Overview

The "Accounts Receivable" portion of the POSey system is the control station
for keeping track of customer purchases, charges, payments, and frequency.

Open accounts are the most frequently used type of charge account in POSey.
They are the basic units of the house charge system and are very easy to
edit and track.__They are also very flexible and can be used in almost any
type of environment.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|+------------------------| Open Account Entry Program |------------------------+|
||______________________________________________________________________________||
|| Account #:__________________________Name One:________________________________||
||_____________________________________Name Two:________________________________||
|| Outstanding Balance:_________________Address:________________________________||
||_________________________________________Town:________________________________||
||________________________________________State:______Zip Code:_________________||
||________________________________________Phone: (___)____-_____________________||
||______________________________________________________________________________||
|| Last Purchase:______________Last Payment:_____________Customer Type:___[O/E] ||
||___Sale Markup:____________Perc. or Fixed:_____[P/F]__________________________||
||______________________________________________________________________________||
|| Profile:_____________________________________________________________________||
||------------------------------------------------------------------------------||
|| Credit Limit:_____________Current Charges:____________Account Status:________||
||____Available:____________Previous Balance:____________Curr Credits:__________||
||------------------------------------------------------------------------------||
|| Total Amount:____________No. of Pmts.:________________Pmt. Amount:___________||
||___Final Pmt.:_____________Pmt. Period:_____[W/B/M]_____Commencing:___________||
||_____Due Upon:___,___,___,___,__________________________Total Paid:___________||
|| Collector Cd:______# Late:_______Statement?___[Y/N]__Last Process:___________||
|| Incur a_____% or $_______late fee, whichever is less, after_____days overdue.||
|| Arrears Balance:________________________________Late Fees Applied:___________||
|+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+|
| F1ùScn Hlp__F2ùFld Hlp__F5ùIndex1__F6ùMember__F8ùAdj Prev Bal__F9ùDel__F10ùSave|
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Open Account Entry

The "OPEN ACCOUNT ENTRY & EDIT" screen is the data entry portion of the
house charge system.__The fields on this screen not only describe the
accounts, they also dictate how POSey will use and manipulate their data.
Many of these fields are used by other functions, fields, and register keys
in POSey, so correct data entry here is essential in making a working
system.

To create a new account, enter the account number.__If the number is already
in use, the existing account will be displayed.__Otherwise, continue to
enter the account name and other information.__The account number and name
must be identified in order to save the new account.__You should also
indicate the Customer Type.__All other information is optional.

In most cases, you will also want to enter a credit limit for each account
so that charges may be made from the Cash Register.__Alternatively, you may
set the "Open Account" option when programming the HOUSE CHARGE key.__This
option tells the Cash Register to disregard the credit limit.

Both open and extended payment accounts may be created, updated, or viewed
from the Cash Register screen.__Charges to an account and payment on an
account are accomplished through the Cash Register.

Account Entry Fields

Account Number

This field is for entering the number that will be used to identify the
customer in reports and will be entered when the house charge key is pressed
on the register.__Numbers, characters, or both can be entered in this field.

Outstanding Balance

This field displays the amount the customer has charged against the account.
It's calculated by the following formula;

____Oustanding Balance = Previous Balance + Current Charges - Current Credits

Name One

This field is used to enter the name (or index) that the account will be
sorted by.__The customer's company name is the usual entry for this field.
If a personal name is entered, it is best to format it last name first in
UPPER CASE letters to allow for a name query in the register.__Data must be
entered here because it is a required field for POSey.

Name Two

This field is for entering a secondary name for the account.__The company
owner's name or representative's name is the usual entry for this field.

Address

Enter the customer's address information in this field.

Phone

Enter the account's phone number in these three individual fields as "(area
code) prefix - suffix" by hitting the tab or enter key to change fields.

Last Purchase

This field is for the editing or first time entry of the customer's last
purchase date.__It is updated automatically when the account is charged
against from the register.__The format for this field is month/day/year.

Last Payment

This field is for the editing or first time entry of the customer's last
payment date.__It is updated automatically when an amount is received on
account from the register.__The format for this field is month/day/year.

Customer Type

This field specifies if the account is an 'O' (Open Account), 'E' (Extended
Account), or 'M' (Membership Account), and is used by the program to
correctly calculate and apply payments and late charges.__The middle portion
of the screen separated by an upper and lower line is for open account data
entry; the lower portion is for extended account data entry.

Sale markup

This is a future feature which has no current function.

Percentage or Fixed

This is a future feature that is related to the "Sale Markup" field and has
no current function.

Profile

This is a 20 character long data field that is displayed in the register
when the "HOUSE CHARGE KEY" is pressed.__It can be used to enter comments
about the account.

Open Account Information Fields

Credit Limit

This is a dollar amount used to compute the "Available Credit" field for an
open account.__The formula is;

____Available Credit = Credit Limit - Outstanding Balance

Current Charges

This field shows the current charges against the open account.__Current
charges are amounts that have been charged at the Cash Register during the
current period (since Process End of Period program was run last).__Current
charges could also be late fees or late charges that have been added in the
current period.

When printing open account statements, the total charges for all current
invoices are added together and compared with this "Current Charges" field.
If the amounts do not match, you will receive a warning message.

Current charges are initialized to zero when the End of Period program is
run.

This field cannot be edited.__It is maintained by the Register program and
the End-Of-Period Processing program.

Account Status

This field is for user reference and has no affect on any other fields.

Available

This field shows the amount of available credit left for the customer to
spend.__It's calculated as follows;

____Available Credit = Credit Limit - Outstanding Balance

where;

____Outstanding Balance = Previous Balance + Current Charges - Current Credits

No transaction with a total price higher then the available credit can be
charged to this account.

This field is maintained by the system, and may not be edited.

Previous Balance

This field can be edited to reflect the dollar amount of any charges on an
open account previous to the last time the "Process End of Month" routine
was performed.__It is also used to determine the amount of late fees to
charge an open account when the "O/A Late charge Process" routine from the
"Accounts Receivable" menu is run.

The editing cursor will not move into this field because the Previous
Balance is maintained by the system, and should not normally be edited.
However, if the history data for the account becomes corrupt, or is found
to be in error, you may hit the F8 function key to modify the Previous
Balance.__A warning message will be displayed describing the action that
is about to be taken.__To abort at this point, simply hit the ESCAPE key,
or leave the Previous Balance unchanged.

If you elect to change the Previous Balance, an adjustment transaction will
be added to the invoice history file to record the balance change.__This
adjustment amount will appear with the invoice number "ADJUST" if you view
the history records from the Register.

Current Credits

The amount of this field shows the amounts received toward this account in
the current period (since the End of Period program was last run).__The
field is automatically zeroed out for an open account when the "Process End
of Month" routine is performed.

Extended Payment Account Information

Total Amount

For extended payment accounts, this is the amount of the extended payment
contract.

Number of Payments

This is the total number of payments that are expected to be made on the
extended payment contract.

Payment Amount

This is the amount that is expected to be paid on an extended payment
account when a payment is due.

Final Payment

This is the amount of the last payment and can be different than the
"Payment Amount"

Payment Period

This field denotes the time period between payments.__The format is "W" for
weekly, "B" for biweekly, and "M" for monthly payments.

Commencing

This is the date the system will start the contract, after which extended
payments are due.__No late fees will be charged until after the
commencement date.

Due Upon

These five fields are the day or days of the month that a payment is due and
corresponds to the "Payment Period".__When using a "W" (weekly) account,
four days need to be entered; a "B" (biweekly) account needs two days;
and an "M" (monthly) account needs one day entered in this field.

Total Paid

This field is for entering or editing the total applied to the account
during the payment period and is automatically updated when a payment is
made in the register or the account is processed.

Collector Code

This is a three character code used to sort and generate the "E/A Collector
Report".__Because the "E/A Collector Report" is case sensitive, you may want
to make sure the collector codes are all upper or all lower case.

Number Late

This field contains the number of times that the account has been late in
their payments and a late fee was applied.

Statement?

This is a yes or no field that tells the system whether or not to print a
statement of the account.

Last Process

This is the date the "E/A Late Fee Processing" routine last processed this
account.

Incur a %, Incur a $, after ____ days overdue

This is a reference field only and has no affect on the account.__The late
fee processing setup is in the Defaults Configuration portion of the
Configuration menu.

Arrears Balance

This is the amount that the account is over-due or late in paying.

Late Fees Applied

This field is for entering or editing the total late fees applied to the
account during the payment period and is automatically updated each time the
account's late fee is processed.

Accessing Membership Information

One of the features of POSey Open Accounts is the ability to track
membership accounts.__In other words, the system will keep track of the
expiration date of member accounts.__See "Membership Management" in the
index for more information about Membership accounts.

When viewing a membership account, you may use the F6 key to see more
information about the member's status.__A box will appear on the screen
showing the membership expiration date, the member's birthday and gender,
and the last visit date.

Importing Open Account Records

It is possible to set up your initial open account records automatically by
hitting the ALT-I key.__You will be asked to enter the complete pathname of
the import data file.__The data will then be read, and a new open account
file will be built.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Any existing open account records will be deleted during the
import process.__This import routine should only be used to set up a new
open account file.

The import data must be in ascii text format, with one line per open account
record, followed by a carriage return/line feed.__The format of the lines is
as follows;

____Position__Length____Field Description

_______1________6_______Account number
_______7_______25_______Name one
______32________3_______Status
______35________2_______CR/LF

Here is an example of data that might be imported

____101000John Posey Corporation___NEW
______9901ABC Hardware Company_____ACT
_____12345Acme Computers___________OLD

After importing the new account records, you may need to step through the
records and add any additional information that is required.

Late Fees and Late Charges

The POSey A/R system can automatically calculate late fees and late charge
on open accounts and extended payment accounts.__The method used for
calculating charges is different for each type of account.__Fees charged to
open accounts are referred to as "late charges", and fees charged to
extended payment accounts are called "late fees".

Open Account Late Charge Processing

This processing program is used to calculate and apply late charges to Open
Accounts.__This process should be run only once for each period (i.e. once a
month). This process will not have any affect on Extended Payment Accounts.

Before running, make sure the setup for "Open Account Financing" is correct
in the "Defaults Configuration".__See Defaults Configuration in the index.

In order to calculate the late charge applied to each account the current
payments are subtracted from the previous balance.__If there is any
remaining previous balance due, it is multiplied by the percentage specified
in the "Defaults Configuration".__The resulting late charge is compared to
the minimum charge amount in "Defaults Configuration", and if the minimum
charge is larger, that amount is used a late charge.__The calculated late
charge is added to the current charges, and will be listed separately when
account statements are printed.

Extended Payment Account Late Fee Processing

This program is used to calculate and apply late fees to Extended Payment
accounts. It should be executed daily if Extended Payment accounts are used
in the system.__This procedure will not have any affect on the Open
Accounts.

Before running this application, be sure the date is correct.__If not,
change it by using the 'DATE' command at the DOS prompt.__Then make sure the
setup for "Extended Payment" is correct in the "Defaults Configuration".
See Defaults Configuration in the index.

The program applies a late fee to any account where the current payment is
late by the number of days specified in "Defaults Configuration".__The late
fee is calculated as a percent of the late payment amount.__If the late fee
calculated is less than the Fee Amount in "Defaults Configuration", the
minimum fee is charged.

Process End of Month

This routine finalizes the period and clears out all non-current invoice data.
It is the final step in the end-of-period account process and should be
executed after completing the Late Fee & Late Charge processing, and
printing the Account Statements.

For each account, the current charges, current credits, and previous balance
are updated to reflect the actual invoice amounts in the current and history
invoice files.__All invoices or ROA's dated before or on the Processing Cutoff
Date are written to a history file where they may be viewed, along with current
invoices, from the Cash Register screen.

All amounts received on account in the history file are then applied to the
unpaid invoices, with the oldest invoices being paid first.__The invoice
records in the history file are updated to show the amount that has been
paid on each invoice, so that an Open Account Aging Report may be generated
(see Open Account Aging Report).__All fully paid invoices over 120 days old
are deleted from the history file to prevent the file from becoming too
large.

As a final step, the End-Of-Month process recalculates new balances for each
account, based on the actual invoice and ROA amounts held in the current and
history invoice files.__This assures that the balances shown in the account
record will always match the Open Account Aging Report.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Process End of Month routine must perform file
maintenance which cannot be done while other systems on the network are
using the A/R data files.__Therefore, on a network system, the other
machines should not be running the Cash Register or doing A/R account
maintenance while Process End of Month is running.

Open Account Processing

The "Open Account Process" program allows you to make global changes to
the A/R account file.__You may specify which records are affected by
entering a start and end account number to process.__There are two
options;

Initialize Current Charges

This option sets the "Current Charges" field to '0.00'.__This might be
useful for initializing your accounts after setting up, testing or DEMOing
the system.

Specify and assign Credit Limit

This option globally sets the "Credit Limit" field to the specified amount.

The Open Account Processing program is helpful in speeding up the account
entry process when accounts start with the same balance each time period.
It can also be used to regulate house account balances.__For example, you
could use it where employee's lunches are charged to their weekly pay using
the "HOUSE CHARGE" key.__After statements are printed to send to the payroll
department, this process could be run to reset their balances.

Accounts Receivable Reports

Mailing Labels

This program lets you print mailing labels for A/R accounts, and for
purchasers of serialized inventory items.__You should use standard 13/16" by
3-1/2" one-up continuous form computer labels.__When outputting the labels
to a printer, the printer port is selected using the "Defaults
Configuration" program.__See "Defaults Configuration" in the index for more
information.

Labels may be printed with just the name and address, or you may select to
include the account number and phone number on the label.

Before label printing begins, you will be asked if you want to print a test
pattern.__The pattern may be used to align the labels properly in the
printer.

In addition to printing labels on the printer, you may also select to output
the label information to the screen or a disk file.

There are three options for this program;

Print House Account Labels

This option allows you to print labels for open accounts, extended payment
accounts, or both types.__You may specify a range of account numbers for
which to print labels.

Print Serialized Purchase Labels

If you are tracking serialized inventory, this option allows you to print
labels for persons who have purchased serialized items.__You may specify a
range of serial numbers, and labels will be printed for anyone who has
purchased a serialized item within that range.

Print Labels for Statements

This option prints account statement mailing labels for open accounts.__In
order to use this option, you must first print the statements using the
"Open Account Statements" program, and must select to create a label list.
The mailing list file (ARLABEL.LST) created by that program is used to
generate the labels.

After account statement labels are printed, you will be asked if you want to
delete the current mailing list file.__If the labels printed correctly,
answer 'Y'.__Answer 'N' if you need to print the labels again.

Open Account Statements

This program is used to print statements for open accounts.__It should be
run before the Process End of Month program.__An option is provided which
allows you to generate a list of names for mailing labels as the statements
are printed.__The layout of the statements are defined in the file
STATEMNT.FMT in the \POSEY directory.

The program will prompt you for various options, as described below.

Accounts to Print

You may select to print a single A/R account statement, or you may print
statements for all A/R accounts.__If you specify one account, you must enter
the account number of an existing A/R account.

Processing Date

You must specify a Processing Date for the statements.__Transactions dated
later than the Processing Date will not be included in the statements.__The
default processing date will be the current system date.__If you use the
current date as the Processing Date, all account activity will be shown on
the statements.

Type of Statement

Detailed Statement

A detailed statement shows each item sold on a separate line, along with a
description and the price.__The report is printed in invoice number
order, and each individual invoice is subtotaled.__An aging summary is shown
at the bottom of each account statement page.

Summary Statement

A summary statement omits the detail item lines, only printing one line per
invoice, showing the invoice number and amount.

Sub-Account Statement

If you have a House Charge Key programmed to ask for sub-account numbers
(see Register Keyboard Programming, Media Tendering Keys), you may want to
print a sub-department statement.__The report is printed in sub-account
number order, with one line per invoice.__The invoices for each sub-account
are subtotaled.

Zero Skip Option

If you select to print "All Accounts", you may choose whether to include
zero balance accounts.__A zero-balance account is defined as one that has no
outstanding balance.__The outstanding balance is calculated by adding the
current charges to the previous balance, and subtracting the current
credits.

Note that an account may have a non-zero outstanding balance even if there
is no current activity posted against the account.

Adding Accounts to the Label List

It is possible to add the names of all accounts for which statements are
generated to a mailing list file (ARLABEL.LST).__To print the labels, use
the Mailing Labels program.

Report Destination

You may select to print the statements to the printer, the screen, or to a
disk file.__If you choose the printer, they will be sent to the printer port
defined in the Default Configuration (see Configuration & Setup, Defaults
Configuration).__If you have defined a statement format file (STATEMNT.FMT)
which prints statements wider than 80 columns, you should make sure that you
have a wide carriage printer.__The standard statement format provided with
the POSey system will print on a standard 80 column printer.

If you choose to output the statements to a disk file, you will be asked to
enter the name of the disk file.__If the file already exists, you may choose
to overwrite it.__If you don't want to change the existing file, you can
hit the ESC key and choose another name.

If you select to output the statements to the screen, the program uses the
MS-DOS EDIT program to display the output.__To exit from the screen display,
hit Alt-F, and select Exit.

Printing the Statements

Once all the options have been entered, the program can begin processing the
A/R accounts.__First it collects all the invoice data and compares the
results with the account balances held in the master A/R account records.
If there is any discrepancy, a warning message will appear on the screen.
Make a note of the account number, and compare the printed statement to the
A/R record (using the A/R Account Entry/Edit program).__A discrepancy
usually means that there is a problem with the data files.

When the information has been collected and checked, the printing can begin.
You may interrupt the process at any time by hitting the ESC key.__When the
statement printing is complete, you will be returned to the POSey Main Menu.

Open Account Aging Report

This program is used to print an aging report for open accounts.__It may be
run at any time during the billing cycle.__The report shows each open account
on a separate line, along with the amounts due which are Current, and the
amounts due for 0 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90, and over 90 days.__The Current
amount includes all invoices and ROA's in the current invoice file.__The rest
of the Aging History shows invoices and unapplied ROA's in the invoice history
file.

A total due is shown for each account, and grand totals for all accounts are
printed at the end of the report.__This is a 132 column report.

NOTE: If the aging totals on this report do not match the Aging shown at the
bottom of account statements printed with the Open Account Statements program,
remember that this Aging Report always shows the up-to-date figures ... the
Open Account Statements program allows you to specify a Processing Date.__If
you are using a Processing Date other than today's date, the these two reports
will be reporting for different time periods, and may not match.

The program will prompt you for various options, as described below.

Listing Order

You may select to sort the Aging report print the accounts in order by Account
Number, or by Account Name.__The report format is exactly identical in either
case ... only the listing order is changed.

Zero Skip Option

You may also select whether to include all accounts on the Aging report, or
only those accounts which have a balance due.

Report Destination

You may select to print the Aging report to the printer, the screen, or to a
disk file.__If you choose the printer, you may select a normal or compressed
printout.__This is a 132 column report, so in order to print it on an 80 column
printer, you will need to specify the 'compressed' print mode.__The printer
control codes for compressed print may be specified in the POSEY.CFG file.__See
the Appendix to this manual for more information about POSEY.CFG options.__The
report may be printed to LPT1 or LPT2.

If you choose to output the statements to a disk file, you will be asked to
enter the name of the disk file.__If the file already exists, you may choose
to overwrite it.__If you don't want to change the existing file, you can
hit the ESC key and choose another name.

Collector Report

This report provides a list of extended payment accounts with delinquent
balances that need to be collected, by any one collector code.__The
collector code for each account is entered in the extended payment
account record.

The report will list the account name, phone number, regular payment amount,
the last date they paid their balance and the delinquent amount.