customer has placed, this field is a good place to leave details of that event. Customer Messages are not keyword searchable, nor do they display on receipts or invoices.

Xtra options There are two special options available by pressing Xtra in 6 Customers.

• Recalculate all customers annual sales: This function will zero out the Sls totals in the upper right portion of the screen, and then rebuild the figures by looking at the POS history for each customer. This is useful when those numbers become out of sync with the data.

• Convert all customer accounts to numbers: If you are not using a numbered system for Accts, this function will convert all your existing ones to sequential numbers. All other stations need to be out of Bookmanager when you do this.

Managing Accounts receivable If you are using the Point-of-Sale to put invoices on customer accounts, you will need to manage them through Accounts Receivable, abbreviated as A/R from now on. To work with the A/R file, select A/R from the 6 Customers file. You can also view A/R much like any other Customer history, by pressing History and selecting A/R. The bottom half of your screen should change to show all the A/R activity for the selected customer. Invoices over 60 days old will appear in red to alert you to their age.

If your press A/R on an account with no activity, you will be given the option to Go to account with A/R activity (to access A/R routines) or Add an A/R entry (this customer has no A/R).

193 CUSTOMERS | Managing Accounts receivable

Getting a total If you ever want a quick look at what the highlighted customer owes you, simple press Total. This will give you a quick total owing and an aging report on-screen.

Reconciling payments Bookmanager’s A/R uses what is called an “open item system”. When a payment is received and posted, it must also be applied against the invoice(s) being paid. The invoices and the payment will be considered “open” until they are reconciled. Most times, Bookmanager is able to recognize which payments belong to which invoices, and will automatically reconcile to save time. If there are many items to reconcile, or it is not obvious to the system, you may need to reconcile A/R manually.

To reconcile these items, highlight the invoice(s) and press Mark. This will add an * to the Rec column to indicate the item is marked, and give you a running total of marked items in the bottom right corner. Do the same for the payment, and if they balance to $0.00 you should get a message saying Marked items now reconcile. Ready to Post? Say Yes, and these items will be cleared from receivables, and they will be assigned a sequential Rec number. The entries will be moved in to the historical section of the A/R file.

Undoing reconciled items If you realize that you need to put cleared items back into the A/R file, find them on the list, highlight one of the items with the correct Rec number, and select Undo. This will remove the reconciliation number, and these items will be “open” again within the file.

194 CUSTOMERS | Managing Accounts receivable

Listing all customers’ account activity There is a quick way of displaying all A/R history by selecting List when in any customer’s A/R field. This will show you all invoices, payments, etc., telling you whether or not they have been reconciled. You also have the option to Search for a particular invoice, or to Filter the list by a number of different criteria, or index the list. This is useful to help you find “lost” entries.

Searching for an invoice When you have an invoice number, and you are trying to find the customer associated with it, you can use the Search command within A/R. When you enter the invoice number, if it is found with a different account, Bookmanager will ask if you want to Switch to that account. You should then be taken to that invoice in the appropriate customer’s A/R.

A/R printing options Bookmanager’s A/R has several printing options to make account management easier. Choosing the Print option within the A/R field will give you access to the following reports:

1) Statement for this customer: This will print you a statement of what the highlighted customer owes as of a cutoff date.

2) Statements for all customers: You can select to print statements for all customers who are overdue. Again, you can choose a cut-off date, and you can also select only invoices overdue by more than a specified number of days. The statements are printed in a format that is ready to mail in a windowed envelope.

3) Summary list of all accounts: This report can be Updated as of a certain date, and it will display an on-screen summary of all accounts as of that date. Includes a total, account names, plus an aging report. You can get a printed copy by selecting Print. Upon updating, a built-in Customer Filter called A/R SUMMARY will be updated as well, allowing you to conveniently browse the accounts found on this report.

4) All outstanding (unpaid) items: This gives you a list of all unpaid invoices. Can be sorted by either invoice number or alphabetical by account names.

5) Recently reconciled items: This report will show you any invoices that have been paid and reconciled since this option was last run. You should ensure that the report has printed properly before you say Yes to purge the list. If you keep hard copies of all open invoices, this report will tell you what ones have been cleared.

6) All transactions for a month: Will give you a list of all A/R entries for the month you choose.

7) Accounts on Credit Hold: This “report” is more of a routine to update the Credit Hold status for your Customers en masse. Update this report and select a number of days to mark accounts as OnHold. You will get a list of the accounts placed on hold, and each of these customers’ A/R status will be changed to OnHold in the Customers card. Any account on hold

195 CUSTOMERS | Managing Accounts receivable

will issue you a warning if you try to do an invoice in the POS with that account.

8) Detail listing of Customer’s acct: For the highlighted customer, specify a date range and get a listing of their A/R activity over the period.

TIP: The most common report used to routinely manage your A/R is 3) Summary list of all accounts. All other reports are more specialized and won’t be utilized that often.

Printing statements for customers We recommend that you view statements for all your customers at least once a month to help maintain a clean accounts receivable. The procedure we generally recommend is to give your clients 30 days terms on invoices. For whatever reason, some of them may fail to pay in this time. Typically, you do not need to send out statements until the invoice is over 60 days old (give them a few extra weeks in case they have just forgotten to pay). Therefore, each month, as part of our month end procedure, we select Print, then 2) Statements for all customers. You will have several options when the window pops up.

You will need to select a Statement cutoff date, then the number of copies you would like printed for each statement, or Test for a test print of one statement. The next line will ask if you would like to submit for Email or Fax, if you would like to have the statements emailed instead of printed, where applicable (the customer needs an email address or fax number on their Customer card). The next option will ask you to choose Only accounts with invoices XX days past statement date, and you will need to select how many days overdue you would like (usually 60). You can Skip accounts with credit balances, as statements regarding those accounts can seem confusing to the customer, and a more hands on approach may be better. Finally, you can select a particular account number to start the statements from if you so choose.

TIP: For any account over 90 days, we recommend taking the time to give them a phone call to try to talk to a real person about the overdue account. Ideally, the customer would already have received an emailed or printed statement the previous month.

Updating the list of Holds As an alternative to using the Print option to select and put accounts on hold, you can run a routine in the Scheduler that will update the list periodically. You could set up a routine in the Scheduler to happen once a month (On the 1st, for example), and select routine 11) Update A/R hold list with accts over ??? days. You will need to decide how many days you want to go before putting a client on hold. This routine will scan 6 Customers and change the A/R Status to OnHold for each overdue account in the range you selected.

196 CUSTOMERS | Credit Cards Storage and Safety

Using manual entries to balance accounts There are occasionally errors that need to be corrected by placing manual entries directly into the Customer A/R, and this is done using the New command. You will be given three different options for the Entry type:

• Adjustment: When you select an Adjustment, type in an amount and d, it will create two entries in the customer’s A/R, one positive and one negative. This is generally used when you need to reconcile and clear a long list of A/R invoices and payments that do not balance to zero. You can put in an adjustment for the balance, Mark the clearing entry against all the activity, and the balance will carry forward. For example, you have multiple invoices and payments that do not add up to zero, but you want to clear everything so it doesn’t show on statements. If we get a total for the account, say $150, we can add a New adjustment for this amount. It will create two entries: one for $150, and one for –$150. Mark the –$150 entry against all the previous activity, and the items should all reconcile. This will leave the Adj for +$150 still on account, which carries forward the original balance.

• Invoice: If an invoice that exists in the POS has gone missing from the A/R, this will add it. You will need to choose an invoice number, and usually you would use the last 5 digits from the actual invoice (the first character will be forced to “I” for “invoice”). The invoice entry will not be added to the GL or A/P total, so if it does not exist there, you will need to do a New entry there as well to keep the two files balanced.

• Writeoff: Used to clear an amount from A/R if you are not expecting it to ever be cleared the proper way. It can be either a positive or negative entry. An example of when you would use this is if you have an amount on a customer’s account that they will never pay. If their balance owing is $50, you would put in a Writeoff for -$50, and then Mark and clear the items. This will be recorded as a discount in the POS. This will affect the sales and revenue totals for the day, but not the tendering totals. For example, if you did $500 in cash sales for a day, but also a writeoff of $450, the net sales for the day are now $50. The cash amount in the Tenders section of your Sales Tape is still what you took in ($500).

Transferring an invoice If you ever find that an invoice or a payment has been posted to the wrong account, there is a quick way to get it back to the right one. Find the invoice number in A/R, and then select C Transfer. You will get a box saying Transfer this entry to acct#. If you have the account number, enter it here, otherwise type in as much of the name as you know, and pick the correct customer from the list. The invoice, and all its history, will be transferred to the account you specify.

NOTE: In Bookmanager, when you see a bottom screen command with a ^ (caret) symbol preceding, it means to hold down C and press the appropriate key. This is usually needed when the command letter has already been used in this area to handle another function (in this case, T is used for Total in A/R, so C T is needed to ^Transfer).

Credit Cards Storage and Safety Bookmanager has the ability to store and encrypt customer credit cards, all within 6 Customers.

197 CUSTOMERS | Credit Cards Storage and Safety

Credit card numbers can be manually entered, or automatically passed securely and encrypted from your Webstore into the Bookmanager Software upon a submitted online order. Credit cards need to be encrypted within your system simply because stolen computers or backups could be used to extract that information. Credit card information is only revealed when a single, store specified password is used. Without the password, the card data is impossible to access, even by a skilled hacker or a Bookmanager programmer.

NOTE: For you technical nerds, we use RSA encryption for credit cards, 2048 bit, and the private key is blowfish-cbc encrypted.

Initializing Credit Cards and Setting a Password When you decide to start storing credit cards in Bookmanager, you will need to set a master password used to decrypt those numbers. This password is not the same as your master clerk code password, and should be given to only a select few personnel. To set the password, go to A Setup, and select z) Credit Card Security. Since you are just initializing credit cards, you only have the option to add a password. Passwords are case sensitive and can contain numbers and letters.

WARNING: If you forget your credit card password, there is nothing we can do to recover it. In- stead, your entire credit card file is deleted in order to create a new password, and you have to start from scratch.

After the password has been created, you have more options available in z) Credit Card Security:

a) Send your webstore a key to permit receiving online credit card orders: Use this option in conjunction with a Bookmanager Webstore to be able to enable credit card payment options online. Once a key is sent to your Webstore, the option to enable credit cards online will be avaible under the Webstore Settings menu.

b) Change your store’s master password for credit card viewing: If your clerk code has Master rights, and you know your existing credit card password, you can change it here.

z) Delete the present encryption scheme and start over: Rarely needed, use this option if you are having issues with your Webstore and receiving credit card numbers.

Manually Entering and Viewing Credit Cards Credit information is attached to each customer account, and is accessed in 6 Customers. Press View to access the displayed customer’s saved credit card(s), or to add one manually to their account. You will first have to enter your credit card password. Once entered, you will not have to re-enter that password again until you E back to the Main Options menu or close the Bookmanager window.

Before pressing View or entering your credit card password, you can quickly see if a customer has a card on file. In the upper right hand block of the Customer card, there isa Card# field that will display the card type plus the last 4 digits of the card. If a customer has more than one card on file, the topmost one (the default) will be shown here.

198 CUSTOMERS | Setting up an account for Donations

Once the credit card password is entered, you will gain access to the full card number, the expiry, the CCV (security) number, and the name/address attached to the card. This information can be changed by pressing Edt to edit or Del to delete. You can add a new card by pressing New. Bookmanager will validate the credit card number and determine the card type, so if you miss-type the number, you will be given an invalid card message. This does not necessarily mean that the card is good, just that the number conforms to each card type’s guidelines and check digits, and is meant as quick verification that you typed the card number correctly.

Credit card numbers cannot be exported or printed Bookmanager. They are strictly for manually processing credit card transactions at your store. Credit card numbers cannot be passed along to pinpads in POS, rather, you would manually type the card number in on your physical payment pinpad.

Setting up an account for Donations Most stores will donate products or gift cards from time to time, and it is best to keep track of those donations in Bookmanager, not only for government auditing purposes, but also for future reference by you and your staff. Simply create a new customer account and call it DONATIONS. Since donations are tax exempt, you will need to go to the Tx field and insert your exempt Customer tax code (XMPT in the below screenshot example).

You can press u in this Tx field to view your current tax codes and add one if need be (see Getting Started page 30 for more on tax codes). The rest of the customer card or Message field can be filled with information that can aid your staff on how you would like donations recorded and tendered, and what details to include with each transaction. For example, we recommend that you always include a note in the transaction Note field explaining the donation, in case you want to know why or who you made the donation to months down the road (e.g.: June 20 fundraiser for Hospice House @ Delta Grand, Jane Doe picking up donation).

199 CUSTOMERS | Setting up an account for Donations

Tendering the donation is a matter of preference. Some stores like to use the Discount tender option to discount the transaction total. Others prefer to set up a cash clearing account tender (defaulting to GL act 121) called Internal, where the details are managed through the General Ledger. Adding a tendering note such as DONATION can also be helpful for your bookkeeper.

200 ACCOUNTS PAYABLE | Overview

Accounts payable Overview The 7 Accounts Payable in Bookmanager allows you to keep track of all your transactions with your suppliers, and your account status with them. As items are received and returned, entries are posted to the A/P automatically so that when the time comes to pay your supplier, you will have an accurate picture of your account status.

The initial screen that you see when you select 7 Account Payable gives you a snapshot of the accounts information for your suppliers. The upper portion of the screen displays the address information for the highlighted supplier. On the left part of the screen you will get a list of suppliers and their codes, followed by a column (Cy) indicating their currency code.

This is followed by a Pmts column, which is normally blank, but contains the bill-to supplier code if it is different. Following that is the Acct field containing the default GL account code for invoices from this supplier.

The next section lists the Payables for your suppliers, and gives you a figure for the Total payables, and how much is currently Marked (ready to pay). These columns are a convenient way to get a quick feel for how much you owe, and what is due. To the right of these you will see a history of your Net Purchases from the current and previous year, and at the very far right you will have a column indicating when this supplier’s A/P was Last Active, which is a good way of isolating dead accounts.

Pressing View will bring you to the full information of that supplier from 3 Suppliers. If you want to find a specific supplier, you can use Search to get your supplier search options.

Pressing R on any highlighted supplier will take you into their detailed A/P information, listing any

201 ACCOUNTS PAYABLE | Getting an overall total of your payables

invoices or credits that you have with them, including ones that have already been paid and cleared.

Getting an overall total of your payables Bookmanager offers a quick way to get a total of what you currently owe to all of your suppliers. When you use the Total command from the main 7 Accounts Payable screen, you will get a Grand Total that will appear in white at the bottom of your screen, under your regular A/P columns. This will give you four figures:

• Total: This is the grand total of what you owe to all your suppliers.

• Marked: The total amount of what is marked and ready to pay.

• Current and previous years: The total listing of all payables for the specified time period.

Organizing your payables list By default, the suppliers are listed alphabetically by name. You can use the indx command to have them alphabetically by supplier code.

You can Filt (Filter) your payables list to give you a better idea who you currently owe. This will let you organize your list in three ways:

• List all suppliers (no filter): This is the default listing, which includes everybody.

• List only suppliers with amounts owing: Will only show you the suppliers you currently owe money to.

• List only suppliers with amounts marked: The list will show only suppliers who have invoices marked (ready) to pay.

• List suppliers with credit balances: The list will only show suppliers who are in a credit balance with you

The indx command is also available within the filtered list if you want to change how it is sorted.

Global marking While the A/P allows you to manage payables on an invoice-by-invoice basis, the GlobalMark command is a quick and easy way to mark invoices for payment in one step.

When you choose GlobalMark, you will be able to pick a date, and Bookmanager will go through and mark for payment all invoices dated prior for all suppliers. This saves you from having to go into each supplier and pick which invoices are old enough to mark. You will have an option to include Ded (credit) entries, which are created from claims in 5 Returns. Once you have marked all these items for payment, you can go into each supplier and manage them individually. You will have the option to un-mark them if you decide not to include a particular invoice at this time.

202 ACCOUNTS PAYABLE | Accounts payable reports

Accounts payable reports Bookmanager can generate a number of A/P reports when you use the Prt (Print) command. Some of them can be used to enter amounts manually into external accounting programs. Each of these reports will first be updated onto your screen so you can review the information. You will then be able to Prt again to get a hard or digital copy. There are seven reports available:

1) A/P Summary as of ‘Cutoff’ date: Can be used for external accounting. This report will give you a summary of your payables as of the selected date, listed by supplier. It will also contain an aging report of your payables. A total will be listed at the bottom. Any entries that were paid after the cutoff date specified will still show as open in this report.

2) A/P activity during a period: Can be used for external accounting. This report allows you to select a date range, and pick how you want the report summarized. You will get a list of your suppliers’ individual invoices and the totals owing, broken down by the summary you selected.

3) Cheques issued during a period: Can be used for external accounting. This will print you a list of all the cheques issued over the period you specify. You can choose the date range either by cheque date, or by the date they were generated.

4) A/P Summary with one total per supplier: NOT useful for external accounting. This is a simple listing of all current payables in your system by supplier and with a grand total.

5) Listing of all unpaid invoices up to xx/xx/xx: Listed by supplier, you will get all outstanding invoices prior to the cutoff.

6) Receiving analysis by Supplier: NOT useful for external accounting. This report will give you a list of your purchases and returns over the period you have specified. Most the columns are self-explanatory. The NetPurch column lists the dollar value of your Purchases minus Returns. The %AllPurch lists what percent of all your purchases were with this supplier over the period specified. You have the option to exclude difference GL accounts and section codes when you update this report. You can also exclude accounts where you have purchased less than a certain amount. This report can be sorted either by amount or by supplier.

7) Consignment summary of open consignment invoices: This will give you a basic report detailing how well your consignment product is doing, comparing your sales to how much product remains. Setting up consignments will be explained later in this section.

Finding lost items in A/P Usually you will know who a particular invoice belongs to, but there are occasions where you may not be able to locate which supplier an entry is under. For example, you have a particular invoice that you know is in the system, but it is not listed with the supplier you thought it was received under. The Look command is a quick and easy way to do this. When you select Look, Bookmanager will give you four options for searching the entire Accounts payable file. When it finds a match, it will take you to the appropriate supplier. You can Look for items by invoice number, reference number, the amount, or by cheque number.

203 ACCOUNTS PAYABLE | Managing payables for individual suppliers

Managing payables for individual suppliers When you are in 7 Accounts payable and you R on a listed supplier, you are taken to a list of AP activity for that supplier. You will see a list of your total payables for the selected supplier, indicating how much is marked and open. Most of the columns on the main part of the screen are self-explanatory.

The L column refers to locked entries. If this field is blank, the item is not locked, and you will be able to Edit or modify the entry. If it has an L, it is Locked and you will need to unlock it to modify it. A Z means that this entry is part of a closed month, and you will not be able to change anything unless you reopen that month in the GL (page 352). Selecting Lock will toggle the entry between “locked” and “unlocked”.

When you first go into a supplier’s information, the unpaid invoices will be listed first, followed by any Credits, Deductions, or Old entries. You will be automatically taken to the first and oldest open (unpaid) invoices (determined by the InvDate). If you scroll up through the list you will see any previously paid items. You can easily identify items that have been paid: they will have a number in the Check field, the unpaid ones will not.

If you want to switch the list order from date, indx will sort it by invoice number. You also have the ability to Srch for a specific invoice number. The Flt (filter) command will also give you the option to organize the list to show only certain entries. For example, if you select Flt and then enter MIC into the Filter field, you will get a list of only marked invoices and credits.

If you want to look at the complete information for an entry, you just highlight it and press R. This will give you access to the full GL transaction for this entry. You see all the information pertaining to this invoice, including a breakdown of all the GL allocations.

204 ACCOUNTS PAYABLE | Managing payables for individual suppliers

Double-entry accounting for A/P Since the A/P is totally integrated with the GL, double entry A/P accounting is a must. Essentially, this means that your A/P invoice entry now consists of four amount fields. The first field is the GL account number for the payable amount (InvTtl or invoice total). The second field represents the Freight, and the third contains the total tax (HST paid) charged on the invoice. The fourth field is where the double-entry part comes in. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th fields break down the invoice total into its parts: freight, tax and the net invoice total. The freight and taxes have already been entered, but what about the net invoice total? This amount is entered into the fourth Allocation field(s), usually labelled with the GL account number for Inventory (because the invoice is for items that will be going into inventory).

Before you can finish entering an invoice into A/P, all amounts must balance. Once balanced, the d key must be used to save an invoice entry. The double-entry system allows you to take an invoice and expense it over any number of accounts. While this is not normally needed, there are many times when this ability is required.

Making changes to existing entries You have the ability to make changes to entries as long as they are not locked or they have not been paid. Since most of the entries in A/P have been posted directly from other areas of the program (like 9 Receiving and 5 Returns), you should be careful when you make changes to these entries. Often they are posted correctly, and any changes that need to be made should probably be done in the appropriate area. For example, if you have received an invoice, but you later find some things that need to be changed, it may be better to go back into 9 Receiving to make the modifications. When you change it in 9 Receiving, it will repost the invoice into A/P and make allocations to all the correct GL accounts.

If you need to change an entry directly in A/P, go into 7 Accounts Payable, and Search or b t until you find the supplier with the posted entry. Press R on that supplier. To find the invoice you would

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like to edit, the same options to Search or b t to find your invoice exist. When the invoice you would like to change is highlighted, select Edit. You will be given access to the GL entry for the invoice, and you can make the desired changes. If you change anything in the Amount fields, you will also need to make changes to the Allocation to get the entry to balance. This means you will have to know which GL account or section is affected by the change you are making, and insert the appropriate number. If the Allocation amount does not balance you will not be allowed to save the entry.

TIP: Bookmanager will show you the amount needed to balance the entry, if needed, when you are in the allocation fields. This amount will be displayed to the left of the allocation field, in red.

If there is an entry on the list that you do not need anymore, you can highlight it and Delete it. This will remove it completely from your system. As with editing, you can only delete an entry if it has not been paid, and it is not Locked.

Transferring an invoice If an invoice was received or entered with the wrong supplier, it can be easily moved to the correct one through the 7 Accounts payable Trf (Transfer) command. Highlight the invoice and select Trf. You will get a Transfer Invoice box that gives you three options. Selecting a) Transfer just the invoice to another supplier will transfer only the invoice to the new supplier: it will not move any history. Choosing b) Transfer the invoice AND goods received to another supplier will transfer the invoice along with all the goods received. In the latter case, the receiving history for all items on this invoice will be moved to the new supplier as well. Choosing c) Payment Transfer (pay the inv. & transfer the total to another supplier will cause a window to pop up asking you to choose a date that invoice will be paid and asking which supplier you would like to transfer from and which supplier you would like to transfer to.

If you are highlighting an entry that has been PAID, this command will become a Ttl (Total) command. This will give you the complete details of the payment.

Adding a new entry Even though most of the entries in A/P are automatically posted from different areas of Bookmanager, sometimes it is necessary to create a new entry directly into the file. For example, if you get a phone bill there is not any product to “receive”, but you may still want to track it through payables. In this case you will want to do a New entry.

You will be required to enter your clerk code, and then you will have access to all the fields for the new entry. The first field is the Transaction date. This field is critical, because it is the date that will

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be referenced for any reporting used in your GL. For this date we recommend that you use the date which the expense was incurred. Using the phone bill example, if you receive your bill in March, but it refers to charges from February, use a February date in this field. The next field of interest is the Typ field, where you decide what type of entry this is. Your options will be listed on the bottom of the screen, and are: 1Invoice, 2Credit, 4Deduction, 3OldDeduction, 5Adjustment, and 0coNsign. In this example, we would select 1Invoice. You then have access to the Inv# and InvDate fields: these should be entered from the actual phone bill, and are just used as a reference between you and your supplier. You also have a chance to put in a Ref (e.g.: PO#, alternate invoice number, etc.) and a Note (e.g.: Bookmanager Phones Feb 2016) for your reference.

The Qty (quantity received), R (retail), and S (sell) fields are generally automatically populated by 9 Receiving and 5 Returns, and can be ignored when creating manual entries.

When you get to the first Amount field (InvTtl) in the upper right portion of your screen, you will need to type in the complete total of the invoice (including the tax and freight). This is the complete amount of the invoice that will be posted to your GL’s 330 (A/P) account. The next two Amount fields are where you can add any Freight that may be applied to the invoice, and the Tax (HST paid) total. When you d to save this first portion of the entry, you will be taken down to where you allocate the goods’ amount to the GL. By default, it will use the account code that you have set up for this supplier in 3 Suppliers. In this example, we have an account 670 that refers to our phone service, so that is the account we would use. If you have a different account that you want to use, you can change the account number. If you have not changed anything in the allocation, the entry should balance to 0.00 and display Balanced in red. d to save the entry.

Copying an entry This command saves time by taking an existing transaction and copying the data into a new transaction. You are first asked if the amounts should be reversed, requiring a Yes or No reply. Answering Yes (and not making any changes to the copy) would in effect negate the original transaction. If

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you find an entry that should not have occurred but cannot be deleted because it is part of a closed month, then Cpy will allow you to quickly create a reversed transaction to negate the original. The Cpy command is also helpful in dealing with a single credit memo that actually includes multiple claims in your system.

Running an analysis report for a supplier Running the Anlyz option will give you a detailed analysis of the payables for this supplier. You will get a listing of monthly receiving and sales, as well as an aging report for your current on hands. This report could take some time to update, depending upon the amount of history under that supplier. If you like you can choose just a particular classification when you update the report. The report only updates on-screen: it cannot be printed. This report can be helpful when looking at remainder buys.

Marking invoices & making payments to suppliers Bookmanager makes issuing payments to your suppliers quick and easy. If you have used the Global- Mark option from the main A/P screen, when you view the supplier’s invoices you will see many of them with a * in the M (marked) field. This indicates that they are marked for payment, and you will see a total of your marked entries listed at the bottom of the screen. In addition to the command at the main A/P screen, once you are in the supplier’s invoices you will again have a GlobalMark option. This serves the exact same purpose, but it marks invoices only for the currently highlighted supplier. It will let you choose a date, and whether you wish to include Ded entries.

If you want to have a more “hands on” approach to managing your payables, you do have the option to mark each entry individually instead of using GlobalMark. You can browse through your invoice list, and choose to Mark whichever ones you want to include in your payment.

If you are highlighting a Marked entry, choosing Mark again will unMark it. If you have globally marked some entries and find that you don’t want to include all the items, you can go through and selectively unMark them.

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Ded (credit) entries When you process returns to your suppliers, Bookmanager places an entry called a Ded in your A/P. This entry will have the Returns claim number in the Inv# field. When it comes to Ded entries, there are two philosophies on how they can be used: you can use them immediately to reduce your payment to the supplier, or you can wait until the Credit note arrives from the supplier.

Method 1: Using a Ded immediately If you are marking invoices for payment, you can choose to take the Ded immediately and apply it against your payment. This is as simple as Marking the entry along with all of your invoices. When you eventually print the cheque for this supplier, Bookmanager will create an Old entry with the same claim number in the Inv# field. This will be a positive entry, and in effect it is a “placeholder” waiting for the credit note to actually arrive.

TIP: Old entries do not have any effect on the GL until they are marked against a credit memo. They are there simply to remind you that a credit should be arriving for an amount you’ve already deducted.

When the credit arrives, you will enter it into Bookmanager as a New entry, giving it a Type of Cr. When you get to the Ref field, type in the original claim number. Bookmanager will recognize that this refers to an Old deduction, and ask if you want the amounts inserted. If the Credit note amount matches the Old exactly, then say Yes. When you d to complete the entry, Bookmanager will say This Cr refers to an unmarked Old. Do you want the Old Marked for payment? If you choose Yes, Bookmanager will mark the Old. At this point you can also mark the Credit you have just entered. The Cr and the Old will equal 0.00, and you can now Print/Process and clear them, along with any other invoices you may have for payment. This will appear on a payment stub, and you can send this to the supplier so they know you have cleared those items in your system.

If the amounts do not match when you put in the Ref, you do not want the amounts inserted. You can manually add the amount off the Credit note, and when you are finished there will be a discrepancy between the Old and the Cr. When they are marked, the difference will be covered in your next payment.

Method 2: Waiting for the credit note You may instead want to wait for the supplier to actually mail you a credit note for the claim you have sent them. In this case, again you will need to start a New transaction to enter the credit note. Enter the claim number in the Ref field, and it will again ask if you want the amounts from the Ded inserted. Say Yes if the Credit note is for the same amount. If it is different, select No and insert the correct amount. When you d to complete the entry, Bookmanager will ask you if you want to clear the unused Ded. You should say Yes, and in the background Bookmanager will create an entry to clear the original Ded.

You will now have only the Credit note (that you have just entered) in the system. It can be marked and taken against your next payment. The original Ded will be among your Paid items along with the entry that Bookmanager created to clear it.

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Processing payments and printing cheques Bookmanager can be used to print cheques for your suppliers. If you print cheques through another system, or hand write them, Bookmanager can still be used to clear the items from A/P. If you pay your suppliers using credit cards or online bank transfers, those are also handled in A/P, and are very similar to the way cheques are issued. The following example is assuming you will be paying a supplier by cheque, with credit card payments covered in a few sections.

NOTE: You will want to look at the A Setup options, i) Printers to make sure you have the Cheque printer set up if you want to have Bookmanager print on the physical cheques.

Once you have Marked the items you wish to pay, select Prt (print/process), and then select Issue payment or clear marked items. This will bring up an Issue Payment box that will give you a summary of the payment you are making, and it will be asking you to select an account. It will be highlighting your main bank account (100). Press R and it will take you into the cheque number, which will default to the next number in your sequence. If this is the first cheque you are printing through the program, just type in the first cheque in your sequence. The date will show the current date, but you can modify it if you wish. The last field is the Printer field: pick Cheque, Main (paper), or None (if you don’t want to actually print anything).

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Bookmanager makes a double-entry into the GL that records the payment (as well as applying the cheque number to each item paid). This entry (a debit to payables and credit to the bank) is not visible from the A/P screen, but can be seen from the GL screen.

Once you have completed the payment, you will have a Paid (Payment or Pmt) or Transfer (TrfTo XXX or Trf) line, giving the details of this payment, and linked to the items covered on the cheque.

Paying/Clearing invoices without issuing a cheque You can remove active payables if all the items marked total zero. Suppose an account has several entries (perhaps a series of invoices and credits) and they balance one another out. If you Mark these entries, then Prt a cheque, a prompt will appear and ask if you want these items removed (reconciled) without issuing a cheque. A fake cheque number (starting with @000) will be assigned and the items will be moved to the historical area of A/P.

If the balance is not zero, but you still want the item(s) cleared, Mark them and then Prt a cheque. Now, instead of selecting a bank account, you must create an appropriate GL account (e.g. 500 cost of goods sold) where the balance (what would have been a payment) will be posted. Use this method only if you are properly using the GL and understand how this affects your bookkeeping.

Telpay (Canada Only) Using TelPay with Bookmanager can save time and money with efficient electronic transfer of payments to virtually everyone you buy goods and services from in Canada.

Who is TelPay? TelPay (www.TelPay.ca) is a Winnipeg-based company that has been delivering payments between thousands of vendors and their customers since 1985. No longer do you have to handwrite or print cheques, sign and stuff envelopes, and then use postage to mail them.

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How does TelPay work? Within Bookmanager, you handle your accounts payable the usual way, but you now have the option to set up TelPay as a “bank account” to make payments from. Each payment is added to Bookman- ager’s TelPay payables list. When the batch of payments is ready to be released, each payment total is Marked (*) in TelPay’s A/P, and then one payment is made from the actual bank account. This action transfers the details of the payments (name, address, invoice numbers, etc.) into the TelPay Software. TelPay verifies the information to ensure that there are no errors. You then use a password (much like a pin number for a debit card) to instruct TelPay to disburse the funds. The final step is to electronically send TelPay one amount to cover the total of all payments.

If you would like more information about TelPay, or if you think it might be the right service for your bookstore, please contact Bookmanager support for instructions. There is also a detailed manual about TelPay on our website bookmanager.com when logged in, under the Downloads menu, called TelPay.pdf. That document will outline the process in Bookmanager from start to finish, so it can be considered a supplement to this manual.

Voiding a payment If you have issued a cheque in error, you can always reverse it by using the Void option. All you need to do is find one of the items with the assigned cheque number and select Void. This will cancel the payment, and put all entries back into open payables. The items will, however, still be marked.

Reprinting a cheque If you are highlighting a paid/transferred item, you have the ability to reprint that payment/transfer. When you select Prt, the first three options refer to the cheque# you are highlighting. You can get a list of the details and totals for the cheque on screen, reprint the actual cheque, or print a list of the invoices paid on this cheque number.

If the cheque was printed with the incorrect cheque number, reprinting it will give you the chance to change it to the correct one.

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Post-dating and partial payments It is possible to post-date payments, or to do partial payment on an invoice. For this example we will assume that the original invoice number is Inv#123456 for a total of $2500.

First, in A/P you need to add a New transaction, and for the type you would choose Adj (adjustment). The invoice number should probably be linked back to the original number, so in this case you could use #123456A (the last letter is arbitrary). Make the amount of the adjustment -$2500, and d to save the entry when you are done. You can mark this adjustment against the original invoice, and the total should come to 0.00. If you Print and select Issue payment or clear marked items, and say Yes when it asks if you want the items marked as paid, the original invoice will be cleared against the adjustment.

The next step is to add the adjustments you will use to print post-dated cheques or partial payments. Continuing with our example, let’s say that you were dividing it into five post-dated payments. You will need to create FIVE New Adjustments, each in amounts of $500. In each example, the adjustments should be for a positive amount, and you can use the same continuing sequence of invoice numbers (123456B, 123456C, etc.). Once these have all been added, you can mark each of them one at a time, and select to Print a cheque for each one of them. It will allow you to select a cheque date on each one you print, and you can post-date those with the date sequence you wish to use.

In the case of a partial payment, follow the same steps to clear the original invoice. Then, add adjustments to break down the invoice. You can mark each adjustment and print a cheque whenever you need to.

Making payments by Credit Card When you pay an A/P invoice by credit card, what you are doing in effect is moving (transferring) the invoice from one A/P account (the supplier) to another (your Visa). First, you will need to make sure your credit card(s) have been added in 3 Suppliers in order to use them in A/P.

Supplier Setup You don’t need much information in your credit card Supplier card, but there are a few nuances that haven’t been discussed yet in order to streamline payments from A/P. Use New in 3 Suppliers to create a new supplier card, enter a supplier code for your credit card (e.g.: VISA), and b to the third field. This is where you enter your default GL account to use for activity with this supplier. With credit cards, amounts are being transfered from one supplier to another, so you need to set your default GL account here to 121, the “cash clearing” account in Bookmanager. Cash Clearing is used as a holding account, and will be discussed in more detail in the GL section.

Next, fill in any other fields you feel will be useful for reference, and press d to save this new supplier. There is more information and links to fill in here, but we had to first create the supplier account to add these links.

Press Edt to immediately go back into this new supplier card, and b until you get to the top-right most field labeled PayFrom:. Press u to see a list of your current bank codes that are used to issue payments from. The bottom of your screen will now contain a Bill payment accounts box. If

213 ACCOUNTS PAYABLE | Managing payables for individual suppliers you pay your credit card bills using your default bank account (usually by cheques, and Act 100), you can simply select that account here and press R to insert its ID into the supplier card. Often times this ID is blank, so the above step may not be required. If you pay your credit cards with online banking transfers, you will need to create a secondary payment account that reflects this.

NOTE: There are reasons to create more than one payment account that use the same GL bank account. For example, use one to print physical cheques from and another for online bank payments. This will allow you to maintain independent check/payment numbers. b down to the last option, New account, and press R. Under the ID column, assign this new bill pay account an arbitrary code that is obvious to your online payments (e.g.: OL or CC). In the Act (account) field, insert your main bank account code, usually Act 100, if your online payment transfers come from your main bank account. If you have a separate bank account for online transfers, you will need to u in the Act field and use New to add this account to your GL. It is recommended that you keep bank accounts numbered close to 100 for ease of use (e.g.: 101). Once created, you can press R to insert the new account code in the Bill payment accounts screen.

Leave the Supl (supplier) field blank. Press R on the blank Check field for the system to auto assign a number. Under Printer, select None. Press R to select your newly created bank code and insert it into the supplier card.

The final step in adding a credit card supplier is not mandatory, but recommended. In the upper-right Payments box on the supplier card is a field called Private?. If you do not see this field or do not have access to it, you will need to sign in ( 6 ) using a clerk code with Master rights or GL confidential rights. Putting a Yes in Private? will only allow those with the correct permissions and clerk code to access your history for this supplier. In the case of credit card payments, most businesses only want a select few access to this history. This private toggle can be assigned to any supplier, but is really only needed with sensitive information such as banking and investing. Once all the above information has been entered, press d to save this new supplier and move on.

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Pay the original invoice To pay the invoice, you would Mark it like any other, and select Prt, then choose Issue payment or clear marked items. You will see a list of the available accounts to pay from, but since this is the first time you are issuing a credit card payment, you need to add the card supplier as an option, just as you added the online payment transfer account from before. You will only have to add the card this first time, then it will be available to choose for any supplier going forward.

b to select New account and press R. Under the ID column, give it a code that is relevant to the credit card (e.g.: VS for Visa). Use 330 (Bookmanager’s reserved account for A/P) in the Act (account) field, and type the code for your newly created credit card supplier in the Supl field (e.g.: VISA). The Check number is arbitrary, but you can give it something to start with (e.g.: V0001 for Visa) to easily distinguish it from your normal cheque payments. Bookmanager will keep the initial letter you specify, and increment the last digits upon subsequent payments. Under Printer, select Main to print a paid payment stub for your records. Pressing R through all the fields will save your changes and add this payment account to your list.

You can now highlight your newly created credit card payment account and press R to use it for this payment. Bookmanager will ask you to confirm the Check number, payment Date, and whether you want a Reference note attached. R or d to finalize the payment transfer and display this message: Payable of xxxx.xx has been transferred to supplier XXXX.

Once you have completed this process, the invoice(s) will be listed as Trf (transfered).

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Pay and Clear your credit card payables account Now that you have cleared the entry from the supplier’s A/P, you need to pay and clear your credit card A/P account. Usually you would wait for your statement to come from your credit card company to do this. Once you have this, you add each line item from the statement into your A/P as a New entry. Each entry on the statement is added as an individual invoice, and the entry for the purchase from the supplier discussed above will have been transfered here as well, and listed as a Trf with an invoice number of [supl] + Check#.

NOTE: It would be possible to add the entire statement as one invoice and allocate the purchases accordingly, but you may find it cleaner and more transparent to enter each purchase individually.

To link the various entries to the purchases they reference, you can add a Reference note to the invoice in A/P to indicate who the original invoice was from. (see the Reference column in the above screenshot for an example)

When it is time to actually pay your credit card bill, Mark all the appropriate entries and Print a cheque/ payment for your credit card company. Again, if you pay your credit card using online transfers, you would select that newly created payment account (e.g.: ID = OL for online) instead of your standard blank ID act 100.

Paying a single Invoice with a Credit Card The above method works for both single and multiple invoices. However, with goods paid by credit card before they are shipped, you usually have a separate credit card charge for each invoice. In this case, it’s sometimes faster to highlight the single invoice and press Trf (transfer) and select c) Payment Transfer (pay the inv. & transfer the total to another supplier).

Enter the supplier to transfer the invoice total to (VISA in our example) and d. A Payable Transfer Transaction screen will display your transfer options:

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The invoice will appear as paid with the original supplier and will appear unpaid with the supplier you transferred it to. Essentially, these first two methods of credit payment are identical in that they clear invoices with one supplier and create a new payable with another.

Paying the Visa statement before the goods arrive Your credit card bill arrives and needs to be paid ASAP, yet the goods have not arrived or been received in 9 Receiving. Go to the credit card A/P account and start entering each of the charges that are on the your statement but not yet in your Bookmanager’s A/P. Try to keep both the Transaction date (next to the Tran#) and InvDate in line with the dates on the credit card statement for easier reference later.

NOTE: If you know that a charge relates to goods ordered through a 3 Supplier vendor, change the transaction type (which is normally Inv) to Trf (transfer).

A Payable Transfer Transaction screen will display, which is essentially the same screen you see when you Trf out an invoice (see previous example), except with this notice: You are recording a payment done in advance of receiving goods. The supplier you enter will have an open credit that can be applied to the Inv created when the goods arrive. Enter the amount that was charged on your credit card and then the appropriate supplier code (use u to find them by name), and finally the amount that was paid to the supplier (for Canadian suppliers, this must be the same as the amount charged on your Visa statement). d is used to finish entering the transfer transaction. The list of unpaid items on the credit card account now includes a Trf transaction. When you Mark all of the unpaid items under that credit card’s A/P, the total should match your credit card statement. Now Print and Issue Payment by using either your online bank payment account or your “print a cheque” payment account.

TIP: When you highlight a Trf transaction or any invoice paid via a transfer transaction, you can press 7 (shortcut to A/P), which will take you to the supplier that the payment was transferred

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to. Pressing 7 again will take you back to the supplier the invoice was received under.

WARNING: If you create a Trf transaction in the credit card account and do not verify (in the supplier’s account) that the goods actually arrived, you can end up with having a perpetual credit balance with that supplier. If you are not periodically reviewing all of your payables you might pay for something that never actually arrived (or it was charged incorrectly or double charged). It is important, therefore, to get into the habit of Marking Inv and Trf transactions and then Print and Issue Payment to match and clear the open items. Fortunately, viewing accounts with credit balances is easy, by using the Filter command List Suppliers with credit balances that is available when you initially enter 7 A/P (but have yet to select a particular supplier).

Matching Foreign Purchases with Domestic Payments When making purchases from foreign countries, a credit card is often the method of payment. The procedure for receiving the goods and then matching the payment against the credit card statement is much the same as the instructions above, except for reconciling the difference in currency exchange.

TIP: To make your life a little easier and also ensure that your Inventory costs are reasonably accurate, make a habit of checking 3 Suppliers for one of your foreign suppliers to see that the Exch (exchange rate) field is close to what you are paying for exchange on recent purchases. If you pay mostly with credit cards, use a rate from a charge on your last statement, otherwise visit www. xe.com and add one or two points to the posted exchange rate. Edit the Exch so that subsequent Receiving can better approximate your real costs for the items you receive into Inventory. Also, be sure not to accidentally Edit a domestic supplier, as this will adjust everything you receive from your regular domestic suppliers as though they were being paid in foreign funds.

For foreign currency invoices, it is best not to Trf payment from the supplier into your credit card A/P account until you know exactly what the final currency-converted credit card charge is. Once you know the amount, go to the supplier’s account, find the invoice, Edit it and change the domestic (your currency) total to match the charge on the credit card statement (the foreign currency).

You will then be promoted to allow the system to make adjustments to the previous allocation of the invoice so that the proper amount of exchange is factored in.

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You can now Transfer the invoice to your credit card’s A/P account. The amount transferred should be the exact final amount charged on your statement.

If you are paying the credit card that has a charge for goods that have not arrived, you will want to use New in that credit card’s A/P and then edit the Inv type to Trf, which will bring up the Payable Transfer screen. In this case, you are entering the domestic value first, then choosing the supplier’s code and entering the foreign currency amount. The exchange difference will be calculated here. When complete, your credit card statement can be paid and you will have an open credit in the supplier’s A/P list. When the goods actually arrive, you will want to go into their A/P screen and Mark both the invoice and the Trf credit, and then Print and Issue Payment to clear them.

NOTE: It is unlikely that the exchange rate used for receiving matches exactly to what was charged on the credit card. Before clearing the invoice and the payment, press R on the Trf credit to see the domestic value, then edit the receiving invoice and correct the domestic total there (again, the allocated amounts will automatically be adjusted.) Otherwise, when you try to Mark and clear a set of entries that have mismatched currency exchange, Bookmanager will stop and force you to make corrections.

When a payment is issued, the Reference field is provided so that you can enter an online banking reference number. If this number is not known until after the payment in Bookmanager was completed, the Reprint Payment option under Print can be used to enter a reference number (i.e. the only field you change along with possibly the option to use printer None).

NOTE: You can change the date of the payment without having to Void and Issue Payment again.

Other A/P printing options There are several other print options that will give you detailed reports on the current supplier. You can get a list of all unpaid invoices for the supplier, the details of a particular invoice, or a list of invoices over a certain date range. These reports will appear on-screen first, so do not be afraid to experiment with them to get a feel for what they do.

Sell-through reports These are a set of reports that will give you detailed information about the cost and the sales of items received from this supplier. You have many different options for what to include on these reports. These reports will look at a specific invoice or invoices and report the history of sales, adjustments, returns and freight costs. On the surface, extracting this information may seem to be a simple process, but in fact there is a great deal to consider, especially if you buy the same product from multiple suppliers, on multiple invoices, at multiple costs.

The analysis involves taking an ISBN on a particular invoice, finding any more recent invoices with that ISBN, deducting the current on hand from the newest invoices, then allocating sales, returns and adjustments to the appropriate invoices. For the record, returns are not necessarily applied to the

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actual invoice# used on the claim. Rather, they are applied to the next most recent invoice once the On-Hand and later-dated sales are accounted for. When there is no remaining data available to apply to the invoiced copies, the NoHist column will be used.

Managing consignments through A/P Consignment is product you take into stock, but you only pay the supplier as it is sold. When a vendor supplies you with an item, and they are the only source, and they only issue one invoice, then there is little need for a complex management system. To determine sales, you simply deduct the costs of the remaining stock from the original invoice. Often, though, the same product can be obtained from more than one supplier, or more is received on multiple invoices. Partial payments are made over a period of time, some product is returned or exchanged, and everything starts to get pretty complicated, especially when dozens of different items are involved.

TIP: When adding consignment suppliers to 3 Suppliers, we recommend you give their codes a prefix character to visually separate them from your normal vendors. For example, you can use the ^ (caret = S 6) symbol to do this, so a consignment supplier would be something like ^HAT. This also helps to separate your consignment invoices within suppliers that you also do standard invoicing with. For example, you may buy normally from PRH, but also carry a few items on consignment from them. You could create a second supplier for this vendor, called ^PRH, for consignment products.

Moreover, a vendor may allow one product to be on consignment, but they sell you other product on normal terms. In 9 Receiving, there is the option of making an invoice consignment by changing the invoice type to Cns (the default is inv). This change can also be done from 7 Accounts payable. The A/P Summary Reports lists the totals of consignment invoices in a separate consignment column.

There is a report under Prt in the A/P Summary screen (where all suppliers are listed) called 7) Con- signment summary of open consignment invoices. This reports locates all UNPAID invoices marked as consignment and then provides a total of the invoice, the amount sold, and the amount remaining in stock. Generate this report when you are ready to review all your consignments. The Sold column may not be the actual amount you are paying, because there may be other activity not reflected on the report. This report simply helps to identify those that likely need to be paid or reconciled.

After selecting a consignment supplier’s account in 7 A/P, use the Prt option and choose the Con- signments: Reconcile & optionally credit & reinvoice stock OnHand option. This routine will analyze

220 ACCOUNTS PAYABLE | Managing consignments through A/P the unpaid consignment invoices for this vendor.

The report produced contains more information than the screen can fit, so use r to access the sold columns on the far right. After viewing the report, you can Prt a physical copy and it will format to fit on letter sized paper. Pressing E lets you proceed to the next step where you create a credit/return for the remaining stock, and create a new invoice for the remaining stock.

After selecting Yes, you will be taken to a processing screen which will allow you to print hard copies of the sell-through report and claims for your records and to give to your consignee. d to process and move back into A/P to pay the consignment invoice.

TIP: If you want to undo your steps, from A/P under the consignment supplier, Del the two oppos- ing Cns entries that were automatically generated (Be sure to choose Yes to delete when asked to remove related Orders/Returns data).

With the reconciliation routine completed, you will have a new credit and debit (both are listed as Cns invoice types), which will be of equal value, and which represent the value of the stock still on-hand. Every Cns entry on the account will now be Marked for payment with the exception of the last Cns invoice (the inv# has REINV in it, and the amount is positive). If there were any overstock returns or similar claims done (Ded or Cr), they should be Marked as well. A cheque/payment is then issued for the Marked items like usual. Once that is done, the only Cns entry that should be left is the invoice that represents the value of the remaining unsold stock.

221 ACCOUNTS PAYABLE | Managing consignments through A/P

In summary:

• You have paid all consignment invoices in full (including GST, freight and any other charges on the invoices).

• You have deducted all credits for any product that has been returned, destroyed or given away as promotional copies.

• You have deducted the amount of the remaining unsold stock.

• The total of the above items is your payment.

• You have one document (Cns invoice) remaining that represents the value of your remaining unsold stock.

Your supplier should be given a copy of the Receiving Invoice for the remaining unsold stock. Both parties then acknowledge that this invoice is now the only outstanding invoice.

NOTE: This method of returning and re-invoicing consignment product means that your Inventory detailed history will show a lot of receiving/returns activity when in fact the product may have only been invoiced by the supplier once. The invoice numbers used for the in/out reconciliation will be your clue to this. The Inventory card’s Ttl Rcv and Ttl Sld fields will not reflect this return/ reinvoice activity.

Subsequent to this, your supplier may invoice you separately for more product, and you may return product. The next payment cycle will analyze the “Receiving Invoice” that was your opening inventory plus any new Cns invoices to determine what has since sold. In this way the cycle outlined above repeats.

If you return all of the remaining product (and have no sales), then the total of the unpaid Cns invoices

222 ACCOUNTS PAYABLE | Managing consignments through A/P less the Ded claim should equal zero (Mark these and Prt Check to clear them).

If your supplier agrees to a price change to one or more products, it is best to Zreturn the items, then Receive them again at the new cost. This provides an audit trail that can be easily understood. A more simple approach would be to use 9 Receiving and edit the most recent “unsold stock” invoice, but you and your supplier must each have a copy of the adjusted invoice, and the audit trail isn’t as clear within Bookmanager.

223 ORDER PROCESSING | Order Send Types (aka SndVia)

Order Processing Any products that have been Ordered in Bookmanager are not immediately sent, rather they are grouped by supplier/vendor to be reviewed then submitted en masse. From the Main Menu in Book- manager, select 8 Order Processing. This is where you send orders to suppliers and review past ordering information.

Order Send Types (aka SndVia) There are many places throughout Bookmanager where the Order command can be used to create Pending orders, but it’s in 8 Order Processing where you send and finalize them. Orders can be sent in many different ways:

• Mail: A purchase order is printed and marked as Sent.

• Phone: The order is viewed on-screen, allowing you to read it to the vendor and to apply a status (e.g. OnOrder, Backorder, etc.) one item at a time.

• Fax: A purchase order is placed in to the Bookmanager Fax Queue, where you can use Winfax or myfax.com to electronically send the fax. Alternatively, a purchase order can be printed and then manually sent through a physical fax machine.

• Email: An order is processed and sent through your email program. You must first set up emailing in Bookmanager for this to work, so please refer to F3 Messaging (page 358). Emailed orders can be sent as a basic text format or as an email attachment in a tab delimited format for easy spreadsheet use.

• Netftp: Orders are transferred electronically to the supplier, and require an internet connec-

224 ORDER PROCESSING | Order Send Types (aka SndVia)

tion. In most cases, you will immediately receive a detailed confirmation of the order, otherwise a confirmation is usually available the same business day.

• Bknet: BookNet (Canada) or Pubnet (USA) are third party book industry service providers that pass along electronic orders and receiving documents. An account needs to be set-up with them directly before use. Please call Bookmanager support if you would like to utilize this service for ordering, or visit bookmanager.com and under the Downloads menu, select either Pubnet Retailer Registration Form.pdf (Canada) or Pubnet retailer registration form USA.pdf (USA) for the registration forms. Whether you are using BookNet or Pubnet, select Bknet in Bookmanager to use this service.

• InterS: For Multi-Store use only. This send method is for sending orders between store locations.

NOTE: Netftp and Bknet ordering are the preferred methods for most stores, as they provide order confirmations, electronic receiving documents, and minimize human error. Your reps will thank you too, as it will eliminate manual entry of orders on the supplier’s end.

3 Suppliers is where you set up each supplier’s preferred ordering method and defaults. Within 3 Suppliers, Search for the supplier in question, and once selected, press Xtra to access their ordering defaults. The ordering method can be changed on a per case basis in the 8 Order Processing screen, but it’s best to set the default in 3 Suppliers that is most often utilized.

There are also a number of default settings for each supplier that apply to orders. The account number, minimum order quantity, backorder status, and shipping method are some of the things you will need to set up in 3 Suppliers.

The 8 Order Processing screen has many features to manage both pending and previously sent orders. Orders that have already been processed can be voided (and then resent), modified and tracked.

When you first enter 8 Order Processing, a list of the current Pending Orders is displayed sorted by supplier code. You should always use the Update command to refresh the list with any new orders you may have added, and to re-total existing ones. This is one of the only areas in Bookmanager that does not dynamically update itself, so the Update is usually the first thing done when entering this area.

The right portion of the screen (and the bottom three lines) displays current settings for the order you

225 ORDER PROCESSING | Order Processing screen fields

have highlighted on the left-hand list.

If you t above this list of Pending orders, you will then see previously Sent (processed) orders; these are organized by the latest status date. Once you have exhausted the list of Sent orders, you will begin to see a list of orders that have been fully or partially received.

Orders are organized under the following statuses (Stat):

• Pend: An order that is pending and needs to be sent/edited.

• Built: An order to be sent electronically has been created but has not yet been sent using an electronic ordering method. Generally, orders are sent as soon as they are built, however, the Built status will be used if the order was not transmitted successfully.

• Sent: The order has been sent, but there has not yet been a response from the supplier. If Sent is in red, it means that it has passed either the cancel or the reminder date without any product being reported on. This order should be investigated further. When an electronic order is sent, the Reminder date is automatically set to a date by which you should receive a confirmation.

• Ack: This refers to a BookNet order, and it indicates that the supplier is acknowledging receiving the PO. This is not the same as confirming each item on the PO. Some suppliers will Ack an order and later Confirm it. Others will only supply the Ack status.

• Cnfrm: With an electronic order, this is where the supplier has confirmed each item on the PO.

• RcvdP!: Partially received with some items still on order. This status means that some items on this order have not had their status changed since the order was sent. Generally, when a supplier sends a shipment, they acknowledge receipt of every item on the order by either shipping it, or by providing a reason for non-shipment (e.g. backordered or cancelled). It is the receiver’s duty to either receive, backorder or cancel each item on a purchase order. The RcvdP! status provides you with a warning that the receiver or the supplier may not have acknowledged some items on the order.

• RcvBO: Partially received with the balance on backorder: Generally, you do not need to be concerned with these orders because the supplier is waiting to receive stock before shipping to you (i.e. they are aware that you want stock).

• AllBO: All items on the PO have been backordered, and will be sent when the supplier has stock.

• Rcvd: Orders that have been fully received and/or cancelled will have this status. All the items have been reported on, and from an order management perspective, these orders are considered complete.

Order Processing screen fields There are a number of fields that contain valuable information in the Order Processing screen. They are as follows:

226 ORDER PROCESSING | Order Processing screen fields

• Supl: The code for the supplier the order will be sent to. Notice that there are five characters available; the first four identify the supplier, and the fifth position can contain a letter ora number, which can be used to group pending items into individual orders within each supplier (e.g. a Penguin Random House fall catalogue order may be created using a code PRH F, while regular orders are created under just PRH). If your store has multiple buyers, you can have each buyer use their clerk codes as the final order separator to make distinguishing each other’s orders easy.

• Stat: The Status column shows the present stage of the order. Pend means the order is still in the building stage. An olive green check mark √ appears when the pending order has met the supplier’s minimum quantity or dollar requirements. Use the Rettl (Retotal) command frequently when modifying the order to ensure the order total is updated and current.

• Order: For pending orders, this field is blank. A Purchase order number (PO#) is automatically assigned when the order is sent. When processing an order, you have the option of overriding the automatic order numbering.

• Date/age: For Pending orders, this is the age of the oldest item on the order (in days). For all other orders, this is the most recent date that a status was applied to an item on the order (ie. it was reported on).

• SndVia: This is the method that will be used to send the order (or the method that was used for sent orders). This can be overridden for an individual order by using the Edt command, otherwise it is grabbed from the default specified in 3 Suppliers.

• S/O: This is the number of customer special orders on the order.

• #Bks: This is the total number of items on the order, including special orders.

• SellTtl: This is the retail (selling) value of the order based on your current prices in the Inven- tory file.

• T: This is the Supplier Type field, and is used to group like suppliers together for easier sorting and review. This feature may not be necessary for smaller operations with fewer orders/vendors. For stores with many pending orders, this field can be used to group your wholesalers first, big publishers next, and quick-ship/import/consignment suppliers last. Letters a-z can be utilized. Again, if your store has multiple buyers, this feature can be used to organize their work. Use Filter in 8 Order Processing to sort the list by Supplier Type.

Remember: Pending orders change frequently as people add new ones to your system, therefore you need to use the Rettl (re-total) command often to ensure that each supplier is up-to-date. Selecting Update will do this for all pending orders for all suppliers.

Additional on-screen fields The right portion of the Order Processing screen has the following information about the currently highlighted purchase order:

227 ORDER PROCESSING | Order Processing screen fields

• Supplier name: This line also shows the Country Code in brackets established in 3 Suppliers. Below this line is some basic supplier information, including their SAN. You can quickly see the complete information in Suppliers by pressing 3 Supplier, then 8 to get back to Order Processing.

• List and Net: List is the retail value of this order, and is determined by the sell prices set when ordering each individual item. Net is your cost for this order. The value of the order is based on the Invoice price less the discount, and is in the currency of the supplier.

• Min: Minimum order requirement. This can either be a product quantity or retail dollar value, and is established in 3 Suppliers.

• B/O: Use 3 Suppliers to set the default backordering preference. A change from Order Pro- cessing only affects the current order. For electronic ordering, you may need to become familiar with your options with this particular supplier as all suppliers may not support the same backorder preferences.

• Cancl: This is the date (or number of days) when items that have not yet been shipped will be cancelled. Every order must have a cancellation date. You can set a cancellation date for this particular order, or use a global default set in A Setup under b) Ordering. You can also set a default for each supplier in 3 Suppliers.

• ShipVia: This shipping method only appears on printed or faxed orders. Each supplier can have its own default set in 3 Suppliers.

• Shipto# / Billto#: The A Setup screen has a q) Your Company Name, etc. option where your company name and address is stored. This is where you can add alternate shipping and billing locations (e.g. a remote store or warehouse). Generally, you will want to leave this setting at its default in Order Processing. In Order Processing, you select one of the alternate addresses by changing the Shipto/Billto numbers to match your alternate address. 0 and 1 are the same (main/default address). 3 Suppliers has these fields as well should you want a permanent alternate address for a particular supplier.

• Send: This is either ISBN or UPC (set from 3 Suppliers). When UPC is selected, purchase orders will show the item’s UPC number instead of the ISBN. If the UPC is empty, the ISBN field is used.

• Sort: Sort the order by Title or ISBN. Your supplier may find it faster to enter your order when it is organized by ISBN number. Keep in mind that many suppliers will invoice you in the same sequence as the original order. This setting is specified in 3 Suppliers.

• Sent on: The date the order was initially sent. This field is blank for pending orders.

• 1st Rcvd: This is the date the first item on the order was received. Following the date is the number of days between the Sent on and 1st Rcvd dates.

• Remind me: Bookmanager sets this date when you prepare and place an order electronically. If none of the items have been reported on by the time the date lapses, there is probably a problem with the order (ie. it was not sent, or the supplier did not confirm receiving it). You

228 ORDER PROCESSING | Reviewing your orders

can set or cancel this date with Edt. The Status column will appear in red for orders that have expired reminder dates.

<-- Purchase order note <-- Personal note <-- Supplier note

• Purchase Order Note: The A Setup, b) Ordering screen has an option to set a default message to appear on every purchase order. Before sending an order, you can customize the message. This message is not sent with electronic orders.

• Personal Note: Below the purchase order note is a field where you can type any information or notes about a specific order. Selecting Edt accesses this field.

• Supplier Note: The last line of Order Processing shows the one-line note field stored in 3 Sup- pliers. Use this as a reference to specific ordering instructions.

Reviewing your orders The Order Processing screen allows you to view your pending orders before they are sent, and to make any modifications necessary.

Searching in Order Processing You will have several options for listing the orders when you use the Srch function in Order Processing:

• Pending: You can enter a Supplier code to get that supplier’s pending orders, or you can leave this blank and press R to get all pending orders for all suppliers.

• Supplier: Enter a supplier code to get all orders of all statuses for that supplier.

• Order#: Enter a PO number to be taken to that PO.

Each time you search by these options, the list will be indexed by the method of the search. As with other areas of Bookmanager, you can see the current index because that column header will be highlighted in red.

Indexing the list You can manually choose the indexing of the list using the indx command. As with searching, the list will be organized how you specify, and the current index will be highlighted in red.

• Normal (Status): This will list orders in sequence by their status date for sent orders, and their age for pending orders.

• Supplier: List will be indexed by supplier, showing any pending orders first, then from those with the most recent status date to the oldest.

229 ORDER PROCESSING | Updating and Re-totaling

• Order #: List will be in order by PO#.

Filtering the list

The Filter command can be useful when you only want to deal with certain sections of the list, or certain supplier types. Your sent-via and/or met minimums options are: Netftp, Booknet, Mail, Phone, Fax, OK √, or W below minimum.

You can also filter the list to show only orders under certain Supplier Code Separators or Supplier Types. Multiple separators and types are allowed, so enter them without spaces or commas.

Changing the status to OK √ An order status will be listed as √ (OK) when it has met your supplier’s minimum requirement, and when you process orders you can ask it to include all the √ orders. If you ever want to force an item that has not met an official minimum to √ to include it in your ordering, you can highlight the pending order and press Ok. You can also use the same command to do the opposite: if you have an order that has met a minimum (is listed as √) you can remove this status by highlighting it and selecting Ok.

Updating and Re-totaling As you review all your orders prior to sending them, often you will make changes to them. To ensure that these changes are recorded, there are two useful commands that will make sure everything is up to date. While you are highlighting a particular order, you can use the Rettl command to have Bookmanager check for and include any orders for this supplier.

The Update command is like a mass Rettl, and will go through the whole file and make any needed changes. The first two options default to Yes, and they will update all the pending orders in Order Processing. If you choose to say Yes to the last two items, Bookmanager will also check any sent and received orders to see if there are any needed updates to the status fields. This will take more time than just updating the first two options, and is generally not needed for normal operations.

Processing Orders The Process command in Order Processing will give different options, depending on the type of order you are sending. Each method will now be explained in more detail. Some of the Process options are only explained here once because they will be the same in all cases.

TIP: If you want to change the method for sending an order for just this PO, use Edt and change

230 ORDER PROCESSING | Processing Orders

the SndVia column. If you want the change to be permanent with the Supplier, edit the 3 Suppliers entry, or choose Setup options after you Process an order.

Mail/Fax Orders These two types of orders are essentially the same. Your initial options are to either send only the highlighted order, or to send all orders of the same SndVia that are marked as OK √ (batch processing).

TIP: Use Flt, then use OF to list only the OK √ Fax orders (i.e. those about to be batch processed).

After selecting either a single or batch order, you have the option of making some last minute changes.

When an order is processed, each item on the order is assigned a purchase order number and a cancellation date. The entry in Order Processing is updated and moved into the Sent area. If you need to redo the order, find it in Order Processing, then use Misc to access the voiding and reprinting options.

If you have specified electronic faxing from Bookmanager under A Setup, k) Faxing, you will have the ability to fax directly from Bookmanager without needing to print a hard copy. Refer to the F3 Messaging section (page 364) of this manual for setup instructions.

Phone Orders Processing a phone order is the same as choosing Telephone from the Order Processing screen. Tele- phone does not require you to firstE dit the SndVia to Phone. This makes it handy when you are sending a one-time order by phone to a supplier with whom you normally use another option.

Here, you first specify a PO# and cancellation date. Next, move line by line through the order, and press Order on each item that you have ordered with your rep or supplier. If every item on the purchase order needs to be ordered, you can simply hold down Order until you reach the bottom of the list. Once finished, press E to finalize, changing the Status to Sent, and moving back to the main Order Processing list.

Email orders Emailing directly from Bookmanager is possible if you have entered in a valid email address in 3 Suppli- ers under the e-mail field. You will also need to make sure emailing has been set up in Bookmanager first. Please refer to the F3 Messaging section (page 358) of this manual to do so.

Supplier Email setup In the Order Processing screen you can Edit an existing order to change the SndVia to Email. If you want this to be a permanent change for all future orders with this supplier, you will need to use Xtra in the 3 Suppliers file.

To setup from Order Processing, select Process, and then R on Setup options. A window will pop-up with the following options:

• Orders sent: Email (you can change this to another SendVia option)

231 ORDER PROCESSING | Processing Orders

• format: Leave blank to send the order details in plain text in the body of the email. Select Tabdelim to send the order details as an email attachment, and in a tab delimited format for easy spreadsheet use. Ask your supplier/rep which format they would prefer.

• Print orders?: No is the default, change to Yes if you would like a hard copy

• Supplier SAN: this can be found in the 3 Suppliers field, and is usually filled in automatically)

• Supplier’s email: enter the email address that your supplier accepts orders from. Again, this field is populated from the e-mail field in 3 Suppliers.

Sending an email order In Order Processing, select Process and then Send this order by Email. You will have similar options as the methods before, allowing you to specify a ShipVia, PO#, Backorder status, and cancellation date.

As with all emailing and electronic faxing from Bookmanager, you have four send options: Send only (no saved copy in F3 Messaging), saVe only (no send), Both send & save (the default), and Edit, send & save (launches the F3 Messaging editor to edit the text of the email before sending, or launches Notepad to edit the email if set up).

Electronic Ordering via Netftp or Bknet (EDI Ordering) By far the preferred ordering method for most stores, EDI ordering allows you to quickly and efficiently send orders, view confirmations, and receive electronic receiving invoices once product arrives, all without the need to print or manually enter products. This cuts down the labour on both the store and the supplier’s end, and helps to reduce human error.

The initial setup of EDI ordering was covered in the earlier Suppliers section of this manual, under EDI Ordering with Bookmanager (page 94). To overview, you first must have a SAN number, then a BookNet/Pubnet account (optional), and finally understand which suppliers use Netftp and which use Bknet. Give Bookmanager support a call to find out which vendors support which method, or refer to bookmanager.com and the Downloads menu for an EDI Ordering and Vendors document.

SAN (Standard Address Number) This is an industry-recognized number that identifies your organization/location. Each supplier has one, as does your store. When an order is electronically sent, your SAN number is sent instead of you company name. Similarly, when a supplier receives an order from you, they can be alerted to a mistake if their SAN does not appear on your order (e.g. you may have sent it to the wrong supplier). Your SAN number can be found in A Setup under q) Your Company Name, etc.

Netftp Orders Netftp ordering is the best electronic ordering method, as it supports the most features and quickest response times. An internet connection is required, and the supplier must support Netftp or FTP (file-transfer-protocol) ordering. The majority of suppliers utilize BookNet/Pubnet ordering, but there are a handful of major vendors that use their own FTP server (or ours), and in those cases, choose

232 ORDER PROCESSING | Processing Orders

Netftp over Bknet.

Netftp Supplier Setup The initial setup can be done either from 3 Suppliers, under Xtra; or by highlighting an order in 8 Order Processing, pressing Process, then selecting Setup Options.

• Orders sent: This needs to be set to Netftp.

• format: This depends on which format the supplier accepts, and can be found in our EDI Vendors and Setup document online at bookmanager.com under Downloads. Your options here are X12, Bisac, and Flashback. Most suppliers utilize the industry standard X12 format, which supports purchase orders, purchase order acknowledgments, electronic invoices, and functional acknowledgments. Flashback is like X12, except it supports Stock Status checks as well, and is the preferred method if available. Bisac is a specialized format, but is similar to X12. Again, the online EDI document will outline which supplier utilizes which methods.

• Print Orders? / Print Confirmations? : Specify whether or not you want hard copy print outs of orders and confirmations when an order is sent. Most stores do not choose to print orders, but like to have confirmations printed when they become available.

• Supplier SAN: This field is populated from the SAN field in the 3 Suppliers record. In rare cases, this field needs to be blank or a certain character.

• ftp Send URL: This is the location where electronic documents are sent or retrieved from. The EDI Vendors and Setup document will specify what this should be for each supplier, or call Bookmanager support for a quick answer. If the supplier is using Bookmanager’s FTP site, the Internet ftp specifics area can be left blank.

• ftp UserName and Password: These are usually provided by the vendor when you initially

233 ORDER PROCESSING | Processing Orders

contact them to let them know you will be sending orders this way.

The remaining fields are usually left blank or auto-populated by Bookmanager for Netftp orders.

Sending an Order via Netftp Within 8 Order Processing, Update this area to make sure the SndVia has been set to Netftp for the supplier you just configured, or find the order and Edit the SndVia field manually.

Use Process on the order you want to send. You will have two options when you want to send an order: Prepare order for Netftp and Prepare & send order. Most often, you want to both prepare and send the order in one go, so you will select the second option. From here, all your electronic order options will be displayed and will differ depending on the format that this order is being sent in:

Netftp Flashback

Stock status only? Yes/No Some wholesalers allow you to send the equivalent of a “test” order. You send your order, and they provide the status for each line of the order. This allows you to see what would have been shipped and at what price and discount.

WARNING: If the supplier you are working on does not support a Stock Status check, the order will be sent as “live”. Only some suppliers support Stock Status. Bookmanager uses a special PO# “STKST” (plus a special code within Flashback orders), and if the supplier does not support this, they will send the order anyway! Verify that the supplier supports Stock Status before using it.

Once you have received the stock status report, you then have the option to further tailor the order before sending it as a live order. Refer to the Cascade options below for more insight and expanded uses for the Stock Status check.

234 ORDER PROCESSING | Processing Orders

Cascade options Cascade allows you to grab pending items from other suppliers and have them included with the current one. This option is generally only used with wholesalers who can give you the fastest service possible. Its true intent and power is when the wholesaler can provide a Stock Status of the items ordered. For example, you may want to have a wholesaler check stock on every special order item you have pending with every supplier. Once the Stock Status is received, you can quickly move items that you truly want from the wholesaler, and then send a real order (without the cascade option used). Since most special orders are time sensitive, being able to quickly identify those that can be ordered from a quicker shipping source is a true time saver and adds to the quality of your book ordering service.

The four Cascade options available are fairly self explanatory, and by default (and for the majority of orders) option 1) Only include items on this order (no cascade) is selected. Option 3) Include S/O from all pending orders is a common operation to see if any special orders can be ordered quicker. Option 2) Include all OK (green) pending orders is useful if you need to bump up the quantity of your order to meet a minimum.

Flashback options (only displayed for Flashback format orders) • Order Type: Some suppliers allow you to identify an order by a special code. Consult with your supplier for supported options, otherwise leave the field as is. Ingram (IBC) has a CE (Cecil) order type option that allows you to send an order (and have the stock reserved) but not have the items shipped until an EO (normal electronic order) is sent. This is a great way to reserve stock before they sell out, especially during heavy order months like December. For example, if IBC’s Live Pubstock is showing 1 OH of a title that you want to order, but you’re two days away from your normal order day, and you haven’t met your IBC minimum yet, the CE Order Type would save the day!

• Promo: Use a code provided by this supplier to receive special terms. Limited to 10 characters.

• Alt Whse code: Suppliers who ship from more than one warehouse may support the option to select a preferred warehouse. Leave blank for most, or press u to see Ingram’s warehouse codes (e.g.: E = Roseburg, OR).

• Warehouse Pairs?: Some large wholesalers attempt to ship your books from a primary warehouse, but they will use an alternate warehouse and fill orders from there as well if stock is unavailable from the primary. Normally, you will specify a default action with the supplier when you first create your account with them, so this field is left blank. Otherwise, you can specify to use multiple warehouses (Yes) or to only use the primary warehouse (No) in this field.

• Greenlight?: This is another high-level feature used by Ingram. Ingram stocks obscure product (usually at a lower discount), and Greenlight = Yes means that you are willing to accept this product.

• B/O Release: Hold (or blank) is the norm, which means that the supplier is not to ship any backorder items until your next regular order is placed. A Release code would tell them to ship the backorders as soon as they have stock (possibly resulting in frequent single-book shipments and higher shipping costs).

235 ORDER PROCESSING | Processing Orders

Pressing d on any of the above fields or options will prepare the electronic order document for sending.

X12 or BISAC options An X12 or BISAC format order is virtually the same as Flashback, except with only one special option at the bottom. In this case, only a Promotion code (max 10 characters) may be provided electronically with this order type. You can still specify the standard order options such as PO#, Cancel date, Stock Status, and Cascading.

TIP: All electronic ordering sessions can be reviewed in technical detail from the Order Processing Log screen.

Bknet (BookNet and Pubnet) Orders Orders sent using the BookNet or Pubnet network are very similar to those sent using Netftp. In fact, both are an FTP structure, and file formats are virtually the same. In this case, BookNet/Pubnet acts as the middleman to pass along, translate, and store the electronic documents.

Once again, the initial setup can be done either from 3 Suppliers, under Xtra; or by highlighting an order in 8 Order Processing, pressing Process, then selecting Setup Options.

Bknet ordering has the advantage that you only need to enter setup information once for all suppliers you will be using BookNet to send orders to. After the initial information is entered for one supplier, simply look up any other supplier that uses BookNet for electronic ordering, and specify their Orders sent as Bknet, and all the pertinent account information will be pulled in.

The Booknet URL needs to be ftp-edi.pubnet.org, and the Mailbox URL is edi.pubnet.org . The additional fields need to be filled in with the Username and Password, and your Mailbox ID and Password as assigned by Bowker/Pubnet. Each of these fields is case sensitive. The remaining fields listing the Last ISA and Last GS used should not be changed. Once you have input your information, d to save the settings.

Sending BookNet orders When you use the Process command on any Bknet order, you have the options to Prepare order for Bknet or Prepare & send order. Most times, you will select the second option. This will send just this order to the supplier, and then check your inbox on the network for any files you are to receive (eg.

236 ORDER PROCESSING | Processing Orders

Acknowledgments). You also have an option to Prepare & send all OK (green) Booknet orders, which will process and send all the OK √ orders at once. Each time you send a new order via Bknet, any new confirmations are automatically received.

In either of the above cases, you can prepare either a single order or all orders without sending them. In this case you would need to run the option Booknet communications (send any Built orders and get new files), which will send the order(s) and get any files available from the network.

When the order is being sent, your Bookmanager screen will go black while the session takes place. Once it has completed, the orders you processed will have a Status of Sent. If this is not the case, or you think something may have gone wrong with the session, you can check to see what happened by pressing Log. This will give you a detailed account of the ordering session, and will list any errors that may have occurred. If you see a Status of Built in red, the order file was successfully created, but did not send properly.

Getting Confirmations and Acknowledgments It is a good idea to check your BookNet/Pubnet mailbox daily. There are four ways to do this:

1. Use the Process option in 8 Order Processing on any Bknet order, and run Booknet communications (send any Built orders and get new files).

2. In 9 Receiving, leave the supplier field blank andR . Select New, and press R on both the blank Supplier and Invoice# fields to check for new documents from all your FTP sites.

3. From the Main Menu, select Data Transfer, and then option F) Check ftp sites for new files. Press R on the blank field to check all your FTP sites.

4. In the Scheduler, add a daily event called 8a BookNet session (send built orders/get files). With this enabled, it will check for new files (including confirmations) every day at the specified time.

No matter which method you choose, the session will check for incoming files, and it will receive and process them. For every electronic order, a supplier is supposed to provide you with one of the following:

• Functional Acknowledgment (Ack): This is a very simple file that indicates they have received the file. The status of the order will read Ack.

• Order Confirmation (Cnfrm): Most suppliers provide this file once they have entered your order into their system, and given a status for each item on the order. The status of the order will read Cnfrm. Some suppliers who send confirmations do not provide Ack because they consider this redundant. If a supplier does not send confirmations, they should always send an Ack within a few days.

Reviewing your BookNet orders Once a BookNet order has been sent, each order has a reminder date attached set to four days. If your system has not received a reply within these four days, the Status of Sent will appear in red to

237 ORDER PROCESSING | Processing Orders

draw your attention to the order, indicating that something may be wrong. We chose four days as a default, although each supplier has their own average response time. Most orders should have a response by the next day.

Check your processed orders periodically to see if any of the Sent statuses are listed in red. You should contact these companies to confirm receipt of your order. Please understand that this ordering system has been designed to be efficient and worry-free, but you are dealing with a number of individual suppliers who each provide their own level of service. If you are having a problem with any supplier on the network please let us know so we can contact them.

Electronic Order Confirmations You will notice that confirmed electronic orders will have the Status Cnfrm (or Ack). This tells you that the sending of the order is complete. If an order is not confirmed, the Status will be Sent in red, and a reminder date is set (indicating that you still NEED a confirmation). This tells you that you need to Process the order again and select Check with supplier for confirmations & process them. Generally, if a confirmation is not available during the first call, then it is available after waiting a few minutes. Some suppliers may not have confirmations available for up to half an hour.

If a problem occurs before the order is completely sent, you will see that the order has a status of Built. This would be the same status as if you had selected only to “Prepare” the order. Normally, you would select Process and make another attempt to send the order.

If you want to abandon sending the order this way to try it later, the Process menu has an option to Void the prepared order. Choosing this will cause the order to return to a Pending status.

WARNING: Do not void and resend Sent electronic orders until you have called the supplier’s customer service line and confirmed that they have no record of your order. Our experience tells us that 99% of the time the supplier does receive Sent orders.

238 ORDER PROCESSING | Processing Orders

If your supplier is unable to send a confirmation, but they have confirmed that the order will be shipped, then you should Edt the order, remove the reminder date, and in the personal notes section indicate that a confirmation has been received.

Confirmation reports can be viewed on-screen and/or printed. Confirmations may vary slightly depending on the file format used and the supplier you order with. Normally, every item on the order will be acknowledged and it will indicate if the item is in stock (available for shipping), backordered, or cancelled.

Dealing with items not confirmed These items are usually a problem, and they need immediate attention. Please note that the Order Processing screen will show the order Status as being Cnfrm, even if there are some items not confirmed. The bottom of the Confirmation Report will indicate if one or more items were not confirmed.

To work with these, go back into Order Processing and Srch by Order number or supplier. Then press R or View and look for items with an Inv/Sta of NotConf. If these need to be re-sent, use the Trf (Transfer) command to add them to another supplier, or Edt and manually change the status back to pending.

239 ORDER PROCESSING | Processing Orders

Dealing with cancelled items The confirmation report will identify cancelled items. The Ord column will display the original quantity desired, but with a c after it to indicate those were cancelled. The Status will usually be COS (cancelled out of stock) for that item. In Bookmanager though, these items are reset to Pending with the supplier they originated with. Left as they are, they will be sent again to the same supplier unless you decide to Trf them, or Edt and apply a cancel status.

Cancelled Cascaded items When you use the Cascade options, the cancelled items are returned to the original supplier with a Pending status.

Stock Status Confirmations If the PO# STKST was used to send the order, all the items are returned to their original suppliers as pending orders. In this case the confirmation report will look just like a real order, except it will have Stock Status Only at the top of the page. Again, only certain suppliers support Stock Status (mainly Ingram), so be sure to confirm with a supplier before sending a Stock Status order, or it will be live.

Invoice prices and discounts are also updated by confirmations. The Inventory (selling) price is not changed because you may have existing stock, or you may have set prices to something other than the supplier’s suggested price.

When an order is partially shipped because they cannot send you the full quantity requested, Book- manager attempts to split the item ordered. A Shipped status can be applied to some of the quantity, and a backorder or cancel status is applied to the balance.

Substituted ISBNs When a supplier substitutes the ISBN ordered with another number, they should identify both ISBNs. You will see a warning on the confirmation report to this effect:

240 ORDER PROCESSING | Electronic Invoices

Bookmanager does NOT make the change in your inventory though, because there may be situations where making a global change to an existing ISBN is not desired. If the supplier changes an ISBN but does not indicate (link) the change, then you will have one item not confirmed (the ISBN you ordered), and another item listed that “was not ordered” (the ISBN they substituted). Generally, you will want to change the Inventory ISBN (which will automatically change the Orders ISBN) and then you Edt the item on the order and correct the Status.

Electronic Invoices Bookmanager can process electronic invoices (also known as EDI = electronic data interchange or EPS = electronic packing slip), which greatly simplifies and reduces the time spent receiving a shipment. All of your Bknet and Netftp suppliers have the ability to send electronic invoices and/or electronic packing slips. New invoices are received automatically each time a session is run. The invoices are stored in the BM\EDI folder and accessed from 9 Receiving. You need to contact your supplier to enable this service, and to get set up to receive them. For more information on Electronic invoices, please refer to the Suppliers section of the manual (page 94) to get set up.

Miscellaneous options There are many instances where you may need to make changes to a PO after you have already sent it. These are accessible through the Misc command in 8 Order Processing. Here, you can reprint a PO, void a PO, change discounts for all items on a PO, and so on. The miscellaneous options will effect the currently highlighted PO in Order Processing, and will display the last used PO number at the top for quick reference.

Voiding a PO As an example, let’s say you have just processed a fax order, but you notice that several items that should have been included on the PO have been left off. If you Srch for the PO in Order Processing and select Misc, you can Void this PO, which would put all items on this order back as pending items. You can then add the other items that you wanted to include. Be aware that it will add everything from the voided PO to any other existing pending orders under this supplier code. If you do not wish these voided items to be merged with the items on a current Pending order, search for the current Pending order and assign it a supplier code separator (e.g.: change the existing Pending PRH to PRH T).

You are responsible for notifying the supplier if you want to void an order that you have already sent to them. Voiding it in Order Processing will not notify them automatically, nor will it remove the order from the 3 Messaging queue. You need to go into 3, find the order, and manually delete it. If the order was sent electronically, Voiding it will not send a cancelled order update. Again, you will need to contact your supplier and manually cancel the order.

Changing the status of an order If you ever need to update the statuses of every item on a particular order, you can quickly do this

241 ORDER PROCESSING | Miscellaneous options by selecting Misc, then Change the Order status for items on the PO. You can either enter a new status, or u to get a list of available statuses. Press R to select the one you want.

242 RECEIVING | Overview

Receiving Overview The proper receiving of incoming orders is a crucial part of using Bookmanager successfully. The accuracy of your Inventory and the Accounts Payable depends upon the accuracy of your receiving. The information recorded here is reflected in areas of the program like 1 Orders, 2 Inventory, 5 Returns, 7 Accounts payable and the = General Ledger.

TIP: We highly recommend that the person assigned to receiving have both an astute knowledge of Bookmanager and a business oriented thought process. The receiver should always be conscious of the profit margins you are making on shipments, so as to alert you or your staff ifcertain suppliers are coming in under your minimums needed to remain profitable. This could be changes in freight rates or the individual discounts on products. The receiver could also be informing management or staff which suppliers tend to come in with the best margins, so as to focus your ordering strategy more around these suppliers. We also recommend that the receiving be kept to only one staff member (or a select few in larger operations) so that the overall process is consistent, and problems that do arise are easily corrected (as only one person is involved).

9 Receiving is where you enter incoming stock into your Bookmanager system. This is where you record the quantities, prices, costs, freight, and taxes associated with each shipment. Besides recording incoming shipments, Receiving can also be used to record orders that have been backordered or cancelled. New Bookmanager users are also encouraged to enter their existing stock into the system through Receiving, if their data was not available in an electronic format to convert from. Most labelling is also done during the receiving process, along with posting customer special orders as Helds in 4 POS.

There are four main sections to the receiving screen. The top left section contains information relevant to the invoice as a whole. The invoice number and date are shown here, along with the due date and

243 RECEIVING | Labelling in Bookmanager: To Label or Not to Label

quantity of goods received. The freight, taxes, and invoice total are shown in the upper middle section of the screen. The total will change as you receive goods.

The upper right section contains 1 Orders details for the currently highlighted item. This includes the classification, publication date, cancellation date and order status. If the item is a special order, the customer’s name and any order notes will appear as well.

The bottom half of the screen contains a list of any items for this supplier that are in Orders. It is basically a mirror image of items in 1 Orders for this supplier. By default, current orders are shown alphabetically by title at the top of the list, progressing to items that have already been received. When you Search, Index or Filter the list, the order will change. If you refer to the red bar above the title field it will always tell you how the list is organized. Most often, you will be working with the Filtered List (press Flt for filter), as it will only list items received on the particular invoice you are working on.

Labelling in Bookmanager: To Label or Not to Label Bookmanager labels will provide more accurate control of your inventory. It is not mandatory to label your product with Bookmanager, but here are some reasons why you might consider it:

• Bookmanager labels contain important information about the item, available at a moment’s glance. Your store name is on the top of every label (from the customer’s point of view, it’s good branding!). The ISBN/product#, retail price, title, class and author are displayed, making shelving consistent and efficient. There are codes that tell you the supplier of the item, the month and year it was received, the profit margin, the quantity received at the time, if this item was received for the first time, and if this item is a special order for a customer. Again, these coded bits of information will not be obvious or distracting to your customers, but easily identified by you.

• Bookmanager labels have been specially designed and manufactured for Bookmanager use. We created a label that has the perfect mixture of glue to allow them to be easily removed from product without the use of solvents or tools, and to leave no residue or damage when peeled. That said, labels will also not peel off or loosen over time, and have a product life of around 5 years (after that point, the label’s text begins to fade due to UV exposure). Label stock is made of thermal material, meaning that no ink is used to print to them. Labels come on rolls, is sold directly by us, and work with a dedicated label printer.

• Receiving errors become obvious since one label is generated for each item received on a particular invoice. Extra labels, or product without a label signifies an error on the invoice or in the receiving session.

• Staff can use each label’s classification and author lines to shelve stock consistently and quickly, and familiarize themselves with the specifics of an item.

• Your customers will appreciate a standard place for prices. Should a customer require a discount, the profit margin code on each label allows for better on-the-spot decision-making.

• Stores just starting with the program can differentiate between items “now in Bookmanager”, and items “not yet in Bookmanager”.

244 RECEIVING | Labelling in Bookmanager: To Label or Not to Label

• Bar coded labels provide 100% scanning ability, since not all items have scannable barcodes. They also ensure the bar code is in an easy to find spot. Barcodes generated on Bookmanager labels are NOT exclusive to the system, and are usually identical to those found on products. This allows both the printed-on and Bookmanager barcodes to be used interchangeably.

• Fast pulling of overstock returns by using the date code on the label. This method has proven to be much more efficient and effective than using a printed list for overstock returns.

• For products without proper ISBNs, UPCs, EANs, or barcodes, your custom specified product numbers will print barcodes.

• If you decide to incorporate stock with different conditions (used, new, remainder, signed, collectible, rare, etc.), each label’s barcode will come with its condition attached, making the check out process in 4 POS simple.

Label Printers and Label Stock Bookmanager labels have been designed to work with the 2-inch Cognitive Advantage DLX and DLXi thermal label printers. These printers are commercial grade quality, require no ink cartridges (as they are thermal), and generally have a life of 10+ years with daily use. We are a reseller of these printers, but feel free to search around locally for best price and shipping costs. Please consult with us prior to ordering a printer from a third party, just to confirm that the model you are ordering is supported by Bookmanager.

Bookmanager label stock comes on rolls, and is sold per box. Each box contains 8 rolls, each roll with 1500 labels, for a total of 12,000 labels per box. There are two varieties of labels: one standard, all white style, and one sale type with the upper right hand corner with a green highlight box for stand-out sale pricing. Though pricing per box fluctuates with manufacturing costs, our label stock will always remain at less than a penny per label, making it a very affordable labelling solution. Label dimensions are 2.25” wide by 7/8” tall. The following label sample is to scale:

For current pricing on labels and label printers, please visit bookmanager.com and see Pricing under the For Bookstores menu.

Labels Explained Besides regular price stock labels, Bookmanager can print a variety of different formats depending on the product. These alternate label varieties can be enabled to print automatically based on the product type, or they can be printed after the fact from most areas in Bookmanager that list products. Before you setup your labels and label printers, each label type and their various fields will be explained so you know exactly what to expect and how you would like to proceed with labelling.

245 RECEIVING | Labelling in Bookmanager: To Label or Not to Label

The Regular label contains all your vital product information. Your Company’s Name is listed above the barcode (e.g.: Mosaic Books). The product code (ISBN, UPC, etc.) contained in the ISBN field in Inventory is displayed below the barcode (e.g.: 978-0-14-310836-8). The product’s regular, non-sale Price is displayed on the right hand side of the label (e.g.: $27.00). Below the ISBN is the product’s Title (e.g.: Wander Society, The), and below that the product’s Author (e.g.: Smith, Keri). The bottom left of the label is where the product’s Class is shown (e.g.: GIFT - X). To the right of that is the Supplier this particular copy of the product was received from (e.g.: PRH). Next to that is the Date Code, which tells you the month and year this particular copy of the product was received on (e.g.: C6 = March 2016). The letter refer to the month (A = January, B = February, etc.) and the number is the year (5 = 2015). If there is an asterisk (*) next to the date code, then you know that this was the first time this item has ever been received into your stock. To the right of the date code is the Profit Margin Code (e.g.: D4 = 44% profit). The letter refers to the first number of the PM (e.g.: A = 1, B = 2, etc.), and the second number refers to the second number of the PM. The last number(s) on the very bottom right of the label refer to the Number of Copies of this product that were received during the receiving session (e.g.: 3 = 3 copies of this book were received during the March 2016 receiving session this book was on).

The Sale label contains all the information from the Regular label, except that the Discount Price is emphasized in a large bold font, the barcode is shrunk, and the regular price is shown with the discount modifier that results in the sale price. Often times, Sale labels are placed on the front of product, while Regular labels are placed on the back. This distinction makes it easy for your customers to discern which products are on sale. All you have to say is, “Label on the front, it’s on sale!”

This is an example of the Sale label format on the Sale Label stock. The pre-printed green box highlights the large sale price even further. For stores selling remainders, hurts, or bargain books, this is a great way to make that product stand out visually. Again, we recommend you sticker the product on the upper right hand front cover to make the distinction and discount pricing obvious to your customers.

Finally, the Special Order label looks virtually the same as the Regular label, except that above the Number of Copies received field, you will have a Special Order indicator. In this case, SO3 is displayed, indicating that this item is a special order, and the customer this is for is Customer Type 3. In our bookstore, Customer Type 3 is a school, so we know at a glance that this book is a school’s special order. If a customer refuses a special order and the book is to go back on the shelf for sale, we recommend crossing out this SO indicator. If you ever come across books that are shelved in general stock that have an SO indicator, it may be a good idea to check to see if this was a special order that was mistakenly shelved and not held for a customer.

246 RECEIVING | Labelling in Bookmanager: To Label or Not to Label

Labelling Setup Before setting up labelling in Bookmanager, you must ensure that your Cognitive Advantage DLX or DLXi thermal printer is installed in Windows under the Devices and Printers section of your Control Panel. Most often, simply connecting the printer to your computer and switching it on will initiate the Windows’ Plug and Play installer. If this does not happen, you can download the hardware installer from the Cognitive Advantage website (http://www.cognitivetpg.com/product/DLXi/downloads or http://www.cognitivetpg.com/product/DLX/downloads) and run it manually. You can choose to network the label printer for use with multiple stations, and that is specified within the printer’s properties in the Devices and Printers area in Windows. Finally, if you are still having issues, please contact Bookmanager support for assistance.

Once installed in Windows, there is a bit of setup within Bookmanager. From anywhere in Bookman- ager, press A Setup, and select i) Printers.

b down to the BookLabel section, and under printer is a, select Passthru. 99% of the time, the label printer must be set as a Passthru to work correctly. When you select Passthru, a list of installed printers will display. Alternatively, you can select u on the type connected to field to bring up a list of installed printers. b to select the printer you just installed, whether it be named generically (e.g.: Cognitive DLX 2 inch DT) or by the custom name you specified (e.g.: Labels) and press R. Next, make sure the Style is set to Thermal. The Model will auto select 3. Under Name, type in the name of your company as it will appear on the label. Due to space restrictions on the physical label, you only have 16 characters to use here, so for longer company names, you may need to abbreviate or shorten it. Under Print barcode?, most users will select Yes to print a barcode on the label.

The Do sale label for field allows Bookmanager to print sale formated labels (i.e. larger font for prices) automatically based on product. C will print a sale style label if the product’s 4 Class contains a discount. D will print a sale label for product that has a percentage Discount specified in the product’s Inventory Notes field (e.g.: //%25). S will print a sale label for product that has a dollar Sale price specified in the product’s Inventory Notes field (e.g.: //$8.99). Most stores will select all three options and input CDS in the Do sale label for field.

Finally, you can choose to have special order slips print out on thermal labels rather than on printer paper by selecting Yes in the Thermal S/O slips? field. We recommend using thermal labels for special order slips, as they are more cost effective and convenient than paper. Special order slip labels will print in-line and below the regular product label, so they are a great visual cue for your receiver to know which books are to be set aside for customers. Special order slips will print two labels: one label specifying the customer name and order information, the other with the order notes. You can choose to omit printing a

247 RECEIVING | The Receiving Process

second order notes label if the order notes field is blank by placing YX in the Thermal S/O Slips? field. The second notes label is a great place for hand written updates for orders.

With the general book labels configured, you can also specify MailLabel and ShipLabel to print from your label printer as well. As with before, select Passthru and your Cognitive label printer driver. The style needs to be set to Thermal, and other than that, all other settings should be left as is.

A MailLabel [pictured left] will print on the standard 2.25” x 7/8” white thermal label stock, and include only the basic information needed for physical mailing. MailLabels can be printed from 3 Suppliers and 6 Customers by pressing Label and selecting Label.

A ShipLabel [pictured above] has two formats, and depends on the “label” stock being used. If you specify your ShipLabel from i) Printers to use your regular invoice/main printer (Style = Paper), then ShipLabels will print our on standard 8.5x11 letter sized paper, 3 “labels” per page. The second option is to use your Cognitive label printer, loaded with a large format specialty stock that you can purchase from us. This stock is the same width as your regular thermal labels, but it is much taller and will fit much more shipping information than your standard MailLabel can. This type of ShipLabel is handy for large volume shippers, or stores that process a large amount of returns. Rather than cutting out the ShipLabels from letter paper and taping them to boxes, the ShipLabel stock can streamline this process. ShipLabels are printed from 3 Suppliers or 5 Returns. From 3 Suppliers, select Label and choose ShipLabel to use the printer specified under ShipLabel in i) Printers, or choose Thermal ShipLabel to print to your Label printer. This way, you can specify your ShipLabel to go to your regular paper printer, and be able to choose a paper ShipLabel or thermal ShipLabel.

The Receiving Process The receiving process basically consists of three steps:

1. Receive the incoming stock, whether it was ordered through Bookmanager or not. Electronic receiving documents, carton-level receiving documents, receiving from what is on-order in the system, or manual entry can be used to input products into Receiving. Confirm statuses,

248 RECEIVING | The Receiving Process

prices, quantities and discounts.

2. Check for errors. Reconcile what has been received on the screen with what has come in the box from the supplier. If items have been short-shipped or over-shipped, you can mark and process them here without interrupting your flow. Labels and Special Order Slips can be printed while reconciling (recommended) or at the end. Match the invoice total reported by Bookmanager to the hard copy of the invoice provided by the supplier.

3. Exit out to the Process Receiving Session screen and finalize your receiving session. Special Order slips, Labels, price change reports, and invoice copies can be produced here.

Begin the Receiving session To begin any receiving session, select 9 Receiving from the Main Menu. The first field is Supl (supplier), and can accept a variety of inputs depending on your preference or information known:

• You can type the supplier code from 3 Suppliers (e.g.: IBC).

• You can type the name of the supplier to do a search in 3 Suppliers and select one from the list (e.g.: Ingram).

• You can press R on the blank Supl field to list all Electronic Invoices from all suppliers.

• You can scan the shipping carton’s barcode if the supplier supports carton-level electronic documents. This is a more advanced feature that will be covered later in this section.

Once you have selected the supplier, the next Inv (invoice number) field will be required. Depending on how goods have been ordered through Bookmanager, and whether an electronic document is available will determine the flow of receiving from this point on. There are four unique types of receiving situations:

1. Receiving stock not ordered in Bookmanager (aka Manual Receiving).

2. Receiving stock ordered in Bookmanager, but with no Electronic Invoice sent by the supplier. This is usually the case when orders are sent through 8 Order Processing using Phone, Mail, Fax, and Email.

3. Receiving stock ordered in Bookmanager, with an Electronic Invoice (sometimes referred to as an EDI invoice). This is usually the case when orders are sent through 8 Order Processing using Netftp, Bknet, or InterS (multi-store only).

4. Receiving stock ordered in Bookmanager, with an Electronic Invoice that allows Carton-Level Receiving.

1. Receiving Stock Not Ordered in Bookmanager At some time you will probably need to receive stock that was not originally ordered through Bookman- ager. Perhaps the order was placed manually with a sales rep and never entered into the computer.

249 RECEIVING | The Receiving Process

Or you could be just starting out with Bookmanager and have a lot of outstanding orders that are not within the system. Whatever the case, after entering the supplier code, you will need to type in the invoice number found on the paper invoice into the Inv field. If there was no invoice number provided, or there will be an invoice number provided at a later date, you can type ? into this field and press R to have Bookmanager generate a holding place invoice number based on today’s date.

If this current shipment you want to receive is to be taken in on consignment terms, you can t in the Inv field to access the Invoice Type. Selecting Consignment will alter how this invoice is posted to A/P, and flag this shipment and its products as being on consignment.

After filling in the invoice number, specify the InvDte (invoice date) found on the paper invoice, the DueDte (payment due date), and any Freight or Tax incurred on this shipment.

If you have never received or ordered anything from the current supplier in Bookmanager, your cursor will default to a blank Order (PO#) field. If you have Orders history for this supplier in Bookmanager, past received orders will be displayed, and you need to press New to access the new Order field. The New command in 9 Receiving is only ever used to begin receiving something not ordered through the system.

If you have a purchase order you want to use for this shipment, type it in the Order field. If you do not have one, leave the field blank and press R. This will manufacture a PO number based on the current date (eg. G0412 for April 12th). This is useful to later help identify orders that were not placed with Bookmanager.

The cursor will now be flashing in the beginning of the ISBN field. Scan or type in the ISBN of the first item you are receiving. If the item is already in 2 Inventory, the title will appear and your cursor will be flashing in the Qty field. If the item is not in 2 Inventory, an inventory card will appear in the top half of the screen with your cursor flashing in the Price field.

If you have a subscription to our Titlelink service, the inventory information for this product will more than likely be filled in using our data, as long as the A Setup, a) General, m) Automatically check Titlelink for new ISBNs has been set to Yes (recommended). In this case, you simply need to verify the Price and Class before you can press d and move back to Receiving. If you have linked up the BISAC subjects with your store’s Classes, more than likely the Class field will have been filled in automatically. This linking is a huge time saver, so if it has not been set up, refer to Getting Started page 33.

250 RECEIVING | The Receiving Process

If you have a Titlelink subscription but have not chosen to have bibliographic information filled for new titles, you can do this manually by pressing u in the Title field to access Titlelink. If your product number finds a match in our database, the information will be displayed, and you can press R to insert it or E to go back without inserting.

Without a Titlelink subscription, you will need to manually enter the information for the item starting with retail price, then title, etc. The only mandatory fields are ISBN, Title, Supplier, and Class. Press d to save the inventory card and advance to the Qty field in the lower portion of the screen.

TIP: You can more efficiently and quickly receive many items that do not already exist in 2 In- ventory using Bookmanager’s Titlelink service. Using u in the Inventory Title field will give you access to the Titlelink database, and you can import the information from any matches you find. Many stores find that the time saved in receiving from not having to manually type in products’ bibliographic information is well worth the yearly subscription cost of Titlelink.

Under the Qty (quantity) field, specify the number of copies of this item you are receiving, and press R to advance to product costs, discounts, and pricing.

Recording Cost With your cursor in the Price field in the lower area of the screen, enter the price of the item as reported on the invoice. Then enter the discount you get on that price into the %% (discount) column. The Price and Discount (%%) fields combine to determine your cost on an item. You can record this cost in two different ways.

1. Using the retail price and discount on that price.

2. Using the net cost and a zero discount.

For example, you are receiving a book that sells at $10, and you receive a 40% discount ($10 x 40% = $4) on it. Your cost on the item is $6 ($10 - $4 = $6). You can enter 10.00 into the Price field and 40 into the Discount field, or you can enter 6.00 into the Price field and 0 into the Discount field. Both methods will result in the same cost.

Determining Selling Price Your cursor will now be in the Sell field. This is where you indicate the regular selling price for the item. Simply type in the selling price complete with the decimal point, or enter 0 and press R to let Bookmanager automatically calculate one for you based on your cost. Bookmanager will generate a selling price that gives you a minimum of 40% profit margin (PM) on the item. The profit margin you are earning on the item is shown in the PM field to the right of the Sell field. Typing the desired profit margin into the PM field will also automatically calculate the item’s selling price. For example, if you wish to earn a 50% PM on a particular item, type 50 into the PM field, and watch Bookmanager adjust your selling price accordingly.

NOTE: If the PM on any item is outside of the range of 35% - 55%, upon saving this item, both the Sell and PM numbers will appear in red. This is to indicate that you are either making too little (below 35%) or too much (over 55%) on an item, and this could be due to a mistake made

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on cost, discount, or sell price. Pay special attention to any items with red Sell and PM.

Now your cursor is in the last available field, called the S field. This is where you specify if you would like book labels for this item. Entering Yes or No will respectively flag the received item for label printing when you exit Receiving. By default, all items are flagged Yes to print labels. Pressing 5 will repeat this field choice for any subsequent items being received. This itemized label option is only accessed while you are receiving an item. When you are in the list mode, the same column displays a number (0-9) if the item is reserved for a customer. This number references the Customer type field in their 6 Customer entry, and it notifies you that this item is a special order (hence the field being called S). If an item has been flagged as No in the S field, Bookmanager will never print labels for this product, on this invoice or any subsequent receiving sessions, until the option is toggled back to Yes. Products flagged to not print labels will have an n next to their received Qty (e.g.: 2n).

Pressing R while in the S field will complete receiving of the item and advance your cursor to another new ISBN field, ready for you to begin receiving the next item.

TIP: If you find that when you get to the Price field, all the correct price and discount information is already entered, you can just d to save it all without actually progressing through each field.

2. Receiving Stock Ordered in Bookmanager (no EDI) As you get more familiar with Bookmanager, you will start processing orders through 8 Order Pro- cessing. When there are orders in Bookmanager, the receiving process becomes quicker.

The initial start to receiving remains the same, with a Supplier, Invoice Number, Invoice Date, Due Date, Freight and/or Taxes needed. Once you advance to the lower portion of the screen, you will see a list of items on order (O/O) for the specified supplier. The orders with an Order Status such as OEml, OPhn, OMai, and OFax will be at the top of the list. The Order Status refers to how the PO was sent/ processed from 8 Order Processing.

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Searching Techniques There are a number of techniques for locating items when you are receiving an invoice. The most simple and effective is using your barcode scanner to scan the product and have Bookmanager automatically search and find the product for you.

If this product does not have a barcode, using the Srch command brings up a small window that allows you to look for an order number, the start of a title, a keyword from the title, or an ISBN (either the full number or the publisher’s prefix).

Simply type the appropriate information into the desired search field and press d to display a list of matching titles. Since most suppliers’ invoices will be listed by order number, it may be best to Srch by Order number (PO#). Doing so will list all items on order for that purchase order alphabetically by title. Most invoices will be in alphabetical order as well, making the receiving process from here on very simple. In this case, you can work your way down the list on-screen while you do the same with the actual invoice.

Choosing indx will allow you to filter or sort the list further. You can sort the list by Title or ISBN, and within those you can target all orders or just those with the current Order (PO#). You can also see all the order history and activity for the currently highlighted ISBN by selection option i.

Printing Labels as you Receive items Before you begin marking items as received, you have the opportunity to enable auto-labelling in Receiving. This feature only needs to be turned on for the first receiving session to remain active for all other sessions, until the Bookmanager window is exited. We highly recommend enabling auto-labelling, simply because it makes the receiving process and the task of labelling product much more efficient. As products are received, labels will print in the order that you are receiving them. If you are making neat stacks of products, and stacking them in the order you are receiving, then labels will be printing out in that same order. This means that you will not need to search and match labels to their products. You can essentially grab a strip of labels and start blindly labelling your stacks, knowing that everything should match up. That said, we still suggest you pay attention to your work just to make sure products were stacked correctly, and the correct quantities were inputted.

If you choose to print special order (S/O) slips on labels, then those will also be printed whenever a product with a customer name is attached is received. Once again, this speeds up receiving and eliminates the need to hunt for customer special orders after the fact.

To enable this feature, select Xtra when you are in the lower portion of receiving, and choose e) Enable auto-labeling. The bottom of the screen will display Auto-labeling is Enabled, and you are good to go. To disable this feature at any time, select Xtra once again, and choose e) Disable auto-labeling.

Marking items as Received Once the correct order/title has been located, highlight it using t b and begin by pressing Rcv (Re-

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ceive). This command will cause the cursor to jump to the Price field on the right side of the screen. The rest of the process is the same as described for receiving a New item; modifying the Qty, Price, %% discount, Sell, etc. Again, you can just d if all the information is correct. Each time you complete receiving one line, its status will change to R for Received. Bookmanager automatically highlights the next item to be received, so if it has a shipped status, press Rcv, then complete the information. If pricing and quantities are consistently billed the same as they were entered into the 1 Orders file, the receiving process can be as simple as two keys. Rcv, then d, over and over.

Editing Title or Class information from Receiving Occasionally, you will discover that the Title or Class information that was originally recorded at the time of order has changed or needs to be updated. This can be done from Receiving without interrupting your process. With a product highlighted, press A Edit (displayed as @E in the bottom commands menu) to access the upper right-hand Title and Special Order fields.

Here, you can modify the Class, Ed (edition), Pb (Published Date), Inventory Note, Cancel date, and Special Order Note. Press d to save your changes and return to the bottom list.

If you need to edit a title’s full bibliographic listing, first press View to toggle the top half of receiving to the Inventory Card View. You can use b t after pressing View to view different titles on the bottom list, and select A Edit here to modify the Inventory Card information.

Price Changes If you receive an item that is already in-stock in Bookmanager, but you receive it at a different price, a warning message will appear as soon as that item is completely received.

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Answer Yes if you would like a report listing the items with price changes when the receiving session is complete. The report notifies you which items you may have in stock listed at the old price, so you can physically check your store and change any older stock to the new price. Answer No if you do not need this particular item flagged for that report.

Recording Backorders Many invoices you get from suppliers notify you of any items that are not included because they are placed on backorder. You can record this status change in those items by highlighting the appropriate item in the receiving list and selecting BO (Backorder).

Use the t b or the number keys to highlight the appropriate reason (BOS - Out of Stock, BNYP - Not Yet Printed, BRP - Reprinting, BITO - Import to Order) and press R. The PubDate, CanDate, and Notes fields (located in the entry in 1 Orders) can also be accessed at the same time. d will save the changes and the item’s display will be updated to show the new status.

If only part of a particular title’s order quantity has been shipped, with the rest being backordered, Rcv the title, t the cursor to the Qty field, and enter the quantity that was actually shipped. When you press d to move to the next item, Bookmanager will notice that the quantity received is less than the quantity ordered. You will then have the option to decide if you wish to place the remaining number of copies on backorder, or to remove them from being on order at all. Type in the number of copies to place on backorder and press R. Bookmanager will show the correct number of copies received on one line, and the specified number as “backordered out of stock” (BOS) on a new line.

If a backorder is not required, type 0 into the partial receive field and press R. Bookmanager will simply receive the correct number of copies and delete the order for the remaining number. You can also choose to Cancel the remaining copies on order if you know they will never arrive. Selecting ignore is essentially the same as inputing Backorder 0 remaining copies.

Cancelling an Item Sometimes an invoice will notify you that an item you have ordered cannot be filled. To cancel the item, highlight it and press Can (cancel). You will then be asked to choose from a list of reasons.

Use the t b or the number keys to highlight a reason and press R. The PubDate, CanDate, and Notes fields (located in the entry in 1 Orders) can also be accessed at the same time. Pressing d will save the status change.

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Even if you cancel an item on order, you may wish to order it again, depending on the reason it was cancelled. Perhaps you originally ordered it from the wrong supplier, or the publication was simply postponed. To reorder an item after it has been cancelled, highlight it and press Ord (Order). The standard order pick list window will then appear, allowing you to fill in the required information, and press d to save it.

TIP: We recommend that you rarely (or never) fully Delete an Order from Bookmanager. Cancelling orders (COS) leaves a record in your system, which at the very least can provide a little information for reference down the road, especially if you leave a message in the Order Notes field as to why the item was cancelled.

Special Orders Any item in a receiving list that has a number in the right-most column (S) is a special order, or is reserved for a particular customer. The number that appears in that column is the Customer Type found in that customer’s entry in 6 Customer. The customer’s name and order details will also appear in the upper right-hand portion of the receiving screen when the item is highlighted.

A special order should be received in the same manner any other item is received. When you Rcv a stock order for which there are existing special orders, a message will come up:

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Answer Yes if you want to give priority to your special order customer; No if you want the items to go into regular stock and to leave the special order(s) outstanding. We recommend that you usually answer Yes to this message, as customers should be given priority over shelf stock.

If you answer Yes to the above question, Bookmanager moves the special order information from the old PO onto the current one. You will then be asked if you wish to view them. Answer Yes if you wish to view a filtered list of only the filled special orders. Answer No if you want to go back to the regular receiving list. Most often, you will answer No, as you can view special order details from Receiving.

TIP: If you have many special orders for a particular item, as well as a large order for stock, you can get Bookmanager to “auto-receive” them all. Rcv the whole quantity on the stock order line (the line not specified as a special order). Bookmanager will then ask if you want the specials filled. Answer Yes, and Bookmanager will ‘auto-receive’ them all for you, including the left over quantity for regular stock. One caveat with this method is the need to delete the order records that are left over from Bookmanager auto-filling special orders based on regular stock. For- ex ample, if you have 10 of an item on order, with an additional 3 copies reserved for customers, and you use the above method to auto-fill special orders (receiving 13 copies on the stock line), you will be left with 3 order records with no special order names attached. You would then need to arrow down to the line(s) making up those extra 3, and Delete the record so they don’t sit in your system indefinitely.

Standing Orders Sometimes people will want to reserve a new copy of a magazine each time it comes into your store. Receiving a standing order is much like a regular special order. Receive it using either Rcv or New. If you attempt to receive on a line where the Order (PO#) number is STANDING, Bookmanager will stop you and instead give you instructions on how to receive a standing order:

Receive the standing order as instructed, and Bookmanager will fill it for you. You cannot receive directly off the STANDING order line, as Bookmanager needs an order entry to persist in Orders so that the next time this item comes in, the customer’s name and an order entry will still exist without yo having to re-create it each time.

Dealing with Damaged, Short, and Over-Shipments Sometimes you open up a shipment and discover that the items may have been damaged in shipping, the items on the invoice are not in the shipment, you got too many items, or the prices/discounts are incorrect. In these cases, you must first Rcv the book(s) to get the invoice totals in Bookmanager to balance with the paper invoice, and then use the Zrt (Return) command in Receiving to specify what went wrong and create a claim.

Damaged Shipments Once the item is received (the status is R), use the Zrt command on the item(s) that are damaged.

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The Return Item list will appear, allowing you to choose the invoice against which you would like to return the item. Highlight the invoice number you are currently receiving (the one at the very top of the list) and type the number of copies you are returning as damaged. Then press R to access the Reasons menu, which defaults to Returned: Overstock. Look at the list of reasons for return on the right half of the screen and press the number associated with the correct reason, in this case 2) Returned: Rcvd Damaged. If the book has a defective binding or an issue that was likely not caused by the shipping process itself, you can select 3) Returned: Defective.

Press R to access the Price and subsequent fields. Notice that the supplier code has a space and the letter R at the end. Any item returned from 9 Receiving will have a ‘ R’ at the end of the supplier code. The R is added in order to separate this item from any others in 5 Returns for the same supplier. Press d to finish flagging the damaged item for return. The line item back in receiving will now have a bracketed note in red next to its title, along the lines of [Rtn 1].

NOTE: When attempting to exit Receiving, you will be asked if you want to access 5 Returns to process and finalize the claim. It is best to do so, as the claim will remind you to return the goods. You can also add return shipping charges to the claim (See the 5 Returns section of the manual page 174 for information on how to process a claim.)

Short-Shipments Sometimes an item will be listed on the invoice, but you will find that it has not been included in the shipment. This is a short-shipment, and like a damaged item, it is handled through 5 Returns. First, receive the item as if it was shipped. Then use the t b keys to highlight the item again and press Zrt. Type in the number of copies that were short-shipped and specify reason 9) ShortShip: Billed/ not shipped. Pressing d will save it. If the supplier has included a shipper’s note showing that they are aware they short-shipped you, select 8) ShortShip: Per Shipper’s Note as the reason for the return. To process these returns just follow the same steps described for returning a damaged item.

Over-Shipments On occasion you may be shipped a book and not billed for it. Here, you have two choices: either accept the over-ship as a freebie, or report the over-ship to the supplier so they can bill you for the missed item. Most often, it isn’t worth the supplier’s or your time to contact them with a single over-ship, so most stores accept these as freebies and move on.

Receiving a “free” item in Bookmanager is done by using New to add the item to your receiving session, then specify the quantity of free product you are taking in. When it comes to the Price field, input 0.00. You can then specify a Sell price, and you will notice that your PM will display 100% in red.

If you want to notify the supplier of an over-ship so to be billed at a later time, the easiest way to handle this is manually, by contacting the supplier and setting the book aside until you are billed. The book can then be received at a later date when you receive proper invoicing. If you add this over-ship to your current invoice, your totals will increase and not match your paper copy, which you should never do.

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Wrong Price and/or Discount If you are incorrectly billed for an item shipped, you must first receive the item to match your paper invoice and then Zrt it as usual. Use the reason A) Wrong price and/or discount.

A new box will open within the Return Item window. If you have been billed the wrong price, enter the correct price here. If you were given an incorrect discount, R past the correct price field, and put the correct discount in the appropriate field. Once that is done, you will be back to the regular receiving screen. Notice that the hint bar will say Entries for claiming a price/discount correction have been made. Bookmanager has put two entries into 5 Returns. The first is for a positive quantity of the item at the incorrect price/discount, and the second is for a negative quantity of the item at the correct price/discount. The difference between the two is the amount you are claiming, and this will leave the on-hands unchanged.

3. Receiving with Electronic Invoices Bookmanager has the ability to receive and process electronic (sometimes referred to as EDI) invoices or packing slips generated by suppliers. This ability fully automates the receiving process, and allows you to reconcile shipments by scanning product, rather than checking off a physical invoice.

Requesting Electronic Invoices and Documents Before you can receive using electronic invoices, you must first contact each supplier that you want to enable this with so they can prepare the files for you. How you pick up these files depends upon how you order from the supplier, whether it be Netftp or Bknet. Generally, you cannot receive electronic invoices for previous shipments, rather it is something that is enabled and will be available going forward. Simply being on the BookNet/Pubnet network will not automatically request and gather invoices from all suppliers who utilize them. With Netftp and Bknet methods, you must contact each individual supplier first.

Every supplier has a different department or wording for electronic ordering, so you may have to juggle different phrases and ask to be connected to different personnel to get it enabled. For example, for smaller suppliers using Bknet, you may have to only contact the general customer support line and say that you will be sending your orders electronically through BookNet/Pubnet, and that you would like to receive electronic invoices for your shipments from now on. Other times, and for larger suppliers, you may need to be connected to their EDI department, and supply your SAN and account number, and it could still take a few tries to get it enabled.

If you are ever having major difficulty reaching the correct person or department, or your attempts seem to be met with confusion or no result, please contact Bookmanager support and we will be the squeaky wheel that gets ‘er done!

Checking for and picking up BookNet/Pubnet files We recommend that you add the routine 8a BookNet session (send built orders/get files) to your Scheduler to automatically grab new files from your BookNet/Pubnet box. This routine could be set to run before the store opens each day to make sure you have the most recent documents.

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You can manually check for new documents from BookNet/Pubnet by going into 8 Order Processing and Searching for a supplier that uses Bknet as the SndVia. Once highlighted, press Process, and select Booknet communications (send any Built orders and get new files) to run the routine.

Whenever orders themselves are sent from 8 Order Processing, BookNet/Pubnet is always checked for new files at the same time, and they are brought in if any are found.

Finally, and perhaps most convenient if you have a new shipment ready to receive, you can check for new files from 9 Receiving. Within either the very first Supplier or Invoice Number fields, press R on the blank fields. Here, press New, and R on the blank fields to check for new files.

Checking for and picking up Netftp files Just like BookNet/Pubnet, we recommend that you add the routine 8b Check ftp sites for new files to your Scheduler to automatically grab new files from supplier’s utilizing their (or our) own FTP sites.

You can manually check for new documents by going to Data Transfer from the Main Options menu. Here, select F) Check ftp sites for new files (invoices/confirmations, etc.).

Finally, you can check for new files from 9 Receiving. Within either the very first Supplier or Invoice Number fields, press R on the blank fields. Here, press New, and R on the blank fields to check for new files.

NOTE: When we say “electronic invoices”, we are using it as a blanket term to refer to all electronic documents. There are technically five types of EDI documents Bookmanager utilize:

Document Code Document Type 850 Purchase Order 855 Purchase Order Acknowledgment 856 Carton Level Invoice (ASN) 810 Electronic Invoice 997 Functional acknowledgment

Receiving your Electronic Invoices Electronic invoices remove the work of manually pressing Receive or having to add items using New, or having to input invoice details such as taxes, discounts, and totals. More importantly, electronic invoices can be reconciled by scanning product, thus eliminating the need to check each item off a paper invoice. Most stores find this to be a massive time saver, and how a single receiver can plow through 50 boxes of receiving from a variety of suppliers in a single day.

In the supplier field, put in the appropriate supplier code. When you get to the invoice field, leave it blank and press R. A list of Electronic invoices will appear at the top: these are the ones that have not yet been received. Below that is a list of your previously Received invoices, whether they be electronic or not.

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Use the t b keys to highlight the invoice you want to receive. When an invoice is highlighted, a preview of the contents and their ship status will be shown on the bottom half of the screen. Pressing R will move your cursor into the contents preview area, and use E to go back to the invoice area. To begin receiving an electronic invoice, highlight it and press Process.

Alternatively, when an electronic file is present, it will automatically pull up the electronic receiving file if you enter in the invoice number in the invoice number field. Bookmanager will prompt you and ask if you would like to electronically receive this file. If you select Yes then the file will be displayed and you can press Process to begin receiving.

When Processing an electronic receiving file, Bookmanager will bring up an Electronic Receiving Options window with receiving options that can be set as defaults:

Use the associated letter codes to select and mark the options you would like. If you select option b) Prompt before filling each s/o from another PO, Bookmanager will look at stock orders in this PO and notify you if it finds a title that is a special order, asking you if you would like to fill the customer’s

261 RECEIVING | The Receiving Process order from stock. You can select Yes to this prompt and the special orders will be filled or No to this prompt and the special orders will remain unfilled. Most stores choose to have option a or b selected, as customers’ orders should get priority over regular stock orders.

The next two options handle price changes. Most users like to make the decision themselves regarding price changes, so choose option g) Leave Sell prices as is (I will make the changes). Items with price changes and therefore Sell prices that may need adjusting will appear in red for easy identification.

If you find you are always using the same settings in electronic receiving, you can choose those options then press z) Remember these settings, and Bookmanager will automatically highlight your preferred settings.

Pressing d when you have chosen your settings will continue the electronic receiving process.

For certain electronic invoices (usually those using foreign purchase/billing currencies), Sell prices will not be altered regardless of the options selected before, and a notice will be displayed:

For regular electronic invoices that included price changes to products, a message will appear notifying you to check the invoice for those changes and make corrections if need be:

If you have items on this electronic invoice that were not in your 2 Inventory or 1 Orders, Bookman- ager will automatically create entries for them and let you know how many items it had to do this for. Once again, these notices require no action, but are rather just information that may be helpful for the receiver.

If there are any items still on order from the received PO#s on this electronic invoice, they will appear at the bottom of the receiving list as still on order, and you will be notified as such:

Bookmanager will now receive the contents of the invoice, and default your cursor to the top of filtered list. This filtered list contains only the items that were received, along with the invoice totals atthe top of the screen. This total should match the total on the paper invoice that came with the goods. Different rounding methods used by Bookmanager and the supplier may cause the Total to be off by small amounts, but you can change Bookmanager’s Total when you exit and finalize the invoice. Any items being received into stock for the first time will have [new] in red next to the title.

At this time, it is best to b through the filtered list and have a look for any items with a red Sell price or PM. These items have invoice prices and discounts that result in a sell price that is different than stock you have in-store or on order. With book product, prices are printed on the book itself, so it is

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best to match your sell price to that printed price. You can edit the Sell price of those items by selecting Edt and b to the Sell field. You are not forced to update these red Sell prices, rather Bookmanager is simply notifying that there could be a problem.

Reconciling your Electronically Received Inventory Now that your product has been received, you are going to want to make sure that what was sent in the boxes correctly matches what product is on your invoice. This is also the most efficient time to print labels for your products if you so choose to.

In the eXtra options of 9 Receiving, Bookmanager has an easy way to proceed with this reconciling process. Select Xtr then option d) Reconcile invoice by scanning received stock. If this is not the first time you have done any reconciliation on this station, then you will be told that there is an existing reconciliation list for a different invoice. Answer Yes, you wish to start with a new one (this will not effect any previous receiving sessions or invoices, simply the reconciliation list for the last session will be cleared), and the items on the current invoice will appear.

NOTE: The reconciliation list in Receiving is for reference and label printing only. It does not affect or make changes to the electronic invoice or receiving session on the previous screen.

The Invoice reconciliation screen is divided into two halves. The upper half is the Inventory Card for the highlighted item, and the bottom half is the list of books and their quantities from the current invoice. There are four columns present beside each title:

• S : Whether this item has a special order attached.

• Rcvd : The quantity received on the current invoice.

• Scan : How many of that current item you have scanned in reconciliation

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• Diff : The difference column displays the difference between your Received and Scanned quantities.

When you begin, you will see negative numbers in the Diff column all the way down, indicating that you have not yet reconciled any product. Once you begin to scan product in (thus reconciling it), you will see that the quantity in the Diff column will decrease and the quantity in the Scan column will increase.

If you would like your book labels to print as you are reconciling, select Xtra and press A) Auto-print labels while scanning. This option will print a book label for every book that you scan, in the order that you have scanned them, including special order slips (if enabled). If you keep your scanned books in order, it will make labeling them very easy when you have finished the reconciling process. Enabling this option does so for the duration of your receiving session, until this station has been closed or restarted.

To begin the reconciliation process, press New, defaulting your cursor to a new line at the bottom of the list. Begin scanning in your product. The figures on the screen will change with each scan. If you scan more copies than were received, Bookmanager will stop and warn you:

If you scan an item that has a number of copies reserved for a customer, a red note will appear at the bottom of the screen stating that there are special orders for this item. Continue scanning until you have completed the shipment.

When you have finished scanning in all the product, you will want to check to make sure all the product you have been invoiced for has been scanned in. To check this, press E to leave scan mode, then press Filter, which will bring up a list of any titles that are in discrepancy from what was on the invoice.

If you have over scanned or under-scanned a product, or if a product that was received but not scanned, your discrepancies will appear here. You can now take the time to eyeball what you have scanned in and make sure you have not made any mistakes, and t or b to highlight an item and Edit its scanned quantity if you find errors. Any discrepancies that remain after this process are usually mis-shipments or short-shipments from the supplier. You can use Zrtn here to mark short-shipments

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and create claims, or the Prt command will allow you to print this list and the discrepancies.

Press E to exit the reconciliation list and return to the main receiving list.

Special Orders in Electronic Receiving When an electronic invoice is being processed, special orders attached to that PO# will automatically be filled as in regular receiving. But, as mentioned above, you can also select to be prompted when a title that has been ordered for a customer on another PO#, is being received in your current session. For example, if a title has been ordered for a customer on PO #1234 with PRH, but you are currently receiving PO #1233 from IBC and that same title is on order, Bookmanager will ask you if you would like to fill the order for the customer. You have the option to select Yes or No to this option. If your customer order was originally placed under order #1233 (the order you are receiving) then the order will be filled without prompting.

With filling special orders you also have the option to select to a) Automatically fill any s/o from another PO or you can choose option c) Do not to fill any s/o from another PO.

4. Carton-Level Receiving Carton-Level Receiving can be considered a sub-set of Electronic Receiving, in that it functions virtually the same, except that larger invoices can be broken down into their individual boxes and received/ reconciled one by one, rather than doing the entire invoice in one go.

This feature is especially helpful for large multi-box shipments that have not all arrived at your store at the same time. With standard Electronic Invoices, you would have to wait until all the cartons arrived until you could receive the shipment (as simply bringing in the Electronic Invoice receives the shipment into Inventory in its entirety), or you would have to do some fancy Bookmanager footwork to mark product that has not arrived yet.

Another feature provided by Carton-Level Receiving is dealing with shipments containing multiple invoices in the same box. For example, you could receive a four-box shipments from Hachette Book Group, but those four boxes actually contain product spread out on three invoices. You can receive and print labels for the boxes individually, rather than having to take the time to sort through the shipment and organize it based on invoice.

Before you can utilize Carton-Level Receiving, you must enable it in A Setup, e) Receiving, and say Yes to Do you want Carton-level receiving enabled?

Similar to electronic invoices, your suppliers will need to be contacted if you are not receiving carton-level documents. These are known as Advance Ship Notices (ASN) or X12 856. Not all suppliers are capable of providing carton-level data. Once they enable them for your account, you should automatically start to see them when you access receiving.

TIP: When viewing electronic invoices, press Log to view a list of all the electronic document processing that has been happening within your copy of Bookmanager. This is used mostly by us when providing technical support, but it may be helpful for you as well. Enable carton-level, then when new documents are sent to you, the log can be used to look for any PS-856 lines indicating

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that the supplier is now sending you the carton-level data.

Choosing a carton-level document At the start of receiving, and when your cursor is in the Supplier field, scan the last bar code found on the shipping label affixed to the carton you want to receive (in some cases you may need to try the other bar code(s) on the label, but we are working on standardizing this between suppliers). The carton number will be looked up and you will see a screen like this when a match is found:

The above is a two carton shipment, and the second box’s shipping label barcode has been scanned into the Supplier field. Most often, the shipping labels will show the carton numbers and total count, but there are exceptions to this, (presumably to confuse receivers when publishers ship carton #6 of 5, or #1 of 1 for a 2-carton shipment). Carton numbers are not listed in Bookmanager (to avoid this confusion), only the giant carton ID (also known as SSC) sent from the publisher.

Processing an electronic document With the desired Invoice or Carton highlighted, press Process to start the electronic receiving process. This will also happen if you press R to view the contents, and then press R again.

If anything unusual is found with the shipment, you will be shown a Shipment status warning:

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In the above example, 1 Orders was missing an item that is about to be received. Of course, if you did not record the order at all into Bookmanager, the entire shipment will be reported as missing but you will proceed regardless. Most often you will select the third option, Proceed (entries will be created for items not o/o), to continue.

The rest of receiving is done the same way as a regular electronic invoice, with the next screen giving you a chance to change the way the shipment will be received, then the filtered list being loaded, and on to reconciliation.

Carton-Level considerations (IMPORTANT!) This type of receiving will not be for everyone because it introduces another level of understanding. If you scanned a carton and then Processed it, the rest of the Receiving session remembers this. The Filtered list will only be for the items in the carton. If you use the Xtra option, and have selected option d) Reconcile invoice by scanning received stock, the items to reconcile will only be for what’s in the carton. The invoice(s) total will not be complete until all cartons are received.

Multiples of the same item could be in multiple cartons. When the shipment is processed, the items in Orders will be split into separate rows to facilitate receiving only the quantity in each carton. This happens when carton-level receiving is enabled, even if you did not process the shipment by scanning in cartons.

Print price labels by carton number If you prefer to print price labels all together at the end of your receiving session, you may want to receive the entire multi-piece invoice at once (i.e. do not scan in cartons) but have the labels printed by carton. When you exit to Process Receiving, there is an option to sort labels by carton. Rather than have a list of 500 labels alphabetical by title, your 10-carton shipment will have 10 batches of labels. Simply match each batch of labels to its carton, to make it easier to match the labels with the books.

NOTE: Having tried this method at our bookstore, we find it much faster and more accurate to scan/receive a carton, then scan/reconcile the carton’s contents with auto-labelling enabled. If a twenty carton shipment is going to take much of the day to receive, this method will only show stock as “received” that are moments away from being shelved.

Waiting for the missing carton Carton-level receiving allows you to receive only the boxes that arrived. The books in the carton still in transit will still have the OShp status. The invoice will not be balanced, but there is a note linked to the invoice in 7) Accounts Payable reminding you the shipment is incomplete. Nonetheless, we think it wise to keep paper notes to yourself, as a reminder that boxes were missing.

Cartons with multiple invoices (Hachette) Carton-level receiving can save a lot of time and frustration when a supplier chooses to generate several invoices for all the books in a shipment. Scan/receive using the carton ID even if there is only one box. The scan/reconcile/label process works well, because it ignores the invoice numbers. The Receiving screen showing the invoice totals is misleading, because it can only show one invoice total at a time.

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Once all cartons/products have been received, it’s now time to review each invoice against the list of invoices on the screen, starting with the (randomly selected) one already displayed. Get back to the start of receiving, enter the supplier code and then F while in the Invoice field to review all the recent invoices with that supplier. These should be all the invoices that you just did carton-level receiving for.

Below is an example of a “more challenging” shipment:

In the above example, we have scanned and received one carton from Hachette Book Group. Next, we exited the one invoice BM randomly chose to show on the screen, then used F to get in the Recently received area, where we can see there were six invoices created on that day (Jan15-16). We now use the paper invoices contained in the shipment to verify that the totals listed under the Amount column match the paperwork (i.e. we received what we were billed for). The highlighted item with the ! likely will not match the monetary totals, because the ! tells us there is another unprocessed carton that needs to be received under that invoice number. However, you can finalize the rest of the invoices, and make minor changes to their totals if there were differences due to rounding.

New Releases - What’s the ‘n\a 625272’ invoice for? n/a 625272 is listed as an invoice, but it’s clearly not an official one. In this case, Hachette hasre- leased a shipment containing backlist and new releases in the same carton. The books have arrived a couple of days before the formal release date of the new releases in the shipment. Technically, they are not to be shelved until the day of the release, but it makes sense to put the rest of the shipment out into the store now. To make it difficult for booksellers to “cheat” and sell books before the release date, Hachette will withhold the electronic invoice data until the release date. The electronic carton document was helpful to receive the books, but there was no electronic invoice to match with the new releases.

As before, and where a new release should not be shelved until the official release date, you should set aside these titles, even though they are now “received” into your system. If it is important to not

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show these titles as received in your inventory, you can go back into receiving and Backorder them. There are no features in Bookmanager to make this process more elegant. When the electronic invoice finally arrives, it will be matched with the electronic carton information, however, the dummy invoice number used to receive the books will NOT be updated. You will need to use your receiving talent to find the dummy invoice and then use the Xtra option c) Change (correct) the invoice number and/ or invoice date to make corrections, so that it matches the formal invoice.

Correcting Mistakes Mistakes can easily happen. Perhaps items were ordered under the wrong supplier code. Maybe they were received instead of backordered. Whatever the case, you will have an opportunity to correct these items before you leave Receiving (and even after receiving).

Filter When receiving, the list can be a mixture of items received this session, last session, or not received at all. To make finding your mistakes easier, use the Flt (Filter) command. This will condense the receiving list to include only items that have been received in this session. If you have exited the invoice by using the E key at any point, items received prior to using the E key may not be included. Using the Flt command will correct this. You can always get out of the filtered list by pressing Flt a second time.

Undo While receiving, if you mistakenly Backorder, Cancel or Receive an item, simply use t b to highlight the item that needs correction and press Undo. This will set the item back to its latest status. In most cases, this means that the item will be On Order again.

Edit You can Edt (Edit) any item that does not have the status of R* (this * status means it was not received in the current session). Using Edt on an item that is not received will give you access to the Order, Title, Qty and Price fields. If the item is received, you can also access the discount (%%), Sell, PM and Customer Type (S) fields. Editing will not allow you to change the item’s status.

If you need to change anything in the top half of the screen, whether it be the entire inventory card or the order details, select A Edt. Your cursor will access the Inventory card portion of the screen. Make the changes and d to save them.

Delete The Del (Delete) command will remove the item completely from both 9 Receiving and 1 Orders. Do not Del an item to un-receive it: use Undo instead. All records of the order itself will be lost if you delete, including special order information. An item should only be deleted if it was received as New by mistake, or was never really ordered in the first place.

Transfer Sometimes an item may be ordered or received from the wrong supplier. Agency changes happen,

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and billings change as companies merge. The Trf (Transfer) command was developed to handle these situations when they occur between the times when an item is ordered and received. Bookmanager only allows you to receive an item from the same supplier that it is on order with.

For example, if you originally ordered something from Bantam Books, but it got shipped and invoiced from Penguin Random House, you need to receive it under Penguin Random House. Start the receiving session using the Bantam supplier code, as that is where the titles on order will appear, using the Penguin Random House invoice number (leaving the Freight and GST fields blank is OK). Highlight each item on this invoice and press Trf. Type in the code for Penguin Random House, leave the option Make the order pending? as No, and d. As you Trf Item by item, they will disappear from this invoice. When you are done, exit the invoice and receive the items under Penguin Random House.

Alternatively, you can also do a transfer of orders en masse from the 8 Order Processing area. Find the PO, select Misc, and use the Change the Supplier option. You will be warned that the PO has been sent, so say Yes to this to make the switch to another supplier.

Xtr (Extra) Options There are additional options available in 9 Receiving that will be used often to correct information and perform specialized tasks. Access them by pressing Xtra while in an invoice.

Balancing the Invoice When you are finished receiving all the items in a shipment, and you have made all corrections needed, the Total in the top part of the screen should match the total reported on the paper invoice. If you are working from a packing slip, the total on the screen should be close to your estimate. This is the amount that will be posted to Accounts payable and the GL.

If the amounts are different, but fairly close, it is possible that it could just be a rounding difference between the supplier’s system and Bookmanager. You can try to exit the invoice, and change the total to match the paper invoice. It will notify you if the difference is too much (more than 1%). If this is the case, you will need to find where the error is.

You can force Bookmanager to do a quick recalculation of the invoice by selecting Xtr, and selecting option a) Add to filtered list all entries in Orders file that use Inv#, and then Xtr again to run option b) Recalculate totals for Inv#. This will often correct simple problems of calculation that occur when you exit and re-enter receiving.

If the amounts still do not match, there is a discrepancy somewhere. First check the QtyRcvd field at the top left part of the screen. That number represents the total number of units received; it should match the same quantity listed on the invoice. If it does not match, then you know you made a mistake with a Qty while you were receiving. Second, check the SellTl (selling total) field in the upper centre part of the screen. That number is the retail value of the items received on the invoice. The retail figure usually should also appear on the paper invoice, and should equal the amount on screen. If it is not equal, then you know you made a mistake somewhere in the Price or Sell fields. Same goes for the InvNet field. Some suppliers will list the net cost of everything, so you can compare those to see if you made a mistake in the Price or %% (discount) fields. Review your filtered (Flt) invoice to see where the error might be.

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Reprinting all labels for an Invoice If you ever need to reload an invoice to reprint all of the labels (perhaps the print job was interrupted or you ran out of label stock halfway through), this is easily done using the Xtr option a) Add to filtered list all entries in Orders file that use Inv#. First, enter the supplier code and invoice number of the invoice that the items were originally received on. d until you are in the List view, and use Xtra a) Add to filtered list all entries in Orders file that use Inv# to reload the file. Now you can exit out of receiving and choose to reprint the product labels using the Process Receiving Session screen for the entire shipment, rather than highlighting each item individually and doing Lbl (label).

Changing a Previously Received Invoice Bookmanager only allows you to change items in 9 Receiving that have been received in the current session (you have not exited the invoice) under the same invoice number. If you realize you made a mistake on a previously received invoice, there is an additional step needed before you can Edt, Del, or Rcv to correct the mistake.

First, enter the supplier code and invoice number of the invoice that the items were originally received on. The invoice date, freight, and GST should come up as originally entered. Simply d to advance your cursor to the bottom half, List view of the screen.

TIP: After putting in the supplier code, leave the Invoice# field blank and press R. Bookman- ager will generate a list of EDI invoices and past receiving for that supplier that you can choose from, with the most recent one first. Highlight the one you need and press R.

Next, press Xtr and select option a) Add to filtered list all entries in Orders file that use Inv#.

The receiving list now only shows items that were received on the indicated invoice number. Note that the status is also R (without an *) for all of them. You can now make any corrections needed. Be aware that this list of items will also reappear in the Process Receiving Session (discussed later) and unless you wish to reprint the labels, etc., it should be purged or those reprinting options unselected.

Changing an Invoice Number Perhaps you received a number of items against an invoice number that was typed in incorrectly. Maybe you received a shipment against a packing slip number, and now you have the real invoice. In either case, you want the receiving history to have the correct invoice number for reference, for returns, and for A/P.

To change the invoice number that a shipment was received on, go to 9 Receiving and enter the original (incorrect) invoice information. Press R until you get your cursor to the bottom list half of the screen, and then press Xtr. Select option a) Add to filtered list all entries in Orders file that use Inv# to bring all the items into the current session. Next, press Xtr again, but this time choose c) Change (correct) the invoice number and/or invoice date. Your cursor will go to the Inv field at the top of the screen for you to type in the correct number. You can also change the InvDte here too. Press d to complete the change and you are ready to continue. Make any other appropriate changes or press E to exit the invoice. The invoice number can also be changed through A/P using the Edt command on a invoice.

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Finding items still on-order If you are working with a large invoice and want to quickly identify those items that are still on-order with the contained PO#’s after you have received everything, you can use the Xtra option f) Find items still O/O within the PO#s received on this invoice. You will be notified if any items are still O/O, and then shown those items.

Xtr Options for Used and Remainder Book Receiving The last three Xtr options will be discussed in more detail under the Receiving Remainders and Used Books section later on. In short, g) Enable/Disable Remainder Book receiving is a quick way to enable receiving of Remainder/Bargain product during the current receiving session for any supplier. h) Change supplier’s price and discount for items on this invoice is used if items were originally received without knowing the exact cost, often the case in Hurts or Remainder shipments. Option i) Adjust item costs based on Invoice total is utilized for Used books, and can standardize the profit margin for items on an invoice to figure out costs.

Exiting and Finalizing the Invoice When you are finished receiving the shipment, and you are confident that it is balanced, you need to exit the invoice and continue on to the Process Receiving Session screen. To do so, E to be asked if you wish to exit this receiving list. Answer Yes, and your cursor will advance to the Total field. Make any changes needed to the Freight or HST (tax) amounts.

If you are satisfied with the Total figure, then press d or E to save the receiving session. If the total does not equal the one on the paper invoice, and the difference seems to be only a small amount (less than 1%), simply type the amount on the actual paper invoice into the Total field and press d to save it. Bookmanager will allow you to change the Total by up to 1%; a rounding error should never be more than that. Once you have pressed E, Bookmanager will be waiting for you to begin another invoice. If you are not receiving any more shipments now, you can press d once you have confirmed your totals, or E on the Supplier field to access the Process Receiving Session screen.

Process Receiving Session To be clear, once product has been received and their Stat changed to an R for received, there is nothing more needed to finalize their on-hands or the invoice itself. The Process Receiving Session screen is simply a convenient way to handle four final features:

• Print or reprint product labels and Special Order labels/slips (if they were not printed as you were receiving them).

• Post Special Ordered items to POS as held sales under the customers’ names.

• Print a list of price changes to pull/inspect floor stock.

• Print a Bookmanager generated invoice.

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The actions/options within this area are toggled on/off or accessed by typing the associated letter. Items on the left, in green and with a red asterisk (*) next to them will be done, while grey processes will not.

a) Add S/Os to POS: When an order with a customer name attached (S/O or Reserve) is received, it is not automatically taken out of your aOH and reserved for your customer. Instead, enabling this option will take that Special Order item and create a new Held sale for it in POS, using the customer’s name in the To field. If you work with special orders, you should have this option enabled by default.

b) S/O labels: If you do not choose to print Special Order Slips on labels, enable this option to print them on paper. If you did not print labels while you were receiving, also enable this option to print them at the end with the rest of the product labels.

d) Price labels: If you do not print labels while receiving or reconciling, enable this option to print them now. Price labels will print according to option i) Sort by. If you select Invoice, all the labels for each invoice will be grouped and printed in alphabetical order by title. Carton will group the labels by carton within each invoice, and within each carton print alphabetically by title. RcvSeq (received sequence) will print labels in the order they were received or reconciled.

e) List of not labeled: If some but not all items had labels generated while receiving or reconciling, enable this option to generate a printed list of items still needing labels.

g) Pricing changes: If items with existing on-hands were received, and Sell prices were changed to something other than the existing sell price, then receiving will have warned you of the price change, and ask if you would like that change mentioned on a Price Change report. When enabled, this option will print a list of those items with price changes for easy reference, and so you can check your existing stock on the floor and take action.

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h) _ Invoice copies: This option will print a Bookmanager generated invoice. This option is usually only needed for consignment shipments where the supplier may not have provided an official invoice. Invoices are printed using your Invoice printer, on letter size 8.5”x11” paper.

i) Sort by: Refers to how labels and Invoice items will be grouped and sorted for printing.

s) Browse or set start point: The bottom half of the Process Receiving Session screen lists a preview of what items and invoices are in queue for printing. This list is in carton/invoice order, with newer invoices at the bottom. If a previous session was not processed and therefore not cleared, those items may still be at the top of the list. You can manually select a start point to print labels/documents for by using this option. Pressing S will allow you to highlight a point to start from, and press R. Anything including and below this point will now be processed. If you want to undo this start point, simply select S again to reload the full list.

l) Test label: This will print a single test label. This can be used to make sure your label printer is working properly and aligned before sending a large job.

f) Choose another/past session: You can select previous receiving sessions (those that have been processed and finalized here) to reload and reprint. When selected, you will see a list of sessions broken down by Station and date/time.

z) Save these settings: Use this to set the defaults for the options that you most commonly select.

Once you have selected your options and checked to make sure your label printer/invoice printer is ready, press d here to process the session/batch and return to 9 Receiving.

After a receiving session has been processed, the session/batch is reset. When you exit Receiving without doing any receiving or maintenance, this screen will be empty except for an option to access previous sessions.

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Below is an example showing a list of previous sessions after using file to access the list:

Most items will be a Backup of a session. You can see and access sessions from other stations on the network. For example, you can use a computer that cannot normally print labels to do some receiving, then use your computer to access its Current session and process and print the labels. You will discover that the “other” station using the session must be out of receiving before you can access it from another station. You will be locked out of receiving if someone is looking at your session.

NOTE: If you don’t want to do the printing right away, press E to get back to the main menu. The labels, or special orders etc., will be kept until you are ready to print them out. But, remember that any subsequent receiving will be added to the list until it is processed.

Receiving from Foreign Suppliers Bookmanager has the ability to receive shipments in a foreign currency and automatically calculate your domestic currency selling price. This ability makes it very simple to receive off of invoices that are billed in a foreign currency, and you do not have to manually calculate exchange and converted prices.

The first thing to be sure of is that your Country Code in the General Setup is accurate. Go to A Setup, select a) General, and make sure f) Your country code (eg. CA=Canada, US=United States) is set correctly.

Next, make sure there is an entry for the foreign supplier in 3 Suppliers. The Currency Code displayed in the Crncy field needs to reflect the correct country. For example, all American suppliers should have US in the Crncy field, regardless of your country code. Similarly, all Canadian suppliers should have CA in the Crncy field. Therefore, if Your country code is CA, any supplier with the Crncy code of CA should have no exchange calculated, and any supplier with a different Crncy code will have the specified exchange rate applied to invoice prices.

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Once you have changed the Crncy field, make sure the exchange rateExch ( field) is the price you pay to purchase the foreign currency. For example, if your country code is CA and you are entering a supplier with the Crncy code of US, it would work as follows. If it costs $1.40 CAD to buy $1 USD, the Exch used in all suppliers with a US Crncy code is 1.40. The Markup field should contain the same number, or be a few more points to account for other fees or to compensate for lower margins.

Now, you can go about receiving normally from this supplier. Remember that you should be entering the supplier’s currency into the Price field as you receive. Bookmanager will automatically convert the Sell price to domestic currency based on the ratio in the Exch field.

Receiving Remainders and Used Books The need to separate your remainders and used books from your regular “new” inventory is essential in that it allows you to have a single product number with various conditions and prices. When you’re looking up a book in Inventory, you want to be able to search by keyword or ISBN and find a listing, but also be able to efficiently see its various conditions and prices. The same goes for your customers using your Webstore: they will be able to search for a single book and, if you have various conditions of new, used, and remainder of that one ISBN, they will only see a single listing with various Add to Cart options.

Finally, at the POS, a product can be scanned and the system will alert you if there are cheaper/different conditions available for the customer to choose from. This often times earns your staff “brownie points” when a customer has found a new book they want to purchase, and didn’t know you had a discounted copy shelved somewhere else. The system will tell your staff of the cheaper edition upon checkout, and your customer will be excited to know your store is looking out for their best deal.

There is no single way to work with remainders, hurts, and used books in Bookmanager. Rather, it depends on your desired level of control and measurement, and often depends on your volume. The following procedures are practices our own bookstore utilizes and has refined over the years. We recommend that you give Bookmanager support a call to discuss these topics further and to gauge how you should go about managing your stock and receiving of these unique (albeit essential) product types.

TIP: A common proverb that seems to be floating around the book industry these days is,“A bookstore that sells just new books is a hobby. A bookstore that sells new books, remainders, hurts, non-book product, and used books is a business.”

Remainders, Hurts and Bargain Books When it comes to ordering remainders, they generally fall into two categories: orders placed using the Webstore/system (Book Depot, Daedalus, etc.), and those not ordered in Bookmanager in any way.

Many of you will have experience asking for a “hurts” skid of books that comes loosely packed in boxes. You do not know what you are getting, rather it is a random assortment of books and a bit of a gamble, but prices per unit are so low that it doesn’t matter that a chunk of the shipment will be unsellable. Your overall margins will be soaring into 60-80%, so the little bit of junk is offset by that great margin. Since orders are not placed in Bookmanager, there are no order records to receive against, so remainder/hurts shipments are often received Manually with New. You may not even know a price per unit, but this can be fixed after the fact. Even if orders were created/sent from Bookman-

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ager, you still receive manually, not using the electronic invoice.

For example, if you have a skid of remainders that cost you $2000, and the shipping packslip says you were given 1000 books, you can start with a Price (cost) of $2.00 per item. When you are finished receiving the entire skid, your QtyRcvd says 963. You can now find the correct cost per unit ($2000 / 963 units = $2.08/unit) and use the Receiving Xtra option h) Change supplier’s price and discount for items on this invoice to change all your costs at once.

Initial Remainder Setup Before receiving Remainder stock, you will want to set up your inventory and system to handle and differentiate this product.

Stock Conditions First, you need to set a unique Stock Condition for this product. The way Bookmanager differentiates remainder and used product numbers from their new counterparts is by replacing the last “check” digit of the ISBN with a single letter. To set a custom Stock Condition, go to A Setup and select y) Stock conditions.

Letters A-Z can be used for conditions, but for remainder/hurts books, you should use the letter R. Bookmanager has a few built in processes specific to remainders/hurts that knows to look for the letter R. You can name the long description (e.g.: R-Bargain) anything you would like, but it should be clear to your staff and customers what condition this book is in, as this long description will be used on your Webstore. We chose the word Bargain simply because it was more recognizable to the average customer than the term “Remainder” or “Hurt”.

You have the ability to set up to nine different stock conditions, with each condition linked to a Class. Linking a stock condition to a class can help with receiving large shipments, as you won’t have to manually select a class for each item received, and the books themselves will be grouped in a way to ease with reporting and analysis. Remember to add the Class first to your 4 Class file by using New. For reporting and analysis purposes, we suggest giving your remainder class its own Section Code as well (e.g.: SA for Sale Books).

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All that said, you can leave the Class field blank if you want to be able to assign remainders their own Class based on the title and subject matter.

The next option, ShowOnOrder?, will tell your Webstore whether books of this condition will have their order status displayed. Often times and for most conditions, this option is set to No because you do not want customers order reserving this type of stock (as they often take longer to fulfill than standard supplier orders).

Finally, you can specify whether this stock condition will be applied to used products that may need further detail pertaining to the physical condition and quality of the book. Simply toggle the option Used? to Yes if this stock condition is for used books.

Press d to save your changes and send this information to your Webstore.

Remainder Suppliers If you have certain suppliers that you only receive remainders/hurts from, you can flag their 3 Supplier cards to always receive product this way.

Under the Type field, simply input the code you chose for your remainders (likely R). Next, it is best to set up remainder suppliers with their own Crncy (currency code) to make receiving a bit easier. In the above example, we have given Book Depot its own Crncy code of BD, using a Markup of 2.66 and SD (short discount) of 60. What this does is come receiving, Bookmanager will calculate a suggested Sell price based on these rules. Most remainder/bargain product sits at a minimum 60% profit margin, so these rules will result in suggested Sells that sit around 60% PM. Of course you can override the actual Sell price when receiving, but having Bookmanager suggest a good starting point is a time saver.

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Labels Finally, we highly recommend you label your remainder product, and have the labels produced be of the Sale Label format. To make sure this action is automatic, go into A Setup, i) Printers. Under BookLabel, make sure the Do sale label for field has either CDS or DS. Labelling your bargain stock on the front cover is also a nice visual cue for your customers that this product is on sale.

Receiving Remainders Receiving remainders is done like any other Manual receiving session. If you have flagged your Suppli- er to be a remainder type, then everything is automatic and you can see that product received will automatically have their last digit replaced with your custom stock condition.

WARNING: If your remainder supplier provides you with an electronic invoice for remainder goods (e.g.: Book Depot), DO NOT USE THE EDI INVOICE TO RECEIVE AGAINST. Instead, delete any electronic remainder invoices from receiving to make sure they are not used, and manually receive the product by scanning it. Electronic invoices cannot be used simply because pricing, product ISBNs, and costs of goods will be wrong and cause problems.

If the Supplier has not been flagged as a remainder type (for example, you may receive mostly new books from a certain supplier, but for this instance you have a remainder shipment from them), you can manually enable Remainder mode by selecting Xtr from the Receiving List view, and choosing option g) Enable/Disable Remainder Book receiving.

In both cases, you will see the stock condition listed in red below the QtyRcvd field. [see above]

WARNING: If you are receiving remainder orders that have been placed in the system, the products must have been ordered in Bookmanager using their remainder ISBN. Rcv to receive an item that has its full ISBN will not automatically change the last digit to the custom stock condition code.

When you scan a remainder for the first time to receive it, Bookmanager will automatically grab the full retail price and insert it into the Note field with the special indicator //o. For example, a book with a retail price of $14.95 will have //o14.95 placed in the Note field. This tells the system to create a Sale label that will show the Discounted price in large bold font, and a smaller price point that says

279 RECEIVING | Receiving Remainders and Used Books

Original Price $14.95. If you find that the original price Bookmanager has grabbed does not match what is printed on the back of the book, you can simply b to the Note field and manually update it.

Once again, we recommend you use Xtr e) Enable auto-labeling to have labels print as you scan stock to receive it. This is a huge time saver when working with massive remainder shipments of hundreds if not thousands of books. Printing labels at the very end in alphabetical order and having to match them to their books would be a nightmare.

Used Books Used Books are received very similarly to remainders, but the initial set up has its own nuances, and how you go about issuing Trade Credit is more of a personal preference. The process outlined below is what we have found most stores working with Used stock have implemented, but feel free to tweak it to suit your level of control.

The basic situation is a customer brings in used books, you receive them into your system, and then issue them credit either on account, towards purchases, or as cash back. This whole process can be done very quickly if you have a solid framework and policy to go by, so there is often no need for the customer to leave you with the product to give you time to decide trade credit and receive it.

Initial Used Book Setup Just like remainders, you need to set a Used Stock Condition (e.g.: U-Used). See the previous section for those instructions. Ensure the last Stock Condition option Used? is set to Yes.

Next, decide on your trade policy. Some stores want to make things as clear cut and simple for themselves and their customers, so they work off formulas. For example, you could offer 20% cash back on the printed retail price, and 25% store credit on the retail price (so the customer gets 5% more on their trade if they choose to keep the money in-store). Another example would be to set a fixed cost, such as $3 per hardcover, $2 per paperback, and so on. If you work with rare books or older editions, you may opt to also have special terms for those items and negotiate a trade credit on the spot. Whatever you decide, make it simple so you can make a issue trade credit consistently and on the spot.

Trade In Credit Class Setup You will want to create a special Class for Trade In Credits to be attached to. This allows for better accountability and separation of sales. From 4 Class, select New. Follow the below example for the fields:

280 RECEIVING | Receiving Remainders and Used Books

We have given our trade Class the name of ZZ TRADE simply so it falls at the very end of our Class list for easy reference, and so it doesn’t get accidentally selected for anything else. The Se (section code) should be set to something unique for used books, such as UB. Use u in that field if you need to create a new Se.

Make sure to blank out the tax code under the Tx field so that no tax will be issued or redeemed on trade credits. If your blank tax code is used as your default taxation, then you will need to input the tax code that corresponds to no taxes here. Next, in the %% (discount) field, put a zero there to indicate that you can never discount trade credit issued. Finally, under the Rcv and Sls fields, u to create a new GL Acct code that is unique to Used books. We have arbitrarily chosen 212:

Create a Trade In Credit Inventory Card Within 2 Inventory, select New to create an entry used to issue trade credit in 4 POS. In the ISBN field, name it something that can be easily typed in 4 POS. Naming its ISBN TRADE or TRADE_IN- CRED will allow you to simply type TRADE or TRAD into POS and have it come up. The price is left as 0.00, the Title can be whatever you like, and the Supl (supplier) is your own store’s supplier code (e.g.: MB is Mosaic Books’ code in 3 Suppliers). Under Class, assign the one you just created for Trade In Credit (e.g.: ZZ TRADE). Within Note, specify two carats ^^ to tell the system not to track on- hands of this item (as it will never be received nor does it have physical stock). Also specify a hidden Note Indicator of //-$ to tell the system to issue a credit for any amounts this item is sold at. d to save and move on.

Used Book Supplier Setup Much like you did for your remainder suppliers, you will need to create a single supplier for all your used books to be received under. You can name this supplier anything you like, but make it clear so it’s easy to remember come Receiving. For example, use the supplier code USED. The only piece of information this account really needs is the Type field needs to be set to the Stock Condition you set up for used books (e.g.: U-Used).

Receiving Used Books Start a new receiving session in 9 Receiving and use your used book Supplier code in the Supl field. For Inv number, select ? and press R to generate an invoice number based on today’s date. Leave the remaining fields as is, and press d to advance to the list section of the screen. You should notice your used stock condition listed in red below the QtyRcvd field. If you want to print labels for this used

281 RECEIVING | Receiving Remainders and Used Books stock, remember to enable auto-labeling using Xtr and e) Enable auto-labeling. Select New to start a new line, and press R on the blank Order field to have Bookmanager generate one for you. Scan in the first used book, and either fill in the title information or allow Bookmanager to query our Titlelink database to fill it in for you. Again, if title information was automatically grabbed for you, the Note field will be filled in with an Original Price indicator. Don’t worry about the bottom Condition fields yet, as we’ll fill them in later, so instead d to save the entry and move back to the list view.

Pricing your used books is personal preference, but Bookmanager can help out with the math. For example, if you give 20% of the retail price on used books as credit, you can simply input the used book’s retail price into the Price field (e.g.: 35.00) and then put 80 into the %% (discount) field. This is basically saying you are getting an 80% discount on the retail price, which will amount to 20% owing as a cost ($7.00). You can then set the Sell price or use the PM field to set one.

Alternatively, you could achieve the same result by putting 7.00 into the Price field, 0 in the %% field, and then set a Sell price or PM. Both methods will result in a Total of $7.00, the amount you would issue your customer in trade credit for that item.

The next step of assigning a Used Book Condition is not mandatory, so you can d or R past it if you choose. Used Book Conditions are displayed in 2 Inventory, when you do book searches, and can be displayed on your Webstore. Conditions are also important if you plan on uploading your used book inventory to third party sites such as ABEbooks.com or Amazon, as those sites require the condition/ quality of each used book you are listing. The available conditions to choose from in Bookmanager have been modeled after Amazon’s standards, which have become industry standard.

Type the desired condition number in the first Condition field, or select u to see a list of the available conditions. Though the terminology is debatable, Amazon views “Very Good” as the best condition, and “Acceptable” as worst. The next long field is used if you would like to specify more detail about the condition of this used book. For example, you could input, “no torn pages or cover, a little wear on the spine”. This would appear on your Webstore and in 2 Inventory. Again, this field is not mandatory. Press d to save your changes and move on to the next used book. Used book conditions and extended explanations are displayed in the upper right area of Receiving for reference. If you want to change the condition or explanation after the fact, you can do so by Editing the receiving line item, or within 2 Inventory by Editing the inventory card.

NOTE: Occasionally, you may want to take in a used book that is already in stock, and the new one you are receiving is in a different condition from the one you already have. You can choose to

282 RECEIVING | Receiving Remainders and Used Books simplify things by receiving this new copy under the same stock condition and condition code as your older stock (you can specify multiple prices for a single ISBN). If you need to have this new copy received under a different condition, or anticipate seeing this scenario often, you need to create more stock conditions under the A S menu y) Stock conditions. For example, the majority of your used stock will be received under U-Used, but you can create V-Used and W-Used for the situations when you need to receive copies of the same book with different conditions and prices. Three used codes should be sufficient for most users, but you can create as many as you like to allow multiple prices and conditions. Please contact Bookmanager support to discuss the work flow and drawbacks of this setup.

If you follow this process and scan in multiple used books, your Total will reflect how much is owed the customer. Make note of the Total (as it is not automatically transfered to POS), and exit and finalize receiving like usual. You do not need to fill in Freight or HST (tax). When you are at the Process Receiving Session screen, you can choose to enable option h) _ Invoice copies if you want to print out a receiving invoice for you or your customer. Some stores like to have a copy printed and signed by the customer as a record of the purchase.

One final scenario that often occurs with used books is receiving an entire box of books andjust buying the bulk of the books for a set price. For example, you could be given a box of 10 books, and the customer is fine with $40 for the lot. You could choose to do the actual receiving at a later time just to offer your customer prompt service, and skip to issuing credit in the POS. When it comesto actually receiving the items, start like usual, but ignore the Price and %% for each title and instead focus on setting Sell prices. When you have finished entering all the books, press E and then Xtr, selecting option i) Adjust item costs based on Invoice total. Enter the total you paid the customer for the lot, and Bookmanager will go through and figure out item costs based on this total and their respective Sell prices. It will also standardize the PM for each book.

283 RECEIVING | Accounts payable

Issuing Trade Credit for Used Books in POS Go to 4 POS and select New to start a new sale. If you are going to be issuing the customer credit on account for their used books trade in, you will need to type their name or phone number into the To field. If you are giving cash back, you do not need a customer name attached to this sale, but it is still recommend for tracking purposes. Press R or d until your cursor is in the ISBN field. Here, type the start of the ISBN you created your trade credit Inventory item under. In this example, you would type trade plus R twice to bring up the TRADE_IN_CRED ISBN.

The sell Price for this trade credit ISBN is the Total from the previous Receiving screen. Notice that though you typed a positive amount, the Sub-total preview and Tendering screen both show a negative amount, meaning a credit. Make sure there are no taxes being “redeemed” here.

If the customer wants to make a purchase at the same time as receiving trade credit, they can do so by you scanning those items to be purchased after the trade credit ISBN. The tendering screen will show the balance owing, and if you have attached a customer account, you can choose CrOnAcct to put money on account for them, or choose Cash Ref to give cash back.

Accounts payable Once you have finished receiving items, and you escape to post the totals, the invoice is added to the 7 Accounts payable area. If you go to that screen, and Srch for by supplier, you should find a list of invoices that were received. Any changes that you make to invoices in receiving that alter the total will automatically change the entry posted here. Some changes are best made from Receiving after the fact, and other times it is best to do it directly to the invoice in A/P. Consult Bookmanager support for more information if you need to make changes to previously posted invoices.

284 REPORTS | 1) Custom Inventory Reports

Reports 0 Reports from the Main Menu displays a sub-menu dividing the major report areas. Reports can be created to analyze inventory, sales, and suppliers, as well as to do reordering off of and identify problem areas.

1) Custom Inventory Reports Custom Inventory Reports is an advanced reporting tool that is used when none of the other Reports will satisfy what you are after. It utilizes filters and Boolean Logic (all values are reduced to either TRUE or FALSE) to select data and sales, and the output of the reports can be exported to various formats. Due to the vast amount of possibilities with this area, we recommend calling Bookmanager support if you get stuck, as the logic takes some getting used to.

From the initial menu there are the five built in yet customizable sales reports and a variety of other Inventory reports that can be tweaked to suit your needs. There are many different options and con- figurations for these reports, and the best way to learn what they can do is to experiment with them.

Once you have the list of the Custom Reports on your screen, you can press R to select the one

285 REPORTS | 1) Custom Inventory Reports

you want. Alternatively, you can create your own by pressing New at any time.

When you are inside a report you will have four main areas to customize: Scope, index, Columns, and Filters.

Scope This allows you to select which part of the inventory file will be scanned. If you set it to Invent Entire File, it will scan the complete inventory file for matches, which can take a while if your inventory is large. You can also choose to scan only a particular supplier, classification, etc. If this is a sales report, you can choose Sales from period to specify a date range, and whether you want to find Sales, Adjustments, Helds or Transfers (for Multi-Store only). Other options for the Scope are: Invent Supplier, Invent Class, Invent Author, Invent ISBN prefix, Sales inv# range, ISBNs imported from, Cus- tom list. If you already have a Scope selected and want to go back and change the general scope, select Scope then press E to access the list.

Index This allows you to select how the titles will be listed once the matches are found. You get three levels of indexing, and you can choose to index by [blank], Edition, ISBN, Title, Author, Supplier, Publish- er, Class, Quantity Sold, Notes, Publication Date, UPC, Available O/H, On Order, and Subject. Often times, the index is organized in terms of how your physical stock is shelved. In that case, you would select Class + Author + Title to show results first grouped by Class, then within Class by author’s last name, then within each author by title. Use t when in the index list to access the [blank] no index option.

286 REPORTS | 1) Custom Inventory Reports

Columns

Here you choose what information you want displayed. When you select Column, you can b or t and press R to change the information that will be presented in the column. You can r or l to get to the other columns. Press E to get back to the main menu and save your changes. If you get stuck you can follow the on-screen help to decide how to add or remove columns, or expand or contract each column. The max _ characters are guidelines for what will fit on a physically printed document. If you are planning on exporting the report to a spreadsheet format, those max restrictions do not apply. The (64 portrait) in the upper right hand side tells you your current report width in characters and print orientation. If you go over a max width, that number will be in red.

Filters This allows you to include, Exclude, or Must certain conditions within the report. If you use more than one include filter, it can create contradictions and skew your results, so we recommend only using one include filter. Same goes for Must filters. Using a Must filter alongside an Include filter will work, and you can have as many Exclude filters as you want. There are 37 filters to choose from, so use b to see options below the bottom of the list.

Once you have chosen the conditions, you can E to the main report overview and run an Update command to have the report scan for matches. When it has completed updating, you can d to look at the matches.

Working with a custom report With the matching titles listed on your screen, you have a variety of options for working with the report. You can Print/export the report, Order from it, make inventory Adjustments, view title History, adjust the Columns to show different information, or access the Xtra options to perform specialized tasks.

287 REPORTS | 1) Custom Inventory Reports

If you choose to Print the contents, you get a menu with several print preview choices that can also include subtotals.

Use b t to select the print preview option, and type numbers 1-3 to specify if you want subtotals. The subtotal option selected will have a red asterisk * next to it. Once the print preview is generated, you can then choose Print again to: send the report to a physical printer (Main printer), Email it, eFax it, send it to the Receipt printer, generate a basic Text file, generate an Excel specific spreadsheet (the previous screen option Excel specific comma separated (csv) should have been selected in this case), generate a PDF file, or send the report products/ISBNs as a list to your Webstore. Once again type numbers 1-3 to select how much of the document to print.

288 REPORTS | 1) Custom Inventory Reports

Xtra Options

When you have completed your report, there are several Xtra options that address unique situations:

a) Increase orders to meet MinOH in Inventory If you are doing a sales report, and have set minimum OH quantities for titles, this option will increase your orders to meet those minimums. This option will factor in your current aOH and aOO quantities, so if a title has a MinOH of 4, an aOO of 1, and an aOH of 1, then this routine would only add 2 more items to Pending Orders using the default Supplier for that item.

b) Export report for remote Bookmanager use Multi-store only. If you need to use this report at another location, use this option and specify the store number. That store will be able to view it from the 0 Reports, Multi-store option.

c) Change MinOh for all entries on this report You can change all of the items on the report you have created to now have MinOh quantities. This is a handy way to reset or remove all the MinOH quantities for items on a report, by selecting 0 in this field.

d) Change Inventory Retail price for selected entries on this report You can select all items on this report with a certain retail price and change those en masse to a new price. This can be helpful when dealing with remainder books that need to be marked down from a certain price.

e) Change Inventory Cost for all entries on this report This allows you to adjust the cost of all the items on the report. You can set the cost to be a percentage of the retail prices, or you can set all items’ costs to be a dollar value. Again, this routine is more targeted for remainder or used book inventory.

f) Change Class for all entries on this report If you would like to change the class field on a range of titles, you can create a report that contains those titles, and then universally change the class field on those titles through this option.

289 REPORTS | 2) Inventory Reports

g) Add/Remove keyword to Notes fields This option will add or remove words/keywords/sentences from the Note field of all the titles in your report. This can be a very valuable tool if you need to quickly add a note to a large selection of titles. Applications of a common keyword could be to mark window display stock for easy grouping and management. The Delimiter encases the keyword(s) in the specified symbol as to separate them from regular words in the Note field. For example, using a [ (square bracket) delimiter and the keyword of Bernard Window will result in [Bernard Window] being added to the Note field. This makes removing keywords and updating this report easier, as only inventory items with those words in brackets will be selected.

Deleting in the custom reports When you select Del (Delete) while viewing the contents of a report you are given two additional options that you do not see when you do the same function in 2 Inventory.

• Report: This will remove this item from the report only, without affecting this item in Inventory.

• Global: This will give you a menu with several options for changing the inventory records for ALL the items on this report. Whichever you choose will apply the selected status to the inventory cards listed on this report.

2) Inventory Reports The Inventory Reports offer a variety of ways to summarize information from your Inventory. In each of these reports, backup copy reports can be accessed by entering the type of report and pressing File. Highlight the particular report needed and press R.

Reports usually need to be updated by selecting Update to refresh their contents or specify new options. Option c) Month-end Inventory totals cannot be updated manually, rather it is done as part of the Month-End System Maintenance.

Often times, reports a) Inventory stats (activity by month), b) Mid-Month Inventory totals, and d) Inventory performance report can be helpful for accountants when doing year end.

290 REPORTS | 2) Inventory Reports

a) Inventory Stats (activity by month) This is a monthly overview of your inventory’s performance grouped by class. It is updated automatically during each month-end routine, but you can Update it part way through a month. It can be indexed by class or by date.

b) Mid-Month Inventory totals This report will tell you the actual value of your inventory, and is identical to report c) Month-end Inventory totals. Update it when you would like to get a total as of the moment. If you say Yes to recalculating totals, an entry will be posted to the GL indicating any changes in value. The report is grouped by class and section code. If your on-hand counts are quite accurate and you have received almost every book through Bookmanager, then the report is accurate. c) Month-end Inventory totals (updated by Month-end) This report is the same as the previous one, but cannot be updated manually. The Month-End routine

291 REPORTS | 2) Inventory Reports

updates this report. Accessing the report and selecting Files will generate a list of totals from previous month-ends.

d) Inventory Performance Report This report is updated monthly during the Month-End routines, and is included in the Month-End printouts. It can also be Updated anytime, but some of the figures may be misleading because they will not include the entire month.

The 12-month breakdown which ages your inventory, and the breakdown of last month’s sales shows you how ineffective it is to keep inventory in stock for long periods of time. Most of the reports we

292 REPORTS | 2) Inventory Reports

have studied have shown that once a book has been on the shelf for longer than 10 months, its sale- ability diminishes dramatically, meaning you have many dollars invested for too long a period of time before they are turned into sales (low turns). The report should indicate when it is a good time to pull returns or have a sale. The bottom of the report explains how the data should be read, and how it was gathered. Use the date codes attached to book labels, j) Suggested overstock returns, or a Custom Inventory Report to generate a list of items that you should consider pulling for returns. e) Negative On-Hand This report is updated by Month-End but may be Updated at any time, and is automatically included in the Month-End printouts. There should not be any items with negative on-hands in your store. They occur in Bookmanager when you fail to receive an item and then sell it (if you have 0 on-hand and then you sell one, it leaves you with –1 O/H). This also happens when you receive an item by one ISBN but sell it using another ISBN. Or, if you have done an inventory reconciliation and used Adj to correct what you thought was a stolen or lost book, and weeks later a customer finds it (misplaced) and purchases it. Whatever the case, negative on-hands are always errors that need to be corrected. Each item on this report should have its on-hand set to zero using the Adj command. Too many negative on-hands will start to significantly skew your inventory totals.

NOTE: With the exception of Custom Inventory reports, the columns of title information listed on the bottom half of the screen (eg. the O/H column) do not dynamically change when you make a change to an Inventory card. Rather, this data remains as it was when you Updated the report. After using View to make changes/adjustments to these reports, you need to Update them again to see the changes reflected on the report. f) Items with more than 100 On-Hand This report is updated by Month-End and is intended to bring attention to the items that have a large impact on your inventory dollar totals. This report should be reviewed each month for gross errors.

293 REPORTS | 2) Inventory Reports

You may find for example, that someone received 200 copies of a $30.00 book when in fact only two copies came in. This error increases inventory by $6,000.00, and if this figure is used at year-end it would decrease profits by that amount. The Update command permits specifying the lowest On hand level you would like displayed. g) Items over $100 Similar to the previous report, it is a good idea to review these books and ensure the inventory is actually in the store. The unintentional changing of a price from $9.95 to $9,950.00 really distorts the picture, but is easy to catch with this report. h) Items in stock for over 12 months Month-End will update this report, and if you do not keep a clean inventory, it may result in several hundred (or thousand) titles. With the Update command, you can revise this report using a different number of months. Creating a Custom Inventory report can achieve the same results and may be better in some ways because you can select specific suppliers and have the titles grouped in a way that makes it easier to pull them.

This report is really intended to bring to your attention the magnitude of dead or stolen inventory. Bookstores that do not perform regular inventory stock pulls/checks may find a large number of these titles are not in the store anymore. When a book is received and then stolen, the computer thinks you still have stock and if no one requests the book, it will sit and age in the computer.

Eventually it will be 12 months old and appear on this report. This is another good reason to look closely at the 12-month old stock. The missing books should be Adj to zero (and possibly reordered) and the books still in stock which you thought would eventually sell, you should finally return, mark down or donate to make way for new stock that will sell and make you profit.

TIP: The only books in our bookstore’s inventory that is over 12 months old are $2.00 discount bargain/remainder titles. You will find no new books in our inventory that is over 12 months old, and any $2.00 books that hit the 24 month mark without selling are donated or recycled. This allows our inventory to be fresh and profitable, and our regular customers will see a new selection of books all the time. If your regular customers come in and see the same old titles over and over with only a few new ones scattered throughout, they will likely not be a regular customer for long. Change is crucial to keeping your customer’s interest. i) Items with no invoice history This report shows any items that do not have receiving history. When an item does not have any receiving history, in order to determine its cost, Bookmanager assumes the cost to be 60% of the retail price. This report is updated by the Mid-Month Inventory totals report. j) Suggested overstock returns This report should be Updated every three months to ensure that you are never overstocked on a particular title, and that dead items are being returned before privileges expire. The report can be done for a specific supplier, class, or the entire file. There are also a few options as to how you would

294 REPORTS | 2) Inventory Reports

like the resulting list grouped.

The report will list items for which there are too many in stock based on recent sales trends in the store. It also picks up items for which sales are too slow to warrant having more than one copy. Items that are too expensive to keep based on their sales and ones whose return privileges are almost expired will also be included in the list. The report excludes items that are less than three months old.

You may not wish to return every item on the list. Human discretion is the ultimate decision-maker. For this reason, Bookmanager does not automatically put items from this report into pending returns.

k) Backroom stock needed on floor If you keep extra copies of certain items in a backroom/storage area, and track them using the In- ventory field Backroom, this report can be very valuable. It will report on items for which it feels the ratio between backroom and O/H levels is too high. It will suggest that more copies be moved from the backroom to the sales floor.

295 REPORTS | 3) Sales Reports

l) Pubstock fast-seller reorder report This report is a quick way to identify stock that has recently sold and can be reordered from a single supplier. Most often used with quick shipping wholesalers, use Update to specify a supplier code, then set the criteria for how stock will be selected. Pubstock will be used to find matches, upon which you can Order off the report. This report is also a quick way to top up a supplier order to meet minimums.

m) Suggested Inventory deletions This report is used to bring up a list of dated entries in your inventory file. If you follow the on-screen instructions this report will generate a list of items that you probably do not need records of any more, and then have them all marked to be deleted.

TIP: We find that most users do not need to worry about deleting old entries, simply because modern day hard drive capacity is massive in comparison to Bookmanager file sizes. The largest of systems (millions of dollars in sales per year, inventories with 800,000 entries, etc.) will still only occupy about 3GB of hard drive space. Therefore, keeping old records won’t significantly slow your program’s performance, and could be helpful for reference purposes. That said, a purge may be helpful in speeding up reporting and keyword index creation if you find yourself into the hundreds of thousands of records. Consult Bookmanager support for suggestions on improving performance.

3) Sales Reports Most of the information you will need from Sales Reports can be better handled with more flexibility in Custom Inventory Reports. This area is for quick reference and for those with less experience in creating Custom Inventory Reports.

a) Bestseller report This report can be used to create your own bestseller listings of product you have sold. The report can list general bestsellers, or break it down by Class or Supplier. Updating the report is straightforward and permits a variety of scopes. When you select a date range, the report is extracting entries from 4 POS.

296 REPORTS | 4) Orders reports

b) Sales for an ISBN This report will allow you to generate a list of sales over a specified time period for a particular ISBN. Each item on the list shows the date of the sale, quantity sold, the price and discount, and the customer and on what invoice number.

Press Update, and a window will appear asking you to enter in the ISBN you want to use, followed by the date range that you want sales history under. After the date you can ask it to sort by Date or Customer, and select Yes or No for a breakdown of the cost.

TIP: This report can be very useful if you sell items on consignment in your store, as it can break- out detailed selling history for one item/ISBN.

c) Reorder Alert based on recent sales Updating this report will give you a list of items that were sold during a specified recent period and are now out of stock (O/H = 0). This report is useful to catch up on items that should have been reordered when they sold out, but were overlooked. This report can also be scheduled to run in the overnight routines. Most stores prefer to manage their reorders using a Custom Inventory Sales report, as you have more control over what is shown and can exclude certain areas of inventory that do not have standard/daily reordering (ie: cards, calendars, magazines, remainders, etc.).

d) Bestselling Authors This report simply gives you a list of the bestselling authors for a particular class. If you leave the class blank it will give you a list of your overall bestselling authors.

e) Sales by Rep This is a specialized reporting function that is only really utilized by Bookmanager users that are wholesalers or distributors/publishers. You can add you reps to 6 Customers and use the Rep field there to flag or group those reps. This report can then look at sales only done by those reps over a period of time. You can of course use this report and the Rep field for other uses if you see fit, but generally there are better ways to handle those situations.

4) Orders reports Explanations for these reports were outlined previously and can be found in the Orders section of this manual (page 49).

5) Supplier Reports There are two reports in this field that provide a large variety of uses and information. Most will find the majority of use with a) Supplier Sales/OnHand Report, as it is very flexible.

a) Supplier Sales/On-Hand Report This report will show your sales and on hands for a specific supplier, with many scopes to customize.

297 REPORTS | 5) Supplier Reports

Press Update to begin a new report.

Select the Report Type you would like: Sales, OnHand or Multi-store-On-Hand. The OnHand report requires a text file with ISBNs to continue. You need to select the date range for Sales, and then you can also enter exclusions based on discounts offered to customers, or enter exclusions based on discounts offered to you by the supplier. You can also import specific ISBNs from a text file or exclude certain ISBNs from a text file. Select which Suppliers you would like to view in this sales report (or leave blank for all Suppliers), and choose to include or exclude section codes and customer types (helpful for excluding school and institution sales).

Finally, you can choose how you would like the information displayed with:

• Detail: Invoice level detail, with a line item per instance an item sold. This will result in your most detailed and long report, as you could have mutliple sales instances of the same ISBN on different lines.

• isbn: ISBN level detail is similar to Detail, except that ISBNs are consolidated to a single line and therefore no invoice or sales date history can be shown. Sold quantities and costs are still shown.

• Summary: This will show the summary of all activity on a single line broken down by each supplier.

This report is best utilized when claiming co-op for a shared discount with a supplier, as it is able to break down your sales with that supplier and show how much discount you gave to your customer, and link each entry to an invoice number. This makes reporting for co-op complete and transparent, and it requires little effort from the supplier to interpret. b) Pubstock Price Comparisons This is yet another antiquated report that will likely be removed in coming versions of Bookmanager. Michael’s got a bit of spring cleaning ahead of him!

298 REPORTS | 6) Gift Cards

6) Gift Cards This report function is the same as scanning a Gift Card anywhere in Bookmanager, or through the Gift Cards options under 4 POS, Miscellaneous.

M) Multi-store documents If you have a Multi-Store setup, this is the area where documents are stored. When you first enter this area, the most recent document or File will be shown. Select File to display a list of previous documents to view. Generally, this area is only accessed when issues arise or documents that normally automatically print are missed.

R) Files in \Reports directory Accessing this area will list the most recent backup copies of various reports for you to reprint at any time. This screen should be familiar as it is shown automatically when you open Bookmanager for the first time each day. Included here are the previous month’s Month-End reports, the previous week’s bestseller report (obtained from Bookmanager’s server), and the most recent copies of any reports updated through the Scheduler.

299 TITLEBANK | Adding or Viewing a File

TitleBank Before the time of Titlelink and title information automatically being sourced and imported from our data servers, TitleBank was how new titles were imported en masse. These days, TitleBank is still used in specialized situations where Titlelink does not contain the data needed. For example, you could make Ordering (and subsequently Receiving) from a non-book catalogue easier by importing it into Bookmanager. This way, come time to receive and while you are ordering, the title data would already be in your system, which could cut down on hours of manual data entry.

TitleBank also contains a few specialized operations for making changes to your inventory or chunks of titles, most notably changing the Suppliers of all the titles in a list. You can also view Bookmanager generated Bestseller, CBTitles (Christian book listings) and Backlist lists from here. To access Title- Bank, select - (minus) from the Main Options menu.

Adding or Viewing a File Access - TitleBank from the Main Options menu. The last loaded list of titles (called a File) will be displayed. Select File to bring up a list of files that can be viewed. Some of these files are automatically generated by us, and others were manually added by you. Selecting R on a file will load the titles for viewing, ordering, and importing into Inventory if need be.

For this example, let’s say you want to add the entire summer catalogue from Melissa&Doug, an ed- ucational toys supplier. They provided the catalogue to you in an Excel spreadsheet format. First, you need to format the spreadsheet so that Bookmanager can read it. TitleBank files need to be formated as tab delimited text files, a common Save As format for Excel. In this process, you will be keeping only the most vital information that Bookmanager can use. The following chart will outline the exact column headers the file will need, and where they translate in Bookmanager. You can omit any column header or leave the column blank if you do not want that field imported, but only those listed below

300 TITLEBANK | Adding or Viewing a File can be imported. The order that the fields occur does not matter.

Column Header Bookmanager Field ISBN translates to ISBN field in Bookmanager (max 13 characters) TITLE translates to Titl field in Bookmanager (max 40 characters) AUTHOR translates to Auth field in Bookmanager (max 25 characters) PRICE translates to Price field in Bookmanager PUBDATE translates to Pub field in Bookmanager; use yyyymmdd or mm/dd/yy BINDING translates to Ed field in Bookmanager (max 2 characters) PUBLISHER translates to Publ field in Bookmanager (max 5 characters) VENDOR translates to Supl field in Bookmanager (max 4 characters) NOTES translates to Note field in Bookmanager (max 56 characters) CAT translates to first part of Clas field in Bookmanager (max 8 characters) CAT2 translates to second part of Clas field in Bookmanager(max 8 characters) UPC translates to UPC field in Bookmanager (max 15 characters)

Using the Melissa&Doug summer catalogue, here is an example spreadsheet you would create:

There are over 1500 rows to this spreadsheet, but Bookmanager should have no problem processing even more if need be. Once you have created the spreadsheet, save it as a Text (Tab delimited) file in your BM Folder, and name it something simple (e.g.: meldoug.txt).

Back in - TitleBank, select File, and New to add a new file. If you saved the spreadsheet file in your BM Folder, simply type the filename in the Source file field and press R. You can also press u in this field to browse your computer for the file.

301 TITLEBANK | Adding or Viewing a File

Under the Destination field, specify a name for this TitleBank file, up to 8 characters. In this example, we chose M&D2016. Press R here to start the import process. Depending on the file size, it can take a few minutes, but the bottom of the screen will give you a progress update. Once the file has been imported, you will be taken back to the TitleBank screen with the file loaded and the titles ready to be viewed.

Most of your imported entries will probably have the ** ISBN is not in Inventory file ** banner, considering this whole process is meant to add them to your Inventory. Scan through a few pages of entries using d to verify that the import worked successfully. If everything looks okay, you have a few options at this point.

TitleBank Xtra Options These titles have yet to be added to your actual inventory. Rather, TitleBank is acting as a holding and preview area before titles are to be fully transfered into Inventory. If you would like, you can simply keep the titles separate from 2 Inventory, and browse/order from here. That said, most stores prefer to add the list to their Inventory so it becomes keyword searchable like regular 2 Inventory Searches. To add this entire list to your Inventory, select Xtra, then option 1) Add entire list to Inventory file.

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This process can take a few minutes as entries are created and populated. Once this is done, and after your nightly Scheduler routine Update keyword searching file has run, you will be able to 2 Search for items in your regular Inventory and Order from there. When it comes time to Receive, entries will already be in your system, so simply scanning product barcodes or typing product ID numbers will bring up their complete listings. Feel free to tidy up and modify title information as needed. The idea is that the grunt of the work has been done.

Besides adding items to your Inventory, TitleBank has a handy Xtra feature that can be used to standardize the Supplier fields on a group of entries. Select option 2) Update Supplier code fields to bring up the dialogue box. Be aware that this operation makes changes to active Inventory records as well as the TitleBank file.

The remaining three Xtra options are for specialized situations, and their operations are fairly obvious. If you have any questions about other uses for TitleBank or its Xtra options, please contact Bookman- ager support.

303 GENERAL LEDGER | Section overview

General Ledger Bookmanager’s accounting and general ledger routines allow you to track all of your business’s financial activity, produce financial reports, and track expenses. The Bookmanager GL is tightly integrated with other parts of the program. Detailed financial statistics can be created without the need to input reams of debits and credits.

At present, the GL does not have either payroll or budgeting modules. These may be a possibility in the future, but your decision to use the GL should not count on these features being added. The GL does have the ability to handle the accounting for multi-store locations or additional in-store businesses (ie: coffee shop, restaurant, etc.) based on a ‘location’ identifier in the program. Bookmanager’s Accounts payable module can accommodate payment of all business transactions including rent, utilities and advertising. Bank charges and alike (where no formal payment is issued) are entered directly into the GL.

Most stores have their accountant review and prepare year-end financial statements. Some accountants prefer that you use a widely available bookkeeping system (such a Simply Accounting) because they are familiar with the format, and in some cases, they can work with your computer data files. As well, for people not familiar with bookkeeping, some accountants offer to help set up the accounting system and provide some basic training. However, your accountant generally does not need detailed access to every transaction that occurred over a year. Rather, they need a summary of the year’s activity and documents to support reconciliation of bank statements, payables and receivables. If required, Bookmanager can print a permanent record of every transaction (likely a few hundred pages) that is useful when making inquiries into expenses.

If you are unable to use Bookmanager’s GL, then depending on what other Bookmanager modules you use, you may still use the GL to consolidate monthly activity and then create a monthly report that summarizes the changes during the month.

The Bookmanager support staff is available to answer your further concerns and questions, and they will help you get your accounting system running smoothly.

Section overview This section deals with the accounting aspects of Bookmanager and your bookstore. Please be sure to read this section completely, prior to using the GL module. The following areas are covered:

• Bookmanager GL Basics: A description of the screen and the various fields in Bookmanager’s GL.

• Bookkeeping & Accounting Basics: Explanation of the basic bookkeeping principles used to design Bookmanager’s GL accounting system.

• Setting Up and Preparing the GL: This section explains how to set up your GL account codes, section codes, location codes and POS tender links. It also outlines the parts of a GL entry and why certain account numbers are used. This section must be read prior to using the GL

304 GENERAL LEDGER | The General ledger screen

module. It takes you through the steps of preparing your GL, establishing opening balances and synchronizing existing A/P data; all prior to everyday operations. This procedure is essential to begin using the GL, and ensuring the accuracy of your data.

• How Receiving, Returns and POS Integrate with the GL: Much of the data required by the GL is automatically fed by these routines. This section explains how activity is posted and what you can do to customize Bookmanager for your situation.

• Working with Your GL: This section will go over many routines and functions that you will use in the GL, including procedures for closing a month/year.

The General ledger screen

The main GL screen gives you access to important information at any time. The transaction number (Tran#) for the currently highlighted item is found in the upper left part of the screen. The L column indicates the lock status of the transaction/entry. The Check field will contain any check number associated with the transaction. The Rec column will contain any reconciliation number if the entry has been reconciled with any other. Entries with the same reconciliation number cancel each other out to zero.

The Supl field contains the supplier code associated with the entry if it was made from 7 Accounts payable. The Typ (transaction type) and Invoice (inv#) are also taken from A/P. If the entry is from the 4 POS or directly into the GL, the Supl, Typ, and Invoice fields combine to display the Note associated with the entry. The Note can also be found in the lower right corner of the screen, as can the Ref field containing any reference number from A/P.

The TranDate column holds the date that the highlighted transaction took place. The Amount should be obvious. The Account (Act) field shows the GL account number that the entry is applied to. The Se and Loc fields also contain the appropriate Section and Location that the entry refers to. The account

305 GENERAL LEDGER | Bookkeeping & Accounting Basics

numbers, section codes and locations are set up using the Accts (Accounts) command in the GL. The last column contains the name of the GL account that the entry is applied to (also set up under Accts).

Every entry added to the GL must have the following basic information:

• Transaction Date: The date the transaction took place. In accounting, time is of the essence, so accurate transaction dates are a must.

• Amount: The value of the activity.

• GL Account code: The account affected by the activity.

• GL Section code: A “sub-account” of the GL Account used to further segment a specific type of activity.

• GL location: Usually for multi-store operations, activity can be given a location # which will enable reporting based on activity for that location (or branch of your business). For example, if your business involves selling books and you also collect rent from real estate, you may want to include real estate activity in Bookmanager’s GL, but keep it separate by assigning a location # in order to generate reports related specifically to only one type of business activity.

Bookkeeping & Accounting Basics Many people are in the book business because they love the surroundings and people it brings. Alas, there is that basic necessity that rules -- money. To run a successful bookstore you need to make money (or more precisely, a profit) at selling books. You fill your store with books, buy on credit, and hope that your bank account maintains a balance in order to pay the bills and perhaps have excess for personal use. With lines of credit, varying accounts payable, seasonal fluctuations, returns and dead stock, it is difficult to know from day-to-day if you are winning or losing the game. Too often, we fool ourselves and only find out too late that somewhere along the way our business was actually spending more than it was bringing in.

For many, accounting is viewed as a dreaded and complex task requiring specialized brain cells that you were born without. In this section though, we hope to explain accounting in simple ways that will gently lead you through the accounting process.

Your business makes a profit by:

• buying goods at one price (when sold they are called Cost-Of-Goods Sold or COGS),

• selling them at a higher price (Sales)

• paying off expenses incurred to run the business (Expenses)

• having enough left over to reinvest and/or consume personally (Profit)

The above activities are shown on a one-page document called a Profit & Loss Statement.

Your present financial situation consists of:

306 GENERAL LEDGER | Bookkeeping & Accounting Basics

• the money, goods and equipment you own (Assets)

• the money, goods and services you owe for (Liabilities)

• the investment made in the business by the owner(s) and any accumulated profit (Equity)

These items are shown on a company’s Balance Sheet. Deduct the total liabilities (b) from the total assets (a), and you have an amount that represents your company’s equity (c). Assets = Liabilities + Equity.

For example, you start your business by loaning your new company $50,000 in cash. Your company also obtains cash via a bank loan for another $50,000. Your Profit & Loss statement at this time has no activity (you have done nothing so far) but your company’s Balance Sheet looks like this:

Acct Assets 100 Bank account $100,000 Total Assets $100,000

Liabilities 300 Bank loan $50,000 Total Liabilities $50,000

Equity 398 Owner’s equity (For a limited company this is called $50,000 a Shareholder’s Loan, and is regarded as a Liabili- ty because the company owes the shareholder this money.) Total Equity $50,000

Total Liabilities + Equity $100,000

To record these facts into your GL, you would create two New transactions, one to debit (+) GL acct 100 (bank) for $50,000 and credit (-) GL acct 398 (Owner’s equity) for $50,000; the other to debit GL acct 100 (bank) for $50,000 and credit GL acct 300 (Bank loan) for $50,000.

Each transaction had two entries (debit and credit). A transaction often has more than two entries but the total of all entries must always equal zero. This is called double-entry accounting. When you want to increase one account (e.g. the bank with a deposit), there is always someplace on either the Profit & Loss statement or the Balance sheet to put the opposite amount – no exceptions.

NOTE: When an Asset account is increased, it is debited and when it’s decreased it is credited. When a Liability or Equity account is increased it is credited, and when it’s decreased it is debited.

On a balance sheet, the Assets must always equal the Liabilities plus Equity. The example Balance Sheet shows that the company owns $100,000 in cash, but owes the company’s owner (you) $50,000

307 GENERAL LEDGER | Bookkeeping & Accounting Basics and the bank another $50,000.

Your next step is to purchase some fixtures and books. At this point you have no credit with suppliers, so you must use the company’s cash to pay for these items. Your Balance Sheet now looks like this:

Acct Assets 100 Bank account (paid for 50k books and 20k fixtures) $30,000 140 Inventory (books at cost) $50,000 210 Fixtures $20,000 Total Assets $100,000

Liabilities 300 Bank loan $50,000 Total Liabilities $50,000

Equity 398 Owner’s equity $50,000 Total Equity $50,000

Total Liabilities & Equity $100,000

After doing this, you still have the same liabilities and equity, but you have diversified your assets from cash only to a mixture of cash, inventory and fixtures.

If someone were to offer to purchase your company, you would demonstrate via the Balance Sheet that they would have to give you $50,000 (to take over your Owner’s equity). They assume the assets plus the remaining liability (bank loan).

Next, you manage to obtain credit from a supplier and purchase $25,000 (your cost) more books on account. Your Balance Sheet now looks like this:

Acct Assets 100 Bank account $30,000 140 Inventory (books at cost) $75,000 210 Fixtures $20,000 Total Assets $125,000

Liabilities 300 Bank loan $50,000 330 Accounts Payable $25,000 Total Liabilities $75,000

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Equity 398 Owner’s equity $50,000 Total Equity $50,000

Total Liabilities & Equity $125,000

Wow! From the Total Assets it looks like you’re company is now worth $125,000 (did you just make a $25,000 profit?). Actually, your company now has assets (cash, books and fixtures) worth $125,000, but once it pays off the liabilities (debt to suppliers and the bank loan), it still owes you the original $50,000 (the Owner’s equity).

Now we are ready to open the doors for a month, and see what happens. For simplicity, we’ll demonstrate by selling books for cash only and we’ll have only some basic expenses.

To show your activity for the month, we need to summarize all the activity onto a Profit & Loss (P&L) Statement. The activity recorded onto the P&L will also force changes to some entries on the Balance Sheet. The two are inseparable because the grand total of all entries on a P&L must be record (added to) the Balance Sheet (as Profit or Loss). The Balance Sheet that accompanies the P&L will show your financial situation as of the end of the month. Using different words, here’s the same fact:

“The P&L demonstrates a company’s profitability over a specific period of time, and the Balance Sheet shows its financial situation at the end of that period.”

When someone wants to buy your business, they need to know what they are paying for (the assets, less liabilities on the Balance Sheet), and also what potential the company has of earning them a profit (the P&L).

Here is your situation at the end of the first month (amounts in bold have changed or are new):

Acct Profit & Loss Statement

Revenue 400 Sales $40,000

Expenses 680 Rent (just the month’s rent, not rent deposits) $3,000 740 Staffing (other than you) $2,000 Total expenses $5,000

999 Profit (something important missing $35,000 though)

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Acct Balance Sheet Assets 100 Bank account (up 35k -- 40k deposited from sales, $65,000 less 5k paid to staff and landlord) 140 Inventory (books at cost) $75,000 210 Fixtures $20,000 Total Assets $160,000

Liabilities 300 Bank loan $50,000 330 Accounts Payable $25,000 Total Liabilities $75,000

Equity 399 Current profits (from P&L) $35,000 398 Owners equity $50,000 Total Equity $85,000

Total Liabilities & Equity $160,000

During the month, at retail prices you sold $40,000 worth of books (everyone paid cash, which you deposited into the bank (acct# 100)). Assume that you have priced books so that you make 40% on each book sold (i.e. a book that costs $6.00 is sold at $10.00). You also paid rent and part-time staff. Your bank account therefore had a net increase of $35,000. The profits for the period are shown at the bottom of the P&L and then transferred to the Balance Sheet under Equity (Current profits). From this statement, your worth has increased by 35,000!

Wow! One month in business and you have made $35,000 profit (bookselling was never so easy). Something is wrong though. If the prospective buyer of your bookstore were to look at your shelves and then your Balance Sheet, they would see that the Inventory (at cost) seems higher than what appears to be in the store at the moment. You have neglected to reduce your inventory assets by the amount of books sold during the month. The $40,000 worth of books sold cost you 60% of that, or $24,000. This means that your inventory must have been reduced by $24,000. An entry must be made to credit (reduce) Inventory, and you must debit (increase) the same amount as an expense.

The corrected P&L looks like this:

Acct Profit & Loss Statement Revenue 400 Sales $40,000

500 Less Cost-of-Sales $24,000

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Gross Profit $16,000

Expenses 680 Rent (just the month’s rent, not rent deposits) $3,000 740 Staffing (other than you) $2,000 Total expenses $5,000

999 Net Profit $11,000

Balance Sheet Assets 100 Bank account $65,000 140 Inventory (75k original less 24k sold $51,000 210 Fixtures $20,000 Total Assets $126,000

Liabilities 300 Bank loan $50,000 330 Accounts Payable $25,000 Total Liabilities $75,000

Equity 399 Current profits (P&L profits/losses are always $11,000 added to balance sheet so that it balances) 398 Owners equity $50,000 Total Equity $61,000

Total Liabilities & Equity $126,000

The profit situation looks a little more realistic now. In reality though there are many other expenses such as advertising, telephone and supplies. Each time you incur an expense, a debit must be made to the P&L into an expense account. The amount must also then be credited to some other account. If you paid the expense with cash you would credit (reduce) your bank account (GL acct# 100). Or, if you put the expense on a charge account, the credit is posted to #330 Accounts Payable (increase your payables). When that payable is paid with a cheque, the #330 A/P is debited (reduces your liability) and #100 bank is credited (reduces your assets by the same amount).

NOTE: When a Revenue account is increased, it is credited and when it is decreased it is debited. When an Expense account is increased, it is debited and when it’s decreased it is credited.

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The significance of Bookmanager GL account numbers (codes) In Bookmanager we use account numbers from 100 through 999. These are divided into six basic sections:

• 100 through 299: (debit) Anything that is an asset

• 300 through 389: (credit) Anything that is a liability

• 390 through 399: (credit) All equity

• 400 through 499: (credit) All sales and revenue

• 500 through 599: (debit) Your cost of everything sold, any costs to get the inventory into your store (e.g. freight) and the cost of goods marked down or stolen.

• 600 through 799: (debit) Any day-to-day expenses required to keep the business going.

• 800 through 999: (credit or debit) Any special revenues or expenses that are not directly related to sales or the costs of generating those sales (e.g. interest income, income taxes, disposal of assets)

IMPORTANT: When you need to create a new account to hold a particular revenue, expense, asset or liability, you must choose an account code that correctly fits into one of these sections. Otherwise your financial statements will mean nothing. Your accountant should be able to help you. Our numbering system is similar to other accounting packages.

Freight Costs and Canadian GST In our example, we did not account for any freight that may have been charged on the shipments. We also did not include GST that would be charged to a Canadian bookseller. Suppose a new shipment arrives. The value of the goods is $1,000, freight was $100 and GST was 5% or $55 bringing the invoice total to $1155. When you receive the shipment in Bookmanager you enter the freight, the GST and then receive the books. When you exit receiving, the invoice total is automatically posted to A/P (credit) and the debit amount is distributed amongst three separate accounts. Here is the GL transaction created:

330 A/P -$1155 (credit) 140 Inventory $1000 (debit) 346 GST ITC* $55 (debit) 510 Inbound Freight $100 (debit)

The invoice is a liability (you owe for the invoice total), the books are an asset (you now own more books), the freight charge was a cost to get the books (an expense) and the GST is a credit that you can use against the tax you collect on sales.

NOTE: Logic says that the GST should in fact be an asset because the government owes you for this. We prefer to show it in the liability area though because in most cases you will be applying the

312 GENERAL LEDGER | Bookkeeping & Accounting Basics

GST paid against the greater amount of GST you will collect from customers on sales. GST collected on sales is posted to account 347 (GST on Sales) as a credit (you are liable to the government for the amount collected). When it is time to remit the GST, you send in the GST collected on sales and then deduct the GST you paid on incoming shipments and other goods or services. Most often you will owe them more than they owe you. By placing the two accounts close together, it is easy to see what your actual GST tax liability is (acct 347 less 346).

Hopefully, you are now starting to understand where and why things are put into specific accounts and areas.

Shrinkage (theft) While going though your stock, you realize that a book the computer indicates is in stock is actually missing. Some time ago you received it and added it to your assets (140 Inventory). The book is missing though and must now be removed from 140 Inventory. You credit 140 Inventory and debit 530 O/H Adjustments. This increases the expenses on the P&L, which then reduces your profit for the period. Whenever an Adj(ustment) is made in to 2 Inventory, the POS records the activity. When the POS is totalled, the GL is updated with regards to that adjustment in the above manner.

Posting of a Sale A book that retails for $10 is sold at a 10% discount, or $9. Your cost was $6 (60% of the $10 retail price). When the POS is totalled, this transaction is posted as outlined below. In reality, the sale is part of many other sales and only the totals of all sales are posted (to greatly reduce the number of entries added to the GL).

400 Sales -$9 cr 500 Cost of sale $6 dr Profit on sale -$3 cr 100 Bank (cash sale) $9 dr 140 Inventory (sold) -$6 cr Retained profit $3 dr

Four entries are added to the GL. The $3 Profit and Retained Profit are not part of the transaction (they are only shown to demonstrate where profits come from). To determine profit, the debits and credits in accounts 400 through 999 are summed.

Bank loans and loan interest A bank loans you $10,000, which you put into the bank account. You debit 100 Bank and credit 300 Bank Loan. A month later a payment of $550 is made ($50 is interest and $500 is to pay down the loan). You credit #100 Bank with $550, debit #300 Bank Loan $500 and debit #650 Interest expense $50.

Mortgage loan payments can be more difficult to post because the interest and principle are lumped together and differ from month-to-month. In that case it is easiest to post the entire payment to in-

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terest expense. Periodically, or at a financial year-end, when you know the actual balance of the loan, reduce (debit) the GL loan account to the actual balance and credit the interest expense account that had been overcharged.

Assets vs. Expenses When purchasing stuff or paying for services, you must record each item into the GL. Anything that is purchased that has no retained value is generally considered to be an expense (put onto the P&L). Purchases that have value well beyond one fiscal year are generally considered to be assets (put onto the Balance Sheet).

When you buy advertising, it is expensed (reducing profits). Buying a new office desk is an asset (not affecting profits). If you were to sell your business, the desk would have real value to the new owner, but they would likely not pay for old newspaper ads. When paying for books, initially they are an asset until they are sold, at which time they become an expense (COGS).

Depreciating your assets Over time, assets such as desks, bookshelves and computers lose their value. A buyer would not pay full price for a five-year-old computer. To reduce an asset’s value, the asset account is reduced (credit) and an expense is created (debit). If you paid $5,000 for a computer and after one year it is only worth $4,000, then at year-end you would credit $1000 to account 241 Computer Depreciation (asset) and debit $1000 to 630 Depreciation (expense).

Depreciation is done for several reasons. If you were to expense the whole $5000 for the cost of the computer in the year it was purchased, then you would have lowered profits by $5000 for that year. The next year you would not have that expense (but you’re still getting use from the computer) and profits would be up $5000. This wild profit fluctuation would make it difficult to know from year-to- year if what you were doing was right or wrong. As well, if you sold your business after year one, the buyer would not see your computer as an asset (it’s not listed on the balance sheet), plus they would be disappointed with your low profits (because you expensed the whole computer). It makes sense then to initially make the computer an asset, and then gradually expense it as the usefulness and value declines.

From an income tax standpoint, expensing the whole $5000 would initially save you taxes because your profits would be lower. This often makes expensing vs. carrying an asset tempting. The government has regulations to prevent this type of tax abuse. Each type of asset you purchase has a specific rate of depreciation that may be charged. Generally, this rate is close to the actual rate at which the item loses value (computers depreciate faster than bookshelves).

Bookmanager’s fixed asset section has an account for the asset type (e.g. 240 for Computer) and a separate account for depreciation (e.g. 241 Computer Depreciation). The reason for this is to show the original value of all assets and then the total amount that they have been depreciated over time. The sum of 240 and 241 is the net book value of the asset. A buyer of the business will look at this value and then compare it to the physical item(s)’ market value.

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Writing-off dead inventory Once each year, you should take a look at your overall inventory and estimate the amount that you will not likely be able to sell at full value. In our business, we make a point of reducing items that have ‘died’ so they can be turned back into cash. This reduces our inventory and profitability at the same time; but the profits would not have occurred anyway, since the inventory was valued too high. Because of this practice, we carry very little inventory that is not worthy of the retail price.

Some stores prefer to carry dead inventory in hopes that they will eventually sell it. By hanging onto the inventory, the balance sheet will have an asset (inventory) that is not valued at what someone buying the business would likely pay for it. This creates a false sense of wealth and can be devastating should cash become tight.

Since stale inventory does not have the same value as when it was first received, the decrease in that value should be reflected in your General Ledger. If you keep inventory that is very slow to sell, you may want to look at an inventory aging report (month-end does one each month) and reduce the value of the oldest product. For example, assume the report shows that you have $20,000 (retail value) of stock that is over one year old, and you estimate that its value has decreased by half. If your cost on that product is 60% (or $12,000), then acct 140 Inventory has $12,000 that is over one year old. Half of that is $6,000. In the GL you credit the Inventory account by $6,000 and debit the COGS account by the same amount. In practical terms, this adjustment would be made only once each year (at year-end). The adjustment will reduce your taxes because the markdown reduces profits. This also brings to your attention the impact of carrying dead stock, should your inventory become more and more clogged each year with it.

NOTE: Most booksellers will also sell their ‘value reduced’ stock at a lower retail price as well.

Withdrawals for personal use If your company is limited, then the money you initially provided to the company is called a Share- holder’s loan and is shown as a Liability on the Balance sheet. The term is suitable because you have simply loaned the company money so that it has capital to purchase and sell goods. The money in this account (we use 370) has already been taxed (paid by you) and therefore can be removed (pay you back) tax-free. For example, you start your business with $10,000 from your personal savings account. The GL entry is: credit 370 Shareholder’s Loan and debit 100 Bank for $10,000. After one year of successful operation, the company has $20,000 in cash. You want to remove your original $10,000 from the company’s bank and put it back into your savings account. The GL entry is: credit 100 Bank and debit 370 Shareholders loan. Account 370 is now at zero.

If, at the end of the year the company shows a profit of $20,000, corporate income tax must be paid (assume 20%). A cheque is written for $4,000 to the Feds. Account 100 Bank is credited $4000 and 850 Corporate Tax is debited. The latter part of the transaction reduces “after tax” profits ($16,000), which are transferred to account 399 Current Profits. When the new fiscal year is started, 399 Current Profits are moved into 398 Retained Earnings.

If your company is not limited, then you and your company are essentially one of the same. In this case the 370 Shareholder Loan account is actually 398 Retained Earnings (the account name is changed to Owner’s Equity). Each year, profits on the P&L statement are taxed at a personal tax rate (usually

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higher) and the “after tax profit” is then added to account 399.

I could go on, but this was supposed to be accounting basics. Once you become familiar with working the Bookmanager GL system, your accountant should be able to watch you operate the system and recognize how the Bookmanager GL is structured.

I hope that all of these scenarios have given you insight to the working of a general ledger system. Understanding the process and the reasoning behind it will help when it comes time to make everyday entries into the GL.

When Bookmanager prints a financial statement for a period that has been reconciled and closed, you should be able to read the information and determine where profits were made and lost. The balance sheet should show where all of your investment and profits have been applied. Running a successful business should be more than just looking at the balance in your bank statement each month.

Setting up and Preparing the GL Whenever you decide to begin using and producing a coherent General Ledger, a few things must be done. The first is to set up your GL Account codes/numbers, section codes and any location numbers. The second is to clean up your Accounts payable and Accounts receivable files so that they are reflected accurately in the GL. The third is to set the starting month.

Setting up GL Account codes After selecting the GL (=) from the Main Menu, press Accts, then press R on Account Codes. For the GL to function properly, you must carefully review the existing account codes and make changes and/or additions that are specific to your business. Bookmanager has provided a set of account codes that are relevant to book retailing. GL account codes are numbered from 100 through 999. Do not use anything outside of this range. Each account that you add must fit into one of the following categories and therefore must be assigned a number (from 100-999).

• 100 - 299 Assets: Anything placed here will refer to an asset (something you own) such as money in the bank, your inventory, receivables and fixtures. Accounts 100 through 110 are best used for bank accounts, while accounts 111 through 199 are for other Current Assets (e.g. things that can be converted easily to cash). Accounts 200 through 299 are for fixed assets (things you own that are not usually sold or traded as part of your regular business activity).

• 300 - 389 Liabilities: Use these accounts to track the amounts that you owe others. Bank loans, outstanding invoices for inventory, money collected from sales tax are some examples.

• 390 – 399 Equity: Retained earnings and Current profits.

• 400 - 499 Sales & Revenue: Anything you sell or receive for your services is placed into these accounts.

• 500 - 599 Cost of Goods Sold: Whenever something is sold, the amount you paid for the product is placed into these accounts. It is common to include the costs paid to have the product shipped to you.

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• 600 - 799 Expenses: Any money that is spent to operate the business is put into these accounts. Generally this includes goods or services purchased that will be totally consumed within the year. Purchases that take a while to consume are not expensed, but rather added to you assets (accounts 100-299) and then gradually depreciated (expensed) over the life of their usefulness. For example, your phone bill is expensed each month, but the telephone system you purchased is added to your assets and then each year a portion of its value is expensed (depreciated). This gradually reduces the asset’s value.

• 800 - 998 Special expenses/revenue: Revenue or income not related to the operation of the business can be included here. For example, interest income is likely not related to the performance of your business. Or, when you have a gain or loss from the sales/disposal of an asset, it is best included here because the transaction is not part of normal (daily) practice. Payment of corporate income taxes is also placed here. Amounts placed into these accounts will form part of the Profit & Loss statement, but they are listed separate from other routine expenses so not to confuse profits with costs not directly related to sales for the period.

Reserved GL Account codes Certain GL account codes have been reserved so that Bookmanager routines such as Receiving, Returns and POS can expect these accounts to exist as defaults. You may make entries into these accounts unless otherwise stated. The reserved accounts are:

• 100 Bank: There must be at least one bank account.

• 120 Currency Exchange: The A/P system automatically posts the amount of exchange when payment is made to a foreign supplier.

• 130 Accounts Receivable: The POS automatically posts any A/R activity to this account. As long as you do not manually make any posting to this account, the 6 Customer A/R Summary report should always agree with the GL’s 130 A/R total.

• 140 Inventory: By default, receiving of all goods is posted to 140 Inventory. Although you may override this in some instances, received goods are best posted into 140 because the Create Inventory-at-Cost routine will be used to balance this account.

• 141 Stock-in-Transit: This account is used only for multi-store operations but must not be removed or used for any other purpose.

• 330 Accounts Payable: The A/P module stores all invoices/credits (transactions) into account 330.

• 331 A/P Currency Exchange: The A/P module stores the original (foreign) amount of the invoice into acct 330, but also stores the amount of exchange that will be required when the invoice is paid. It is best to not make changes to this account.

• 346 GST Paid: In 9 Receiving there is a place to input the Canadian GST. This amount is automatically posted to acct 346. The same applies to 5 Returns. Any GST that your business pays should be put into this account.

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• 398/399: Retained Earnings & Current Profits: When closing a month and generating financial statements, Bookmanager will alter the balances of these accounts. For a proprietorship, the description of 398 should be changed to “Owner Equity” (and account 370 Shareholder’s Loan should be removed).

• 400 Sales: At least one revenue account is required.

• 500 Cost of Sales: The POS posts the cost of product sold to this account.

• 520 Inbound Freight: The A/P, Receiving and Returns modules automatically post freight costs to this account.

• 530 On-Hand Adjustments: When Inventory On-Hand Adjustments are made, the POS total routine posts the costs of the inventory items to this account. This helps separate costs related to shrinkage.

• 540 Inventory Adj to Actual: When the POS is totalled, the cost of each item is posted to 500 Cost of Sales and the 140 Inventory account is reduced (product is not longer in stock). In a perfect world, this process should keep the 140 Inventory total in sync with the total found by multiplying the Inventory file’s On-Hand by each item’s cost. However, factors such as changes to invoice totals in A/P and discrepancies between claims and credits notes will cause the 140 total to become different than what’s actually in stock. Bookmanager has a routine that recalculates inventory at cost and will adjust the 140 account accordingly. The amount of the adjustment is posted to account 540.

• 999 Net Profit: When Closing a month and creating financial statements, Bookmanager will post profits to this account. You should not be manually posting anything to this account.

Making changes to GL account codes Bookmanager allows you change a GL account number using the Edt (Edit) command. When you do this, you are also making changes to individual entries in the GL that use this account number. If your account change results in the new account being the same as another account, you are in effect merging two accounts. Be certain that your changes are intentional because it is not possible to undo the process.

Setting up GL Section Codes In addition to GL Account codes, most accounting software also has sub-account codes. These are used to further segregate revenues and sales into sub-categories. In Bookmanager we call these Section Codes. They are essentially an expansion of the Section Codes found in the 4 Class file. In that file, you assign Section codes to selected categories, and then the POS would group your sales of product by these Section codes. They can either be numbers or letters, or a combination of both.

The GL now validates all Section codes. From the GL, press Accts and then select Section Codes. Section codes can be one or two characters (either numbers or letters). In addition to the Section codes from the 4 Class file, Bookmanager has created Section codes that pertain to POS tendering activity. These are the [? Codes, and will addressed later in this document.

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Initially all Sections have no description. Although it is not required, each Section code should be edited (Edt) and given a meaningful name. Unlike the GL Account codes, Section codes do not have to adhere to any naming rules; choose whatever is meaningful to you(e.g. FI for Fiction).

Setting up GL Location codes Location codes are another method for categorizing accounting data. The GL Accts menu provides access to Locations. If you have used Bookmanager’s multi-store features, you will be aware that Location codes are normally three number codes (e.g. 001 for location #1). For the GL, the preceding zeros are eliminated, primarily to reduce data-entry keystrokes and improve visibility. You are not restricted to numbers for GL Location codes.

For most businesses, location codes will not be useful, and they should be left blank.

Setting up POS Tender Links In the GL screen, press Accts and then select POS Tender Links. When the POS is totalled, all activity for the period is posted to the GL. Sales from items sold are posted to the GL accounts according to the settings in the 4 Class file. The rest of the POS activity (tendering) is posted to the GL according to the accounts in the POS Tender Links screen.

Bookmanager has automatically set GL Account codes for each POS tendering item. While this is a basic framework, each tender should be carefully examined to determine if they need to be customized (almost every business will want to make changes). Some of them will be pre-assigned.

Sales, Points Rdm, Discount and Coupon Activity for these tenders is posted to account 400 (Sales). The Se (Section) codes [P, [D, [C were added so that sales reports could separate these activities within account 400 for management purposes. If you are not interested in this level of detail, remove the section codes and the activity will be consolidated into the main account. This reduces the overall number of entries that are added to the GL each time the POS is totalled.

Deposits, CrNotes and GftCrts These have each been given their own GL Account codes, 320, 321 and 322. If you read the section about GL Account codes, you will recognize these as Liability accounts. When you sell a gift certificate or issue a credit note or deposit, you are incurring a liability (accounts are credited). When any of these are redeemed you are reducing that same liability (same accounts are debited). If you do not need to track each tender separately, then make the GL Account the same for all three tenders.

NOTE: Versions of Bookmanager prior to the GL posted activity from these tenders in with “Sales” (acct. #400). While this is acceptable, and in fact the simplest (the revenue is realized immediately instead of later when the books are picked up), we are demonstrating that the GL can keep track of outstanding gift certificates by giving them as separate account. If you prefer simplicity, change these GL accounts to 400.

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OnAcct OnAcct has been assigned 130 (A/R) and should remain as such. Accounts in the 100 series are asset accounts, and money you are owed by customers is definitely an asset.

Amex, Debit, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover The next eight tenders, Card 1 though 8, are assigned GL accounts that correctly identify where the money from these tenders is actually going (usually Amex, Debit, Visa, MasterCard, Discover, etc.). Generally, businesses have separate bank accounts for each type of credit card activity (i.e. one bank does not provide the service for all cards). Each of these tenders should be assigned the bank account that will be credited the charge. For example, our cash and cheques are deposited to our main bank (acct 100), but MCard goes to account 101 and both Visa and Debit (Interac) go to account 102. Section Codes (C1, C2, C3 and C4) have been inserted by default for each tender, but these can be changed (or eliminated). Do not change the codes if you want the totals for each of these tenders to be kept separate in the GL. The reason for separation becomes apparent when a bank reconciliation is done. Our Visa and Debit transactions are listed separately on our bank statement. Keeping them separate within Bookmanager allows us to match the amounts against the bank statement.

Cheque, Cash and Change Due Cheque and Cash accounts should be the bank account(s) where these funds are deposited. Change Due should be the same account as Cash

PennyAdj Penny Adjust is a feature that is used to accommodate provinces/states that no longer accept the penny, and instead round cash transactions to the nearest $0.05. Be default, the adjusted amounts go to account 400, as their overall activity of rounding up and down should be close to zero. You can assign the PennyAdj tender it’s own section code if you would like closer watch of the adjustments.

PinPad The PinPad account is only utilized if you are using Chase Payments and have configured your physical Verifone pinpads to communicate with Bookmanager. It is a unique tendering method in that the majority of the time, on the completion of a sale, it will automatically forward the payment details and tendering to the card type the transaction was completed under. You should still set up a unique PinPad account in case a transaction is ever completed and Bookmanager cannot figure out which tender to use.

FrnCsh This account should be the bank account that normally receives your foreign currency deposits.

CrcyEx When you tender foreign currency, the amount given (or taken) as exchange is posted to this account. If you simply deposit this currency along with your regular cash, then the FrnCrcy and CrcyEx tender

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accounts should be the same as the cash account. But, if you have a bank account specifically for foreign currency (a different account number than Bank), use acct 120 for the CrcyEx tender. This account represents the difference (in CDN$ if you are in Canada) between the amount of money in the foreign currency account and the actual value in your home country’s currency.

PaidOut This account is set by default to 690 (supplies), which is the most common form of Paid Out for simple cash expenses (such as TP for the WC). The Section code ?? should be left as a reminder so that when you review GL postings from the POS, you may need to reallocate Paid Outs to their appropriate expense account.

Once you have worked with the GL and produced statements and done bank reconciliation, you will better understand how to categorize your POS tenders.

Setting up GL accounts for sales taxes The A Setup for POS has a Tax Tables item. In this screen, there is a place to insert the GL account codes for each type of tax collected. You should verify that each tax will be posted to the appropriate GL account.

Class file GL Account codes The 4 Class file has space for receiving and selling GL account codes for each class. These are normally left blank. In some special cases you may want to override the defaults by supplying a GL Account code to selected categories. This will become more apparent after understanding how POS and Receiving activity is posted to the GL.

Decide on a Starting Month To continue setting up the GL you must decide on a starting month. The most obvious month would be the beginning of a new fiscal year. If you are anxious to start using the GL, you can choosea month within the fiscal year. But in this case, you will have to input sales and expenses (probably just a summary) for the period from the start of the fiscal year up to the month you’ve chosen as a start for Bookmanager.

In either case, you must have some form of financial statement that indicates your financial situation as of the opening month. This statement will have totals of your assets such as bank balances, inventory, and accounts receivable, as well as your liabilities such as bank loans, accounts payable and the company’s retained earnings (or the proprietor’s equity). These totals will be needed in order to set Bookmanager’s GL up in preparation for everyday entry. The financial statement that is sent to your government is generally accurate for this purpose.

Clean Up the A/P & A/R files This is a good time to review your outstanding invoices in Accounts payable and remove any invoices, credits or deductions that are unlikely to ever be paid or used. Having a clean and accurate A/P will make working with the GL easier. The Prt command in 7 A/P has a Cutoff report that is useful for

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finding inactive suppliers and A/P entries that are no longer needed. Go into A/P and print the report called A/P Summary as of ‘Cutoff’ date, using the same date for which you wish to initialize your GL.

Ensure that existing entries are dated properly While testing the GL on data supplied from other booksellers, we’ve come across the odd entry whose transaction date is completely wrong. Invoices that are dated long ago (eg. received in 1999 but entered in error as 1949) do not pose a serious problem, but entries dated far in the future will only cause you grief. To find and correct these, go into the GL, then indx by Date and press C e to get to the most recent transaction. Examine the transaction dates to locate obvious errors. For example, an entry at the end of the file may have a transaction date of 03/01/39. Although this may appear to be Mar 1st 1939, in fact it is probably Mar 1st 2039 (either date is probably wrong). To correct this, pressing R then Edt will allow you to enter the correct date for the transaction. The Transaction date, which is also the Received date, is important here, not the Invoice date. Continue making changes until you are certain that the end of the list (use C e) shows only transactions with correct dates.

Assign proper GL Account codes to existing entries When you updated to Version 8 and Bookmanager converted your A/P data to the new GL system, several invoices were likely posted based on the expense codes you had set up long ago in the 3 Sup- plier file. Most, if not all, of these must be changed. For example, the Bookmanager default Supplier expense code was BKS (meaning books or inventory purchases). The GL however, only works with account numbers from 100 through 999. Any codes/numbers outside of this range will render the GL unusable. Refer to the section that describes GL account codes to learn more about choosing proper account numbers and codes.

To correct the existing GL Account codes, access the GL, then press Accts and select Account Codes. During the data conversion, Bookmanager created a master account code for each code it found in the old A/P system. You will find these amongst the Account code listing (they are labelled “Unassigned”). If you are wondering what an account code was for, simply press R on the account and the GL screen will appear listing entries posted to this account. From that you should be able to determine the type of expense that these entries were for. Use Accts to get back to the list of accounts and find a proper account that will be used from now on. Next, re-highlight the incorrect account and Edt the account code to the correct one. This will merge the entries into the proper account. You will not find a BKS account because Bookmanager automatically made that change for you when converting your data (it was assumed that BKS should now be 140 Inventory). Continue verifying the Account codes in this manner and make changes until all accounts are within the range permitted.

Clean up the A/R You need to clean up the Accounts Receivable in the same way that the 7 A/P is cleaned up. Go to 6 Customers and access the A/R. Select Print and update the 3) Summary list of all accounts for the initialization date. Make sure that the amount outstanding is what you think it should have been on that date. This is the amount that you will be posing to account 130 (A/R) in the initialization transaction of the GL. If the amount does not look right, make corrections in the form of Writeoffs in the A/R.

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Set the starting month (Initialize) With housekeeping done, it’s time to set the starting month that you decided on earlier. In the GL, press Xtra, then select Close Month. If there were no previous closed months found (which there should not be at this point) you will be greeted with the GL initialization screen.

Suppose you want to start using the GL as of September 1, 2015 (the date should be before today’s date). Enter this date and a special GL transaction will be created. The transaction number in this example would be “Y201508”. The Y denotes that this transaction will be used for entering your ‘balance forwards’, and the six digits that follow represent the year and month previous to your opening month. Notice the date of the transaction is the last day of the previous month. The amounts that you will be putting into this transaction represent each account’s closing balance as of that day. These balances will be carried over to continuing operations in the General Ledger.

Entering the Period’s Closing Balances Use the GL Srch by Tran# and enter Y to access the special closing balance transaction. Now use the information you gathered from your financial statements; Edt this transaction and input all the closing balances for the asset and liability accounts (accounts 100 through 399). You will only make entries into accounts 400 though 999 if your opening month is part way through a fiscal year. In that case, you will need to enter sales and expenses totals up to the opening month.

During this stage use the GL’s Prt command, selecting Print this transaction, to obtain a printed copy of the closing balances as often as you wish. Examine the transaction carefully for errors to be sure you are on the right track.

Accounts to consider Accounts Payable: You should Prt the A/P Cutoff report from 7 A/P and specify the same date (i.e. the last day of the month preceding your opening month) as the Y transaction. The amounts that this report shows for accounts 330 and 331 should accurately reflect your real accounts payable situation. If the report is far from reality, your 7 A/P is inaccurate. Make any needed corrections directly into A/P.

If the figures are not out by too much, you can simply Edt the GL Y transaction and change the amounts to reflect your real A/P situation. Perhaps you have figures from previous financial statements, or a previous accounting package that you can refer to.

So, once you are satisfied with the amounts for accounts 330 and 331 in the Y transaction, make no changes to A/P entries dated prior to the opening month. When the opening transaction is formally closed, Bookmanager will lock these A/P entries to prevent changes.

In the unusual case that you have payables other than those already in A/P, you may need to create a separate A/P account (perhaps 332 A/P Misc) and record those payables into that account.

Accounts Receivable: If you use Bookmanager’s A/R for keeping track of receivables, then the 6 Cus- tomer file’s A/R, Prt, 3) Summary List of All Accounts should produce a report that balances with the GL’s 130 (A/R) balance. Make sure the closing dates match. As long as you never make entries directly into the GL’s account 130 (A/R), your GL total for 130 and your A/R Summary report should

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always balance.

Bank balances: The closing bank balances should include any outstanding deposits/cheques prior to the opening month. Outstanding entries are bank transactions that have taken place but have yet to clear the bank. You will need a list that details the outstanding entries so your first bank reconciliation with Bookmanager can be properly balanced.

Inventory total: Part of Bookmanager’s integration with the GL involves an ongoing process of posting the cost of entries in 2 Inventory. Once you start using the GL, account 140 (Inventory) will be periodically updated with your actual inventory file totals.

Finalizing the Closing/Opening balances When you are satisfied with the Y transaction that contains your correct closing balances, selectX tra and choose Close a Month for a second time. Bookmanager will see the Y transaction and alert you this it will now close all entries up to this month. This step goes through the GL and assigns a Z to the Locked field for every entry up to and including the closing month. It also removes the Y from the special transaction and replaces it with a Z. Each time a month is closed, Bookmanager creates a Closing Balance transaction to use as balance forwards when calculating future totals. The Z in the transaction number identifies the special closing transaction.

The GL is now ready for use on a daily basis, and you should be able to get meaningful information from it.

How Receiving, Returns and POS integrate with the GL Before using Bookmanager’s General Ledger, you need to understand how activity posted in Receiving, Returns and POS affect the GL.

Receiving posting to GL When you are receiving a shipment of product, an entry for the GL is being created. When you exit the invoice, this entry is posted to the GL. If you later re-receive using this invoice, the entry previously created is modified so long as the entry has not been Locked or is part of a closed month (Z). Formerly receiving activity was posted to the A/P file. With the GL and A/P now being the same file, updating the GL also means updating the A/P.

Several things happen when you receive an item:

• The category assigned to the ISBN is located in the 4 Class file.

• If the GL Rcv account (in the 4 Class file) is blank (normal) then the GL Account in 3 Sup- pliers for this vendor is used. Normally, this account is 140 Inventory. If the class also has a Section code assigned, then the posting to the GL will have a Section code as well (note: GL Accounts has an option to disable Section code posting).

• As you receive product, you are increasing the value of your Inventory (an asset). The cost of the item received is added to that GL account/section.

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• If you are receiving from a foreign supplier, the ExchRate assigned to this supplier converts the cost of the item to your form of currency. To keep the transaction in balance, the difference between the invoice total and the cost in your currency is posted to the account 331 A/P Exchange.

• Amounts entered into either the Freight or GST fields are posted to accounts 520 (freight) and 346 (GST) in your home country’s currency.

When you E from receiving the shipment, you will be asked to enter a clerk code. This will identify who received the shipment. The GL transaction created will have a transaction (received) date of today’s date.

To illustrate, assume your business is in Canada and you have just received a shipment from an Amer- ican supplier. Below is the posting of an invoice that totals $107.00US. The supplier’s Exchange Rate is set at 1.50. The invoice total includes $7.00US GST, $10.00US shipping and $90.00US worth of one product type.

1 -107.00 330 (A/P) cr Invoice total (payable amount) 2 -53.50 331 (A/P exchange) cr 107.00 x 1.5 exchange 3 15.00 520 (freight) dr 10.00 x 1.5 exchange 4 10.50 346 (GST) dr 7.00 x 1.5 exchange 5 135.00 140 (inventory) dr 90.00 x 1.5 exchange (cost of product received)

A total of five entries are posted to the GL. The amounts for transactions must always total to zero. In other words, the debits (dr) must always equal the credits (cr):

[(107.00+53.50=106.50cr) = (15.00+10.50+135.00=106.50dr)]

In the example, if two inventory items were received and each had unique Section codes, then line 5 would be divided into two lines showing the amount received for each Section code.

When you view this transaction from A/P, you only see line #1 (the invoice amount), however if you press R (or View) you will see all five entries. You can also see the transaction from the GL if you know the transaction number (or date and browse to find it).

When you begin receiving by entering a Supplier code and invoice number, the GL is internally searched for an entry that has the same supplier code and invoice number. If one is found, Bookmanager fills the receiving screen with the totals, freight and tax from the previously received invoice.

You can continue receiving against this invoice in order to make corrections or finish a partially received shipment. Using the Xtra option that will b)Recalculate totals will discard the invoice totals as reported by the GL and rebuild them based on the values of the items received on the invoice.

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Returns file posting to GL When a return to a supplier is processed, a similar set of events take place where the items on the claim are totalled and a GL transaction is created.

POS posting to GL The posting of sales activity from the Point-of-sale can be complex because of the variety of types of sales transactions. The GL is not affected by any activity done through the POS until sales are finalized via the POS’s Total Sales routine performed at the end of the day. This includes Write-offs done directly through the A/R.

NOTE: Invoices entered as New into the A/R are not posted to POS and therefore are not posted to the GL.

The totalling process builds a GL transaction that may be comprised of several dozen entries, depending on the number of sales transactions and the variety of them. If you maintain several different Section codes in the 4 Class file, and the GL Accounts screen is set to separate these, then the GL transaction can become very large (detailed). This is because with that type of setup, sales create three or more entries per Section code in the GL transaction.

Bookmanager looks at each ISBN, item or tender within the period’s sales. How it posts the entry depends on type of item being sold or the tender being used. Here are some scenarios:

For an ISBN (item) Bookmanager finds the 4 Class associated with the ISBN, and determines the Section code and GL sales account associated with it. If the field labelled Sls is blank (normal) it then uses account 400 as the default. The net amount of the sale (price less discount) is added to this account (i.e. it credits Sales and debits the appropriate bank accounts). If the Inventory file has a cost for the ISBN (the PC code displayed to the right of the retail price), it will post that amount to account 500 (Cost of Goods Sold) as a debit. It will then post the reverse of this amount (a credit) against the Class file’s Rcv account (if blank, it uses account 140 Inventory). This process reduces the total of your inventory and expenses the reduction as a Cost of Goods Sold.

ISBN with no cost If an ISBN has no Inventory cost, then it looks at the 4 Class file to see if the default Profit Margin (PM%) is available to estimate the cost. For example, you may sell magazines but not receive them individually into inventory. In that case there is no ISBN level costs. However, if the Class “MAGAZINE” has a PM% of 20% then when the magazine is sold, the cost is calculated to be 80% of the retail price.

ISBN with no Inventory or Cost There are other variations for handling different kinds of product. We have a coffee bar in our bookstore. It would be very involved to have a separate ISBN for every product and size and even more difficult to receive each item and indicate its exact cost (how do you receive a cup of coffee?). Like the magazine example, we have assigned an estimated PM% (profit margin) for the sale of this product. By

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examining our costs for beans, sugar cups etc. we know about how much it costs to make coffee. We also know the average cost for our baked goods and pop. From this we determine an average profit (say 55% of retail price) and insert this into the Class file’s PM% field. Now when we total sales of coffee bar items, the account 500 Cost of Goods Sold is estimated at 45% of gross sales.

The next challenge with coffee products is adjusting the net value of coffee bar inventory. If coffee bar sales were treated the same as magazines we would be reducing our coffee Inventory (140) by the cost of sales. Because the cost is merely an estimate (profit can vary dramatically with the type of product sold) the adjustment to inventory will gradually throw our inventory costs out of line. Instead, we have put account 500 COGS in to the Rcv field for the 4 Class, COFFEE. Instead of reducing inventory, it will reduce (cr) COGS. For this to make sense though, you must realize that when we receive (enter into A/P) our coffee bar invoices, we post them (dr) to account 500 instead of the usual account 140 (set this as the default for your coffee bar suppliers).

There are others ways to accomplish accounting for coffee bar sales and costs, but this is working for us. Generally, our inventory of coffee bar product remains pretty much level (e.g. the fridge is usually stocked with the same amount of product). So, instead of adding to our inventory (140) each time a shipment arrives, we expense it (500) because it is most often replacing the goods we just sold.

Selling Tickets or other non-profit items To encourage foot traffic, we sell tickets for the local theatre (at cost). For security and auditing, we prefer to sell these through Bookmanager just like any other product. Unfortunately, this inflates our sales and distorts our profit margin.

What we wanted to do was have ticket sales moved from a revenue (400 series) account to a liability account (we are liable to the theatre for the income from the sold tickets). To do this, we simply gave the ISBN of TICKETS a separate Class in the 4 Class file, and then put account 323 into both the Rcv and Sls account fields (we created a GL acct. 323 and called it Ticket Sales). Revenue from ticket sales no longer appears as part of our daily sales. When it come time to reimburse the theatre for ticket sales, we run a sales report for the ISBN and then create an invoice in A/P, posting the debit amount of the double entry to GL account 323. This in effect cancels (pays off) the liability shown in GL account 323.

Outgoing Shipping Costs When you charge a customer for shipping, you are usually just recouping your costs to ship the product. On a small scale this will not affect your gross profit margin, but if you charge shipping often, then you may find that your gross margin is increasing (ie. you are selling a service that appears to cost nothing).

When we fill the postage meter, we expense the amount to account 734 (postage/freight) as a debit. When we bill a customer for shipping costs, we credit back account 734 with the postage. This way, revenue from postage is no longer an issue, and our postage costs better reflect our cost for mailing letters and returning books.

The 4 Class file should have a SHIPPING category. Change the Sls field associated with it to 734 (outgoing postage/freight). Bookmanager will now handle shipping in the manner mentioned above.

327 GENERAL LEDGER | How Receiving, Returns and POS integrate with the GL

Also for the SHIPPING class, change the Rcv field to 520 (inbound freight). This will credit back any shipping charges incurred by receiving when they are returned on a claim created in 5 Returns.

Once you have created a SHIPPING category in the 4 class file, you can create an ISBN for shipping charges through 4 POS. Bookmanager reserves the ISBN of 0 for you to use as a shipping designate. To create a shipping ISBN, press New in 2 Inventory. Use 0 as the ISBN, type SHIPPING into the Title field, 3 in the Author field, TBM in the Sup field, SHIPPING as the Class and type ^^ in the Note field (to prevent negative inventory On-Hands). Using this ISBN when charging customers for shipping with ensure the charges go into the right GL accounts and do not inflate your profit and/or COGS.

Sample GL POS total transaction Each of the POS tendering options has a GL Account assigned to them. Tenders with the same GL account AND Section code will be lumped together on both the POS total tape and the GL entry. The earlier section on how to setup Bookmanager’s GL explains in detail the logic to use when assigning or changing account codes to tenders.

Below is an example of a GL transaction created after totalling a day’s sales. During the day, $100 worth of taxable product was sold to two customers; one paid with cash, the other by credit card. Both products had a 40% profit margin. As well, during the day the On-Hand for an item, worth $6.00 (your cost), was Adjusted down from 2 to 1 (you discovered one copy missing).

1 -100.00 400 (Sales) Total of all sales before tax 2 -5.00 347 (GST collected) 5% tax was charged on the sales 3 52.50 100 (Bank #1) Customer A paid with 52.50 cash 4 52.50 101 (Bank #2) Customer B paid with credit card (deposit goes to a different bank) 5 60.00 500 (COGS) The cost of the items sold 6 -60.00 140 (Inventory) Inventory has been reduced by the sale of the goods 7 6.00 530 (Adj COGS) Cost of sales increased by 6.00 due to the loss of inventory 8 -6.00 140 (Inventory) Inventory is reduced by the value of the lost product.

To locate the transaction in the GL, you have to know either the transaction # (printed at the top of the tape) or the date of the sale (browse that date and look for a transaction with POS in the description field). Entries 1 – 6 are related to the sales of the day, and entries 7 & 8 are related to the Adjustment made to 2 Inventory.

Cleaning up a GL POS transaction • If all the amounts and accounts codes are correct for the day’s sales, then no changes are required. Often though, the amount of cash to be deposited is not exactly what the POS indicates (e.g. due to errors or rounding pennies, you are either over or short cash). If the deposit

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of 53.50 (into account 100) was actually 53.00 (perhaps because you gave the customer too much change), then the GL POS transaction must be edited and the 53.50 reduced to 53.00. When this is done you will find that in order to balance the transaction, you must post .50 somewhere. To track overages and shortages we post the .50 debit to account 400 and use a Section code [U (for Unbalanced cash). This in effect reduces the day’s sales by .50

• If the 53.50 posted to account 100 (Bank #1) was not corrected, then when it came time to match the GL against your bank statement, a successful reconciliation would not be possible. By making the above correction, you will always be able to reconcile the GL account 100 against the actual bank balance.

• If a staff member posts a payment as Visa when in fact it was cash, then neither the cash bank nor Visa bank will reconcile. In this case, the GL POS transaction needs to be edited. The amount posted to the Visa account is reduced and the cash bank account is increased.

• If one or more paid out transactions were done during the day, you may need to reallocate these amounts to their appropriate accounts. By default these are posted to account 690 (supplies) with a Section code ??. If part of the paid out was for postage stamps you will want to change the amount and the account from 690 to 734 (and remove the ?? from Section code). If, as well, some stationery was purchased you will post the amount (net of the Cana- dian GST) to account 690 (supplies) and the GST amount to 346 (GST ITC).

In the end, your day’s activity should be properly allocated to the various GL accounts.

Working with your GL A General Ledger is an ongoing record of your sales, expenses, assets and liabilities. Sales and expenses are generally accumulated for up to one full year and then reset to zero, while assets and liabilities are cumulative and never reset (e.g. your bank statement is an asset and always carries a balance forward).

The following section will show you how to use many of the functions in the GL so that you can make the reporting of your sales, expenses, assets and liabilities go as smoothly as possible.

Viewing the GL When you first enter the GL from the Main Menu the “browse mode” is used. You are able toscroll through the entire file that can be indexed (indx) several different ways. The GL is comprised of thousands of transactions, each having two or more entries. Depending on the index used, you may see all or just part of a transaction. For example, if the file is indexed by account, it is likely you are seeing several entries, but only one entry from each of several transactions. To view an individual transaction (comprised of several entries) press R on an entry from the desired transaction. The screen will change so that only the selected transaction is displayed. Pressing any key, other than a command key, will return you to the browse screen.

GL File Format and Data Fields The General Ledger and A/P data are stored in a single file called DATGLSyn.DBF. Below is a description

329 GENERAL LEDGER | Working with your GL of most of the data and its purpose (actual field names are in bold type):

Tran# Each transaction is assigned a unique transaction number that cannot be changed. Transaction numbers are from 0000000 to 9999999 unless they represent a closed month in which case they start with a Z followed by the year and month (e.g. Dec 2014 is Z201412).

Entry Date The date that the entry was added to the GL file. Use only for auditing and identifying when the data was added to the file. It appears in the upper right corner of the GL screen under today’s date, beside the Clerk code.

TranDate The Transaction Date field is important. It identifies when the transaction took place. A/P identifies this field as the RcvDate (received date). This date should be the date the goods were received or service was performed, not the date the invoice arrived in the mail.

L (Lock) This field determines if the transaction can be edited. The Lock command applies or removes the lock. A user must have GL password rights in order to lock a record. When a month is closed, this field shows ‘Z’, prohibiting any further changes to the transaction’s amounts or account codes. When a remote store exports GL transactions, this field is set to ‘T’ (Transferred).

Amount The amount is either a debit (+) or credit (-). In Bookmanager we do not have separate debit and credit columns. Instead we identify credits as a negative number.

Act (Account) A three-digit GL Account number. Accounts 100 through 299 are for assets, 300 though 399 for liabilities, 400 through 499 for sales, 500 though 599 for cost-of-goods-sold, 600 through 799 for expenses, and 800 through 999 for special revenue and expenses.

Se (Section) A two-character sub-account. The Accts command provides access to the list of Section codes. All entries must use a Section code contained in the master list (but can include a blank section). For sales, Section codes are useful to categorized sales and inventory. They are also useful to further categorize expenses.

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Loc (Location) A three character store# or Location field. The Accts command provides access to the list of Location codes. All entries must use a Location code contained in the master list (but can be blank). Location is way of linking revenue and expenses to a particular location (multi-store operation) or division of a company. The A Setup screen with q) Your Company Names and address has a Multi-Store# field. The GL uses this for the default Location when entering data.

Note Up to 30 characters can describe each entry in a transaction. There is no description field that applies to the entire transaction.

Check When payment is made from A/P, this field holds the cheque number. Checks written outside of A/P can be entered manually into the GL. The A/P system differentiates paid from unpaid entries using the check field (empty if unpaid).

Rec The reconciliation number is useful to group a set of entries for a specif- (Reconciliation) ic GL account. The most common uses are for bank reconciliation and matching entries in a cash-clearing account. When a three-character code is assigned, the entry becomes part of a set of entries sharing the same code within that account number.

Supl (Supplier) The Supplier code is only used if an entry is linked to A/P.

Typ (Type) The invoice Type is for A/P and identifies a transaction as an Invoice, Credit, Deduction, Old, Adjustment, Consignment or Payment.

Inv# or Invoice The Invoice # is for A/P and is an integral part of that module.

InvDate The Invoice Date means nothing to the GL, but is an important reference for you and your supplier when identifying invoices.

Adding new entries to your GL manually New is used in the GL exactly for the same reason it is used in other areas of Bookmanager: it creates a new entry. Press New to gain access to the various fields involved in adding a transaction to the GL. The fields you will access are as follows:

• TranDate: The transaction date is very important and should reflect the date the transaction took place. When statements and reports are printed for a specific period of time, the transaction date determines if the entry is part of the report.

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• Check: This is an optional field when entering data from the GL screen. All entries within a transaction must share the same check#, and the system will ensure this happens (i.e. you enter it once and it is used for all entries). This field is filled when you print a cheque from 7 A/P and is otherwise normally left blank. If you write cheques outside of A/P, then use this field to identify the cheque#. In A/P, this field is used to group paid invoices by check#.

• Note: The Note or description field is used to explain more about the entry. Perhaps it is the name of the person being paid, or the type of supply purchased from the stationery store. Each entry within a transaction has its own Note field of 30 characters.

• Allocation: This is where the amounts are entered. Negative amounts are credits; otherwise, they are debits. Knowing which to use depends on the account you are posting to. It may take a while for debit and credit choice to become a natural decision, but remember these basics; money out of my bank is a negative (credit) and money into it is a positive (debit); Sales are credit and expenses a debit.

After going through the Act, Se, and Loc fields of any given line, another amount field is accessed, and to left will appear the word “Balanced”, an amount, or nothing at all. When an amount appears, Bookmanager is telling you that the transaction is not yet balanced (a set of entries that add up to zero). The amount shown is the amount that needs to be entered to balance the transaction. All transactions must be balanced.

• Act: The GL Account field must be completed and must use a valid account code. If an invalid account is entered or u is used, the master account list will appear. If you enter only the first one or two numbers of an account, then the list will appear starting with the closest match. After selecting an account, the name of the account appears on the right side of the line.

Important: Never make an entry to Account 399 Current Profit or 999 Net Profit. Only Bookman- ager internally accesses these accounts when you compile financial statements. They reflect the difference between your revenues and expenses.

• Se: Section code. This is optional, but if it is used, must be one of those defined in the master Section codes list. Accessing the list is done with the Accts command, or by pressing u while in the Se field.

• Loc: Location or store#. This works in the same manner as the Section code field. Use it in cases where you want to identify an entry with a particular store number or division of your company.

Editing GL entries When adding entries or making changes to transactions in the GL or A/P, you are in fact working on a group of entries within the transaction. There is no limit to the number of entries within a transaction and the screen will scroll once you exceed its limits.

In the GL you are normally viewing a scrollable list of entries that comprise the entire file. In this mode, the Edt command highlights only the current entry and permits editing of only some fields. For example, the Amount cannot be changed because this would involve transferring the balance to another entry within the transaction. This type of Edt mode is useful for changing account numbers

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or the description field.

To edit a complete transaction, R must be pressed first. This changes the GL display mode to “this transaction only”. The Edt command alone will not let you inside the complete transaction.

NOTE: If certain fields are not accessible for editing, it is likely that the transaction is eitherL ocked or is part of a closed month (Zclosed).

While inside a transaction, the t b and R keys move you from field to field and from line to line. When you reach the end of each line within a transaction the next line of data becomes available for editing. To jump directly to the next line while keeping your cursor in the same relative field, use C t and C b. To jump directly to the last entry, use d.

When the set of entries becomes balanced the last line will have a zero in the amount field and the word Balanced beside it. d to exit and post the transaction.

If you want to remove an entry from the transaction, change its amount to zero. The entry will remain on the screen until you press d to save the transaction.

If you press E while editing or entering a transaction, you will be asked to confirm your action because you will lose all changes to every entry within the transaction.

Both the GL and A/P screens have similar data entry methods. If an entry in the GL is linked to A/P (i.e. a supplier code is attached to the transaction and one if its entries is posted to account 330), pressing R on it will bring up the transaction in the A/P format. This screen effectively permits the same type of editing, additionally providing access to fields such as Inv# and InvDate. It also shows the values in the most common account types (e.g. amount payable, freight, GST and currency exchange).

Copy a transaction This command saves time by taking an existing transaction and copying the data into a new transaction. You are first asked it the amounts should be reversed, requiring a Yes or No reply. Answering Yes (and not making any changes to the copy) would in effect negate the original transaction. If you find an entry that should not have occurred but cannot be deleted because it is part of a closed month, then Cpy will allow you to quickly create a reversed transaction to negate the original.

Deleting a transaction This Del command removes a transaction. Transactions are comprised of at least two entries, so you are in fact deleting multiple entries. Before deleting, you are shown the items about to be removed. If any of the entries in the transaction are Locked, or they have a Rec# (reconciliation) assigned to them, or they are linked to 7 A/P and have a Check# assigned, then you cannot remove the transaction. This is done to preserve the integrity of the data.

NOTE: UnLocking or Unreconciling a transaction (or Voiding the check) will permit it to be edited or deleted.

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Filter the list The Flt (Filter) is command provides access to the keyword field that appears when you Srch. It is intended to limit the GL screen to a selected set of entries. If a filter is already in use, pressing Flt a second time will cancel the filter.

The Filter command has an option to show only Locked or unLocked entries. Some companies will choose to Lock entries once data has been verified as correct. To find entries that have not been locked, Srch can be used to start the list from a specified date, then Flt will list only those that have not been Locked.

Indexing the file The indx command allows you to choose the order in which entries will be listed on the GL screen. This command is very useful, and you should experiment with it.

Index Purpose

Entry# This is the natural order of the data in the file. It is not used often, except when you need to see the sequence that entries were added to the GL. Using C e will take you to the entries most recently added to the file.

Date The Transaction Date index organizes the GL by year/month/day (oldest at top), then by transaction number (within each day), then by account (within each transaction). This is the most common way the GL is browsed.

Month The Month index organizes the GL by year/month, then by account (within each month) then by day of the month within each account. This index is very useful when you want to review all activity for a particular month, and need the data listed by GL account codes. For example, you can Srch for a month and start with account 600, then browse the file that shows all expenses for the month.

Tran# This index lists transactions numerically by transaction # (then by account within each transaction). Since each transaction is assigned a sequential number in increments of one, this is similar to viewing the file by Entry#. This index is also useful for viewing all closing month transactions, since all such transactions start with a Z.

Acct This index sorts entries by GL account number (then by date within each account). For example, browsing account 740 (wages) while using this index lists all payments to employees in order of pay date.

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Check# This index lists all entries associated with a particular check or payment. When invoices are paid in A/P the check number for payment is assigned to each GL transaction (and its individual entries) related to the invoice or payment. When a payment is issued a two-line transaction is also created (not visible from A/P) that debits the 330 A/P account and credits the 100 Bank. A check listing generated from the GL (linked to A/P) will therefore have several related entries. When totalled, these items should balance to zero.

Recon# The reconciliation index is primarily used in the bank reconciliation routine, but is useful for viewing a set of entries that have been reconciled together.

Searching in your GL Use Srch to find a particular entry in the GL, or begin a listing from a certain point. There are eight different methods for searching.

Beside some search methods is a Filter (keyword) field. When data is entered into this field, the list will show only entries that have these characters as part of the entry. If you press u while in this field, you can see a help box that lists the fields that are searched along with some examples. The comma (,) is useful when you want to restrict the filter to a particular field. To use it properly, you should know the character length of the field (e.g. 2 for Section codes) and then place the comma at the end of that length of spaces. Using a filter can slow or even stall the system if there are very few entries that match. E will stop the listing process. Use the Flt command to remove the filter altogether.

Below are the search methods:

Method Purpose

Date You are prompted for a specific date. The closest date is chosen if there were no transactions on that day. If you are trying to find a particular entry and all you know is the approximate date, use this Search method and add a filter to narrow down the number of entries to look through. Once found, selecting Filter will remove the filter and reopen the list starting with the highlighted entry.

Month Similar to date, except only the year and month are entered. You can then enter a GL account if you want to get to a particular account within the month. Your screen lists entries sorted by account number within each month. Very useful for reviewing activity and making sure entries are posted to the correct accounts during the month.

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Acct# Enter a GL account number and your list will start with the oldest entry in that account. Using a date will position you to entries matching that date within the account.

Tran# This will get you to a specific transaction #. If you leave it blank and press R, the last assigned transaction number will be found. Entering Z will take you to any of the closing month transactions.

Check# This will attempt to find entries associated with a specific check#.

Acct Rec You must enter a GL account number, then enter either a reconciliation number or leave it blank. This index is required by the system, but is not used often for searching.

Supplier This is actually an index used by the 7 A/P system, but is useful for locating 330 A/P entries from the GL. Not all entries associated with the supplier are listed; only those assigned to account 330 (A/P). The search lists entries in the same manner as when you first start working with a supplier in A/P (i.e. starts with first unpaid entry).

Entry# This is primarily for locating a specific entry in the GL database. If you enter 0, the last entry added to the file is displayed.

With a little practice you should be able to find anything in your GL file. Often, a particular search is used get to an entry, then indx is used to rearrange the list in a useful order starting from the currently highlighted entry.

Locking GL entries A single character field (labeled L) in the GL controls the ability to edit an entry. The Lock command changes an entry from locked to unlocked. If the lock code is Z then the entry cannot be unlocked because it is part of a closed month. In a multi-store environment, the lock code is set to T for Trans- ferred. This means that the entry has been exported from this Bookmanager system and transferred to another Bookmanager site. These entries can be unlocked, but this means that when they are again locked, they will be exported along with other locked transactions. This will create a duplicate set of entries at the site that receives the data.

It is not necessary to lock transactions unless you are a remote multi-store. In that case, entries are not exported to the main store until they are first locked. If passwords are part of your system, then those who have access to the GL can only do the locking and unlocking.

The purpose of the Lock command is to restrict editing of selected transactions. When locked, fields

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such as transaction date, amount, and account cannot be accessed.

Finally, when a lock is applied or removed from an entry, all entries with the same transaction# are affected. In other words, you cannot lock a single entry within a transaction.

Setting up GL accounts The Acct command provides access to the master accounts, Section codes, Locations and POS Ten- dering links. Each of these will now be explained in detail.

Master GL account codes This screen presents a set of entries that control what GL accounts are considered valid and how each account is handled under certain conditions.

When your system is first loaded, Bookmanager creates a standard set of account codes and a description of each. If you converted from a version prior to the GL, several other accounts may have been added. In most cases each of these must be changed or merged to follow the basic rules for Bookmanager’s GL. Once you have initially setup the accounts, changes to them are infrequent. How- ever, the list is often accessed when assigning an account to each entry within a transaction.

Below is a description of each field listed in the master GL accounts and its purpose.

Act The number assigned to this account.

Description A name for the account

Resrvd Yes for accounts that should not be removed or changed. Other areas of Bookmanager expect these accounts to exist because they are used for specific purposes.

Entries: Se This field determines if Section codes are used when automatic posting from POS, Receiving and Returns is done. This is used to customize your GL and determines the level of detail (and thus the number of entries) that are required for analysis. If you allow Section codes for account 400, then when sales are totalled in 4 POS, the 400 sales entry will be expanded to several entries; one for each Section code from the 4 Class file. After working with the GL for a while, you will be able to decide which accounts are providing too much detail and those that need more.

Entries: Loc Similar to the Section code, this field determines if the automatic postings will add this site’s Multi-Store# (in company setup screen) to the transactions that Bookmanager automatically posts to GL.

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Stmnts: Se Changing this field has no effect on the data, but it determines iffi- nancial statements should breakdown the account’s activity by section code. Experimentation will provide you with the best use for this field.

Stmnts: Loc Again, this field determines the level of detail required on financial statements. In a multi-store situation you may want POS postings to include Location # for bank (acct 100) entries so that when reconciling the bank with the statement you know what store# made the deposit. When it comes time to print a financial statement however, listing the bank balance by Location does not make much sense (you want to know the balance in the bank account, not the net of each store’s deposits and withdrawals). Setting this field to “No” for account 100 will not provide detail by location.

The Accounts screen has the usual Del, Edt and New commands, as well as a Prt (Print) command. The latter will generate a one-page reference list for all the Accounts, Sections codes and POS Tender links.

Master Section Codes From the GL Accts menu select Section Codes. This list controls the use of section codes throughout Bookmanager. Wherever a section code is entered (e.g. in the 4 Class file), the data related to the new section code will only be shown if the code also exits in this master list.

Although Section codes are primarily used to categorize inventory and sales, they are useful in other areas. For instance, we prefer to have all sales posted to account 400. Within this account we have sales broken down by section codes (e.g. FI fiction, CA calendars). When frequent buyer points and discounts are given, we want our sales to be reduced by that amount, but we also want to periodically look at the total of each of these. We do this by creating a unique Section code. We chose to precede each code with a square bracket [ (e.g. [P) because alphabetically this character appears after the letters a-z. It does not matter what you use, but this keeps the special section codes grouped away from the Inventory Section codes.

The UsesO/H Field The UsesO/H field on this screen is a simple name use to describe a rather complex feature. Activity in Receiving, Returns, and POS sales and adjustments all make changes to your 140 Inventory account (and therefore to each Section code’s total). Although those routines should keep the GL’s 140 total in sync with reality (what you have in stock), there are many situations that will cause the two to drift apart. Bookmanager has the ability to periodically recalculate the net value of your inventory by accessing the Inventory file and adding up the quantity on hand for each item multiplied by its present cost (PC field). This routine synchronizes GL account 140 and the realistic value of your inventory.

The synchronization routine (Recalculate Cost of each ISBN in Inventory routine in the Scheduler) works fine in a typical scenario, but some stores do not have their entire stock recorded in the Inventory file. For example, you may sell magazines but do not bother to receive and set the correct on hand for

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each of them.

In this case, you likely correct the GL 140 Sec MG account for magazines by periodically adjusting the account so that it reflects a physical or estimated amount. If the synchronization routine were run on this account (and Section code) it would want to reset that account to zero (or whatever total it came up with after tallying Inventory). What is needed then, is a setting that will tell Bookmanager to leave that account and section code alone.

Specifying Yes in the UsesO/H field of the section codes listing will synchronize your inventory and account 140 for that section code. In the magazine example, Bookmanager would set that section of account 140 to zero. Specifying No would not synchronize inventory and account 140, accurately reflecting your inventory value in magazines (provided that you periodically adjust 140 accurately).

Master Location Codes The Accts, Locations area is simply a place to put any Location codes you may use. Location codes are numbers of different locations you may have for which you wish to track data. Whenever data is entered into a Location field, the data is validated against this master list.

GL Total Command This command is provided so that you can obtain a quick total for a specific account, and optionally list the transactions for the period specified. If you need a total of advertising (610) for the month, then this command will do the trick. Enter the information as explained here:

Acct This is the account to be totalled. To find an acct#, use u and select one from the list.

Sect If you are only interested in a particular Section within the account enter one here, otherwise all sections codes will be included.

Loc Enter a Location code to tally only those entries that have this code.

Start The starting date for the total.

End The ending date for the total.

Include Specifying Yes will include a line detailing each entry that was included details? in the total

Before totalling the period, a balance forward (total prior to the start date) total will be obtained. The result will show the balance forward, the total for the period and the new balance forward. Use Prt if you need a hard copy.

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GL Printing options The Prt function provides access to several different GL reports.

1) Print This Transaction This will create an on-screen report of the currently highlighted transaction, and can be printed.

2) Print a Range of Transactions Enter a starting and ending date and the report will include a numerical listing of each transaction within the period. This of course can be a very long report. Fortunately, it is done on-screen before actually printing a hard copy.

3) Summarize GL Accounts This report is similar to the Total command, except it can produce summaries of more than one account and group totals into specific periods. Here are the input fields and what they do.

Starting The GL is scanned by date and examines every date within the Start and End dates to find matches.

Ending The last day to examine

Summarize by The summary report can display one result for each account over the specified period, or provide monthly, weekly or daily totals. Weekly totals begin with a Monday.

Include only You must supply information into at least one of these fields. If more Accounts/ than one field is used it is assumed you want all conditions to be met. Sections/ For example, entering 400 into Accounts and FI into Sections will produce Locations totals for only account 400 that has FI as a section code (all locations will be included). You may include partial account numbers. For example, put 6 into Accounts and the report will summarize all accounts from 600 to 699, producing one total for that range of accounts. You may include multiple accounts, section codes or locations separated by commas. For example, in Accounts you put “4,5”. This will produce a total of all 400 accounts and another total for all 500 accounts.

Your imagination is required here. To get a weekly summary of sales for FI (fiction) for the period Jan through March, enter the date range of 01/01/03 to 03/31/03, choose Weekly, put 4 into Accounts and FI into Sections. Voila!

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4) Government Remittance Report This report is designed specifically to handle payment of taxes and other forms of money that you collect on behalf of someone else.

Each month we must remit the amount of sales tax that has been collected on taxable sales. The POS has been neatly placing the daily totals of this tax into account #341 (Sales Tax). We need to get a report of the month’s activity and include any balance that may have been left over from the previous months (corrections), and then create an A/P entry that will clear the balance of this account and pay the piper.

Here are the fields for this report and what they do:

GL Acct# Enter the GL account # to be tallied (e.g. 341).

Start/End Enter the first and last day of the month (if this is a monthly remittance).

Supplier code Enter a supplier code that has been setup for the agency you are remitting to. You only need to do this if you want Bookmanager to make an entry into the A/P that pays the balance of the above account. We run this report once with no supplier code. This prepares the report for review. After examining for errors, we run the report again this time including a supplier code. If an entry is posted to A/P and you realize it is incorrect, simply go to A/P and delete the transaction it created and start over.

Include For auditing purposes it is easier to substantiate your remittance if the transactions? report details each of the entries that comprise the total.

Verify that your remittance data is correct! Rather than just accept the total, take a few moments and examine the details to see if anything has been put into this account in error. Bookmanager automatically creates an invoice for the given amount in the specified supplier’s account to be marked for payment, but only if you specify a supplier.

To complete your remittance ritual, go the 7 A/P file for the supplier that you remit to, mark the invoice just created and Prt a cheque. If you viewed the details of the entry in A/P you would see that the account you selected for remittance (341 in our example) was debited (reduced) by the amount of the invoice. This is how the account is cleared of any amount owing.

Normally, the “Prior account balance” amount on this report should be zero. This is because last month you should have remitted the exact amount shown on the previous month’s report. However, if the month reported was not closed (Z) at the time, then it is possible that additions, changes and deletions occurred after the report was created. The balance forward total provides only one total and does not identify which items were altered. If this information is important, then you will have to run the report for the previous period (do not post to a supplier) and then visually compare entries

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to find the changes.

If your government report also needs substantiating information such as sales for the period, the Ttl command or Summarize GL Account report can provide those numbers.

Auditing We often are asked if Bookmanager can provide the taxable sales only. In other words, totals for only sales where taxes were charged. The answer is no. When this is required, we simply divide the sales tax by the percentage of tax charged to arrive at a taxable sales total. While this may seem like faking it, you are still subject to audit even if your system provided the total for you. When an audit is done you must be prepared to prove; a) whether the items sold were taxable or not, and b) that the taxes collected were included in your remittance.

To prove this you would pick an entry on the remittance report (e.g. a posting from an end-of-day total), then retrieve the sales tape that showed each transaction in detail. Each transaction would have items on it that may or may not have been subject to tax. After reviewing a few of these, the auditor will likely accept your accounting method or dig further if many errors are found.

Canadian GST For the Canadian GST you must do two remittance reports in order to complete the remittance procedure. This is done under the assumption that the GST you pay on stock coming into the store acts as a credit on the amount you owe as a result of sales. The first report is done for 346 (GST paid), posted to the supplier for Revenue Canada. The second report is done for account 347 (GST collected), again posting the total to the supplier for Revenue Canada. When you go the supplier’s A/P account there should be two entries, one for each GST account (346 will increase A/P, and 347 will decrease A/P). These are both marked and payment should be made for the net result.

Remitting GST When Not Using the GL Regardless of whether or not you use the GL in Bookmanager, the Government Remittance Report will provide you with GST totals from goods received/returned. Use the following instructions to determine the total GST recorded from Receiving, Returns, and Accounts payable when you are not using the GL.

After accessing the report, use account 346, which is Bookmanager’s default GST account. Next, enter the period for which you would like a total. If you are not fully using the GL, leave the Post total… option blank. The last option should be set to include details.

The resulting report starts with a “balance forward” total that should be ignored if you are not using the GL. The “activity during period” total is the GST total for the period (the total you are looking for). The report also provides a detail of every transaction (e.g. receiving/return/credit) that occurred from Receiving, Returns and Accounts payable. This information is the audit trail that will support the total GST for the period.

WARNING: Unless you use the GL option to Close each month, the total on the report can AND WILL change. Even though the majority of your invoices are finalized at the time they are received, errors and omissions will be made. If corrections are done after the remittance report is generated,

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you will never realize the changes. Even if you are very careful about this, the real problem will surface with regard to returns, credits, and payments of charge backs. These transactions are almost never exact until a credit is received. The data on the GST report is driven by the “transaction date”, and for many of us, this date (although critical) is overlooked.

However, if you close a month in the GL, the records for that period are frozen to prevent any further changes to transactions (e.g. changing invoice amounts). Now, if you make a change in the A/P, Bookmanager will assist you in correcting the transaction in a manner that will force the net of the changes to be posted into a period after the last closed month. No matter how meticulous you are with regards to returns and credits, you will almost certainly introduce large errors unless the reporting month is closed.

You can close a month even if you do not use the GL for accounting purposes. Simply follow the steps to close a month. Normally you would be concerned with entering closing balances and reconciling these with an earlier system, but in this case, just close the months.

In summary, you have a very accurate, reliable and simple method of reporting your GST in Bookman- ager, but you MUST close the periods for which you are reporting on before generating this report. Otherwise, you are most certainly going to remit the incorrect amount, which could be thousands of dollars due to a simple oversight during data entry.

NOTE: If you are using the GL in its entirety, you can do the report before closing a month because, in this case the “balance forward” amount picks up on any changes you might have done prior to the reporting period.

5) Financial Statement or Trial Balance This is a specialized report that summarizes and organizes your GL data into a report format that is common for accounting. This includes a Profit & Loss Statement (sales and expenses) and a Balance Sheet (assets and liabilities).

After selecting this report you may need to press Update in order to display the report’s options. Here are the options:

Fr o m / To The period what you are interested in reviewing. There are three columns of numbers on the financial statement: “previous”, “period” and “total”. For the P&L, the “previous” includes all sales and expenses starting from the first day of your present fiscal year and ending the day before the From date you specify. The “period” column is the activity in the From/ To range. The third column is the total of these two (year-to-date)

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Sections The first field requires Yes/No and is asking if you want the statement to break down each account by section code. The second field is for entering any section codes (separated by commas) that you would like to restrict the report to. For example, we have a coffee bar and we’ve purposely coded all revenues and expenses related to the coffee bar with CB as a Section code. If we wished to have a financial statement for just the coffee bar, we would put CB into this field.

Exclude This field is for entering any section codes that you would like exclude from the report. If we wanted a report of bookstore sales excluding coffee bar items, we would put CB here to exclude that activity.

Locations These fields follow the same rules as Sections codes. Use this to produce reports for a single location or a group of them.

Include Balance This produces only a P&L and is faster to compile. Sheet?

IMPORTANT: If anything is entered into the Sections or Locations fields (include or exclude) the Balance Sheet will most likely not have matching assets and liabilities, and therefore be mean- ingless. This is because certain entries that were part of the financial period were excluded, yet they may have been required in order to make assets and liabilities match. In practical terms, when you do a report that includes or excludes portions of the GL, only the P&L has meaningful information.

Before we close a month, we create a financial report that details both section and location codes, plus we include the balance sheet. This is a rather lengthy statement but its detail provides us clues to data entry errors. You may find totals for blank Section or Location codes that you did not expect to exist.

TIP: To find blank location codes within an account, search for the account and use the filter with “, ,” (comma, three spaces and another comma). This should present only entries that have nothing in a three character (e.g. location) field.

If you have several unclosed months you find that it takes a long time to prepare financial statements (and some of the Total and Summary reports). The reason for that is, in order to obtain a balance forward from unclosed months, Bookmanager must add thousands of individual entries rather than obtain the total from the last closed month.

6) Monthly P&L Summary This report enables you to summarize your Profit/Loss situation for any number of months at a glance. Simply enter the first month of the period you would like to see reported and the number of months in that period. Enter the Sections and Locations that you would like to include or exclude in the same way you would for a Financial Statement. Enter the Revenue and Expense accounts you wish to include

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as requested, and press d to compile the summary.

You will see your sales, COGS, expenses and Gross and Net Profit for each month specified, as well as a grand total for the period.

7) Export transactions to tab-delimited file This routine allows you to export GL records for a single Tran#, or for all transactions between a date range. The file exported is a basic text file (.txt), but it is a tab-delimited format so it canopened with a spreadsheet program like Excel. The columns exported are Date, TranNum, GLAcct, SubAcct (section code), Loc (location), Amount, Details, Refrnce, Cheque, Supl (supplier), and Account Description. The file is saved in your root BM Folder and named GLTab.txt by default, or you can specify a name and save location in the File field.

Xtra commands Using the Xtra command will present the following options:

Reconcile Account An important part of managing your GL and finances is performing a monthly bank reconciliation. With the hundreds and even thousands of entries that are added to your GL each month, there needs to be a way to verify that the bulk of the information was entered correctly, and to the appropriate accounts.

Your bank statement is one of the best ways to ensure that you have done things correctly. Often errors caught through a bank reconciliation will reveal other errors.

Each time you make a payment or a deposit, an entry is added to your GL bank account (eg. 100). In theory then, when the statement arrives from the bank you should be able to match the items with those in GL account 100. This is called a bank reconciliation and Bookmanager can automate and speed up the process.

After selecting Reconcile account, a special screen will be displayed. The top portion is where you enter the options before beginning the reconciliation.

GL Account For GL bank account 100, enter 100.

Close Date The ending date on the bank statement (e.g. the end of the month). If you do not supply a date, then the opening and closing balance fields are not available. This indicates that you are reconciling entries within an account but not balancing to an external document.

Opening balance The opening balance on the bank statement.

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Closing balance The closing balance on the bank statement.

Reconcile using# If a Close Date was supplied (implying a bank rec) then this field is filled with a character code that represents the month and year of the Close Date. For example _A3 means January 2003. If a close date was not supplied, you have access to this field. Normally it is left blank. If you need to access earlier reconciled entries, enter the reconciliation number that was used for those entries and they will appear in the list about to be generated.

The Reconcile account routine serves two similar but distinct purposes. First we will discuss the basic bank reconciliation.

After entering the data, a list of entries for the specific GL account (e.g. 100) will be displayed. This list includes any entries up to and including the Closing Balance date supplied (if one was supplied). Entries after that date are not included because they are not supposed to clear the bank until later. If you are just beginning to reconcile a month, all listed Rec fields should be blank.

Most of the information on the screen is provided to help you identify the amounts. The top portion of the screen has a running Balance in red. Your goal is to Mark entries so that a zero Balance results. Marked entries have a * in the Rec column. If you supplied opening and closing amounts then the Balance should be the difference between the two. As you mark entries the balance will change.

You are now ready to find items on the reconciliation list, which are also on the bank statement. To do this you have different options:

1. You can Search for an amount. Enter the amount in the space provided. Credits (money removed from your account) are entered with a minus (-) in front. If the amount is found AND it has not already been marked, then the screen is refreshed with the found entry at the top. The entry is automatically Marked.

2. Browse the list using the t b keys and visually locate the desired entry. Mark it. The Mark command will also unmark a marked entry.

3. This is the fastest method. Instead of choosing Search just type in the amount. As soon as the first digit is entered, the Search mode will be automatically selected and the rest of the numbers fill the field provided. We have designed this so that you do not need to look at the screen while entering data. Your computer will beep if there is no match.

The indx command is useful if you want to see amounts listed in numerical order. The Filter command can reduce the scope of the list to just the type of entries you are looking for.

As each entry is found you should check off the same item on the bank statement. At this point you may realize that items such as bank service charges were not earlier entered into the GL and therefore were not found during this process. You may also see amounts that are similar but not exact. Perhaps

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these are deposits that were not corrected.

Once you’ve identified the errors and omissions, press = (GL) to back to the GL, make corrections and then get back into the Reconcile Account routine. The corrected entries should now be marked.

If you’ve entered the Opening and Closing Balances correctly and you’ve marked every item on the bank statement (and not marked items missing from the statement) then the Balance should be at zero. When this happens, a message appears stating that the marked entries balance and asks if you are ready to reconcile them. Normally you select Yes and the Rec# field is filled for all the * (marked) items.

If you are having difficulty with a large number of entries, use the print option and find your errors from paper records. If you’ve made a hopeless mess and want to start over, highlight one of the marked entries and choose Unreconcile.

The remaining unmarked entries are considered to be outstanding. That is, you posted them to account 100 some time ago, but the bank has never received the cheque or deposit and they are not on the statement. Examine the date of these entries and decide if they might be errors (entered twice?) or if they just have not been processed through the bank’s system yet. Deal with the errors as soon as possible. Under no circumstances is there any reason for entries to remain unmarked unless they are truly just waiting for bank clearance.

Finally, print a report of the reconciliation. To save paper you can print only unreconciled entries, but the report provides valuable balancing information and should be stapled to your bank statement. If this happens to be your year-end, your accountant will need this report to substantiate your GL bank balance.

Reconciling your first month’s bank statement When beginning to use Bookmanager’s GL, generally you are migrating from another accounting system. In order to do a first bank reconciliation, extraordinary steps need to be taken to account for bank items that were outstanding at the time of the first closing month. The following will guide you through the process.

Our sample company had closing bank information as follows:

General ledger balance at Dec 31 4,600.00

(what you entered into BM as a closing balance) Actual balance at Dec 31 5,000.00

(taken from bank statement) Difference (i.e. total of outstanding items) -400.00

Outstanding items (items yet to clear bank) Deposit 100.00

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Check #123 -300.00 Check #456 -150.00 Check #789 -50.00 Total (e.g. agrees with the above Difference) -400.00

The above information must be available from your previous accounting system (manual or comput- erized). It substantiates the difference between the GL bank balance and the real bank balance. In this case, it demonstrates that the $400.00 difference is the result of four items that were recorded in the GL, but had not yet cleared the bank. These transactions are expected to clear sometime after January 1st.

You will need to use the above list of outstanding items in order to use Bookmanager’s bank reconciliation correctly.

Step 1 In this example it is assumed that you have initialized your GL for use on January 1st. This means that the GL will have closing balances for December 31st (e.g. account 100 is set at 4,600.00).

Step 2 Use the GL New command and make one transaction that contains a line for each of the outstanding items (minus for cheques and plus for deposits). In the example, we will make four entries. In order to balance the transaction, there will be 400.00 that needs to be posted as well. All these items are posted to account 100 (bank). The table below lists all items that are now in our sample GL. It shows the opening entry, the outstanding items, and activity that occurred during January.

Entries in Bookmanager GL Tran# TranDate Amount Act. GL initial closing balance Z200012 Dec31-00 4600.00 100 GL initial closing balance Z200012 Dec31-00 -4600.00 398 OS CK #123 FROM DEC 0000001 Jan 1-01 -300.00 100 OS CK #456 FROM DEC 0000001 Jan 1-01 -150.00 100 OS CK #789 FROM DEC 0000001 Jan 1-01 -50.00 100 OS DEPOSIT FROM DEC 0000001 Jan 1-01 100.00 100 TOTAL OF DEC OS ITEMS 0000001 Jan 1-01 400.00 100 JAN DEPOSIT 0000002 Jan15-01 1000.00 100 JAN DEPOSIT 0000002 Jan15-01 -1000.00 400 RANDOM HOUSE PAYMENT 0000003 Jan15-01 -350.00 100 RANDOM HOUSE PAYMENT 0000003 Jan15-01 350.00 500 DEPOSIT 0000004 Jan29-01 365.00 100 DEPOSIT 0000004 Jan29-01 -365.00 400

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Step 3 Retrieve your bank statement. Below is a copy for our example.

Bank of Gold January Statement Amount Balance Dec 31 bal fwd 5000.00 Jan 3 deposit 100.00 5100.00 Jan 4 ck -300.00 4800.00 Jan 8 ck -150.00 4650.00 Jan 15 deposit 1000.00 5650.00 Jan 30 ck -350.00 5300.00 Jan 31 closing balance 5300.00

Step 4 Use the GL Xtra command and select Reconcile Account. Enter 100 as the account #, Jan 31st as the close date. Enter the opening balance from the bank statement, but first subtract the total of the outstanding entries obtained from your old accounting system. In our example, we took 5000.00 and subtracted 400.00 to arrive at an opening balance of 4600.00. Next, enter the real closing bank balance (5300.00 in our case).

You are now ready to perform the bank rec.

The entry that represents the total of the pre-January outstanding items (in our case the 400.00 in transaction 0000001) should now be Marked. Now proceed with Marking each of the items found on the bank statement. The marked items on the screen should balance to zero (i.e. their total equals the closing balance less the opening balance). When done, you will be prompted to finalize the reconciliation. As a final step, press Print to get a listing of unreconciled entries. This report is shown below and demonstrates that the GL bank account is balanced against the real bank statement.

In our example, there is still an item from pre-January that has yet to clear the bank, and there is a deposit done late January that will likely hit the bank in February.

Listing of unreconciled items for account 100 Bank#1

Rec Amount Se Loc Check TranDate Supl Note TranNum -50.00 0 Jan 1-01 OS CK #789 FROM DEC 0000001 365.00 0 Jan29-01 DEPOSIT 0000004

a) Account 100 total as of Jan31-01 5615.00

b) Less 2 O/S (unreconciled) items 315.00

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c) Amount to balance with bank (a-b) 5300.00

d) Closing bank statement balance 5300.00

e) Remaining balance (c-d) 0.00

It is essential that item e) is zero, otherwise you have done something wrong.

NOTE: When doing a bank reconciliation for subsequent months, you will be entering the real opening and closing balances (as opposed to entering an adjusted opening balance).

Reconciling Cash Clearing Accounts Cash Clearing accounts are used to maintain activity (debits and credits) that has happened, but cannot be recorded under the proper accounts yet.

What happens when the bank cashes a payment in January but the cheque was printed with a Feb- ruary date? The mistake has happened and you need an entry in January in order to reconcile the account (100). You create a credit entry the in GL for account 100 but have no proper place to put the debit unless you use a Cash Clearing account (121). Edt the GL transaction for the February payment, and change the credit for the Bank (100) to Cash Clearing (121). Over the two-months then, the January and February entries into cash clearing will cancel each other.

Here is another situation we have to deal with on a regular basis. When you make payment to us (Bookmanager) via credit card, we have to use our Bookstore’s merchant Visa to process the payment. To balance our daily Visa the Mosaic POS must record the Visa payment. They post the payment to 121 Cash Clearing because the revenue has nothing to do with them. On the Bookmanager side, we record the sale and post the visa payment to the same cash clearing account. A few days may pass before the two transactions are finalized in both POS systems. Periodically, we use the Reconcile Ac- count routine and look for debits and credits that match each other.

The last situation may be helpful if you total your daily sales but do not make immediate bank deposits. Instead, you accumulate several day’s deposits and then make one larger deposit. Instead of having the POS debit the bank for each day’s cash/cheque balances, you could have these posted to 121 Cash Clearing. When you make the larger deposit, you debit the bank the actual amount of the deposit and then credit Cash Clearing the same amount. In Cash Clearing there should now be multiple entries that belong as a set and can be reconciled.

To reconcile this account, use the Reconcile Account routine and enter 121 Cash Clearing for the account. Do not enter a Closing date and leave the Reconcile using # field blank. The list of entries will consist of those that need pairing up. Use the Mark command to match up the related entries. The balance should be zero and the prompt to reconcile the batch will appear. A reconciliation num-

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ber (code) is assigned to each new batch of reconciled entries. It starts from 000 and will work its way through a series of number and letter combinations. Each batch will have a unique reconciliation number. If you ever need to know what debit was applied against what credit, the unique reconcile number assigned to the group will tell you. As well, if the system is working like it’s supposed to, the remaining unreconciled entries will total and equal the current balance of the 121 account. You should be able to tell your accountant what this amount relates to.

GL Close Month or Year The GL Xtra menu has a Close Month option. This routine is used to permanently lock all entries within a month and produce a closing month transaction that summarizes the year-to-date totals. If you want to see or print the month’s closing balance transaction, search by Transaction for Zyyyymm (e.g. Dec 2004 is Z200412).

Each day you use Bookmanager, entries will are added to the GL. Totalling the POS, working in Receiv- ing and Returns all automatically create GL entries. Any invoices entered directly into the 7 A/P also become part of the GL. Any other financial activity should be recorded directly into the GL screen. At the end of the month, the Month-end procedure will compare the total of GL account 140 Inventory to the tally of all the On-Hand fields in Inventory (multiplied by each item’s cost), and make an adjustment to account 140 Inventory account so that they both agree.

A month should not be closed until the activity for the period is reviewed. The A/R total is compared to a summary of customer receivables. Bank balances are compared (reconciled) against bank statements. Entries into the sales and expense accounts are reviewed item by item to see that they have been allocated to the correct accounts. A draft financial statement is printed and reviewed. You may even wish to run the Xtra option to Look for unbalanced entries. Finally, use this Xtra option to close the month. This will permit no further changes to the data.

NOTE: If you are greeted with the GL initialization screen after selecting to close a month, then refer to the Setting Up and Preparing the GL section in the manual (page 323).

Before Bookmanager actually closes the month, the transactions for the month will be examined to ensure they balance and that no invalid Account, Section or Location codes exist. A list of the errors will be provided. If there are any errors reported, you must correct them and select to close the month again.

There is no urgency to close a month. Generally you must wait at least until bank statements arrive and monthly remittances to government agencies are done. During this time, corrections to A/P are the norm, and invoices arrive for things like telephone and hydro. Entries should have Transaction dates in the month that the expense was incurred. If your hydro or advertising bill arrives in February but was for service or promotion in January, then it is best to keep the transactions dated January. This way, your monthly financial statement will better reflect reality. For year-end, it becomes even more important that activity that occurred during the year is entered and dated sometime in that year.

It you wait too long to close months, then you are not only creating a big workload down the road, but you are depriving yourself of financial information that could be important to your business decisions. You can get financial activity reports without closing a month, but is risky to use unverified and open

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data for major business decisions. You may panic when you see wages skyrocket only to later realize that the bookkeeper accidentally entered payroll records twice (and review of O/S bank items should find that). Or, you go on a spending spree (because profits are way up) only to later find out that a day’s sales had been entered as $40,000 instead of $4,000.

It is recommended that a month be closed somewhere between 30 and 60 days after the last day of that month. Time is needed to do bank reconciliation and review payables and input bills that arrive after month-end. Also, many reporting features in the GL use the month’s closing transaction to obtain totals for future reference. This improves overall speed because it does not need to add up hundreds of individual entries for each of the previous months.

Making Corrections in a Closed Month A closed month may be reopened if important errors are found that you would like to correct. Only the most recently closed month can be reopened, so you may have to reopen several months if your error is more than one month ago. To open a previously closed month, select the Xtra option Reopen last closed month. As soon a month is open it is subject to change. For this reason, the errors should be corrected and the month immediately closed again. Financial statements that had been printed for the closed month should then be reprinted to avoid later confusion. Unless the errors are serious, or they are part of the previous fiscal year end that has been adjusted by your accountant, you should avoid repeatedly reopening months. In such a case, it is better to correct the error with an adjusting entry dated in the current month.

Closing a year When closing a month, you are asked if this is also your year-end. Answer Yes if it is. When a month is closed, a balance forward is carried for sales and expense accounts (i.e. accounts 400 though 999). For year-end these accounts are reset to zero.

Accuracy Checklist If you are interested in having accurate monthly totals and financial statements, then we’ve provided a checklist of things to consider and perform.

Suggested Daily Procedures for the GL Total off the POS at the end of every day. It will usually be the next day before you are able to review it. After using the daily sales tape to review sales and balance the bank deposit, there may be corrections such as adjusting the bank deposit entry on the GL transaction to the actual amount deposited. This accounts for shortages or overages in the day’s cash. We put a tick mark (or initials) on the printed sales report to indicate that it has been reviewed and corrected in the GL.

Get into the habit of entering activity as soon the invoice or charge occurs. For example, when a telephone bill arrives, enter it as soon as the envelope is opened. It can be paid later, but at least the expense is in your GL.

Browse the previous day’s activity. If you want to see activity for the previous day, Srch by date, enter yesterday’s date and browse through the file. Be aware that activity that occurred during the

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day may not have that day as the transaction date. Although Receiving and Returns always use the current date, corrections and entries made directly from A/P or the GL can be done using any date so long as the period it is in has not been closed.

For invoices and claims, match the documents to the entries on the screen. Errors are best caught early. You can also Lock each entry, which prevents future accidental changes and provides an indication that the entry has been reviewed.

TIP: Reports for periods right up to the previous day should be quite accurate. Keep in mind though that until a bank reconciliation and other crosschecks have been done, significant errors can go unnoticed.

Suggested Monthly Procedures for the GL: To close a month off properly, there are several crosschecks that should be performed. For a year-end this process is a must.

TIP: We usually wait until bank statements arrive before going through the monthly review.

Bank reconciliation: All of your bank statements should be reconciled. A report of outstanding items is then printed, reviewed and attached to the bank statement. This will reveal double and missed entries.

Foreign bank accounts: Use the Total command to get GL balances for a foreign currency account. Then estimate the amount of exchange you would receive if the funds were converted to your currency. That amount should equal the Ttl for account 120 Currency Exchange. Several things will cause the two to be out of balance. Make an entry (dated the last day of the month) that will make account 120 agree with the estimated exchange. Usually the balancing entry is posted to 500 Cost-of-Goods (because the foreign account is used primarily for inventory purchases).

Review Accounts Receivable: Generate an A/R Summary report from 6 Customers. Examine the accounts, then Ttl account 130 in the GL. In both cases, use the last day of the month. The two totals must balance. If they do not, review the activity in account 130 – perhaps something was posted to this account in error.

Review Accounts Payable: Use the 7 A/P, Prt, Cutoff report. Then Ttl account 330. These two totals should agree.

Review account 121 Cash Clearing: We use this account for entries that we were unsure of where to post at the time, and for entries such as prepayments. Use the Xtra Reconcile Account feature to review open entries. Reallocate or reconcile those that you can. The remaining entries should only be those that you will be able to deal with at a later date.

Review Inventory totals: Month-end produces a report that totals the 2 Inventory file at retail and cost. The total cost should agree with the Ttl of account 140. Due to the volume of transactions and the number of situations that affect this account, you may need to create a preliminary financial statement (broken into Section codes) to identify the source of discrepancies.

Your goal is to make the 140 Inventory account agree with whatever you’ve used to estimate the value

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of your inventory. When month-end creates the Inventory-at-Cost report it also creates an entry in the GL that is designed to reconcile the two. The entry will be dated the last day of the month and will have amounts in curly brackets {} in the Description field. These are the actual totals at that date from the perspective of the Inventory file. The debits and credits in the Amount field (for 140 accounts) are the values that are used to bring the GL 140 accounts in line. The Xtra routine Adjust Inventory Closing Balances will tally the 140 accounts and adjust each Inventory Closing entry so that the Ttl of 140 will agree with the amount in the curly brackets. It is beneficial to understand this process as it provides an effective way of balancing your GL to Inventory.

NOTE: There are exceptions if you do not receive and track every single item in your store. Certain master Section codes may be set not to link the GL with the Inventory.

Government remittances: Accounts that track sales tax, GST, payroll deductions and such will likely have been remitted by the time a month-end review is done. Nonetheless, this is a reminder that these accounts need to be reviewed to ensure that entries are valid and remittances have been made.

Review of month’s activity: Our last step is to review the month’s activity for each account. Srch by Month and enter the previous month. The most important areas to review are the expense accounts (starting with account 600). On the screen you will be able to see (in day sequence) every entry that was made to each account. While doing this you may realize that a telephone bill has been errone- ously expensed to advertising. This may also bring to your attention expenses such as hydro that have not been posted for the month. To have meaningful financial statements, you should expense (enter) everything in the month it occurs even though it may not be paid until later.

Produce a financial statement: This is the final check. We print a statement in detailed form (with Section and location codes) and examine the month’s activity and closing balance for each account. This usually reveals any further errors.

Close the month: With everything reviewed, we close the month. This seals the activity for the month to prevent any further changes. Although the month can later be reopened, that action is deliberate and thus predictable.

Print financial statement: We print a final statement (this time without section codes) and file the document with previous month’s statements.

Initially, this may seem like an enormous workload, but in fact is will become routine and will only take an hour or so once each month. Your bookkeeping is accurate enough for the accountant, plus you have monthly financial statements that can be used to substantiate important business decisions.

Multi-store users and the GL In a multi-store environment, only the main location (or head office) maintains an active GL and A/P. The remote sites use the GL to hold Receiving, Returns and POS data that is then transferred via the nightly routines. Remote stores must still maintain proper GL account codes and such so that the data being transferred will have the correct account codes when it arrives at the main store.

354 GENERAL LEDGER | Multi-store users and the GL

GL Data Transfer The multi-store setup screen previously had options to send GL and A/P data to a designated store number. This has been replaced with a new Scheduler option Prepare GL data for export to Loc#???. When this routine is started, the GL is examined starting with the first non-closed month and looks for any transactions that have been Locked. These locked transactions are copied to an export file. The lock-code on the original entries are then marked Transferred to prevent them from being exported a second time. Exported transactions will include anything put into the GL file including POS end-of-day totals, activity from A/P, Receiving, Returns and Inventory closing balances.

When the main store receives the file, the transactions are added to its GL. New transaction numbers are assigned to ensure all transactions in the file are unique. The Scheduler’s Log will detail the number of transactions imported, the old transaction numbers and the new ones.

Locking Entries and Multi-store Only Locked GL entries are transferred from a remote store to the main store. Also, a locked entry cannot be changed unless it is unlocked. These are two very important facts to remember when using Bookmanager in a multi-store environment.

There is an option in the A Setup for p)Multi-store that allows any entry placed in the GL through other areas of Bookmanager to be automatically locked. Setting this option to Yes will autolock entries posted from 5 Returns and 9 Receiving. Setting it to No will not. If you do not autolock such entries, you must remember to Lock them manually in the GL, or they will not be transferred to the main store.

Locking Entries and Receiving at the Remote Store Sometimes you will not finish receiving an invoice from a supplier before the day is over, or you wish to receive an invoice in more than one session. Doing so adds a very important step to the receiving process with regards to the locking of GL entries, when autolocking is set.

When you press d from the Process Receiving Session to post a session and print labels, etc., the invoice is Locked in both A/P and the GL. With the invoice locked, any more receiving done under that invoice number is not added to A/P or the GL. Therefore, if you plan to receive part of an invoice now and the rest later, you have two options:

1. Do not press d from the Process Receiving Session to print labels, etc. Save the labels until you are completely done the invoice. The invoice will not be transferred to the main store until it is complete.

2. Press d from the Process Receiving Session to print labels, etc. Then go into A/P, search for the invoice, and unLock it. Now you can add to the invoice in Receiving, and it will not be transferred to the main store until d is pressed again from the Process Receiving Session to process that invoice.

Locking Entries and Returns at the Remote Store The same thinking needs to be used when doing work in 5 Returns. When a claim is Processed for the

355 GENERAL LEDGER | Multi-store users and the GL

first time from Returns, the appropriate entries are made in 7 A/P and the GL. They are also locked. Locked entries cannot be changed or deleted until they are unlocked. Therefore, Voiding a previously processed claim in returns does not delete it from A/P or the GL. If you Void a claim in Returns, you must also find the Deduction in A/P and Delete it.

Multi-store Stock Transfers In the multi-store setup screen there is now an option (Do you want inter-store stock transfers posted to A/R and A/P?) to disable the posting of A/R and A/P transactions that are multi-store related. Setting this option to No means that POS multi-store transactions will not be posted into your A/R file, meaning that the remote store is not expected to pay for these items. This setting also implies that the POS will sell each item at cost to a specified multi-store account. This option also prevents the need to use the discount field in the Customer entry for each multi-store.

If any of these conditions are adverse to your operation, then you will need to specify Yes for this setting. In that case, POS store transfer invoices will require the Customer discount field to be filled. Invoices will be posted to A/R (as a receivable) and Receiving will generate a payable in A/P. Most multi-store operations do not bother with the complicated task of tracking invoices between stores and then making payments to clear the accounts.

Receiving multi-store stock transfers Setting the previously mentioned option to Yes changes how electronic invoices are received by a Remote store. Now, the Price field in 9 Receiving will be the cost and the Discount (%%) field will be zero. In prior versions, the selling price and a discount was used. This change handles cases where items being transferred have a cost, but you wish to sell them at varied prices when they reach the POS. This allows the retail price to remain at zero in the 2 Inventory file, and forces entry of the selling price in the POS when the item is sold.

How the GL views stock transfers When one location uses 4 POS to invoice another location for stock, the sale is labeled as a “Transfer” (for multi-store transfer of stock). When the POS is totalled, the GL transaction created includes the movement in inventory. For example, if location #000 ships $100 worth of FI (fiction) to location #001, the GL transaction will be as follows:

GL account Amount Location Section 140 Inventory -100.00 0 FI 141 Stock-in-Transit 100.00 1

Account 141 Stock-in-Transit is reserved for this purpose. It is an asset account that represents inventory that you own but has yet to arrive at the Remote location. When the receiving location processes the shipment through Receiving, their GL is updated with a transaction as follows:

GL account Amount Location Section 140 Inventory 100.00 1 FI

356 GENERAL LEDGER | Multi-store users and the GL

141 Stock-in-Transit -100.00 1

The 141 Stock-in-Transit account now has two entries that cancel one another. Part of your bookkeeping routine should include using the GL Reconcile Account routine to match the debits and credits in account 141. If the receiving store receives the invoice (generated by the other location) without modification, then there will be two entries with the same invoice number and amount to match.

Whenever a financial statement is generated, and all stock transfers have been processed in Receiv- ing (and a data transfer session has occurred), account 141 should have a zero balance. Most often however, there will be one or more shipments in transit, and 141 will have a balance. If you do not periodically reconcile account 141, it may become very difficult to determine if the balance in 141 represents a few shipments in transit or an accumulation of errors (goods invoiced and never shipped or received). To balance the account you may then need to create a GL entry that clears account 141, and the offsetting amount would likely be posted to 500 (Cost-of-goods-sold).

Do not use Returns for sending inter-store stock transfers. The system allows for this but; a) there is no entry made into the 141 stock-in-transit account, and b) there is no electronic invoice created to automate the receiving of the return. Instead, the return should be invoiced via the 4 POS.

You will no doubt make errors when invoicing a stock transfer. They will hopefully be caught at the receiving end. If the error is of significance, the invoicing store should be contacted and asked to create another invoice that corrects any over or under charges. This way the original invoice can be received as is (with errors), and after the next data transfer, the correction invoice will resolve the problems. This method will make is easier to match invoices when reconciling account 141.

How the GL gets exact inventory totals from remote locations The processes just described should keep the GL inventory quite accurate, however a true count of inventory should be used periodically to bring the GL in line with each location’s 2 Inventory. Month- end does this automatically, or you can have it scheduled more frequently. When a store runs month- end, a tally of its Inventory is done and the results are posted to the GL. This transaction is sent to the Main location’s GL. Bookmanager uses this special transaction to adjust the GL 140 account so that it equals what Inventory reported on that date. The offsetting entries for these adjustments are posted as an expense to account 540 (Inventory Adjust to Actual). If you notice huge adjustments being made, then it is likely that something procedural is not being done correctly.

357 F3 MESSAGING | Introduction

F3 Messaging Introduction Bookmanager has a built-in, simple “word processor” for creating and managing emails and faxes to your suppliers and customers. At the time of Bookmanager’s conception back in ‘86, faxes were all the rage, so though it now may be an antiquated feature that very few of you will use, we left it available for a bit of nostalgia and those still rocking the Lionel Richie Jheri Curl. It is accessed by pressing 3 anywhere within the program.

There are several places in Bookmanager where you have the option to email or eFax a document rather than printing it. Purchase orders, claim forms, invoices and statements are common types of email and eFax documents. For the sake of simplicity, and the fact that most users do not fax documents anymore, we will refer to this area in terms of emailing (though eFax is always an option, and works the same way).

If you would like to use an outside program that will automatically open when you use 3 Messaging, you can set that feature in the A Set-up, options a) General, and editing option b) F3 Messaging documents are edited with_____. We recommend typing notepad in this field, so that any document we use through 3 is opened and edited through Windows’ Notepad application.

Emailing Setup Bookmanager can send any printable document as an email. Emailing can also be utilized to send purchase orders from 8 Order Precessing, claims from 5 Returns, statements from 6 Customers, and online order updates and notices to customers from 4 POS.

Bookmanager Emailing utilizes your default email program you normally use to check, send and receive

358 F3 MESSAGING | Emailing Setup

emails. This can be Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Google Gmail, and so on. You must first configure Bookmanager to work through this program before emails can be sent.

Within A Setup, select L) eMail.

Getting your emailing setup can be a bit tricky, just due to the variety of options and nuances with each emailing program. Trial and error is your best bet here, so don’t be afraid to try different things in each field if you’re getting stuck. We recommend to set Enable verbose mode (for debugging)? to Yes while you are initially testing this setup, as Bookmanager will display a log as it attempts to send an email. Then you can see where the problem lies (if any), such as if it fails sending because of your password, or a security setting that needs to be toggled. After you have successfully sent an email, switch the verbose mode to No.

For the first six options, you will need to refer to your email program to find or verify these fields. Often times, this can all be found under your program’s “Account Settings” or “Server Settings” area. If all else fails, you can always do a keyword internet search such as “Outlook 360 email server port”. Most programs will need Requires certificate verification? set to Yes. Here are some hints of where to look for a few common programs:

Thunderbird Within the Tools menu option, select Account Settings. Under your Account name on the left, select Server Settings. There, you will have a Server Name, Port, and User Name (usually your email address) listed. Make note of those so you can fill them into Bookmanager later. Under that isa Security Settings area. Make note if you have anything selected under Connection security and Authentication method.

Back in Bookmanager, fill in the following: Server Name goes into the Email server field; Port goes into the SMTP port field; and User Name goes in the username for AUTH LOGIN field. Enter your email’s password into the password for AUTH LOGIN field. If you are unsure of your password, you can try logging out of your Thunderbird email and logging back in to verify it. You may have to contact your email administrator or computer technician if you cannot remember it and need it reset or retrieved.

359 F3 MESSAGING | Emailing Setup

Sometimes you will not need to input a username and/or password depending on your Thunderbird setup. The security settings you made note of before can be used to determine if Does your email provider require TLS encryption? and/or Requires certificate verification? need to be set to Yes or No. Sometimes trial and error is needed here, where you try one option, then switch it if you don’t have success.

Outlook Finding the email settings here is similar to Thunderbird. From the Tools menu option, select Account Settings. The Email tab should be selected by default, and under there you will find your email name. Double click your email address/name to open its settings. Here, you will see some of the preliminary information you are after. Click the More Settings button at the bottom, and under the Outgoing Server and Advanced tab you will find security and port information. Sometimes port 1025 will be entered into Bookmanager as is, or just simply as 25.

Gmail Gmail’s settings are a bit trickier, as you often have to disable some security features from your Gmail Sign-in & security to allow it to work with Bookmanager. You need to access the My account area under Google apps (this is the little square boxes icon in the upper right-hand side). Now click Sign- in & security, and under Signing in to Google, turn 2-step verification off. Scroll down near the bottom of the page, and under Connected apps & sites, make sure Allow less secure apps is set to ON. Gmail will now allow Bookmanager to send emails through their servers.

Use smtp.gmail.com for the Email server field, and then your full gmail account and password. Does your email provider require TLS encryption? is set to Yes, Requires certificate verification? is Yes, and SMTP port is 587. The Default ‘from’ email address is ignored because it uses your gmail address.

Sending a Test Email The 3 Messaging functions will be outlined in more detail later in this section, but for now follow these steps to create a quick test email to verify this service is working.

Press 3 anywhere in Bookmanager to access Messaging. If this is the first time using this area, there will be no saved or sent documents listed. Press New and select Blank message. Enter your email address (or an address you can easily check right now) within the Email/Fax field and press R. Under Select a form to use, press R on {none}.

If you have specified Notepad to be used to write/edit Messages, Notepad will launch now. Type anything in the blank Notepad document for the body of the email, then close Notepad using the window’s close X button and be sure to select Save on the close dialogue box. This will insert anything you typed from Notepad into Bookmanager’s Messaging screen.

If you did not choose to use Notepad as the message writer, then you will type the body of the test email directly into the Messaging screen. Press C W to save the document.

Your cursor will now be back at the top of the list view, highlighting the test document you just created. Select Edit to give the test email a Subject (as some email programs block emails without subjects)

360 F3 MESSAGING | Messaging basics

and press R to save it. Now select Print/send and option E) Send by eMail. If you have enabled Verbose mode, you will be required to press R to initiate the send, and a string of status text will fill the screen as it goes through each process. If the email sends correctly, Bookmanager will notify you as such. Same goes for failures, at which time you can go back to A Setup, L) eMail and tweak settings, then back to Messaging to highlight the failed email and Print/send again for another test. You do not have to create a new test email each time, just try re-sending the first one you created. Remember to check your Inbox after each test, even if Bookmanager says it was a success. Very rarely an email will be blocked or delayed even if Bookmanager says it was a success, so it’s best to find out if there is another blockade to overcome (such as your junk email settings).

Messaging basics The top portion of the 3 Messaging screen gives a brief listing of your existing emails and the status of each email. The bottom of the screen displays as much of the currently highlighted document as is possible. Documents to be emailed are stored and sent from here. All stations share a single Messaging area, so if you create an email on one station, you can view it and send it on another.

A basic understanding of Messaging is needed before attempting to email a document. Each document has a status line at the top of screen, which tells the following:

• Date: The date the memo was created or the date the email was sent.

• Status: The current state of a memo, which is to be emailed or has been emailed (Not Sent, In Queue, Sent, Failed etc.).

• Account: Either a supplier’s code or a customer’s account number. The word “Form” will appear on lines that describe a template.

• Email/Fax: The email address or fax number the document will be sent to.

• Subject: Usually the name of your store followed by a reference or claim number, automatically generated by the system. This will appear in the Subject line of an email.

• WS: The computer Station number that the memo was created at.

Moving to different documents and viewing them Using the t b keys moves you through the different documents. Pressing R, F or View will display more of the selected memo, and E will bring you back to the list. This allows you to scroll though the complete document. The l, r, h, and e keys will scroll the screen if documents are wider than the screen permits.

After some time, 3 Messaging could have several hundred messages. The top of the screen has a red indicator to tell you which way the file is currently indexed. By default, the Date index will be in red -- the list of memos will be in date order, newest to oldest.

The index command allows you to view all messages in various sorts: in order by Date, Account, Forms, Not Sent Messages and Entry (natural order). Using the Search command is also useful for

361 F3 MESSAGING | Messaging basics

bringing up emails sent to a specific account.

Sending Emails

Step 1: Creating a message New will create a new message where you can select four options: Blank message, To Supplier, To Customer or Create a Form.

Selecting Blank means you do not want any information relating to a supplier or customer inserted into the memo. You manually enter in the email address you would like to send to.

Selecting Supplier will bring up the supplier search bar that you will also see in 3 Suppliers when you press Search.

Selecting Customer brings up a box where you will type the customers name in. When you press R it will list any matches. Or, when prompted for a name you can press u, which will allow you to find a supplier by code or a customer by account number.

Use Create a Form when you are making a new form template that is to be used for inserting into future memos. When you select this you are asked to provide a description for the form (eg. COPY OF INVOICE).

Step 2: Select what to fill the document with Unless you have created forms earlier, your only option is to select {none}, which will open a blank document. Otherwise there will be a selection of pre-made forms that you may choose from by b or t and pressing R.

Step 3: Start writing your document

362 F3 MESSAGING | Messaging basics

If you selected to write to a supplier or customer, your name and address, and their name and address will appear at the top of the memo. If you selected a form from the list, the contents of that form will be present.

At this point you have the freedom to move to any position within the memo to complete it. There are several word processing commands which make this process a little faster:

; is a toggle (pressing it switches between overstrike and insert mode as indicated at the top of your screen). In ; mode the text you type is inserted where the cursor is and text past the cursor is pushed to the right or down the page. When ; is off, typing will overstrike (replace) the characters beneath the cursor.

e moves the cursor to the last character on a line.

h moves the cursor to the start of a line.

Cr or Cl moves the cursor to the start of each next or previous word.

Ce moves the cursor to the bottom of the window (or the bottom of the memo) while Ch move it to the top of the window.

d and u will make the next/previous portion of the memo appear in the window.

Cd and Cu move you to the end or start of the memo.

CY will erase a complete line of text.

Ending a memo The only way to exit and save a memo written in Bookmanager is to press C W. E is used when you do not want the memo (or changes to it) saved. You will be warned if you press it by accident. When writing a memo with an external program like Notepad, simply close the window and choose to Save the document to insert its contents into Messaging.

Other functions Edit will allow you back inside an existing memo to make any changes. C W to save and exit.

Del (Delete) will eliminate the memo and remove it from the list of memos in the Message Writer file.

Print/Send will give you the option to make a hard (printed) copy of the memo, or to send it to a screen preview, or to send the memo via email or fax.

Srch (Search) brings up a menu that allows you to search for Account#, Keywords, or Forms.

Copying a memo and/or creating forms If you have written a memo and want the contents transferred to another new memo use Copy. If you are sending it to another party, after Copy is used and you are editing the memo you will have

363 F3 MESSAGING | Setup for faxing documents

to remove the portion of the memo that relates to the other party (ie. their name, address etc.). C Y is the fast way to do that by erasing a complete line at a time.

If you are copying a memo into several new memos, it is better to use Copy and then select Create Form. This will insert the contents of the previous memo into a Form. Once the form is cleaned up to your liking (omit the name, address etc.), save it and then use New, select the appropriate supplier/ customer and then select the form from the list of those available.

TIP: Requesting a copy of an invoice is often time consuming. If you have a form letter called “COPY OF INVOICE” and fill in the usual “We need copies of the following invoice(s)...”. Once this initial step is done it takes only moments to email or fax a request for this whenever the need arises.

Correcting and editing Forms Once a form is created you may not be able to get at because it no longer appears in order amongst your other memos. Use the indx (Index) command and then select Forms to get a list of forms. Now you can use Edt to make changes to the form.

Messaging maintenance The Month-End routine will remove memos that are over 6 months old as this is the default setting. If you want this changed you need to access the A Setup, h) Month-end option Keep memos in F3 Messaging for ?? months (min 1, default 6). where ?? is the number of months you want to keep information for.

Setup for faxing documents Before faxes can be sent you need to verify the settings in the A Setup option k) Faxing. These settings are specific to each Station. Enable faxing only on the computers that support this ability.

• Send faxes through: Efax (email to myfax.com for faxing), Winfax (send the document to the Windows’ Fax Queue), or Printer (print a physical fax to be sent manually using your store’s all-in-one copier/scanner/fax machine). The chosen method will be used by all stations.

• Add area code to xxx-xxxx phone numbers: Insert your local area code number to have the area code added to 7 digit local numbers, and to prevent the 1 from being added.

• Fax service provider URL: If you are using Myfax or another URL based program, enter that information here.

• Failed fax notices are emailed to: enter the desired email address here.

All Windows operating systems have built-in fax management. Faxes are sent from your Devices and Printers module found within your Control Panel. You will have a default printer driver called Fax, or many all-in-one desktop printers/scanners/copiers have built in faxing capabilities that can be configured and linked. Please consult Windows’ Help or a computer technician if you are unfamiliar with this setup. Once it has been configured, select Winfax as the Send faxes through option, and

364 F3 MESSAGING | Setup for faxing documents

Bookmanager will send any faxes to that driver.

Sending faxes Press 3 to access the Message Writer.

Create a New message to send, and be sure to save it by using C W.

TIP: You can create a document for TBM Bookmanager and send it to us at 250-763-5211, indicating that it is a test fax. We will let you know if the fax was received OK.

If you are not faxing this immediately, press Queue to change the status. If you press Queue on a message with a blank status it will change to Not Sent, if you press Queue on a message with a Sent status, it will ask you if you would like to change its status, and you can press Yes or No

As you peruse the faxes in queue, make sure that the fax numbers listed on the right are correct (they must have ALL the numbers required to make the call). Use A Edit to correct any. To avoid doing this in future you should make corrections to the fax number in the 3 Suppliers or 6 Customers areas.

TIP: Unsent documents in the queue from Order Processing or POS can be Edited to add or delete information. Use C W to save your changes. Documents other than memos created by 3 Messaging may be wider than a standard memo. For this reason, the automatic line-wrap that moves words from one line to the next is disabled (it’s actually set to 132 columns wide). This means you will have to press R to start each new line of text. If you notice any odd characters in the document, they are probably characters to indicate a page or print break -- best to leave them alone.

MyFax service Faxing is still a semi-regular method to send orders and claims to suppliers. There is a company called MyFax that allows for faxing if you do not have the capability in store. Documents are sent via email to MyFax.com who then forwards the document as a fax to the recipient’s fax number.

To use this feature, you must go to the MyFax.com website and create an account. MyFax.com will also provide each store with a toll-free phone number for receiving incoming faxes for no additional charge.

Whatever level of MyFax service you choose, Bookmanager can be configured to use your MyFax account to send faxes from any workstation instantly. There is no need to print them and no long distance fees to pay.

Setting-up MyFax: 1. Establish your account at MyFax.com

2. Use A Setup, L) Email to verify that you have already enabled and tested Bookmanager to send email. All of your faxes will be sent to MyFax via email from Bookmanager.

3. Use A Setup, k) Faxing and change the faxing method to Efax. Enter your local phone

365 F3 MESSAGING | Status Indicator

number prefix where provided so that any local 7-digit fax numbers will have your local area coded added automatically (all MyFax faxes must have an area code). The Fax service provider URL field should already have myfax.com entered.

4. The Failed fax notices are emailed to field must be the email address you used to register with MyFax. You can override a particular station’s failed fax email address in the space provided, however you must ensure that this email address is also registered with myfax.com.

With these settings completed, anytime you select to fax from Bookmanager, your document will be emailed to MyFax.com and then sent to the fax number provided.

NOTE: Faxes that were undeliverable (wrong number, etc) will be sent back to the email address you provided in the Bookmanager fax setup screen. Although Bookmanager will report all faxes as being sent successfully, you will need to be on the lookout for failure notices within your daily email.

Toll free numbers: Some toll-free fax numbers only work in certain regions. These may be re- jected if the MyFax computer that sends the fax is out of the toll-free area (who knows, maybe from India?). In this case, you need to use the recipient’s toll fax number and then resend the document. All MyFax faxes are sent with no long distance charged to your account, so using the recipient’s toll number no longer costs you. Also, you do not need to prefix numbers with a 1 (long distance code).

The fax session If you are using Windows faxing, it will only take a moment while the document is passed onto the Windows fax program. The status will change to Sent OK (WinFax) As far as Bookmanager is concerned, the fax has been sent. Depending on your Windows Fax settings, you may now see a Windows dialogue box appear to inform you of the faxing progress. You can change these settings so that faxing occurs completely in the background. With background faxing, at any time you can double-click Fax from list of installed printers (or the fax icon in the system tray, if it’s present) to see what is happening. The Fax Console also has the ability to review faxes previously sent. You should become familiar with this screen because once Windows is handling the faxes, Bookmanager will not be able to tell you if any of them fail.

Status Indicator At the very top left of the Bookmanager screen is your Status field, which will let you know if your documents has sent successfully, needs a status, or is unsent. This reminder will alert you to the fact that emails or faxes are in queue or attempts to send have failed for some reason. Be sure to deal with these problems.

Re-sending or canceling failed emails/faxes Emails or faxes may fail for several reasons. In any case, the message is marked as failed. Pressing index and then selecting Not Sent messages will list any emails or faxes that failed to send (they are always at the top of this list). To set them up for another attempt, press Print/Send and select the correct corresponding send option.

366 F3 MESSAGING | Status Indicator

If you have to give up on emailing someone, you can also use Del to completely remove the message.

Do not leave failed or unsent faxes of emails in this state. Doing so will make the reminder system that appears at the top of your screen ineffective. That reminder is only useful if you remove failed items that you do not plan to send again. The same goes for In Queue faxes. If you have decided not to send the fax, get rid of it from the list or remove it from the queue -- the reminder at the top of the screen is there to alert you to new problems or new emails or faxes that need to be sent.

Sending other documents The most obvious use for Bookmanager emailing and faxing is sending purchase orders. In 8 Order Processing, highlight an Email or Fax order and then Process the single order or send a batch. Each purchase order will be processed and then copied to 3 Messaging. The same procedure is followed for sending emails or faxes of claim forms, invoices, and accounts receivable statements (with these you select the option to print and an option to submit copy for emailing or faxing is provided).

367 DATA TRANSFER | B) Bookmanager Backup

Data Transfer This area is specialized to handle the transfer of information in and out of Bookmanager. D Data Transfer is most often used to create backups, update the software, and create Offsite systems.

B) Bookmanager Backup Backing up your system on a regular basis, and scheduling those backups to happen automatically, is a crucial operation that was discussed early in this manual under the Getting Started section (page 25). You can manually run backups by selecting options a through e here and pressing d. If you want to change the options/destination associated with each of these backups, b to the option and d to save as the defaults. A backup log will be shown on the lower portion of the screen for reference.

368 DATA TRANSFER | U) Update Bookmanager

U) Update Bookmanager This area is where you can download and install a new version of Bookmanager. Updates cannot be scheduled to happen automatically, rather it is the responsibility of the store to update their program. New features and bug fixes are added on an almost weekly basis, so we recommend that you update your program at least once a month to ensure the most stable operation and robust features. You must be current with your Bookmanager Annual Support Renewal (includes program updates, unlimited telephone support, EDI capability, Webstore, etc.) to be able to update your program.

Updates can be downloaded and installed on any station, but an installation does require all stations to close out of Bookmanager for the process to complete. We recommend that you have a current backup before installing a new version, especially if you have waited a long time between updates (over one year).

WARNING: If you are a Multi-store user, you MUST update all locations at once, before any Multi- store scheduled routines are to be run. Different versions of Bookmanager will not exchange Multi- store data properly, and could result in the loss of data or sales.

To update Bookmanager, go to Data Transfer and select U) Update Bookmanager (download and install new version). First, you need to download a new version, so select the first option Download the latest version from bookmanager.com. Once it has downloaded (often this takes no time, as new versions are very lean in file size), you will get a third option, Install the version downloaded: (date + time). Make sure the downloaded date is from when you requested a new version (so likely today’s date). You can read about any release notes pertaining to this new version by selecting the second option Read about latest version.

To install, either manually close all your Bookmanager Stations (except the one you are performing the update from) or inform your staff that they will automatically be closed in a few moments. If any Stations are left open, selecting Install the version downloaded: will automatically close them for you.

369 DATA TRANSFER | Offsite Bookmanager

Again, verify the version date (it will not have today’s date, rather the date the latest version was released), and press R on Install to continue.

Bookmanager will now automatically close on the station you are performing the update. Simply use your desktop shortcut to re-open the program to continue. A warning message will appear:

Select Yes to continue. Do not under any circumstances interrupt the examination and conversion process. Do not close the window or shut off your computer. Data loss and corruption could occur.

Pressing any key will finish the process and bring you back to the Main Options menu. Your version number and date will now be up to date. You can view your version date by looking in the upper left hand corner of your screen. The last six digits correspond to the version date: yymmdd. Keep in mind that this version date reflects the last updated version of Bookmanager, and not necessarily the day you performed the update.

O) Offsite Bookmanager The Offsite module was discussed in detail within the Point-of-Sale section of this manual (page 142).

E) Edelweiss ordering import If you use Edelweiss to place catalogue orders, you can import those orders into Bookmanager so product and Title data is on-order within your system and has records available come time to receive.

370 DATA TRANSFER | E) Edelweiss ordering import

You need to contact Edelweiss and request to have your account set up for FTP downloads. You will be given a separate user-name and password that need to be entered into Bookmanager.

Before you can import Edelweiss orders into your system, you must first export the data from the Edelweiss site. There is a specialty export option just for Bookmanager there, so the process is quite streamlined. Go to http://edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com/, log in, and view an order under the top Orders tab. Click the little blue downward facing arrow to access the “Downloads” area.

Next, under the Download To: fields, make sure the FTP radial button is selected, and use the drop down menu to find Bookmanager. Click the Download button to send this order into your Bookman- ager software, but only click it once!

Now go back into your Bookmanager software and select Data Transfer from the Main Options menu. Select E) Edelweiss ordering import to bring up the Edelweiss import screen. Fill in ftp. abovethetreeline.com under the ftp address field, and the user-name and password given to you

371 DATA TRANSFER | E) Edelweiss ordering import by Edelweiss after you requested your account be enabled for FTP downloads. You will only have to fill this information in once. t back to the File to process field and press d to scan your folder for a new order to import.

If there was an order to import, you will be advance to the bottom half of the screen to specify a few more options before the final import. Verify the Bookmanager Supplier code you want to assign this order. Use an Order Separator, as without one this order will be merged with any pending orders for this supplier that also do not have an order separator. Specify an Order# if this order is to be marked as Sent. Under Order Status, set it as ORDR to mark the order as Sent in 8 Order Processing, or set it as PEND to leave it as Pending and to send it/mark it as Sent at a later time. Give the order an Order Date and Cancel Date. Filling in a Cancel Date will start the import process, so say Yes to continue.

Bookmanager will import the order and add any missing entries to Inventory if need be. Now you will have an entry in 8 Order Processing for this order with the above details you specified.

372 DATA TRANSFER | Supplier, GL, A/P, and Customer File Import/Export

NOTE: You can specify Edelweiss to include your store’s Classes attached with each ISBN upon an export. This is a more advanced setting that requires an export of your Class file matched with Bisac subjects, so please contact Bookmanager support for assistance with this feature. Once it is set the first time, it will remain mapped until you change your Class file again.

Supplier, GL, A/P, and Customer File Import/Export The next four options S) Supplier File (import/export), G) GL & A/P file data (import/export), C) Customer file (import) , and P) Process new data (if any) in EDI2 folder are highly specialized functions used for transferring data between two Bookmanager systems. These are not used in regular Multi-store operations, as the Multi-store routines set in the Scheduler are designed for the interchange of data. Please use these routines only on the advice from Bookmanager support.

F) Check ftp sites for new files (invoices/confirmations) Normally this is a scheduled routine, or manually run from 9 Receiving. If you want to check for new files from Suppliers who are set to use Netftp as the Send Via method in 8 Order Processing, select this routine.

M) Set Inventory ‘changed’ flags (multi-store) This is a specialized routine for rare troubleshooting instances in a Multi-store setup. Please consult the Multi-store section for more information, and use this only with advice from Bookmanager support.

X) Title data import Yet another specialized process that should only ever be utilized by Bookmanager support. This has the potential to change your current Inventory, so proceed with caution.

373 MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS | 1) Reindex file(s)

Miscellaneous Options Selecting Miscellaneous from the Main Menu gives you access to a number of specialized options. It is important to note that some of the functions in this menu are dangerous if you do not know exactly what you are doing. You will get on-screen warnings whenever you are entering a sensitive area, or performing an irreversible function, so tread lightly!

1) Reindex file(s) This will in all likelihood be the most common option you use from this menu. Index files are what Bookmanager uses to organize data, and they are what allow you to perform searches in your various files. They can become damaged due to a variety of reasons, and this is the place you can come to rebuild them.

To reindex a particular file, all you need to do is find it on the list and type Reindex next to it. Once you have selected the appropriate file(s), pressing d will begin the reindexing process.

374 MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS | 2) Agency Change

NOTE: When you are reindexing a file, no other stations can be using the file in question. Itis usually a good idea to exit all other stations from Bookmanager until the reindexing is complete. You will get a warning message on-screen if the reindex procedure cannot get access to the file.

In addition, you can also choose to Pack files from this menu. Packing a file is a process that copies all the data, removes deleted records, and then reindexes the file. Packing permanently deletes any files marked for deletion. Packing happens automatically as part of Month-end maintenance, so you generally do not need to run it manually. If you choose to pack a file, you should never interrupt it under any circumstances, or the result could be data loss or corruption.

Both packing and reindexing can be run overnight through Bookmanager’s Scheduler.

2) Agency Change The agency change option is used when a line of product moves from one supplier to another. It is a quick way to update your Bookmanager system with the change.

If the change only applies to a certain line of product, you should enter the appropriate ISBN prefix, without dashes. You can also enter the filename of a basic text file saved in your BM Folder containing ISBNs that you want to change. Leaving this field blank will move all product from a particular supplier. Next, you enter the current supplier code, and the new supplier code.

Finally, you must decide what files to make changes to. If any new product is to come from the new supplier, but any returns go to the old one, you would want to enter i (inventory) O (orders). This would leave any received items under the old code, meaning that the invoicing history with the old supplier for returns purchases. If you want to change everything over, including receiving history, select iOR.

3) Benchmark test Tests your computers performance by adding and removing temporary files.

375 MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS | 4) Purge Deleted items from Inventory

Though the message says 50% or better is good for network access, in reality 500% or more is needed for quick operation across networked stations. If you find your elapsed time is above 0.5 seconds, you may need to consult your network technician to find where the bottleneck is, thus slowing your computer’s performance across the network. Sometimes it is as simple as an anti-virus or firewall program that is scanning every file being sent to and from a computer, thus slowing the whole program down. Running this test on the server station is moot, as it will have the highest performance because it does not have to access files over the network.

4) Purge Deleted items from Inventory Titles marked Deleted will be removed permanently from Inventory provided that the same ISBN is not in other files (Orders, Sales and Returns). If the ISBN is in other files, then the deleted title must still remain in Inventory to provide information (title, author, etc.) on the ISBN.

Finally, when you Pack the Inventory file (see Reindex File(s)), the purged ISBNs will be removed and reduce the file’s size.

5) Remove duplicate ISBNs from Inventory Because Bookmanager will not allow you to enter the same ISBN twice, duplicate ISBNs should not occur in your Inventory file. However, if the file becomes damaged due to a crash or a power failure, duplicates can be a possibility. If you notice them and want to clean them up, running this routine will do so. Bookmanager will scan the Inventory file, and if it finds any exact duplications (all information is the same) it will just remove one. If it finds any entries with the same ISBN, but the information is slightly different, it will merge the entries.

When the scan has finished, you will get a chance to print a list of any entries that were changed.

6) Recalculate Inventory file Total-Received field The Ttl (Total Received) field in Inventory should reflect the same information as the actual history from the orders file. This routine will rebuild that total for all items in your Inventory based on the Rcv column in Inventory. You can specify the number of months that you want to use to build this figure. Choosing 0 (zero) will reset the total received to zero.

Running this routine may affect the Total Sold figure.

7) Rebuild Inventory Received/Sold Fields This routine will use your Orders, Returns and POS history to rebuild Rcv and Sld columns in the Inven-

376 MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS | 8) View System Errors log file

tory card. This should only be used in very unusual cases where you notice that the history for items is not matching these fields.

If you only have a single Inventory item you want to correct, use the 2 Inventory Xtra option A) Rebuild this Title’s Rcvd/Sold/TtlRcv/TtlRtn/1stRcvd fields.

8) View System Errors log file This option will give you a list of error messages recorded from Bookmanager crashes. It will identify the station number where the crash occurred, and in many cases will give you the code for the error. This list can be useful to the Bookmanager support staff when attempting to diagnose system problems.

T) Test Network setup for proper file sharing This routine can be used to identify whether you have a problem on your network. It will also show, in brackets, whether SMB2 file sharing has been enabled or disabled on this computer. In most cases, SMB2 file MUST be disabled on the server computer, or catastrophic data corruption within Bookman- ager will occur. This will have been discussed and implemented by Bookmanager support staff upon any new installation of Bookmanager, or if your hardware has been changed/replaced.

When you run this routine on a station, Bookmanager will create temporary files and then attempt to swap them over your network. If you run this routine on each station simultaneously on your network, often you can identify whether a particular station is the source of the problem by forcing it to crash during this test.

It is usually best if this is run with assistance from Bookmanager support.

X) Browse any text file If you know the path and filename of any text file, use this option to view it. To get a list of all text files in the BM folder you can type *.txt in the file name field, and then enter to pick one from the list. Press u to search for a file on your computer or network.

NOTE: You will not be able to make any changes to the file: it can only be viewed.

Y) Global Changes to area codes This routine can be used to make changes in 6 Customers if there is an area code change. Simply type in the old area code followed by the new one, and Bookmanager will make the changes. If you leave the Old area code blank, Bookmanager will just add an area code to numbers that previously

377 MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS | Z) Database repair utilities

did not have any.

Z) Database repair utilities This will give you access to Bookmanager’s raw data files. This can be quite dangerous if you don’t know exactly what you are doing. We recommend that you do not go in here without the assistance of Bookmanager’s support staff. None of the functions nor explanations of this area will be given to prevent use without Bookmanager advice and supervision.

378 SCHEDULER | Coordinating Scheduled routines

Scheduler The Scheduler is a place where you can set routines to run automatically and at specified times. In order for Scheduled events to work, the Bookmanager Station set to run the tasks needs to be left on the Main Menu. If they are not able to run at the specified time, as soon as you leave Bookmanager at the Main Menu, it will count down and attempt to run the past-due routine(s). All routines in the Scheduler are Station specific, meaning that they will only run automatically on the station where they reside. Routines can also be run immediately by highlighting them and selecting Start.

At the bottom of the Main Menu screen it will list the Next scheduled event on this workstation.

Coordinating Scheduled routines In most cases, you will want your routines to run automatically at night or early morning while your business is closed. If you set your routines to run one minute apart, it won’t matter if the first one goes over the allotted time: the next routine will run as soon as it has the opportunity.

Adding and editing routines Select New to add a routine to the Scheduler. For each event, you will need to choose a Frequency, a Time, and Routine.

• Frequency: How often do you want this event to run? You can choose Only once, Every day, a particular Day of the Week, or set a particular Date within the Month.

• Time: Enter the time using the 24 hour clock. For example, for 8:12 pm enter 20:12.

• Routines: Many routines are listed here, and some of the more common ones are discussed

379 SCHEDULER | Adding and editing routines

in their appropriate sections of this manual. Some of the routines are very specialized, and should be set up with assistance from Bookmanager. More than likely, Bookmanager support will set up your essential routines upon the installation of a new system.

If you need to modify an existing routine, all you need to do is select Edit. This will give you access to the above fields, and allow you to change the frequency, the time, or the event.

List of the Routines Below is a listing of all the possible routines you can choose to run:

The MS code found at the end of routines 50-57 stands for Multi-Store, and these routines should only be run if you are operating in a Multi-Store situation.

If you have questions about any of the other routines, please contact Bookmanager support.

380 SCHEDULER | Working with your Scheduler and multiple Stations

The following is a very common scheduler setup for a single store user with multiple stations:

Working with your Scheduler and multiple Stations Usually, you will have one main station (your sever) that is responsible for running all the scheduled routines. It is possible to work with multiple stations within the Scheduler.

For example, you have the ability to view and use the routines from any other station when you are in the Scheduler. If you select Workstation and specify the station number, you will get the list of routines from the station you specify. This will give you full access to that station’s routines, allowing you to Edit, Del, Start, or to add New routines.

Also, it is possible to use Trf (Transfer) to move a routine from the current station to another one on the network. This is helpful if all routines are to be transfered and designated to run from a new server station.

Checking the log The Scheduler Log is an essential tool for verifying that routines are running properly, and identifying any potential problems with the events. When you select Log you will get a list of all the activity that has happened in your scheduler. The most recent activity is listed,, newest on the bottom, and you can u to scroll through previous pages of events. The log will also contain information about electronic orders you have sent to your suppliers, listing all the activity that occurred in a particular ordering session.

The log will list any activity that has occurred on any station on your network. It will give you the date, time and station number, and list the activity that occurred.

You can locate specific activities by using the Fitler and Search commands. Filter will allow you to reduce the list to only items that match your filter condition. For example, if you were to enter #00 in the filter, it would list only items that occurred on station 00. Or setting the filterto PRH would only find lines that contained that code, which would allow you to browse through any activity with

381 SCHEDULER | Checking the log

Penguin Random House (like an electronic order session).

The Search function will allow you to search the file for text. It will start from the beginning of the log and look for matches. Using AgainSearch will repeat the previous query, finding the next occurrence of the text. As an example, if you were to search for Raincoast you would be taken to the first line in the file that contains that word. Searching again will find the same line (because it starts at the beginning of the file again), but selecting AgainSearch will find the next occurrence of the word Raincoast.

There is also a Print option, which will print the information from the highlighted item on. This is often useful to the Bookmanager staff if you are trying to identify any problems within your scheduled events.

Pressing Log a second time within the main Log will take you into the Log for EDI files screen. This will list EDI documents that have been sent and received, and can be helpful in diagnosing electronic invoice issues.

382 WEBSTORE

Webstore The Bookmanager Webstore is a full featured and integrated counterpart to the Bookmanager software. You can access your Webstore by pressing Webstore on any title in Bookmanager, or by selecting Webstore from the Main Options menu. Features include:

• Your entire active book inventory from your Bookmanager Software is automatically uploaded to the site everyday, at user specified times.

• Consumers can search using our huge Titlelink search engine containing over 15 million titles to see what you have in stock, on order, or can obtain. They then have the option of holding, reserving or ordering books from you.

• The customer can choose to either pick up their order in-store, or have it shipped to them.

• Payment can be made online with VISA, Master Card, American Express, Discover, PayPal, or Authorize.net. The built-in credit card payment options incur no charges from us, and is a great way to cut costs for small businesses who cannot justify a paid service like PayPal.

• A shipping calculator that applies freight charges automatically can be enabled and customized, or you can choose to contact your customer first with case-by-case freight charges before finalizing the payment.

• Each Webstore can be completely customized with no web design knowledge. Creating and managing content for your site utilizes a user-friendly Visual Editor, much like the interface you find in Microsoft Word or most email programs.

• If you have experience with HTML/CSS, you can take full control of the Webstore. We are also available to help with more specific design needs, and offer in-house graphic design services with reasonable rates.

• The Webstore can be tailored to be more than just a listing of your inventory. You can customize menus and pages to feature staff picks, events, videos, or even a blog.

• The Webstore also acts as a utility for your bookstore, allowing you to place catalogue orders in a more visual, user friendly way than in the Bookmanager software. Analytics is a powerful Webstore tool that allows you to analyze your inventory and sales in a visual way, identifying areas of your store that need attention, and trends that you can capitalize on.

The Webstore is a beast in itself, so for more information on how to activate your Webstore and get started, please contact Bookmanager support for hands-on tutorials and documentation. For a preview of some of the things you can do with a Webstore, check out the Webstore promo page here on bookmanager.com or our own bookstore’s site mosaicbooks.ca.

383 MULTI-STORE | Introduction

Multi-Store Introduction Bookmanager’s Multi-Store features are designed to allow efficient flow of information between stores, and help with the centralized management of a small chain. Each bookstore operates its own independent Bookmanager system. Specialized routines are used to exchange information and update each location’s files.

Multi-store Features • New titles added to the Main Store can be transferred to each of the Remote Stores. The Main store’s data has precedence. The Class file is transferred to each Remote store each time titles are sent.

• The Main store receives each Remote’s on-hand file, then creates a consolidated file that is subsequently sent to each Remote store. Every store then has on screen viewing of each location’s on-hand, on-order, and 14-month sales history, accessed with the , (comma) or . (period) keys from Inventory.

• Orders entered at each location can be designated (reserved) for fulfillment by another location, much like a customer special order. Orders are sent to Remote locations where they are processed as held POS transactions. Stock listed on the held transaction is then pulled from the shelves or ordered for the Remote store.

• Each location creates an On Order Status Report, which contains the current status of orders being placed on behalf of another location. This allows each location’s Inventory screen to indicate what books are on order for them by another store.

• Stock moving between stores is invoiced through 4 POS using special multi-store accounts. Each store has a separate account in 6 Customers for each Remote location. The invoices are electronically transferred to the destination store. The receiving store uses the regular receiving routine to accept incoming stock. Electronic invoices make this process effortless.

• Accounts Payable invoices, end-of-day sales tapes, and GL Inventory totals are submitted to a designated central location. This information is merged into a single GL and Accounts Payable file for central processing and management.

• All data transfer between the stores is handled through an Internet FTP server managed by Bookmanager.

• Multi-store Webstores give the customer the option to choose a pickup location. Store buyer’s using the Webstore to create stock orders have the ability to break down order quantities by store location.

384 MULTI-STORE | Multi-store setup

Multi-store setup Bookmanager’s Multi-Store features require careful planning and setup before they will work properly. The first thing you will need to do is contact Bookmanager to make sure the client FTP site is enabled for you to do proper file transfers.

For the examples that follow, we will use a simple two store chain with a Main and a Remote store.

Each store is assigned a three-digit store number. The Main store must be called #000. The Remote stores can be any three-digit number (eg. 001 or 004). In our example, the Remote store will be #001. Each store also has a registered SAN (Standard Address Number). You will need this information when setting up at each location.

Setting up address files

At the Main Store: 1. Use A Setup to access the q) Your Company Name, etc. screen. Edit the primary address Billing Address #1 (of 1) and place 000 into the Multi-store# field. On this screen will be this location’s Shipping SAN. Make note of this number for each location because you will be entering it at the other locations.

2. Use New to create a second record with the name and address of the Remote store. The address is not important, but the Multi-store# field must be 001 and the Shipto SAN must be the Remote’s SAN.

3. In 3 Suppliers, Search for code TBM. This is a record for our office and it contains a password field that must contain the password that we have assigned to you for this location. Do not use any supplier code other than TBM, otherwise the file transfer will not work.

4. In 3 Suppliers, create a New supplier with the name of the Remote store and a supplier code of 001 -- the rest of the information is not critical. This allows you to order and receive from this location.

5. In 6 Customers, create a new customer for the Remote store. The Act field must be 001. All other fields are not critical. Since Bookmanager will not let you choose an account number in New mode, after entering the information, save the entry, then Edit it to change the account number from the automatically assigned one to 001. This allows you to invoice goods being sent to this location.

At the Remote Store 1. Use A Setup to access the q) Your Company Name, etc. screen. Edit the primary address Shipping Address #1 (of 1) and place 001 into the Multi-store# field. Fill in the remaining shipping fields with your Remote location’s information. The Multi-store# is crucial if gift cards are ever to be enabled. The billing address should be the Main location’s information and SAN.

2. Use New to create a second record with the name and address of the Main location. The

385 MULTI-STORE | Multi-store setup

address is important here, and Multi-store# field must be 000 and the Shipto SAN should be the Main location’s SAN.

4. In 3 Suppliers, create a New supplier with the name of the Main store and a supplier code of 000 -- the rest of the information is not critical. This allows you to order and receive from this location.

5. In 6 Customers, create a new customer for the Main store. The Act field must be 000. All other fields are not critical.

Setting up defaults Access the A Setup p) Multi-store screen. Carefully consider how each of these settings will affect the way you do business.

Are you a multi-store user? This needs to be Yes for both locations for multi-store actions to happen.

Is this the master location for title changes? This should be set to No for all locations, including the Main. If you need a Remote location to send information/updates to the Main location, you can change this setting to Yes. In that case, the Main location is able to receive your changes from the Remote and include these changes in the file it builds to update other locations.

386 MULTI-STORE | Multi-store setup

Electronic invoice prices will override inventory prices? This should be No for most situations. When goods are received, the invoiced price is used unless there was already stock on hand, in which case the No setting will ensure that the price remains at the old price. The receiver needs to pay attention to each received shipment and take a moment to see if selling prices are different from received prices (highlighted in red). This is a quick visual scan on the screen. They then decide how to handle each price difference.

Inter-store stock transfers posted to A/R and A/P? When stock is invoiced through the POS, the invoice placed OnAcct can be added to the store’s A/R file, but it is rare to have each store keep track of and collect for goods sent to another location. Sim- ilarly, when goods are received, it is not usually required that the invoices be added to the payables. Therefore, set both locations to No, otherwise you will have a huge amount of extra paperwork to reconcile all the transactions.

Inter-store stock transfers are sold/received at cost You will want to set this to Yes, unless you want your other location to be billing at the full retail price. The normal setting for this option is to sell/receive at cost.

Stock transfers will adjust the Rcv months and TtlRcvd fields? The standard is set to No. Most stores prefer this so that the TtlSold is not distorted by transfers, and reflects only their location’s sales and receiving history.

This location receives most stock via inter-store transfers Generally, only the Main location sets this to No. All Remote locations should have this set to Yes. The age of inventory and who it was purchased from will be affected by this. A No setting will use inter-store receiving records only as a last resort when aging stock quantities to invoices.

POS store transfers will adjust this location’s On-Hand? Set this to Yes for all locations. In rare cases, stores have asked to not have their Inventory on-hands reduced when transferring stock (No setting). This has the effect of making the on-hand at this location become the on-hand for the entire chain.

Post incoming inter-stores to POS as held? Set this to No until you are ready to work with Held inter-store transactions in the POS. When a purchase order from another store is received, a printed copy is automatically created to alert you to the need to fill the order. Most stores prefer to manually pull what stock they already have, and then order the stock they do not, then create a Held sale off that. When orders are automatically added to the POS as Held sales, you must be familiar with maintaining them.

Post stock received for other stores to POS? When you are in receiving and receive stock that has been reserved for another location (much like

387 MULTI-STORE | Multi-store setup

a special order), the Process Receiving Session routine can add the received items to a held POS transaction for the Remote store. This is only practical if you are running a very organized operation, so choose No for starters. Most stores use either the Customer Type ID on the book label, or the printed report that identifies where stock is going, and they physically place those books onto the shelf that is accumulating stock reserved for a Remote store. When enough books are present, they then create a New store transfer invoice from the POS (rather then Edit a held one).

Inventory file updates received from remote stores will overwrite this location’s data for these fields (Caution): The next five options relate to how data updates from Remote locations are handled. The first option, DISABLE? should be set to No for most situations, thus enabling the next four options and allowing updates and data to overwrite this location’s Inventory file. The next four options (Price through Sup- plier) should be set to Yes to allow all locations to maintain the same data. When a file with new/ changed titles arrive from the Main store, generally you want these pieces of information to agree at all locations. When set to Yes, the Price is only updated if none are in stock or the new prices is lower.

AutoLock Gl’s entries from processed Receiving & Returns? This should be Yes to keep from forgetting to manually Lock the accounting entries that are sent to the store that does accounting. When you process a return or process a batch of receiving from the Process Receiving Session screen, these transactions are automatically Locked. Only Locked GL and Accounts Payable data is sent to the accounting store. Some stores prefer to wait until someone verifies the entries (then manually Locking each one), so that the accounting store does not receive the data until the paperwork is also ready (set this option to No in that case).

Send sales tapes to Multi-store# This refers to the files that you see when you use 4) POS, Misc View/print receipt tapes. Enter the store # of the accounting office if you want the detailed end-of-day tapes forwarded, otherwise the files will remain at the Remote site.

Scheduler setup You are now ready to set up the Schedulers at both locations for daily preparation and transfer of data. The Scheduler setup is similar at each location, with the exception of a couple of routines. Build this list of scheduled events on the computer that is always left on and in Bookmanager’s Main Menu. Within Scheduler, use the New command to add each event and set their Frequency and Time. The timing is important, and a sample Scheduler layout for the Main store and a Remote location will be shown at the end of this section. The correct order that the routines should be run is listed below. Scheduler routines ending in MS are for Multi-store, and are numbered 50-57.

Main store events

50) Prepare title changes file for store # This step looks at every ISBN in Inventory and checks a “changed” flag that is set whenever a title’s record changes in any way. The changed entries are copied to a file EDI2\NEWSTOCK.001 (001 is the

388 MULTI-STORE | Multi-store setup

destination location) for each multi-store location. As Well, a NEWCAT.001 file is created (for each store) so that any changes to the Class file will overwrite each of the Remote location’s Class file. When the process completes, the “changed” ISBNs in Inventory are set back to “not changed”.

If a Remote store did not pick up their last file of changes, the new changes will be added to that store’s file.

It is possible to have a Remote store’s Inventory file sent to other stores by adding this to their Scheduler, however this creates an endless loop of information, because when each store processes a NEWSTOCK file, it’s “changed” flag is set. For this reason, it is important to only designate one location (usually the Main) to run this routine. Leave the Store # field blank to send Title changes to all locations.

TIP: If you ever need to have the entire file resent to all locations, use the Main Menu, Data Trans- fer, M) Set Inventory ‘changed’ flags (multi-store), and select option 4) Set the Inventory file’s ‘altered’ flags to ‘changed’. You will likely want to run this before the first time you exchange data between stores.

52) Prepare o/o Status report for remote stores Each store may have stock on order that is reserved for another store. This routine creates a file for each of the Remote stores (called EDI2\000OOSTA.001, where 000 is the sending store and .001 is the receiving store). When a store receives this file, it updates the Orders file with any changes to ordering so that it has a record of any outstanding orders being fulfilled by another location. Any ISBNs that may be new to the location will be added to Inventory file.

53) Prepare inter-store purchase orders To place an order for stock from another location, the Order command is used just as if you were ordering from a vendor, except you use the Remote store’s store# as the vendor code. When this routine is run, any pending orders for Remote stores are processed and assigned normal purchase order numbers. A file is created for each order (e.g. 000P1234.001, where 000 is the sending store, P denotes a Purchase order, 1234 is the last four digits of the PO, and 001 is the receiving store).

The receiving store will automatically generate a printed document for the order, and optionally create a Held POS transaction. It is the receiving store’s duty to make sure the items are immediately (within the day) invoiced and/or placed on order (reserved), otherwise the integrity of the On Order Status Report (mentioned earlier) will become confusing to manage.

55) Prepare outgoing Inventory O/H file This process opens the Inventory file and creates a file called EDI2\000MSDat.000, which contains the ISBN, On-Hand (available), OnOrder (available), and 14 month sales history for every ISBN that has any of this type of activity. The file extension (000) denotes the store that is to receive the file (in this case itself, which is normal). The (000) at the start of the filename indicates where the file originated. In a step later on, this file will be combined with similar files received from the other locations.

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57) Send/receive multi-store data via ftp This is the step that packs up the data files and sends then to each location. It also retrieves and processes any files that may have been sent by the other Remote stores.

At Bookmanager, we maintain a file server that provides a central place for files transferred between stores. Each store connects to our server and places files into each of the Remote store folders. Each store’s folder can also contain data sent from an outside party, perhaps an electronic invoice from a supplier. Each store’s folder is private in that only that store’s user ID and password will permit retriev- ing the files and removing them.

The routine called “Send/Receive multi-store files via ftp” is used to perform the data transfer. Before doing your first transfer, please contact us to ensure that our data server is configured to accept your files.

In the A Setup q) Your Company Name, etc. screen, it is assumed that you have created a Shipto entry for each of the stores in your chain. Most important, each entry must have a three digit Multi- store # as well as a SAN. The computers at all locations must have this information.

This scheduled session performs the following steps:

• From the Company Information file, each location with a “Multi-store” number is dealt with one at a time. The first step is to look for all files in the EDI2 folder that have a file extension matching the Remote store’s assigned store#. These are zipped (compressed) into a single outgoing file that begins with the first three letters of the Remote’s store # (then five random numbers) and ending with the .ZIP file extension (to denote that the data is compressed).

• Next, the ftp (file transfer protocol) session begins. The sending store’s SAN (from Company Information) and password (from the TBM password stored in 3 Suppliers) are used to gain access to the Bookmanager server. The compressed file(s) for the Remote store are then transferred to the appropriate designated folder. The sent files are then renamed in the sending store’s EDI2 folder from their .ZIP extension to .BK1 (or BK2 if a backup file of the same name already exists).

The above process repeats for each Remote store found in the Company Information screen.

Now, it is time to retrieve any files for the store running the session. The store logs into the Bookman- ager server, and then downloads any files residing in the folder named with their SAN. The downloaded files are then deleted from the server. The downloaded files are stored in a temporary folder, and then moved into the EDI2 folder. If the files have a .ZIP extension, the files inside are extracted to the EDI2 folder, and then the .ZIP file is renamed to .BK1.

Finally, the routine examines new files stored in the EDI2 folder and processes each one. The files could be purchase orders, accounting data, or a record of inventory levels at another location.

After each “Send/Receive” data session, you can use the Scheduler’s Log command to review all processing that just occurred. This information is essential for debugging situations where data appeared not to transfer as expected.

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56) Consolidate received Inventory O/H files This routine is only run at the Main store (#000), and it is scheduled for a time after all of the Remote stores have run their Prepare outgoing Inventory O/H file and Send/receive multi-store data via ftp routines. At this point, the EDI2 folder should have a 000MSDAT.000 (with the first 000 replaced with each Remote store’s #). This routine reads each of the files and creates an outgoing set of files (EDI2\MSDAT.001, where 001 is each Remote store#). The main store then takes its EDI2\MSDAT.000 and moves it to the main BM folder under the name MSDATA.DBF (and creates a MSDATA.CDX index file). Sound confusing? It was a logic puzzle to develop, but it works!

This routine also creates the equivalent of a Pubstock data file, which will be incorporated with the Pubstock price and availability information that you may be receiving from us. The purpose is to allow the Pubstock (comma) feature to show what’s available from your vendors plus what each of your stores have in stock. In essence, you will have Pubstock (comma) and Multi-store (period) commands to show stock at other locations. The latter provides extra sales information.

At this point, the Main store should have access to all of this information. The Remote stores will see this once both the main and Remote stores perform the Send/Receive multi-store data routine.

57) Send/receive multi-store data via ftp This routine is run a second time, which essentially sends out the newly consolidated EDI2\MSDAT.001 file(s) and the EDI2\MSPS.001 file(s) to each location. Remotes do not need to run a Send/receive routine after this to receive the consolidated data, as these files are automatically downloaded by the Remote system(s) by WebLink.

Remote store(s) events Each Remote store should have these events in their Scheduler.

52) Prepare o/o Status report for Remote stores This is the same as the main store, and is only needed if the Remote store does some ordering for (not from) the main store.

53) Prepare inter-store purchase orders This is the same as the main store, and is used if the Remote store(s) place inter-store stock transfer orders.

51) Prepare GL data for export to Loc #000 This routine will open the GL (A/P invoice) file and look for transactions that are Locked. These will be copied and then forwarded to the main store. When the main store receives this data, it must re- number each transaction to avoid duplication of numbering. If sales tape files are to be sent as well, they will be included with this routine.

TIP: If the main store did not receive GL data for some reason, the Remote store can find the transactions and use Lock to remove the Transfer flag and then Lock them again for transfer.

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This will create duplicate data at the main store if in fact the original data was only late in arriving. Searching for “blank” (most recent) transaction in the GL at the main store will list any data received overnight.

55) Prepare outgoing Inventory O/H file This is the same as the main store.

57) Send/receive multi-store data via ftp This session should be run early in the evening so that the main store has time to consolidate the On-hand file from this store.

Timing events Each event can be scheduled one minute apart so that they are run consecutively as soon as the previous routine finished.

A sample layout of only the Multi-store Scheduler events is shown below to demonstrate timing and order:

Debugging Use the Scheduler Log command to review the events that occurred the night before. Be careful of monthly routines such as Month-end, which might upset timing.

When you have things running smoothly, it’s a good idea to Print a copy of the Scheduler events (for all locations) so that you can look back if things stop working as expected.

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If any of the stores forget to leave Bookmanager at the Main Menu when they leave at night, then the scheduled events will not take place until they start Bookmanager the next morning.

Daytime transfer & testing Each of the scheduled events may be started during the day using the Start option. This is good for testing, or for transferring data during business hours.

Multi-store concepts

Viewing stock levels at other locations There are two ways to view what’s in stock at another location. The first is to press , (comma) on any title, which displays stock availability from all your vendors (if you subscribe to Bookmanager’s Pubstock) and what may be in stock at your other stores. Or, you can press . (period) on any title which shows only the multi-store stock levels but including a 14-month sales history for each location. This information is more important when reordering and returns decisions are made.

Keeping title records up to date at all locations This refers to maintaining the titles (author, class etc.) as opposed to the On Hand and sales information. The Main store is designated as the keeper of the master inventory file. Provided the event Prepare outgoing new/changed titles is done on a frequent basis (by the Main store only!), the Remote store inventory file should always be identical to that of the Main store. This means thatif the Main store enters several new release titles, the Remote store should also have those titles on file (following the nightly transfer). If the Main store changes a Class for a book, the Remote store should see that change the next day. If the Main store makes changes to the Class file (perhaps it adds some new section codes), the Remote store will have those changes. It the Remote store enters new titles, the Main store will not receive the title information unless the Remote store either orders the books (from the Main store) or it invoices the Main store for the books.

Transferring stock

The Importance of Accurate Multi-Store Invoicing and Receiving We need to bring to your attention the serious matter of correctly invoicing and receiving goods transferred between stores. You could be unknowingly introducing incorrect costs for your inventory, and these values are ultimately used to determine your profit for a year.

When you receive inventory from another store, Orders file records are created to register the cost of the product. The receiver is capable of overriding or guessing costs and discounts, especially when they do not use electronic invoices. When a month-end or year-end arrives, the value of the inventory at that point in time is calculated by multiplying the number of copies by the cost found on the most recent invoices. In the case of a Remote store, this is often the cost found in the multi-store receiving record (in the Orders file).

Even when you faithfully receive from electronic invoices, there is the possibility of the sending store invoicing the goods at costs other than what was charged by the vendor. Normally, a POS Remote

393 MULTI-STORE | Multi-store concepts

store transfer correctly inserts the current selling price and then a discount that closely represents the cost of the item. However, the operator does have the option of changing either the selling price or the discount (the latter being the most likely). Also, if you start a store transfer without first entering the store at the top of the screen, the discount for each previously scanned item will not be corrected. If this invoice is finalized, it will be sending the Remote store a record with severely overstated costs, which will translate into much higher value for the Remote store’s inventory. And that will understate your profit margin and profits.

To avoid these situations:

1. Make sure that all invoicing for your Remote store is done after the goods are received from the vendor.

2. Make sure that the POS transactions indicate a discount for each line item. You should see the discount vary because goods are often purchased at varying costs.

3. The receiving store must always receive using electronic invoices and be suspicious when the discounts appear way off track.

To identify if your procedures are failing in these areas, look at the Month-end Inventory Total Re- ports from all locations and compare the overall margins. In most cases, the Remote stores’ margins should be similar to the margin reported by the location that does the majority of receiving from vendors.

If incorrect values have been used in past years, you may have reported profits or losses that are not realistic. However, those profits or losses will be reflected (corrected) in the year that follows once you implement more stringent Multi-store stock transfers. Most stores do not carry inventory for more than a year, so over that period the majority of the errors will be flushed.

Sending/Transferring goods to stores If you plan to have each store maintain its own inventory levels (recommended), then you must use 4 POS to invoice any stock that is leaving a store. In 4 POS use the multi-store account number (eg. 001) in the To customer field. Then enter in each of the items as though you were selling them to a customer. When Tendering the sale there is only one option: place the amount OnAcct. When you d to finalize the transfer, an electronic invoice is generated (and a paper copy if you asked for it). Looking at the Inventory card for items transferred you should see that only the On-hand has been adjusted -- neither the received nor sold history has changed (unlike a normal sale which would show the sale having occurred). To see the fact that a transfer has been done, the History command must be used -- there will be entries with a type Transfer.

TIP: If your stock transfer contains a large number of items, and you suspect an error, you can reconcile the invoice by scanning stock before making the transfer. Use the Xtra option from within the transfer invoice and select d) Reconcile these items by scanning them. You can then scan the physical items that are supposed to be on the transfer and find out if you did indeed input everything correctly to begin with.

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395 MULTI-STORE | Multi-store concepts

We recommend limiting Stock Transfers to 50 books per invoice -- otherwise looking for errors is very time consuming. The system can handle hundreds of items on a single invoice, but again, finding errors is difficult at that volume. Therefore, it is best to break up transfers into smaller pieces. Also, it is safest to generate a shipping label (especially if you do not generate a paper copy of the invoice) and identify each box -- this makes it much easier at the receiving store. Paper invoices are really not needed unless you are constantly experiencing errors when invoicing transfers. Our proven method to reduce errors is to create a POS Transfer per box.

The End-of-Day Total does not list store transfers as sales -- the transactions are listed in a section under store transfers and have no financial impact. Electronic inter-store transfers/invoices are sent automatically as soon as the transaction is finalized, and receiving locations will automatically pick the transfer up without the need to run any routines.

Receiving goods at stores When the goods arrive at the store, they must be received using 9 Receiving. Enter Supplier code from the invoicing store (usually 000), and R in the blank Invoice field to bring up a list of the multi- store stock transfer invoices. The desired invoice for the shipment being received will be available as long as the sending location has finalized the POS transfer, and this location’s WebLink was running to pick up the file. No Send/Receive Scheduler routines need to be run for this data exchange to happen.

Selecting an invoice from the list will automatically bring the items into stock. At this point the receiving session looks (and performs) just as though you had manually received each item in the shipment. The usual receiving commands may be used to finalize the shipment. We recommend that you use the Xtr command and select d) Reconcile invoice by scanning received stock (Reconciling received stock page 263) to make sure you are not missing any transfered items.

If the Main store has been sending a nightly o/o Status report then the Remote store’s Orders file should already have many of the items (about to be received) with a status of “On Order”. In this case

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the electronic receiving process will look at outstanding orders and mark the items as received. This is much the same as when you receive a shipment from a publisher by checking off from the original purchase order. However, if the item received is not in the Orders file (as on-order with sending store’s store# in the supplier code field) then the book is received using a dummy PO# (a date code).

The Inventory card for the stock received will reflect a history just like books received from regular vendors.

Overstock returns When it comes time for the Remote store to return books to the Main store, the Remote store must use the POS and invoice the Main store for the returns (just as though they were transferring active stock). The Main store then uses Receiving to receive the overstock items, and then the Zrtn function to create a proper claim form for the publisher.

This process is not as clean as it could be and you may want to experiment with other techniques. Besides being an inefficient process (you are transferring, receiving and then returning the same items), the Remote store will have no clear indication of why they returned an item (was it overstock or a stock transfer), and more importantly the Main store’s inventory received records may be misleading (because the received months will show the stock as just being received as opposed to being a return from a Remote store).

Main store ordering for the Remote store (new titles) When the Main store enters an order for books that are to be received by the Main store and then partially sent out to Remote stores, the process of indicating who will receive how many books is quite simple.

In the 1 Orders’ Customer Name field, the quantity to reserve for each location is placed below the corresponding store number. For example, if 2 copies are for Remote store #001 and 3 are for Remote store #002, the customer name field is entered as follows:

When the Main store receives shipments from suppliers and either prints out book labels or a received list, the books to be sent to the Remote stores are indicated by the Customer Type field on the bottom right corner of the label, or on the receiving list.

Equally important, when the Main store schedules the routine to Prepare o/o Status report for remote stores, it sends the Remote store a file indicating that these books are on order. The Remote store will then update its Orders file stating that copies are on order with supplier 000 (the Main store).

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In summary, a Remote store will see what books a Main store has reserved for it (the day following the entry of the order). The Main store cannot enter an order which is to be shipped directly from the publisher to the Remote store. In this case, the Remote store must order the books as if it were the Main store.

Remote store ordering stock from the Main store The Remote store uses the Order command to place orders for selected titles to supplier 000. Once done, the nightly transfer of files will send the order on to the Main store where it is automatically printed as a report. The Main store then must either pull the stock from their shelves or alternatively place Orders for the items (and send them to the designated vendors).

If the Remote store enters a special order for a customer, the Main store will only know the book is a special order by a special order indicator on the purchase order -- they do not know the name of the customer who ordered the book. Instead, the Remote store has the customer’s account attached to the order record.

When the Remote store looks up an entry in the Orders file which has been placed on order with the Main store, they can tell who the Main store has placed the order with by examining the “invoice number” field. This field is a temporary holding place for the supplier and status of the order. For example, 2 copies of a book are ordered by the Remote and the order is sent to the Main store. The Main store then orders the books from supplier RAN and emails the order. The morning after this, the Remote store will look up the book and see that two copies are on order with supplier 000 (the Main store). The status date is the date the order was sent to the Main store. The real status of the order is seen in the Invoice number field as 1E PRH which translates to 1 (on order) E (by Email) PRH (with Penguin Random House) and the Invoice date field is the real status date of the order.

Cancellation dates When the Remote store sends the Main store a purchase order, the Remote store’s Order card cancellation date is set for only 7 days from the date the order is sent. If the Main store does not ship the order within 7 days, or they do not place the books on order within seven days, then the Remote store’s order will appear on an Orders past cancellation date report. Keep in mind that this report gives 7 days grace before actually cancelling it, so the real time allotment for acknowledging an order is actually 14 days.

For books that are stocked by the Main store, this is usually not a problem (because they are shipped within 14 days). The Main store must stay on top of inputting orders for a Remote store. Once the Main store has recorded that the Remote store wants a book, the Remote store’s cancellation date will be perpetually moved ahead (one day at-at-time) until the order is received and shipped by the Main store. This constant change of the cancellation date is done nightly when a new O/O status report is processed. The reasoning behind this process was to ensure that if a Remote store ordered a book and the Main store failed to recognize the order, a maximum of 14 days would pass, at which time the Remote store would be alerted to this issue.

398 PUBSTOCK | Getting Pubstock data from Bookmanager

Pubstock Pubstock is a data service that provides your Bookmanager system and Webstore with inventory price and availability from various book suppliers. From anywhere in Bookmanager you can press , (comma) and get a list of vendors that carry the ISBN you are viewing and information such as stock On-Hand, OnOrder, price, discount, status, and availability date.

Bookmanager collects data from various vendors and assembles it into a file that booksellers can download from our server. It is scheduled to download on a daily basis using Bookmanager’ Scheduler, with WebLink acting as the downloading agent to grab the file.

Getting Pubstock data from Bookmanager From the Bookmanager Scheduler, create a New event. Select Every day, then choose a time that is appropriate. To get the most recent file, you would usually want to schedule it to download sometime after 4am Pacific time (when we build the file). Now select event 30 Get PSWORKS.ZIP from bookmanager.com. You will have the opportunity to change the name of the file depending on if you are a Canadian or US bookstore. Canadian bookstores will keep the filename as is ( PSWORKS.ZIP ), and American stores need to specify the file that contains US vendor information, called PSUS.ZIP

The Scheduler will send your request to WebLink. Use the Scheduler’s Log command to see if things went OK if you are seeing old Pubstock data. For example, if WebLink was not running at the time, Pubstock will not be updated.

Before downloading the file, bookmanager.com will verify that you are subscribed and registered to receive the data. WebLink shows the progress of the file being downloaded at the bottom of the screen on the Main Options menu. During this time, all Bookmanager computers, including the one requesting the Pubstock data, are able to work as normal (the download happens in the background).

399 PUBSTOCK | Knowing which Pubstock files are loaded

When WebLink completes the download, the downloading station will automatically pause whatever you are doing and unpack the new file. This process takes less than 30 seconds, and will usually happen in the morning before anyone is even using the station.

NOTE: If for some reason the file does not process, you can also P) Process new data (if any) in EDI2 folder by going into the Data Transfer options from the Main Menu.

The Scheduler Log is where you can see whether the Pubstock file was received and if it was installed.

Knowing which Pubstock files are loaded Pubstock data is displayed in your Bookmanager screen whenever the comma key is pressed. Book- manager retrieves the data for the currently highlighted ISBN. After pressing comma, the bottom of the screen shows the Format option. This command will display the Pubstock maintenance screen where you can see which Pubstock files are loaded and your viewing preferences.

The right portion of the screen shows all of the files stored in the \BM\Pubstock directory. Files with .DAT are raw data files that you may have obtained directly from a vendor other than Bookmanager. They are merged and converted into a file called Local.PS because Bookmanager only uses files with the extension .PS to retrieve Pubstock info. The Pubstock.LOG and Pubstock.BAK files contain details of sessions that build .PS files. If you only obtain Pubstock data from Bookmanager, then only the PSWorks.PS file will likely be present.

Any of these files can be accessed by using your r key, highlighting the file, and selecting View. Viewing a .PS file will show you what vendors contributed, when they sent the data and how many ISBNs they supplied.

On the left side of the screen are the vendors that are contained in all of the .PS files. All of this information is needed to help you determine where you are getting vendor data from, and if it is current.

Pubstock file maintenance If you are getting data from more than one source, more than one .PS file may contain a particular vendor’s data. When this is the case, Bookmanager uses the most current set of information.

Each time you receive or create a new .PS file, the old file is replaced. However, if you stop receiving a particular file, you will want to delete it so that Bookmanager does not have to continually search the old files. Remember, if you delete a .PS file, all the data for the vendors in that file will be removed from the left side of the screen.

The left side of the screen may list vendors with the message “not in any file”. These vendors are not automatically deleted because it would remove the display preference you may have set for them. In any case, if you no longer receive data for this vendor, remove them from the left side of the screen with the Delete command.

Setting viewing preferences Pubstock vendors are first grouped by Viewing Preference, then are listed alphabetically by vendor code.

400 PUBSTOCK | Setting viewing preferences

Using the left side of the Setup Pubstock display preferences screen, use Favourite, Yes, Private, and No to customize your Pubstock window. When you change these settings, all other computers will use these preferences, and simply pressing E will save the changes and upload them to your Webstore.

Fav (Favourite) Fav means that this vendor’s data will automatically be shown on the Inventory screen. You do not have to press the comma to see their data. Note that all other Bookmanager screens require the comma to view Pubstock data. As well, Favourites will always be shown in bright white and on top of the Yes vendors. When your Webstore gives price quotes and delivery times to customers, Favourites are given first priority.

Yes Yes means that the vendor’s data will be displayed, but only when the comma is pressed. From In- ventory, your screen will automatically indicate if there is data for Yes vendors. On the Webstore, Yes vendors are your second tier for quoting customers.

Prv (Private) Private is similar to Yes, in that vendor data will be shown when you press comma, and it will fall below Yes vendors. The difference is that these vendors’ title availability will be hidden from customers on the Webstore, and will not be used for price and delivery quoting. An example of a Private vendor would be Book Depot (BKD), a remainder supplier. You, the store, would like to see their Pubstock in Bookmanager and on the Webstore, but you would not want their heavily discounted net prices being used to calculate automatic quotes for your customers.

No No means that you are not interested in ever seeing this vendor’s data. Set this for the vendors you

401 PUBSTOCK | Basic and Extended Pubstock View Modes

do not order from.

NOTE: When Bookmanager adds a vendor to the Pubstock service, the next time you download a Pubstock file, that vendor’s viewing preference will be set as Private. This will allow the vendor to be viewed when comma is pressed, but not list them as an available ordering source for your customers on the Webstore. You can then make the decision to start ordering with them or set them to No.

Basic and Extended Pubstock View Modes Under A Setup, x) Pubstock, there is a single option you can customize depending on how much information you want Pubstock to display.

Basic Mode Basic Pubstock shows only the vital information. This includes the supplier warehouse (Supplier code), the supplier’s on-hands, on-orders, publisher price, discount, and how current the data is.

SupWH This is the vendor’s three digit Supplier Code plus the two digit warehouse code (where applicable). Many suppliers will only have a single warehouse location, so they will simply have their three digit code displayed (e.g.: HBG is Hachette Book Group). Other sources, like Ingram, have many warehouses, so they separate those warehouses using a two digit warehouse code (e.g.: IBCOR is Ingram’s Oregon warehouse). When Ordering in Bookmanager, you do not need to specify the warehouse code, as you will have arranged with the supplier your first choice warehouse, then your second choice warehouse. Order using their primary three digit supplier code.

We use the most common codes for each particular vendor. This code has no relation to the code you may be using in Bookmanager for the same vendor, and therefore it may not be the same. That said, we highly recommend you use the industry standard codes in your system. If you need to identify the name associated with a supplier code, use Format, then r to highlight PSWORKS.PS, and then select View. You can also access the list of vendors and codes on our website by clicking on the B2B Business Directory menu, which will also give you a link to supplier websites.

O/H The On-hand field indicates how many of this title are in stock with the vendor. Exact quantities are only shown when there are less than 10 in stock. Otherwise a 10+, 25+ and so on will give you approximate stock levels. Not all publishers are willing to provide exact quantities. You may only see a Yes to indicate that they have stock. Unless you are buying a large quantity, it is probably safe to assume they can fill your order.

402 PUBSTOCK | Basic and Extended Pubstock View Modes

O/O On-order follows the same rules as On-hand, but there are some additional indicators. NYR means the book is on-order, but Not Yet Released (same as NYP). An ITO (Import To Order) in this column means that the title is not available but will be ordered upon request. Many Canadian distributors represent publishers with huge lines, and they are unable to stock every title. They wait until you place an order, and then fill it by placing an order with the publisher. An RP in the On-order column means the book is being reprinted. Quik in this column means that the supplier does not keep stock of the item, but can get it within a week or less. Lastly, seeing POD means that the item has a Print-On- Demand status. The supplier/publisher does exactly that – they print copies on demand.

Price Most vendors will supply the current retail price. The price is in the vendor’s currency.

%% Some vendors will supply a discount. A number indicates the exact discount, whereas SH or NT indicate either a Short-discount or Net price. RG means your regular discount, and a blank discount field also indicates your regular discount. HI means a higher than normal discount (>40%).

AsOf This is the date the vendor provided the data. Vendors are encouraged to submit data to us on a daily basis, however some have not fully automated the process, and we must rely on them to remember to update the files. We suggest that vendors update at least once each week. The date will appear in red when the data is over 7 days old.

Extended Mode Extended Pubstock shows the vital information plus sell price information and profit margin comparisons. Using the Currency Code parameters set in 3 Suppliers (Exch Exchange, Markup, and SD Short Discount), along with the publisher’s price and discount, Bookmanager can come up with a sell price and profit margin for each source. This allows you to quickly see which source results in the best profit margin at a glance. This is especially helpful when you are purchasing from sources that sell in different currencies. The PubPr (Publisher Price) is always listed in the supplier’s currency, so without Extended mode enabled, you are relying on guesswork to decide which source is best.

You will notice that certain vendors’ SellP pricing and all the P2 margins are displayed in gold. This is to indicate that these suppliers are selling in your currency and are likely the printed-on retail price, while those that are grey are in converted from foreign currencies.

403 PUBSTOCK | Live Mode

SellP The Sell Price is determined by taking the PubPr and %%, then applying your Supplier Currency Code parameters. For example, if your Markup and Exchange are set to 1.00 (so no conversion, as the supplier sells in your currency), but your SD (short discount) is set to 50, a title with a regular 40% discount in the %% column will have its PubPr marked up to make that 50% margin. The SellP will reflect that math. To take it further, if the supplier in question is selling in a foreign currency, Book- manager will use that supplier’s Exchange, Markup, and SD to convert the PubPr to a SellP that is in your currency reflecting your minimum margins.

PM The PM reflects the Profit Margin you will make if you sell the product at the SellP price. Again, this is determined using that supplier’s Currency Code rules.

P2 Used for foreign price comparisons, this column does some background math to help you decide if an item will be profitable. For suppliers selling in your currency, this field will usually be the same as the PM field, simply because no conversion has taken place. For foreign suppliers, the P2 reflects your profit margin if you order the item at the supplier’s foreign PubPr but sell it at the product’s printed on price in your currency.

For example, suppose you have a bookstore in Canada. A title has a Canadian retail price of $17.99, but you decide to buy it from an American source for $16.99 US. The current exchange rate is set at 1.31 in Bookmanager, with a SD of 40%. If you want to make 40% on this title, you will have to sell this title at $22.50 Canadian due to the weak Canadian dollar. But, perhaps this title has a printed on Canadian price of $17.99. You may be required to sell this at the Canadian retail price so as to be fair to your customer. In that case, you will only be making 26% on that sale. This is what the P2 column will reflect.

Stock Conditions If you have specified various Stock Conditions for inventory, those will be displayed in Pubstock at the top of the list. In the above screenshot example for Extended Mode, the SupWH ....S means that you have stock of this ISBN under the custom stock condition of S, and that you have 24 on-hand in your store right now. In this example, stock condition S means Signed stock. If you carry used books, remainder, collectibles, etc., and had stock of each condition for a single title, all those stock levels and prices would be shown in one convenient place... Pubstock!

Live Mode Whether you are using Basic or Extended Pubstock, there are times when it would be very helpful to know the exact stock quantities a supplier has this very moment. Pressing Live when Pubstock is loaded will query select suppliers that provide us with the ability to query their live warehouse stock quantities. After a few seconds, those supplier’s providing such feeds will appear in bright green in Pubstock, and those on-hand and on-order quantities are what they have this very moment.

404 PUBSTOCK | Miscellaneous Pubstock window features

The AsOf date will display Now to indicate that it is a live feed. This Live view is partic- ularity handy during busy retail months, such as November and December. Perhaps a customer is looking for a title that you do not have in stock, and Pubstock shows that your supplier of choice is listing 2 O/H as of this morning (today’s date). Considering it is a busy ordering season, you can’t rely on there actually being 2 O/H in the supplier’s warehouse, as other stores could have already reserved those. Using Live will tell you if those two copies are still there as of this moment, and if you should now phone the supplier to reserve stock immediately, or use the CE (Cecil Electronic Order) command to send a reserve PO for that one item. Either way, you can be guaranteed to provide your customer with accurate information and none of this “Hopefully...?” jargon that often ends in arguments down the road.

Currently, only RAIX, IBC, BAK, and IPS supply a live data feed.

Miscellaneous Pubstock window features After pressing comma, you can press Minimize. This is a toggle that either turns off or on the automatic display of data on the Inventory screen. In some cases, you find that the Pubstock data interferes with other information on the screen. When Minimized, a red P will appear in the bottom right hand corner when Pubstock data is present (comma to view it). This only applies to the Inventory screen.

When you are in the “list titles” mode in either Inventory or TitleBank, a P will appear down the rightmost column. This indicates which titles have Pubstock data available.

The amount of Pubstock data shown for each vendor depends on the amount of data the vendor supplied. A vendor’s data will appear in red if their data is over seven days old.

TIP: After pressing comma, you can press Vendor to display the full name and contact information of the Publisher and/or distributors of the currently highlighted title.

Don’t see a vendor you frequently use? We think that Pubstock is a very valuable service, and we hope that you do too. If you find one of your common vendors is not listed, please encourage them to contact us to list their titles and provide a live feed. You can also ask us to contact them, but it often works better if the vendor hears how awesome Pubstock is from their customer!

405 TITLELINK | Searching

Titlelink At the time of writing this manual (May 2016), Bookmanager’s Titlelink file contains more than 7.7 million active titles, and over 18.7 million titles overall. We build this file using the data feeds supplied by hundreds of suppliers, distributors, and wholesalers, and the ISBNs supplied from bookstore backups, which we collect daily. If a title is distributed anywhere in North America, you will likely find it in Titlelink. We have mechanisms in place to identify the ISBNs for which we have no title information, and we are continually working to find sources for these titles.

Titlelink is an annual subscription, and is recommended to get the best out of your Bookmanager software, and required to activate your Webstore. Activation can be done in minutes, so contact Bookmanager support for more information.

Searching Use your 2 Inventory search window to perform a Titlelink search. Instead of pressing the usual R or d, press u twice. This invokes the online search system. You must have an active Internet connection and WebLink running on at least one computer.

The Titlelink search options and methods are also discussed in the Inventory section of the manual under Titlelink Searching (page 71).

Keyword searching Enter complete words into the keyword field. Usually more than one word is required to filter unwanted titles.

Once you press u once you have several options for the way in which you want Titlelink to filter your search.

You can select the number of matches you want to find (it defaults to 100), you can choose the sort results: Instock, Forthcoming, Rank, Pubdate, Title; and finally you can choose the scope: Active, In- active, or Both. Where Active titles are in print, and most likely will have Pubstock Data, and Inactive titles will bring up out of print, out of stock, or publication cancelled details. Both is the setting we recommend as it will bring up all data.

The top of the screen will indicate how many matches there are. If you are not finding what you want and the screen indicated 100 matches were returned, you should try adding more words or using less common ones

The search list has a “Rank” column to indicate the sales rank for each title.

If you use very short and generic keywords such as BLUE, and these are the only words being supplied, then the search will take a long time because of the vast number of titles that have to be examined by the search engine. However, so long as one keyword is relatively unique, using additional short words seems be quick and useful.

406 TITLELINK | Searching

Keywords are extracted from the Title, Subtitle, Series, Authors and Subjects fields. This allows you to find titles even if you have very limited information to work with.

You may be amazed at how little information is needed to find the title you are looking for. Often your customer is looking for a title that is selling recently or continually somewhere in North America. This means that even a search using just one word (that might be found in 20,000 titles) will often show the title you want on the first screen (because they are ranked by sales). Experimenting is the key to learning how efficient you can be.

Title searching When using Title in the search bar, you must enter the exact words in the title to get matches. You should only enter enough of the title beginning to get close to the title you want (less is better rule). The title prefixes THE, AN and A may be included or omitted; if they are used, they are stripped by the system because titles are stored in the master file without these words.

If you are getting too many titles (or the title is likely way down the list), supply one or more keywords (see keyword above for rules).

For example “JOY OF, MIKE” will find “JOY OF WORKING IN A BOOKSTORE by NEILL, MIKE (if such a title existed!)

Author searching Searching by author is similar to searching by title. Authors are stored in the file as Lastname, First- Name (including the comma). If you do not supply the complete author name, then add the $ to get all similar matches. The $ is not implied with author searches (unlike title and keyword) because you may only want to see JAMES, P instead of both JAMES, P and JAMES, PETER.

A second comma in the author search is used to add keywords. For example, “JAMES, P D, DEATH” will find only the titles with that author that have DEATH as a keyword. If you are only supplying an author’s last name, use two commas before entering keywords.

Authors do not contain periods for initials. If you use a period in an author search it will be replaced with a single space to make it consistent with the way we store author information.

ISBN searching Simply enter the ISBN to find and use u to invoke the search. Try only using the ISBN prefix to get the top selling list of titles from a certain publisher.

Supplier searching Search by a Pubstock supplier code to get a list of books from only that supplier. Choose to index by Rank to get the top 200 sellers from a given vendor. Index by Pubdate to get a list of the latest releases from this supplier.

407 TITLELINK | Working with the Titlelink results

Subject searching This field uses the BISAC subject codes, which is a nine-character code. The first three characters are the primary subject (e.g. ART). The next three are numeric for the sub category, and the last three are the sub-sub category. You have to be familiar with BISAC subject codes in order to use them effectively. We are working on an improved interface to choose subjects by their actual description.

Working with the Titlelink results The results of all Titlelink searches are stored in a temporary file and viewed using the TitleBank file system (press - from the Main Menu). After a Titlelink search, you are automatically placed in TitleBank. To perform another search, press S (Inventory search hotkey). Each new search replaces the previous Titlelink search results.

You can change the columns shown for the titles by press r or l arrows. The subject column often contains a BISAC subject code adopted in North America by the book industry. There are about 2,800 unique subject codes, but many publishers only supply the core subject heading. The rightmost column will show a P if Pubstock data is present.

You can press R at any time to change from a list mode to a full title display. If the title you are viewing is already in your Inventory, the top of the screen has your title information, and the bottom screen is our Titlelink information. In this mode you can still use the t and b to view different titles. Pressing R a second time shows your store’s history of the title (if any). Pressing comma invokes the Pubstock feature (you must have a subscription to Pubstock to this information).

If the O/H and O/O fields have “--- “ it means that your Inventory does not have this ISBN. Use Edt or Ord to add the title to your Inventory file.

While in the TitleBank, you can also print the bibliographic info for one title, or print the entire list by choosing the Prt command.

Entering new ISBNs (catalogue entry) In Inventory or Orders, use New (or Mass in Orders), enter the ISBN, move to the Title field and press u. You now have the option of querying Titlelink for the ISBN. If the ISBN is found, the title information will be displayed in the bottom half of the screen. To insert this information into your Inventory card, press R. You will still have to enter your preferred Supplier and a Class.

TIP: Whenever your cursor is in the Title field, you can press u to get the Titlelink information for an ISBN. We often use Edt on an existing item, then press u to see how Titlelink has this title listed. If you press R, the information will be used to overwrite your Inventory card.

408 BACKLIST AND BESTSELLERS | Downloading the files

Backlist and Bestsellers Bookmanager’s Bestseller and Backlist files are designed to improve efficiency and assist -in youror dering decisions. The Bestseller is simply a list of the best selling titles based on the last 10 weeks of sales data collected from independent bookstores across Canada. Once there are enough American bookstores contributing their weekly sales, there will be a US bestseller list as well. The Backlist file is an expanded list of over 100,000 ISBNs that can provide you with the top-selling items by supplier, class or author. The Backlist is available from Bookmanager with a Titlelink subscription, whereas the Bestseller file is a free download if you are providing your sales data to Bookmanager.

Downloading the files Both files are obtained through Bookmanager’s scheduler. In order to receive these files you must also be set up to send sales to Bookmanager. Bookmanager usually updates the Bestseller and the Backlist files on Monday afternoon, so generally the best time to schedule it would be in the early hoursof Tuesday morning. To set this up you will need to add at least two New routines in your Scheduler. After setting up the Frequency and the Time, the routines you will want to add are 31 Send sales report to bookmanager.com (set this routine to run either Sunday or Monday morning), 33 Get Bestseller from bookmanager.com, and 34 Get Backlist from bookmanager.com.

Using the Bestseller file After you have downloaded the file, you will be prompted to print the Bestseller report. This is a list of the top 15 titles in several categories. To access an expanded version of the Bestsellers list, go to TitleBank, and select File, and then R on BESTSELL.DBF. This will give you a list of 650 titles ranked by sales. At the top of the list you will see how many stores participated in creating the file for the week. As you scroll through the list you will see section headings, and the Notes field at the bottom of the screen will indicate the rank of the item within each section. It will list the top 15 titles within the given categories.

You can use Ord to create a pending order for the item, which will also add the item to your Inventory file. If you wish to add any of these items to Inventory without ordering you can do so by using the Edt function.

“Hidden” Bestseller Labels Function If you use a Cognitive Advantage Label Printer, you can activate a hidden function to print Bestseller labels for each category. With the top title of a category highlighted (e.g.: Title #1 in *** Top Hardcover Fiction ***), select AQ to bring up the Bookmanager debugger. Here, type bestlabels() and press R. Select how many bestsellers you want to print (e.g.: 15 means you will get a label for bestsellers #1 through #15, starting with the highlighted entry in that category). The labels printed are specially formatted to say “#1 Bestseller” in a large font. You can use these labels to tag shelf talkers for your bestseller section, or the books themselves. Repeat these steps for the sections you want labels for. This same feature can be used in the Backlist file to get labels for categories not listed in the Bestseller file.

409 BACKLIST AND BESTSELLERS | Using the Backlist file

Using the Backlist file To access the complete Backlist file, in TitleBank select File, then R on BACKLIST.DBF. In its natural sequence, the file will be listing titles in order of sales ranked from the past two weeks. The indx command offers several other ways of sequencing the titles.

The structure of the Backlist file is nearly identical to the Bestseller file. At the top of your screen after the heading TitleBank there is a #xxx/yyyyy listing. The yyyyy refers to the total number of records in the file, and the xxx represents each title’s rank by sales. A smaller number indicates that the item is selling better than one with a larger number.

Meeting minimums for a supplier If you need to meet a minimum order for a supplier, the Backlist file can be used for this purpose. If you use Srch and enter the supplier’s code into the BEST_SUP search field, you will get a listing of the most popular titles available from this supplier. You can scroll through the list and Ord any that you do not have in stock. You can also search for the top selling items by Class and Author.

Accessing popular new titles There is a section of the Backlist that contains new titles, and it should be reviewed on a weekly basis to make sure you are not missing out on any popular new titles. To view this list, select indx and then select BEST_NEW. This option will list items that have just started selling in the past two weeks sorted by sales rank. This list is intended to bring your attention to new titles that you may have overlooked during new release ordering. Only you can identify which titles are appropriate for your store, but each week you might find titles that you have missed.

Using the Backlist with your Inventory card When you have a Backlist subscription, the sales information will be listed on the Inventory card no matter where you are in Bookmanager. You can see this by finding a popular title in 2 Inventory. On the top half of the screen you will see monthly sales totals listed in grey under the 14 month received/ sold information. Here is an explanation of what the numbers mean:

• The number on the far right (just after the current month column, and under the Ttl column) indicates the number sold during the past week.

• At the far left, capped by a right parentheses, is the number of stores that have sold at least one copy of this item in its history. If there is an N preceding the number, this indicates that sales for this item have started in the last two weeks.

• If the right-handed bracket is replaced by a C, this indicates that at least 60% of the stores selling this book are Christian bookstores. If the bracket is replaced by a W, it means 60% of the stores selling this are from western Canada (Saskatchewan and over), and an E means it’s selling predominantly in the east (Manitoba and over).

This information is useful to indicate a sales trend for a particular item, and can assist you in making ordering decisions.

410 BACKING UP DATA

Backing up data Nothing could be more important than making copies of your bookstore’s data. Everyone knows you should backup computer data or face losing it. Even so, not many people have a proper routine because of the amount of effort required and the “seemingly” remote chance that it will happen to you. For casual computer users, losing your data may not be a serious inconvenience, but it pales in comparison to the loss of years of Bookmanager data. We can almost guarantee that it WILL HAPPEN to you someday.

Unlike many Windows programs that store data in several places on your computer, Bookmanager data is all stored in just one folder (usually called “BM” on the server’s C drive). Furthermore, the data files that need to be backed up all start with the same three letters - DAT. This means that to backup Bookmanager’s data, you really only need to save all of the DAT*.* files in the BM folder. Backing up these files can be done every day, automatically, and in less than five minutes.

The most efficient way to backup Bookmanager data is to use Bookmanager’s built-in backup routine in the Scheduler, allowing multiple backup versions to be created on multiple drive sources. You can also choose to simply have a backup of your server computer’s hard drive done daily, though this usually is overkill and requires a large removable hard drive to store the backups.

All of the particulars of backing up Bookmanager are covered in the Getting Started section of the manual, under Backups (page 25).

411 UPDATING BOOKMANAGER

Updating Bookmanager Bookmanager is constantly changing as new features are added to the program. If you have a current support contract you can download and install updates quickly (usually less than 3 minutes) and as frequently as you choose. You may want to run an update every month just to get the latest version with the most recent changes.

Updating Bookmanager is covered in the Data Transfer section of this manual, under U Update Bookmanager (page 369).

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