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To: Fuel Distribution System Users From: RCC programming department Date: 02/06/05 Subject: Release Notes for FDS version 7.19.0000 & 7.19.0100 |
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FUEL: Location, Equipment, Invoices, History, Tables, Sales Orders, Payments, Taxes UNIVERSAL: Setup Options, Auto Pay File, Check Reconciliation
PROGRAMS RUN: CC History: A program will run to add payment records to any Credit card transactions thru ‘Enter Sales’ that did not create the payment record. This problem occurred on 7.17 from Sept 2004 thru Jan 2005.
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FUEL DISTRIBUTION: 7.19.0000 & 7.19.0100
1. Finance Charge Calculation:
v Credit Apply to Old Invoices: If there was a credit available in the current bucket AND a current debit invoice, the system was not using the newer logic to assume that the credit could be used against an older invoice before calculating a finance charge for a customer.
2. Daily Work:
v Payments to Legal Customers: A popup message will now appear to notify the user that the cash receipt is being entered to a customer with an account status of ‘Legal’.
v Reversal of Invoice through Misc Credits: When entering a misc credit, if the user selects a prior invoice for a customer from the drill box, the system will default all the information from the original entry, so the entry will be back out with the same information as it was keyed in. At this time, this function cannot be used to reverse meter sales, inventory transfer sales and contract sales entries. This function is only usable from ‘Misc Credits’, it cannot be used as a negative sale.
v Cash Receipts Journal: Can now print in summary if sorted by Custid or G/L account #.
v Payment Post: A field has been added to the invoice file to assist in keeping payments from being separated by another trans on ‘balance forward’ customer’s statements.
v Equipment Transfers: Detail lines have been added to the equipment transfer tab. Users can now change information (lease amt, lease start date, county code, etc) before the transfer takes place so that when it is transferred to the new customer the changed information is already completed.
v Multi Posts: More logic has been added to release the pending file sooner so multiple posts can occur at the same time without causing a record lock on each other.
v Insert Line for Eqmt Transfer: Users can now insert a line in Change Entries for eqmt transfer.
v Last Sales Post of Month: Those customers using the ‘Last post of the Month’ checkbox will now notice it is under a low level of security. Users needing to use the check box will now use the lowest level security password to open the checkbox. Hopefully this will avoid the box checked by mistake.
v Truck Use Sales: When using the ##xxxx (truck # ) sale to expense out product that was used on company trucks, the system will now allow the TRKUSE tax group to be blank. Then when the ##0001 truck number is keyed into ‘Enter Sales, the ‘shipping/other’ box will now automatically pop up wanting the use to enter a tax group. This is valuable for companies operating in multiple states.
· Deleting Inventory Transfer Sale: When deleting an Inventory Transfer Sale, the quantities were not being put back to the Inventory item. This has been resolved.
· Final Misc Credits Journal: This final report was displaying all zeros. Repaired.
· Record Lock on Inventory: When users would change a category in ‘Enter Sales’ from a category that HAD an inventory number to a NF sale using a category that had NO inventory number, the system was not releasing the inventory file when the category was changed. It will now.
v Journals: Now displays ‘Pending’ Credit Card totals when using the new CC Method.
v Include in Pending: This field on the batch tab will now be protected by the low level password.
3. Reprint Invoice
· Metered Invoice: As of this release, the history file will now hold enough of the detailed meter information on a sale to be able to use the ‘reprint invoice’ function for metered invoices. Reprinting older metered invoices will still not be able to supply enough information to reprint a detailed metered invoice. Reprint of metered invoices can only have detail for invoices posted from this release forward.
· Record Lock: If the system encounters invoices from earlier RCC versions that did not hold enough detailed information for a ‘reprint’, it will no longer cause a record lock; it will simply print the invoice but may be lacking that information that was not held in history at that time.
4. Customer Inquiry:
v Display Field: The field that displays if a customer is a ‘budget’, ‘EFT’ etc. will now display a number of different options. It will display if a customer is setup as ‘BUD’, ‘CC’, ‘BANK’, or ‘AUTO’ and a combination of these in the header display field of Inquiry. This is now a ‘scrollable’ field so the user can put their cursor in this ‘display only’ field and arrow to the right to see more info.
v Actual Aging Buckets: In the ‘Current’ popup box on the ‘General’ tab will now display the Finance Charge bucket total.
· History List Screen: When pressing the ‘Print’ button on the history tab, while there is a specific location selected, the report will now only print the information for that location. This screen print will no longer print ‘CK #’ on the ‘Auto Apply’ entries that print on the report.
· Unlimited Note Display: When using the new unlimited note logic there were instances that the note overlaid info on the line below. This has been repaired.
· History Ref # Search: A date field has been added to the Ref # Search list. This is to avoid the system combining two different customers with the same ref # into one line on a search.
5. History Based Degree Day System:
v New WC Switch: A configuration switch is now available to tell the system if WC deliveries should be included or ignored when calculating kfactors and degree day information for a Degree Day location. It will default to including WC deliveries when calculating DD information.
v Summer Constant Usage: A field has been added to the location file (in the K-factor pop up box) for a ‘summer constant usage’ value. The system will calculate a value that it can use in the summer to improve the history based DD system for those customers that do not have a ‘summer fill’ program. The system will use this value in the summer months to improve deliveries.
v Delivery Chart: The Degree Day delivery chart graph will now display a dotted column line that will show the users the lower points that will be used to calculate the summer constant usage factor.
v Default Non-Heat Usage: The DD table, line 5, now holds a value for ‘Default Non-Heat Usage. The table will default to .5 gals per day as the default, but is changeable by the users.
· Ignore Delivery: A Non-Fuel sale to a Degree Day location will no longer flag the delivery on that same day to ‘ignore delivery’. Only a fuel sale return will cause the system to ignore a delivery.
6. Customer Maintenance:
· User Defined: When ‘nexting’ thru customers and then moving to the ‘User Defined’ tab, if a customer had no user defined info, it could show another customer’s user defined info. Repaired.
7. Equipment Maintenance:
v Cycle Changes: When users change the number of ‘cycle periods’ (ex. 1 mo to 12 mo billing cycle) the system will now ask users if it should empty the ‘last bill date’. This will allow the user to bill the lease based on a new lease start date they input.
v Linked Equipment: A field has been added to the equipment file that will allow users to ‘link’ one piece of eqmt to another. Then when transferring one piece of ‘linked’ eqmt, the system will automatically transfer the other ‘linked’ piece at the same time. This is useful for linking regulators or remote sensors to their ‘tank’, so that when the tank is transferred it will take along the regulator or remote sensor that is linked to it.
8. Credit Card/ACH Auto Pay:
v Old Method Vs New Method: RCC has found a way for the system to handle credit cards the way it had prior to 7.17 release OR use the new method of Credit card processing that was added in 7.17. The Old method will depend on the ‘verify code’ in ‘Setup Options – Fuel Dist - Credit Card Type’ to be blank. This is what will tell the system that it should use the older method of credit card payment. The old method would treat the credit card sale as a ‘cash sale’ putting a history record showing the credit card payment, not update the invoice file – because the invoice was paid on the sale, and use the g/l number from the SLxxGL tables. The New Method relies on the ‘verify code’ having a value in it. This method will update the bank file when the sale is entered. When the function called ‘process auto payments’ is run the system will generate cash receipts for those sales and also have the ability to send transactions via web at that time to be processed by credit card companies or banks. When using the new method, hyperlinks have been added all ‘pending’ fields to show the user if the ‘pending’ amount is a sale or payment that is pending AND what dollar value is pending in the ‘bank’ file, waiting for ‘process auto pay’ function to occur.
v Swipe Credit Cards: With this release the ability to ‘Swipe’ credit cards is now available. In ‘Customer Maintenance’, in the ‘Credit Card Info’ tab there is a ‘Swipe’ button. Once pressed the system will wait for a swipe to occur. Swiping units need to be units that plug into the keyboard slot. A USB swiper is not supported at this time. Once swiped the system will bring all credit card information on the card into the maintenance area. (Even the ‘track 2 info’ will be stored in a hidden area of the customer file to allow users to get the cheaper rate for credit card processing.) Users can also swipe cards in ‘Enter Sales’ and ‘Enter Cash Receipts’. There is also a new checkbox added called ‘process immediately’. When checked, the system will connect to the ‘Reliafund’ web site to get authorization for the credit card transaction. Contact RCC for more information on processing credit cards and/or automatic bank payments through RCC and Reliafund.
v Warning Message: When an existing customer, with a balance owed, is setup as an ‘auto pay’ (Bank Account or Credit Card) customer, the system will now warn users that a cash receipt should be used to get the current amount owed into the bank file to be withdrawn from the customer’s account. When the cash receipt entry is made the dollar amount owed should be keying into the ‘Auto Pay’ field so that the entry can get into the bank file to be pulled out of customer’s account.
v Credit Card Confirmation: An e-mail confirmation selection window has been added to the ‘credit card pop-up box’ in the ‘Automatic Pymt Info’ field of the customer maintenance screen. This is a field that will be used for future enhancements.
v Meter Readings/Leases: Both of these areas can now use the new Credit Card/ACH automatic pay processing logic.
v Customers with Credit Balances: When a customer with a credit balance on their account is setup to ‘AutoPay’, the system will now automatically use the credit dollars when a sale is made to that customer. This new logic will keep the charge amount from being pulled from the customer’s account when there is a credit balance on the account.
v Unbalanced Bank File: A switch can now be set in xxACH1 table to allow the system to create an ‘unbalanced’ ACH file for banks that need the file in this manner.
· Posting to G/L: The new credit card logic was not always looking at the SLxxGL tables to send posting to the correct g/l account number. This has been repaired. If needed, RCC has a program that can be run to identify batches that have had credit card transactions posted since the beginning of Nov.
· History Fix: A program will run on this release looking at any credit card transactions from Sept 2004 thru Jan 2005 to add a record in history IF the sale had been keyed into ‘Enter Sales’ and marked as a credit card sale/payment.
v Process Auto Pay Report: The report now offers a sort option by ‘Custid’ or ‘Payment Method’. The report also provides more subtotal information for users.
v Due Date and Terms: If customer has terms that are ‘Net’ (ex. net 10 days) the system will bring the use the disc date as the date the automatic payment is to be generated. Using the terms in this manner will allow users to be sure that auto payments are pulled out in a certain number of days.
9. Print Labels:
v Dymo Label Printing: Programming has been completed to allow labels to print one at a time to a ‘Dymo printer’. Once setup appropriately, using a ‘Ctrl L’ from many areas will print the customer’s address on a label one at a time to the specific Dymo Printers. With this release the function is available in Customer Maintenance, Equipment Maintenance, Customer Inquiry, SWO/man tkt, Contract Maintenance, Installment Maintenance, and Fuel Daily Work Screens.
10. Meter Readings:
· Total Not Match Detail: Users should no longer receive a message when posting metered batch ‘Order Detail does not match Total’. Discounts will also work better in the meter readings area.
11. Pricing:
v Scale Pricing: There is now a hyperlink available on ‘Price’ field’ so users can see the breakdown of a ‘scale’ price code. The new hyperlinks are available in Inquiry, Loc Maintenance and SWO/man tkt screen.
12. Delivery, Service, Readings:
· SWO Number: After expanding the SWO reference number field in 7.18.0000 there were still a few areas displaying the older 5 digit number instead of the new 7 digit swo #. In some cases, this also could cause some SWOs to not be marked as completed. This has been repaired.
· Eqmt Transfer thru SWO: Equipment was not transferring when the original request was made on the SWO. This was also related to the expansion of the field and is now fixed.
· Delivery Prep Screen: Was displaying negative average temp at end of Dec. Resolved.
· Temp SWO’s: When using the arrow keys to ‘Next’ thru existing SWO’s a ‘TEMP’ customer could appear with the prior SWO customer’s address and location information. Repaired.
v Deleting Future Delivery Tickets: The system will now delete the ‘oldest’ ticket in the future, if the approval date is prior to the invoice date. This will remedy the situation of a driver delivering a day or two early and then the ticket is left stranded. It will NOT delete the future ticket if the customer is a Fill by Days customer with schedule codes.
13. Category Maintenance:
v Tax Class Lookup Box: Will now only display each tax class once, no descs will be avail in the list.
14. Aged Trial Balance/Dunning Letters:
· Header Info: The header will now print the ‘statement date’ in the heading of the report and will not repeat the wording ‘no letter over 30’ message on each page.
15. Statements:
· Address on Laser Statement: A few characters of the second line of the address was being covered with the message, ‘You have AutoPayment’. The wording will now say ‘You have AutoPay’, so it will not overlay the 2nd address line.
v Statements Totals Page: Will now display the ‘statement date’ for all RCC standard statements.
· Printing Statements: The system was telling users ‘statements have already been printed’ and not allowing entry to the screen. This has been changed back to a warning message and will now allow.
· Warning Message: If switches are set so that finance charges are to be run before month end, users will not be able to run all stmts (custid pick range blank) if finance charges have not been run.
16. Apply Unapplied Invoices:
v SPEED!!: This process will now process much, much faster!!
17. Update Customer Status:
v File Maintenance > General > Inactive Customers: This menu option has been added to allow users to change custs account status to inactive IF they have had no activity since a certain date.
18. Reports:
v Excel Charts: If users have Excel, RCC can turn on a ‘charting’ function, so that selected reports can interface with Excel and print charts. Currently the following reports can use the ‘chart’ option: Driver, Distribution List, Category Report,
v Distribution List: On the Delivery, Service, Readings Menu or on the Reports > Customer menu, there is a new report called a ‘Distribution List’. This report enables users to send all or groups of customers to Mappoint for mapping, with the ability for the users to make some mapping choices. This report will print a list of all customers that could not be mapped because of their address.
· Delivery History Report: If the efficiency was a negative factor, the report was not displaying the misc credits or negative sales that caused the negative efficiency. The negative entries now appear.
v Customer History Report: An option has been added to this report when the ‘Select’ field is set as ‘Cost/Profit’. This selection will then open the checkbox for ‘Per Unit’. This will then print a ‘Sales per unit’ column instead of a percent column.
· Customer Labels: Labels to dot matrix printer were wrapping and putting an extra line between each address line. This has been repaired.
· Customer List/Labels: Using the pick range of location capacity was actually looking at equipment capacity. This has been repaired.
v Customer Comments/Notes Report: Since the longer ‘insert’ note field was added, this report will now print more characters of the added note.
v Inactive Customers: The report has been enhanced. It can run a list of current inactive customers the way it has always run, but now it can also give users a list of customers that have had no activity since a certain date.
19. Generate Leases:
v Lease Desc: The field is now a scrollable field and allows users to key in a 24 char desc even though the field on the screen is only 15 chars long. (Note: if there is already a desc on eqmt file it will use that desc and not the one from the ‘Generate Lease’ screen.)
20. Contract Maintenance:
· Contract with ‘Blank’ Location: Occasionally contracts have been created with an empty location field value, (instead of 0). Handheld uploads and contract maintenance had a hard time recognizing these contracts. Logic has been added to consider a ‘blank’ location field the same as a ‘0’.
21. Fill by Calendar Customer:
v Delivery Chart: The Fill by Calendar customers will now all display a delivery chart.
GENERAL LEDGER:
· Missing G/L Number: When the A/P tables were moved to ‘Universal Setup Options’ in version 7.17, there was a problem with the system missing the G/L account for Accounts Payable when a refund check was issued from Fuel Distribution to the A/P module. This will no longer occur.
· Journal Maintenance: Existing entries could inadvertently get their sign changed from a positive value to negative and vice versa, by clicking around in the list. This will no longer occur.
· Financial Statement Headings: If the user had multiple report controls setup the system will remember the appropriate heading information for each.
· Passwords: Each menu of G/L can now be appropriately password protected. The number sequence for g/l menu passwords was mixed up due to the addition of G/L inquiry some time ago.
· Financial Statements Acct #’s: G/L Account numbers have been removed from financial stmts.
v Financial Statement Screen: Removed the ‘Current/YTD’ radio button as it was not used in the program. Default column 2 option to ‘Historical Amt’.
v Year End Reports: The steps ‘Save Historical Data’ and ‘Close by Step’ will print now reports.
ACCOUNTS PAYABLE:
v 1099’s: The system will print the Fed ID Number from the vendor file, if available, or else it will print Social Security Number.
v Purchase Order Post: A menu item has been added but is only used by those customers using the RCC ‘Remote Plus’ function. See below in the Communications/Remote Plus’ section.
v Add Vendor from Customer File: User can now easily add a vendor that is currently in the ‘Fuel Distribution Customer File. When in Vendor Maintenance, user can select the ‘Source File’ of ‘Customer’ and then type in the ‘custid’, or pick out of the list, the system will then add the customer’s name/address, etc. as a new vendor. It will precede the custid with an @ sign and will change the source file to ‘vendor’.
v History Inquiry: When viewing the history inquiry screen in ‘Line Item Detail’ mode, columns have been added to display Purchase Description and G/L Account #.
v Label Printing: Labels can be printed to the Dymo Printer one at a time from Vendor Maintenance, Purchase Order Maintenance, Purchase Maintenance and A/P Inquiry. There is also a ‘print labels’ check box on the totals page of Purchase Order Maintenance and Purchase Maintenance. IF the purchase contains inventory items that are NOT inventory average type items, the system can print a bar-coded label to the Dymo printer for each qty of inventory purchased. (Ex. Purchase 5 items that are ‘Fifo/Lifo’ type inventory and click on the ‘Print Labels’ on the total page and the system would print 5 labels with barcodes for that inventory item purchased.
v Purchase Journal: When printing a check immediately, the purchase journal will print the check #.
v List Screen: Clicking the printer button while in inquiry will now print the list instead of header info.
· Purchase Maintenance: When keying in a prepaid check number it will now open the prepaid date field and enter that field next instead of taking the user to the field called ‘Extra’.
· Misc Debits: The field ‘Pay to Vendor’ will now be open in the Misc Debits screen.
· Vendor History Report: Vendor and Inventory Pick Lists will now work appropriately.
INVENTORY:
· Negative Purchase affecting cost: When a negative purchase is used it will now affect the inventory cost appropriately. Misc Debits always handled the transaction appropriately; this was only a bug with negative purchases.
· Cost on Negative Inventory Qty: When an averaged inventory item was allowed to go into the negative qty, and the next purchase was made, the system was fluctuating the cost of inventory. This will no longer occur.
v Use Category Description: A checkbox has been added to the inventory maintenance screen, so that the system uses the category description instead of the inventory description for this item. This option will only work if the switch is already set to use the ‘Inventory Description’ overall. This is an advantage if there are multiple categories using the same inventory number (Ex. categories of Fuel Commercial and Fuel Residential and Fuel Heat may all use 1LP inventory, by using the category description for 1LP, this will give more descriptive information for the customers on their stmts).
v Labels Not Allowed: Check box has been added so the system will NOT print labels for this item from A/P purchases.
· Physical Count List: Expanded the field for Extended Cost on the report so data is not truncated.
· Inventory Cost: The system is constantly double checking the cost of inventory items when users are in inventory maintenance. A work field has been made larger to keep the inventory cost from being adjusted while users were viewing inventory items. It used to ask users if they wanted to ‘save changes’ even though no changes were made by the user, if answered ‘yes’ the system was decreasing the cost due to reaching a maximum size in the work field. Repaired.
· Transfer Analysis Report: Will no longer be missing metered accounts attached to inventory.
PAYROLL:
v North Dakota Payroll: Payroll withholding tables are available for the state of North Dakota.
v Payroll State Tables: In Setup Options when selecting the STATE or STATEM tables the system will find the first state table in the file and bring it to the screen.
v Termination Date: A warning message will now appear if a termination date is entered on an employee that still has an advance amount remaining to be repaid to the company.
· Pre-Note Extract: The transaction code for company totals has been changed to trans # 28.
· Print Labels: When printing laser labels it was missing the last row of labels. Fixed.
UNIVERSAL:
v What’s Running: The list is now sortable by clicking on the column headings
v What’s Running, New Batch List: A new sortable list of all batches in the system, shows all batches, when each batch was created and who created the batch.
v D.C. This has been added to the list of Universal ‘States’ as the 51st sequence number. (if avail)
HANDHELDS/OTHER DEVICES:
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IMPORTANT: If using Liquid Control Handheld and using the Extra Fees, there is a change with this release. It will no longer be looking at the $LIQCN table for the extra fee information. It will now use the category and location file to determine which customers get extra fees. Be sure new categories are setup BEFORE installing this release so the extra fee charges continue to be charged. |
v Midcom: A strip-off program is now available for this handheld. This allows the system to send all active fuel cust/locs down to the handheld, ignoring the ‘Hold’ ticket logic that the ‘Delivery Ticket Prep’ menu option adheres to. As it avoids certain blocks of logics, strip-offs typically process faster than a ‘scheduled’ prep of tickets.
v Midcom: New programming has been added by both RCC and Midcom to allow RCC to send ‘contract deposit’ information down to Midcom and have the handheld always deduct the contract deposit after the taxes are computed. This requires a different version of the Midcom software.
v Liquid Control: A strip-off program is also now available for this handheld. This allows the system to send all active fuel cust/locs down to the handheld, ignoring the ‘Hold’ ticket logic that the ‘Delivery Ticket Prep’ menu option adheres to. As it avoids certain blocks of logics, strip-offs typically process faster than a ‘scheduled’ prep of tickets.
v Liquid Control: The new ‘extra fee’ logic has been added to the download for LC. It will now longer use the values from the $LIQCN table, but will use from category and location extra fee info.
v Remote Sensor – Robert Shaw’s Centuron: RCC interfaces with this remote sensor now.
v Liquid Control: RCC will no longer upload a tank check percent from LC above 100%
· Download Mixed Route: The download screen will now default to the current batch that was approved, instead of always defaulting to the manual tkt batch (T000000). This will help to avoid RCC from sending mixed routes down to the handhelds.
· Fuel Web Remote Sensors: The system was having difficulty automatically adding the remote sensor to the equipment file, when there were multiple locations. Resolved.
· Handheld Batches: When deleting items from an upload batch, the batch totals were not always updated (typically due to invalid info on the uploaded order), but will now update appropriately.
COMMUNICATIONS/REMOTE PLUS:
v A/P Purchase Orders: Purchase Orders can now be communicated between a branch and corp site. A menu item was added called ‘Post Purchase Orders’. When selected this menu item is the function that adds the current purchase orders to the communication file for transmittal to the other side at time of communication. Once the purchase order has been ‘posted’ it will no longer be accessible to the side that posted the purchase order, it now becomes in control of the other side.
· A/P Comm error: System will not longer err out on a ‘Last Purchase Date’ in A/P communication.
· Customer/Location Comm: To assure the data matches on both sides RCC has a program available that can be run a communications to compare the customer and location data on both sides. Contact RCC support for assistance in running this.
· Error on Sales Post Comm: In version 7.17, due to the added credit card fields the communication order file expanded it size and erred out on comm.. Repaired, the comm. error will no longer occur.
v Corp Menu Added Reports: The following reports have been added to the corp menu: Contract Analysis, Equipment Alert, Distribution List
v Corp G/L Print Trial Balance: Now has a branch tab for selection of branches.
Bullets reference:
v Denotes an item that is enhancement to the RCC system.