1. Enhanced Backorders
2. New PO Features
3. Active & Inactive Item Cards
4. Enhanced "Add Item" Functions
5. Keyboard Entry for Physical Inventory
6. 80-Character Description in List-All, Import & Export
7. Web Items & POSIM eCommerce
8. Unlimited Tax Districts

1. Style Sales Report

1. Update Customer Card from Working Invoice
2. Gift Receipt Now A User Control
3. On-Screen Security for Salesperson ID
4. Special Orders and Layaways
5. Backorder Button on Customer Card
6. Gift Cards
7. Credit Card Processing via DSL or Cable

1. Easier Database Back-Up

EIGHT KEY NEW FEATURES IN INVENTORY•ANALYZER

1. ENHANCED BACKORDERS:

POSIM's customer backorder function has been substantially enhanced with the addition of a new Backorder Card. This tracks the status of customer backorders, and is automatically created and updated as you post an invoice for a backordered item; when you purchase that item from your Vendor; and then when you receive the item into inventory and allocate it to the customer. The only manual step that you need to take is to type in the date that you expect to receive the merchandise in your store (Expected Delivery) into the Backorder Card.

And if you switch over to Sales•Point, a new Backorder button on the Customer Card shows you all items that are currently on Backorder for that customer.

2. NEW PURCHASE ORDER FEATURES:

There are four major (and much requested!) enhancements to the Purchase Order Card.

A) First, the Maximum Stock on the item's Item Card appears on the far right of the PO screen for easy reference when placing your orders, as circled below.

B) You can now enter the same exact SKU on a PO more than once (on multiple lines), and then summarize them into ONE line (which totals the quantity) by clicking on the new Group Lines Button.

C) The most requested new feature in PO's...the new % Disc Button allows you to apply a percentage discount to all items in a PO. And on the % Disc screen that appears after you click this button, the "Set All Vendor-Cost to 'N'" Button allows you to tell POSIM to NOT update your Vendor Cost for all these items simultaneously...GREAT for applying a special discount to one order alone!

D) Also much in demand, the new Comment Button gives you plenty of space to type in comments that WILL print out on the PO. Terrific for including special shipping instructions; also great for notes to a vendor if you are RMA'g merchandise back to them.

3. MAKE ITEM CARD ACTIVE OR INACTIVE:

You now have the option to make an Item Card INACTIVE, which tells POSIM to ignore it in List-All screens. This is a much better alternative than deleting Item Cards for discontinued or seasonal items. This is done in the new Active/Inactive field, circled below.

NOTE: you also set up POSIM to ignore Inactive items using the new List Items User Control if you want it to ignore all Inactive Items as described here.

4. ENHANCED "ADD ITEMS" FUNCTION:

The Add Item feature that was added in POSIM 2.12 has been enhanced with several additional fields, and a completely new STYLE function.

The new fields added to this screen, making it easier for you to get the Item Card filled in completely, are: Maximum Stock, Reorder Point, Tax Code, Price Code, Account Group, Style, Row, and Column.

Next...the really exciting addition! You can now create all the new SKU's for a new style here in the Add Items screen.

Once you click on the New Style Button, it takes you to a window where you fill in the Shared Item Detail fields that all SKU's will share (like Department; Vendor; Cost and Retail).

Then you define the number of SKU's in the style--if you have two colors and four sizes, you would want POSIM to create 8 new SKU's. You would then type in the "headers" for this grid...below, the colors and sizes.

In this sample, we have a Tank Top with two colors (lilac and turquoise) and four sizes (small, medium, large, and extra large), so the Row quantity above is 2, and the Column quantity is 4.

By clicking on the Fill Add-Item Grid Button, you return to the main Add Items screen with the information filled in for you. (NOTE: The Row data always shows up in front of the Column data...see the Descriptions below).

You can then create these new Item Cards with one click (Add as Items Only), OR you can create both the Item Cards and a Working Purchase Order simultaneously (Add To P.O. & Items)...default quantity on the PO is 1 of each SKU.

5. KEYBOARD ENTRY IN PHYSICAL INVENTORY:

A new button on the Physical Inventory screen allows you to manually type in an Item ID and Quantity...this is a GREAT enhancement for adding those forgotten items or quantities after you have imported the majority of your physical count!

6. 80-CHARACTER DESCRIPTION—NEW FUNCTIONALITY:

The existing 80-character Description is now enhanced in two ways:

(A) You can now import and export all 80 characters of the description on the item card.

(B) You can now choose to have the 80-character Description show in it's entirety on your List-All screen and Define-A-Report by choosing "Long Description" (instead of the regular "Description"). By including both the regular Description and the Long Description options, POSIM allows YOU to choose which is best for your specific needs.

7. WEB ITEMS & POSIM ECOMMERCE:

POSIM's eCommerce integrated solution was introduced with version BZv8. Orders are taken on the web as working invoices & downloaded into POSIM as required. You then process the working invoice as usual.

POSIM's Item Card has been enhanced to accommodate additional fields for your web pages as well as allowing you to identify which items in your database are web items (and which are not).

We would be happy to answer any questions that you have about POSIM's eCommerce module. In the meantime, here are some sample sites now using the POSIM ecommerce link:

http://www.sheldrakepoint.com >>> Vineyard & Cafe

http://www.sandstonedesign.com >>> Handcrafted Pewter Items

http://www.nantuckettrading.com >>> Cookware Kitchenware Tableware

8. UNLIMITED TAX DISTRICTS:

Support for unlimited Tax Districts was added in BZv8. For those businesses who use POSIM's Tax By District (and not Tax By Rate), this is a terrific enhancement.

(A) The ITEM TAX GROUP card has been expanded to handle an unlimited number of TAX DISTRICTS.

(B) A new Sales Tax Report was created that reports on an unlimited number of Tax Districts, providing the dollars subject to tax (and those not subject to tax) in each District and State that you create in your database.

ONE NEW FEATURE IN POWER•REPORTS

1. STYLE SALES REPORT:

You can now run a sales report for a complete Style (or a range of Styles) that includes the detail of the SKU's within that Style.

For example, in the report shown here, we ran a Style Report for Style #30559--a Ribbed Tank top which comes in two colors (lilac and turquoise) and four sizes (sml; med; lge; and xlg). As you can see below, we've sold 3 SKU's of this Style so far (out of the total 8 SKU's created in "Add Items" in Step 4 above).

SEVEN NEW FEATURES IN SALES•POINT

1. UPDATE CUSTOMER CARD FROM WORKING INVOICE:

You can now update Customer Card information directly from a Working Invoice in the "Bill To" area by using the new Update Customer command (found under the Invoice menu, as shown below). This makes permanently changing a customer's address or telephone number very simple.

2. GIFT RECEIPT NOW A USER CONTROL:

Support for issuing Gift Receipts is now built into POSIM as a User Control (Sales•Point > User Controls > Invoice > Gift Receipt). Naturally, the Gift Receipt does not include the prices of the items.

As you can see here, you have up to 8 lines of text for messages on your Gift Receipts. If desired, you can assign a length of time (in days) for return merchandise. And you can have your logo print out on the Gift Receipt just like it can on your regular receipts (on specific Star models...like the Thermal TSP600 model).

3. ON-SCREEN SECURITY ON SALESPERSON ID:

The new addition to the Salesperson User Control (Sales•Point > User Control > Invoice > Salesperson)—Hide Salesperson ID when prompted as posting—adds security by making the Salesperson ID appear as question marks ("???") when your salespeople type in their ID's on the Working Invoice screen.

4. LAYAWAYS & SPECIAL ORDERS:

A new Add Item Button has been added to the Working Layaway/Special Order screen so that you can create a new Item Card in Sales•Point while creating a special order for a customer.

This Add Item Button brings you to a screen where you type in the Item ID (it will assign the next available Item ID in the system if you are using "Enable Auto Item Numbering" in your User Control), the Description, the Vendor ID and Vendor Item ID, the Misc 1 and Misc 2 fields, and Our Retail. Then simply click OK, and POSIM will set up a new Item Card for this item and return you to the Layway/Special Order screen (above) to finish with this Layaway.

NOTE: Once you finish setting up the Special Order in the Layaway/Special Order screen, you will want to go immediately to the new Item Card to finish filling it out...you will need to add the Tax Code as well as the following fields if applicable: Price Code; the other Misc field information; Account Group, and Style.

5. BACKORDER BUTTON ON CUSTOMER CARD:

The new Backorder Button on the Customer Card relates to the new, enhanced Backorder Card in Inventory•Analyzer.

NOTE: for more information on enhanced backorders, see Feature #1 in the Inventory•Analyzer section above.

6. GIFT CARDS (aka CASH CARDS):

Integrated Gift Card (aka Cash Card) support was introduced to POSIM in BZv8.

Gift Cards have become enormously popular as marketing vehicles in the major chains--Nordstrom, Saks, Barnes & Noble, Nike, Circuit City, and Starbucks to name just a few. It is easy to understand why Gift Cards are so popular.

From the customer's perspective: it is a fast, easy way to shop for a gift. The giver doesn't have to worry about getting the right style, color or size, and yet the Gift Card carries with it the image of the store from which it was purchased so the gift giver gets credit for having good taste. And when purchased as a Cash Card for the user themselves (like at Starbucks), it provides an easy way for the customer to shop because it eliminates the need for cash along with the accumulated coins that are given back as change.

And from the retailer's perspective, the picture is even better:

(A) Gift Cards give you the opportunity to get TWO customers into your store...both the "Giftor" and the "Giftee"

(B) 40% of Gift Card recipients spend more when visiting the store than the actual value of their Gift Card

(C) You have the "float" of the money on account.

(D) Up to 15% of Gift Card recipients don't ever use their Gift Card (leaving the money in the retailer's pocket)...this more than offsets the cost of the Gift Cards!

Setting up Gift Cards with POSIM is discussed in detail at: http://rwsinfo.com/giftcardmac2003oct.html

7. CREDIT CARD PROCESSING VIA DSL / CABLE:

POSIM's integrated NowCharge credit card processing link was introduced in BZv8, making it easy to process credit cards via DSL or Cable. Card processing speed is an incredible 2-3 seconds per transaction using authorize.net online to get the credit card approvals. And NowCharge/authorize.net allows you to:

(A) Automate your daily credit card batch at a scheduled time

(B) Receive a daily summary of credit card transactions via email automatically

(C) Run a host of reports on your credit card activity on authorize.net's website (of course, this function is passworded)

The computer that runs POSIM's NowCharge/authorize.net software must run on OS X. For single POS station environments, this means that your one POS station must have the OS X operating system. For stores with multiple POS stations, only the computer hosting the NowCharge/authorize.net Server must run OS X; all other POS stations can run on either OS9 or OS X systems.

Information on Now Charge can be found at:

http://www.nowcharge.com

ONE NEW FEATURE IN SUPERVISOR•TOOLS

1. EASIER DATABASE BACK-UP:

This new feature makes backing up your POSIM database M..U..C..H easier (and less prone to mistakenly moving the database instead of backing it up as intended).

To activate this new feature, you must first tell POSIM the location of the Script/Application (identifying the "path" to it, which will show next to the Script/Application field). In the sample here, you can see the "path" to the script/application that will run when you press the Run Backup Script / App Button. You will also need to tell POSIM where you want it to place the back-up copy when you first set up this feature (the path to your back-up media).

Once the path is set up, you simply click the Run Backup Script / App Button to make your database back-up each night. POSIM will first check to make sure that there is enough space on the back-up media; then it will make the back-up copy and append the back-up file that it creates with the current date (ex: POSIMDB2003January 26). And, even better, POSIM will notify all connected modules (like the two listed in the screen above) that it is ready to resume contact (which it automatically suspended when you clicked the Run Backup Script / App Button).

That's it...no more quitting out of POSIM•Share; no more dragging your POSIM.DB onto your back-up media in order to copy it!