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MMS Tips & Techniques Archive
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This page is contains archived tips and techniques for the Multilevel
Management System. Click on the Current link below to see the latest tips and
techniques.
NOTE: The tips listed below are in order of most recently added.
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Tip Number
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Tip/Technique Covered |
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Return to the current MMS tips page. |
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Display MMS tips #9 to #16. |
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Setting Customer Purchase Dates |
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Reordering Items on Special |
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Deposit Slip Creation |
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Automatic Cost Type Selection |
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Working with MMS Search-List-View Windows |
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Exporting Customers & Mass Mailings |
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Looking up Past Purchases Quickly |
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Creating Custom Mailing Lists |
#8 - Setting Customer Purchase Dates
Many users of MMS like to keep their data up to date including customer last
purchase dates. This is done automatically when an invoice is written in MMS.
However, if your customer orders directly from NSP or other vendor, MMS does
not know to update their last purchase date. You can update this date without
having to retrieve each customer and enter his or her last purchase date. This
is usually done at the end of the month after you receive purchasing information
from the vendors.
Open the Customer Miscellaneous Functions window by selecting the Customers|Misc.
Functions menu choice. On the Purchase Dates tab, select the vendor and
enter the purchase date you wish to set for the selected customers. You
can select the customer you wish to update by locating them in the list
and clicking on them. Press the update button and their purchase date is
updated. You can enter their code in the search box to jump to them in the
list automatically. If you wish to update more than one customer at a time,
use the Ctrl and Shift keys to select more than one customer in the list.
When you have your group of customers highlighted, press the update button.
#7 - Reordering Items on Special
Nature's Sunshine Products (NSP) offers specials from time to time. These
specials are often of the buy four, get one free type, or something similar.
You can handle these specials when doing reorders so that the reorder is
correct when transferred to the NSP website or faxed in. This works for
non-NSP companies as well when they offer their own specials as MMS has
the flexibility to handle all different combinations of quantity and price
specials.
To enter a special item on the reorder, make sure the product is on the
reorder. If it was added to the reorder automatically because MMS has determined
the product needed to be ordered, it will already be there. If not, just
press the Add Item button and manually add the item to the reorder you are
creating. Once it is on the reorder, change the Special # of the item from
its original product number. In the Spec. Qty field, enter the quantity
of the special you are ordering. In other words, if you are ordering two
of a buy four, get one free, enter two into this column. In the True Qty
field, enter the actual number of items you will be receiving when the reorder
is received. If you are ordering two of the buy four, get one free example,
the True Qty would be ten. When you receive the items, the quantity on hand
will be incremented by this true quantity. Next, enter the cost of one of
the specials in the Cost column. You will need to calculate this cost (i.e.
four times cost of one item) or have the vendor (NSP) give you the cost.
Similarly, enter the volume of one of the specials in the Volume column.
The extended cost and volume is calculated as the Spec. Qty times these
costs. That is all you need to do to have your reorder accurately reflect
the specials and their cost as well as correctly update the quantity on
hand when you receive the reorder.
#6 - Deposit Slip Creation
MMS can automatically prepare a deposit slip for you when you are ready
to deposit the payments your company has received. This process is very
simple. Every time you receive and enter a payment into MMS, that payment
is marked as not deposited. When you are ready to make a deposit, all you
need to do is open the deposit slip report under the Customer|Reports|Deposit
Slip/Report menu choice. This report will show all items that have not yet
been marked as deposited. Using this feature of MMS eliminates the need
to transcribe every check onto your deposit slip and provides a quick glance
as to the amount of money you have waiting to be deposited.
First thing you will need to do is set your bank account number that will
appear at the top of the deposit slip. This is done under the configuration
window opened through the File|Configuration menu choice. On the Company
Settings tab, enter your Banking Name (the name used on your account) and
your Bank Acct. #. Both of these items will print at the top of the deposit
slip.
If you've never been to the deposit slip report screen before, all payments
you have entered into the system will be there and you will need to mark
these as deposited. This should be done at the same time you are making
an actual deposit so you start with no outstanding deposits in the system
and nothing needing to be deposited. All items will automatically be selected
when the report opens and all you need to do is press the Set Selected Payments
as Deposited button. The system will set all items as deposited.
From this point forward, as you enter payments into the system, they will
be added to the deposit slip report. When you are ready to make a deposit,
open the deposit slip report. If you are only depositing a certain type
of payment(s), you can unselect all of the other types by clicking on the
payment Payment Types you wish to not include. If a customer asked you to
hold a check or you have some other reason why you do not want to deposit
one or more particular items, you can individually select those items in
the payment list. Only those items highlighted will appear on the deposit
slip. When you have your deposit ready, press the Print/Preview Deposit
Slip button, enter the date of the deposit, and print the deposit slip.
Then, press the Set Selected Payments as Deposited button and those selected
items will be marked as deposited and removed from the deposit slip report.
If you have an item you would like to add to the deposit slip that will
NOT be entered into MMS as a payment (i.e. your NSP bonus check), enter
the information in the Non-Saved Item area and press the Add Non-Saved Item
button and it will be placed into the deposit slip. Once you close this
window, this non-saved item will be forgotten.
#5 - Automatic Cost Type Selection
MMS has a powerful feature that automatically selects the correct price
type when adding a product to an invoice for a specific customer and vendor.
This feature is called the Automatic Cost Type Formula (ACTF) and eliminates
the need to have to remember the product pricing at time of invoicing when
you sell products at different cost types. However, you must "train" MMS
so it knows how to price correctly in order to take advantage of this. Whenever
MMS determines that the cost type for the product is different than the
currently selected cost type on the invoice window, you will be notified
and asked to confirm the cost type change. You may turn off this notification
through the Configuration window/Invoice Defaults Tab/Prompt on Auto-Cost
Type Change field once you are familiar with the ACTF and your customers
are setup correctly.
Every time you add a product to an invoice, MMS follows this ACTF to determine
the cost type that the product should be sold at on this invoice. Using
the steps below, you can learn how MMS works with the ACTF and you can then
set it up to meet your business needs:
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Customer is checked to see if he/she has been assigned
to the vendor of the product. This assignment is done on the customer
administration window vendor/label information tab. If the customer is
assigned to the vendor, it checks the value of the Vendor Cost Type field
for that assignment. If the value is anything EXCEPT "Vendor Default",
the product will be invoiced at that cost type.
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Customer is checked to see if he/she has been assigned
a Cost Type in the main heading area of the customer administration window
other than Vendor Default. If so, the product will be invoiced at that
cost type.
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For those customers assigned to the vendor with a Cost
Type of Vendor Default, the vendor record is checked to determine the
cost type by comparing the customer's distributor type with the distributor/cost
type combinations assigned on the vendor administration window. If a match
is found, that cost type will be used.
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If no match is found because no distributor/cost type
has been added to that vendor for that customer's distributor type OR
the customer has not been assigned to the vendor, the Default Price Type
of the vendor record is used.
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If the Default Price Type of the vendor record is set
to None, the item will be invoiced at the currently selected Product Cost
Type on the Process Items tab of the Invoice Creation window.
The key to using the ACTF is to setup the vendor correctly and, for almost
all of your customers, use the Vendor Default settings for their Cost Types
both at the customer and customer/vendor fields. The reason for this is
that if you later decide to change the vendor cost type for a certain distributor
type, you only have to change it at the Vendor's Dist/Cost Types assignment.
If you set every distributor of that type to a specific cost type, you would
have to go to each customer and manually change him or her. An example of
when you would not want to set a customer to vendor default would be when
selling to family members at cost. Changing their Cost Type to cost would
give them this pricing while selling to all of your regular customer at
distributor cost or whatever other cost type you choose and set on the vendor
record.
#4 - Working with MMS Search-List-View
Windows
Did you know that when you are viewing a customer record you could search
for another customer without closing the Customer Administration window?
The same is true for the vendor, product, reorder, and invoice windows.
I learned that some customers will close the window and then reopen it to
view a different record. The Search-List-View (SLV) windows that are used
on all of the common windows of the Multilevel Management System (MMS) are
SLV windows and have many easy to use features to save you time and avoid
extra steps such as this.
SLV windows have a search window, a list window, and a view window all
in one master administration window. Generally, the window opens onto the
search window. This window is where you enter the information in the search
fields that you wish to search on. The more fields you enter information
in, the less records that will match your search. For example, if you are
searching for all customers in "Arizona", you may have 100 there. However,
if you also enter a city of "Phoenix", your search then may only locate
60 records. But, if you enter a city of "P", your search may find more because
you are including all cities in Arizona that start with "P" (Phoenix, Prescott,
Pinetop, etc.). You can enter just the first few characters of most search
fields if they are not a number or a date field and the search will locate
all records starting with those characters for that field. After you have
entered your search criteria, you can press the Enter key on your keyboard
or press the List button on the toolbar to execute your search.
When you execute your search, MMS locates your matching records. If there
are no matches, you are given a message and left on the search window. If
there is one and only one match, you are taken directly to the view window.
If there is more than one match, the list window is displayed. From the
list window, you can do a few different things:
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Narrow your search even more by pressing the search button
and changing/adding to your search criteria.
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Double click on the record you would like to see the details
of (view).
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Highlight the record you would like to see the details
of (view) and press the View button on the toolbar.
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Press the New button on the toolbar to create a new record
if the record you are looking for is not in your data.
Once on the view window, you can manipulate the record and its details
on the view window. Additionally, you can
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You can delete the record (if applicable) by pressing
the Delete button on the toolbar.
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Add a new record by pressing the New button on the toolbar.
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You can save any changes by pressing the Save button on
the toolbar or you can let the computer ask you if you want to save changes
when you leave the view window.
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You can view a different record by pressing the Search
button on the toolbar and change your search criteria (my point at the
start of this tip). There is no reason for you to close the window and
reopen it. You will end up at the same place with less mouse clicks.
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If your search result had multiple records that you wanted
to view the details of, press the List button from the view window and
your previous search list will be displayed and you can select a different
record to view.
Another small tip is when you are on the customer view, payment entry,
or invoice view window and you open any of these windows, the customer you
are viewing/invoicing is automatically retrieved for you on the window you
just opened. So, if you just get done adding a new customer and need to
create an invoice for him/her, just press the Invoicing button on the toolbar,
answer yes to save changes if prompted, and the Invoice view window will
open with that customer already selected saving you the step of having to
reenter the customer code again if you had first closed the customer window
and then opened the invoicing window.
#3 - Exporting Customers & Mass Mailings
On a previous tip, you learned how to create custom mailing lists. What
if you want to do more with a mailing list than just print labels? For example,
you may want to produce a letter that contains the customer's name and address
on it or print names and addresses directly onto the envelopes rather than
actually using labels. With Microsoft Word and MMS, you can create a specialized
Word document and have it merged with your exported MMS data. While the
many features available within Word are out of the scope of what can be
discussed here, this will give you a good starting point. The Word help
file/manual should be used should you have any questions or are looking
for information on how to perform more advanced merge features as Sunshine
Support Services cannot provide Word technical support. The information
provided here was taken from Microsoft Word Version 2000, other version
may have different options. To start your export and mailings, follow these
steps:
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Within MMS, select the Customers|Reports|Labels.
- Enter your label report criteria to retrieve the exact set of customers
that you which to export and press the List button when ready.
- Your labels matching your criteria will appear on the screen ready for printing.
Press the Print button and, when the "Print Options" window is displayed,
press the Export... button. This will display the Report Export Type Selection
window and select any format you would like the data saved as. For a merge
with Word, select "Excel 5 (*.XLS)". Press the OK button and enter
the location and file name you wish to use for saving the data. The data can
be saved to any folder and file name you wish.
- Start Microsoft Word with a new document.
- Select Tools|Mail Merge...
- Press the Create button, select the type of document you wish to create
(i.e. Form Letters), and select Active Window.
- Press the Get Data button, select Open Data Source, change the "Files
of Type" on the bottom to MS Excel Worksheets, locate your file and press
the OK button. Press OK when asked for the Named or cell range to select the
Entire Spreadsheet.
- Create your merge document and add the merge fields as needed by pressing
the Insert Merge Field button. Consult the Word help file if you need help
doing this.
- When your document is complete, you can merge it to a new document or directly
to the printer. A future enhancement to MMS will include the customers' email
addresses in the resulting Excel file allowing you to even merge to your email
software.
- You can create a separate merge for addressing envelopes, cards, etc.
Beyond the above use of the exported data in a merge with a Word document,
you can export data to other formats for any use you need. And, the export function
works from almost all reports, not only the label report.
#2 - Looking up Past Purchases Quickly
Whenever a customer asks you about a product they purchased in the past but
cannot remember the name of the product, there is an easy way to get a summary
of that customers purchases without having to retrieve each invoice individually.
All you need to do is run the Invoice Summary Report under the Customers|Reports
menu choice. Check the box before the "Specific Customer" field, enter
the customer code, and press the OK button to locate the correct customer. Then,
change the Invoice Date range to include the dates the invoice would have been
written in or simply uncheck the "Invoice Date" field to find invoices
of all dates. Press the View button on the toolbar to create the report and
you will have a summary of all invoices meeting your report criteria including
the products on those invoices.
#1 - Creating Custom Mailing Lists
Many times you will want to create a mailing list of specific people and
generate labels for them. Some examples of this may be a group of people
who get your newsletter or a list of people who have requested to have any
specials you are offering for the month. MMS can easily manage this list
for you. Simply create a new "fictitious" vendor (i.e. Newsletter)
under the Products|Vendor menu choice. Do not check the Multilevel Vendor
field otherwise you'll have to enter a sponsor as you assign customers to
this vendor. For each customer you wish to add to the list, retrieve the
customer under the customer administration window, select the Vendor/Label
Info tab, press the Add button to add a new vendor for the customer, and
select the vendor and complete any other fields necessary. Don't forget
to check the "Include in Labels" field so they are included when
you produce your labels.
When you need your labels, simply select the fictitious vendor and create
labels like you would normally via the Customers|Reports|Labels menu choice.
You can use many of the other optional report criteria available on the
label report as well including the products purchased within a specified
time frame criteria for a targeted mailing.
You can create as many fictitious vendors as you need to manage an unlimited
number of different mailing lists using the above technique.
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