Newsletter Dec 2011
Contents
1. The combination of the economic squeeze and the trend for people to use the internet more and more for shopping and locating suppliers means that we all need to look at selling or advertising ourselves online Our new Support website is a first step towards linking ABC Accounts to an ecommerce website Feedback and suggestions from you are always welcome and many of these ideas find their way into the next update of the software An example is that the Bank Statement report now shows opening and closing balances and has a Running Balance column Several bookkeepers convinced us this will make their lives easier If you have Auto Update turned ON ABC will update itself automatically provided you have paid for After Sales support We reprinted the ABC User Manual in December 2011 to incorporate new features of ABC6 3 You can purchase a copy for a few pounds on our website or on eBay December 2011 Small Business Accounts User Manual Updated User Manual Getting the best from your ABC software e offer a range of After Sales support options that meet varying needs and levels of expertise ABC Serial Number ou are a hobbyist with lots of spare time or an experienced computer user bookkeeper the free User 54321 Forum and the free email support may be all you need If you are a busy company wanting unlimite telephone support and guidance and immediate replies to emails we charge about 10 per mon2. This feature which apparently is greatly envied by SAGE users who have to exit from the accounts and load a different program in order to do this useful sort of thing has now The layout of the printing can easily be customised to suit your This function should work with any dot matrix laser or inkjet printer You need to specify the type of printer dot matrix or laser inkjet Type of printer This function will print only the plain text and is intended for printing onto Available printers Canon MP560 series Printer HP 2605 colour laser Fax HP Color LaserJet 2600n WCOMMAWWECp Laser or InkJet Number of Copies 2 corel been enhanced so that the same printer selection screen will appear This lets you print the label or whatever onto any printer dot matrix inkjet or laser You can have several printers connected to your computer and use one just for printing labels This is what we do in the ABC office a Opening Balance History C Envelope Statement Ef Letter f 2 Address Label m Email isactions Print eu ees lt m Customers x Page 7 Recent enhancements and bug fixes We update ABC at least every couple of weeks and the website has lists of all the significant improvements and bug fixes over the years We really do try to fix any reported problems and have the updated software on our website within a day or so To fill the blank space at the end pm a o
3. cebook Twitter LinkedIn Amazon and eBay as these seem to be the important places to be seen You should do the same If you need help we can assist Think of it as another form of advertising but cheaper than most Some investment of time is required Incidentally on Facebook and Twitter look for ABCsoftware all one word that s us 5 Linked fi VAT Code changes There are some subtle changes to the VAT Code selection drop down menu All the words on the menu can now be altered by you and there is a new column at the right hand edge labelled Hint Pause your mouse over this column and a tooltip should appear to give you some information about that VAT code eg Zero rate applies to books advertising leaflets and You can edit these hints to your own words Utilities gt Rarely Used gt VAT Faster editing ABC programs have always required you to select EDIT before you can start editing anything on screen This has been to prevent you accidentally changing things without meaning to particularly for new users However most Windows programs do not force you to do this so in ABC we are now giving you the option to turn Off this requirement Utilities gt Edit Parameters gt User Input If you untick the box to require the Edit button to be pressed before you can change anything then ABC will allow you to simply start typing changes on the screen as you wish But you still ha
4. d or download on our website Main Menu quirk Very occasionally the big round button top left of the screen seems to stop working If this happens you can press ALT M to fix it we are looking into it Don t double click the button because that is Windows standard way to close a program Network version If your business has grown you might find it useful to allow more than one computer to use ABC at the same time Just upgrade to the Network version of ABC it is easy and simple Using ABC5 Our software does last a long time ABC5 was released in 1998 and although it was replaced by ABC6 in 2005 some people are still using the old DOS ABC5 As long as you keep paying for Support we will still support you but you should consider Page 2 changing to ABC6 which is much more reliable versatile and modern Do remember that the old ABC5 will only work on old computers not on Windows7 New support website Over the past few months Chris has had to learn a new programming language PHP he thinks it s a vile language in order to work on ecommerce websites ie dynamic websites Our ABC Support website was really just an excuse to practice using PHP to get ABC accounts to interact with the website When you start up ABC version 6 350 and higher it will check with the ABC support website and then display a note bottom left of your screen This will show you the date your Month May 2011 fe Su
5. f this newsletter here are a few items from those lists in recent months e New option on Sales Invoices allows you to choose whether or not to print the Heading analysis codes on the invoice e Pay Money in Purchase Ledger sometime the money line was not visible Fixed e Double click CashBook on main menu used to select CashBook Income which caught out a few people who were not paying attention Now you need to specifically select Income or Payments e Month End changed so that at the Year End it directs you to use the Year End function instead which will also complete the Month End Unpaid Bill entry did not allow Credit Notes that were VAT Only Now it does though we think very few people will actually need it CashBook Income report sorted order can now be changed A new option in the Sales and Purchase Ledgers allows you to Hide all customers or suppliers marked for Delete They can be revealed again if you need to reprint an old report See the Options tab The Spreadsheet has gained a function to get the VAT rate from a VAT code Sending VAT Return online worked correctly but the screen said This was a test That message was wrong and has now been removed CashBook Income did not allow VAT Code 4 zero rate European Sales Now fixed Payroll did not allow holidays to be given in fractions of a day Now you can give someone 0 3 days holiday if you wish The Account Fix utility has become e
6. int an invoice or a copy invoice as in the picture below you ll see the extra option TxtPrint on the toolbar Just to the right of the button is a small down arrow Click this and you can select a template or layout that specifies what the printed output looks like These files are easily customised to fit the text onto your pre printed forms Load them into a text editor like Notepad file extentions are a6i for invoices and a6s for statements You can have Notepad and ABC Print open on screen at the same time which makes it quite easy to adjust the layout by trial and error to get the text to fit your pre printed invoice or statement paper To send the invoice or statement to the printer click the TxtPrint button and choose a printer and the number of copies you TxtPrint Print Setup Ready to print your own letterheads or pre printed forms requirements To printer Dot Matrix COMM2 NECp 2 require After specifying a printer you do need to tick a box to tell ABC if this printer is a dot matrix or a laser ink jet type we have so far failed to find a reliable way for the program to detect this automatically Print a label When you have a customer or supplier record on the screen there are buttons on the ribbonbar above for printing a label or a letter or an envelope ABC will automatically fill in that customer s name and address into the label or envelope
7. ock record to include a page for such varying sales outlets channels is the word people are using On each product record card you could tick the boxes to specify if this product is to be sold on each of the different channels and maybe give a different price for each channel The product card will also have a picture of the product and a large detailed description including HTML code to make it look pretty ABC could then export a CSV file suitable for updating eBay Amazon or your website etc Also when people purchase products from your online stores you can download a CSV file of those transactions and import them into ABC Accounts All the above is quite easy to do Though there will always be some adjustments to the CSV files required to match YOUR particular websites etc But we are looking a little further ahead to where all of the above may be fully automated When a product is purchased the transaction will automatically appear in your ABC books When someone on eBay purchases your last remaining stock of a particular item ABC will automatically remove that item from sale on Amazon and your website We think this is exciting stuff but then we don t get out much Purchase Orders We are adding Purchase Order Processing to ABC as an optional extra You ll find this appearing on the Supplier Record Card soon make sure you have auto update turned On Page 3 Website It alm
8. ost goes without saying that you should have at least a simple up to date website to act as a sales brochure or advertisement and attract prospective new customers to your services Most people these days start their search for a product or supplier by looking online It has also been said that it is better not to have a website at all if it gives a poor impression of your company website can be created to suit your business from as little as 249 A large online ecommerce shop would cost more If your sales have fallen off in the past year or two it is a good idea to check how your website compares to your competitor s Finally do you have a proper email address It costs only 5 a year for your own domaim name For example if your company is Regal Cars and your email address is fred334 yahoo com We enjoy designing and creating websites Updating and maintaining old websites is also a trivial task for us either as a one off or a regular basis Even starting from scratch a simple modern professional Page 4 does that give a good impression sales regalcars co uk is better Contact us to talk about websites We can show you some examples of recent work Social networks There are hundreds of different social networking and online shopping sites available with new ones springing up all the time However a few have gained enough subscribers to become market leaders We have put ABC onto Fa
9. pports ois support expires in green if that is in the future or red if support has expired If ABC cannot read the website for any reason the status will be Unknown in yellow If your support status shows green Support is current then ABC will try and keep itself up to date you can turn this feature off or on by going to TOOLS gt AUTO UPDATE at top of screen On the website www abc6 co uk you can go to the Support section and Log On to see your support status or to renew your support by credit debit card or PayPal Of course you can completely ignore all this website stuff and simply pay for your support by cheque or BACs transfer as before We have already pre registered existing ABC users so you will not need to create an account Your password has been preset as Abc99999 replace 99999 by your real ABC serial number To find your Serial Number go to TOOLS gt SHOW VERSION in ABC6 or F9 gt OPTIONS gt SHOW VERSION in ABC5 If you have only just bought ABC you need to Register the software ie enter the Erial number into ABC before the website will recognise you Ecommerce Here is our idea for the future If you are selling products in various different places eg your high street shop your ecommerce website on eBay on Amazon etc you can end up with several different databases of stock items and a great deal of work to keep them all in step We have enhanced the ABC St
10. ti 20 for mull user ABC up to 26 users Minor Software updates are free if you ve paid us for Support Support and software Updates are only available to regestered purchasers of ABC Accounts Software Support website e ABC website is for registered ABC users only click on Create Account if you don t have a o t allows you to check your Support t Status pay for support or software updates and ro latest News If you have paid for support by cheque or bank transfer you do not have to Log In here upd 1 road the this is just an altemative system for those who prefer to do it online Software updates We suggest you set ABC6 to automatically keep itself up to date TOOLS MENU gt AUTO UPDATE Then ABC will check our website each time you start up and if there is any new software ABC will offer to install e can send you an update CD through the post New interactive Support website Support website Password We have pre registered you on this website Your password is Abc12345 replace the 12345 with your real ABC serial number Summary of ABC6 3 Version 6 3 of ABC added some enhancements including a versatile Diary Calendar with Alarm calls Stock Records that can include pictures of your stock items Online VAT Returns and built in email functions eg to send Statements or Invoices by email These were explained in more detail in the previous issue of this Newsletter and this should be available to rea
11. ve to select SAVE or CANCEL when you ve finished en standard Rate UK Rate 2 UK Rate 3 UK zero Rate EU Standard Rate EU Rate 2 EU Exempt from VAT Not appicable for VAT Page 5 Bank Statement The bank statement report CashBook gt Bank Statement has been enhanced to show opening and closing balances and also a running balance column This makes it look more like your real bank statement Page 1 Fo 1S 12415 00 Opening Balance 12345 55 12345 O5 oO Closing Balance 12415 00 The only limitation is that if you print a report that goes back to before the start of your financial year it is not possible to show the opening balance in that case ABC will print a note to explain this Text Print option Windows regards all printers as page print devices and normally sends a complete picture of the page to the printer This works well for laser and inkjet printers but is not very good for dot matrix or label printers that print a line at a time Dot matrix printers are still used for printing multi part NCR sets Page 6 Export Email Print ABC is fairly unique amongst modern software in that we have provided a special print function that can drive an old dot matrix printer in the way that it s creator intended We ve called this Text Only printing It is only available for producing Sales Invoices and Statements and address labels When you go to pr
12. ven better and can repair most file problems ACCOUNTS ABC Direct Sales PO Box 203 Sale Cheshire M33 4XG Email info abc6 co uk Website www abc6 co uk Tel 0161 282 1270 Page 8
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