Owner: Cougar Mountain Blog URL:http://cougarmtnblog.com/ Join Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 11:34:51 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: The official blog for Cougar Mountain Software, Inc. Site statistics:Click here
Have your own ‘tips & tricks’ to share? 2007-05-04 18:58:48 This blog will, among other things, include tips & tricks
that are intended to help you better utilize CMS. If you click the tips & tricks category in the left margin, you will be shown a list of all tips that have been posted to date. Also the top menu has a link to a tips & tricks page that lists all tips, organized by module.
If you have your own tip that you would like to publish - send it to us! You can make a comment on this post, and we will add it to the pile of potential tips to use. In the suggestion you make, be sure to include:
Your name / email address (it will be kept private)
The situation the tip is supposed to fix
The specific steps a typical user is supposed to follow to accomplish the task
Joe
CMS Marketing Read more:lsquo
CMS is in Wikipedia! 2007-04-27 19:19:07 CMS has our own entry in the online dictionary ‘Wikipedia
’.
It has a little historical information there you may not know.
Terri
CMS Marketing
User Rights: Restricting Overrides 2007-04-26 01:12:12 Sandy asks:
“I have a question that I hope you can help me with regarding one of my employees that processes our invoices through order entry. I am trying to see if I can restrict her rights to override a credit limit on a customer’s account. I do not see where this can be done in a user’s rights only a salesperson’s authority. Our salespeople are all outside salespeople that are assigned to accounts but they never produce an invoice. We are producing the invoice that will be on a specific customer that has a salesperson assigned to that customer. Can you give me any help here?”
(more…) Read more:Restricting
, Rights
Fiscal Calendar Periods - setting up a 4-4-5 calendar 2007-05-17 19:54:09 A Cougar Mountain customer asked this question:
“We are a manufacturing business and since 90% of manufacturers use a 4,4,5 fiscal year, it would be nice if Cougar Mountain could offer this option. Any chance of this happening in the near future?”
Kevin, a Cougar Mountain System Trainer replied:
Hey! The functionality is already within the program. By default each period in the fiscal calendar is set up from the first day to the last day of the month - but the fiscal calendar can be modified to better suit other situations, like your example here where manufactures want their periods set up in specific increments.
All you need to do is change the period dates in the Fiscal Calendar window when you are setting up shop:
Kevin
System Trainer
Note: setting up a fiscal calendar is best accomplished on a new company during its setup process. Changing the fiscal calendar on an existing company usually requires the assistance of Customer Support (call 800.390.705
Mark Up Percentages for Inventory 2007-05-24 10:42:48 A customer asks a question about managing thier inventory:
How can I get some kind of Mark Up Percentages report, so that I can pull a list of stock items with their mark up percentages - so that I can adjust my pricing?
Kevin says:
What you want is the Price Book report; the Price Book report will do the calculation for you because it goes with the “last cost”. In the screenshot below, the last cost was 0.04 cents with the margin % of 55.0. Most merchants don’t change the % of gross profit, for that is what they want. But the price will change with the “last cost” going up or down automatically.
 Â
(more…) Read more:Inventory
User Defined Fields 2007-05-31 18:13:35 A customer asks:
We need to track our inventory items in a better manner. Our items have lots of different expiration dates, lots of different lot #’s, etc. Can you help us out?
Kevin says:
You need to set up your User Defined Fields
(UDF). Most modules in Cougar Mountain have UDF fields and codes available for use, and are an excellent method to track stock in the inventory module, or vendors in AP, or customers in AR, etc.
First, go into your Module Preferences and give labels to the UDF’s you want to use. In the screenshot below, I’ve set up the Expiration Dates:
(more…)
Free Online Learning 2007-06-06 18:09:14 The Cougar Mountain website includes several nice training links having free accounting tutorials, books, videos, and educator materials that are sure to increase your accounting knowledge. Other Resource pages include helpful links to government websites, accounting organizations and publications, and more.
Check them out - and if you know of a link that should be included, then send me an email and I’ll see about adding it. Thanks!
Joe
Marketing Read more:Learning
Having different prices for same item 2007-06-12 09:08:54 A customer asked:
Can I have one inventory stock item and different
sales units, or units of measurement?
Kevin says:
Yes, this is what price levels are for - there are 5 different price levels that can be set up for each stock item. Price levels are set up along with that stock item’s Pricing Type on the IN Stock window. Below is a screenshot of the price levels set up for an item. These different prices will then be seen in the sales windows as the items are sold.
Below is a screenshot from the sales window, which shows the different pricing levels that were set up.
Kevin
System Trainer
Read more:Having
‘Due To/Due From’ in FUND Accounting 2007-06-20 09:31:12 A customer recently asked Kevin to explain how to set up the Due To / Due From feature in FUND accounting - here is Kevin’s response:
A user has three options when setting up multiple funds in a nonprofit organization:
Restricted - does not allow posting across multiple funds
Unrestricted - allows posting across multiple funds without worrying about balancing them
Due To/Due From - automatically creates the needed transactions to keep your funds in balance
(more…) Read more:lsquo
Cheat-sheet for invoice comments 2007-07-06 15:34:33 Kevin offers up his ‘cheat-sheet
’ for entering comments on invoices:
Shift+F5 = Non-Inventory Lookup
Control+C = opens the Comment Editor
Control+F5 = opens the Job Cost Number Lookup if installed, otherwise works just like F5 alone.
Alt+F5 = opens the Comment Code Lookup
Kevin
System Trainer Read more:Cheat
Setting Up the Chart of Accounts 2007-07-26 15:47:07 A common question from people setting up a new company is; How are you supposed to set up your General Ledger chart of accounts for the new company?
Giving some thought to how you set up your accounts can save you lots of time later. Your accountant will thank you, anyone running reports will thank you - even the clerks entering your transactions will thank you. Here is how it works:
GL Accounts
are set up in just 5 groups:
Assets
Liabilities
Equity (Net Assets in FUND)
Income (Revenue in FUND)
Expenses
(more…) Read more:Chart
, Setting
Using Inventory Items as Non-Inventory 2007-08-22 14:54:16 A customer recently asked about better ways of using Non-Inventory
codes, so here is a little trick that comes in handy in certain situations - set up your Non-Inventory items as Inventory stock items!
Using the Inventory Stock window to make your Non-Inventory items gives the advantage of look up services or all non-inventory items by a much larger inventory number.
Setting up the inventory code is the answer, like this “SR” (for services) and then you can change the service number, use larger explanation of descriptions etc.
Here we see setting up the Inventory Code as SR for services. The GL numbers really mean nothing for there is NO direct or cost of goods for services. They may use there inventory numbers if they want or new ones in the GL to make sure they stay at zero dollars.
Here we see the non-inventory number as the name of the service. They could use 40 characters instead of 4. The right inventory code is used and could be separated out of inv products or othe Read more:Items
Cleaning Up AR Statements 2007-08-28 12:17:56 A customer recently asked:
“Hey Kevin! I am wondering if you can help me. I remember when you came to our business to train us, you showed us how to clean up customer statements that looked messy with all of the corrections and credits, but I can’t for the life of me remember how to do that. I know the integration needs to be turned off. Other than that detail, I have no clue. Thanks for your help!”
No problem - what you want to do is what I call ‘fooling the date’.
Let’s say you want to fix a statement by, crediting a invoice you already know is paid. I would turn off the GL (if needed) and make the credit date as close to the item you want to remove. For instance, below is a Statement (simplified) to look at to get rid of a mistake: The day entry is 01/07/2006, not today’s date like I want:
(more…) Read more:Cleaning
Payroll Garnishments 2007-09-19 08:53:23 A customer recently asked Kevin this payroll question:
“I have a new employee that I have to take out a garnishment. I’m not sure which liability account I should put in to set up the garnishment code. I called the accountant and he said he uses 112 Employee A/R, that when we pay it to the courts it is taken out of that and balanced itself out. Is that how you would have me do it?”
Kevin says:
Close, I would set up the garnishment code as liability in PR. And use the opposing account in AP liability. You could use the same account if you wanted. Remember money in and then money out. First you need to set up a GL account as a liability for the Garnishment. Yes, this could be general, if you want. All garnishments would go here. In this example I named it after the state/local courthouse.
(more…) Read more:Payroll
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