Data Resource Management

Version 3.1.133

Upcoming Enhancements to Credit Card Processing

We would appreciate your feedback

We’re planning to release a new set of features and solutions to enable you to process credit card transactions using the internet.  So instead of having to go to the card processing terminal to authorize a payment, you would do it directly from your computer.  Aside from the efficiency and convenience associated with this, you may even save a buck or two as we’re discovering that available rates for this sort of processing are often considerably lower than traditional processing fees.

There are many ways of implementing internet processing and turning your computers into Virtual Point of Sale (VPOS) systems. We want to make sure that our solutions will be completely compatible with how you do business, and we’d like learn what options would benefit you the most. Here are some details on two of the solutions we’re planning to offer.

1. Scenario 1... Process payments as you Post

• (Requirement -- the user’s workstation is on the internet.)

• After saving an invoice for a Credit Card account, the payment is immediately processed and if authorized, a credit transaction is posted automatically to the account along with the verification #.

1. Scenario 2… Process payments when Posting Totals

• (Requirement – only the workstation where Totals are posted needs to be on the internet.)

• After you post an invoice, a "Pending" credit card payment transaction is posted to the account. As part of Posting Totals, you review these transactions and click a button to submit them all at once for authorization. Approved transaction would be automatically updated with the verification #.  You would be able to decide how to handle any denied authorizations.

New features in revision. 3.1.133

New Feature – The DRM Help System

• Choose Help (F10) from the Main Screen to open "DRM Help" in a separate window.   In the Contents tab over on the left side you’ll see two books: "DRM Windows" and "Alphabetic Table of Contents." Each book contains the same information but organizes it differently.

• When you double-click a book, its topics or sections are displayed.  The first book is broken down into sections according to how you would use the program to manage your customers, and is a great way to learn the system in a step-by-step manner.  Use the "Alphabetic…" book to easily find more information about a specific area. 

• You can also use the Index tab just like the index at the back of a book, when you want to find out more about something but aren’t sure where to start.

• You can swap between the DRM and Help windows by using your <Alt>-<Tab> keys or clicking on the minimized icons on the Taskbar. 

New Feature – Merging Accounts

Mrs. Brown, a realtor, buys a house from Mr. Smith.  Brown plans to keep the house and rent it out.  Normally you would go into Brown’s Cust Info and add a new Site.  But what do you do if Smith is already your customer?  Using Account Merging you can add the Smith property as a new Site to the Brown account.  From then on they will share Brown’s billing information.

•  Go to the Account Lookup screen and launch the Customer Tools wizard by choosing "Cust Tools (F5)".  Make sure "Merge a Site with another" is selected and choose <Next>. 

• Click the <Pick> button and choose the Master account.  This will be the customer whose Account # will be used and must be the customer's 1st site. 

• Choose <Next> to move to the Sub-Account screen. 

• Click <Pick> and this time choose the account you wish to merge with the master. 

• Choose <Next> to move to the Confirmation screen.  Here you will see a review of your choices.  Confirm your choices are correct and click <Perform Merge> to link the accounts. 

• You will get a message indicating that the merge was successful.   The original billing information for the new sub-account is saved in a note.

New Feature – Splitting Sub-Sites into New Accounts

This is the opposite of account merging.  You pick a sub-account to become a standalone master account, preserving all past activity and history.  You’ll find this useful, for example, in a scenario where a landlord sells one of her properties and you would like all the delivery history to stay with the new owner.

• Go to the Account Lookup screen and launch the Customer Tools wizard by choosing "Cust Tools (F5)". 

• Make sure "Split a Sub Account" is selected and choose <Next>. 

• Click the <Pick> button and choose the sub-site you want to split (it must NOT be his 1st site. 

• Choose <Perform Split> to complete the process.  You will get a message indicating that the split was successful and be informed of the new account #. 

• You will probably want to edit the billing information.

Five New Reports

1. Delivery Totals by Site and Month:  Pick the date range, fuels and customers to include.  The report displays the number of deliveries and total gallons for each month broken down by site.  The report is designed to fit 12 months worth of information on a single page.

   • Each coupon lists the scheduled payment month, amount and Account #.  If you send these to your budget customers, you can send monthly statements to just the budget customers who are behind with their payments. 

   • Please let us know if you are interested in these laser coupons so we can help Wehof stock sufficient quantities. 

   • You can also print these coupons on plain paper and use it as a hardcopy check-list for receiving budget payments.

2. Journal Entries By Batch: This report prints the General Ledger Journal Entries for each batch posted within the period specified.  Your accountant will send you chocolates.

3. Budget Coupons for the Laser Printer:  Each sheet contains up to 12 monthly budget payment coupons (see the sample coupon sheet attached.) 

4. Degree Day Totals by Date Prints the daily Heat-only and Water degree day totals for each day in the current degree day year.  You should print a copy before resetting your degree days each year.

5. Degree Day LogPrints a blank degree day log to help you hand-enter degree days for each day in a month.

New Fuel Gauge indicator on Daily Work screen

• In the Billing Information section, in the upper–left corner of the screen, you will see a vertical fuel gauge next to a blue label showing how many gallons the customer will take today (his Need), followed by his Drop amount.  The gauge is a useful visual indication of how close the customer is to his Drop.

• The yellow line represents the Drop amount (or the tank’s Reserve level) and the blue background represents how full the Tank is.  As the Need increases, you will see an additional warning message displayed to catch your eye for the following situations:

• "Warning!"…. Need within 10% of Drop

• "Drop Alert"… Need is greater than Drop (or fuel in tank is below the reserve level)

• "Run-Out"… Shows in Red when Need is within 10% of Tank size (or tank is less than 10% full)

• "Empty" … Need is same as Tank size.

12-month Usage Chart on Daily Work screen

• If you click on either the Fuel Gauge or the Need / Drop message, a window showing the 12-month usage will pop-up.  The monthly totals for all fuels delivered during the interval are displayed.  The past 12 months is automatically displayed but you can click on the Previous and Next Month buttons to change the interval.  Click on Print if you want to print this screen.

New Posting Feature – Period Locking and Date Checking

You can take advantage of some or all of these new features to cut down on date errors when posting.

• Period Locking

• In order to be used, you have to first turn this feature on and then enter a Period End date.  You will only be allowed to Post or Void transactions with a date later than the Period Close Date.  In Utilities - Options - Posting, "Period Locking - Is Being Used" enables this feature.   Use "Period Locking – Close Date" to set the period ending date.

• Fiscal Year Locking

• You will no longer be able to Post or Void transactions with a date outside the current Fiscal year.

• Date Warnings

• You can choose to receive a warning if you ever enter a date that is either so many days before or after today’s date.  In such an event you can choose to ignore the warning and still post the transaction. 

• In Utilities - Options – Posting, use the option setting "Warn if transaction is X days in the future", enter how many days into the future you want to allow dates to be entered, or enter a ZERO to skip using this feature.

• Likewise, for the options setting "Warn if transaction is X days in the past", enter how far back you want to allow dates to be entered, or enter a ZERO to skip using this feature.

New Feature – Go back to the PREVIOUS customer.

• Choose the "Last Cust (F4)" button on the Account Lookup screen to load the previous customer.  You’ll find this handy if you’re working an account but have to answer the phone and print a ticket for a Call customer.

New Feature – Flagged Notes

• Flagged Notes provides an easy way to both identify and spot any important customer notes.

• As you edit a note, you can check the new "Flagged" box located next to the "Sticky" box.

• If a customer has any flagged notes, a yellow "NOTE" message is displayed in the upper-right corner of the account dashboard screen.  This helps draw your attention to their list of notes. 

• Flagged notes are displayed with *** before the text to help them stand-out from the others.  If you click on the "Details" column heading, all the flagged notes will move to the top of the list.

New Options  in Utilities - Options

You use Options to customize the program to your business needs and preferences.

System - Meter Ticket Screen – Show Daily Price

• If you set this to "No" then your Daily Price is not automatically loaded when you go to print a Ticket.  If you want a price to print you will have to enter it manually.                                                                                                                                                

My preferences - Return to Account Lookup after Meter Ticket

• A "Yes" value will open the lookup screen after you print or save a ticket.  There’s a similar setting for work orders.

Printing - Default Budget Payment Due On

• The day of the month your budget payments are due.  This prints on the Budget Mailer and Coupon.

Posting - Delivery History Recs – Adjust Factor Screen

• How much delivery history to show on the Adjust Factor Kickout Screen.  This defaults to the last 6 deliveries but you may find that more history will help you with establishing an accurate k-factor.

Enhancements to the Statement wizard

• You can choose an activity end date.  Very handy if you ever want to re-print a prior statement and not show subsequent activity.

• The information you enter is remembered until you logout.

• You can choose to print statements for Inactive accounts.

• You can easily specify minimum balance amounts instead of having to use criteria.

• You can elect to not request any budget payments. 

Enhancements to Quick Pick

• Quick Pick lets you easily build a list of accounts and then limit a report to just  the customers on this list. 

• In addition to statements and labels, you can now use the Quick Pick list with most other pertinent reports.  

• You no longer need to know the Account # and can instead find an account to add to the list by using the Bill or Site name. 

• You can use criteria to import a list of accounts into Quick Pick and then double-click to remove unwanted accounts from the list

Enhancements to the Transaction Finder wizard

This wizard helps you search key fields and find transactions matching your criteria.

• You can now simply choose "Credit amount" instead of having to enter a negative number.

• You can enter an exact value to search for (ex. ticket number) or provide a range by providing Low and High numbers. 

• Leaving either the High or the Low number blank is like using ‘Higher Than’ or ‘Lower Than’ (ex. show all transactions posted yesterday with a price greater than $2.499.)

Enhancements to the Tickets Printed wizard and report

• You can now limit the report to certain fuels or zones

• You can limit the report to Auto or Call customers

• The report now prints Next Delivery and K-factor information

• Main Menu: "Work On Accts (F1)" now reads "Daily Work (F1)"
• Batch Menu:  "Add Trans (F3)" now reads "Show Floaters (F3)"
• Cust Info Menu: "Equip" now reads "Serv Info"

Fixes and Small Changes

1. The Post Totals report has been improved:

   • Significantly faster to post your totals

   • Two new summary sections for Fuel and Charge taxes

   • Improved Journal Entry section simplifies inputting into your General Ledg

2. When you add a new Site, a scheduled fuel will also be automatically added based on the 1st scheduled fuel settings for the master account.

3. When using "Print Hist (F8)" to print transaction history for a customer, you can now choose to limit it to just Fuel, Payment, Charge etc. transactions.

4. When you perform an internal backup, you can now also choose to copy the backup file to media attached to your workstation  (ex. CD, Zip drive, Memory stick)

5. Customer Popup screen (displayed when you click the "More…" button) now shows the correct Last Charge date.  Also an "F" is displayed after the Last Charge date if the last charge was a finance charge.

6. When you perform a Move Balance command, the transactions will be posted with the current Posting Date

7. When you logout you will be shown a message if there are any Delivery Routes older than 2 days

8. When you logout you will warned if you have an un-posted batch.

9. When the report Print Preview window appears, you can press <Enter> to print it.

10. Changes to the menu:

    • Main Menu: "Work On Accts (F1)" now reads "Daily Work (F1)"

    • Batch Menu:  "Add Trans (F3)" now reads "Show Floaters (F3)"

    • Cust Info Menu: "Equip" now reads "Serv Info"

11. You can no longer post an empty batch after removing transactions from it.

12. A new section detailing the 1st scheduled fuel has been added to the Account Profile report, aka "Print Cust (F10)", 

13. The occasional lock-up on the Service Info (Equipment) screen has been fixed.

14. You can now enter a four-digit security code for credit cards.

15. You can sort on the Trans # column when viewing a batch.  This allows you to sort the transactions in the order they were entered.

16. The Meter Ticket screen error associated with typing after an existing memo has been fixed.

17. In Schedule - Service, Inactive accounts are not displayed.

18. If a scheduled service is setup for Auto Post, the Next and Last service dates are updated when the Auto Post runs.

19. The line showing the aged balances on the overdue statement is aligned better.

20. A wizard to help you pick a customer list will be shown when you choose to print Laser Labels.

21. When you sort by Billing or Site Name in the Lookup screen, accounts with the same name will be sorted in Account # order

22. The Credits section in the View Totals report is now labeled "Credits"

23. In the Posting screen, YTD gallons are displayed for non-Prepay accounts.