User eNotes - January 2021

Presidents Comments

Welcome to the New Year!

Since it is a new year, let’s have a word about the purpose of eNotes and who can receive it. There is only one goal of eNotes. It is to provide educational information about how ALERE works in order to help you better use it in your company.

While you will not see any advertising in the newsletter, we do solicit your opinions and feature requests. Requests do not disappear down a black hole. Many can be found in a new release of ALERE. In fact, if your request finds its way into the product, you will receive a personal email from us letting you know that it has been incorporated.

The newsletter is free to users of ALERE. If you are reading this, we encourage you to let others in your company know about it. They can sign up for it by simply dropping a short email to cmohr@tiwcorp.com and requesting a subscription.

One last word, back issues can be found on the TIW website within the dedicated eNotes Page.

Have any topics you would like to see covered in eNotes? Drop us a line. Wishing you good health and prosperity in 2021!

Pending Journal Entries

ALERE sales and purchasing documents have the unique distinction of being able to be saved in a “pending” condition. In that state they can be fully modified and accepted at a later date providing you with many advantages.

Manually entered General Ledger journal entries share that capability. Being able to save them, in any condition including unbalanced, instead of releasing them immediately brings a great deal of flexibility to the posting process. These “pending” entries can be completed at a later date, reviewed and approved by someone else, and queued up to be posted en masse on a specific date.

The process to create a pending entry is easy. Simply save the journal entry instead of posting it. Assigning a pending ID is done so that the entry can be readily identified on the Pending Journal Entries screen when it is time to release the posting.

Start and Projected Quantities

When a work order is started the two key pieces of information that are always entered are the item to be produced and its quantity. That seems obvious doesn’t it? But what if in the process of making the item, a few are always scrapped? That would mean that more need to be started in order to finish with the number that are required. Perhaps additional material must also be allocated in inventory and issued to the job to account for losses in the course of manufacturing.

If a route is used for the item, then scrap can be planned for and even the step on which it will occur can be identified. If the list of material is assigned to the route based on the operations where it is used, then the exact quantities required can be anticipated.

That brings us to understanding the differences and uses of work order Start Quantities and Projected Quantities as circled in the screen capture below.

Entering a start quantity will automatically use the route to calculate the projected number that will be finished based any scrap allowance in the route.

Conversely, entering a projected quantity will do the reverse and find the start quantity with which to begin to be able to produce the required finished quantity.

Being able to simply enter the quantity needed for a job and have the starting quantity calculated, is an immense time saver and it flows through to more accurate material lists and scheduling. Of course, it is equally true for work orders with processes that can produce more than were started with!

TIW Support Information Screen

Information about your licensed copy of ALERE can be found on the TIW Support Information screen. The screen can be reached through File > Help > About ALERE menu selections.

Your ALERE serial number, the version running, your number of users, and other pertinent info are located on this screen. The date of the version is displayed when it is installed. It will be updated to reflect the date of the last general patch that was installed.

Often people using ALERE will want to know what is new in an updated version. The New button at the bottom of the screen will display a PDF of the New Features brochure where it can optionally be printed.

It is not uncommon that, for one reason or another, there may be a need to review the End User License Agreement. If a cursor is placed over the Print button, a tooltip will appear indicating that the button will print the end users’ license agreement.

In summary, the TIW Support Information provides a wide range of answers about ALERE that may come up in the process of using it.

Technical Seminars - Your Source of Training

Due to the circumstances surrounding COVID-19, TIW is currently only offering custom training at this time.

Custom training offers a client driven, focused training approach which addresses the specific needs of your organization. At the same time it doubles as process consulting time, which can help to improve your organizational efficiency.

The one on one training may also be used to provide employees with recurrent training, which will assist them in making the most of both ALERE’s core and newest features. Alternatively, training may be scheduled as a comprehensive overview to familiarize new additions to your staff with the capabilities of ALERE.

Session require a two hours minimum commitment and may run for a maximum of four hours per day.

Schedule your company’s session by calling Chris at 610-258-5161 x105.

TIW’s online training resources are available 24/7 on demand through our website

TIW Technology, Inc. | Phone: 610.258.5161 | Fax: 610.258.6217

Email: sales@tiwcorp.com | Site: www.tiwcorp.com