Accounts Receivable Main Menu

Many of the functions that pertain to accounts receivable, may be accessed through this menu. It is important to note that before a customer can be added, they must exists in the master profile database. The master profile database is accessed through the Utility Menu and will be discussed later.

The daily update CLAR05 processes the daily business and produces a battery of reports enabling StoreReport to provide you an accurate synopsis of the day's activity and your true net profit for each and every day. This is the heart of the system. Take at look at the reports generated by CLAR05 and you will see how this system can provide you with valuable daily information to run your company and make adjustments in your operation while there is still time for you to do something about it.

StoreReport accounts receivable affords you the opportunity to maintain customers in an open items and balance forward fashion - not simply one or the other, but both. Why we have done this is explained in detail in the text. Some systems require that you close out subsystems in batches before all of your information is available to the system. StoreReport is an interactive and integrated system. Everything you put in during the course of a day's business, updates the entire system each day. This is an invaluable asset to keep you informed of the exact status of your business. StoreReport customer statements may be run at any time. You don't have to wait till the end of the month to run any of our reports. StoreReport reports are available on demand.

Outstanding Benefits:

Open Items/Balance Forward:

Since our accounts receivable system is both open items and balance forward, it works exceptionally well in an oil jobber/convenience store environment. Tracking small convenience store customer charges by invoice after the month is closed , can be more trouble than it's worth. Customers of this type hardly ever pay by invoice. These types of customers are normally set up in AR08 as "balance forward" customers. For these type customers, individual invoices will appear on their statements during the current month (see AR15); however, once the month has been aged using CLGL07, the customer's charges for the month will be moved into ageing periods (current, over 30, etc.), and their detail will be purged.

Customer's that purchase large ticket items (i.e. loads of fuel) should be carried as "open items" customers. Otherwise, it is possible for a customer of this type to purchase a load of fuel and never pay for it - all the time showing up as 'current' on your books. Many of our customers have stopped sending out statements to these types of customers altogether. Opting to create an invoice using PS01, mailing it immediately, and giving the customer 10 days to pay. The customer's individual invoices can then be tracked using many of the open items reports, such as RUBENR, or AR26, to be certain that the customer is paying as agreed. When the customer pays for an invoice, the program AR11 will present all of the customer's invoices to the operator and allow her to apply the credits to each invoice specifically. Unlike "balance forward", open items customer invoices will remain accessible until they have been paid, no matter how old they get.

An open items system, not designed properly, can be a nightmare. You will find the open items system we have designed to be easy to use and free from the problems inherent in most other systems of this type. For example, if an operator accidentally applies a payment to the wrong invoice, it can easily be moved. If the operator makes a mistake and applies the incorrect amount to an invoice, the computer will generate a debit or credit memo to the customer's account for the balance. If the operator can't find an invoice to apply the payment to, she may opt to create a 'receipt on account' transaction to be dealt with at a later time.

You can see how the ability to have open items and balance forward customers can be a valuable asset. Customers may be changed from open items to balance forward or vice versa at any time. By using the program AR27, you decide when to purge these paid open items invoices from your system.

 Debit Credit Memos:

Miscellaneous debit and credit memos may be made at anytime. Whether or not these individual charges or credits remain in the system after the month has been closed (CLGL07), is determined by the customer's open items/balance forward status in AR08. The ability to utilize a 22 character alphanumeric reference number in our system, allows the operator to make every transaction in the system highly descriptive. A credit memo to a customer with a reference code of "Your a nice guy", is possible.

Reference Codes:

Not limited to accounts receivable, our ability to provide a 22 character alphanumeric reference code has many outstanding advantages. Many companies are beginning to use reference code fields to embed valuable information to go along with a transaction. Once you have learned to use the powerful query tools you will receive with your system, you'll be able to use the power of these large reference codes to your distinct advantage.

For example, placing the character '#' followed by '105' in the reference code field might identify the truck number that delivered the fuel, a '/' character might signify the start of a driver name, an '&' could mean some code that your accountant needs when researching you transactions for tax purposes. Embedding secret codes in reference number fields is becoming quite popular. Note: Do not use the '%' sign in reference code fields as it is the character used to signify the "wild-card" in queries.

Query Tools:

If your system doesn't provide you with the ability to extract information from your database on demand, you are severely handicapped. Our system is a relational database system. You can create reports and ask the computer for information by using the query tools that come with your system. There are over 200 reports in our system, but as the months and years go by, you are going to think of thousands of things that nobody else ever considered. That's what makes you unique. If we all thought the same way, there would be no competition. Information is power. Information that only you possess is absolute power.