Frequently Asked Questions

A – Beginning with Accpac version 5.3, an Accounts Payable Payment Inquiry Form has been added that allows you to display information for all the payments from a selected bank for range of fiscal year & periods as well as a range of payment dates. For a monthly check register, specify the date range in the From and To Check Date fields as shown below.

The Payment Inquiry also allows you to look up payments using other criteria. For example, can display information for a payment for which you have only the payment number. In addition, you are no longer limited to viewing the payments for one vendor at a time in the Vendor Activity form.

Note: You may also drill down from a selected line on the list to view the original payment in the Payment Entry form by clicking the Document button.

Q – Can I view a list of all the Accounts Payable Miscellaneous Payments that have been posted?

A – Beginning with Sage Accpac ERP version 5.3, an Accounts Payable Payment Inquiry Form has been added that allows you to display information for all of your miscellaneous payments. On the form, make sure there are blanks in both the From Vendor Number and To Vendor Number.

Note: You may also drill down from a selected line on the list to view the original payment in the Payment Entry form by clicking the Document button.

Q – Can you assign a User other than the Admin User the security authorization to add, delete, or modify the User records, Security Groups, and User Authorizations under Administrative Services?

A – In Sage Accpac ERP version 5.3, it is possible to give these security rights to any User. As seen below, there are the Maintain Users, Security Groups and User Authorizations settings available for the Administrator User to add to any Security Group. Once that Security Group is assigned to a User, that User will have the rights to modify the User, Security Group, and User Authorization records.

Note: The Administrator is still the only user with rights to modify the Admin record.

A – In order to achieve this, the Assistant will be managing the Supervisor’s Calendar from Team CRM. This means that a Team needs to be created to be used specifically for the Supervisor’s Appointments and Tasks.

Note: No one else other than the Assistant or Supervisor can be assigned to this Team.

For this example, a Team called “Boss” is created. For the Supervisor, this “Boss” team should be set as the Primary Team. When this is set, every time the Supervisor creates an Appointment, the communication record will be automatically set under team “Boss”.

For the Assistant, the team “Boss” can be set in the Primary Team field or have team “Boss” under the Display Team area. If the Assistant has team “Boss” under the Display Team area this means that the assistant will be able to select team “Boss” from the Team CRM area. It also means that when the assistant creates an Appointment for the Boss, the assistant will need to make sure team “Boss” is selected.

All Users in the system should have the setting of Team List: set to “User’s Team”. This means that when they are in the Team CRM area, they can only select Teams and view the Communications for their Primary Team and what is set under Display Team. This setting is found under the User Details area.

When the Assistant creates appointments for the Boss, the assistant should be selecting team “Boss”.

However, if the Assistant is creating their own appointments, the assistant does not need to select team “Boss”, especially if the assistant wishes to keep their appointment separately. The assistant doesn’t have to select a Team if they don’t need to see it in the Team CRM area. The assistant will see their appointments under My CRM > Calendar/Task.

Also, when the Supervisor creates their own appointments, they should be creating them under the team “Boss”, so the Assistant can view it under the Team CRM area.

Q – Can I search for all birthdays by month in CRM? For example, I would like to create list or report for all people with birthdates that fall in the month of March from year 1950 to 2006.

A – This can be achieved either through a Target List or a Report.

• Make sure you have a Date Only field type where the Person’s birthdate
  is stored.
• In your report or target list, select the Person’s Birthdate field
  as a Search Criteria item.
• When you run the report, select the For Any option, select Month,
  the month of March, and the date range.

• Use the Calendar icon to select the dates to make sure you use the
  correct date format as per the pre-defined date format in your system,
  and adjust the year that you are searching for.

Note: Make sure you enter the complete date format, rather than just
the year or else the report will not search the correct date range.

A – Assuming you have access to Excel, there are two main reasons why you can’t export a file to Excel.

The first reason is that the report is a new standard report (not an existing report that has been modified) and Pro Series doesn’t recognize it yet. All standard report information is stored in a file SYRFRXS. When a new standard report is created, the programmer must enter the information in this file.

The second reason a report may not export to Excel is that it is a “summary” report. Pro Series will only export reports to Excel that have detail lines. It is possible that a report that does not export to excel can be changed to allow excel export with some programming.

Q – If a data entry person does not want to use the mouse, is there any other way to navigate around Pro Series?

A – Yes. Many people who do a lot of data entry find moving from the keyboard to the mouse cumbersome and time-consuming. Pro Series has taken this into account. When you press the ALT key, you will see that the buttons will have a letter underlined. (It is usually the first letter). Press whatever letter corresponds to what you want to do and that button is activated. After some practice, you will be surprised how fast you can go!

There are also a number of other keystrokes that aid navigation. The TAB key is the first of these keys. All of the screens and maintenances are programmed with a tab order to indicate what field is next if you press the TAB key. In addition, the enter key can be used to validate entry and move the focus to the next field for entry. Between the TAB and ENTER keys, you can navigate through the screen. In addition to the TAB and ENTER keys. The arrow keys will let you move within a specific field and between fields.

In addition to the keys mentioned above, the PAGE DOWN key is extremely useful for fast entry. Pressing PAGE DOWN will focus screen to the next step in entry. For example, if you are printing a report and currently are entering options, the ‘page down’ will take you to the next group of options or to the generate button to generate the report. Another example is during sales order entry, pressing page down on the header will validate the header fields and move cursor to start of line item input. Pressing page down during the input of a line item will save that line and move cursor for start of entry of next line item.

A – First, you need Microsoft Word 97 or higher. You can edit individual notices or the COBRA Notice Templates for permanent changes:

Editing individual notices:

1. Highlight the notice from the Print Notices window and click on Edit Notices on the bottom of the window. Word will start, the mail merge (the process of inserting your data into the notice) will be performed, and the notices will be shown. Note: If you send a notice to more than one employee, and choose Edit, Word will open only one file. Word appends each notice with the new employee name and address at the end of the previous notice instead of creating a new file for each notice.
2. Make appropriate edits to the work document.
3. Print the notices.
4. You can save the notices, but do not save these edits as DOT files. Use the procedure for editing COBRA Notice Templates below.
5. You will now be returned to a window on which the notices you have printed will be shown. If any of the notices did not print correctly, or you want to reprint them, be sure to select the notices that did not print by highlighting them. Otherwise, HR Series will assume they printed correctly and remove them from the list of notices to be printed. Again, you have the option of using the Select All or Select None buttons . (If notices were not printed correctly, you will need to return to the Print Notices window from the COBRA menu to reprint them.)
6. If you do not select any of the notices listed in the window, you will also receive a window asking you if all of the notices printed correctly. If they did not, click No, and you will be returned to this window to highlight the incorrectly printed notices. Clicking Yes will return you to the Employee Manager workspace

Editing COBRA Notice Templates

HR Series makes use of the “Mail Merge” feature of Microsoft® Word™ to produce notices. Mail Merge is a process by which a list of names (in this case, COBRA enrollees) with associated information, is fed to a Word template file (*.DOT) to produce a letter for each name in the list. If you need to customize the COBRA notices due to some requirement unique to your company, it is these Word Template files you would need to modify.

Eight notice template files are provided, corresponding to each of the COBRA or coverage continuation notices HR Series supports:

Template File Name	Notice
COBNOTIC.DOT	Qualifying Event Notice
COBRAEND.DOT	COBRA Ending Notice
CONFIRM.DOT	Confirmation Notice
COVCONT.DOT	Coverage Continuation Notice
HCRACBRA.DOT	Healthcare Reimbursement Account Qualifying Event Notice
INITNOTC.DOT	Initial COBRA Notice
LATEPAY.DOT	Late Pay/Term. Notice
PAYREMIN.DOT	Payment Reminder

CAUTION: Because these templates are loaded when HR Series is installed, make sure you keep copies of the edited notices in a separate place in case HR Series is re-installed. A new installation or upgrade will overwrite the existing files.

These files are located within the PROGRAM\LETTERS subdirectory of the directory where you installed HR Series. Each notice template is made up of a mixture of plain text, merge fields, and one Word field (for the current date). Merge fields and Word fields are displayed in one of two forms, depending on whether you have Word’s “view field codes” option set.

You will see either:

<<Merge_Field_Name>> (merge field — view field
codes is off)
June 27, 2003 (Word TIME field — view field codes is off)
…or…
{MERGEFIELD Merge_Field_Name } (view field codes is on)
{TIME \@ “MMMM d, yyyy” } (Word TIME field — view
field codes is on)

The view field codes option is reached through the Tools menu, Options menu item, and View tab — look for the check box named Field Codes.

You can safely make the following modifications to the notice templates:

• Add, modify, or delete plain text
• Add, modify, or delete Word fields
• Delete merge fields
• Move merge fields
• Copy and paste merge fields

Be careful when working with merge fields — they do not behave as normal text. When you click a merge field, the entire text of the field becomes highlighted. You should manipulate merge fields in this completely highlighted state. Use the delete key to delete the field or the Cut, Copy, and Paste commands to move or duplicate merge fields. Word will allow you to click a second time within the merge field to set the cursor between individual characters in the merge field text; however, deleting or altering characters within the merge field in this way can lead to unpredictable results. You may end up with an invalid merge field that will prevent the notice from printing or with a completely hidden merge field that you can no longer manipulate.

You should avoid the following modifications to the COBRA notice templates:

1. Adding any new merge fields. The fields you see represent the only information HR Series is providing to the template.
2. Completing steps two and three of Word’s mail merge tool and then saving these actions permanently with the template. Step two associates a data source with the template. (HR Series creates temporary text files named with the root of the template name and a .TXT extension. These text files provide the information the mail merge tool needs to produce the COBRA notices.) If you should associate a data source with the template, the template will not function correctly if you were ever to relocate the directory where HR Series is installed. Also, the template would no longer function for any other user of HR Series over a network for whom the directory path may differ.
3. Adding any automatic macros that you would expect to run when the template opens. HR Series disables automatic macros when it runs Word.
4. Modifying any of the macros that come with the template: AutoPrint, AutoMerge, CyclePrint, and CycleMerge — except in consultation with the HR Series support staff.