AR Training

Accounts Receivable Training

Introduction

The AR (Accounts Receivable) system tracks customer accounts, charges, and payments for three general account types: sponsored (financial aid) accounts, debit accounts, and open accounts. Open accounts may be either Balance-Forward or Open-Item depending on whether you want payments to be applied against the oldest charges first or against the invoices you specify.

You can set up as many different customer types as you want, setting each one of these general types and setting other control parameters as explained in Customer (Account) Types on page 21. Each individual account is then assigned to one of these customer types. Sponsored accounts are those where the billing and payments are handled by an agent (sponsor) rather than by the customer. These accounts must be linked to the sponsor’s agent so agent invoices can be prepared for all charges to individuals of that agent. Agents can be grouped into agencies for breaking out the printing of agent invoices, statements, and various other reports. Agent invoices are created for current charges, statements for past due amounts. Overdue charges are aged according to five aging periods and finance charges may be assessed to the overdue amounts. Each account has a unique numeric ID, assigned when the account is created. This ID is often referred to as the customer ID. You can access a given account with this ID number or by entering the customer’s name, SSN (Social Security Number), contract number, or the name of someone you list as authorized to use the account. If more than one match is found, you are presented with a list of accounts to select from. Since the A/R functions are selectable from menus, the menu selection sequence to access a particular function will be included as part of the function identifier. For example, to prepare current customer statements you select menu 4, then menu 1. This is designated as AR-4-1. Similarly, AR-SU-3 takes you to the General Parameters screen. In addition to its integrated interface with the TCS POS system, this AR allows custom interfacing with other A/R systems.

Initializing your A/R

Several items of information need to be available before individual A/R accounts can be set up. Most data fields have helpful information about the field which can be accessed by entering a question mark (?) in the field before entering your data. The following items are listed in the approximate order in which they should be considered.

General Parameters (AR-SU-3)

This includes some general parameter values that usually only need to be set once. Enter ‘?’ for help with any field.

You can add a one-line customized message to all monthly statements, customer and agent, by entering the text at the Global Statements Msg.
For now, you can ignore the Current Accounting Period and the Current Statement Cycle.
Bal Fwd or Open Item lets you specify the default payment type for credit accounts. This is overridden by the Payment Type flag set for each customer type (AR-SU-4).
The Finance Charge Rate sets the percent charged on unpaid balances when the monthly statements are run if:
1. the unpaid balances are older than the Days Until Finance Charges for this customer type (AR-SU-4) and
2. charge Interest is set to ‘Y’es for the customer (AR-CM).
  1. Enter the rate as hundredths percent; 150 for a 1.5% rate. It will display as 1.50.
The Minimum Finance Charge sets the minimum amount charged on any overdue amounts described above. Enter the amount as dollars and cents with no decimal; 1200 for $12.00.
Default Terms prints out on the invoices.
The Statement Override Sort allows you to select the definition code that you wish to sort by.
Set Standalone A/R to ‘N’o, since you’re running it integrated with the POS module.
The POS Tender Code for A/R is usually ‘AR’. If you name it something else in POS-2-4, the new name must be entered here.
Similarly, you need to set the transaction code (POS-02-05) for payments on account (Return on Account) at POS Trans Code for ROA.
Set the Use Unapplied Payments to Y if you do not allow overpayments on invoices.
The History: Months to Keep On-Line and the History: Months in History Files lets you set the number months to keep history information.
A/R calculates past-due amounts based on five specified Aging Groups or aging periods. For individuals these aging periods are one through five months, designated as 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150 days. For agents these five periods may be set to any 30-day multiples, such as 90, 120, 150, 180, and 360 days. Overdue charges are aged when you create statements (AR-4-1 and AR-5-21) and the latest aging reference date is displayed in Customer Inquiry (AR-CI).
Individual invoices are identified as sss_nnnnn where sss is the store # and nnnnn is an invoice number. Cust Invoice Prefix lets you add a special prefix to each invoice number on the statements and invoices. It doesn’t actually change the invoice numbers.
Agent invoices are identified as aaa*nnnnn where aaa is the agent id and nnnnn is an invoice number. Some outside systems that log this invoice number can’t handle the ‘*’ in the id, so Agent Invoice # Delimiter allows you to substitute an acceptable character for the ‘*’.
The default Invoice Program is ‘INVOICE’. If you have a custom invoice program created, you would enter its name here.
If you export your invoices then you can enter a Y at the Realtime Invoice Export to export the invoices in real time.

Agencies and Agents (AR-5-22 and AR-5-21)

Accounts may be paid by a sponsor rather than the customer making the charges. These sponsors are called agents and are grouped into agencies. Customers belonging to a customer type that requires an agent code (AR-SU-4, Require Agent Code = Y) must be linked to an agent so their charges can be grouped together on an agent invoice to be sent to the agent for payment. Agencies must be set up (AR-5-22) so the agents can be linked to them, and agents (AR-5-21) must be set up so customers can be linked to them.

To set up an agency (group of agents)… (AR-5-22)

Agencies are no longer used…Please skip this step.

Enter a dot(.) for the next sequential number. This is the Agency’s Code number for linking agents to it.
Enter in an agency Description to identify the name of the group.

To set up an agent (sponsor)… (AR-5-21)

Agent #: This is the agent’s ID number. Enter a dot (.) for the next sequential number.
If you want a brief one-line message to print on all statements for this agent, enter it as the agent Statement Msg. It can be changed each time before statements are run.
Enter the agent’s Last Name (or the name of the organization if the agent is a company) and First Name (or the name of the organizations contact if this is a company) as you want it printed on the invoices and statements.
Optionally, enter the Address Lines, City, State, Zip, Phone number, and Extension.
Enter the agent’s Status: ‘A’ for active, and ‘I’ for inactive.
If you want to link this agent to a group, enter the group’s Agency Code. (This option is no longer used.)
If you want to close this agent out on a certain date, enter the Closing Date.
Enter GEN as the Invoice Code unless you have a special code created by TCS.
Enter GENERIC for the Statement Fmt unless you’ve created a special statement format (AR-SU-22) that you want to use instead.
If you plan to charge the agent a processing fee, enter the Process Fee % and/or the Minimum Fee you’ll be charging.

Class Categories (AR-SU-6 and AR-SU-5)

If a sponsor wants to restrict the amount the sponsored customer can charge for certain types of merchandise, the merchandise classes to be so restricted must be organized into class categories. You have to first create the Category codes and their Descriptions in Class Category Maintenance (AR-SU-6) so you can link each class to the appropriate Class Category (AR-SU-5). As each sponsored customer to be given category limits is set up (AR-CM), the categories and their limits are set in screen 2 as explained under Adding Customer Accounts on page 11.

Customer (account) Types (AR-SU-4)

This is where you define all the different types of customer accounts you want, based on the different combinations of payment type, sponsorship, finance charges, taxing, and ways the customer transactions are handled at the register. As you create new customer accounts you can link them to the appropriate customer type which gives the account the characteristics for that type. Enter ‘?’ for help with any field.

Each different type is identified by a Customer Type Code which may be any combination of letters and numbers. Short one or two character codes are usually easier to use and remember.
Enter a Description for the type, sufficient to remember why you created it.
The Payment Type may be ‘D’ebit, ‘O’pen-Item, or ‘B’al-Fwd. O and B overrides the General Parameters default setting (AR-SU-3, Open Item or Bal Fwd).
Aging Type (Sequence) is a code you can set to group different types together on the aging report (AR-SU-5).
The Require Agent Code is what determines if accounts of this type are sponsored (have agents) or not. Only accounts belonging to a type which has this set to ‘Y’es can be included in agent invoices.
If you want to require a credit limit to be set on all accounts of this type set Require Credit Limit to ‘Y’es.
You can allow customers of this type to charge over their credit limit by setting ‘Y’es in Allow Over limit Charges.
If you don’t allow over limit charges, you can let them pay for any charges beyond their limit with cash by setting ‘Y’es in Allow Cash Purchase if Over Limit.
You can set an Opening Date and a Closing Date on each customer to limit when they can charge their account. Setting ‘Y’es to Allow Purchase Before Start Date lets accounts of this time to begin charging before the opening date. ‘Y’es in Allow Purchase After End Date lets them charge after the closing date.
Limit Purchs to Class Category = ‘Y’ means they can only charge items belonging to the classes that are included in the specified class categories for the account and only up to the limit for that class category unless the overall credit limit for the account is reached first.
Each account has provision for a list of authorized persons. Setting Restrict Purch to Auth Persons to ‘Y’es only allows charges to the account when either the owner’s name or one of the names on the list is given.
Require Name of Person Charging = ‘Y’es requires a name to be entered at the register on all transactions on this type of account.
Set the Require GL Account to ‘Y’es if an account number is required for this customer type.
Set Use Purchase Tracking to ‘Y’es if you want to monitor the items being charged to accounts of this type. A special purchases file lists each SKU, and warns the cashier if the item has already been purchased before or if a return is attempted on a SKU that hasn’t been purchased. Good for tracking textbook purchases by sponsored students.
The POS Discount Code is used when you want customers of this type to get a special discount. The discount is set up in POS, either as a ‘TDM’-type modifier (see POS-2-2) or as the name of a discount matrix (see POS-2-6).
Set the Statement Format Code to GENERIC unless you have created a special format in Statement Formats (AR-SU-22).
The Process ID for additional input is only set if TCS has written a custom program to request additional information from the cashier for this type of customer account.
If you will be charging finance charges on overdue accounts, set the number of Days Until Finance Charges, if you will NOT be charging finance charges then enter ‘999’. Only unpaid charges older than this number of days will be used to calculate finance charges.
Once overdue charges become older than the Max Days Past Due for Charges, the customer will not be allowed to make further charges until they are paid. Set to 999 if you don’t want the days past due to be checked.
When unpaid amounts get too old, you can stop any customer discounts until they are paid by entering the Max Days Past Due for Discounts. Entering 999 indicates you don’t want this check to be made.
If charges for customers of this type are to be taxed, enter ‘Y’es in Tax Charge Sales.
If cash payments made after the credit limit or a category limit is reached are to be taxed, enter ‘Y’es in Tax Cash Sales.
If you wish the allow the system to automatically make payments with the mass payment option then set Allow Autopay field to ‘Y’es.
If you set Limit Purchs to Class Category to ‘Y’es, enter the category Code for the Default Class Categories you want customers of this type to be limited to. You’ll enter the category codes and their limits in screen 2 of the Customer Maintenance screen.

Dunning Letters (AR-4-22-21 and AR-5-6-21)

If you want to send dunning letters to customers and/or agents who have overdue accounts, you can set up one to three different form letters for customers (AR-4-22-21) and three for agents (AR-5-6-21).

Enter the Letter # (1, 2, or 3) you want to edit.
Enter the number of blank lines at the top of each letter, the Top Margin Adjust.
Enter the Left Margin Adjust, the number of spaces on the left of the letter.
Enter the Text to appear on letter. You can include the following variables (with the preceding |) to designate where you want data from the system included in each letter. As you include these variables in your letter, allocate enough space on the line for the variable’s value.

|PHONE The store’s customer services phone #, maintained in General Parameters.

|NAME The customer’s first and last name.

|ADDRESS All lines of the customerfs address, including City, State and Zip.

|DL1DATE The last date the customer received the 1st dunning letter.

|DL2DATE The last time the customer received the 2nd dunning letter.

|DL3DATE The last time the customer received the 3rd dunning letter.

|PREBAL The outstanding amount due on the customer’s account.

|DAYSOLD The number of days the amount is past due.

|LASTSTMT The date the last statement was sent.

|DATE Today’s date.

| (A single carat in column 1 of an otherwise blank line, prints a blank line.)

Dunning Letter Report (AR-4-22-1 & AR-5-6-1)

This report provides a list of customers that will get dunning letters based on criteria you set. Specify the age groups for which you want letters sent. The report lists the customers who have an unpaid balance in any of the selected groups. It includes the amount of the unpaid balance in each selected aging group and the last date the customer received any of the dunning letters. This lets you make any necessary adjustments before you print the actual letters. Enter ‘Y’es for each aging group for which you want dunning letters printed.

Print Dunning Letters (AR-4-22-2 & AR-5-6-2)

This is an expansion of the previous report. In addition to specifying which groups are to be checked for this set of dunning letters, you specify which letter is sent to each aging group. You can print a letter for a single customer by specifying the customer fs ID. You can also have the letters print in either name or zip code order.

If you only want dunning letters for certain customers, enter their account IDs in Customer Ids to Print. If more than one, separate them with commas.
Set to ‘Y’es the same Age Groups you used in the dunning letter report.
Print the Dun Letter # (1, 2, or 3) you want sent to each age group you set to ‘Y’es.
Enter N or Z to indicate the order in which you want the letters printed, By <N>ame or <Z>ip.

Non-merchandise Transaction Codes (AR-SU-1)

Some accounts need to be charged for such non-merchandise items as freight, service charges, special interest charges, beginning balances, etc.. These charges can be made with a manual invoice. The codes for such charges need to be set up before the invoice can be created (p. 15).

Enter a Transaction Code to represent the special charge.
Enter a Description of the special charge
Enter the Type description for the code, such as NEW, USED, SOFTWARE, OTHER, TAX, INSTALLATION, FREIGHT, TRAVEL, EXPENSES. Enter a ? for a list of current types.
If you have the General Ledger module, enter the G/L Account number for this code.
Factor is for future use. Leave it blank.

Adding Customer Accounts

Each A/R account is identified by a unique customer code. The customers may be students whose parents have put in money for them to draw on (debit account), students sponsored by a company or a scholarship fund (sponsored account), or bookstore employees or college departments (balance-forward or open-item credit accounts).

The First Name, Last Name, Soc Sec Num, Contract #, and Authorized Persons values are automatically entered into a customer cross-reference when the account is created. This lets you access the account by entering in any of these values in addition to the account number.

A student account is usually set up for only one school term, with a new account being opened for each succeeding term. The old account will have an ending date sometime around the end of the term, after which the customer can no longer charge to it. For the new term, you create a new account for the customer to start charging against the sponsored amounts for the new term. You still want to access the old account using the customer’s name so you can complete the payments and answer any queries you may get. At the same time when the cashier enters the name, you only want them to see the new account. You achieve this by rebuilding the customer cross reference (AR-SU-23) so the older accounts, as specified by a closing date cutoff and customer type(s) go into a ‘H’idden cross-reference which can only be accessed by entering H; (‘H’ and semicolon) before the name. Then when the cashier enters the name Johnny Jones, the ‘hidden’ accounts don’t show up on the cross reference. But if you need to access all the accounts for Johnny Jones, you just enter H;Johnny Jones to see both the current and the hidden accounts.

Accounts may be created or edited via the customer maintenance menu (AR-CM).

At Customer #, for a new account enter a dot (.). For an existing customer enter the customer’s ID, either the Customer #, Last and/or First Names, Alternate ID #, .Contract #, or a name from the Authorized Persons list. If more than one match is found, you get a list of matching accounts from which you can select the one you want.
Enter the customer’s First Name and Last Name; they’ll be included in the cross reference so you can use them to locate the account.
Enter the customer’s Address Lines, City, State, and Zip.
The Country Code may be left blank for now.
If you enter the Alternate ID it too is entered in the cross reference.
The Contract # refers to sponsored accounts, but can be used for any special ID that you want to be included in the cross reference.
Tax Exempt ID is for accounts that are tax exempt.
You can enter the customer’s Phone number if desired.
You can enter the customer’s Fax number if desired.
You can enter the customer’s E-mail address if desired.
Customer accounts may be controlled through the Status flag. Charges can only be made against ‘A’ctive accounts, or ‘H’old accounts with a supervisor’s authorization. To temporarily stop charges to an account, set status ‘I’nactive. If you subsequently want to allow charges, simply set status back to ‘A’ctive or ‘H’old.
As explained under Customer (account) Types on page 21, set the Customer Type code that contains the characteristics you want this account to exhibit.
In the Customer Type Maintenance (AR-SU 4) if the customer type’s “Require Agent Code” is set to ‘Y’es then enter the Agent/Bill Code of the agent to which this account is assigned.
If you want to charge interest on overdue amounts for this customer, set Charge Interest to ‘Y’es. The amount of interest charged depends on the Days Until Finance Charges for this customer type and the Finance Charge Rate and Minimum Finance Charge in general parameters.
Set the Send Statement field to ‘Y’es if you want this account to receive monthly statements.
Enter the maximum amount that can be charged to this account in Credit Limit. This value also determines the default Category Limits for screen 2.
The Balance Due and Available Credit are calculated values.
Use primarily for sponsored accounts, the Opening Date and Closing Date lets you limit when charges may be made against the account. Note that this may be overridden by the Customer Type Maintenance ‘Allow Purchase Before Start Date’ and ‘Allow Purchase After End Date’ flags. Leave them blank if you don’t want any date limits set.
You can set up Statement Cycle codes for sponsored accounts to identify groups of customers to include in different agent invoice runs; see Creating Agent Invoices on page 21.
Enter the Tax Exempt ID for customers that are tax exempt.
Price Code
The first three lines of Miscellaneous Information are displayed at the register, a good place for special notes and instructions for the cashiers. Additional lines are only available from this screen. The first six characters of the first line also displays in the cross reference selection list at the register. This can be useful for special codes when a customer has more than one sponsored account.
If you set Restrict Purch to Auth Persons for this customer’s type, enter the names of the Authorized Persons. The purchaser’s name is checked against this list for any charges to this account.

For accounts using category limits, screen 2 manages and displays the category information.

The category limits are initialized to the Credit Limit when it’s entered. If the sponsor places lower limits on any category, enter the actual Category Limit. If you later change the credit limit, any category limits equal to the old credit limit will be updated to the new limit by the system. No matter what is entered for the category limits, the customer’s total charges cannot exceed the credit limit.

Adding Charges to Accounts

Charges can be made either through the cash register or through a back office manual invoice entry. Register charges show up on the register reports, back office charges do not. They are usually used for non-merchandise charges and adjustments. In either case the account may be selected by the account number, customer name, SSN, or contract number.

These payments are applied to oldest invoices first, even on Open-Item accounts.

Register Charges (POS-1, AR/ARRT)

A/R register transactions are usually coded as AR for charges and ARRT for returns. The cashier is asked for a customer contract or name. Any cross reference entry is valid. If more than one match is found, a list of matches pops up, showing the Customer #, Last and First Names, the first six characters from the first line of the customer’s Miscellaneous Information (useful for special codes), any Primary Customer link, the Soc Sec Num, the account’s Closing Date, and the current Balance Due.

Upon selection of an account, a screen pops up with the customer’s First and Last Names, Contract Number, Customer #, Opening and Closing Dates, Credit Limit, Balance Due, Available Credit, and the first three lines of Miscellaneous Information. The cashier can accept it as the correct account or make another request. Some of the actions at the register depend on the settings for the account’s customer type (AR-SU-4). The transaction is paid with an A/R tender code (usually ‘AR’), up to the account’s credit limit and/or category limits. Depending on the customer type’s Allow Cash Purchase if Over Limit setting, the customer may be able to pay any excess amount with cash.

Note: For now, debit account charges do not link to the account payments, so they may not show up correctly until you Prepare Current Statements (AR-4-1) where a special utility links them before preparing the statements.

Back Office Charges (AR-3-1)

Back office charges are made directly in AR (AR-3-1). You can create new invoices or review, modify, post-void, or print existing invoices. This is designed not only for occasional corrections, but for batch entry of invoices from another POS system. Batch entries can be reported and posted for quality control.

To create a new invoice, enter a dot (.) for the next sequential Inv # or enter any unique invoice number as long as it begins with the store number and an underscore (_).
Enter the Cust # by number, name, Alternate ID #, or contract number. If your entry finds more than one match in the cross reference, select the one you want from the pop-up list. The customer’s information is filled in from the account information.
You can enter any date for the Inv Date, it doesn’t have to be today’s date. Remember aging calculations are made from this date.
The Store, Date, and Reg are filled in automatically, but you can change them if needed.
The Tran#, Clerk and other fields are optional, mostly useful when copying transactions from another system. Enter ? on any fields you have questions on.
Enter CHARGE or ADJUSTMENT for the Inv Desc.
The invoice line items, Prod/Tran/GL, may be either merchandise class codes or one of the transaction codes set up in AR-SU-1 (p. 10). Complete the information for each line and press the Enter key when done.

A customer invoice is created and linked to the customer account.

Note: Be careful about changing an invoice created at a register; a subsequent cleanup utility may restore it to its original values. It’s better to make a compensating invoice so the original remains unaltered.

Adding Payments to Accounts

Like charges, payments may be made either through the POS register or through the back office. Their IDs consist of cust*paymentID, where cust is the customer ID (account number) and paymentID is a unique ID. In the case of ROA payments the paymentID is the transaction ID (STORE*DATE*REG*TRAN#). For back office payments, the paymentID can be almost anything.

Note that just as you can’t directly apply a negative-balance invoice (a Return) against a positive-balance invoice; you can’t apply one payment against another. Charges can only be resolved by linking to a payment and payments can only be used up by linking to an invoice.

Register Payments (POS-2, ROA)

ROA (Received On Account) is the usual register transaction type for A/R payments. The transaction type is linked to a fee code which belongs to a class and department so the tenders are included in the register reports.

ROA payments are treated as Balance-Forward even if the customer payment type is Open-Item.

Back Office Individual Payments (AR-3-21)

This powerful function offers you many fields to enter data and several options to select. Enter ‘?’ in any field for which you have questions.

Enter the Cust # (as account #, name, SSN, etc.). The payment type (Open Item or Balance Forward) and name and address are automatically filled in.
Enter the payment Type; A, CK, CA, V, MC, or AX
- Adjustment, Check, Cash, Visa, MasterCard, or American Express.
For Doc#, enter the check number if payment is by check. Otherwise enter a dot (.) for a unique payment number, or enter a number of your choice. Try to avoid any spaces in the Chk/Doc ID; they can be confusing and sometimes harder to handle. The account invoices and their balances display at the bottom of the screen.
Enter the Store, Date, Reg, and Tran#. The date is preloaded with the current date, but can be overridden. Enter anything you want for the register and transaction number.
Enter the Payment Amount.
Balance-Forward payments: Any invoices with a negative balance are automatically paid off and their amounts are added to the payment amount. The payment amount is then automatically applied against the invoices, oldest first, until the payment is used up or all invoices are paid off.
Open-Item payments: You must designate how much to apply to which invoice until the payment amount is used up or all invoices are satisfied. Applying the payment to a negative-balance invoice, increases the payment amount.
You can designate the invoice(s) to be paid off in several ways: by entering an invoice’s line number, a range of line numbers (nn-nn), or entering the letter I and an invoice number.
If there are more invoices than will fit on the screen you can go to the Next screen, the Previous screen, the Top of the list, or the Bottom of the list.
If the payment is larger than the outstanding charges when you exit, a special unapplied-payment invoice (store_UPnnn) is created for the difference. Keep in mind that these are temporary invoices and their values are only accurate at the time they’re created. For the most part you can ignore them.

Back Office Agent (sponsor) Payments (AR-3-22)

Agent payments work like the customer payments described above, except that you enter the agent code instead of the customer code and the ‘Cycle’ code, the agent billing cycle you specified when you created the agent invoices (p. 21). The payments are applied to the individual customer invoices that make up the agent invoice for that agent and cycle. It’s a very fast and easy way to pay off large numbers of individual charges.

Checking Account Status

The Customer Inquiry (AR-CI) function shows you the credit limit, balance due, and available credit. It also shows the aging buckets and the amount past due for each aging period for the cutoff date of the last aging run. It’s convenient for quick answers to any questions a customer might have about their account. It starts with a list of customer invoices, most recent first, with their date, description, total, and balance.

From this screen you can select a Payments list, from which you can pull up the details of an individual payment. You can similarly select an Invoices list, from which you can pull up the details of an individual invoice. You can look at the customer’s Category Limits and the secondary and primary Customer Links for linked accounts.

Making Account Corrections

Use Customer Maintenance (AR-CM, see Adding Customer Accounts on page 11) to make corrections to the general account information. Corrections to account charges and payments can readily be done through adjustment Invoices (AR-3-1, p. 15) and Payments (AR-3-21).

Creating Account Credits and Adjustments

Usage scenario: An account has an invoice of $1000.00 that needs to be backed off of the account. If you are still in the same accounting period then the back office invoice can be post voided in AR-3-1. An invoice charged at the register would need to be post voided at the register. For this scenario the original invoice was posted months ago and a post void is not an option.

An offset invoice must be created to reduce the balance on the account, this is performed in AR-3-1
1. Enter a . to create a new invoice number. Enter the account number and change the Date or Reg as necessary. The Tran# is optional.
2. Populate additional fields as desired until you reach the Invoice Desc field.
3. Enter an accurate invoice description. An example would be “Charge Reversal for Invoice ###”.
4. Enter a SKU, Class Code, GL Distribution or Tran Code in the Prod/Tran/GL field. A ?? can be used to get a list of transaction codes.
5. Enter a description if necessary for the line item.
6. Enter a negative qty if this is offsetting a positive amount invoice, or a positive qty if offsetting a negative amount invoice.
7. Specify the price. NEVER enter a negative price amount. A negative amount can be obtained by entering a negative qty.
8. Fill out any additional line items if needed. In this scenario the Invoice total would read -1000.00 after all of the line items have been entered.
9. Press enter until the record has been saved.
The offset invoice will appear on the account and reduce the account balance by $1000.00. However the “Left to Pay” column will still have the original 1000.00 and the new -1000.00 amounts. This is taken care of by doing an adjustment payment on the account in AR-3-21
1. Enter the customer number.
2. Enter a . for the Doc# field or enter a specific document number.
3. Enter an A for adjustment.
4. Enter the Store Date and Reg as needed, Tran# is optional.
5. All adjustments will have 0 in the Payment Amount field.
6. Enter the amount to apply. In this scenario we’re going to apply payment of -1000.00 to the new -1000.00 invoice.
  - A second run through will take care of the original 1000.00 invoice. This can be done in the same document.
7. Enter the line number in the table for the new -1000.00 invoice. The most recent invoice should show up on line 1 so 1 would be entered.
  - The system may suggest a line number to apply the amount to.
  - After applying the -1000.00 amount the invoice Balance column in the table should change to 0.
8. The cursor will reset to the Amt to Apply field. To apply payment to the original 1000.00 invoice, enter 1000.00.
9. Enter the line number for the orignal invoice in the “Apply to” field.
10. Further adjustments can be entered if desired. Otherwise leave the Amt to Apply field as 0.00 and press enter until the record has been saved.
  1. Payments can be lumped into an “Amt to Apply” total and applied to multiple invoices in one document.
  2. Positive amounts and negative amounts would be totaled together and applied separately.
    1. If there were multiple negative invoices totaling -5480.87 and multiple positive invoice totaling 5000.00:
    2. One “Amt to Apply” of -5480.87 would be entered. The “Apply to” field would be used multiple times against the negative invoices that make up the -5480.87 total.
    3. One “Amt to Apply” of 5000.00 would be entered and applied to the invoices that make up the 5000.00 total.
11. The account should now have the corrected balance from the offset invoice with Left to Pay balances of 0 for the original and offset invoice.

Removing Obsolete Accounts (AR-6)

Data can be kept in one of three places: in the current files, in history files, or on backup media. The first two are on the system, the last is offline. The usual procedure is to keep data used in regular reports and functions in the current files. As they age to the point where you may only need to access them once in a while for some special situation, they can be moved to history files. They’re still accessible, but not as readily as in the current files. And it keeps the current files from getting so big they become too inefficient.

You set the controls for the history operations in History Parameter Maintenance (AR-6-1). The data are only moved in packets of a full month’s data; partial months are left alone.

Enter the # months to keep in active file. When you run history, all data older than the specified number of months are moved to the history file.
Enter the # additional months to keep in history file. When you run history, any data older than the active file months plus the history file months is purged from the system, leaving only the specified number of months in the history file.
You can set history to run automatically after the end of each month or on specified months. Leave Month(s) on which to run history blank to run each month. To run at the end of each quarter, enter ‘3,6,9,12’.
If you don’t care to see the results of the history run, leave Send History Report blank. You can send the results to the display by entering RD or send it to a printer by entering Rn, where n is the number of the printer you want it sent to. You can also run the history report later via menu AR-6-2.

For example, you might want to keep no less than six months of data on the active file and at least two years of data available on the system at all times. And you only want to move data to history at the end of each quarter. Set the active months to 6, the history months to 18, and the months to run history to 3,6,9,12. At the end of each quarter you’ll have 9 months of current data and 21 additional months in the history files. Following the backup at the end of each quarter, the history process will move the oldest three months of data from current to history and purge the oldest three months from history. Then if you archive the backup tape you create at the end of each year, you’ll always have two copies of all your data saved on tape. You can also force a history run at any time via menu AR-6-3. It will save the data for the specified number of full months plus any partial months. Note: not all history functions are completed at this time.

Running Monthly Statements

Agent (sponsored) Accounts

Agent invoices include all new charges up to an ending date you give, for all individuals linked to that agent. Each invoice is identified by the agent’s ID number and an agent billing cycle code you also specify.

The cycle code needs to be unique for each billing cycle or the new invoices will be added to an old agent invoice. A useful convention might be to use YYMM, where YY is the last two digits of the year and MM is the current month. The cycle code is not only used to identify the agent invoice, but also to link the individual customer invoices to the agent invoice so they’ll only be included on one agent invoice.

After the invoices are created (AR-5-1), they may be checked with a preliminary invoice report (AR-5-2) and then printed (AR-5-3), either all at once or in various groupings. When payment is received (AR-3-22, page 18), it’s entered against the agent invoice (agent ID and cycle code). When payments are overdue, you can print agent statements (AR-5-4) to send out as a reminder. You can even add finance charges if you wish.

You can also create individual statements for sponsored customers to review their charges if you wish, but their invoices are still included in the agent invoices.

Creating Agent Invoices (AR-5-1)

This function picks up all A/R invoices with 1) agent billing cycle codes that are blank or match the Agent Cycle you enter, 2) dates no later than any specified Ending Date for Charges, 3) a customer Statement Cycle code that matches any specified Customer Statement Cycle, and 4) a customer agent code that matches any specified Agent Code(s). It combines these invoices into an agent invoice for each included agent.

Enter the Ending Date for Charges, the cutoff date for charges to be included in the agent invoice.
If you’ve assigned Statement Cycles (p. 13) to your sponsored accounts, you can limit the invoice to those with a certain code by entering it in Customer Statement Cycle.
If you only want to create invoices for certain agents, enter their Agent Code(s); otherwise, leave it blank.
This is where you assign the Agent Billing Cycle. The two-digit year and month (0104 for April 2001) is a useful code and easy to remember.
Enter the Date for Invoice, the date you want printed on each invoice.
If you wish to exclude payments from the invoices then enter ‘N’o in the Include Payments field.
You can use the Optional Invoice Heading to have a brief message printed on each invoice, just below the address. This is in addition to the note you can include at the bottom of each invoice summary sheet (AR-5-23).

Printing the Preliminary Invoice Report (AR-5-2)

This report is useful for checking things out before you print the actual invoices. You can see the data that will be included on each invoice. It can be used on any agent invoice you’ve created. Just enter the agent billing Cycle code. If you only want to look at invoices for a particular agency or agent, enter their Agency Code(s) and/or Agent Code(s).

Printing the Agent Invoices (AR-5-3)

Using the same controls as the preliminary invoice report, this function lets you print the actual invoices to send. You can print them in sets by agency or agent if you want.

Each invoice consists of a summary page showing the totals for each transaction code, in order of largest amount to smallest, and the grand total for the invoice. With the default GEN invoice code set in agent maintenance (p. 5), you also get a sheet listing the totals for each transaction code of each individual included in the agent invoice. Contact TCS for custom creation of other invoice formats.

Processing Agent Statements (AR-5-4)

This lets you create statements for any agents with outstanding balances from their agent invoices. When you enter an agent payment, it pays off the individual invoices that make up the agent invoice as far as the payment amount will go. The agent invoice balance is reduced by the total amount of the agent payment.

Enter a Statement Aging Cutoff Date. This is used to calculate the amount overdue for each aging period as specified in the AGENT Aging Groups in general parameters (p. 4).
Enter the Statement Date to be printed on each statement.
You can specify a brief Statement Heading message to be printed below the address on each statement. If a Global Statements Msg is set in general parameters (AR-SU-3) it will also be printed at the bottom of each statement. If an Agent Stmt Msg is set in the agent setup (AR-5-21), it too will be printed at the bottom of each statement.
You can specify if you want to Use Agent Name or Code for sorting the statements.
You can run statements for only certain agent(s) by setting Agent Code(s) or Name(s). If you’re sorting by ‘N’ame, enter the agent name(s); if by ‘C’ode, enter the agent code(s).
If Invoice Details or Summary only is ‘D’ you get a line for each customer invoice making up the agent’s statement total. Otherwise, you only get the agent total on each statement.
If you want to include customer invoices that have been paid off, enter ‘Y’es for Include Zero-Balance Invoices. Otherwise, only the unpaid invoices are included.

Reprinting Agent Statements (AR-5-5)

From this menu option you can reprint agent statements for any agent/billing cycle combination available. You have the same Summary/Detail option and printing options you have with Process Agent Statements above.

Individual (non-sponsored) Accounts

At the end of each calendar month you can create statements (AR-4-1) for any customer type you wish. You can make a trial run until you feel they’re correct and then make the final run where finance charges invoices will be created as needed. You can also re-create statements for any previous month (AR-4-2). You can print the most recently generated statements in various groupings and options (AR-4-3).

A standard GENERIC statement comes with the system or you can create custom statements (AR-SU-22).

Preparing Current Statements (AR-4-1)

You can create account statements showing account balances for each aging period, the previous month’s balance, charges and payments for this month, and the current account balance. You can make a trial run until the results look ok, then make the final run when the finance charge invoices will be created and added to the accounts. If you want to print a brief message at the end of each statement (agent and customer), enter it into the general parameters (SU-3, Global Statements Msg). If you only want statements for certain customer types, enter the customer type codes separated with commas (such as S,NP,EMP). Normally you won’t include agent customers. The cutoff date excludes charges and payments after that date; you can enter ‘.’ to autoload the current end-of-month date. The Payment Due date is used in custom statements.

Select the ‘T’rial run until you’re assured that the statements are correct. Interest will not be calculated on overdue amounts. You can only make the ‘F’inal run once for the selected customer types. You must enter ‘Y’es for Calculate Interest if you want finance charges calculated. The interest rate and minimum charge values come from the general parameters (AR-SU-3). If you generate finance charges by mistake, you can create offsetting invoices with Back Out Finance Charges (AR-4-23). You can either print statements at the end of the run or do it later from the Print Prepared Statements menu. The selected accounts are aged according to the aging values from the general parameters (AR-SU-3). The aging values and their effective date are included in the Customer Inquiry screen (AR-CI). The Rebuild Customer Aging (AR-SU-2) and Customer Aging Report (AR-4-27) functions also recalculate aging.

INTEGRIS DEVELOPMENT TEST STORE

CUSTOMER AGING – Summary

AR-90-02-05 Alphabetical Order by Customer

Printed 16:41:58 02 Jan 2001 Page 1

AGE RUNNING CURRENT OVER OVER OVER OVER OVER CURRENT CURRENT

SEQ …BALANCE …BALANCE ……..30 ……..60 ……..90 …….120 …….150 …CHARGES ..PAYMENTS

———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———-

Sub -95,530.10-129,072.00 0.00 74.10 245.10 0.00 21,900.87 9,205.29 61.79

———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———-

Sub Tota110.08 -15.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 24.95 0.00 0.00 0.00

———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———-

Sub To1,298.68 -10.00 13.28 18.74 100.05 0.00 285.63 0.00 0.00

———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———- ———-

Sub Tota878.70 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 883.79 117.00 75.00

========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ========== ==========

, -93242.64-129,097.01 13.28 92.84 345.15 24.95 23,070.29 9,322.29 136.79

Preparing Previous Statements (AR-4-2)

You can reprint a statement from any previous month in which you created statements with the Prepare Current Statements function. Enter the month-end date for the month you want to re-create that month’s statements and use Print Prepared Statements to print the one(s) you want. Note that this recalculates the aging as of that previous month, so the Customer Inquiry aging date and values will change. After you’ve printed the old statements you want, rerun this function with the latest statement date to restore the statements file and aging values.

Printing Prepared Statements (AR-4-3)

From here you can print any or all statements for the last month you prepared statements, either current or previous. The selection options let you print a single statement or various groups of statements. Enter ? in any field for details of that field’s operation. Printer Assignment lets you send it directly to a printer OR send it to a spooler hold file from which you can later print or view it through the Printer Management menu (PM-1 or PM-2). If you’re using the GENERIC statement (as specified in Customer Type’s Statement Format Code), you have two other options. You can sort the statements by the Ship-To name, the customer’s name from the AR transaction and you can select the level of detail you want included in the generic statements. ‘I’tem includes a line for each customer invoice, ‘C’lass summarizes the invoices for a class into one line, and ‘S’um summarizes all the invoices into a single total. The use of these two options will vary with custom statements.

Department Statements (AR-4-21)

This prints a simple summary of charges for each selected customer, useful for department billing. You can use any date range you want and can specify the date and a one-line message you want to appear at the top of each form.

The trial run statements are labeled with ‘*** TRIAL ***’ and let you check things out before running the final statement. If you include HS in the Printer Assignment you can view them on the screen (PM-9-2, job#) without wasting paper. On the ‘F’inal run, each invoice selected for this billing is tagged so it won’t be included in a subsequent department billing.

Printing A/R Reports

The following reports are available. The menu path to each report is listed before the report. Customers… RP-1-1 Customer Information RP-1-2 Customers with Balances RP-1-3 Customer Activity RP-1-4 Mailing Labels RP-1-5 Phone List RP-1-21 Over Limit Report RP-1-22 Customer Audit RP-1-23 Invoice Audit RP-1-24 Payment Audit Charges and Sales… RP-2-1 Invoice Total Sorted by Agent Code by Customer Name RP-2-2 Invoice Total Sorted by Customer Name RP-2-3 Invoice Total Sorted by Customer Name with Purchases RP-2-4 Processing Fees RP-2-5 Daily Charges by Acct Type RP-2-6 Customer Balances RP-2-7 Agent Sales by Dept Receipts & Deposits… RP-3-1 Daily Receipts RP-3-2 Accounting Period Summary RP-3-3 Unapplied Payments Agents… RP-5-1 Name Listing RP-5-2 Aging Recalculations RP-5-3 Agency Client Listing Miscellaneous… RP-6-1 Invoice/Charges RP-6-2 Class Summary by Cust Type RP-6-3 Sales/Charges by Accounting Period RP-6-4 Invoice/Charges Total Detail RP-6-5 Aging Report – Alphabetical/Numerical RP-6-6 TCode Summary by TCode Type RP-6-7 Summary By Account RP-6-22 By Account with Invoice Detail RP-6-23 Invoices by Acctg Period RP-6-24 Paid Invoice Summary RP-6-25 Invoice Class Category Totals RP-6-27 Account Balances Customer-unique… QB (ad-hoc reports)

Miscellaneous Account Maintenance

Rebuilding the Cross Reference (AR-SU-23)

As mentioned in various places above, the A/R system maintains cross references whereby you can access an account by the name of the account owner, their SSN, a contract number, or a name included in a list of those authorized to use the account. Normally new accounts are automatically added when an account is created and old ones removed when an account is sent to history. Rarely, the cross reference may become corrupted, necessitating a rebuild.

However with sponsored accounts where a new account is generated for the customer for each term to coincide with the sponsor’s new contract, you may not want the old account to pop up when the cashier enters the customer name or SSN for charges on the new account. Rebuilding the customer cross reference with a closing date cutoff and customer type(s) will remove any accounts matching the selections from the current cross reference. They will be included in a ‘hidden’ cross reference from which they may be brought up by entering ‘H;’ before the name or SSN. This keeps the cashier cross references simple and current while still giving those receiving payments or answering account queries easy access to all the accounts for the customer.

For with Customer Type, enter any customer types that include accounts you don’t want to show up in the current cross reference.
For and with Closing Date prior to, enter the oldest date for which you do want accounts for the customer type(s) you selected to remain in the current cross reference.
Enter ‘Y’es for unless Running Balance isn’t zero, if you want all accounts with a non-zero running balance to remain in the current cross reference, even if they have the above customer type and are older than the above closing date.

Example

An example might help explain it. Let’s assume you’ve set up two account types, SST for sponsored students taxable, and SSNT for sponsored students non-taxable. In the fall of 2000, Susie Smith has two sources of financial aid.

The first is for $500 for books only, non-taxable, and expires on 9/30/00. Say you opened an account, numbered 2413 on 8/25/00 with credit limit of 50000, type SSNT, opening date of 8/25/00, closing date of 9/30/00, and category ‘B’ with a limit of 500.00.

The second is for $300 for either books or supplies, taxable, and expires on 10/31/00. You opened that account, number 2437 on 8/28/00 with credit limit of 300.00, type SST, opening date of 8/28/00, closing date of 10/31/00, and category ‘B’ with a limit of 300.00 and category ‘S’ with a limit of 300.00.

Up through 9/30/00 she can charge books to either account and supplies to 2437. When the cashier enters her name at the register, all Susie Smith accounts will be listed for the proper selection to be made. Entering her SSN will only her two accounts. After 9/30/00, charges will not be allowed on account 2413 and after 10/31/00, charges will not be allowed on either account. A/R customer maintenance, customer inquiry, and customer payments will still operate normally for both accounts.

Now on 1/3/01 both financial aid sources are renewed for winter term, to expire on 1/31/01 and 2/28/01 respectively. Say you open both accounts at the same time, now numbered 2593 and 2594 with the same information as the Fall accounts, except with the new closing dates. Now if you enter her SSN at the register, you see all four accounts, but only the last two are relevant.

This is where you want to Rebuild the Cross Reference. Enter SST, SSNT for the Customer Type, 11/1/00 for the Closing Date prior to, and N for Running Balance isn’t zero. This removes all accounts of SST or SSNT type with a closing date prior to 11/1/00 from the active cross reference, so when you enter her SSN at the register, only accounts 2593 and 2594 are listed.

However for customer maintenance, customer inquiry, or customer payments, you may still want to access the older accounts. Simply enter H; (‘H’ followed by a semicolon) before the SSN (or name or contract number…) and all four accounts will show up, allowing you to select the one you want.

Training Checklist

Initializing your A/R
Adding Customer Accounts
Adding Charges to Accounts
Adding Payments to Accounts
Checking Account Status
Making Account Corrections
Removing Obsolete Accounts
Running Monthly Statements

Agent (sponsored) Accounts

Individual (non-sponsored) Accounts

Printing A/R Reports
Miscellaneous Account Maintenance

Rebuilding the Cross Reference (AR-SU-23)

_________________________ trained by TCS on ______________________

(signature) (date)

Changes Record:

WHEN	WHO	WHAT

Buyback Setup

This tutorial is designed to walk you through a normal buyback setup process.

Setup

The TCS SmartText buyback system is designed to use the Open To Buy (OTB) as a default quantity when making buying decisions. With this in mind, you will need to have your future term created with a BuyBack season assigned. This is maintained in TX-SU-1-2-1 (Term Maintenance), TX-SU-1-1 (Buyback Season Maintenance) and TX-SU-1-3 (Buyback Calendar Maintenance.

TX-SU-1-2-1

You may create and maintain your Term in Term Maintenance, if you are creating your term then after you enter the Index the system will open the Calendar Maintenance window as seen below.

Enter the Term to edit or maintain. The Class Start Date and the Buyback Season Code are the only 2 fields that are required but it is very helpful to enter the other fields as they can help you plan out your semester. In the Buyback Season Code, select the BB season that you wish to attach to this term. The BB season is the season that you will use to purchase the books for the Term that you are doing the maintenance on.

If you need to create a BB season, select the Maint in the BB season display window. You may name the season anything you wish, a couple of examples for this term would be either SP16 (since this is being purchased for Spring 2016) or FA15 (since this BB is conducted at the end of Fall 2015). Whatever naming convention you use is your choice. In this example books bought back between 05/03/15 and 12/10/15 are for Season Code SP16. When running buyback reports it is wise to use this date range.

For more information on creating or maintaining your terms please see the Textbook Training guide.

As stated before, the buyback process on the system is designed to purchase books that have an Open To Buy (OTB), the OTB is created by the system need for a title such as entering an adoption. Once a title is entered in to an adoption a need is created. The need is then decreased by quantity on hand and purchases.

You may view a title’s OTB, for a Term, from the bottom of the Adoptions window by selecting the O=OTB button or from TX-2-31 Open to Buy. Please note that ALL open terms will affect a title’s BB quantity so you will have to view all of the open terms to see the quantity for each term. If you have multiple open future terms then in BB Flag Maintenance (TX-5-2-1) the quantity will reflect all of the OPEN terms, not just the immediate upcoming term. For this reason, it is important to close any past terms to prevent their OTB quantities from affecting your buyback.

You may close a term by going to TX-SU-1-2-2 (Close a Term).

Select the Store and the Term that you wish to close and then select the R=RUN PROCEDURE option from the bottom.

Now you will also need to set up the Buyback Parameters, this can be accessed from TX-5-1 or TX-SU-2-6, usually this is set up and only occasionally will you need to make adjustments.

First you will need to select the Buyback Need Formula to use, the normal options are “1 = Total Required – QOH – PO’s – Confirmations” and the other is “2 = Total Required – UQOH – Confirmations”. The difference being any NEW quantity on hand or on order can be purchased in BB and the new will be returned.
Next you need to enter in the percentage of the selling price that you will pay for the books. There are 2 conditions, GOOD and FAIR, available for each type of book, NEW and USED. Additionally you can set the percentage of the wholesale value that you wish to pay. In the example above, we used 50% of the current New and Used selling price along with 100% of the wholesale price.
Enter in a dollar value that you are willing to pay for books that have NO value. Usually this is either left blank or has the value of 0.00, but some people will offer something as a good will token or a recycle value.
Enter in the Mode of the buyback, this is either “G” for a General buyback or “W” for Wholesale only buyback.
Choose which window you wish to see at the BuyBack transaction. You have 4 options, “W”, “C”, “B”, “N”.
1. “W” will show you only the Wholesale Buyback Optimizatrion window. This window will display if the title scanned has no retail value and will prompt you to choose which wholesaler you wish to sell the title to. If your buyback only has one wholesale guide or wholesaler loaded then this option is usually NOT selected.
2. “C” will show you only the condition codes. After the title is scanned or looked up you will select from “New-Good”, “New-Fair”, “Used-Good”, and “Used-Fair”.
3. “B” will show you both windows when they are needed.
4. “N” will not show either window but you will set the default condition of “G” or “F” and the default book type “N” or “U”.
From the bottom of the Buyback Parameters window you will also set the Wholesalers that are valid for this buyback season. Select the Wholesalers option at the bottom and then in the new window, enter in the WHSL # or lookup the wholesaler by entering part of their name. Then in the File Name field enter in the name of the GUIDE that you wish to use for the wholesaler. Normally the Wholesaler # and the File name will match (they will both be for the same company such as MBS), but you may also wish to purchase for an independent wholesaler and they will honor one of the major wholesaler’s guide. In this case you would enter in the independent’s WHSL # and then enter in the major wholesalers guide name. The available GUIDES to choose from are “MBS”, “NBC”, “FCR”, “TBC”, “TIS”, “SELF”.

The next thing to look at is the Buyback Flag Maintenance (TX-5-2-1)

The open to buy value is calculated from all OPEN terms, the open terms are displayed to the right of the Open to Buy field. It is important to close any old terms to prevent the OTB for those terms from affecting the BB.
The Value Code will be blank if the title is not adopted, the code of AD is used if the title is adopted. You can select the “??” to select any other Buyback Value Code to modify them from Buyback Value Code maintenance (SU-3-1).unt
The Retail Limit Type is used to change the buyback from using the default OTB. The options here are:
1. “Y” will use a manual limit, the limit will be set in the line below. The line with the R is the line where you will set the manual limit.
2. “X” will Exclude the title from the retail buyback.
3. “U” will be unlimited buyback amount.
4. “G” is used if you have a guaranteed buyback program.
Limit is where you will enter the manual limit if you set the Retail Limit Flag to “Y”. You can also set a specific buyback price in the Price field. This price will be used regardless of the retail condition selected at buyback.
The Flag is used to set notices to alert the buyer about special conditions for this title, a title can have multiple flags assigned to it. You can enter the flag to use or select the “??” or “//” and selct the flag, you may also select the Maint option and create/modify the flag. One flag is special, the “S” stolen book flag will also allow you to enter a Name, Phone, Remarks. This is where you will enter the information to let the buyer know what to look for to identify the actual book that has been reported as stolen.

Set Estimated As Limit

If you wish to use the estimated Buyback (EBB) quantity that was entered while adopting titles, you may use the Set Estimated As Limit option (TX-5-4).

Select the seasons that you wish to use select the EBB quantities from. You can select multiple seasons and the EBB quantity from each season will be added together and entered in to the Limit field in the Buyback Flag Maintenance (TX-5-2-1).

Clear Buyback Fields

If you should need to reset all of the buyback fields or clear and reset a few of the fields you can use the Clear Buyback Fields program (TX-5-23), this program should also be used when buyback is over to clear the buyback and get it ready for the next buyback season.

Before you start your buyback you should run some reports to make sure that the quantities are correct and to validate the titles that the system has a BB open to buy.

Buyback Need (TX-RP-4-3) gives you a list of all the titles that show a need in buyback. This is the same quantity that displays when you view a title in Buyback Flag Maintenance (TX-5-2-1).
Manual Buyback Control List (TX-RP-4-4) shows you the titles that you made a manual adjustment to the quantity to purchase and/or made an adjustment to the price to pay in Buyback Flag Maintenance.
Estimated Buyback (TX-RP-4-5) lists the titles that have an estimated buyback entered. The Est. BB quantity is entered in title adoptions (TX-1-1) and does not directly affect buyback.

In each of the fields enter in a “Y” to clear the field or “N” to leave the field unchanged.

BUYBACK AT THE REGISTER

The actual buyback is conducted from a HOSTED register. This is to allow real time quantity decision making by the system. If buyback was conducted at a SmartLane register, there is the possibility that the smartlane could lose connection and end up buying titles that have already had their quantities met by another register.

If the main transaction to be performed on the register is BB then you may wish to set the default transaction type to BB, this is done from POS-3-1 (Register Parameters).

At the transaction type enter BB, or if that is set as the default, just hit the enter key.

You may get prompted for Customer Name and Customer ID, this is set in the Transaction Types maintenance (POS-2-5) as seen below. Enter in the Customer ID and/or the Customer Name hit enter and a list of possible matches will display.

Select the line number for the customer that is at the register.

It is a good idea to prompt for customer information because the prompt will also check the customer records for any rentals out for this customer and display them on the screen. This will allow you to make a decision and let the customer know if any of the titles they are returning should be returned through rental return and NOT through Buyback.

In the Transaction Type field enter or lookup BB and press Enter, in the Beginning Subroutine, if there is a program similar to shown above then it will prompt for customer information. There are many different subroutines that can be sued so please call support at 800-800-8227 opt. 2 to get help in selecting and entering a subroutine for you. If the field is blank then NO customer prompt will display and the BB transaction will go directly to the ISBN Scan field.

In the ISBN field, scan the barcode or enter the Author/Title look up.

If in the Buyback parameters you had set the “Use Window in Buyback” to one to the options of “W”, “C”, “B” then you will get the window showing you the options to select the condition of the title for the Retail/Wholesale.

If the title is wholesale and you have selected to use multiple wholesalers then the wholesaler’s window will display to allow you to choose which wholesaler to sell the title to.

At the bottom of the screen, there are multiple options that can be customized for you needs. You can select options to convert a Retail to Wholesale, Wholesale to Retail, or just modify a price. Once you have completed scanning and entering the titles for this BB transaction, select the “Total” from you keyboard or from the screen.

After selecting total you can then select the =Update or hit enter to complete the transaction. You can also enter C to cancel a line item or select “B” to go back and add more titles to the transaction.

There are times when you need to shift title purchased Retail to Wholesale and Wholesale to Retail. There are some process that allow you to easily perform these processes and report on what was shifted. (TX-R-2-2 & 4)

The screen is identical for both processes, enter the Store #, Wholesaler to transfer to/from, the ISBN of the title and the Shift QTY.

For the reports (TX-4-2-3 & 5), enter the Store #, Beginning/Ending dates and your sort method (A)uthor, (T)itle, (P)ublisher, (I)SBN.

There are many reports that you can run with many options. Some of the reports are from the POS reports menu POS-RP-21 will give you many reports that you can run with filters such as Store, Register, Date, Time, Buyer, and customer ID. If you enter in a particular buyer code then you can report on just that buyer. It is recommended that each buyer has their own logon/cashier code to use. This will help with reporting as well as audit process so you can tell which buyer did any individual transaction.

Dollars Spent Report (POS-RP-21-1) will show detail or summary for amounts spent by transaction and by retail and wholesale.
Buyback Audit Report (POS-RP-21-2) (TX-RP-4-22) will give you detail of quantity of each title for Retail and Wholesale, total retail and total wholesale and give you multiple sort and totaling options.
Buyback Detail Report (POS-RP-21-3) will show each transaction and what was bought on each transaction. Again you can sort by multiple options and get Totals by the first sort option selected.
Actual vs Needed (TX-RP-4-2) sorts by author and shows the quantity that was purchased compared to what your buyback need is for the title and show you the difference. This will help show titles that you still need to place orders for.
Actual vs Expected (TX-RP-4-21) will report on the retail titles and show the actual buyback quantities compared to what was expected.
Buyback Retail Purchases (TX-RP-4-23) You can select detail or summary. Detail lists each of the retail titles purchased, condition purchased, Ext. Cost and Qty. Summary gives each title with total dollars and quantity.
Wholesale Purchases (TX-RP-4-24) gives you a similar report to the retail but only show the wholesale titles.
Books for Wholesalers (TX-RP-4-25) will give you a report of the wholesale titles sorted by the Wholesaler that the title was purchased for or you may select to report on only a specific wholesaler.

WHOLESALE FROM BUYBACK

These process are optional because since wholesale buyback titles are never added to you inventory, you do not have to run anything to remove them from inventory. As such these process are solely for the purpose of having paper work to show the titles and quantities that where purchased for the wholesaler(s), some of the wholesalers may require that you provide a packing slip and then you will need to run the process.

Suggested Shipping List (TX-4-22-1) creates a suggested list. You have the option when running the report to only include titles with a wholesaler price greater than the amount entered if you leave the field blank then all titles will be included.

Create Shipping List (TX-4-22-2) is the process that actually create the wholesale invoice. Again you can enter a dollar amount so that only titles with a wholesale price greater that that will be included. Next you can enter a list of wholesalers to create a wholesale invoice for. If you leave this blank then it will create a wholesale invoice for each wholesaler that you purchased titles for at the Buyback process.

Shipping List Maintenance (TX-4-22-3) allows you to Add/Edit/Enter a title on the shipping list. When you ran the Create Shipping List process, the end of the process would have reported the shipping lists that were created. Here, enter the Store # and Document # or select the ?? to choose one. The will list the titles purchased for that wholesaler and the quantities that were purchase.

You can select M=Modify or click in a the Title field and space one time then enter will delete a title, change the quantity or enter in an ISBN or Author/Title lookup and then the quantity to add a title

You can select the S=Sort to resort the list by Author or Title and if you need to search for a title enter the I=ISBN Search and then enter the ISBN to search for.

FINALIZING YOUR BUYBACK

Once you have completed your buyback you need to run a couple of processes to finalize your buyback.

First you should run the Update MF Average Cost (TX-5-2-21). This process will update the titles Average Used Cost with the amount purchased in buyback. Since this is average cost the formula is simple, it takes the current extended value for a title, adds the total moneys spent in buyback for the title and then divides the total by the total quantity on hand.

New Avg Cost = (Previous ext. used cost + total spent in BB) / (Previous UQOH + total purchased in BB)

The other process you should run is Clear Buyback Fields (TX-5-23). We discussed this process previously.

Textbook Training

An old version of the guide is available here with some information that is missing from this guide.

Creating Terms

Make sure there is an Active Buyback Season. (Season codes are necessary for setting up a calendar and the calendar must be filled out when setting up a term.)
1. Go to Season Maintenance. (TX-SU-1-1).
  1. You should be in the screen shown.

If there is not an active buyback season, enter a new one. (If the End Date is after today’s date, then it is still active.)
1. Choose ‘M’ to Modify
2. Navigate to the next empty Season Code field
3. Enter the code for the new/next buyback season
  - Check the section on Buyback Seasons for more information on this screen.
  - Whether or not you buyback textbooks from the students, there must always be an active buyback season for the ordering process to work properly. Also note, in the field entitled: Buying Terms, you can put multiple terms on a particular season, but never put a particular term on more than one season.

Open a New Term

Go to Term Maintenance, menu path: SU-1-2-1.You should see the screen shown.
- If this is the first term you are entering, it will ask ‘Item not on file, Do you wish to add or copy?’ Choose ‘Add’.
Add a new term to this list
1. Choose ‘M’ to Modify
2. Navigate to the first empty Term field and enter the Term code you would like to use.
  1. Term names must be in the format of 4 numbers ‘-’ 1-2 numbers. Example 2017-4 or 2017-04.
3. The Status will automatically come up with ‘O’ for open.
4. The next field that you enter is description of the term such as FALL17.
5. The next field is the INDEX field. It is a short cut when entering a term, rather than entering 2017-1 you could just enter the index such as F17.
6. After you enter the INDEX field, you will be brought to a new screen: Calendar Maintenance.
  1. Enter a date in each field according to when you think each activity will begin.
  2. Note that the only required fields are Class Start Date and Buyback Season Code. The rest of the fields are optional and are covered in greater detail in the Calendar Maintenance section.
  3. Be sure and enter the active Buyback Season Code (Obtained from Step 1 at the top of this document.)
    - Note that only the Class Start Date and Buyback Season Code fields are required. All other fields are optional and can be filled out later.
7. After you fill out the Calendar Maintenance, you need to answer ‘Y’ or ‘N’ if you want to display this term on the web.
8. Then next field is the ‘Allow Buy’, enter a ‘Y’ to allow purchasing on the web.
9. Enter a ‘Campus Code’ to allow multiple campus selections on the web.
10. Finally enter the beginning dates that ‘Ordering’ and ‘Selling’ will start.

Now save the changes in Term Maintenance and you are finished setting up a new term.

Closing a Term

Closing a Term is a one step process. It is recommended that you do this shortly after rush. Note that you may still sell on a closed term.

Select the Close Term Menu. (TX-SU-1-2-2).
1. You should be in this screen.
2. Make sure Store is correct.
3. Type in the Term you wish to close or select the ‘??’ selection button and select the term you wish to close.
4. Enter ‘R’ to run the process or select the ‘R=Run Procedure’ button. The rest is taken care by the system.

Buyback Seasons

Creating Buyback Seasons

A buyback season is defined by its ending date. The day after the ending date serves as the beginning date for the next buyback season. There must always be an active Buyback Season. When a Buyback season expires, it automatically goes to the next one on the list that has not expired yet.

Go into Season Maintenance (TX-SU-1-1).

Assign a code to identify the buyback season and enter the season’s end date.

The ‘Buy for Terms’ is maintained in the ‘Calendar Maintenance’ when you entered the ‘Buyback Season Code’.

Note: If you do not do buyback at your store then you only need to put in the Buyback Season once. Just put the End Date far into the future several years, so that it will not expire.

Close Buyback

At the season end, it automatically switches to the next Buyback Season. It also switches from estimated buyback to the actual buyback for ordering calculations.

Academic Calendar

The Academic Calendar (TX-SU-1-3) is used to help you plan and keep track of store processes throughout the semester. Although you are required to enter the Class Start Date and the Buyback Season Code, the rest of the information is optional, and is entered for your reference only.

The FIRST and LAST columns fill in automatically

Class Start Date: Enter the date that classes start.
Class End Date: Enter the date that classes end.
Rush begin: Enter the date that rush begins
Rush End: Enter the date that rush ends.
Cancel PO date: Enter the date to cancel PO’s after for the term. When creating PO’s it will put this date automatically in the screen so you don’t have to enter it.
Courses Expected: Enter the number of courses expected to adopt for the term
Courses Adopted: This field will be incremented as courses are adopted. This is a display only field
Titles Expected: Enter the number of Titles expected to adopt for the term.
Titles Adopted: This field will be incremented as titles are adopted. This is a display only field.
The rest of this screen except for the buyback season is for scheduling purposes only. You enter the date that each task is supposed to be started. The system will put in the first date as each task is done and the last date that it was done. You then can go back and see if things were started on time.
Buyback Season Code: This is where you enter the buyback season code for the term. A ‘??’ will bring up all the season codes that have been entered. This is a required field and needs to be filled out.

Academic Departments

In order to enter adoptions you need to enter the academic departments for your college.

Go to Department Maintenance (TX-SU-1-6-2).
For each department enter in a department code, for example ‘MATH’.
Enter in a description of the department, for example ‘Mathematics and Statistics’.
The rest of the information is optional.

Academic Courses

In order to enter adoptions you need to enter the academic courses for you college.

Go to Course Maintenance (TX-SU-1-6-3) make sure the store is correct.
Enter the department code, for the department the course is under.
In the Course field enter the Course number.
Enter in a description of the course, for example ‘College Algebra’.

Wholesale Buying Guide

FCR

Wholesale Guide Functions

Before conducting buyback or beginning adoption entry, the Wholesale Guide must be updated or loaded onto the store system.

Wholesale Guide Update

The Wholesale Guide Update will occur depending on the wholesaler’s update intervals (when the wholesaler issues a revised database). This function can be processed to load the entire Wholesale Guide or just post changes from the previous update.

Update Process for FCR Guide ONLY

The Wholesale Guide Update process will usually follow this sequence of events:

On the FCS RS6000 host system, in the ADMIN account, there is a function to Convert Wholesale Guide. This must be run when the initial Wholesale Guide file is loaded onto the host system in UNIX. This program will convert the Wholesale Guide file from the Fixed Length field format to a PICK file. This file is in the UNIX directory ‘/fcs/comm/bluebook/’ and is named ‘rbbk.int’. There is also list of ISBN’s in ‘risxr’ in the same directory. It is important that these files are in this directory, or make changes to the program.
Once the Wholesale Guide file is converted into PICK format in the ADMIN account, it resides in a file called FCR.BLUE.BOOK. This file is in the identical format as the TX.FCR.BOOK on the local TEXT accounts.
Each store will then run a process in Text Maintenance to Update the Wholesale Guide file. This process will open a connection to the host system and download the FCR.BLUE.BOOK file and run a program to overlay or update the current TX.FCR.BOOK file. On a complete update, this file will take about 45 minutes to download.
Once the TX.FCR.BOOK file is updated, the connection to the host is closed and the coordination process takes place. On a complete update, this process may take about 1 hour to do a complete coordination.

As the Wholesale Guide on the system expires there will appear a box in the Buyback menu showing the valid date range for the current Wholesale Guide. It is highly recommended that the Wholesale Guide is updated promptly once the old one expires, as this gives accurate prices and publisher information, as well as any ISBN changes.

To update the Wholesale Guide from the host you must go to menu option TX-24-21 (Text maintenance-Update Wholesale Guide). This will pull the Wholesale Guide data from the host system down into the local Wholesale Guide file.

Wholesale Guide Coordination

Once the new Wholesale Guide is on the system, the coordination process can be done automatically or manually. The Coordination process will update the store’s local Master File database with the Wholesale Guide information. The following may be optionally updated at the time the coordination takes place:

Update Publisher Reference Price Changes (Y/N): Default will be yes.

Update Publisher Changes (Y/N): Default will be no.

Update ISBN Changes (Y/N): Default will be yes.

Update Retail Prices (Y/N): Default will be no. If yes, current retail prices will be updated based on the latest publisher reference prices and the default retail pricing factor.

Once the Wholesale Guide Coordination process is done, there are some Coordination reports that may be printed. These are accessed in the Reports Menu-Coordination Reports.

Reports

Price Changes

This report gives a list of items that have a publisher’s reference change from the local database. This also lists any retail price changes as well as current quantities on hand.

Publisher Changes

If there were any publisher changes made during the coordination process, this report will give a listing of the affected items.

New Edition Notices

This shows a listing of items that have new edition notices.

Unmatched Titles List

This report will give a listing of titles in the local master file database that do not exist in the Wholesale Guide file. This may be useful in updating the database by getting rid of unnecessary titles.

Titles Matched by ISBN Only

This title will give a listing of titles in the Wholesale Guide that were not updated into the local master file because there was a discrepancy between local titles/authors and the Wholesale Guide titles/authors.

ISBN Changes

If there were any changes made to ISBNs in the Wholesale Guide database, these will be listed.

NBC

Wholesale Guide Functions

Before conducting buyback or beginning adoption entry, the Wholesale Guide must be updated or loaded onto the store system.

Wholesale Guide Update

Updating From Floppy

The following procedures may vary if the wholesaler changes the way they ship the wholesale guide. If any changes are noted, please notify TCS.

On the Windows NT server machine, go into explorer and create a new folder to hold the updated wholesale guide. (First time only, once the folder is created you may use it on all subsequent updates).
Insert the floppy labeled 1 of 3 in the floppy drive on the Server.
Copy all files from the floppy into the wholesale guide directory created earlier.
Repeat step 3 for the next 2 floppies.
Now open Explorer and go to the wholesale guide folder.
Double-click on the file named GUIDE.BAT. This will extract the wholesaled guide and then combine it into one file called buyer.gde which will be converted later.
Follow the rest of the steps below for the conversion and coordination of the wholesale guide.

Updating From the Internet

In order to be able to get updates from the internet, you must contact the wholesaler and let them know you would like your updates monthly from their internet site. They will then send you the required passwords each month and the instructions on how to download the buyer guide. The following are some generic steps that may vary depending on the latest wholesaler’s instructions:

On the Windows NT server machine, go into explorer and create a new folder to hold the updated wholesale guide. (First time only, once the folder is created you may use it on all subsequent updates).
Use an internet browser to go to the wholesaler’s internet page and download the file to the folder created above.
Now open Explorer and go to the wholesale guide folder.
Double-click on the file named GUIDEUPD.EXE. This will extract the database into a file called GUIDEUPD.ASC.
Follow the rest of the steps below for the conversion and coordination of the wholesale guide.

Wholesale Guide Conversion

At this point the wholesale guide needs to be converted from an ASCII file to a D3/Integris compatible file. To do this, just follow these steps:

Log on to the TEXT account using your user id and password.
Choose menu option 24. Maintenance.
Choose menu option 21. Update Whsle Guide
You should get the following screen:
Enter the initials of the buying guide to update. For Nebraska Book this is NBC.
Enter ‘L’ here for local (since you have the database on your local system).
Enter the path to the folder where you put the wholesale guide.
Enter ‘Y’ if you would like to automatically go through the coordination process as described below.
Enter ‘Y’ if you would like to update the Author and Title cross references.
The conversion process will now take place. You will be prompted for where you received the database from (Internet or on floppy, this is so the conversion will use the right source file).

Wholesale Guide Coordination

Update Publisher Reference Price Changes (Y/N): Default will be yes.

Update Publisher Changes (Y/N): Default will be no.

Update ISBN Changes (Y/N): Default will be yes.

Update Retail Prices (Y/N): Default will be no. If yes, current retail prices will be updated based on the latest publisher reference prices and the default retail pricing factor.

Once the Wholesale Guide Coordination process is done, there are some Coordination reports that may be printed. These are accessed in the Reports Menu-Coordination Reports.

Reports

Price Changes

This report gives a list of items that have a publisher’s reference change from the local database. This also lists any retail price changes as well as current quantities on hand.

Publisher Changes

If there were any publisher changes made during the coordination process, this report will give a listing of the affected items.

New Edition Notices

This shows a listing of items that have new edition notices.

Unmatched Titles List

Titles Matched by ISBN Only

ISBN Changes

If there were any changes made to ISBNs in the Wholesale Guide database, these will be listed.

Other Wholesale Companies

The buyback for other wholesale companies is similar to the update for NBC.

Masterfile

The Masterfile contains information regarding each book. You can access the Masterfile in 2 different screens, Masterfile Maintenance and Masterfile Inquiry. In Masterfile Maintenance, you can add textbook items into the system and change information on existing items. Masterfile Inquiry allows you view the information, but does not allow any change to it.

The Masterfile screen is accessed by typing ‘MF’ in almost any TEXT menu.

You have the ability to exclude a textbook from being discounted. This can be done for many purposes, Rental, Margins or institutional purposes.

Because TEXT handles multiple stores, this screen contains some information that is individual to each store. This is located underneath the section entitled Store Information. Additional information about the book that is individual to the store can be accessed by putting a ‘Y’ in the field entitled SMF SCRN. When you do this you will be taken to this screen.

If you have TCS E-Commerce, then you can post Web Comments online. You can keep your location codes here as well.

At the bottom of the Masterfile Maintenance screen you will see this prompt. Options… =Save, X=Cancel, B=Buyback, T=Print Tag, M=Modify

Note that you can enter Buyback Flag Maintenance by typing ‘B’ here. This will take you to this screen.

Buyback information that is individual to this book is maintained here.

The Masterfile Inquiry screen allows for the viewing of information on Textbooks, but does not allow anything to change. It looks like this.

Here the store field is at the top of the screen. That is because it allows you to view more information that is specific to the store. You can change the Store field if needed. Notice the options on the bottom of the screen. These are things that you cannot access in Masterfile Maintenance.

Textbook Webstore Info:

Selling New Only or Used Only online.

If you only wish to offer New Only or Used Only online for a specific title, you can set that in TX.MF

Bring up the title and in the “Webstore Info” field, enter a ‘Y’

Next in the ‘Include on Web’ option, you can enter a ? or / to see the help message or you can enter one of the options below

N – No, don not show this title on the web site.
NO – New Only will be displayed and available to purchase
UO – Used Only will be displayed and available to purchase
Y – or Blank – New and Used are displayed and allowed to be purchased.

Save the record and then only the option selected will display on the website.

Shelf Tags

How to Set up Shelf Tags

Shelf tag formats are defined in Special Print Forms (TX-SU-01-21) and saved as Form.Control records. They may be printed from the Adoptions, Print Shelf Tags menu (TX-01-22). The tags may be one of three types: A, B, or C (for Author, Book, or Course). ‘A’ tag type information comes from the Term Information file, while the others come from the Adoption file. For now, the first letter of the tag format must begin with A, B, or C to designate the tag type.

You can set some general parameters and then specific parameters for each item you want printed on the shelf tag.

Lines on Form specified how many lines you want to have printed on the form, including blank lines. Each non-blank line will be set up in the ### section. The Left Margin Adj lets you begin each print line indented from the left of the tag.

Printer Assignment lets you specify which printer will be used to print the tags. Configuration Override lets you specify the PES printer control code table to be used by the printer to set the initialization, termination, page length, and font codes. If it’s blank, the default configuration code specified in the printer definition is used.

Row, Sequence, and Mask are used to specify how you want the different items for each row (line) laid out. At the left margin adjustment position, the first sequence item for the row is printed within the space identified by the mask. Other items for that row follow in their sequence.

Attribute identifies which shelf tag record field data you want included for that item. See the table below for a complete list. MultVal indicates whether the item contains one or multiple values – resulting in one or many shelf tags per record. Literal lets you include specific wording on each shelf tag.

Font references one or more print attributes from the selected PES table to be used to print the item. The following numbers are valid. This list displays when you enter ? at the Font field. The bold, compressed, double high, double wide, italic, and underline attributes are all reset after each item.

17. 6 lines per inch

18. 8 lines per inch

10. Bold (Emphasized)

2. Compressed print

4. Double High

6. Double Wide

15. Draft

1. Initialize

13. Italics

16. Near Letter Quality

36. Underline

You can set up a PES table for each different printer you have. Each table contains the control codes to be sent to the printer for each of these attributes.

Print Shelf Tags

Set up a shelf tag format. (Explained above.)
Go to Print Shelf Tags (TX-1-22)
1. Enter the term.
2. Enter ‘N’ in the Updated tags only field to print all the shelf tags.
3. Enter the shelf tag format.
4. Enter range of Authors or the range of Departments that you want to print shelf tags for, or leave the fields blank to print all shelf tags.
5. Enter ‘R’ to run process.

Adoption Forms

Setup Adoption Form Parameters

Before you print adoption forms for professors to fill out, you must setup the adoption form parameters. (SU-2-24)

Set the Rollover Number to 999999 as shown.
Set the Printer Assignment to the printer that you would like to print the adoption forms to.
Lines on Form should be set. Normally this is 55.
Leave User Specific Form blank.
The comments you put in the Adoption Form Comments field will be printed on the adoption forms.
Leave Store Override Address blank.

Print Blank Adoption Forms

Go to Print Adoption Forms (TX-1-21)
Enter in a term. If you are only printing blank forms, enter in a term with at least one adoption already entered. If you are printing blank adoption forms for 2001-1, but you have not entered any adoptions, if you put that term in this field, it will not print any adoptions. However if you enter one adoption for the term 2001-1, even without any books in it, then you could put that term in this field, and it would print blank adoption forms.
Leave Beg Dept, End Dept, Course, Section, Inc Prev Adoptions blank.
In the Due Date field, enter in the date the adoptions are due back. If you put in a Due Date of 12/01/99 it would print on the adoption in large lettering as ‘Due Date: 12/01/99’.
Enter a ‘Y’ in Blank Forms Only.
In the Number of Blank Forms field, enter the number of blank forms that you wish to print.
Type ‘R’ to run and it will print to the printer specified on Adoption Form Parameters.

Print Adoption Forms

If you want to print adoption forms that contain the data in that you have entered in adoptions, select these by entering the term, department, course and/or section into the respective fields. Note: You cannot print adoptions on a closed term. If you wish to print adoptions on a past or current term please do so before you close it. Otherwise you may print the data out using the Book List Report (TX-RP-25) or one of the adoption reports (TX-RP-1).

Adoptions

Enter a new Adoption

Adoptions are the process of selecting books that the school needs to buy for the coming term. The instructors fill out the adoption forms which specify which books they want for each term. You must enter these into the system.

Here we will explain the minimum steps required to fill out an adoption. If you have further questions on how to use this screen, or what individual fields mean go to the reference documentation on adoptions, or use the help messages.

Go into Enter/Modify Adoptions (TX-1-1). At the top, it will say Adoption Entry Screen.
Make sure the Term field contains the term you are adopting for.
In the Dept field, enter the department code.
In the Course field, enter the course number.
In the Section field, enter the section. This is for the section of the course. It can be alphanumeric or contain dashes or commas. Spaces are not allowed. Examples: 1-4,6 1-3,8-9,11 ALL 1,3,8.
You will be asked ‘Item not on file, Do you wish to add?’ Choose ‘Yes’.
At the Web Comments field, leave as ‘N’ if there are no comments. Enter in a ‘Y’ if you want to add or view comments for this section. Comments added here will display on the website when this course is viewed.
At the Fac Comments field, leave as ‘N’ if there are no comments. Enter in a ‘Y’ if you want to add or view comments for this section. Comments added here are only for store use, they will not display on the website or on shelf tags.
In the Est Enrollment field, enter the number of students expected to be enrolled in this section of the course.
In the Instructor field, enter the Instructor’s name.
Enter in the instructor’s email address, if the instructor will add the adoption through the web process then the email address is required to associate the instructor to the course.
Phone:, Entered by:, are optional fields. The entered by will automatically get filled in by the credentials for the person that is logged in and entering the information.
Shelf Tag Note is where you can select from one of the predefined shelf tag notes to display on the shelf tags. You can select Maint at the bottom of the pop up or you can edit these in TX.SU.3.24
Misc Materials is where you can attach miscellaneous materials to a section. Items such as calculators are added in a free form field. In the Description enter in the description and the selling price then in the Qty filed enter in how many the student should buy and then whether the item is Required or Optional.
Hit enter until you reach the ISBN field.
Enter an ISBN, title, or author of the book.
Leave Inq blank.
In the QTC field, enter the number of books you want available for this section at the beginning of the term (both new and used).
Now out of the books you want available (QTC), enter how many of those should be new in the QNew field. (Leave blank if it does not matter.)
In the EBB field enter how many books you think will be bought back from the students before the term starts. This has no effect on the number of books that will be bought back. See buyback documentation on how to restrict buyback for individual books. You may leave this as zero if desired.
In the Req field enter a ‘Y’ if the book is required, ‘N’ if the book is optional for the course.
Repeat the last six steps for each book needed for this course.
After you have finished entering the ISBNs for the course, hit enter until you get to the screen options at the bottom of the screen.
Hit enter to save this adoption record.

Repeat these steps for each adoption record you must enter.

Adoption Screen

Here is an explanation of some of the fields contained in the Adoption Screen.

Request # : Enter the adoption worksheet number or some other information which will be helpful when auditing your work
Date Adopted: This is display only field and displays the date that the record was first created.
Est. Enrollment: Enter the estimated enrollment for this section. This is a required field
Instructor: Enter the name of the instructor teaching the section. This field is not required and can be left blank.
E-Mail: Enter the instructor’s complete e-mail address. Some e-mail systems are case sensitive, so make sure that you enter the e-mail address exactly as it is written on the adoption form. This field is an entry field and not required.
Phone: Enter the phone number. You do not have to enter the dashes. Area code is optional. This field is optional.
Entered by: This will come up with the logon of the user automatically. This can be changed to the initials of the person inputting the data.
Shelf Tag Note: This is a note that will appear on the shelf tag. Entering a ‘??’ will show valid entries here. The shelf tag does have to be set up to print out the shelf tag note.
Misc Materials: If materials other than textbooks are required or suggested, enter a ‘Y’. This will bring up a screen to enter description, qty, and required or optional. See the document at this link for additional information. http://tcs-training-wp.azurewebsites.net/dwkb/1460-2/
ISBN: International Standard Book Number – A unique number that is assigned to almost every title that is produced to identify the book. Enter the ISBN of the title to adopt or enter 3 or more characters of title, or auth/title or /title. Enter ‘.’ to add a new artificial number.

If the title entered does not exist on the local database, it will ask you if you want to search wholesale guide. If you select an ISBN from wholesale guide, it will then ask you if you want to copy it into local database. If you answer yes, it will then take you to Masterfile maintenance screen to complete all necessary data for the textbook. After entering all necessary data, save the record. It will then take you back to the adoption record. It will have information brought in such as author, title, publisher, edition etc. If there is no vendor type set up for the vendor of the book, it will give you an error message that the vendor has no vendor type. Hit return and it will take you into the vendor maintenance screen, so you can fix it. It will then take you back to the adoption screen to continue.

INQ: When returning to the adoption screen, it will put you in the INQ field. If you answer ‘Y’ here it will take you to an adoption inquiry screen where it will show you history of this ISBN from past terms. This information is there to help you determine how many to order from past data or how many to put on estimated buyback. To skip this field, all you need to do is to hit return.
QTC: (Quantity to Cover) Enter the total quantity which should be available at the start of the term (new & used). A return here puts you in the EBB (estimated buyback) field. It jumps over the QNew field. To go to the QNew field you can back into it.
QNew: Enter the number of books to be ordered from the publisher. This number cannot be greater than the number entered from QTC. This number of books will be ordered from the publisher and not put on a want list for used books from a wholesaler.
EBB: Enter the number of books you anticipate acquiring through buyback. If history is available, a suggested estimated buyback will be displayed based on the terms on the buyback season. This is a suggested buyback and can be overwritten. If a buyback figure is put in, that is greater than the books sold for previous terms, it will give a warning but will accept it. The amount entered here is for the text not the course. If this book is adopted in another course, the estimated buyback that was entered here will be in the new record. If it is changed in the new record, then it will also be changed in the first record and all records that the book is adopted in. There is only one estimated buyback per book per buyback season.
Req: Enter ‘Y’ for required text or ‘N’ for optional text

Command line from adoption screen

Options… =Save, X = Cancel, M = Modify, C =Copy to section, A = Add

F# = MF, T = Shelf Tags, I = Update Items, L = Misc. Materials

From the command line you have the following options to choose from.

= Save: Which will save the record and exit out of the record and put you back to enter another key.
X = Cancel: This will exit the record without saving any changes that had been done since entering it.
M =Modify: This will put you at the request # field so you can modify the record.
C =Copy to section: This will allow you to copy this section to another section. When you enter ‘C’ you will be asked to copy to what section. After entering a section it will check to see if the section already exists. If it does it does not allow you to copy to it. If not then it copies to the new section and gives message ‘This record has been copied to section: xxx. Please complete the new adoption record’. When it copies over it does not copy Instructor or the quantity to cover. You will need to fill out this information before saving record.
A =Add: This will put you at the end of the textbooks at an ISBN field ready to adopt a new title.
F# =MF: This allows you to go into the masterfile screen for any of the ISBN’s adopted for this record. You can check out quantities on hand, publisher and other information. You are also allowed to update the record from here. You need to enter F plus the line number of the title. Example ‘F3’
T =Shelf Tags: This is to print the shelf tags for the textbooks adopted in this record. You can also print them from Print Shelf Tags (TX-01-22) or from MF screen.
I =Update Items: This takes you to the ISBN of the first text (line 1).
L =Misc. Materials: This takes you to the Misc. Materials field.

Advanced Faculty Adoptions (TX.1.23)

Overview

Faculty or department heads will login to the bookstore’s online faculty adoption website and submit the course requests or adoptions. These requests will be reviewed by the Department approvers and/or the Bookstore where the adoptions will be accepted/denied. Once they are accepted the TCS Textbook adoption system will be updated with the requests automatically. If they are denied the faculty will have the opportunity to modify the adoption and resubmit them for department/bookstore approval.

Please see the separate Advanced Faculty Adoptions menu for updated instructions.

Store Setup

Set Term and Store Notification emails – (POS 26.4.1)

Input your store number.

Choose ‘FA’ for Faculty Adoptions from the bottom options (the options on the first screen are not changed for faculty adoptions).

Ensure the Term is setup correctly for the active adoption term. Input the terms that are available for the faculty to submit adoptions. If a term is no longer needed, choose the line of the term and press the space bar and then press enter to remove the term.

Store Notification Email(s): Once the faculty/department has approved the adoption the bookstore will receive an email. Input the email address for the personnel to receive the notification emails where an adoption has been approved and is ready for the bookstore to process, enter one address per line.

Number of History Links to Show: This is how many terms to show the faculty when they are searching previous adoptions. If it’s blank it will default to 12 terms.

Faculty Setup

Online Faculty Adoption Structure

The store must determine how the faculty adoptions will be entered into the system. A couple of questions need to be answered:

Will the faculty/instructors be entering their own adoptions?
Will the departments be required to approve the adoptions once the faculty/instructors have submitted their requests?

If the instructors will be allowed to enter their own adoptions through the online adoption system, then all email addresses MUST be attached to the department/course/sections they are teaching. This can be done with a course import from the administration (TX 1.23.1) OR this can be done manually by the bookstore as they are entering in the department/course/section/instructor information (TX 1.1).

Each faculty/instructor staff member will need to have an account setup in the adoption system. If a file is being imported with the email addresses from an administrative import, follow the next steps, otherwise, the bookstore will need to manually input the email addresses as they are entering the adoptions (TX 1.1) and then run the Update Pref Customer from Adoptions process (TX.1.23.22).

Import Adoption Headers – (TX 1.23.1)

You must have a file from your administration to proceed with this import. If not, please proceed to the next section. For more information on this import process, please contact the TCS Service Center.

Enter the Adoption term you will be importing. – The term will already have to exist in Term Maintenance (TX.SU.1.2.1).

Enter the path of file to import * – The name of the file must be “Adpt-Imp.txt”, or either “course.asc” or “course_ctab.txt” for the Budgetext format. Please ensure that the path exists and the file is named correctly for the import to be successful.

Add Non-existing Departments and Courses * – Enter a ‘Y’ if you wish the program to automatically add Departments and Courses that are not currently on file, but are contained within the import file. If you enter ‘N’, then the program will warn you each time it finds a Department or Course that is not on file and will not add the adoption record.

Convert spaces in key fields to: Spaces are not allowed in the key fields of a store, term, department, course and/or section number. If your import file contains spaces enter the character you would like it converted to. If you leave it blank the spaces will be stripped out. Asterisks (*) are not allowed.

Create eCommerce records for faculty* – Enter a ‘Y’ so the system will automatically create the eCommerce records (Pref Customer record) so faculty can log into the faculty adoptions.

Update Processing Type* – Options are ‘R’ Report only, ‘I’ Import only, ‘B’ Import and Report and ‘A’ for Actual enrollment. If ‘A’ is selected then ONLY the actual enrollment will get updated. Actual enrollment is updated with either option ‘I’ or ‘B’.

Once you are satisfied with your entries you MUST choose ‘R’ Run Procedure. If you need assistance with this process please contact the TCS Service Center.

*** Important ***

If you are doing multiple imports throughout the term, after the first import, choose ‘R’ report ONLY to see any changes that need to be MANUALLY input in the adoption system.

If department personnel are required to approve the submitted adoptions by the faculty, then their emails MUST be setup in the department/classes section (TX SU 1.6.2) Screen 1.

(Screen 1)

If more than one person in the department is allowed to input adoptions then email address of the additional personnel must be entered in the next screen. Once the department personnel email address has been entered into the department maintenance (Screen 1) press enter until the options at the bottom of the screen are displayed. Press the ‘A’ for adoptions and the screen will change to allow for entry of ‘Submittal Emails’ for additional Update and Submit personnel. They will be allowed to update and submit the adoptions submitted by the faculty staff for this department.

If the adoption policies requires an ‘Approver’ that person’s email address must be entered into the ‘Approval Emails’ section. They will be allowed to update and approve the adoptions submitted by the faculty staff for this department.

Approval Level Required for Completion:

Will the faculty/instructors be entering their own adoptions?
Will the departments be required to approve the adoptions once the faculty/instructors have submitted their requests?

If you answered question 1 – YES – and question 2 – YES, then the approval level required for completion needs to be set to 1.

If you answered question 1 – YES – and question 2 – NO, then the approval level required for completion needs to be set to 0 (zero).

Update Pref Customer from Adoptions process – (TX 1.23.22)

If the bookstore manually enters the faculty/instructors email addresses when building the adoptions (TX 1.1) then the preferred customer file must be created so the faculty can log into the online adoption website. Any department emails that are entered (previous section) will also be created by this process.

Enter the Store number.

Enter the active term for the online adoption period.

Optional – Enter a department or course to filter the update.

Changing Customer/Faculty Account Type Flags – (POS 26.21)

Once a customer/faculty account has been created (steps above), they are automatically setup as an ‘F’ faculty member account status. This means they have the ability to input and/or approve adoptions. If you need to change their status at any time see the below steps.

POS 26.21 – Customer Maintenance

(Screen 2)

Name or ID: This will be the faculty/instructor’s email address.

Account Type: Options for the account type:

F = Faculty, this allows the account details, order history and the faculty buttons to be available online.
A = Administrator, this allows the account details, order history, faculty and administrator buttons to be available online. Should be reserved for bookstore staff only.
C or blank = Customer, this allows ONLY the account details and order history buttons to be available online. Not to be used for faculty/instructors, this is for student customers only.

If you are setup as an administrator you can also change the account type for a customer online. Once logged in go to the Admin panel section, find the customer and change the account type.

Notifying Faculty through Email – (TX 1.23.4)

When the bookstore is ready to open the Online Faculty Adoptions website the faculty/departments must be notified that the term is open.

OPTIONAL – TX 1.23.3 – Instructor Email List – This report is for those department/course/sections where an instructor email has been assigned to the section. The report can be generated to show the bookstore all the instructor email addresses that will be notified when running the email process.

TX 1.23.4 – Adoption Notification Email – (Screen 3) – This will send an email to either the instructor or departments (your choice). This notification is setup by the bookstore (subject/email body).

(Screen 3)

Term: Input the term for which the adoptions are active.

Notifications can be filtered to only be sent to a particular department or for a particular course. These are not required fields.

Email Department: If you ONLY want to send the email out to the department emails setup on the department/classes, enter a ‘Y’. This will NOT send out a notification to the faculty/instructors.

Reply To Email: Enter the email address that the faculty/instructors/departments should use to send inquiries back to the bookstore.

Subject: Enter the subject of the email.

Email Body: Enter the body of the email.

Send Test Email: Enter a ‘Y’ to ONLY send a test email to the email address entered in the ‘Reply to Address’.

Store Approval of Submitted Adoptions – (TX 1.23.23)

Once the faculty/department has submitted an approved adoption the bookstore will receive an email notification. This should be a trigger for the bookstore to know that adoptions are pending their approval.

OPTIONAL: Report TX 1.23.5 – Adoption Pending Approval

This report can be run to see how many adoptions are pending approvals by the bookstore and/or the departments (if necessary). It is recommended to display to the screen/terminal for review.

Adopt from Pending – (TX 1.23.23)

Once the bookstore receives a notification that adoptions are pending approval, they must review and make any required changes to the adoption before the adoption will be added to the specified course. This step will allow the bookstore to cycle through all pending bookstore approval adoptions to view and update them into the TCS system.

(Screen 4)

Input the store and term to update the pending adoptions. You also have the ability to filter your selection by Department or Course. Run the Procedure. The system will show how many adoptions are pending, press continue.

(Screen 5)

The system will present the first approved adoption on the screen. If the faculty/instructor entered any comments, a window will display (Screen 5) with the comments. You have the option of Printing the comments, Canceling the acceptance or selecting OK to have the comments added to the “Fac Comments” field. These comments only for the bookstore personel and will not display unless you add them to the “Web Comments” field or the “Shelf Tag Note” field.

(Screen 6)

Look for ANY ‘/’ slashes in the screen (Screen 6). These are the changes that were submitted by the faculty/instructor and will need to be updated by the bookstore. Update the record by removing the slashes and inputting the correct information in the field.

To help the bookstore with determining the quantity to cover (QTC), the ‘inq’ column is available so the bookstore can view historical information on this title. By putting a ‘Y’ in the ‘inq’ field, a screen will display with previous terms historical information and the bookstore can make a better determination on the quantity needed. The ‘EBB’ field is available for the bookstore to input estimated buyback figures for this title.

By clicking the ‘Save’ or pressing ‘ENTER’ the system will prompt with the fields that need to be updated and then exit the adoption screen. If you would like to proceed to the next pending record, press ‘N’ for next, this will save the currently displayed adoption and cycle the next pending adoption to the screen. Be sure to SAVE the record or press ‘X’ to exit the record without saving your changes. By pressing ‘X’ or exit, the system will add the adoption back to the pending bookstore approval file for processing later.

Other options along the bottom of this screen allow the bookstore to navigate throughout the pending adoptions.

‘SP’ Skip to Previous – Allows the bookstore to bypass the currently displayed adoption and move to the previous adoption in the pending file.

‘SN’ Skip to Next – Allows the bookstore to skip to the next pending adoption and skip the currently displayed adoption.

Actual Enrollment

Actual Enrollment may be updated several ways, one of those is through the Advanced Faculty Adoptions Import Header process (TX-1-23-1).

When the actual enrollment is updated, the date and count will be updated in the Term Calendar (TX-SU-1-3).

Importing of the Faculty Adoption Header with the option of ‘I’ or ‘B’ will import the actual enrollment when the course information is imported, or you may select the ‘A’ option and only the actual enrollment will get imported/updated, no other information will get added. Follow the import header instructions and when prompted for an import type at the bottom select ‘A’.

The other method for entering actual enrollment is through the Actual Enrollment Menu (TX-1-23-25).

Create Worksheet – Select to create new worksheets, enter the Store # and Term, to create the worksheets for, then select R=Run.
Print Worksheets – Enter the Store # and Term then select R=Run.

Edit Worksheet – This is where you will enter the quantities for the actual enrollment. The Dept., Course, Section are filled out for you, just enter in the Actual Enrollment for each section and then select =Save to update. If you did not run the option to create worksheets then here you may enter the Store#, Term and when prompted select A to add and then manually enter or select the DEPT, COURSE, SECTION for each line.
Delete Worksheet – If for some reason you need to start over, you can enter the Store#, Term then select R=Run, that will delete the worksheet.

Rental Books

For complete rental instructions please read the Rental Setup and Training document. Rental books are your inventory that you wish to rent to your customers, E-Books or rental programs through a wholesaler are maintained differently. Rental books are your property and remain as part of your inventory until it is sold or removed from your inventory. You also need to enter in your estimated rental return quantity so that when you start placing wantlists or publisher orders the OTB quantity will be reduced by the quantity you expect to have returned.

There are 2 types of rentals, the first is Dynamic rental and the other is Serialized rental. The 2 types of rental are handled differently, Dynamic rental is easier of the two. A store can only have one type of rentals going at a time, you can not have some Dynamic and some Serialized. Rentals are maintained in POS-27-1

Dynamic is flagging a title that it is rentable and setting up the parameters, then at the register, when the title is scanned the customer chooses to purchase or rent and then finish out the transaction.
Serialized requires that you identify how many of each title will be rented, you print out the serialized barcode tag and then place the serialized barcode on each of the titles that you are renting. Your transfer the inventory from textbook inventory to serialized inventory. When a customer selects the title, the cashier will scan the serialized barcode and then you complete the rental transaction. When returning a serialized rental, the customer must return the exact same title with the serialized barcode.

The steps shown here are abbreviated, the assumption is that the basic parameters are already setup. This is just to show how to create a rental item from the Textbook module MF and selecting the “Rental” from the command line.

Look up a title as usual, select the R=Rental from the list of prompts and the system will jump you to the Rental Item Master screen and have most of the information entered for you.

Once you are in the rental master screen you can set your replacement price, new and used rental price for each rental period and the maximum quantity to rent if desired. Serialized rentals are similar to dynamic on setting up with the additional step of creating the serialized barcodes and printing them.

Expected Rental Returns

There are 2 ways to enter your expected rental returns, you can auto calculate rental inventory, or you can manually enter the expected return quantity. Run this process after you have gone through the selling period when the books have been rented for the current term. If you run the auto calculate process, that will override any manual quantities you may have entered, if you are going to use both methods then run the auto calculate process first and then enter the manual quantities. All of these are Term based and will have to be run each term.

Auto Calculate Rental Inventory – TX-2-30-1, enter the Store #, Term to calculate for, Beginning and Ending date range for rental due date returns and the percentage of rentals then select “R” to run the process.
Rental Inventory Entry – TX-2-30-2, enter the Store #, Term to calculate for and the ISBN, then enter in the estimated rental return quantity.

Ordering

To order any book, it must be adopted for a particular course. This is done in Adoption Maintenance. Ordering is split into two areas. Want Lists and Purchase Orders. Want Lists are made so that your store can buy books from Wholesalers at a lower price. These Want Lists create Purchase Order numbers of their own. Books that you cannot buy from wholesalers, or buy back from students must be purchased from the publisher.

It is important to understand how the calculations are made for Want List or Mass PO creations, even the Open To Buy for Buyback.

The OTB for a title is calculated from the QTC – Beginning Inv. – Qty Confirmed (want list) – Pub Order – Buyback (est or act) – Qty Returned – Est. Rental Qty = OTB.

QTC	40
Beg. Inv.	0
Qty Conf.	0
Pub Order	0
Buyback	7
Qty Returned	0
Est Rental qty	8
OTB	25

Want Lists

First, it is recommended that you adopt courses for the term that you are ordering for. However, you can now order books that have not been adopted. You can create Want Lists automatically if you choose Create from Adoptions, menu option 1. The other alternative is Create Manually, which forces you to type each individual ISBN into the Want List. Once you have created the Want List the next step is to send the Want List to the Wholesaler. There are a few different ways to do this. When you receive a Want List confirmation from the Wholesaler you can enter that into Confirmation Entry. It will subtract the number confirmed from the Open to Buy quantity, which helps the system decide how many books need to be purchased. At this point you have at least 2 options. First, you can recycle the Want List, menu option 4. This will subtract the number confirmed off the old Want List and create a new one. The second option is to decide to Create from Adoptions again. This will essentially do the same thing as long as you put a ‘Y’ in the Include prev WL Titles field. The difference is that the second option includes newly adopted books, where as, recycling the Want List will not. Merging a Want List is the same thing as Recycling a Want List with one difference. Merging creates a new want list out of 2 or more confirmed Want Lists.

Creating a Want List

Get to the Create Want Lists screen (TX-2-2).
In the Store field, enter the store number.
If the Term field does not contain the correct term, enter the correct term.
If the Wholesaler field does not contain the correct wholesaler, you need to change it.
In the Book Category field, enter the book categories you want to include, separated by commas. If you wish to include all categories, enter ‘*’.
In the Bin & Hold Date field, enter the date when you want the vendor to send the books. All want lists with the same bin and hold date will be included on the same purchase order. You can only have one bin and hold date per vendor per term. If there is already a bin and hold date entered that you do not wish to use, you must change it in Modify Vendor Bin & Hold (TX-2-9).
- Want lists without the same bin and hold date on creation will not have the same PO number. Changing the date after the want list has been created will not add it to the same PO as pre-existing want lists.
In the Percentage of QTC to WL field, enter the percentage of the quantity to cover that you wish to put on this want list.
In the Ship-Via field, enter the shipping method you wish to use for these books. For a list, enter ‘??’.
In the Include prev WL Titles field, enter ‘Y’ if you wish to include items that have been on a previous want list. Otherwise, enter ‘N’.
In the Used Only field, enter ‘Y’ if you want to buy only used books from the wholesaler. Otherwise, enter ‘N’.
In the Comments field, enter any comments to print on the want list.
At the Options.. Y =Run Procedure, X =Cancel, M =Modify prompt, enter ‘Y’ to create the want list. The system displays the want list number.

Want List Confirmation

After you have received want list confirmations from the wholesaler, you must enter the confirmations into your system, so that the system can create a purchase order for you to receive the books against:

Go to the Manual Want List Confirmation screen (TX-2-3).
If the Store field is not filled in with the correct store, you must change it.
In the Want List # field, enter the want list number for which you want to enter confirmations. If you don’t know the want list number, enter ‘??’ and select the correct want list from the list that displays.
In the PO # field, the PO number that has been assigned to this want list displays. This number should be recorded, since it must be used when you receive books from this want list. It should remain the same for every want list you create for a particular vendor, until the vendor Bin & Hold date expires, or you change the purchase order number in Modify Vendor Bin & Hold (TX-2-9).
- Want lists without the same bin and hold date on creation will not have the same PO number.
Enter ‘M’ to modify.
For each book on the want list, complete these steps:
Under the NEW heading, enter the quantity of new books that were confirmed. If no books were confirmed, leave the quantity set to 0.
Under the USED heading, enter the quantity of used books that were confirmed. If no books were confirmed, leave the quantity set to 0.
Once you have entered new and used quantities for all books, hit Enter to save.

Modify Want Lists

At any time, you can modify the Want Lists by choosing Modify. (TX-2-7) This will take you to a new menu.

By Want List, (TX-2-7-1), allows you to type in a Want List number and make changes.

By ISBN, (TX-2-7-2), allows you to search for an ISBN among one or more Want Lists.

You cannot change a Want List once it has been sent.

Modify Vendor Bin & Hold

As mentioned, a Purchase Order number will be created for each Wholesaler. All books from Want Lists will accumulate under that Purchase Order number until the Vendor Bin & Hold date expires. All Want Lists after this date will use a new Purchase Order number. If no Bin & Hold Date is used then it will put all Want Lists under the same Purchase Order until it is received against. If you Modify the Bin & Hold date for a Wholesaler, (TX-2-9), then a new purchase order will be created.

Purchase Orders

Once you decide to stop making Want Lists, and start ordering directly from the publishers, then it is time to Create Publisher Orders (TX-2-21). You can do this automatically or manually. Creating them automatically means the system takes the Open to Buy quantity for each adopted book and puts it on a purchase order. This is done in Create Publisher Orders, (TX-2-21). Manual creation of purchase orders means you decide every ISBN that goes on a purchase order and the quantity you will order. This is done using Create Manual PO, (TX-2-25). You can make adjustments to any Purchase Order and print them or transmit them.

Create Publisher Orders

This will automatically make Purchase Orders for all of the books that have an Open To Buy (OTB) quantity greater than zero. This will not include books that have been bought back from students or that have been confirmed on Want Lists. Select menu option 21.

Go to the Create Publisher Orders screen (TX-2-21).
You can use the Vendor field to limit the purchase orders you create for books that come from one publisher. If you wish to do so, enter the vendor number that represents the vendor for which you want to create purchase orders. If you want to create orders for all vendors, leave this field blank.
In the Book Category field, enter the categories of the books you want to order. If you want to order books from more than one category, separate the entries with commas. If you want to order books from all categories, enter ‘*’.
In the Percentage of OTB to Order field, enter the percentage of the number of books that are open to buy that you wish to order.
In the Cancel After Date field, enter the date that the books must be shipped by. If the books are not shipped by this date, the purchase order will be cancelled.
In the Ignore Minimum field, enter ‘Y’ if you don’t care if the number of books ordered is below the minimum order quantity for this vendor. If you only want to order quantities that are above the minimum order quantity, enter ‘N’.
In the Ship Via field, enter the code that represents the shipment method you want to use. For a list of codes, enter ‘??’.
In the Comments field, enter ‘N’ if you don’t want to add any comments to the order. If you want to add comments, enter ‘Y’.
If you enter ‘Y’, then enter any comments that you want to add under the TEXT heading in the new window.
Enter ‘Y’ to create the purchase orders. Enter ‘X’ to cancel and discard the entries you have made in this screen.

Create Manual PO

As you can see there is also Create Manual PO, (TX-2-25), where you type in each individual ISBN and the quantity you wish to order of each. When you choose ‘C’ inside of this screen, it will create Purchase Orders for each book. It groups the books by Publisher into separate Purchase Orders.

Printing Purchase Orders

If you want to print Purchase Orders that have not been printed then do it using Print/Transmit 1st Time (Batch), (TX-2-22). You will see this screen.

You will notice that there are 4 different types of Purchase Orders that you can print. Only put a ‘Y’ for the types of Purchase Orders you want to print. Wholesale P/Os are Purchase Orders created by Want Lists.

If you want to print a certain range of Purchase Orders or reprint any Purchase Orders you should do it in Print/Transmit any PO, (TX-2-23). If you want a range of purchase orders, then put the first Purchase Order number in the First PO# field and the last Purchase Order number in the Last PO# field. If you want just one purchase order number, then put that Purchase Order number in both the First and Last PO# fields. Again you must be sure to put ‘Y’ for any of the types of Purchase Orders you want to print.

Adjustments

If you want to change any part of a Purchase Order after it has been created you should use Adjustments, (TX-2-24). This will take you to a screen that looks like this.

You can type in the Purchase Order number, or you can search for a certain Purchase Order. If you type in a vendor in the Vendor # or Name field and leave the other fields blank you can find Purchase Orders for a certain vendor. If you are searching for a certain book on a Purchase Order, then leave the first two fields blank. You can enter the ISBN, or use the cross reference. For a title search, type three or more letters of the title. For an author search type ‘A;’ followed by three or more letters of the authors name (no spaces between the ‘;’ and the author’s name.) Example: ‘A;GREEN’. For an author and title search type in the author followed by an ‘/’ followed by the title. Example: ‘GREEN/FOREST WANDERINGS’.

After you fill in these fields you will see this prompt:

Options… =Start Search, M = Modify, X = Cancel Search.

To start the search hit Enter and select the Purchase Order from the list that comes up.

Once you have selected a Purchase Order, you will be in this screen.

=Save: To save changes you have made.
X =Cancel: To cancel changes you have made.
M = Modify: To modify the Purchase Order.
S = ISBN Search: To find a certain ISBN hit ‘S’ and Enter, and you will be prompted with Enter ISBN: where you should type the ISBN you are looking for. Once you have done this you will be taken to the line that this ISBN is on.
L = Line Items: This will take you to the first ISBN listed on the Purchase Order.
C = Cancel P.O.: As it says this will Cancel the Purchase Order.

Receiving

Receiving consists of creating a receiving log for an invoice. Here you record the amounts and costs for items received. Posting a receiving log writes this information to the masterfile, incrementing your inventory. Once posted, you can still change the invoice number. If other changes are needed, then you must unpost the receiving log and enter it again.

From the main text menu (TX-3). This will take you to the Receiving menu.

Menu option one is where you enter Receiving Logs. If the Receiving Log has not been posted, then this is where you would find the saved receiving log. Posted receiving logs are accessed in (TX-3-2). When you type (TX-3-1), you encounter the following screen:

This screen allows you to either create a new Receiving Log or find a saved one.

If you wanted to create a new Receiving Log here, then you would type a ‘.’ and hit Enter. This will take you to the next screen.

If you want to bring up a saved Receiving Log, then you can type in the Receiving Log number here. If you do not know the number, then hit enter and use the search feature. As explained on the screen, you can use either a Vendor or ISBN search or both. It will only bring up Receiving Logs that contain the information that you put here. If you do a search on both the ISBN and Vendor, then it will only bring up Receiving Logs that contain both that ISBN and the Vendor.

For a new Receiving Log, you will be prompted if you want to create a new record, which you should type ‘A’. You will then see this screen.

Use the help messages to assist you with adding the appropriate information. Note that you must either enter a Purchase Order number or a vendor number. If you don’t have purchase order number, then one will be created for you, once you have posted the receiving log.

The only thing that you can change once the Receiving Log has been posted is the Invoice Number. If you need to make any other changes, you must unpost it. If you enter a purchase order number, then it will automatically put all of the items on the Purchase Order onto the Receiving Log. If you receive only part of a particular order, you should create a Receiving Log for the items you received. You can still receive against the same Purchase Order number as many times as needed.

You can choose to receive Manually or by Exception. Manual receiving requires you to enter in the quantity received for every item. Exception receiving automatically fills in the full quantity. If you receive by Exception, then you can still change the quantity if desired. If you have received without a Purchase Order, you must enter in each ISBN.

If you need to enter a new item into the Receiving Log, then you must choose ‘A’ from this prompt:

Select #<1-10>, <>=Advance, <R>=Redisplay, [<]=Previous <A>=Add

If you just want to modify an existing line item, then type in the line number that it is on. You will be taken to this screen:

If you are receiving manually from a Purchase Order, most of the information will be filled in. Just be sure to enter in the quantity in the Received Qty field. Also note that once the Receiving Log is posted, all the prices and costs will be changed according to what is found here.

Once you have finished filling out the fields in this screen you will see this prompt at the bottom of the screen.

Options… S = Save, L = Line items, M = Modify P = Post & Save, I = ISBN search

Here is an explanation of each of these options.

S = Save: This saves the Receiving Log, but does not increment the received inventory. You can pull up a saved Receiving Log in this screen and make needed changes.
L = Line items: This takes you directly to the prompt for the line items.
M = Modify: This takes you to the top of the record and allows you to modify it.
P = Post & Save: This will save the record and increment the inventory of the items that you received. You will no longer be able to access the Receiving Log from (TX-3-1) from the Receiving menu. You can only access it using (TX-3-2).

Once you have posted the Receiving Log, you can only change the Invoice Number.

I = ISBN search: If you are receiving several items, use this to identify, and access a particular ISBN. You do not have to type in the dashes for the ISBN.

You will notice that you cannot hit ‘X’ to get out of the Receiving log. If you want to delete the Receiving log you must first save it, and then go back and type ‘D’. It will ask ‘Are you sure?’ and you would enter ‘Y’.

To use (TX-3-2), Change Invoice # and View Posted Receivings, use the same Receiving Log ID# in this screen. You can also use the search options that are explained above for menu option 1.

The screens for this menu option look identical to the screens shown above. There are some differences in the options prompt at the end of the screen.

Options…. =Save, M = Modify Invoice Number, X = Cancel

L = Look at line items, R = Reprint Tags, I = ISBN

= Save: If you have changed the Invoice Number, hit Enter to save.
M = Modify Invoice Number: This takes you to the Inv Num field and allows you to change it if desired.
X = Cancel: This is if you decide not to save changes.
L = Look at line items: This takes you to the line items list, so you can view information on any ISBN received.
R = Reprint Tags: As this says, you can reprint barcode tags for the items in the Receiving Log.
I = ISBN: If you use this, it will take you to the screen (shown earlier) that contains all of the individual data for the ISBN that was received.

Unposting

If you have made a mistake in a Receiving Log that is posted, then you should unpost it. Once you have pulled up the Receiving Log, choose ‘U’ to unpost. Once you do this you will see this message:

REVERSAL FILE will now be created….Do you also want to create a *NEW* If you want to create a new Receiving Log at this time, enter ‘Y’, if you would rather do it later then choose ‘N’. You must create a new Receiving Log either way. Unposting will cause the inventory quantity to be deincremented.

Buyback

Buyback is the process of buying back textbooks from students to be used for future terms. This is done in the POS account in the Cash Register. Before this can be done in POS, there are certain things that must be done in the TEXT account first. This document covers what must be done in the TEXT account. Also note that there should be an active buyback season.

Follow these steps to prepare for Buyback.

Set Up Buyback Parameters
1. Go to Buyback Parameters (SU-2-4).
2. You will be taken to this screen. Each field must be filled out.
3. Fill out each field in this screen use the help messages to assist you.
Restrict Certain Textbooks from Buyback
1. If you wish to exclude a textbook from buyback then follow these procedures.
2. From a TEXT menu choose Masterfile Maintenance by typing ‘MF’.
3. Bring up the textbook by typing the ISBN or using the cross reference.
4. Choose ‘M’ to modify.
5. Go to the Exclude BB field and type ‘Y’.
6. Save the MF record.
This will exclude this book from any future buyback until it is changed.
Set Buyback Flags for Individual Textbooks
1. You may set flags for textbooks, or set your own limit on the number of this textbooks you wish to buy back.
2. Go to Masterfile Maintenance by typing ‘MF’.
3. Type in the ISBN of the book you wish to set parameters on and then choose Buyback by typing ‘B’. You will be in this screen.
4. Choose ‘M’ to modify.
5. In the Limit Flag field type ‘Y’ to set your own buyback limit or ‘U’ for unlimited buyback. (Use help messages for other options.)
6. If you chose ‘Y’ in the field above then in the Override Limit field type the number of books you want to be bought back
7. In the Book Flag Code field, enter any available code. This will pop up as you are doing a buyback transaction at the cash register. Type ‘??’ to view available codes. This is maintained in the Textbook Flag option. (SU-3-27.)
8. Hit enter to save this information.

Returns

Returns Process

This is a general overview of the process of the steps involved in doing returns. For more detailed information on some of the processes involved, refer to other reference materials or contact TCS.

Most of the processes are found in the Returns Menu in Text. (TX-4).

Clear Open Chargebacks (TX-4-1-25). This is a preliminary step to creating suggested returns. This will clear old data.
Create System Suggested Returns (TX-4-1-2). For more explanation refer to the next section on Create System Suggested Returns.
Create a Chargeback List.
1. Go to Chargeback List on the Returns menu (TX-4-1-26).
2. Put ‘N’ in the Chargeback Printed field.
3. Leave the rest of the fields blank.
4. Hit ‘Y’ to create List.
Print Permission Requests (TX-4-1-5). This will print permission requests for vendors that have the Permission Required flag set to ‘Y’. For each vendor this is located in the Returns screen under Vendor Maintenance.
The vendor should send you an authorization number after you have sent the permission requests. Enter each authorization number into its respective return.
Print a Picking Document. (TX-4-1-4). The picking documents are used to select the books from the shelf.
Print Chargebacks (TX-4-1-6). This will print all the chargebacks that have not been printed. It will not print Chargebacks that require permission, but do not have the permission request printed. When the Chargeback is printed, the quantity on hand is deincremented. The date this happens is noted in the Inventory Adjusted field in Enter/Maintain Returns.
Go to Enter/Maintain Returns (TX-4-1-3) and go to the Credit Date field and enter the date the vendor gave a credit for the chargeback.

Vendor Setup

For the system suggested returns and for the expiring invoices to work properly, you must set up the vendor return information with the Min/Max Month for Return. The Min can be left blank but the Max must be filled in so that the system will know how many months from the date of the invoice that the invoice is good. Fill in all the information that you know including the Return Penalty, and Vendor Invoice Maximum information.

The expire date is written in when the invoice is received, if the Vendor does not have the Max date entered when the invoice is received then the Expire date will not be created.

Run various inventory reports for list of titles not used or overstocked. (TX.RP.1.29 QOH Without Adoptions,

Most of the processes are found in the Returns Menu in Text. (TX-4).

Clear Open Chargebacks (TX-4-1-25). This is a preliminary step to creating suggested returns. This will clear old data.
Create System Suggested Returns (TX-4-1-2). For more explanation refer to the next section on Create System Suggested Returns.
Create a Chargeback List.
1. Go to Chargeback List on the Returns menu (TX-4-1-26).
2. Put ‘N’ in the Chargeback Printed field.
3. Leave the rest of the fields blank.
4. Hit ‘Y’ to create List.
Print Permission Requests (TX-4-1-5). This will print permission requests for vendors that have the Permission Required flag set to ‘Y’. For each vendor this is located in the Returns screen under Vendor Maintenance.
The vendor should send you an authorization number after you have sent the permission requests. Enter each authorization number into its respective return.
Print a Picking Document. (TX-4-1-4). The picking documents are used to select the books from the shelf.
Print Chargebacks (TX-4-1-6). This will print all the chargebacks that have not been printed. It will not print Chargebacks that require permission, but do not have the permission request printed. When the Chargeback is printed, the quantity on hand is decremented. The date this happens is noted in the Inventory Adjusted field in Enter/Maintain Returns.
Go to Enter/Maintain Returns (TX-4-1-3) and go to the Credit Date field and enter the date the vendor gave a credit for the chargeback.

Create System Suggested Returns

Go to Create System Suggested Returns (TX-4-1-2).
Leave the Sales Cutoff Date field blank.
If desired, put a list of Vendors Numbers that you wish to return books to.
In the Vendor Types field put ‘W’ (for Wholesaler) or ‘P’ (for Publisher) depending on who you want to return to.
In the Expire Days put ‘30’ for invoices that will expire in 30 days (or choose a different number of days).
In the Cost or Expire field
put ‘E’.
Hit ‘Y’ to create the suggested returns.

This will systematically choose invoices that will expire within the specified number of days (in the Expire Days field) and create returns for those textbooks. It is your responsibility to add to or delete from these returns according to your needs.

Note that system suggested returns exclude any quantity to cover for all open terms from being added to a return. If you purchased 10 of a title from the vendor and have a quantity to cover of 10, the suggested return will not include that title. If you have a QTC of 8 then the suggested return will only suggest 2.

If you want to override this behavior you may do so in TX-SU-2-5 (Return Parameters). If you place a Y in the “Suggest Returns Ignore QTC” field then the system will ignore any current/future need for a title and suggest a quantity up to the total amount you have purchased from that vendor.

Manual Returns

Go to Enter/Maintain Returns (TX-4-1-3).

Hit ‘.’ in the Chargeback field

Choose to Add this item
Enter the vendor number in the Vendor # field
If you have an authorization number from the vendor, enter it in the Return Authorization # field
To add one or more items to the return, refer to the section Add Textbooks to Returns.

Add Textbooks to Returns

Whether this is a new Return, or an existing return you should be in Enter/Maintain Returns, (TX-4-1-3). You must be at this point in the screen

If you are at the bottom of the screen, choose ‘L’ for Line Items.
If you are in a field above hit Enter until you get to the line items.
Choose ‘Add’

You will be taken to this screen.

1. Enter the ISBN.

2. Enter the quantity to return in both the Quantity New and Qty Pick New fields (or the Quantity Used and Qty Pick Used fields).

3. In the Auto/Manual field enter an ‘A’. This will automatically bring in the invoice number.

4. In the Cost/Exp Date field enter ‘C’ if you want the invoice to be select by the highest cost, or ‘E’ if you want to select the invoice that is going to expire the soonest. If you do not have more than one invoice, then it does not matter.

5. The Invoice information should come in automatically at this point. You may need to reenter the information or make modifications to it in some way. The field Our PO Line # should be in the format shown:

Store Prefix PO number Line Number

100*10010452.1

6. Make sure the RQty column adds up to the same number as the Quantity New and Quantity Used.

After you choose Save in this screen, you will be returned to the main screen. Choose Save again and you are done.

Delete Returns

Go into Enter/Maintain Returns, (TX-4-1-3).
Choose ‘D’ to delete the return
You will be asked, ‘Are you sure?’ Choose Yes

This will completely delete the return from the system.

Delete Textbooks from Returns

Go into Enter/Maintain Returns, (TX-4-1-3).
Choose ‘L’ to enter line items
Choose the line which contains the ISBN you wish to delete from the return.
You will be taken to the second screen.
Hit ‘D’ to delete this line item

Writeoff List

This will create a list of titles that have NO wholesale value. The titles on the list may still be in use, it is just a list of the titles without wholesale value.

STORE STOCK SALES

This is a general overview of the process used to sell your textbook inventory to one of the wholesalers.

Clear Suggested Shipments (TX.4.2.1.1)

To begin, you need to clear any existing suggested shipments from your system. If you are not sure what is there you can run TX.4.2.1.3 Pending Shipments List to see a list of the existing suggested shipments.

Enter your store number and then select R=Run Procedure to clear existing list.

Create Suggested Shipments (TX.4.2.1.2)

Run this program once you are ready to create your list. The list will be created using the default wholesale vendor setup for your store in the General Parameters UU.22 in the Wholesale Buying Guide field. If you would like to change the wholesaler that the list will reference prices from then you need to change the wholesaler listed here.

Enter your store number and then select R=Run Procedure to create the list.

Pending Shipment List (TX.4.2.1.3)

Enter your store number and then select R=Run Procedure to print the list. This will print a list of all titles, if you did not clear the list since the last time you ran the create process then those previous titles will be listed also.

Pending Shipments Maintenance (TX.4.2.1.4)

Here you can edit the pending information for a title.

Enter in the store #, and select the ISBN by typing it in or selecting the ??, and enter in the Seq #. The Seq: is the sequence for this ISBN, and ISBN can be on a list more than once and this indicates if this is the 1^st, 2^nd, 3erd etc.

When you created the pending shipment list, all titles added to the list have the status of ‘W’. To release a title so that it can be added to an actual wholesale shipment the status will need to be changed to ‘R’. The next process will give you an easy way to change many or ALL of the items on the list.

You can add or change the quantity and also add a ‘Reason Code’ to this title, and modify the price for the title.

Pending Shipments Release (TX.4.2.1.5)

)This process will allow you to release all or part of a pending shipment.

Enter in the Store number and then enter in or select the wholesaler from the ??. Here you can select

‘R=Release All’ to change the status for all titles to ‘R’.
‘M=Modify’ will allow you to go down the list of titles changing the status from ‘W’ to ‘R’.
‘S#=Select ##’ allows you to select a line item so that you can modify the title’s status, quantity, price information.

Create Store Stock Shipment Numbers (TX.4.2.1.6)

This process will create the store stock shipment for all titles that have had the status changed to ‘R’.

Enter your store number and then select R=Run Procedure to create the shipment.

Open Store Stock Shipment List (TX.4.2.1.7)

This will give a list of titles, sorted by ISBN, that are on Store Stock Shipments.

Open Store Stock Shipment Maintenance (TX.4.2.1.8)

You can edit an existing shipment or you can manually create a shipment. To edit an existing shipment, enter in the store # and enter in the shipping # or select the ?? to see a list of the existing shipments. To create a new shipment enter in a ‘.’ And then select the vendor that you are selling the books to and if you are referencing a wholesale buying guide then enter in the guide code in the WBG Code field.

The Inventory Adjusted and the Ship List Printed fields will display the dates that those 2 items happened.

In the line number prompt enter ‘A’ to add a new item. Enter in the ISBN or look up the item by any of the standard lookups. Change the status to ‘R’ to release the quantities, any other status will prevent the inventory from reducing. Enter in the New and Used quantities and a Reason code if desired. If you referenced a WBG Code then the prices from that guide will be displayed, otherwise you will have to enter in the price that you are getting paid (this may be the case if you are working with an independent).

Finalize and Print Store Stock Shipments (TX.4.2.1.9)

Enter your store number and then select R=Run Procedure to finalize and print the shipment.

Reprint Store Stock Shipments (TX.4.2.1.10)

If you need to reprint your shipment enter in the store number and the beginning and ending range for the store stock shipment numbers to reprint.

Synonyms

This will link two ISBNs in the Masterfile together. Anywhere you type in the synonym, it will bring up the book that it is linked to, including the cash register screen. To create a synonym follow these steps:

Go to Synonym Maintenance (TX-SU-1-4).
Type in the synonym ID.
Type in the ISBN that you want the synonym to link to.
Hit Enter to save. If the synonym ID is already in the Masterfile, it will ask if you still want to create the link.

Change ISBN

Sometimes, because of a publisher, or for other reasons, you need to change an ISBN in the masterfile. Rather than just copy the information over in the masterfile, it is recommended that you use the Change ISBN function because it will copy the sales, course, returns and receiving information over to the new ISBN.

Simply go to the Change ISBN screen (TX-SU-1-5), enter the old ISBN, the new ISBN and run the process.

If you want to ‘undo’ a change of ISBN, you need to follow the steps in the section How to Reverse Change ISBN Function.

How to Reverse the Change ISBN Function

The Change ISBN function (TX-SU-1-5) creates a synonym to the new ISBN. It also changes the ISBN in all of the adoption, purchase order, receiving and return information. If you need to change the new ISBN (ISBN #2) back to the old ISBN (#1) you must follow three steps.

Delete ISBN #1 in Synonym Maintenance (TX-SU-1-4)

Change ISBN #2 to ISBN #1 in the Change ISBN function (TX-SU-1-5)

Delete ISBN #2 IN Synonym Maintenance (TX-SU-1-4)

This will delete ISBN #2 from the system and all of the system data (adoption records, purchase orders, receiving and returns) will be changed as well.

We will show you these steps in detail. In our example we will use 0-8400-1875-4 as ISBN #1 and 0-8400-1888-6 as ISBN #2.

Delete ISBN #1 in Synonym Maintenance (TX-SU-1-4) Go into Synonym Maintenance.

Type in ISBN #1. (ISBN #2 should come up in the Link to ISBN field.)

Type in ‘D’ at the bottom and hit enter.

You will be asked, ‘Are you sure that you want to delete this record?’ Choose Yes.

Change ISBN #2 to ISBN #1 in the Change ISBN function (TX-SU-1-5)

Go into Change ISBN.

Type in ISBN #2 into the Old ISBN field.

Type in ISBN #1 into the New ISBN field.

Choose ‘R’ to Run Procedure.

If you want to keep ISBN #2 as a link to ISBN #1 you would stop here. Otherwise you would do step three.

Delete ISBN #2 IN Synonym Maintenance (TX-SU-1-4) Go into Synonym Maintenance.

Type in ISBN #2 into the Synonym ID field. (ISBN #1 should come up into the Link to ISBN field.)

Type in ‘D’ to delete. (This will remove ISBN #2 completely from the system.)

You are finished.

Printing Barcode Labels

You can print barcode labels for textbook in three places. Masterfile Maintenance, Receiving, or Tags account.

Print from Masterfile Maintenance

Pull up the record in Masterfile Maintenance (TX-MF) and choose ‘T’ for Print Tags. You can choose ‘L’ to print just the lables, ‘S’ to print Shelf Tags, or ‘B’ to print both. This will use the tag types that are specified in General Parameters (TX-SU-2-1).

Print from Receiving

When you are receiving, it will ask if you want to print labels. It works the same way as it does in Masterfile Maintenance. This also will use the tag types that are specified in General Parameters (TX-SU-2-1). You want to override the printer number, you can enter it after you enter ‘L’. For example Enter ‘LF3’ instead of just ‘L’ to send the labels to printer three.

Print from Tags

Log to the Tags account. Go into Enter and Print Tags (TAGS-1).

Enter the ISBN, title or ‘A;’ and the author.

Enter the number of tags to print in the Quantity field.

The tag type specified in the Tag Type field will be used.

Hit Enter to print the tag.

The printer that is used is specifed in the Tag Type. (TAGS-22 for Monarchs, TAGS-25 for Barcode Blaster or Blazer printers.)

Price Changes

Price changes can be permanent or temporary and are a two step process.

Enter Price Changes (TX-23-1).
Post Price Changes (TX-23-2).

The first is where you record the price changes. The second actually will make the change. You can choose the Report Menu for reports on the price changes. (TX-23-3)

Enter Price Changes

Go to Enter Price Changes (TX-23-1).
Enter ‘H’ in the Source field unless you are a satellite store location. Then enter ‘S’.
Enter a ‘.’ in the Doc. # field.
Enter the date you want the price change to begin in the Effective Date field.
Enter the date you want the price change to end in the End Date field. If you do not enter anything here, then it is considered a permanent change.
Enter the ISBN of the book in the ISBN field.
Enter the reason code in the Reason Code field. Type ‘??’ to bring up a selection of reason codes.
Enter the new price of the book in the New Price field.
Repeat for each book you wish to change, and hit enter to save the record.

Post Price Changes

The price change will not actually be made until you run this process.

Enrollment

Actual Enrollment

The Actual Enrollment menu (TX-1-2) has four options:

Create Worksheet
Print Worksheet
Edit Worksheet
Delete Worksheet

Create Worksheet (TX-1-2-1) takes all books adopted for specified term and creates a worksheet with them on with no enrollment entered. It will create the worksheet in sorted order of department then course then section. If the worksheet has already been created the system will warn and not make a new one. It will ask you to delete the old one before creating a new one.

Print Worksheet(TX-1-2-2) prints out to printer or to screen a worksheet to put in numbers. This will list all the courses adopted for the term. It will leave a space to fill in enrollment figures on the worksheet. You can have only one worksheet per term. The courses will be sorted by department then by course then by section.

07:21:13 16 Apr 1999 TCS TEST STORE

PAGE 1

ACT.ENROLL Enrollment Worksheet

TEXT

ENROLL ENROLL ENROLL ACT

.STORE ….TERM DEPT…… COURSE…. SECTION… ENROLL….

100 2000-2 COMP 101 1 _______________ 20

ENGL 101 1 _______________

ENGL 101 2 _______________

ENGL 101 3 _______________

ENGLISH 100 1 _______________

HIST 100 1 _______________

MATH 101 1 _______________

MATH 101 2 _______________

MATH 110 1 _______________

Edit worksheet (TX-1-2-3) allows you to enter actual enrollment for each course. The posted enrollment is the enrollment that already has been put into the system. When you save this record it will post the values that you have entered.

After saving the record and then coming back into the record the numbers that were entered will come up on posted. If an error has been made and need to correct the enrollment figure, all you need to do is to go back into the record and correct the figure.

Delete worksheet (TX-1-2-4) will delete the worksheet so you can recreate it and start with a fresh one for the term.

Course Cross Reference

Course Cross Reference will give you a screen, so you can browse books adopted for a given course. It will include all sections for that course.

Store: Enter store number for the store you want the cross reference for. It is automatically filled in with the default store.

Term: Enter the term for the course cross reference. The term is automatically filled in with the order term.

Dept: Enter the department you want the cross reference for. If you don’t know the department code a ‘??’ will give you a list of departments.

Course: Enter the course for cross reference here. If you don’t know the course a ‘??’ will give you a list of all courses for the department entered.

Sort by: Enter an ‘A’ for Author a ‘T’ for title or a ‘S’ for section.

To go through the list, you need to enter a ‘B’ for browse. Then you are able to go through the list and look at it.

Book Cross Reference will ask you for Store, Term and ISBN. The ISBN field is cross referenced. Enter

The ISBN (with or without dashes);
3 or more consecutive letters found in the title (e.g. HIST);
‘A;’ followed by 3 or more characters of the author’s name (e.g. A;POE);
3 or more letters of the author’s name, a slash, and 3 or more letters of the title (e.g. DIC/EXPECT).

Note that parts of the several words in the title can be used to provide a closer match (e.g. DIC/TALE TWO). If several titles match the criteria entered, the user has the ability to view all titles that match, and pick one.

Inventory

This document describes the process of checking on a store’s physical inventory, from one item to all items in the store and any storage areas. The basic idea is to count what’s physically present, compare it to what the system says you have available, report the differences, and provide a report on valuation of the counted inventory (based on either costs or retail prices).

Each master file inventory (GM, Trade, Text) stands independently; each has its own set of inventory files and reports. However the procedures are very similar; any differences will be noted in the following discussions.

Three different inventory methods of creating worksheets for the inventory are supported:

have the system create worksheets for all master file items for writing and keying in the actual counts.
create worksheets from SKUs and counts recorded into a portable terminal and uploaded to the system.
create worksheets by keying in each SKU and count from the keyboard.

A typical physical inventory process consists of three phases: preparation (initialization), counting and verifying (editing cycle), and updating the master file (posting).

Preparation includes setting up the parameters, clearing out old inventory data, and cleaning obsolete items from the master file so they won’t impact the inventory. It also includes freezing the master file values for a base against which the actual count can be compared. It can also include the preparation of blank worksheets to record the inventory counts.

Counting and verifying makes up the ‘edit cycle’. It consists of recording the counts on the worksheets, optionally recording any price discrepancies, confirming the counts, making needed corrections, and printing various reports to assist in managing the counting process. When the counts are complete a report can be printed that shows the differences between system and actual counts and the valuation of the items included in the inventory.

The final phase consists of posting the confirmed counts back to the master file as the new system values. The posting takes into account any changes in system quantities since the values were frozen at the beginning of the inventory. Any subsequent changes to these posted counts must be done through the Inventory Adjustments procedures.

The files most involved in the inventory process include the master file and the worksheet file. Appendix A shows some of the relationships between them. If a portable terminal is used to do the inventory, a common data collection file is also used to accumulate the data from the portable terminal and push it into the worksheets.

INITIALIZATION / Preparation

This phase involves everything up to making the actual physical count.

Setting up Inventory Parameters (SU-2-2)

The main inventory control parameter is the inventory method parameter to indicate how you want to load your physical counts in the worksheets. You can select method A, B, or C as explained in the Overview above. This customizes the inventory menus to match the method you’ve selected. The -A, -B, or -C in the upper right corner of the physical inventory menu screen indicates which method is currently set.

The inventory steps include interlocks to prevent you from trying to take a step out of sequence. Each menu separates the steps of each phase with a blank line. The steps of the preparation phase are executed once to set everything up. The steps of the counting and verifying phase, also called the ‘Edit Cycle’, must be initialized with one Edit/Enter/Commit Worksheets step. Thereafter any step in the phase may be done as often as needed, in any order. The updating the master file phase only contains the posting step, the final step of the inventory process, normally done once.

The only other parameter is the Inventory Cost Valuation option so you can specify whether to base the value of your inventory’s cost on the Last or Average cost of each item. Different stores have different requirements, so set the option you want in the parameter.

Initializing Inventory (TX-21-1-1)

This is the first step in the inventory menus. Each inventory has a set ID consisting of the store, inventory date, and location code you enter at initialization. If it’s a storewide inventory, leave the location code blank, otherwise set it to match the location code of the master file items you want included in the inventory. The set ID information is displayed on the other screens as you proceed through the inventory.

Initializing deletes any old worksheets for the store that are over 365 days old or any worksheets for the store that match the initialization date and location code. This automatically gets rid of old data and simplifies instances where you want to start the inventory over. By supplying the same date and location codes, any worksheets you started to set up are cleared out so you can start over.

Initializing saves a copy of the current master file QOH (quantity-on-hand) values to show system inventory at the beginning of the physical inventory process. The inventory process assumes that the counted values reflect the count at the time of initialization. In other words, any items added or removed between initialization and the actual count must be included in the count. Changes that go through the system from sales or receiving will automatically be compensated for at posting, based on the assumption that the freeze values and the count values reflect the actual difference between system and count values at the beginning of the inventory.

Creating Worksheets From MF (TX-21-1-2)

As discussed above there are three methods of creating your worksheets; named A, B, and C. The worksheets are identified by the set ID described above plus a sequential sheet number, so each sheet from each inventory is uniquely identified. At the conclusion of the inventory, the worksheets file will contain all your count data and will be used to update the master file quantities.

Method A, from Master File

This method provides you with a set of worksheets containing all the items from the master file (within the Location code limit you specified at initialization). The items will be in the sort order you selected. Current master file quantities and prices are listed and space is provided to record the physical counts, which can then be keyed into the worksheets for reports and posting back to the master file.

Method B, from Portable Terminals

With this method, you create the worksheets from physical count values keyed into a portable scanner instead of from the master file. After entering identifiers for the scanner, the user, the store, the location, and the master file, you scan in the items and key in their physical counts. Periodically you upload the contents of the scanner to the Integris data collection file, from which worksheets will be created. If necessary, these worksheets may be edited before they’re posted.

Method C, from the Keyboard

This method is the same as the worksheet updating process available in methods A and B. You create all the worksheets manually from the keyboard.

EDIT CYCLE / Counting & Verifying

The edit cycle includes all the activity between initialization and posting. Once you’re in the cycle you can choose any activity in the cycle.

Creating Worksheets From Data Collection File (method ‘B’ only)

If you’re using method B, you have to run this step to get data from the data collection file where it was loaded from the portable scanner, to the worksheets. It’s part of the edit cycle because you may be scanning in items right up to the final posting.

You have two options with this step. Do you want to have the status of the created worksheets set directly to ‘C’ommitted so you don’t have to go into each one to change the status, or do you want the status set to ‘O’pen so you can edit them first. The second option determines whether you want the data to be deleted from the data collection file as it’s loaded into the worksheets, or left there and you’ll deal with it later.

Only new inventory items for your master file will be pulled from the master file; other items will be ignored. Each item is checked against the master file to get the price and other information. If it isn’t in the master file, it’s flagged as NO-SKU-xxxx and left in the data collection file. If it loads ok, it’s flagged with the worksheet id and left or deleted, depending on which option you selected.

You can check what’s in the data collection file through the DC File Maintenance menu. Various selection criteria let you look at all or only certain types of records. You can select the Print option to get a list of the records and/or select the Delete option to clear them out of the data collection file.

For example…

if you loaded some GM inventory information from the scanner and realized there was something wrong with it and you didn’t want it loaded to a worksheet, you could:

set Delete to Y

set Module to GM

set Pending Records? to Y

set the other parameters depending what else is in the data collection file and the bad records would be deleted. You can then scan the data you want, reload it from the scanner to the data collection file, and create the worksheets from it.

Updating Worksheet Counts (TX-21-1-4)

This is the key step of the inventory, getting the correct physical counts into the worksheets so they can be posted to the master files. Unless you’re using portable scanners with method ‘B’, you’ll have to key each count value into the worksheet. You can edit a worksheet as often as you want as long as its status is ‘O’pen. When you feel it’s ready, select the Commit option to change its status to ‘C’ommitted and add its count values to the cumulative inventory count field in the master file. This cumulative count is used in posting the physical counts.

As you near the end of the inventory process, you may need to make adjustments on items previously entered into worksheets. If the sheet isn’t committed, you can just edit the value. If it’s already committed, you can add an entry on an open sheet with a compensating count, as it will be added to the final count value at posting.

Note that you can reprint any worksheet at any time. This may be useful for printing ‘Committed worksheets for an audit, for example.

Evaluating Intermediate Results

You can use the Master File Status Report (TX-21-1-6) to monitor progress of the audit from the master file end. You can run it for a range of SKUs or a range of classes, with different reports for those master file entries that are either on open worksheets or not on any worksheets at all, those that are on committed worksheets, and any that might be on posted worksheets.

Making Corrections (TX-21-1-4)

If a mistake is discovered on an open worksheet, you can just go into the edit worksheet function and change it. Otherwise, up until the final posting, a correction entry can be added to any open worksheet so it will compensate for the error. After the final posting you’ll have to use the inventory adjustments menu to apply the correction directly against the master file.

Warning: Do not make any direct adjustments against the master file during inventory. Any direct adjustments made to the master file between inventory initialization and posting will have the same effect as selling or receiving that many items.

Committing Completed Worksheets (TX-21-1-4)

When all the counts on a worksheet have been checked and confirmed and you know you aren’t going to want to add any more items to the worksheet, you should commit the worksheet so no further changes can be made.

Reporting Differences and Valuation (TX-21-1-7)

The Adjustments & Valuation Report, should be run when all the physical counts have been entered into the worksheets. Adjustments calculates the price difference between the inventory the system was reporting and what was counted. Valuation calculates the total value of the inventory; as cost or price differences or both. The cost valuation will be based on last or average costs depending on the parameter setting. Worksheets needn’t be committed for this report to run.

POSTING / Updating the Master File

The last phase only has one step, replacing the old system Quantity-on-Hand values with the correct count values, adjusted as needed for any items sold or received into the system since the inventory began.

Posting Inventory to Master File (TX-21-1-8)

This is the step that sets the new system count to the counted quantities minus the difference between the system’s freeze count and current count. Thus if the system count at the beginning of the inventory was 10, the actual count was 8, and 3 items had been sold during the inventory, the current system count would be 7 (10 – 3) before posting. Posting takes the actual count of 8 and subtracts the 3 items that were sold for a posted count of 5.

That’s why the actual count value entered on the worksheet must be the actual count at the beginning of the inventory, not the count after some items have been sold or received.

ADJUSTMENTS After Posting

Once an item’s count has been posted, any attempt to again post a count to the same item will mess up the results. The Inventory Adjustments menu (TX-21-2) selection should be used for all inventory changes between inventories. This lets you make changes item by item by adding to the quantity, deleting from the quantity, or replacing the quantity. You assign a reason code for the change and can print reports on the adjustments.

Remember, only the worksheet counts should be used for changes during the inventory and the adjustments function for changes between inventories.

Security Considerations

You can set passwords on critical menu options that you want to limit to certain personnel. For example, if you want to restrict who can print the valuation report by requiring a password….

select the System Administrator’s Process Control menu (UU-05-02) enter the process’ ID (PI-04 in this case) for the Process Name enter the password you want for Password to further restrict it to those of security level 9 or higher, enter 9 for Privilege save the process parameters.

To remove the password, select the PI-04 process and delete it (‘D’).

A similar restriction can be placed on the posting process. Use PI-05 for the process ID.

Promo Pricing

Special pricing can be applied in a 2 for 1 type of setting or a flat promo price. Each type of pricing can be applied over a range of dates or indefinitely.

Price Tables

Price tables are built in GM-SU-3-22 and are the only method for setting up 2 for 1 type discounts.

The following example will cover how to create a 2 for 1 discount that resets on the last quantity.

SU-3-22

“R” will reset the pricing to the top of the table once the bottom Qty has been reached. Since no price is set for the 3^rd Qty, the system will start over at the top of the table, charging $.59 for the 3^rd item. If a 4^th is sold it will sell for .41

Enter the price to be charged for each QTY sold at the register. Qty1 + Qty2 price should equal the special 2for1 price.

Create a new table or pull up an existing one.
Make sure the description is acceptable
Use “M” to modify
1. Qty1 is the original sale price of the item
2. Qty2 is the price to be charged for the second item. The two prices added together should equal the desired discount price. In this example .59 + .41 = $1.00
Enter an A to add or an R to reset
1. An A will continue pricing additional quantities of the item at the same price as the final Qty in the table. I.e. a 3^rd item sold will ring up for .41 since .41 was the last price entered
2. An R will reset the pricing of subsequent items to the top of the table. A 3^rd item will sell for .59 and the 4^th will sell for .41.
Save the table, remember the table’s name for setting up the MF record.

Applying the Discount

To apply the discount, bring up the item’s MF record
Tell the system which table to use in the Price Code field.
Press Enter, and put a Y in the Promo Price field
The next prompt is not used or applied if a table is being used, put whatever you’d like into the next Promo Price field.
Enter a Y to use the table entered in the Price Code field
You may enter a Start and Ending date if you want this pricing to expire. If you don’t want it to expire, just leave those fields blank by entering through them.
Save the changes made to the MF record.