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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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Check (Bank Draft) Printing |
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Customer Payment Lookup |
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Customer Visit Tracking |
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Customer Callbacks |
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Short-cut (Toolbar) Buttons |
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Bottle Labels for Reorders |
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Employee Security |
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Setting a Default Customer |
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Tips Archive Page #1 |
#16 - Check (Bank Draft) Printing
MMS has the ability to print checks or bank drafts for your customers who wish
to pay with a check may be ordering over the phone, mail order, or even on the
Internet. There is no need to have a separate program to print these checks
plus MMS stores the customer's check information along with their customer record
for easy access. The savings of having a customer pay by check rather than credit
card really adds up since the cost of one blank check is less than $0.04 (4
cents) compared with credit card transactions of $0.20 to $0.30 plus a percentage
of the total purchase. Your customers do not have to sign the check as long
as you have their authorization to "draft" their bank account for the agreed
amount. Also, you can print checks from your own personal or business accounts
for paying you own bills rather than ordering more expensive checks for use
with your accounting software by adding your own banking information under your
own customer record.
Click on the Checks tab on the Customer Administration View window and press
the Add button to add the customer's banking information. Your customer can
read you their information off of their check or fax you a blank check. If a
customer will be ordering over the phone in the future and is paying with a
check in person that day, you can record this checking information before depositing
their check so you will have it on file for those future purchases. The only
fields that sometimes confuse users are the ABA Fraction fields. These are the
very small numbers on the check usually in the upper right hand corner in the
format of XX-YYY/ZZZZ or appearing over one another. The XX-YYY is the upper
fraction and the ZZZZ is the lower fraction. MMS also has fields for optional
check writing identification such as driver's license information should you
wish to enter this information which does not print on the check.
Once the customer's banking information has been entered, you can print a check
for that account by pressing the Print a Check button. Enter the information
specific to that check as needed. If you have already printed a check to the
check page but not torn it off, be sure to change the Check Position to the
correct position on the 3 to a page check blanks (i.e. #2 if printing to the
middle of the 3 checks).
Click here to see the blank check stock we offer
for use with MMS.
#15 - Customer Payment Lookup
You may need to look up a past payment entered in the MMS system for various
reasons. One may be just to verify the payment and its information. Another
may be that you need to change or delete the payment. MMS has two easy ways
to locate a payment.
- If you know the invoice the payment was applied to, retrieve the invoice
through the Invoice Search window. Click on the Payments tab on the top of
the Invoice View window to show the payments on the invoice. Double click
on the payment you wish to view the details of and the Payment Administration
View window will be displayed and that payment will be automatically retrieved
for you.
- To lookup the payment by customer, date, payment method, or any combination
of these search fields, press the Payments button on the toolbar. Press the
Search button to open the Payment Administration Search window. Enter the
search criteria information to search for the payment and press the List button.
A list of matching payments will be displayed in the list and you can select
the one you wish to view the details of. As with all SLV windows in MMS, if
there is only one match, you will automatically be taken to the view window
for that payment.
Once you are viewing the payment details on the Payment Administration View window,
you can perform any action you need in regard to this payment from changing information
up to deleting the payment by pressing the Delete button on the toolbar and confirming
the deletion. When you delete a payment, MMS automatically removes the payment
from any invoices it was assigned to.
#14 - Customer Visit Tracking
Instead of keeping physical records documenting your visits with your clients,
MMS can track each visit for you. Each customer can have as many visit records
as you need. You can identify different visit records for each customer by the
visit date and/or the visit number fields. The fields to enter visit information
for include complaints, medications, diet suggestions, program suggestions,
and internal notes. Not only can you store this information, you can print it
out in a format that can be given to your client which will show the information
you entered. This eliminates the need to hand write the diet/program you may
be suggesting to them and gives it to them in a very professional looking format.
However, the internal notes field will not print out as they are for your information
only.
To access the customer visit window, select the Customers|Visits menu choice.
Just like other windows in MMS, the customer visit search window will be displayed.
You can search for an existing customer visit record by enter the appropriate
search criteria (visit date, visit number, follow-up date) and pressing the
List button on the toolbar. To add a new visit record, press the New button.
If you wish to delete a callback, select it and press the Delete button.
#13 - Customer Callbacks
Managing and keeping track of the customers you have to call back at future
dates can be a hassle. Through the MMS callback feature, you can add an unlimited
number of callbacks. To view and/or edit callbacks for a specific customer,
retrieve the customer in the Customer Administration window and click on the
Callback tab. The list of callbacks will be displayed with the oldest callback
that has not been completed displayed first. Press the add button to add a new
callback and then enter the date the callback is due and the reason for the
callback. Do not check the completed box or the callback notification will not
be displayed when the callback date is reached. If you wish to delete a callback,
select it and press the delete button.
Every time MMS starts, it checks for any callbacks that have a date equal to
or before your computer system date that have not yet been marked as completed.
If there are any, the Customer Callback Notification window is displayed showing
the date of the callback, the customer, the reason for the callback, and the
customer's primary phone number. If the callback is completed, you can mark
the callback as completed by placing a check in the completed column and MMS
keeps a record the callback but it will not be shown the next time the notification
window is displayed. You can also delete the selected callback from MMS completely
by pressing the delete button on the toolbar. If you double-click on any callback
record, the customer administration window is displayed for that specific customer.
You can close the notification window at any point you wish and you will be
prompted to save any changes you have made.
If you wish to display the callback window anytime while in MMS, select the
Customers|Callback Notification menu choice. If you do not want the callback
notification window to display when MMS starts, select File|Configure, click
on the Misc tab, and uncheck the Alert for Overdue Callbacks flag. The flag
is for only that machine allowing the notification window to be displayed when
MMS is started on one computer but not another when using MMS in a multi-user
environment.
#12 - Short-cut (Toolbar) Buttons
Do you wonder what all of those buttons under the main menu on MMS are for?
These buttons are on what is called a toolbar and they offer shortcuts to the
most common used menu choices. While most users use some of the buttons already,
many do not know why they are all there and what they all do. The first thing
to do if you are unfamiliar with the buttons is to turn the text on underneath
each picture on the button. This is done by selecting File|Configure, select
the Misc. tab, check the "Show Text on Toolbar Items" field, press
OK and you will see the text appear. Starting from the left on the toolbar,
the following list identifies the button, which menu choice it maps to, and
what its common function is for:
- Exit - Same as selecting File|Exit or pressing the X in the upper right
hand corner of the screen. It will exit the program.
- New, Delete, and Save - Same as selecting File|New, Delete, and Save. Used
to create a new record, delete an existing record, and save your changes on
the current window.
- Search, List, and View - Same as selecting Options|Search, List, and View.
Used to move between the search, list, and view (SLV) windows. See MMS
tip #4 for more information on SLV windows.
- Close - Same as selecting File|Close or pressing the X in the upper right
hand corner of the currently open window. It will close the currently open
window after prompting you to save outstanding changes, if any.
- Print - Same as selecting File|Print. Opens the print window to print the
current list, report, invoice, etc.
- Products - Same as selecting Products|View/Modify. Opens the product administration
SLV window.
- Customers - Same as selecting Customers|View/Modify. Opens the customer
administration SLV window.
- Payments - Same as selecting Customers|Receive Payments. Opens the payment
entry window.
- Invoicing - Same as selecting Invoices|Create. Opens the invoicing window
and prepares it for entry of a new invoice.
- Open Drawer - Same as selecting Invoices|Open Cash Drawer. Opens the optional
cash drawer accessory. Note that this button and menu choice are only available
when you have a MMS configured and a cash drawer attached to the system. See
Retail Store Accessories for more information
on the option retail accessories that can be added to your computer with MMS.
The Products, Customers, and Invoicing buttons are the ones most often overlooked
by users. Instead of two mouse clicks to select the item (e.g. first on Products
and then on the View/Modify menu choice), you can speed up the access to the
commonly used windows by just clicking on the button.
#11 - Bottle Labels for Reorders
One of the best time-savers of the MMS software is handling your reorders. A
feature of the reorder portion of the software often overlooked is the bottle
labels. What many users do is to print bottle labels when their reorder arrives.
Then, placing a label on each item provides these benefits:
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Your customers know where the product was purchased from
since your company name is on each label.
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An easy to read product code if you are not using a bar-code
scanner when invoicing
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Provides a check against what was ordered vs. what was
received. This last benefit is automatic because if you have any labels
left after unpacking your order, you know you did not received everything
you ordered due to a backorder or a mistake by the company you ordered
the products from.
To print the bottle labels, retrieve your reorder as you normally do when
you will be restocking it through the Products|Reorder menu choice. Select
the Bottle Labels tab, select your desired cost type to print, change the
label specifications if needed to adjust for your printer, and press the
print button when ready. If you wish to further control what fields are
displayed on the bottle label, this can be controlled through the "Include
on Label" criteria of the bottle label report under Products|Reports|Bottle
Labels. Don't forget to press the "Save Include Options" button after making
changes to what to include on the label.
#10 - Employee Security
MMS tracks the employee who writes invoices and enters payments. However,
MMS has employee security features that allow you to control access to different
areas of the program. To utilize these features, you have to turn on the
"Require Employee Login" feature under the configuration window on the Company
Settings tab. When you turn this on, you also have the option to turn on
the "Lock Employee Selection after Login" flag. Turning this locking feature
on locks the invoice written by and payment entered by fields so one employee
cannot impersonate another. When another employee begins using the system,
he/she will have to login after the other employee logs out so MMS knows
which employee is currently using the system.
Once you begin having your employees login, you can restrict their access
to certain areas of the program. Select the Employees|View/Modify menu choice
to open the Employee Administration window. Each employee can be given/restricted
access to: 1) Entire Employee & Configuration windows; 2) Changing product
quantity on hand, customer balance, and deletion of customers; 3) Deletion
of invoices. Place a check mark by those rights you wish the selected employee
to have. Changing these employee rights will not become effective until
the next time an employee logs in.
#9 - Setting a Default Customer
Often retail stores do not track purchases to all of their customers because
they use their computer as a cash register that tracks inventory but not
necessarily customer purchases. This may be because of time, small purchases,
or other reasons. To enter these purchases into MMS, usually a fictitious
customer is created with a code of RETAIL or CASH and those invoices are
entered and paid under this account. If the majority of your sales are to
such as fictitious account, you can set MMS to automatically select this
"default" customer making writing invoices even quicker. The only drawback
is when you need to invoice a customer other than the default customer it
will take longer to select this customer since you are automatically taken
to the Line Item tab.
To set the default customer, select File|Configure. Select the Misc tab,
enter the customer code that is to be your default customer in the Default
Customer box, and press the OK button next to the code. Then, press the
OK button to save and close the configuration window. If you ever want to
remove the default customer, return to this tab and press the None button
in the Default Customer box. After you set this default customer, the next
time you open the Invoicing window, that default customer will be selected
for you and you will be automatically placed on the Line Items tab ready
to start invoicing products. If you need to invoice a different customer,
click on the Invoice Heading tab and enter a different customer code. There
are other places where the default customer will save you steps, for example,
when the customer administration window is opened, the default customer
is automatically entered into the search code box.
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