Addendum to Update 7.00

Addendum to Version 7.00
(for 7.00 - 7.06)

(The following changes were implemented since version 6.30)

We are proud to announce many new dynamic features in The Ultimate with this release. Please take the time to carefully read through this addendum to learn how to implement many of them.

Added the highly popular “Rental Pass” feature. Many of you have heard it referred to as Subscription rentals. Up to 20 Rental Pass plans can be set up.

Set up each rental plan you intend to use.

Main Menu / System Tables Setup / Rental Lookup Tables / Rental Pass Plans

1. Type in a brief description of the Rental Plan on the numeric list on the left side of the screen, then press <enter>

2. “Length in Days or Months?” Enter “D” for days or “M” for months. This sets up the plan in either a number or days or number of months.

3. “Number of Days/Months” Fill in the answer that corresponds to the initial question.

4. “Price Groups Included” Press <enter> to display your pricing groups so you can select the groups that are included in the particular plan. Use the <space> bar to toggle checks on and off. If a pricing group is not checked, then the customer will be charged their regular price for those rentals.

5. “Total Rentals Out Limit” Enter the amount of rentals that the customer can have out on the rental pass plan at one time.

Attach Rental Pass plans to Inventory items to originally Sell the plan.
Create an Inventory Item that will be used to initially sell the Rental Pass Plan to the customer.

Main Menu / Inventory Maintenance

1. Press <F3> to add a new item as is normally done.

2. Assign a code for the item.

3. Fill in the item’s description.

4. Assign the item to a sales category (Use either RENTALS, or create a new one for rental passes.

5. Fill in the Cost (0.00) and Selling price of the plan.

6. Under the Invoicing Options tab, assign a newly created Rental Pass plan. This is the second to the last question – “Rental Pass Plan”. Press <F10> for the list, if desired.

7. If you wish this Inventory item to be used to CLEAR (or cancel) a customer’s current rental pass plan then answer the last question – “Clear Rental Pass?” to "Y".

Note: An Inventory item should be created separately which, when sold, would cancel the customer’s plan.

Rental Pass Implementation during Invoicing.
Only ONE plan can be assigned to a customer at a time. If you have one for Movies, and another one for Games, and wish the Customer to be able to rent everything, then you must create and sell a separate plan to handle both pricing groups.

There is a new security question that relates to the ability to overwrite the rental limit. If you use security, then you can find this option from the following menu:

Main Menu / System Tables Setup / System Setup & Tables / Security Levels.

The question to assign the security level is “Invoicing – Rental Pass Limit Override”.

Since people are either Rental Pass customers, or NOT Rental Pass customers, the warning box that displays after entering the customer code will display the expiration date of the current plan, or will inform you that the plan has already expired. A customer with an expired Rental Pass plan will be charged regular prices for the rentals on that invoice, unless they renew.

IMPORTANT: Rental Pass plans must initially be sold on a separate invoice. Customers will not be recognized as a Rental Pass customer unless they belong when the invoice is started. Therefore, sell the plan, finish off the invoice, and then start a new one for the actual free rentals. If you simply wish to cancel the customer’s Rental Pass you will need to sell that item to the customer.

Whenever a Rental Pass is sold, whether it is the customer’s first time or their renewal, while the invoice is being processed, a question will appear asking if you would like to extend the return date of all their out rentals to the expiration date of the new plan. If you answer “Yes” then ALL the return dates will be changed. At the present time, you cannot select individual rentals to change.

There has been a new field added to Rental Maintenance. If the rental is part of a valid Rental Pass price group, but for some reason, you do not wish it to be taken as part of the plan, then answer “N” to the “Rental Pass Title?” question in the Title Information tab. However, there is no need to edit a rental of which, the Pricing Group is NOT part of the Rental Plan.

Proceed with the invoice as normal. Rentals that are part of the plan are at no charge, with the return date set as the expiration date of the plan. Late charges will begin to accumulate at that point. Price groups that are not part of the plan will be charged the regular price. Any rental over the Total Rental Limit will be charged the regular price unless the security is set to allow overriding of the limit, in which case they will be priced at no charge. In this case, if desired, simply edit to the price it normally rents.

The Rentals Out screen display on the invoicing screen is now in “Real Time!”. Unlike non Rental Pass customers, the Rentals Out are recalculated with each added line on the invoice. The screen will say “*Rental Passes Out”. In a future update, ALL invoices will show real time rentals out, but at this time we felt it important to make sure the rental limit is adhered to for Rental Pass invoices Remember, an invoice is either a Rental Pass invoice, or a regularly priced invoice, depending on the customer.

Many of the “View Past Invoice” screens have an “*” to the left of the code to show that the rental was taken with a Rental Pass. A great way to see how many Rental Passes were taken in a day is to count the “*” lines in “View Sales Activity”. Also in the Customer Maintenance section, the Rental Pass information is now displayed on the “Customer Status” screen and the <F7> (Full Customer information screen). There is a field on that screen that informs the salesperson whether or not that customer has EVER been a Rental Pass customer. In the next update, this field will be added to the "Range" fields in the reporting system so reports can be run listing those customers.

When a customer’s rental pass expires, the next time they are invoiced, the expiration notification will display in the warning box. However the fact that the customer has an expired pass will not be permanently written to the customer file. They will still show up as having an expired pass. The only way to clear out the information of the Rental Pass they last purchased and the expiration date, is to perform an Organize of the “Customers, Rentals & Inventory” from the File Maintenance menu screen. Of course, the field that tells you if the customer has ever purchased a rental pass, will remain unchanged.

NOTE: Due to a large amount of customer requests, this Rental pass feature was put together rather quickly. We still have a way to go with features to help you with this new concept.

Among the features which will be included before the end of the year are the following:

1. Analysis in Customer Maintenance to show the quantity of Rental Passes used.

2. The Rentals Out Report having the ability to exclude Rental Passes. Right now, you can use the feature that only prints rentals which are “X Days or Earlier”, depending on your choice. It should do a good job, because the Rental Passes are not late until the expiration of the plan.

3. A slick automatic “Customer Renewal” utility that you can select the customers to auto renew without having to process each individual one.

4. Rental Pass fields included in Dbase export.

Added VOID TRACKING so that all voids can be later viewed or printed.
Step One is to set up the system to track voids.

Main Menu / System Tables Setup / System Setup and Tables / System Options

Answer “Y” to the question “Save Copy of Voids?” if you wish to track voids.

Main Menu / System Tables Setup / System Setup and Tables / Security Levels

Enter the highest security level to track voids. Put the security level in the question “Invoicing – Highest Security Level to Track Voids”. For example, if you want void tracking on all salespeople EXCEPT level “9”, then answer the question with a “9”.

Every time there is at least one line of invoice detail, and the <F10> key is pressed, the software will save a copy of the invoice to a special file just for voids.

This tracking can be seen in both the “View Past Invoices” and “View Sales Activity” screens. The initial question will ask you if you wish to display Invoices or Voids.

IMPORTANT: The question will ONLY be displayed if the salesperson entering these screens does NOT have their voids tracked.

Added printer codes to send the printer BEFORE or AFTER each receipt is printed
If these codes are desired, then do the following:

Main Menu / System Tables Setup / Printer Table Setup

Enter the Control code (Decimal) for the software to send to the printer BEFORE printing a receipt. This may be a way to open some stubborn parallel cash drawers.

Enter the Control code (Decimal) for the software to send to the printer AFTER printing a receipt. One use for this is for thermal printers to do an automatic paper “cut”.

More than likely, you will not be using these options, but they are now there if desired.

Added Salesperson’s name to Batch Return Printouts
You can now track the salesperson that processed the rental on the batch return screen .

Added Several more Receipt Types
Several more receipt types have been added on the Receipt Type question in the Workstation Printing setup screen. Pressing <F10> will display all the selections. Most of them are for preprinted receipts. You can view samples of these receipts by going to the Custom Receipts page of our newly designed web site. All receipt paper ordering information is included.

Added Cash Drawer Options
Over the years some customers have encountered problems with their cash drawers opening properly. Often times it is when they change computers as the newer computers often do not have the voltage necessary to open many cash drawers. To help with this problem, and to avoid us writing customization for customers with stubborn drawers, we have added some built in choices.

If your cash drawer opens properly, there is no need to change anything with this update.
There are several options to try that may help solve the problem:

Main Menu / System Tables Setup / Invoicing Setup & Tables / Workstation Setup

1. Enter the word POWER to the Cash Drawer Codes question.

2. Enter 00000 (five zeros) to the Cash Drawer Codes question.

3. Enter the word MODE to the Cash Drawer Codes question.

4. Enter the word ECHO to the Cash Drawer Codes question.

Stay with the one that works the best. If none of the above choices work, then you have a drawer that simply will not open with your particular computer.

NOTE: If you have a previous cash drawer customization, we have eliminated this need. One of the above options should work, as all of the past customizations are covered.

Added Many more Report Ranges to our Custom Reports
Several additional report ranges have been added for some of the reports printed from the reporting menus. In case you have not linked all the available reports to the menus, review the Custom Reports page of our web site. Full linking instructions are included.

Added an Alternative Backup Destination
Many of our customers are now adding zip drives and smart drives as destination devices for their daily backup. Now you can link these backup procedures right to the Daily Backup and Restore menu system of The Ultimate.

Step One is to set up the system to add an alternative backup system.

Main Menu / System Tables Setup / System Setup and Tables / System Options

Answer “Y” to the question “Alternative Backup System Installed?” if you wish to activate this feature. This will simply add a new selection to the “Daily Backup and Restore” menu.

However, the following is the tough part. You must CREATE a file in the ROOT folder on the hard drive called TAPEB.BAT. This batch file will include the commands you wish the computer to follow in order to complete the backup. You can use Windows Notepad to write this file, if desired.

The following example would back up only the Data Files to a smart drive that has been configured as Drive F:

PKZIP F:\BACKUP C:\ULTIMATE\*.DAT <enter>

This will create a file on your F: drive called BACKUP.ZIP that contains all the files in the ULTIMATE folder of your hard drive that contain extensions of DAT.

NOTE: The programs PKZIP.EXE and PKUNZIP.EXE would need to be found in the ROOT folder of the hard drive. You will need to copy them there. They can currently be found in the ULTIMATE folder and also on Master Diskette #1.

The same procedure for restoring can be utilized by creating a file in the ROOT folder of the hard drive called TAPER.BAT.

Due to the technical nature of designing and creating these files, Premiere cannot assist over the telephone the creation of these files. If you need assistance from us, you will need to email us at support@theultimatevideo.com and FULLY your desired backup scenario. Once we understand what you want, we will email you the files TAPEB.BAT and TAPER.BAT.

Added Subfolders named DOCUMENT and MODULES to the ULTIMATE Folder
This upgrade procedure has added two subfolders.

The first one is called DOCUMENT, that contain helpful documents (including this one) in Microsoft Word format. In the next update, the entire updated Learning Guide will be included. For those who wish to have it sooner, check our web site in mid October on the Learning Guide page. You will be able to download and view it right from the web site.

Hard copies of the new Learning Guide can be purchased for $5.00 to cover material and shipping costs. Please order by fax or email only. We also ask you to please wait until the Learning Guide is available on the web site before attempting to contact us regarding purchasing. (no exceptions)

The second one is called MODULES that contain two optional modules for The Ultimate.

The Rental Transfer Module
The Multi Store Module

The Rentrak Interface is also included for customers who purchase rentals from Rentrak.

Explanations and installation of these can be found in their own documents in the newly created DOCUMENT subfolder and on our web site on the Additional Modules page. Both these modules are free of charge and included in the MODULES folder. Both modules are only useful if you own multiple locations.

IMPORTANT: If you are already using The Rental Transfer Module or The Rentrak Interface, you must reinstall them once you load version 7.00. Again, loading instructions are in the DOCUMENT subfolder and on this web site.

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