Installation

Installing on a network:

Accounting for Clipper was written as multi-user from the ground up and record-level locking is employed in all but a few cases. It should run on every network under the sun.

General

• Run the Purge routine to clean out the sample data. "Most" will zap everything except the system and users tables. "Some" will also leave vendor, customers, items, and the chart of accounts.
• If your customer will be running multiple companies and each company is to have its own cash, AR, and AP accounts, set the MULTIACCT field in the SYS table to True, otherwise set it to false.
• Add the fiscal periods for the current, prior and following year. Ensure that the dates match their current fiscal periods.
• Create a chart of accounts. Your customer should already have the structure for this from their accountant. If not, get their accountant's help for this. Groups may be replicated, so set up a complete chart of accounts for one entity and use the replicate option for others. (If your customer is not going to be using the GL module, set up just the accounts required by the other modules they will be using. Those will be found in the general parameters option and in the item file.)
• Set up each job if tracking job costing information is desired.

General Ledger

• Create at least one entity and one cost-center. The descriptions may be left empty if multiple companies are not being supported.
• Set up their beginning balances. Do this by creating a GL batch and enter the last period of the prior year as the batch period. This assumes that you're starting at the beginning of the year. If starting in mid-year, they may enter the balances as of the prior period.
• Run a trial balance to make sure that everything is in balance.
• Set up budget categories for the accounts that they wish to track.
• Set up budgeted amounts for each account. This is a fairly tedious process, and budgeting can wait until everything else is underway.

Accounts Receivable

• Set up the customer file.
• Set up the current balances for each customer. There are two approaches that are usually taken here. One is to enter the each invoice using the original invoice date and the current invoice balance as the original amount. This will provide accurate aging reports from the very beginning but requires a considerable amount of data entry to get going. The other approach is to enter only one dummy invoice per customer, with the amount being the customer's current balance. If you choose this method, it will be 90 days before the aging report becomes meaningful.
• Run an aging report to ensure correctness of the customer balances.

Accounts Payable

• Set up the vendor file.
• Enter each outstanding invoice and the current balance on each.
• Run an aging report to ensure correctness of the customer balances.
• If using laser checks on blank check stock, set the LASERCHKS field in the SYS table to True, otherwise set it to false. If using existing preprinted checks, you may need to modify the print positioning in the check print routine.

Order Entry

• Set up the customer file.
• Set up ship-to addresses.
• If your customer will be using the laser forms for invoices, orders and quotes, select the "laser forms" option in the System Defaults option in the Admin module.
• Set up the item file. Besides actual inventory, they will also want to add non-inventory items like shipping charges, setup charges, etc.
• Create records for each of the sales staff
• Create records for each taxing authority (sales tax).

Inventory / Purchasing

• Set up the item file.
• Set up the vendor file.
• Enter the beginning on-hand quantities by entering receipts for those quantities for each item/location.

Payroll

• Set up the tax tables for federal, state and local taxes.
• Set up the table of pay types. (The defaults may be sufficient.)
• Add all deductions and employer contributions to the the master adjustment file.
• Add each employee to the employee table and enter the taxes and deductions for each.

Fixed Assets

• Set up the fixed asset categories.
• Create the depreciation tables.
• Add each fixed asset to the master file.

ColumbuSoft - Columbus, Ohio
1+(614) 885-7789  Fax:+1 (614) 885-2077
E-mail: mail@columbusoft.com

Last updated: Tuesday, February 03, 2004 05:24:28 PM