Since 11.56  (July 20, 2004)

Several New Options for "Last Contact Type" have been Added

I was asked for the opportunity to record that you were unable to reach a customer during your customer service work, or that you have left a message. I added both "Unable to Reach" and "Left a Message" as options on the Last Call Type  menu of the Names Record Maintenance (Customer) screen. This should help you determine why you will need to be calling a customer again sooner than normally expected.

"On the Go", Web Order and Show Sales Data Bug has been Fixed

I was recently informed that when you record a sale as an "On the Go", Web Order or Show sale, some of the data did not connect. For instance, Web Orders were omitted from Accomplishment Sheets. All three were omitted from the Canadian GST/PST rebate form and there were also some issues with the Accounts Receivable entries for these three types of sales. All these issues have been fixed and the three types of sales have been completely integrated into the sales recording process. I apologize for the oversight. It took a while until a few sharp-eyed users noticed the problem.  Thankfully, I was able to correct it as soon as it was pointed out.

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Since 11.50 (April 7, 2004)

Weekly Accomplishment Sheets (WAS) Can Now Be E-Mailed!

This is a feature I have wanted to include for a long time and I got the spark of an idea from a message about 2 weeks ago. The person asked me if she could e-mail her Weekly Accomplishment Sheets to her Director. She mentioned that another program she uses at work lets reports be emailed in "rich text format" and I sat up straight as an arrow!  RTF! that was the answer. A week later, I had taught myself how to program a "rich text format" report and it worked perfectly! 

Essentially, the change is that before, the DCMS offered you the option to view or print the Accomplishment Sheets. I have added the option of preparing the WAS "for Email." Notice it doesn't offer to directly email the WAS. That will be offered in DCMS Pro. But what the program does do is create the WAS in rich text format and save it in a folder called WAS in your DCMSWIN folder on the hard drive. The name of the file will consist of your Consultant number, followed by a dash (-) and the three letter month and day of the date the week being reported ended, followed by the extension ".rtf"  (rich text file)  For instance, if your consultant number was  C55543 and you created a WAS for the week ending April 3, 2004,  the filename of the file created would be   C55543-APR03.RTF   and it would be found in the "WAS" folder in your DCMSWIN folder.

What's so great about that? Easy. All word processors can open and edit  RTF files. Therefore, if you then go to your desktop and double-click on the file, Microsoft Word will open and the WAS will be shown, could be printed or even edited. RTF is a common-source document, so your director doesn't have to use Word, or Word Perfect, or Publisher or even a Windows-based computer. She will be able to open the WAS on her computer in whatever word processor she prefers - even on a Mac!

How do you get it to her? Send her an email and "attach" the file (or files) containing the WAS you want to send. Attaching is pretty easy, but you have to know the name of the file and its location. That's why I adopted the above convention (consultant number, dash, date, .rtf) When you send the email, it will also send a copy of the WAS as an attachment, which your Director will be able to read/print on her computer right away.

"Customer Points" Tracking

I was asked to add the capability to track "Customer Points". in which a customer is given a point for each dollar she spends. After a certain amount of points, that customer could earn a special discount or other promotion. It was noted that it would be nice if the DCMS would track and display these points and add the accumulated total to the bill.

I thought this would be a useful opportunity for my users to create their own promotions, so I implemented the suggestion. When you start Release 11.5 or better for the first time, the DCMS asks if you want the DCMS to track "Customer Points."  (if you don't accept this option at first, you can backtrack and opt in from the Business page of "Configure the DCMS" on the Utilities menu) 

When you decide to start tracking points, a "Customer Points" counter will appear on the Customer and Purchase pages of the Names - Record Maintenance function. You can adjust the points as you wish in either location. When you record a sale to a customer, after you confirm the date, you will be asked if you want to track the customer points for this sale and this customer. Answer yes or no as appropriate. As well, there is also a counter which will display the current point total. If you want to adjust the total, either to establish a starting point for the customer, or to decrease the points because she took advantage of a promotion, please do so and the points will be adjusted.

If you choose to track the points, there will be an extra line on the bill which states the new points total for that customer. Finally, when you "finish" the sale, the customer's total points count will be updated on her record, as you will see the next time you visit her name in the Records Maintenance function.

If enough users take advantage of this function, I will develop it further, with either reports, or zeroing functions, or even auto-recalculating the totals between two dates.

Retail Price of Loaned Product in Inter-Consultant Transactions

Several users noted that the "Owes" or "Credit" field in the records of Unit or sister Consultants reflects the wholesale value of the product you might have loaned to the Consultant, and that trying to figure out what she needs to give you in return to pay back the loan is sometimes hard, especially when it comes to "unfiguring" the tax at retail and the price at wholesale, etc. Therefore I have added a field to the Purchase screen of a Consultant's record. This field is marked "Approximate Retail Value of the Product Loaned,"  and is a calculation of what retail value of product needs to be returned to pay back the loan.  Hopefully this will help.

"Paid By" Menu of Add Tax Receipts Can Now Be Edited

Several versions ago, I added the capability to noted how you paid for an tax expense (i.e.  cash, VISA, etc). The reason was, among others, that when you got your VISA statement, you could check it against what you entered to make sure you got everything. In addition to some "stock" options (Cash, Check, on account, etc), I also allowed you to be more specific by adding specific payment options, such as "Wells Fargo VISA", or "Capital One MasterCard"  Some of you have noted that there is a finite number of menu items available to add to the stock options, and you are running out of space and may even want to delete one or two of the additions.

You can now edit that menu. If you wish to, simply double-click (left mouse button) on the menu and a page will appear with instructions on how to edit the menu.

Australian  BAS (Business Activity Statement) Has Been Updated

This release will prepare the Australian BAS in the new format adopted by the Australian Tax Office (ATO). When you print out the BAS, it fills out a facsimile of the "{GST Calculation Worksheet for BAS," which should allow you to easily complete the BAS.

Names Now Print at the Top of Non-Retail Use Receipts

When I re-wrote the printing of bills, I made a mistake that omitted your name and the name of the Consultant on the top of the receipts printed for some Inter-Consultant transactions. I also chose not to print your name on the top of Personal Use receipts, which some users minded. I have corrected both situations. I have also retro-actively corrected the problem, so re-prints of any of these receipts will print with the appropriate names at the top.

References to the Microsoft Wheel Mouse have been Deleted

Back in 1997, when I was developing the Windows version of the DCMS, Microsoft was also introducing mice with a "wheel" on them. The original wheel mouse driver put out by Microsoft crashed the DCMS, so I developed a work-around. I daresay no one has that old driver anymore and the new drivers have no quarrel with the DCMS. In fact, the program's question "Do you use a Microsoft Wheel Mouse?" was causing more confusion in 2004 than the original problem ever caused in 1997 (but then there are a lot more DCMS users now. Anyway, the DCMS doesn't care what mouse you use now, and the references to wheeled rodents has been deleted.

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Since 11.45  (February 16, 2004)

Delete Sales Info Has Been Completely Re-Written

Some users have told me that when they delete a sale, sometimes elements of the sale remain, such as records of the purchases on the customers' Purchase Screens. I decided to take a good look at the process of deleting the sales, and discovered that the first screen was very busy and potentially confusing. If a setting was "mis-set", there was a chance that some of the sale would remain in records. 

Therefore, I have completely re-written the Delete Sales Information function of the Sales Menu to more naturally lead you through the process. In exhaustive testing, I was able to determine that all traces of the sales are erased, or if you choose to delete only a portion (ie. one customer), then only that part of the sale will be deleted. I think you'll like the new process much more.

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Since 11.40  (December 12, 2003)

The New Accomplishment Sheet Has Been Implemented

The DCMS now completely reports your sales in the format followed by the newest Accomplishment Sheet from the company. It now separates your sales into five columns:  Classes & Facials; On-the-Go; Web Orders; Shows; and Re-Orders. This will make printed WASs more compatible with those submitted to your Director by the rest of the Unit. This function is also retro-active to include all sales in the past 6 months which have been recorded as, for instance, an On-the-Go appointment or Web order. If you re-print the Accomplishment Sheets, they will report those sales in the new columns as well.

The New Accomplishment Sheets Are Also in the "Record Unit Accomplishment Sheets" function

Directors who use the DCMS to record and compile data from the Accomplishment Sheets now have the new format to enter the data into. Again, this will make it much easier to enter the data from all consultants in the Unit. As well, you will be able to record more individual sales accomplishments in the ribbons section of the "Record Unit Accomplishment Sheets" function.

Newsletter Reports also Reflect the New Accomplishment Sheets

Directors will also be able to report their data in recognition of the new Accomplishment Sheet format, so that Queens and individual sales are recognized based on the new format.  This of course has to be done when I changed the way the sales were entered. I think you will love the new features.

"Configure Plain Labels" has been Added to the Mailing Labels function

Printers are all different and some of my users have difficulty in printing labels with their printers. I have therefore developed the "plain label" which prints on the 30 to a sheet Avery or generic labels available almost everywhere. I though that this would solve the problem, but it seems that even so, some printers printed in slightly smaller or larger print and the labels started to creep up or down, missing labels sometimes. I have added a function which will allow you to manoeuvre the labels left, right, up and down so that you can pick the absolute best fit for your labels and printers.  If you choose "Plain Labels" from the selection of labels in the Mailing Labels function, you will see a "Configure Plain Labels" button appear, which will allow you to set the figures. On-screen help will guide you through the process.

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Since 11.30  (December 2, 2003)

"Issue Numbers" Now Can Be Recorded for VISA, MasterCard and Discover Cards

As an extra security procedure, credit card issuers have included four digit "issue numbers" which will soon become necessary for credit card transactions in North America. These numbers can be found on the back of the card, in the signature strip, printed behind a repeat of the card number. Now, when you exercise the "Show Credit Cards" option of the Names - Record Maintenance function, you will see extra fields available to record your customers' credit card issue numbers. I understand you will be needing them soon.  You can also record your own credit card issue numbers in the Configure the DCMS option of the Utilities Menu.

These Issue numbers will also be printed on all bills recorded with the DCMS Release 11.3 or higher.

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Since Release  11.27  (November 6, 2003)

"Personal Use/Demo" Category of Sales has been Changed to "Non-Retail Product Use"

It was pointed out to me that when you are reporting your sales for income tax purposes, the classification "Personal Use" is not likely to gain favour with the government auditors if you then turn around and try to claim the business-related part of that personal use as deductions from your income. I have decided therefore that instead of "Personal Use/Demo", I would categorize these transactions as "Non-Retail Product Use", which more aptly describes them.  This change is retro-active, so all of your past records will also state "Non-Retail Product Use" in place of "Personal Use/Demo" from this release on.

As well, in the Annual Sales Report, if you choose to include your Non-Retail Product Use transactions, they will be reported by their Intended Use categories, such as "Advertising/Promo", or "Business Related Gift", to further highlight them as deductions, rather than income-generating sales.

"Trade Discount" on Bills has been Changed to "Discount" Outside of Canada

In Canada, with an average 15% sales tax, Consultants are allowed to claim back tax they lose in the course of taking product for Non-Retail Product Use, or selling to people who enjoy tax free status, or just giving a discount. Once a quarter, they fill out a rebate form and send it in to the Company, and the company re-imburses the lost tax. Along with the form, the Consultant must submit copies of all the bills that go to making the claim. These bills are in case the government auditors want to check the veracity of the claim. The problem is, the auditors don't know the products and procedures so well, so I developed the DCMS customer receipt to "spoon-feed" the auditors the information they need. One such piece of information needed is the amount of the "trade" discount (a Revenue Canada term, I suspect). I print that on each bill with a discount.

I find that "trade discount" is a term easily misinterpretted outside of Canada, so I have changed the printing of the bill so that outside Canada, the term will be shortened to merely "Discount". I have also made it so that chage is retro-active and all reprints of your bills will also remove the word "trade".

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Since Release 11.2  (September 6, 2003)

Check List Report Addition

When I added the ability to include email addresses to the Check List Report (Reports Production option of the Names Menu) I decreased the number of columns in the report from 4 to 3.  That restricted the information that could be included. Therefore, I added the ability to add the telephone number with the name in the first column of the report. If you choose to print the name and Phone number, you will have an extra column to use as you wish.  It came in handy for me the first time I needed to use the Check List report after that. Hope you find it useful.

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Since Release 11.1  (June 16, 2003)

Best Hostess Report

A few days ago, a user asked me how to determine her Top Ten Hostesses for a period of time. I had to admit that I didn't have that built in to the program, but what a good idea! Now in the Sales Menu, you will see the Best Hostess Report. It is fairly simple. Tell the DCMS what dates you want it to add up hostess sales between and it will display a report of the best hostesses between those dates. At present, it is just a view, with no print or tag functions, but that can be changed if you need it.

Canadian Email Report Processing

I am excited about this. Recently, Mary Kay Canada has been sending the IBM reports by email to NSDs. The report is attached to an email and arrives about 5 days before the printed one appears. I have taught the DCMS to finds the attachment, unzip the file and read the reports directly into the database. For NSDs, there are two reports. The first is their Area report with tons of information about the Directors in their Area. The second report is the Unit report, which all directors are acquainted with. The DCMS now reads those reports fully and automatically enters the data. It's amazing. You just identify the name of the attachment and where it was saved, and give the password to unzip it, and the DCMS will do the rest.

Why should you be interested in something I did for 13 NSDs in Canada? Can the emailing of Directors' reports be far behind? I don't think so. At present, I only know of the Canadian initiative. It only started late last month while I was on the NSD Summit Cruise in the Mediterranean. I expect that it will be increased to Directors and to other countries. When I learn of it, I will expand the capability right away.

New Director Fields

Because of the above ability to read the reports, I have added fields to Offspring Director screens to record the number of offsprings a Director has, the car she drives and the date the car was awarded. There is also a display of a graphic of the earned car.

Update Subscription Date

By now you may have learned that the "free updates for life" policy I held has been rescinded. Unfortunately, the DCMS is proving more costly to support, in terms of time, personnel and communications costs to support itself.  In order to guarantee that the DCMS will survive as a viable, evolving computer program, I will need to start to charge for updates. Commencing September 15, 2003 there will be a  charge if $29 (US) per year for upgrades to the program. Those who will have not had the program for at least thirteen months by that time will receive longer valid dates. The "About the DCMS" option of the Utilities menu has been updated to include a line which states that either the Update Subscription will be valid until a certain date or that the Update Subscription has expired.  The About the DCMS screen will be displayed whenever you update the program.

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Since Release 11.04  (April 25, 2003)

The End of your Personal  "Sales Week" has been "Harmonized"

Over the years, I have been creating this program and amending it as needed, and over that time, the setting that determines when your "Sales Week" begins and ends has gone astray. Prior to this version, you set the value of your Sales Week, by saying it begins on a certain day of the week. This was done on the Business Page of the Configure the DCMS option of the Utilities menu.   This information is used in two places. First, it's used to determine which sales to include in your Accomplishment Sheets. Second, it's used to set up the weeks of the month for a Director entering her Unit members' Accomplishment Sheets for recognition purposes. 

Again, over the years, I calculated the beginning and the end of a Sales Week using different methods. In one case, I started from the beginning of the week and worked forward and in the other I started at the end of the week and worked back. The result was that the two Sales Weeks, didn't always agree, and that was because I programmed one calculation in April 1998 and the other in January 2000, and didn't refer one to the other. 

This release now harmonizes the two and has settled on the calculation where you tell the DCMS what day of the week your Sales Week now ENDs on. When you tell the DCMS, again on the Business Page of the Configure the DCMS option of the Utilities menu, and now also on the Accomplishment Sheet(s) option of the sales menu, the weeks will calculate correctly. There will be no further need to jiggle with the dates to get the week you want. When you change the end of week day, the DCMS will confirm that your Sales Week now runs from Saturday to Sunday (or whatever you set as an ending day.

The Preferred Customer Report Now has a View Option

Some users have asked for the ability to view the Preferred Customer Report, so I added an option to View the report. If you choose this option, none of the Additions, Changes or Deletions will be made to the permanent PCP list in your records.

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What's New in the DCMS Since Release 11.0  (April 14, 2003) 

Read On-Line (InTouch) Reports into the DCMS

In the United States and Canada, Directors and Nationals can now "read" certain of their on-line reports from the Internet into the DCMS. This capability will be extended to Australia and New Zealand soon, and then the UK.

You will note a new Menu Item in the Director's Menu, entitled  Read On-Line Reports. If you click it, you will be given a menu of the various reports which can be "read" into the DCMS. By "reading", I mean that you will be able to "copy" the data from the report in your internet browser and then "paste" them into a window in the DCMS. You are then prompted to have the DCMS "read" the report and extract all the information it can from the report and then update your permanent records with the information in the report(s).

This is a very powerful capability, and it will be improved as new reports become available, and as I learn more about other countries' reporting systems. At present, in the Canadian version, the program utilizes 5 reports - Unit members, Inactive Unit members, consultant addresses, offspring production and monthly sales. Unfortunately, on the American side, the reports available are not as conducive to using in the DCMS and don't have the wealth of information contained in the Canadian reports. I know, that's hard to believe. However, in the Canadian Unit Members report, you find:  Consultant's name and Consultant number, recruiters name and number, date joined, birth date, home phone  number, status (active, probation), team production, team size, active and ordering team members, and personal production for the past 6 months.  In the American equivalent report, (Unit Production Details) you only get the Consultant's name and Consultant number,  team production, and personal production for the past 6 months. (the status is then worked out by the DCMS based on production)

Regardless, whatever information can be gleaned from each report is deciphered by the DCMS and placed in your records. It takes a process that used to take me 6 to 9 hours of tedious data updating when Angie received her computer printouts and cut it down to about 20 minutes of mouse-clicking play. I think Directors will love this feature. (Please note, you must have the Career Set of the DCMS to have access to the Read On Line Report option)

Changes to the Names - Record Maintenance function.

In release 11, you will note some significant changes to the Names - Record Maintenance function. Visually, you will see that the five "Information Page" buttons  have been replaced by 5 (or 3) "tabs" along the bottom of the page. These tabs work in exactly the same fashion as the old buttons, which were moved out of the way to make room for the Consultant Calls feature (discussed in the next section).  As well, the Add a New Record and Delete This Record Buttons were moved from the Features Block (in the top right corner of the screen) to the bottom left corner (just above the Page "tabs"). This was done to make way for a new "Clear Tag'd Files" button in their place. The Customer, Purchase and Offspring Pages have been left more or less in tact, with space in the bottom left corners for enhanced features in the future. On the Consultant page however, that space has been filled with the Consultant Calls feature.

Consultant Calls Feature

Many of you have asked for the ability to schedule Consultants in your Team, Unit or Area to be regularly called, just like the Customer Service feature schedules your next call to a customer, and tells you about it in the Buzz every day. I have added the same functionality to allow you to schedule your next call to people in your business, whether they be your Consultants, adoptees, offspring Directors or anyone else you want to keep regular contact with in the Mary Kay category of names. To start the schedule, bring up the person's record and either enter the date you last called her, or the date you next want to call her. If you enter the date of the last call (make one up if you want to) the DCMS will forecast a next call based on an internal rule (i.e.. call a new Consultant every week, a Consultant with 3 months' experience every 2 weeks, etc.)  You can modify that rule for each Consultant with a Call Every ___ Days field, which lets you dial in a call frequency for every individual Consultant or Director.

The Buzz has also been modified to display the Consultant Calls in the next  ___  days (you can set that on the Buzz page of Configure the DCMS), Consultant Calls Today and Consultant Calls Overdue.

Datebook Mode Has Been Brought Into Line With The Buzz

I was asked recently why the Buzz will report that there are 15 birthdays coming in the next 7 days, yet when you go into the Datebook mode of the Names - Record Maintenance function, it might say that you have 6 birthdays this week. The two functions did not match up, since the Buzz was looking forward 7 days (which could mean into next week), while Datebook was looking at this calendar week (which could mean the day before yesterday). Obviously, they had to be brought in line.  In release 11, that has been done and the Datebook mode now follows exactly the same calculations as the Buzz, and the numbers reported should be the same.  The Datebook mode has also been updated to reflect the Consultant Calls feature discussed above.

Names - Record Maintenance Now Shows "Last Updated" Date

The Read On-Line Reports function discussed above will in addition to updating your current records, also add new Consultants to your records if they weren't found when "reading" a report.  That means that there will be records in your files that you didn't enter. There will also be records that were updated recently which you didn't touch. As a result, the DCMS has two added features to help you determine what was your work and what was "automatic". First, if a record is added by the Read On-Line Reports function, a note to that effect will be added to the Memo field of the person's record (such as "(Added Automatically by the On-Line Reports Utility on Apr 14, 03)") 

Second, there is a line of information just above the new "Page tabs" at the bottom of the window, which tells you that a record is, for instance,   575 of 860 - Last Updated Sep 13, 02.  That means, you have 860 "names" in your files and chronologically speaking, the one you are looking at was the 575th one entered. The last time any information was updated on this record was Sep 13, 02, which gives you an idea about how current the information might be.  If you used the Read On-Line Reports function and it updated anything on that record, the "last updated" date would be the date you ran the Read On-Line Reports function last.

Auto Termination Date for Inactive Consultants  (Canada only)

The Read On-Line Reports feature in Canada includes the ability to read the Inactive Consultants Report into the DCMS (sorry, there is no equivalent report in the US system yet) One of the pieces of data contained in that report is the Termination Date. When you "read" that report, the DCMS will offer you the option to automatically delete that person from your records on that date, if she stays inactive until then. If you choose to use that option, a "termination date" prompt will appear beside any inactive consultant's status on the Consultant Page of the Names - Record Maintenance function. If you want to delete that date for a specific Consultant (either because you know she's coming back, or want to keep her as a customer), double-click on the termination date and you will be given the option to delete the date for that Consultant. Otherwise, on that date, her record will disappear. 

Changes to the Add Expense Receipts Function.

I have just spent 8 days (haven't we all?) preparing for taxes and entered (with my assistant) almost 2000 receipts in the Add Expense Receipts function of the Taxes menu. I have made some discoveries on how it can be made easier and have changed the function - not soon enough for this year for most of us, but we'll hit the deck running for next.

First, when you start the function, the DCMS builds a menu of up to 100 "Paid to:" values from your previous years' entries. Unfortunately, it is not too discriminant in who it includes. As a result, the Paid To menu, which is supposed to speed up entry, is populated with multiple entries with different spellings (i.e. First Bank, 1st Bank and Furst Bank) and entries that you'll never need again (like Joe's towing from the accident you had on the interstate in upstate New York). I have decided to streamline the menu, by putting you in charge of what gets on. When you start release 11, you will notice that the Paid To: menu is empty - a clean slate. To the right of the Paid To: menu is an  "On Menu?" check box. If you want to add the recipient of your funds to the menu, because you intend to be entering payments to that person again, check the "On Menu" box and that recipient will be immediately added to the menu.

If later on you determine that you don't need to have that recipient on the menu any longer, bring the name up and uncheck the box. The name will disappear from the menu.

Second,  I noticed that every now and then, I forgot to click the Add Another Receipt button before I started entering the next receipt. As a result, I "over-wrote" the previous receipt with the second one. This is easier to do than I had imagined, especially 5 hours into the tedious task (do yourself a favour - keep up to receipt entry on a weekly basis). I changed the program so that now, when you changed the "Paid To: " value while you still have a receipt on the screen, the DCMS asks you if you want to start a new receipt, or change the value of the current one. This should at least provide a small wake up to you to consider the question.  If this is a new receipt, answering "yes" will give you the same effect as if you had click the "Add Next Receipt" button. Clicking "no" will record the new recipient on the current receipt.  I also moved the "Add Next Receipt" button just to the right of the notes fields, to make it more accessible and harder to miss.

Third,  have you ever had several receipts to enter, all to the same recipient, all for the same amount, but on different days? I did, so I added an "Clone This Receipt" button to the function. Clicking that button will add a new receipt with a new number, but the same "Paid To: value, same amount, same category, same subcategory, etc. The only thing missing will be the date, and the cursor will be ready in the date field for you to enter the date, and then the amount, if that is different. It  may help speed things up for you :-)

Fourth, I am a keyboard guy. I find that I can do a lot more at the keyboard in this kind of data entry than I can elsewhere. I find it a distraction to have to press the Tab key to move to the next field when I have my head down in receipts and I am not looking at the screen. Sound familiar? I have always had a little hidden function that automatically went to the next field when I changed the previous one. I thought that the feature might be something others would want to use, so I added a "Move on Change?" checkbox to the Add Expense Receipts function. When that box is checked, the cursor will automatically shift to the next field when you press "Enter" after changing a field. The field has to be changed for this to work, but that's not usually a problem. It sped things up for me. The default is that this feature is not enabled, so users who are happy with the way it works now don't have to adjust.

Finally, the Calculator key now works in Windows XP.  When I switched to WinXP, I found that the calculator key stopped working. I found it was just looking for "calc.exe", the windows calculator, in the wrong place. It now works fine.

Changes to the Annual Expense Report.

I also found some changes desirable in the Expense Report. To start, I was asked to provide a "legend" on the recapitulation page to help you navigate the full report. Most of us try and use the first letter of a category and match it with the category, such as "B" for banking, or "A" for Advertising. But what if you have too many "A"s. You might then have to use "W" for Automotive, because "C" (for Car) is already "Charity". Small stuff, I know, but when you are trying to find your Automotive category expenses, it can help to know that Automotive expenses are in fact in category W. Therefore, on the recapitulation page of the Expense Report, the categories now have their category letter printed beside the category description, such as " W.  Automotive"

In the details of the expenses, I got a bit cross-eyed trying to match figures across the lines, particularly when it came to the Canadian GST (tax) which is listed on the far right side of the report (absent on American and British reports). I decided to make it a bit easier to read by adding broken lines across the report to keep your eyes in line and printing a blank line for every ten receipts, to break the report into easier to follow sections. I hope they help you in similar circumstances. My cross-eyed accountant loved them.

Finally, on the detailed printouts, I added a page reference to the bottom of the page, such as Page E-2, indicating the second page of the category E expenses. This will come in especially handy if the wind catches your report and you have to re-assemble it.

Re-create Lost Sales Records from Saved Bills

It stands to reason that I should change a lot of things about the DCMS around Tax Time, since that is when many of my users start to use the program in earnest. One user noticed that she had lost all of her sales between the beginning of 2002 and March 31st , 2002. This has been reported once or twice before and I was at a loss to determine why. I looked at her data and noticed that she still had the purchases showing on her Purchase Screen and she could still bring up the saved bills on the Review Bills function. I thought this would give me something to work with. I started working on a way to "re-create" the sales records by "reading" the data saved on the bills. I was able to successfully re-build her records, losing only the bookings, basics and dovetail details. I decided that this capability might be valuable to build into the program, so I added it to the Purchase Utility of the Sales Menu. There is now an option to "Recreate All Possible Lost Sales from Recorded Bills" in that utility. If you choose it, the DCMS will scour your records as far back as they go and ensure that there is a sales record for every bill. If it finds one missing, it builds it up again. It's quite slick.

Browse Personal Use Now Available By Category of Use

Again, at Tax Time, some of my users wanted to print out their Personal Use records by category, such as all of the Advertising / Promotion and  Demo / Display items, but not the Personal Use, or Personal Gifts items.  Therefore, I changed the Browse Personal Use function to add eight checkboxes to reflect the eight "intended uses" of  Personal Use  (please note: there used to be seven, but I added  "Hostess Credit" as an intended use in this release). When you bring up the Browse Personal Use function, all eight check boxes are checked, and you will see all of your items taken for personal use between whatever dates are shown in the Between: and And:  values. If you "uncheck" a box, the items with the associated intended use will disappear from the list. If you uncheck all of the boxes, the list will be empty. 

When you have the list composed of only those intended uses you want to see, then you can print the list and the Total values printed will reflect only the items chosen.  As well, if you choose to View Bills, only those bills represented by the chosen intended uses will be shown. Hope you like it.

Turning the Clock Back on Your Inventory Records

Once again, it's tax time and one user asked if it was possible to call up the December 31 inventory so she could do a report (in April). I thought of a way that it could be done using the copy of the inventory created when she made her January monthly backup. We discussed that this would be a nice thing to "hide" in the program, so others could easily use it. This is what I did. I changed the Stock Report function of the Inventory Menu, so that if you choose to "date" your report on January 1st of the current year, or December 31st of the past year  AND  there is a January Backup on your hard drive, the DCMS will ask you if you want to use the backed up inventory file instead. If you say yes, the file will be extracted and your current inventory will be saved. You can then do your stock report and when you close the Stock Report function, your current inventory will be restored automatically.  It's pretty slick, if I must say so myself.

Canadian Sales Tax Adjustment Form (GST / PST Rebate) Updated

The GST/PST Rebate form that is printed by the DCMS has been updated to very closely resemble the one used by the Company. You should be able to print it and send it right in without it being recognized as not a Company form, except that I changed the term "Native Indians" on the company form to "Native Canadians."  There was just something about the term that rubbed me the wrong way.

Gift With Purchase Editor

I noticed that if you record gifts with purchase during your sales, you can end up with a fairly lengthy list of previous GWPs and promotions that are no longer valid. Therefore, I have devised the Gift With Purchase Editor in the Sales Menu. When you select it, you are presented with a menu of all the entries in your GWP list, and you can select them, delete them, edit them or add new ones, so that your menu will be exactly what you need it to be. This function was actually added to release 10.98, but I didn't link it in properly, so it created an error when you selected it. It is now available. 

DCMS Can Now Export to Microsoft Outlook (Express)

My recent email woes were a result of my steadfast loyalty to Netscape Communicator.  I upgraded to the latest version and it caused me to lose thousands of messages and email addresses - several times, so I broke my allegiance with Netscape and switched sides and embraced Outlook.  As a result, one of the things I needed to do was to import the data I had into Outlook, so I taught myself how to do it and built that into the "Export Email Addresses" function of the Names Menu, and into the "Transfer Data to PalmPilot"  function of the Utilities menu. Both are now compatible with Outlook.   It was always my intention to include Outlook, but my troubles with Netscape forced my hand.

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Since Release 10.96 (December 16, 2002)

Old Part Numbers and New Part Numbers

While changing the various reports and screens to accommodate the new six digit part numbers, it occurred to me that it would be useful to search the inventory on old part numbers and/or new part numbers and get the same results. As well, when part numbers changed (as they all just did) the purchase records should be updated to reflect the new part numbers. Therefore, the DCMS now keeps track of both the current part number and the most recent (previous) part number if it changed. You can search for an item using either part number and the purchase records will automatically be updated so you can collate your sales throughout the years, even as part numbers change.

Towards a Multi-Lingual DCMS.

Although the DCMS operates in English, I have Canadian users whose mother tongue is French and who have customers who don't speak English. In the next few paragraphs, I will describe what I did for my French speaking users and their customers. In the early new year, I will be expanding this capability to Spanish speaking users and customers in the US. In that case, wherever you see the word French below, replace it with "Spanish". Here are the new multi-lingual features:

Identify Your Mother Tongue and Those of Your Customers

First, you should identify if you speak French as a mother tongue. When you update your COS, you can check the the French COS check box, or visit the Personal Page of the Configure the DCMS option of the Utilities module. Check the "My Primary Language is French" check box. Either way, when you identify yourself as French, inventory item descriptions will all appear in French on the screen, when you record a sale, manage your stock, make out an order or view a customer's purchases.  You can search for item descriptions using either French or English words from the COS.

As well, when you add people to your database, the default will be that they are French.

Second, you should indicate which of your customers / Consultants are native French speakers. This is done by checking the box marked "French?" above the Newsletter List on the Personal Page of the Names - Record Maintenance option.

If a person is marked as French, then bills will print to her in French (even if you don't speak the language), form letters (or at least the part created by the DCMS like the date and the letterhead elements) will print in French, and when you include that person in a Preferred Customer Report, the "French Literature" box will be checked for you.

Again, all I've done to include the French in Canada, will be extended to the Spanish in the US in the early new year. Sorry, I won't be doing Spanish in Canada or French in the US.

Tagging Your French Customers / Consultants

I have added a check box to the A La Carte Tagging function to include the French (or Spanish) criteria to the Tagging operation, so now you can tag based on the second language, or not.

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Since Release 10.94 (November 28, 2002)

Customer Service Variable - Customer by Customer

There has been a big change in the customer service routine. By default, the DCMS still calculates the next call on the "two day, two week, two month" customer service schedule traditionally trained in Mary Kay. As always, you will be allowed to alter that to reflect your needs (ie 3 days, three weeks and two months) as required.  Whichever you choose, the customer service schedule is calculated for all customers. The only exception is Vitamin customers, if you choose to indicate that you want to call them daily.

What is new is that now you can indicate the number of days between calls for each and every customer. By default, the frequency will be whatever you choose as the "two month" customer service schedule. However, after that, you can indicate that customer "A" should be called every 45 days, customers "B" and "C" every 60 days, customer "D" every 90 days and customer "E" every 75 days.

The DCMS will continue to calculate each new call for all your customers based on their individual needs.

"Special Reason" Has Been Added to the Next and Last Call Reasons

Also added to the customer service schedule is a way to indicate whether the last or next call to a customer was for a reason other than those mentioned in the menus. Let's say that the last call was a "Bookathon". You can indicate in the last call menu that the reason for the call was a "Special Reason".  Below those fields, there is a new field in which you can enter that special reason, to help you remember.

The Percentage Increase Challenge allows some" Views"

The new Percentage Increase Challenge Utility has been improved to allow you to view the challenges on screen. From the view screen, you can flip between the people in your Unit or Area and indicate which challenges you want to print. From the view screen you can also print all the challenges, or just those which you "tagged" to print.

Second, there is a button on the View Challenges Screen which will allow you to view a report of those who have successful achieved the challenges for the months, quarters and year so far. Click the button to view a report of your winners.

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Since Release 10.92 (September 25, 2002)

Percentage Increase Challenge Function (Director Menu)

Angie asked me to include with this month's newsletter a letter challenging each of her Directors to increase their monthly Unit Production by 20%. I was to send each a graph of what that meant for their production goals for the coming Seminar year. Those Directors who achieved the goal will receive recognition and awards at Leadership and Seminar. I set about to do this for Angie's 82 directors and knew that it would take a long time to do it manually for each one. I figured that I could automate the process and use it again and again, and what's more, other Directors might want to do something similar with their Areas or Units.

Therefore, new to the DCMS is the Percentage Increase Challenge for Directors. You can now select some or all of your Consultants or Directors to issue a personal challenge to them to increase their Personal Sales (Consultants or Directors) or their Unit Production, Unit Growth, Unit Size or Personal Recruiting (Directors only).

This utility allows you to issue a challenge, accompanied by a letter, which lists their past year's accomplishment in any of the above categories. You can set a percentage increase goal (ie 20%) and the program will create a chart for every selected Director or Consultant, listing their monthly, yearly and quarterly breakdown for the past Seminar year, the goal to reach for (ie 20% higher for each month, quarter or year). You can also set a minimum goal, in case the Director or Consultant had zero production in the month last year, or if 20% more than last year's production is still too low to maintain Directorship. 

If figures exist now for some months of the current Seminar year, they will be shown, along with the percentage increase that is represented by the current year figures. Therefore you can re-issue the challenge every month with figures on how they are doing so far. Try it. I think you will like it.

 The Business Mileage Utility now has Car "C"

Originally, the Business Mileage Utility allowed you to track mileage on one car, but I was persuaded that some people use two cars, or switch cars mid-year. So I added a second car to track (Car "B"). I have been further persuaded that some people use two cars anyway and switch one of them mid-year, so a third car can come in handy. So I have now let the program track three cars.

Review of Customers Notes (Memos) while Recording a Sale

While you are recording a sale, you have always been able to review a customer's purchase screen by clicking the "Review Purchases" button, so you can tell your customer what it was she bought last year, or find out for yourself. The shortfall of this is that Gifts With Purchase (GWP) are not recorded in the purchases records. GWPs are noted in the Notes area of the customer's record. I was asked to provide a way to review the GWPs, so I added a button on the screen where purchases are displayed to allow you to also review the customer's memo or Notes field. 

The button to access this capability on the sales recording screen is now called "Prev Purch and Memos", for Previous Purchases and Memos. Click that and you will be put in the Review Purchases screen. On the bottom left of that screen, I have added a Review Memo button. Click that and you can review and in this case also add or edit the memo, so you can add a bit of information about the customer that you might have just learned and want to remember (like she's allergic to a certain product) It also helps you prepare for the sales call.

The Ship To: Field in Make Out an Order Now Retrieves the Address

When making out an order, if the product is to be shipped "Care Of" someone else, when you click the Ship To radio button, your name and address come up by default. In earlier versions, if the person being shipped to was someone else, you had to enter all the information yourself, even if you had that info in your database. That didn't seem right to me. So I have changed the process so if you change the name in the Ship To field, the DCMS will try to find that person in your records and if found, will automatically enter her address in the fields.

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Since Release 10.90 (September 13, 2002)

Improvements to the Product Purchase History Report

In the Manage Stock function of the Inventory menu, you have long been able to view a History of purchases for any item. If you click the "History" button, a list of dates and customers who purchased the item is presented. As of this release, you will now be able to print that report and the names of customers will also include their phone numbers. This is a handy capability to have when prices go up. You can now print the list of customers who have bought an item and call them to warn them of the price increase and perhaps spur some sales.

The "Queen of Activity" is Back!

In the DCMS Classic, the Retail Sales Report (Accomplishment Sheets) of the Director menu included a calculation of the Queen of Activity. This was based on a certain number of "activity points" for business building activities. Traditionally, these points rewarded hours worked, bookings, basics, and customers called more than actual sales. The idea was to try to recognize effort, not necessarily sales, and therefore encourage the Consultant who might not be yet realizing the results of her work, but continues to put the effort in.  I have received an earnest lobby to bring the Queen of activity back to the DCMS, and I caved.

The Queen of Activity allows you to assign points (0-20) for each of seven categories you track, such as bookings, hours worked, basics sold, customers called, customers ordering, and yes, for every $100 sold in either classes or facials. Hope you enjoy the addition to the report.

DCMS is Ready for the 6 Digit Inventory Part Numbers. 

Later this year or in early 2003, part numbers for your inventory product will go to a 6 digit numbering system. I have changed the DCMS so that it can handle the new part numbers when they arrive.

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Since Release 10.88 (July 23, 2002)

Data Recovery Utility has an Added Capability

The Data Recovery Utility is in the Tolls section of the Utilities menu. It is a powerful tool that allows you to search your backups for data that has been lost, such as tax receipts, mileage logs, sales records and copies of bills. This utility has long been capable of searching for lost data that was backed up, but it now has the ability to also re-constitute sales records by "parsing" the copies of bills you have. For instance, if you are missing sales records for the month of July, but your customer records show you the bills for those sales in July, you can use the Data Recovery Utility to "re-create" the sales records from those bills.  Admittedly, this is a rare occurrence, but it has happened to a few users, so I thought the utility could be changed to address this problem now and in the future.

Extra Copies of Bills Bug Fix

Some users have reported that when they are re-printing large numbers of customer receipts, using the Extra Copies of Bills function in the Sales menu, their printers stopped printing after 20 or so bills. I have found a reason for this and re-wrote the function to work for everyone.

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Since Release 10.84  (May 30, 2002)

"Datebook Mode" Can Now Be Returned

Several users noted that in previous versions, if you are in Datebook Mode and you record a sale, when you return to the Names module, you get kicked out of Datebook Mode and have to re-enter it. As well, if you were showing credit cards, you had to re-open the credit card viewer every time you went from names to sales and back to names. I have changed the process to remember where you were in Datebook mode and if you were showing credit cards or not. When you go to record a sale, you should be returned to exactly where you left off.

As well, when you leave the Names module, if you are in Datebook mode, you will be asked if you want to return to the Datebook mode when you return to Names the next time.

Canadian French Consultant Order Sheet and Bills

Canadian Consultants who use the DCMS can now have their Inventory in French by choosing the "Canada (Francais)" option from the "Change/Update COS" option of the Inventory menu. If you choose the french option, your bills will also be printed in french. The program will still be in english, but at least your communication with your customers will be in french.

Conseillers canadiens qui utilise le DCMS peut avoir maintenant leur Inventaire en français par le "Canada (Francais)" option du "Change/Update COS" choix du menu de l'Inventaire. Si vous choisissez l'option français, votre factures sera imprimée aussi en français. Le programme restera en anglais, mais au moins
votre communication avec vos clients sera en français.

New Options for Your Invoices

I have been asked to provide places on the printed invoices for you to note the Credit Card Authorization Number and an optional Invoice number on your DCMS printed invoices. The Credit Card Authorization has an obvious value, and if you have an authorization when you print the bill you can add it while noting how the customer paid. If you don't have the number, a place will be printed where you can write in the number later.

The provision of an invoice number allows you to develop your own set of invoice numbers or to enter the invoice number of the hand-written bill you wrote at the class. This way you have another cross-reference to the original bill. I will expand this capability in future episodes.

Backup and Restore to Backups in Any Location

The Backup Utility now lets you create or restore from Backups in any location available to your computer. This lets you create a backup on a network drive, or a specific folder of a CD ROM writer. The possibilities are boundless. Admittedly, this is an option for only a few users, but I expect as home computer set-ups get more elaborate, that number will grow. To exercise this option, use the "Specific File Backup" field to enter the precise location and filename of the backup you want to create, restore data from or extract files from. You can use the "Browse" button to fill in the field, navigating your computer to choose exactly the location and filename you want to use.

The Backup Utility still defaults to the regular safety backup if you do not specify the filename. I still recommend that you use this backup regime regularly, using the specific file backup only when necessary.

Make Out an Order Can Now Save up to Ten Standard Orders

Recently, with all of the new products and shades available, it became clear to me that you could easily have requirement for more than the five "standard orders" the DCMS used to let you save. I sure needed them. I have added another five standard orders to the Canadian "Make Out an Order" utility and will update the remaining countries during the next round of COS updates.

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