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Enhancments
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Comments
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Added graphic function key display to the transaction screen. New configuration
switch to turn off/on at transactions tab in configuration editor.
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The Transactions
configuration tab has a new checkbox on the lower-left side called "Show Function Key Template."
When checked, the transaction screen will be widened a bit, and a list of the defined
function keys will be displayed on the right-hand side. Holding down Ctrl/alt/shift
will change the list to match the selected key-set.
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Added ability to specify a transaction message for each day of the week.
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Tabs have been
added, one for each day of the week.
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Added iconic representation of line item type after ID number at transaction screen
to make identifying line item types easier.
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Each transaction line item type (e.g. rental, sale, check-in, etc.) has been given
it's own icon
representation that will appear in the right-hand margin of the ID column.
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Added Logged Employee name display to bottom of transaction screen (above status
bar).
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Under the "Total" label.
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Added ability to export the merchandise turnover report to a CSV format file.
Added ability to export merchandise report generator fields to CSV format file.
Added ability to export rental product report generator fields to CSV format file.
Added ability to export customer report generator fields to CSV format file.
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Each report that has an option to export to CSV (comma-separated values) also has
an associated field for you to specify the export file name and location.
Exporting data in this manner allows you to view or manipulate the data in a 3rd-party
software such as Microsoft Excel, Quickbooks and many others.
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Added a Report Generator Wizard to Rental Product, Customer and Merchandise report
generators. The wizard will walk people unfamiliar with the report generator
through the necessary steps in creating a custom generated report in Phoenix.
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The report wizard will help people new to Phoenix, and those who've never used or
don't understand the report generators. The wizard explains and prompts you
to do the necessary steps in the correct order necessary to get the desired results.
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Added a Rental Product Re-pricing Wizard. The wizard makes changing New Release
priced stock (by filter or by entered list) to catalog stock pricing easier and
safer for the clerks.
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This program wizard is designed to allow you to quickly re-price older new-release
titles to their appropriate regular stock pricing without having to use the Mass
Field Change utility. This not only simplifies the process, it greatly reduces
the risk of accidental or collateral damage to your databases from misuse of the
Mass Field Change.
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Added a Rental Product Sell-Through Wizard. The wizard makes changing Rental
(only) product to Sale Only (or both) easier and safer for the clerks.
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This program wizard is designed to allow you to quickly change "rental only" titles
to "sale only" (or "both") without having to use the Mass Field Change utility.
This not only simplifies the process, it greatly reduces the risk of accidental
or collateral damage to your databases from misuse of the Mass Field Change.
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Editor: Rental Product: Added a privilege to control access to copy status field
when editing.
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The new privilege may be set in the Employee Editor section for each employee you
have. Note that you still may not change a status from "Rented" manually;
regardless of this privilege setting.
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Editor: Security Audit History Viewer: Redesigned the viewer for easier use
and to make the descriptions easier to spot and understand.
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The editor
screen has not only been redesigned to be easier to use, the items displayed
have been clarified and an icon assigned to them for ease of scanning. When
a listed item is double-clicked, you will now see a detailed explanation of the selected item with the relevant
item values displayed and labeled.
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Editor / Phoenix Utils: Removed the "Utilities" tab from the Phoenix Editor,
and added them to the "Phoenix Utilities" program. Redesigned the front-end
of the Utility program to make it easier to find the utilities and also have a brief
pop-up description for each utility. This enhancement also necessitated the
addition of several privileges for each of the utilities and the removal of the
generic "Phoenix Utility Program" privilege.
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All functions appearing under the "Utilities" tab on the Main Editor Screen in versions
prior to 7, have been moved to the Phoenix Utilities Program. The Utility
program will now request a login name/password and each function that is available
there now has a new employee privilege associated with it. This not only allows
us to provide better access control to current, and future, utilities it also allows
us to present a more user-friendly interface for the utilities.
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Editor: Merchandise Editor: Added a button for "Quantity History" which will list
all transactions/processes that may alter merchandise on-hand quantity.
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The new button (looks like a blue arrow on the right-hand side of the editor screen)
will display a 90-day window of detailed history for any system events that altered
on-hand quantity for the displayed item. The ending date for the 90-day window
may be specified and defaults with the current date.
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Reports: Report Generators: Added a button to copy currently loaded definition to
a new definition.
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The new button allows you to create a copy of the currently loaded report definition,
giving it a new name.
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Editor/Transactions: Added Minimum Sell Date to title record, and transaction engine
will verify date against run date when selling rental product.
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A new date field available for each title record will prevent selling a copy of
the title before that date. The field is not displayed on the title summary
screen that is shown along with the copy list, you have to add or edit a title to
see/change it.
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Editor/Transactions: Added field selection for "Aspect" to Rental Product
Items. Also added a column to display aspect in title copy list search at
the Transaction Screen. Also made column-resizing on the copy list persistent
between sessions.
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The new "Aspect" field will allow you to record the aspect ratio for a copy from
one of three choices: Full, Wide, or Both. This value is also displayed
on the copy search screen at transactions to help you determine if a requested format
is available.
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Reports: Rental Product Reports: Added Minimum Sell Date and Aspect
fields to both criteria picking and report generator fields.
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By adding these fields you will be able to print them out as well as filter based
on their value. This will also help you in initially setting the field values
for your existing inventory after you upgrade.
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Transactions: Added a menu item to customer menu to re-rent currently checked
out items. You will see a list of the items, be able to check which you wish
to re-rent and how to handle ADR/Rental payment. The selected items will then
be added to the current invoice.
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A list of all inventory currently checked out for the entered customer is shown.
You may place check marks on the items you wish to re-rent to the customer.
You may also specify that any resulting ADR's are automatically set to "On Account"
when created. This function will make extending rentals for customers much
easier and faster than before.
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Editor: Merchandise: Added "Package Group" field to merchandise record
to facilitate new package pricing features.
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The new field is below the "Price A" values on the left-hand side of the screen.
The field is a drop-down style box similar to rating or categories. You may
enter a new value to add it to the list or pick an existing one from the list.
This field is used to group like merchandise items into a package price at the transaction
screen.
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Editor: Package Pricing Editor: Redesigned editor screen to be more user-friendly,
added merchandise "Package Group" and Department as collective merchandise options.
Also added a "Copy Package" function. Also added a "Package Wizard" function
to walk user through creating a package.
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The new package
pricing screen is easier to use and understand than prior versions.
The new "Copy Package" button and wizard walk-thru makes setting up and maintaining
packages much faster. Also, the new "Package Group" function (described above)
allows you to group like merchandise as an item on the package. For example,
if you could create a "Candy" group that spanned multiple ID's and departments but
only takes one line on one package.
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Phoenix Utilities: Added ability to export Merchandise Quantity Adjustment set to
CSV format file.
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This allows you to export QA sets that you have created to a CSV format file for
import into Microsoft Excel or perhaps to send to your vendor along with returning
items.
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Phoenix Utilities: Merchandise Qty Adjustment: Modified report layout, and have
both report and editor sort items by ID number.
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Modified the report to contain more information and allow a new sort order.
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Phoenix Utilities: Merchandise Qty Adjustment: Made adjustment direction (increase/decrease
qty) persistent between edit sessions.
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Now, whatever you did last time you created a set (increased or decreased) will
be the default function next time you use it.
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Phoenix Utilities: Merchandise Qty Adjustment: Added "rollback" feature to un-do
processed sets. Also added security audit entry for rollback action.
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This new function allows you to "undo" a set that you have already processed.
The quantities adjusted will be set to the reverse of what they were initially.
Note that a new security audit entry has been created to track this.
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Reports: End-of-Day/Revenue History: Added Package Type Comparison to comparison
report list.
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A new comparison report is now listed with the other comparisons showing you how
one package price type did in relation to the other package price types.
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Editor / Reports: Employee Commissions: Added subscription sales to
the list of commissionable items.
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This will now allow you to track and give commissions on sales of subscriptions
by your employees.
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Transactions: Batch Check-in: Modified batch check-in to exit batch mode and request
an employee login after processing a batch if the "Force Employee Login" switch
is set.
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This should help employees who leave the batch check-in screen up but forget to
close it when they are done. If you have force-login set, when you exit the
batch check-in you will need to re-log an employee.
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Phoenix Utilities: Added a utility to off-line transactions older than a given date
(minimum of 1 year ago). The off-lined transactions may be viewed in the customer
history viewer or reported on from the Revenue History report. NOTE:
Off-lining transactions will remove historical rental reporting, customer "seen
before," demographic and performance information for the date range of transactions
removed. This utility is primarily intended for customers with more than three
years worth of transactions or whose TRANS.MDB file is approaching the physical
1.2GB file size limit.
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Unless you've been using Phoenix for a few years now, or you have a really large
transaction volume, you won't need this option at this time. At some point,
you are bound to need to use this option to slim down your active transaction file.
When that time comes, you can use this to move old transactions to an "off-line"
database that is maintained and may be scanned per-customer or reported on historically
from your Revenue History report.
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Editor: Customer History View: Modified the history viewer to display current transaction
history, and any off-lined transaction history that it finds. Off-lined invoices
may not be printed.
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The history viewer will check for, and load, all off-lined transactions for the
selected customer. We've color coded the transaction source so you can
easily see what's in your "active" database and what is off-lined.
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Reports: Customer Subscription Renewal Report: Added CC# and expire date to
renewal report. Also added an option to create a billing file based on the
report output for use at the transaction screen.
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For those of you who wish to manually renew the subscriptions, the report will list
the CC# and exp. date to facilitate that. You also have the option of saving
the report list to a file for use at the transaction screen once you've verified
the contents (see below).
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Editor: Customer Database: Added Billing Zip Code, V-Code and Renewal Type
fields to customer database for use with new Interactive Subs. Renewal function.
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In order to help get a better credit card rate when performing non-card-present
transactions, most processors require the "V-Code" and/or the billing address zip code in order to
get their best discount rate. We've added those fields near the existing credit
card information in customer editor screen.
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Transactions: Interactive Renewals: New utility will read the file created
from the Renewal Report and allow you to select some or all of the subscriptions
that appeared on the report for an automated renewal invoice. The process
will place the renewed subscriptions on the customer's account (if no valid credit
card on file) or will attempt to pay for the renewal with the credit card on file.
User intervention will still be required for declined credit cards. You have
the the option of printing Invoices for each renewal as they are processed to mail
to your customers.
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When you print the renewal report (see above) you can make a file to be used here.
The file, once loaded, will allow you to view those customers appearing on it, select
which ones you wish to process and begin processing them. You can print invoices
for each transaction that you may then mail to the customers. One invoice
will be created for each renewal you've selected from the list. I
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Editor: Station Peripherals: Report Printer: Added a Top and Left margin value
(in inches) for adjusting the printing of 5160 and 5164 address labels within the
Phoenix system.
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Not every laser/inkjet printer feeds the paper in the same way and each printer
model has a different "hardware margin" of unprintable area around a sheet of paper.
These two new settings will allow you to tailor the mailing label printing within
Phoenix to better fit your particular printer.
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Editor: Customer Editor: Added a button to print a single mailing label for
the displayed customer.
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Great for sending a quick letter to a customer when you don't have time or the printer
set up to run an entire report.
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Register: Modified registration process to allow use of drive other than A: for
license disk.
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More and more computers are being shipped without a floppy disk drive. This
enhancement allows you to read the License.dat file from any drive/directory on
your system.
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Reports: Rental Product Case Jackets: Modified barcode printing to scale directly
to the printer device context (barcodes should scan more reliably now). You
may need to adjust any case jacket layouts you are using to account for a slightly
different placement of the barcodes.
Reports: Rental Product Case Labels: Modified barcode printing to scale directly
to the printer device context (barcodes should scan more reliably now). You
may need to adjust any case label layouts you are using to account for a slightly
different placement of the barcodes.
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In prior versions, the case jacket/label image was created on a screen-based
device context and printed as one big picture to the printer. This had the
unfortunate side-effect of improperly scaling the barcode and making it scan far
less reliably that it should have. Now, the image is rendered with everything
but the barcode(s) and then the barcodes are sent individually directly to the printer,
insuring they are properly scaled.
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Reports: Merchandise Reports: Added a new Merchandise Revenue report that will allow
you show revenue by a date range for merchandise items you select.
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The report will allow you to see how specific merchandise have performed over a
given time frame.
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Transactions: When detecting a subscription is about to expire, the system
will check to see if there is a new subscription to continue the expiring one and
if so, will not display a renewal notice.
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This change should help to prevent your clerks from renewing a customer multiple
times for the same subscription.
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Transactions: New icon display when a customer has active subscriptions on
file, subscription description list appears next to displayed icon.
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If a customer has one or more active subscriptions, a new icon will be displayed at the bottom of the transaction
screen to alert the clerk, and the subscription name(s) will be listed.
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Editor: Modified customer credit card expiration date to be just MM / YYYY instead
of complete date field.
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This change
should help eliminate data-entry errors when inputting the customer credit card
information by hand.
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Editor: Customer Search Screen: Added first name as a sort/search option.
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Some stores like to be able to find "Bob" in their database. This will allow
you to show your customers in order by first name.
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Reports: ID Barcodes: Added support for EPL2 compatible printers (in page mode only).
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Specifically, the Zebra LP2824 printer is the one we had in mind. Please contact
your Sales Person for more information about this printer if you are interested.
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Reports: Revenue Summary Page One: Modified Gift Card Usage display to more
accurately reflect cash total, removed gift card line from funds breakdown.
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Modified how the cash total is displayed to be more understandable as some people
were getting confused about Gift Cards and how they figured into the payment types.
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Editor: Extended coupon functionality. Added ability to print a barcode which
may be scanned at transactions to apply coupon. Scanned behavior may be (1)
Least Rental, (2) Least Merchandise, (3) Least Any, (4) Selected Item or (5) Manual
(won't allow scanning). Added optional flag to limit coupon to once per invoice.
Also added a "source" field (where the coupons will be distributed
from) and an "issued" field to track the number of coupons printed (these fields
will be used for future reporting).
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Once you have defined your coupon, at the coupon search screen there is now a "Barcode"
button. This button will allow you either print the barcode for the selected
coupon, or send the barcode for the coupon to the Windows Clipboard (where you may
then paste it in a program of your choice). The coupon, when scanned at the
transaction screen will act in accordance with the new options you have selected
(least rental, least merch. etc.)
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Editor: Customer Editor: Added a button next to credit card field to allow
you to swipe the credit card to enter the number, type and exp. date.
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This button
will help eliminate data-entry errors when inputting customer information by reading
the CC number and expire date directly from the magnetic stripe on the card.
Obviously you need to have a mag. stripe reader in order to take advantage of this
new feature.
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Editor: Coupon Editor: Added performance button to graph coupon redemption
over time.
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The "Performance" button on the coupon search screen will show, over time, how many
redemptions of the selected coupon occurred per day for the "valid range" of the
coupon.
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Reports: New Coupon Performance Report. You may select which coupon(s)
to report on, and the report will list Description, Valid Range, Source, # Issued,
# Redeemed, % of use, number redeemed for 1st, 2nd and 3rd weeks, and total dollars
discounted.
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This report will allow you to determine which coupons are working and which are
not. You will also be able to tell where the bulk of the coupons that are
getting used are coming from (e.g. newspaper, flyers, etc.).
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Editor: Added Employee Timeclock edits and deletions to Security Audit History tracking.
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These were not tracked previously. Anytime a change is made to a timeclock
entry, a security audit entry will be generated.
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Editor: Added a prompt window to list the currently clocked in employees when
shutting down Phoenix. You may choose to do nothing or clock out the listed
employees at (1) current time, (2) Last Invoice Time or (3) Last Drawer Close time.
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The new screen
will be displayed when you click the "X" on the Phoenix Editor screen. If
you have a large number of employees clocked in still this screen may take a while
to display. The system will be unresponsive while the screen list is populated.
Once it's loaded you can choose how you wish to deal with the employees listed.
Right-click the grid to remove the selected employee from the list and avoid taking
action on that one employee.
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Editor: Supporting Tables: Added Merchandise Package Group Description to
list of editable tables.
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This gives you a quick way to add en-mass the groups you need or to edit the ones
that have been added.
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Transactions: Added support for signature capture per invoice. Added
Configuration switch and image file settings to the Transaction Settings Tab.
Customer invoice history detail print will show the captured signature.
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Specifically, the Topaz Systems' 1x5 Model T-LBK460-HSB which is a USB LCD signature
capture device. For those stores wishing to go entirely paperless, you now
have the option of capturing the customer's signature electronically at the point
of sale.
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Transactions: Modified the warning window prompt when trying to check in an item
that is not rented to indicate the current item status (In Store, Damaged, etc.).
At both regular transaction screen and batch check in.
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This enhancement should help alert you to any inventory discrepancies at the time
of check-in. You will now be able to tell if the item has already been checked
in (no problem) or if the item is no longer active (problem).
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Transactions: Added Security Audit Entry for attempting to check in a non-rented
inventory item.
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Again, if you have a problem with this type inventory control then this is designed
to help you track down when and where it is occurring.
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Editor: Customer History: Added "Funds Type" column to customer history display
grid. Column will show full fund type (e.g. cash, visa, etc.) if full pay
or "Split" if more than one payment type was used.
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Now you can tell at a glance how an invoice was paid for without having to print
it out first.
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Reports: Purchase Order Report: Added ability to export PO detail information
to CSV format file.
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Some vendors don't want or take faxes but will take e-mails. This gives you
the option of creating a MS- Excel-compatible list of the items on the PO that you
may then e-mail to your vendor(s).
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Editor: Added date/time tracking for start of Phoenix system. Security
Audit entry will be made if current date is less than last run or more than 24 hours
past last run.
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Some creative employees were bypassing the date/time monitoring of Phoenix by changing
the time upon reboot in order to falsify their time-clock punches. This change
will defeat this type of behavior by recording an audit entry with the date/time
difference and the logged employee.
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Editor: Added an Event Calendar to the editor main button selection area (with
associated employee privilege). The Event Calendar will allow you record up
to six different types daily events as well as keep notes for every day of the year.
You may also schedule tasks throughout each day that can display reminder notices
to selected employees when they log in to the Editor program. In order to
accommodate this enhancement, the Editor screen will now reflect employee login
changes made in the Transaction and Reports programs (note that this detection
is not reciprocal).
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The calendar has three views, daily, month and year. You can color-code and
assign an event to any given day. You may also enter notes for any given day
about events or conditions that wish to record. You can enter multiple tasks.
When entering a task you can select any active employee to receive a reminder of
the task.
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Reports: End of Day: Added a "Daily Notes" text box to the EOD report selection
screen that allows you to enter notes that will be appended to the Event Calendar
(described above) daily notes field. You may use this to record notable weather
conditions, sporting events, or other factors that may have impacted your business
that day.
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Any notes you enter at the start of your End of Day report will be appended to any
existing daily notes you may have already entered. This will allow you to
go back and look to see if there's a reason why revenue for any given date in a
prior year was worse or better than the same day the following year.
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Transactions: A new value "Drawer ID" is available when opening a new cash
drawer. This is a 10-digit field you may use to physically identify multiple
cash drawers if you have more than one. The new value is displayed on the
cash drawer summary report and in the Cash Drawer History editor.
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If you have more than one cash drawer tray and wish to be able to track them specifically,
you can now assign a value to each physical tray (e.g. "Drawer 1", "Barney", etc.)
and use the new field to track it within Phoenix.
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Transactions: Added a new function to employee menu: Shift Change. This
function will close the open cash drawer (without asking for an ending balance)
and begin a new drawer. The drawer that was closed is marked as "pending"
and the ending balance may be entered with a new function in the Phoenix Editor:
Drawer Count (see below). The new function also has an associated employee
privilege.
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This function will allow you to close the drawer and log a new employee quickly,
without having to count the drawer down in front of customers while they wait.
Drawers will remain "pending" until they are edited (see below) or you perform your
EOD.
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Editor: Added a new function to edit pending cash drawers under Supporting
Tables tab: Drawer Count. This function will list all pending drawers
for the logged employee and allow them to enter the ending balance for the listed
drawers.
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Pending drawers for the currently logged employee created by the Shift Change function
above will be listed. The employee may then enter the correct ending balance
for the listed drawer, away from your customers.
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Editor: Cash Drawer History: The cash drawer history will now track
the values entered in the "Count Cash" screen (number of $100's, $50's, etc.).
Clicking the new "Detail" button will show the entered cash counts.
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If you click the "..." button at the close drawer window you will see a "cash count"
screen were you may enter the number and types of bills, coin and check/charges.
The total that is calculated here is automatically entered at the drawer close screen.
Additionally, the actual count values you entered will now be saved for future review.
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