ALERE Acccounting v5.0 New Features

ALERE v5.0 NEW FEATURES

Drop Shipments - Now drop shipping items to a customer is as easy as entering the item on the sales order and selecting which supplier to use! No separate order form or process is required. Just identify the items in inventory that can be drop shipped, add the suppliers handling order fulfillment and you are ready to take drop ship orders.

Items shipped from stock, items drop shipped, returns, and credit memos are all handled on one sales order and are clearly labeled. You even can choose whether to drop ship an item or ship it from your own inventory.

When the order is entered and accepted you can choose to create the purchase orders for suppliers, ship the items and invoice them all in one step, or you can select among several other options. Multiple drop ship items on an order for one vendor are consolidated on one purchase order.

When a supplier notifies you that a customer order has been shipped, you can process the shipment on the sales order or mass record multiple shipments on a Drop Ship Recording screen in inventory. Even partial shipments are easily handled.

While drop ship items are not part of the ins and outs of your company inventory, their activity is tracked and included on many of the analysis reports. Drop ship status reports for sales and purchase orders make it easy to monitor drop shipments. The Sales Order report has forms for both standard orders and drop ship orders. The Daily Shipments, Sales Open Orders, and Purchase Open Orders reports can optionally include drop shipments.

This is the way drop shipments should be handled. Integrated right into the sales order process. Clean, simple and efficient are the trademarks of this new feature.

Visual FoxPro v9.0 - This release of ALERE has been designed to run on Microsoft’s Visual FoxPro v9.0. The run time included with the software includes VFP9.

Client/Server Security - ALERE CS now utilizes Microsoft SQL Server’s application role feature in order to provide added security for client/server data. This allows the database administrator to give access privileges to the ALERE application itself, rather than each individual user. When users are not explicitly granted access to ALERE databases, they will be unable to view or update data through other ODBC compliant applications such as Microsoft Access or Excel.

Single Screen Order Entry - Screens in both Sales and Purchases Modules have been redesigned so that an order can be started, items can be entered on a grid, and the order accepted all on one screen!

The grid scrolls to the left and right so that all the columns can be accessed.

The Enter key moves between fields as does the Tab key, Left/Right arrow key and the mouse.

The Down arrow and the mouse will add a new line for the next item to be entered.

Highlighting the item number displays the description for that item.

The grid-based order entry is fully supported by the sales order configurator and all the functionality of entering line items one-by-one on the Line Items tab.

A running balance of the key order totals is displayed.

Items can be added on the grid, the xe "Line Items"Line Items tab or both.

Enlarging the screen will show more lines on the grid.

An Accept button and a Print button have been placed on the Header tab.

On the sales screens you can now select the Bill To, Ship To, and Refer To companies. The Refer To option gives you the ability to designate a third party. For example a contractor that must be present to accept delivery.

The status of the customer, their available credit, and the order totals are displayed.

On the purchase screens you can now specify the Remit To, PO To, Ship To, and the Refer To companies.

Reopen Orders - Ever need to reopen a completed sales order, sales invoice, or purchase order? Now you can with any order that is still within its valid until date! Add new line items and ship more quantity from existing line items just by clicking on the Reopen button!

Voiding Orders - The capability to void orders has been expanded to include payables and purchase orders in LIFO/FIFO companies when no other activity in tiers has occurred and the original tier can be used. This extends to voiding invoices and sales orders if the orders were shipped from a single tier.

Forecasted Receipts Report - A Threshold option, that allows number of days to be entered, has been added to the report. When running the report for current orders, the days entered in the threshold option will include all current orders plus those past due orders for that many days. When running the report for past due orders, the days entered in the threshold option will include those orders more than that many days.

Company Defaults Screen - Besides being redesigned, several new options have been added to this screen.

You can choose to base YTD sales on actual amount invoiced or on sales order acceptance.

The entering of shipping charges during the release of orders can be optionally set to not enter charges by default.

The HTML manual can be set to check the server for new versions and update your work stations if one exists. All you have to do is download a newly released HTML manual when it is available from the TIW web site and place it on the server. The rest is automatically done the next time the work stations are started.

The SOC tab has been renamed Manufacturing tab to more accurately reflect its function.

More Company Capabilities - The company screen has been redesigned with separate tabs for Location, Bill To, Ship To, Remit To, and PO To functions!

Companies can be marked as active or inactive.

You can select the company name to print on documents by company location.

For your company you can set a remit to address by company location and define your tax status with each supplier.

Assign SIC codes to companies from a built in table.

Do you want to be able to see companies by their relationship to your company? Now you can define and assign a status to companies! Set up dealers, distributors, clients, subcontractors, etc.

Left click the forward and backward buttons to move between companies. Right click them to move between company locations. You can also use Treevision to drill down to locations within companies. The browser will show all companies and their locations.

Locator Rules - Would you like to be able to tell a customer which of your stores is closest to their home? How about finding a list of the customers within a 50 mile radius of Akron, Ohio that are serviced by one of your sales people? Or, a list of all the companies that have a particular SIC code that are within 100 miles of a zip code in Atlanta, Georgia?

With the new user-defined locator rules screen you can do exactly that and much more!

Locator rules are based on the information from the company files. You can set up as many rules as you want and modify them at any time.

The rules can be created using the standard options supplied on screen, by writing the filtering clause yourself, or by using a combination of standard and custom rules. The rules can then be selected when using the Proximity Locations screen.

AR/Cash Receipts - The ability to receive payments by company and location has been added to the AR/Cash Receipts screen. Once the company has been entered you can double click in the Location field to display a list of all locations that are eligible to send you a payment.

AP/Cash Payments - The ability to make payments by company and location has been added to the AP/Cash Payments screen. Once the company has been entered you can double click in the Location field to display a list of all locations that are eligible to make payments.

Packing List Report - The Packing List report has been added to the main menu as a separate choice. With it you can produce packing lists for a range of invoices or dates and include line item notes and allocated lot/serial numbers.

Packing lists can also be printed by invoice status. This allows you to stage shipments before the invoice is actually completed.

Calendar - The TIW calendar has been added to the main menu under the Windows menu.

Dragging and dropping dates can be done when the calendar is called from this menu.

Going forward or backward on the TIW calendar in one week intervals has been added by right or left clicking on the name of the day of the week.

Calculator - A numeric calculator has been added to the main menu under Windows. Use Ctrl-C Ctrl-V to cut and paste the result into fields on screens.

Reset YTD Balances - If the fiscal year changes and the message come up to remind you to reset your company’s year to date balances, you can now go directly to the update screen.

Customers Screen - Redesigned extensively, the Customers screen now includes a check box to set whether the customer is active or inactive, a field to indicate the user-defined status of the company, and a SIC code.

It is now possible for different Bill To information to be assigned for each customer location, and you can set the address to print on documents by company location.

Order Date - When releasing a sales recurring order or a purchases recurring order, the order date can be changed if it is a date other than today. This also applies to generating a recurring order for either a sales or purchases order. This permits you to set the date that is used as the basis for calculating terms.

Key Changes History - Click the Enable Dates check box, enter a range of dates, set the Key Name combo box to the type of change, and select the Refresh button. A complete history of the key changes that were made will be displayed in the grid. The Print button will compose a report and send it to your printer.

Supplier’s Invoice Number - The Check Register Detail report now includes the supplier’s invoice number.

Inventory Screen - Redesigned extensively, the Inventory screen now includes a check box that allows an item to be drop shipped as one of the item’s attributes. All you have to do to release an item to be used for drop shipment is check the box and add the companies that fulfill the orders to the Supplier tab. The item can also be shipped from your stock should you both stock and drop ship it.

The Supplier tab is now a grid-based system for adding suppliers for items along with the supplier number for the item. Moving through the list of suppliers on the grid automatically displays key contact information for each supplier.

On the Activity tab a box has been added that calculates the receipts, the issues and the net change for an item based on the options and date range you specify.

Mass Payments - The list of payables to be approved for payment can now be filtered by company location.

Print Button - The Approve to Pay screen has a Print button and can print the Approve to Pay report in Purchases.

The Purchase Order Status tab can print the displayed order using a newly added Print button.

Statements Report - You can now print statements for a specific company location or combine the locations into one statement.

Suppliers Screen - Redesigned extensively, the Suppliers screen now includes a check box to set whether the supplier is active or inactive, a field to indicate the user-defined status of the company, and a SIC code.

Different remit to information can be assigned for each supplier location and you can set the address to print on documents by company location.

In addition, there is an option on the Activity tab to show supplier order numbers.

A Refresh button allows the key supplier numbers like the account balance and open orders amount to be easily updated.

Due Date - When turning a credit memo into a payable, a due date has been added that allows the setting of the initial due date. It defaults to 30 days from the current date.

Open Sales Orders Report Options - The Open Sales Orders report now has an option to include pending sales orders and you can choose Bill To or Ship To customer types.

Sales Analysis Report - The Include option has been expanded to include shipping, finance charges, both or neither. You can also choose Bill To or Ship To customer types.

Accepting Invoices - The invoice date can be set to match the shipping date when manually accepting a pending invoice. This allows you to control the period in which the invoice will be posted as the pending invoice may have an older date that falls in a prior period.

Cash Receipts Report - A new option allows you to include or exclude journal entries on the report.

History of Payments Report - A new option allows you base the report on order dates or due dates.

Journal ID Option - The GL Sales, Purchase and Inventory journal reports now have an option to print in order of the Journal ID.

Bank Transactions - Returned checks can be reversed based on company and location.

Aged Receivables and Payables Reports - These reports can now be run for a specific company location or have all the locations for a company combined.

Suppliers Report - A Detail/Summary option has been added to this report that allows just the supplier ID and name to be printed or include much more extensive detail.

1099 Summary Report - The report has an option that allows both company and location to be requested.

Customer List Report - Now this report can be filtered by sales person and ordered by sales person.

Data Gateway - A check box has been added to this function that controls the active status of the browser filter. It also permits the browser list to be reset to included them all.

Get Button - Left click to browse a list and search and right click to simply search.

COA Range Error - Each time the Save button is selected on the Chart of Accounts screen account numbers and subcategory ranges are validated. Should either be found to be out of range, a screen is displayed that details any problems.

Browser Info - A right click on the silver graphic on the browser screen will display the browser key, description, and records in the initial and search browse window.

User Rights - Several new user rights have been added.

• IMDS - Controls access to the new Drop Shipment Recording screen.

• MMFL - Controls access to the new Locator Rules screen.

• SFCL - Controls if a user can accept or ship an order for a customer over their credit limit.

• SRIN - Controls access to the new Packing List report.

• WRDS - Controls access to the new Drop Shipment Status report.

Development Environment - The new v5.0 adds to an already rich and flexible platform from which developers can enhance and expand the capabilities of ALERE.

For those who have licensed the Developer’s Source Kit there has been added an assortment of upgraded tools and new capabilities. The following is a list of some of the most noteworthy items:

• Compiled with VFP 9 (service pack 1)

• Certified for Microsoft SQL Server 2005

• Certified and documented for Microsoft SQL Server Express Edition

• Includes an updated PDF version of DevKit manual on CD (as licensed)

• Includes ALERE screen code (as licensed)

• Includes an enterable grid control that can be configured in Ws_Lingo

The screen code is presented as separate class libraries to make it easy to reference from within VFP.

Another major addition to the development tool set is the enterable grid control. This control allows the developer to place a grid on a screen and to have the user enter data directly into the grid. Arrow keys and mouse controls are supported for navigation within the grid and for the addition of new records to the grid. Further, the grid can handle ComboBox pull downs defined in Ws_Lingo. The definition of each column in the grid is established in Ws_Lingo. The developer can specify the column sequence, header caption, control source, input mask, read only status, popup and other attributes in Ws_Lingo. This will save the developer from the complex coding that is normally necessary to create an enterable grid while providing the remarkable configurability associated with Ws_Lingo definitions.

Refer to the DevKit manual and the ReadMe document within the DevKit folder for more information on these and other new capabilities.