May 2001 - DREAM User Group
Contents
1. e Microsoft Internet Information Server e Microsoft Transaction Server e Microsoft Cluster Server e Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook e DREAM and the DREAM dll THE DREAM SUMMER UNIVERSITY has become the annual event for users of the DREAM Corporate Accounting System The first Summer University was held in Nottingham in 1999 Bath University hosted the 2000 event and this year the DREAM Summer University returns to the highly acclaimed campus at the University of Nottingham Since the first DREAM Summer University the committee behind each event has worked hard to ensure that users find attendance a more worthwhile proposition than ever before Critique forms from previous conferences are thoroughly analysed and where possible the points raised are acted upon So future delegates gain a tailor made programme offering outstanding value for money with latest feature awareness training sessions best practice advice hands on labs and peer contact And the best recommendation must surely come from those already registered for this year s event o0 per cent have been before Cripps Hall a grade two listed building is one of the halls of residence used for the DREAM Summer University More sessions have been added since the initial Call for Delegates as detailed below Mark Hancock Marks and Clerk A DREAM User from conception to inception Arthur Allen Learning and Skills Council2. project account and the customer account and then allocated the selected transaction lines on the project account against the new posting line These lines then disappeared from the display of the project account as they now had a status of Paid At this stage the program integrated very closely with Crystal Reports When the allocation was performed it presented the user with a list of different report formats that might be used to send to the customer Figure 2 The user selected one of these report formats and the program then invoked the report fed parameters to it automatically such as the account number s nominal codes etc and then ran the report in preview mode on the users screen Payments Another aspect of processing which received help from the DLL was receipt of payments The structure of the DREAM database meant that the Receivables ledger was spread across a number of different Nominals Whilst this made sense in differentiating the business into a number of different streams it tended to split up the customer facing side of the information In particular it presented real problems where customers made payments for transactions that had been posted on separate Nominals This was then normal method of payment As we all know an Allocation can only be done within a Nominal Account combination Therefore SS Sas when a payment is made which covers transactions on several different Nominal
3. Mackechnie lead partner for Technology Fast 50 programme The Journal QP Moy 2001 in the north comments Deloitte amp Touche s research has shown that the key attributes of successful Fast 50 companies are their operation in lucrative niche markets their commitment to strong management teams and outstanding and credible business plans with high growth and revenue streams Team Consultants are the first Irish channel partner for DREAM Team Consultants is a newly formed software reseller and consultancy implementing financial accounting systems Its initial focus will be implementing DREAM into Key vertical market sectors including financial Services education hotel and leisure and telecommunications industries Team Consultants was formed by Paula Hogan formerly Product ECLIPSE COMPUTING HAS been signed as the first worldwide reseller partner for DREAM Eclipse is a well established international financial systems solution provider with offices world wide including London Amsterdam New feam consultants Manager with Sysco a Dublin based reseller of Systems Union s Sunsystems software The other principals on the team are also former Sysco employees Roger Lindsay and Justin Scanlan providing the company s technical expertise and Michael Hogan as an application specialist Together they have been involved with all aspects of Sun Systems over the last fifteen years w
4. SquareSum s DREAM offers the most flexible multi currency capability of any product www eclipsecomputing com The Journa EP Mey 2001 Slough based 5 Fifteen the latest reseller to be signed by SquareSum specialises in the design development and installation of systems for magazine publishers advertising subscriptions circulation and fulfilment needs The company s customer base includes BBC Publications IPC Magazines EMAP Readerlink and Reed Business Information The mainstream product is MAXIM an integrated client server system that utilises Oracle database MAXIM facilitates advert booking placing chasing and general contact logging to take place from one screen and was recently purchased by Hello Magazine Another recent MAXIM purchaser is The Builder Group the UK s leading publisher for the construction market with a portfolio of 12 complementary publications The Builder Group has now purchased DREAM to handle the bookkeeping and accounting aspects of the business 5 Fifteen and SquareSum have no signed a partnership agreement enabling the promotion of a totally integrated sales advertising and ledger system for the publishing industry 5 Fifteen was formed ina management buy out from Anite Group plc www ofifteen com Business PROCESSES ARE often remodelled at the time that a new accounting system is implemented Sometimes this is done to take advantage of new feature
5. SquareSum for further comment it may well be that facilities requested may already be in the system in the pipeline or just not possible Lunch was followed by a tour of Follifoot Hall Until recently a major part of the first floor was occupied by another company SquareSum has now extensively renovated and refitted most of the building resulting in increased User Enhancement Ballet and Veting WE ARE VERY aware that unless members attended the autumn meetings last year and had an update from Philip Taylor members have not yet officially received the results of the 2000 Enhancement Ballot What we have tried to do in the past is update members on not only the current enhancement ballot but also the status of those from previous years This task has become increasingly unwieldy with the increasing paperwork from each year and trying to match this to enhancements most of which may have long been accomplished We are working with SquareSum to tie up all these loose ends and ensure that no requests have slipped through the net In the meantime we do have a spreadsheet with the results of last year s ballot which will be emailed to any member who requests it in advance of the cumulative report The Jeune FB Mey 2001 space in Research and Development Consultancy Support and a brand new training room Users were then taken through the new features in DREAM v2 11 by SquareSum Development and the two
6. The future to post 16 education New DREAM Licence Sales WE GIVE A WARM welcome to the companies listed below who have become DREAM users since the last issue of The Journal e Singer amp Freidlander Douglas e Nisbets Bristol e Portman Building Society Bournemouth e MyNewDeal UK London e Spectrum Strategy Consultants London e Furniture 123 Leeds e Eclipse Computing London e Avenue Legal Systems Fareham e Union Cal London e Higher Education Funding Council Arts and Humanities Research Board Bristol e Corney amp Barrow London e Robinsons Country Leisure St Helens e Destination Wine Company London e Teachers Provident Society Bournemouth e The University of Hull Hull e Chartered Institute of Marketing Maidenhead The Journal QE Moy 2001 Software Solutions SQL Server Configuration and Admin Mark Paine Microsoft Subscription Service Plans Software Solutions Crystal Reports with DREAM Derek Sully Mikado Computing DREAM cheque writing add on e Kuwait Investment Agency Kuwait e Kuwait Investment Office London e Mega Bowl Loughborough e Winstanley Burgess London e Leathes Prior Norwich e Kem Edwards Sunbury on Thames DREAM VERSION 2 11 will be used as the basis for all sessions at the Summer University and is expected to be available for general release either at that time or shortly afterwards Many of the new
7. are coming on the UDI front with the ability to reorder journal rows copy and paste elements and rename elements Different due dates are possible for different rows A new prevent posting until conditions met flag has been introduced at the request of SquareSum consultants as an additional method of controlling when forms can be posted You will be able to change the selection criteria on a drill down This fullfils two enhancement requests to be able to change the SquareSum continues to strengthen its management team with the creation of a new position of Technical Director Dave Anstey takes on the role with specific responsibility for development support QA release management and technical support Prior to joining SquareSum he was Director of Product and Development Services at PanCredit Overall systems design remains with the design team which includes Philip Taylor and Ian Clegg NADINE TER MEULEN has been appointed Marketing Manager at SquareSum She was previously at Lawson where she had been for four years progressing from Marketing Executive to Marketing Program Manager The Journa QP Mey 2001 periods selected and to change the sort order on a drill down The document report can now automatically complete the dialog boxes to request a report of the latest documents of that type Security settings can be copied between groups to enable easier establishment of new users In addition a ne
8. features are as a result of user feedback through the enhancement survey process The major change is a complete rewrite of the payments allocations system to enable a more flexible working In particular part payments are handled in a more elegant manner Periods can now be defined by company SO companies with different financial periods can exist in the same database particularly useful for newly acquired subsidiaries Also expected to be on display at the Summer University are new user manuals Following input from the enhancement survey the existing all in one manual has been rewritten as three separate manuals intended for user administrator and technical support use Where topics overlap the three profiles they will be covered in the appropriate manuals to a greater or lesser degree The manuals will be distributed to all customers on CD and are also available from SquareSum as A5 bound sets for 150 for the first set and 100 per set thereafter Release notes and updated documentation for future versions of DREAM will be distributed in the same format to enable easy updating of product documentation The completed User Manual will be shown at the Summer University together it is hoped with a draft of the Administrator Manual The ability to merge nominals adds an additional feature for restructuring the chart of accounts Nominals have to be of a similar type ledger non ledger Several changes
9. for any void cheques for audit purposes If so create a further document range containing the numbers of the void cheques Manually post these documents with a single line entry to the bank nominal and a value of nil The Journal EP Mey 2001 Discounts I have payment terms set up for all my accounts but not all transactions are showing discounts or due dates on the paylist report Response The transactions were posted before the payment terms were added to the account When payment terms are added to an account they only apply to subsequent postings no retrospective adjustments are made To apply due dates and discounts to these invoices you will need to run a change document for each invoice posted prior to the terms being added This will recalculate any discounts available and add a due date based on the document transaction date Bank Statement Import Error when importing Unable to get the last sheet number for the bank Response This ts probably an import for a new bank account The first sheet on a new account must be entered manually This will then post a sheet number to the database which will be referenced when the import starts Import Documents have been imported but the year on the document date is showing as 2020 Response The date format will have been set to YY on the format file but the data file had the YYYY format To correct the date format select the Delimited button on the import dialog
10. A publication for users of SquareSum s DREAM Corporate Accounting System Issue 12 May 2001 User Group members meet at SquareSum Follifoot Hall DREAM DLL Frequently Summer te the Asked University Rescue Questions SQUARESUM S OFFICES at Follifoot Hall in Harrogate was the venue for one of the February User Group meetings About 30 attendees were expected to register however on the day well over 50 people gathered On first arrival one did a double take at what seemed to be a deserted building and car park however the entire SquareSum staff had parked out of the way at the back of the property to make room for all the guests arriving by car Delegates met Mike Starkings SquareSum s new Managing Director followed by a marketing update from Sales Director Richard Pierce Hazel Haas outlined the offerings in SquareSum s customer training programme The next session was an extremely popular topic from a meeting two years ago Building on the DREAM What would you like to see in the future Delegates split into two syndicates led by Greg Butterworth Office Holdings and Bill Dowding of SquareSum The SquareSum s Deputy Chairman Philip Taylor guides a group round Follifoot Hall session notes from these syndicates were varied and comprehensive and although points raised will not be classed as enhancements for the purposes of the annual Enhancement Ballot the notes have been passed to
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12. To correct the documents that have been posted you will either need to delete them all and re do the import or run a change document on each document When adding columns to a format file I cannot see any samples Response The data file is open while you are adding columns to the report If the file is created by the user in Excel you could save the file as a csv and as an Excel file You can then have the Excel file open while you add columns to the format file Customer has periods set up as 01 02 etc The import data file has converted these to 1 2 etc and the import fails Response If you open a csv file in Excel it will read Ol as a value and convert it to 1 This is OK as long as you don t save the file If you need to edit the csv file use a text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad If you save an Excel file as a Text tab delimited file then Excel will go through the text import wizard before opening the file You can then set the period as a text field and the leading zero will be preserved Purchase Orders When posting the order the message Unable to calculate available budget appears Response A delivery date hasn t been entered on the order This is required to work out the budget period of the order You can set an option on the order form to default the delivery date to the order date to get round this if a delivery date is not required on the order Security If you suspect that a support cal
13. anities Research Board has signed up as a new reseller 5 Fifteen has upgraded from a business partner to a full reseller specialising in the publishing industry Its first sale is to The Builder Group Team Consultants formed by staff who previously worked for a Systems Union reseller is the first Irish channel partner With a worldwide presence Eclipse Computing is well placed to sell DREAM on a global footing The University of Hull selected DREAM ahead of shortlisted products from Agresso and Systems Union and placed an order valued in the region of 250 000 with SquareSum DREAM will provide the University with a solid accounting infrastructure at the core of its business enabling the University to access highly sophisticated reliable and flexible financial accounting management reporting and business information THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL The University of Hull has more than 16 500 students and has three campuses including a new campus in Scarborough The University is widely recognised for its high quality teaching and research and is one of the most respected Universities in the UK with one of the best rates of graduate employment In order to support its objective of attaining a Top Twenty status as one of the leading higher education institutions in the UK Hull recognised that it needed to invest in the latest accounting software www hull ac uk Britannia Hotels has pla
14. ced an order with SquareSum plc for its DREAM corporate accounting software valued in the region of 50 000 DREAM will be used by the Group s 19 hotels spread throughout the UK DREAM will operate on a Microsoft Windows NT server supported by a Microsoft SQL Server relational database that will be based at Britannia s Head Office in Manchester All of the regional hotels will have local access to DREAM enabling users to interrogate the system and submit real time management information to the central system removing the need to re key data at head office Britannia Hotels is a leading player in the hotel industry with a well respected three to four star range of hotels spread throughout the UK This includes five hotels in the South of England six in the North West of England and six hotels in the Midlands www britannia hotels co uk SquareSum is one of only 12 companies in the northern region that have stayed for the third year in succession in Deloitte amp Touche s survey of the 50 fastest growing technology companies The Deloitte amp Touche Technology Fast 50 UK programme is a ranking of the fastest growing technology companies in the UK Philip Taylor comments We have ambitious plans to increase market share and establish DREAM at the very forefront of the mid range accounting software market and this award acknowledges our commitment and determination to realise this objective Fiona
15. done with standard DREAM functionality However the DREAM screens and the UDIs do enforce a certain paradigm on the treatment of accounting data By using the external DLL it was possible to create a different user interface for several key business processes This user interface was designed to match existing business processes and preserve their efficiency without compromising the corporate standards James Paxman E PBE Pu og 0 0 0 0 HEO Im ii E Wi J i 0 ar Di 160 46050 Figure 2 Report th 0 formats that might Pi i be used al mi E Sf 0 mU E a i ol E ira 0 ar E EJ E wi 0 28500 Inland Transportation beteol USD et Fae es 26600 Inlend Transportation 66650 LS Ht Foe 65 1800 Indend Transportetion birl USO tl TA 4505 ey ae e Sa inoue L097 89 Dies Currency lap 10 55 Deb Fium irp BrE Si 154 24 i42 24 482 41 90 Fig iy Fd Pig ey Ps a4 65 Sets 479 Plug Connechoni orto Bae Let a iz 3 11260 Tain Feot Aes EGHOT USD 2H oo 26789 reeet To Current Sccourt LS 4 L036 01 177000 Transfert To Curent Arcont Leite SH 750 13 The Journal Qi Moy 2001 furniture Pe co uk the smart place to shop Furniture e tailer automates with PROACTIS Furniture 123 F123 was recently chosen as the best furniture e commerce website at the 2001 Furniture Industry Awards beating established retailers like Ikea and Habitat As a new start up F123 had the advantage o
16. e Reading meeting The Jeurnal QE Moy 2001 User News business rules for Travel Claims including mileage rates and subsistence On completion of the spreadsheet an XML file is created and sent to the Intranet Server via Http Employees can view their historical Travel Expenses Claims via the Intranet Managers have additional options to approve or decline Travel Expenses Claims A list of all Travel Expenses Claims pending approval are displayed for the manager who can either approve or decline the claim On approval the Travel Expenses Claim is automatically written into the appropriate register in the DREAM financial system Stephen McMurray Financial manager of LEDU said The new on line travel claims processes has reduced the staff input time by 50 per cent resulting in a direct saving of 10k p a Travel Claims are now processed in two days less than the manual system allowing for faster settlement of accounts He added Staff making claims have their own on line accounts summary which proves for full traceability and history of claims made to date Our Auditors are happy to see a full audit trail including dates times and names of approvers What was previously a time consuming paper generating exercise has now been greatly streamlined and centralised meeting the needs of both the organisation and staff Purchase orders After successful integration of the Travel Expenses Claims system with
17. es p chek here to vere hiner ae 3D demo 1 eS r Orders coming in from customers would have to be turned into anew document and sent by staff to our different suppliers Similarly credit checks would take time and our different logistics channels would be notified that certain products would be coming their way There was a lot of manual work involved so for our re launch in September we wanted to have the entire process completely automated So F123 approached Get Real Systems a specialist in e Procurement and the inbound supply chain that has been a SquareSum partner for several years Get Real Systems implemented its PROACTIS software with the DREAM financials in a tightly integrated environment This new infrastructure was also interfaced to F123 s new web store provided by Harrogate based e Commerce company Ubik PROACTIS streamlines everything between the front end web store and the back end DREAM financial system interfacing with key suppliers using XML technology and empowering F123 staff to be more efficient by managing by exception Julian Field explains the impact of the new systems With the PROACTIS system a day and a half s worth processing has been cut down to a matter of minutes with a simple final manual check required before the order is completed Everything else is automated The system alerts the right delivery channel taking into account the different handling req
18. f building its operation from the ground up By starting with a blank sheet of paper F123 was able to streamline its business processes and maximise efficiencies by installing the most efficient systems almost from the word go Life for F123 began at the beginning of last year with a pilot store really aimed at testing the business model This was supported by mainly manual systems however F123 s new web store went live in September and already attracts around 100 000 customer visits each month through partnerships with high profile Internet partners like Yahoo Freeserve and AOL Furniture 123 s managing director Julian Field says Previously we were operating in a semi manual way ee ce coe be es oe rir F Sale Ends 30 May K y 5 co bam PETERA T AER Mi HT et Slee cel dl Ed Coe fee eh cl foo il ts a E oie ka ee kel lee l T kep a r Fk g a al Aii Pee ee H me Coe hoe ed Poe dae ee ee je Sethe the bare a i a Es mmm eae RECOMMEND Ap a atte J PE i me eed mm L tes nma lester argare unane FEDTE mji F Ll Be Faig ane jrm HEI kag al ora laamu li Lra mhiin ii dard FU i m regag mm TI Cih EN Vi i r HE imn E earl La i l lin p Sa choose a sofa tintes ip ee E Gis bh oo EH fp ak ee ee ET E Wha ie 2 lip ami oom Ti po ok E THR bag Tae man BS Php eh ENHL irp ee ee A
19. ger may be pointing to the wrong server To change this go into the DREAM login dialog select Configure and on the database tab change the server name Audit Audit cannot begin because there are other users accessing the system Response It may be that there are other users accessing the system but it will probably just be the Database User Count in Admin Parameters that needs to be reset back to 1 If you want to check for current connections to the database look at M_DBACCESS in Query Analyser Audit cannot begin because DREAM says an audit is still in progress Response If a previous audit was terminated before completion the parameter key will still be set to Yes Go to Admin Parameters and reset the Audit in Progress key How often should I run audit Response This will vary depending on the size of the database and frequency of the transactions but as a general rule a large organisation should be scheduling rebuild indexes and audit on a weekly basis Smaller companies will be running audit once a month Note ALWAYS run the first audit without corrections If there are errors you can send the report to Support who will advise on how to deal with them Rebuild indexes CLSID Error occurs when rebuilding database indexes Response To rebuild database indexes you need to have Database Manager installed on the client Rebuild indexes cannot begin because there are other users accessing the system Response It
20. h as Crystal Reports The side effect of this was that the database contained a large number of currencies over 1500 at the last count This produced a noticeable delay in DREAM when the user first logged on to the system However this delay was rectified in DREAM v2 8 When the system was first implemented it was assumed that all costs on a project account would be zeroised and transferred to a customer account by a single transaction A UDI was constructed to retrieve the balance on the project account and this could then be posted against the customer account In practice it transpired that the business process was somewhat more complex in that the costs accumulated on the project account could be selectively invoiced against several different customers This would have meant that a user would first have to display the transactions on the account and then manually determine the amounts to be invoiced to each customer The solution to this problem was to create a new program to process these kinds of transactions The The Jounal GO Mey 2001 Figure 1 Open transaction lines user would be able to select a project account and the program would display a list of Open transaction lines See Figure 1 The user could then simply tag a number of these lines select a customer account and perform the posting The program summed up the value of the lines selected by the user posted them between the
21. l is related to security the first to do is see if the problem exists when logged in as SQSDBA If you still get the problem logged in as SQSDBA then it is unlikely to be a security problem Having established that it is a security problem it is really a case of going through the Admin menu and checking the options for the group that the problem user is in NB it is worth checking in Admin Users the user group before you start this process If the problem relates to menu security but you can t find a specific section try Dialog security Hazel Haas Support Manager SOFTWARE SOLLU TIONS r HLEN Ensuring your DREAM is a Pleasant One mee Tou corcfidly h DREAM i the Helal Bored mm souiiog HALion fot pout pala The DEAS i Hoppa sk m Par hi ol tires scarcer lor LI Ail appe Seer iraro Sabiiens cin offer ike sane bevel of oe METH ini iipp er wort lerm 4hether 1 be Winds a of A Sere go CHL Thes can tele Pira fe imig T emie aal DREAM nn ancdhly iogar Software Pohio ore a Sake Pak of Hands for your IT evvircrre Che information heki by DREAM is of Vitel Importance to vour Organisation Se Waite Su elise in Provide sgol eyes Fee lhe choy pagaire by DREAM Wirowa WT MS SGL Seret ORACLE RDBMS Exchange Server he technology YOL rely upon Saame Soleo fall pH appa Sar hed o the cds af Vier ori Ged ell Mince Dirili an Sake Tit a Comin a aaa for a FREE Se Cbhealion dicen ena Vener ELTE wl Pep m e A Call Siar Pomer
22. may be that there are other users accessing the system but it will probably just be the Database User Count in Admin Parameters that needs to be reset back to 1 Document Input In the document input dialog a user cannot see a document type Response 1 The user doesn t have access to the doc type Login as an SQSDBA user and check Admin Document Type Access Security Response 2 There are no forms attached to the document You would need to tick the journal format box to view any doc types with no forms attached Response 3 There are forms attached to the document but the user doesn t have access to the forms Check Admin UDI Form Access Security Payments Void Cheques when printing out the cheques there is a printer jam Some of the cheques have been destroyed and the document numbers are out of sequence The paylist is at the media stage Response Before assigning document numbers create separate document ranges The current range should end at the document number before the void cheque The new range should start with the document number after the void cheque Assigning Document Numbers Assign the first controlled range This will autofill until the end of the range Move the cursor to the account where the second document range should start Assign the second document range This will autofill until the end of the paylist Confirm the document numbers and complete the paylist Optional steps You may want account
23. of other companies The accounting solution adopted called for the creation of project accounts Costs would be accumulated against the project account and then later transferred for billing to a customer account As this was an international scenario costs and billing could be done in several different currencies and it was often necessary to carry out a project using a predetermined rate of exchange usually against the US Dollar The standard functionality of DREAM does not actually provide a way that an exchange rate fora currency can be fixed against an account so it was necessary to bend the rules a little Each project account was therefore set up against a separate dummy currency code and the predetermined exchange rate was set against each dummy currency As DREAM provides up to 12 characters to identify a currency code it was About the Author James Paxman is an independent systems consultant specialising in the usage of the DREAM external DLL to leverage the investment in DREAM and to exploit close integration with other products in the Microsoft environment He can be contacted at james paxman dial pipex com 14 Heregia amp Mapme nis Fie Ed Yen bh m 0 a 4 BE moa 500 vend IME Prisni Trenepertetion aia Let ae iL m e IDC 0O UP ss ea rae D IAD Stevedoring Loris hi LED JE 420 14 ease EDH oO UPd Se EHE o G0 Stevedonng BALSTI LED saa rp Peas Bit ae a DEPT O Prusa S 0 W
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25. s the payment has to be split up and posted separately on each Nominal so that the subsequent Allocations can be performed This would have added a significant manual overhead to existing processes and would not have been acceptable A similar approach was adopted to this problem In fact much of the same VB code was used The user was able to select a customer account and the program would display a list of transactions for payment This list would include transactions across all nominals The user could then select individual items to be paid and the program would make the appropriate postings on each Nominal Account combination and then carry out an automatic allocation of each one Another dimension was then added to this by including the facility for the user to specify the currency in which the payment was being made This could be the currency of the Nominal or the Account or Home Currency or Alternate Home currency Euro or Second Account Currency or finally the currency of the original document This site presented a number of challenges The users had great confidence in their existing system but were obliged to change to fall in line with corporate policy Their existing procedures were efficient and they were concerned that the introduction of the new system would jeopardise their control of data and their efficiency of operation The programs that were written did not really do anything that could not be
26. s offered by the new software At other times it is done because the new software can be used to greater effect if the business procedures and processes are changed as well However there are occasions when existing business processes must be implemented with the new system This article describes a site where the implementation of DREAM was required to fit closely to existing procedures The site in question had been using character based software for a number of years running ona UNIX server Over a long period of time the systems had been modified in house to fit very specific business processes efficiently This site was a subsidiary company that was required to adopt DREAM as part of a corporate standard and in doing so it also had to adopt a number of corporate accounting standards The challenge in the implementation was to provide a system that was considered to be as good as the existing system whilst at the same time adopting corporate standards In producing the solution the external DLL of DREAM proved to be an invaluable tool Interface One of the Key aspects of the old system was the interface that obtained data from the operational system and processed it into the accounting system This data included customer supplier and project accounts exchange rates and transactions Although DREAM s Import functions could have been used to get this data into the database there were a couple of drawbacks The ver
27. sion of DREAM that was being used 2 6 8 did not support the import of indexes although this option was later added in DREAM 2 7 A further problem was that when credit notes were issued from the operational system the only information that was available to the interface was the original document number and a cancellation indication It was apparent therefore that if only the standard Import functions were to be used there would have to be a considerable amount of manual processing to set up exchange rates maintain account index values and to deal with the problem of cancellation documents To address these problems it was decided to write a special program to process the interface files This program was written in Visual Basic and used the external DLL to perform transaction postings and account maintenance For account maintenance the program was able to generate all the required index values automatically For cancellation documents the program was able to search the DREAM database and retrieve the original document The program then automatically generated a new document to reverse each of the transaction lines of the original and then performed a series of allocations against each Nominal Account The Journal QE Moy 2001 combination on the original document and the cancellation document Project Accounts The main business of the company was to carry out a large number of service appointments on behalf
28. syndicate leaders expanded on points raised in their group to the whole assembly Tim Cullis gave a taster of the DREAM Summer University Finally in his now customary presentation at User Group meetings Philip Taylor awarded bottles of Champagne to the most diligent users for reporting bugs in the software Many thanks to SquareSum for hosting the meeting The address of the User Group is now DREAM User Group 23 Silver Strand West Silver Wharf Eastbourne East Sussex BN23 5NP Tel 01323 471700 Fax 01323 471701 email irene cullis infar co uk And a return te Micreseft Campus Reading TWO DAYS LATER the next meeting was held along similar lines at Microsoft s Campus in Reading However the afternoon tour was replaced by a joint session by User Group member Martin Graham of Local Enterprise Development Unit in Belfast with Roger Martin of Ecom Software The presentation covered the LEDU intranet DREAM solution provided by Ecom Software LEDU Travel Claims LEDU s Travel Expenses Claims application is an intranet based solution using XML and COM technologies It s aim is to provide a paperless and efficient system to submit manage and approve the 10 000 travel expenses claims made each year Employees download and complete an Excel template which contains LEDU s Philip Taylor awards a bottle of Champagne for reporting of bugs j J i E a Two of the four syndicate groups at th
29. the SquareSum DREAM d Hi financial system LEDU took the opportunity to re engineer further business processes using similar workflow The next logical business process was Purchase Orders Employees complete an Intranet form which calculates the required information for the Purchase Order and a supplier is picked from the approved suppliers list from the DREAM financial system Using the business rules provided by LEDU the purchase order is validated before being created in XML format On completion of a Purchase Order it is sent to the appropriate Delegated Authority in LEDU for approval When approving Purchase Orders a list of all pending Purchase Orders is displayed this list is created from XML The Purchase Order is displayed along with any justification information The Delegated Authority can then approve or decline the Purchase Order On approval the Purchase Order is written in the relevant document type into the DREAM financial system The Jeurnel ZB Mey 2001 Benefits Justification The major benefit is that the new Purchase Order Intranet solution is estimated to save 15 20k annually Other benefits include e cycle time reduction snail mail e quality and accuracy of information e information availability e people time e communications and e systems integration Technologies deployed e Microsoft Excel e XML and XSL e Active Server Pages e Microsoft SQL server 7 e Oracle 7 2 3
30. uirements for flat packs sofas dining room tables and so on The system enables us to keep our operational staff to a minimum while ensuring high levels of accuracy says Field He points out that staff numbers are not being reduced because of the new technology rather the system cuts out the need to recruit extra staff as sales from the site continue to boom We are a small operation and have been able to cope with larger numbers of orders by employing temporary staff Now as we grow we can see the benefits immediately because we will keep the original sales team and won t be paying for extra temps Obviously we will be able to cut down on time consuming paperwork and so can act much faster on behalf of our customers Suppliers which include Silentnight Slumberland Lloyd Loom and Jay Be have welcomed the system Those that already have EDI or Web based systems on place have been particularly impressed claims Field More information at www furniture123 co uk www getrealsystems com www ubik net The Journa QE Mey 2001 Get Real dvertisement you held the film Database Manager SQLServer DBLib 916 appears when trying to create or upgrade a database Response Not logged into database manager as sa SQLServer DBLib 5123 appears when trying to create or upgrade a database Response 1 The paths specified are incorrect Response 2 If you have verified that the paths are correct then Database Mana
31. w report is available to show the security settings on nominal accounts companies and indices There are many other enhancements and improvements in version 2 11 such as an XML contact window and the ability for budgetting by representative nominals Come along to the Summer University to find out more DREAM is one of only two products to receive BASDA s full EMU Accreditation Compared to other accounting systems DREAM cruised through the tests as quotes from Patrick O Beirne the EMU expert conducting the tests show What sticks in my mind is the ease with which DREAM stepped over the carefully laid traps I had placed BASDA accreditation gives an independent validation not merely self certification You have sailed through a process that had others scrambling overnight to fix bugs and restart the assessment on the next day DREAM is also one of only five products to comply with BASDA s Level 3 certification for full UK Domestic Input and Output VAT In addition DREAM is certified as complying with the BASDA eBIS XML standard Squaresum names additicnal Eurepean and werldwide resellers Four new additional resellers have been appointed by SquareSum some of which have already made their first sales of DREAM as detailed elsewhere in this issue Bentley Jennison a firm of chartered accountants involved in the sale to the Higher Education Funding Council now known as the Arts and Hum
32. ww teamconsultants rve boundaries The expertise of Eclipse will be particularly valuable within North America and Asia Pacific where SquareSum does not have a direct partner SquareSum deputy chairman Philip Taylor says The channel will play a major York Tokyo oT a part in the Singapore and bed company s world Sydney It expansion plans supports more l _ We already have Financial Computing Consultants than 2000 customers in over organisations in more than 70 countries and is particularly well placed to sell SquareSum s DREAM to multi national organisations that require complex multi currency and multi location installations around the world To date SquareSum has typically sold 90 per cent of licences directly The appointment of Eclipse Computing as the first global reseller of DREAM represents an extension to SquareSum s international capabilities and will allow it to significantly increase its ability to expand sales across international 30 countries adding that he is hoping to establish a good presence in the US as well as a stronger channel position in the UK Gary Waylett managing director of Eclipse which supports businesses in up to 70 countries is extremely impressed with the DREAM financial suite The suite will complement our financial product range from large scale corporate level sales to multi national organisations he said He added that
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