Program Operation

The Counter System program has been designed to allow simultaneous use at two or more terminals.  However, because the terminals share the same disk files, there are certain situations that should be avoided:
 

1. Do not attempt to access the same contract from two terminals simultaneously.

2. Do not attempt to access the same customer from two terminals simultaneously.

3. All terminals at the store must have previously exited from the Counter System Menu and Quit from the Program Menu to perform end-of-day processing. These terminals must not be used to run any POINT-OF-RENTAL™ programs until after the END OF DAY PROCESSING program has completed.

Notes Concerning Program Operation

1. Money values may be entered in pennies or as a decimal. For example, to enter five dollars and thirty-nine cents, you can type 539 or 5.39
    

2. When you are asked to select from a range of values, the allowed range will be shown in parentheses, followed by a ‘default’ value. If you press the ENTER key, the “default” value will be used. For example, let’s assume someone is buying a 12” concrete blade and you have reached the point where quantity must be entered.
    

3. Enter quantity (1-14) 1 :

   1. If you press ENTER, then quantity 1 would be used. If more than 1 is desired, you must type the desired quantity followed by ENTER.
       

4.  Most questions that require a “yes” or “no” response may be answered by clicking on Yes or No, typing the letter “y” or the letter “n”, or using TAB to select the appropriate option and pressing the ENTER key.
    

5. When typing information, you can make corrections before pressing the ENTER key by using the BACKSPACE key. This allows you to position the cursor back to the location of the mistake. For example, if you typed "Johnxon" instead of "Johnson," you would press the BACKSPACE key three times to move the cursor back to the letter "x." Then, you can simply type "son" to correct the spelling.
    

6. Upper- and lowercase letters are considered the same by the program. For example, if you have previously defined a customer’s search key to be Johnson, that customer will be found if you later enter JOHNSON as the search key.
    

7. The following rules apply when you enter or modify data for a record (Customer data, Item data, etc.).

   1. The TAB key advances you to the next field of the record. If no data is to be entered for the field, or if the data in the field is not to be changed, simply press TAB. The ENTER key can also be used, but remember that pressing ENTER on a button will be the same as clicking the button.

   2. For fields that are defined as numeric only, your entry will not be accepted if you enter any non-numeric data in the field. The exceptions to this are that spaces and the minus sign (-) will be accepted.

   3. To reverse the direction that fields are entered, hold the SHIFT key while pressing the TAB key.

   4. To duplicate the first field into the current field, press the  = key. If the current field is smaller than the first field, the rightmost characters will be dropped.

   5. When you enter customer data, you may place a question mark “?” in any non-numeric field to indicate missing information. This will cause Modify or Close Contract to display the customer data and allow the operator to insert the missing information.

       

8. A ‘search key’ is a sequence of letters, numbers or special characters that are used to find a unique record within a data file. For example, a customer’s telephone number may be the search key used to find their data record. This search key must be unique within the data file in order that

   1. The program will know exactly which record to look for. Whenever you’re looking for a particular customer, item, contract, etc. You will be asked to enter the search key. Some of the data files may support multiple search keys. For example, you can search for a customer by phone number, name, or driver’s license number. In any event, whenever you are required to enter a search key, the program will first ask for the primary search key. If you only press the ENTER key or TAB key in response, the program will move to the next search key. If you enter NEXT when a search key is requested, the program will attempt to find the search key following the previous search key that was entered. If you enter SAME, the previous search key will appear. If you enter MORE when a search key is requested, the program will display the next screen of records.

       

9. The ‘status’ of a contract is printed as the first line on the contract form. The possible statuses are:

   1. QUOTE – A quote that has been generated for a customer.

   2. OPEN – At least on a item is currently rented and has not been returned.

   3.  RESERVATION -  At least one item has been reserved for a future date/time and has not yet been picked up/sent out.

   4.  CLOSED – All rented items have been returned but the total contract amount has not yet been paid or a deposit is still held.

   5. COMPLETED – All rented items have been returned, and the total contract amount has been paid

   6. ADJUSTIMENT – An Extra Charge or refund was made to a contract that is no longer on file in the computer.

   7. WORK ORDER -  A contract to complete repairs on a customer’s equipment.

   8. MAINTENANCE REQUIRED – Items on a contract that have been scheduled or placed for maintenance. This will not remove the item from inventory.
      

   9. SUB RENT OPEN – Items on a contract that have been overbooked and have been sub-rented from another company.
       

10. The following special items and customer records have been pre-defined in your system. However, the store owner may have chosen different keys for some of them:

    1. Customer Key: SALE - This is used as the customer key for TAXABLE CASH SALE ONLY.

    2. Customer Key: NOTAX - This is used as the customer key for NON-TAXABLE CASH SALES ONLY.

    3. Customer Key: DEFAULT - This is called the default customer record. It should only be changed by the store owner. The purpose of this record is to set up the initial values for adding new customers.

    4. Customer Key: REPAIRS - This customer is used to remove broken items from inventory and charge the cost to the item’s Repair Cost. There can be several REPAIRS customers. They all just have to begin with REPAIRS in the key.

    5. Customer Key: QUOTE - This customer is used to write a rental quote if you do not wish to use a particular customer.

    6. Item Key: MR - This is used only for MISCELLANEOUS RENTAL ITEMS that are not in the price list.

    7. Item Key: MS - This is used only for MISCELLANEOUS SALES ITEMS that are not in the price list. The program will ask for the sales item's name

    8. Item Key: BALANCE  -This is used to enter previous account balances for charge account customers. NEVER ATTEMPT TO SEE THIS ITEM because it's only for use by the store owner in the first setting up account balances.

    9. Item Key: DEFAULT - This is called the default items record. It should only be changed by the store owner. The purpose of this record is to set up the initial values for adding a new item to the inventory.

        

11. You must define five Passwords that are used to limit access to certain privileged functions of the POINT-OF-RENTAL System. Each password may be up to ten characters long. The characters may be any on the keyboard. For example, abcABC123% is a valid password.

    1. The five levels of passwords are:

       1. Password 1 –  Owner’s Password

       2. Password 2 –  Regional Manager Password

       3. Password 3 –  Store Manager Password

       4. Password 4 –  Assistant Manager Password

       5. Password 5 -  Key Counter Password

              

          FUNCTION	PASSWORD REQUIRED
          Aged Customer Balance Report	1, 2, 3 or 4
          Calendar Maintenance Changes	1, 2, or 3
          Clear Database Locks	1 or 2
          Customer Letters	1, 2 or 3
          Customer Reports	1 or 2
          Data File Security	1
          End of Day Processing	1, 2, 3, 4 or 5
          Enter Account Payments	1, 2, 3, 4 or 5
          File Maintenance	See Data File Security
          Inventory Price Adjustments	1
          Item Income/Utilization Report	1 or 2
          Modify Data Fields	1
          Parameters	1
          Report Generator	1, 2, or 3
          Sales Tax Report	1 or 2
          Time Clock Report	1 or 2
          Transaction Edit Report	1, 2 or 3
          Withdraw cash (bank deposit)	1, 2 or 3

           

12. Each employee should be assigned an Operator ID Code. These codes consist of any 25 characters on the keyboard. For example, 2P is a valid ID code.  It must be entered to gain access to the counter system functions.  The counter system program will enter the operator's name at the top of the contract. This name will be printed at the top of each contract and will also appear in the transaction report during End of Day Processing.  This enables you to associate any action at the counter with a particular counterperson. You must also define the operator’s name that corresponds to the ID code. 
        

13. Your computer contains a day/date clock that has a battery backup.  Normally, it will always know the correct time and date. However, if you need to manually change the time and/or date, click the time in the bottom-right corner of the server screen. Change the date and time accordingly.

     

14. U-Haul or Ryder Commissions

    1. The following procedure will allow you to run all U-HAUL revenue through your cash drawer but only include commissions in your total sales.

       1. If you have not already done so, add the following:

          1. A disbursement item for “U-HAUL Money In.”  Maximum price negative (-5000.00).

          2. A disbursement item for “U-HAUL Money Out.” Maximum price positive (5000.00).

          3. A customer for U-HAUL transactions, Cash, Sales Only, tax exempt.  Sample key: UHAUL.

          4. A miscellaneous sales item for U-HAUL transactions, type s. Sample key: UHAUL.  Selling price blank.

    2. When money comes IN from U-HAUL customers, issue a cash disbursement to “U-Haul Money In”. Enter the money added to the drawer.

    3. When money goes OUT to U-HAUL customers, issue a cash disbursement to “U-Haul Money Out”. Enter the money removed from the drawer.

    4. When a commission check comes IN from U-HAUL Corporation, open a contract with customer key UHAUL. Sell the UHAUL item key, quantity 1, for the total commission amount.  Payment method check.

    5. If applicable, issue cash disbursements for any expenses that were deducted from the commission check.

    6. Item key UHAUL and customer key UHAUL will both reflect UHAUL commissions for income.
         

15. How to Copy Pictures Into an Item Record

    1. In the item record, you can display a picture of the item. You can get the pictures from manufacturer’s web sites or from a disc of pictures. The website pictures are the best to use as they are sized and formatted to work with fewer problems.

        

16. In situations where the extended price of a line item is 1.5 cents, the program will round using the rules set based on bankers’ rounding.
    

    1. Even cents round down, and Odd cents round up.

       1. Example, +.235 becomes +.24,  +.245 becomes +.24

    2. This method treats positive and negative values symmetrically, and is therefore free of sign bias. More importantly, for reasonable distributions of y values, the expected (average) value of the rounded numbers is the same as that of the original numbers. However, this rule will introduce a towards-zero bias for even numbers (including zero), and a towards-infinity bias for odd ones.
        

17. Day at a Glance will time out and force you back to the Enter ID screen after 60 minutes. 

     

18. To make paragraphs appear as paragraphs in printout fields, click CTRL+ Enter, and it will create a line break

     

19. You can add notes as pop-ups on the screen, either on the opening or closing of contracts, to remind or inform your employee about something with the customer, contract, or item on contract. (ex) (Check propane levels or check vehicle for damage).

    1. In File Maintenance, go to file record, modify, detail tab, Notes tab.

    2. If you want to add message on open contract use your greater symbol followed by a small o for open enter your message, then the less symbol Ex <o THIS IS A TEST>  Replace the small o with a c for closed contracts.

        

20. You can email multiple contracts to a customer by selecting the contracts through the customer dashboard.

    1. Enter the customer name to bring up the customer

    2. Above the first contract listed there will be a blue title bar

    3. Move your mouse over the word contract; a small down arrow will appear. Click the down arrow. You will see a list of contracts appear.

    4. Only leave the ones checked that you want to email to the customer.

    5. Go to reports at the top of the page, select print all contracts, select email and print.