'Have some drinks on me!'

'Hope you had a great party!'

Sadly, and not to disillusion anyone, but the whole point was as much 'business as pleasure'. We'll steer clear of the 'pleasure' and tell you a bit about the 'business end' of our time and how it could affect you.

1. For good or ill, this was the first time that some of us had met one another in the flesh. Which is interesting if you've ever played the 'I wonder if what he/she looks like matches what I always thought he/she should like' game. This was great for morale.

2. We were able to compare notes on how well we think we are able to communicate over vast distances (Detroit, MI; Seattle WA; St. Louis, MO; Pompano, FL; Dublin Ireland). It is clear that we have a pretty good infra-structure in place that is economical and efficient. The proof is that most often you as customers are not aware that the person you are communicating with, or the information you are getting may be coming from any of several sources.

One great improvement is that we have been using VOIP (Voice Over IP) for all our telephony now for over a year and it's great. Again, you probably didn't know that (which is a good thing.) VOIP basically means that all our telephony between offices and over long distance is handled over the Internet. The net (no pun intended) is that we pay essentially nothing for long distance or faxing. Zero. Nada. Nichts. Bupkus. And to a company with phone bills like ours that's something. When we started we were not only considering saving money, but also curious as to how this could benefit you our customers. We're convinced now that this technology is fully baked and ready for use by non-geek businesses. Stay tuned as we shall have a lot more to say about how your business can benefit from VOIP in the coming months.

3. We were also able to get ideas from each area of the company (eg. networking services in Detroit or software design in Dublin) could benefit those of us in totally different areas of responsibility. One thing that is clear is that we need to do this kind of thing more often! No matter how well the 'virtual' world works, there is nothing like being there. Virtual meetings and all that work great for stuff you know about, but there are lots of things you don't know to even ask about until you're face to face with your people. We recommend this sort of thing for all companies with multiple offices and are kicking ourselves for not doing it more often!

4. We got a chance to pay our respects to the guys who founded the company and who write the checks. This is another important intangible: a little light groveling never hurts (especially with annual performance reviews coming up next month.)

Til Next Time!

Ed Note: PS: But yeah we did take some time to have a blast. Of course; we're not stupid! For those who care, I'll try to post some 'candid snapshots' of Suntower Gone Wild on the web site next issue.

There Will Be A SAFE 6.5! 
Before jumping into the fray of SAFE 7, we are giving thoughts to a SAFE 6.5. There are a couple of very useful features that we have been waiting for the right moment to add, and our beloved engineers have told us it is actually easier to build them into the current (SAFE 6) architecture rather than building them onto the new structure. Do we get it? Of course not. But we don't have to get it. We're just glad that you can get it; sooner rather than later. Here's what's on tap:

Small Deal: We will offer a 12 Month Comparative Trial Balance Report gratis.
This isn't really a new feature; it has been available as an add-on report for five years, but in response to several customers grousing about 'how come you don't have blah, blah, blah feature...', we thought we'd throw it in as an incentive to everyone to ask if a particular report or feature is available as an option (hint: it usually is). This report gives you a landscape snapshot of all your accounts balances during the entire financial year.

Bigger Deal: There will be a change to Sales Orders which will allow you to enter blind line items after invoicing.
In other words. You can now add costs as line items directly onto a sales order after invoicing. This includes costs which are posted to A/P. Before the shouts of joy ring out, please note that there are a couple of catches of course:
a. You must be granted Security to do so. (Duh!)
b. You may not add any freight or art to be billed to the customer since this would change the invoice for the customer.
c. If you add costs onto a S/O where the Commission has been locked, the commission will not be re-calculated to take into account the new costs! (Of course, you could unlock the Commission, but then you run the risk of having two Commission Reports which indicate different amounts due to the sales people. Your call.)
d. If you add costs onto a S/O after invoicing, the new costs will be posted into the current G/L Period; not into the original G/L Period when the order was invoiced.

Biggest Deal: There will be a change to Sales Orders which will allow you to modify costs after invoicing.
In other words, you can invoice a S/O without having the Vendor Bills and then, instead of going into A/P to create a Vendor Bill and link it to the S/O you can simply open the S/O and enter the Costs as you currently can with unbilled S/O and have SAFE automagically post the Costs into A/P. And if you did enter a Vendor Invoice into the S/O before invoicing you can also change the Costs posted to A/P in the same way. Of course, all this is subject to the following fine print. Read carefully...
a. You must be granted Security to do so. (Double Duh!)
b. If there are existing (unpaid) Vendor Bills linked to a Line Item, edits you make to the Cost on the S/O will be reflected on the Vendor Bill.
c. If there are existing (paid) Vendor Bills linked to a Line Item, you cannot edit the Cost. You would need to first void the A/P Check (which re-opens the Vendor Bill) and then you would be allowed to edit the Cost as above.
d. If you change costs onto a S/O where the Commission has been locked, the commission will not be re-calculated to take into account the new costs! (Of course, you could unlock the Commission, but then you run the risk of having two Commission Reports which indicate different amounts due to the sales people. Your call.)
e. If you add Vendor Invoices onto a S/O after invoicing, the new costs will be posted into the current G/L Period; not into the original G/L Period when the order was invoiced.

So When?
We're entering Beta Testing as this goes out. Given no unexpected problems, we're likely looking toward a release a few weeks before the 'really big shoe' (DMIA Convention) at the end of September.

More Details Next Time!
 

Ciaran's Corner: When Good Queries Go Bad!

REPORT FILTERS & SORTS: UPDATES
Many customers now using SQL Server send us notes about how 'my query doesn't work!' This happens for a bunch of reasons, some you can help. Some you can't.

It's Too Long: You Can't Help It
You receive a nasty message from SAFE, either when running an internal report or an external report you created in Report Writer which looks something like this:

Error: This Query String is too long, 9145 Bytes. The Maximum is 8192 for Queries.

Actually this does not mean that your SAFE Query is too long. Rather, it means that the total length of the command SAFE is sending to SQL Server to serve up the data is longer than 8192 characters. The 8192 includes information about all the fields you are trying to retrieve plus the filter plus the sort. If you have a particularly complex report where you have used all eight filter options, you may experience this. And there is nothing to be done about it other than to make your report less complex. How can you make your Query less complex? There are a number of techniques,

It Doesn't Make Sense: You Can Help It (Part I)
You receive one of the dreaded Error 800s! This means that the filter or sort options don't make sense. This can happen if you created your own custom filter or sort options and created a spelling mistake. The solution is to check the Query and see if your filter or sort options include any that you have created. If so, go into UTILITIES|Query Manager|Filter Options (or Sort Options), locate the offending record and edit it to correct the spelling. Don't know what the spelling is? Use the new Field Lookup feature in SAFE 6.4!

It Doesn't Make Sense: You Can Help It (Part II)
You receive one of the dreaded Error 800s! But you know it is not for any filter or sort options that you created. It's all your fault Suntower! Could be. There are prox. 5,000 filter and sort options in SAFE. It's likely that we made a spelling mistake on at least one. In that case, you have two choices:
a. You can correct it using the method above or...
b. You can go back to UTILITIES|Query Manager|Filter Options (or Sort Options) and import a fresh copy of our current data into SAFE. You can get these from www.suntowersystems\downloads\safeee\filters.tps or www.suntowersystems\downloads\safeee\sorts.tps respectively.
Ed. Note: If you do find a mistake in our spelling, please let us know so we can correct it for everyone!

Til Next Time,

Ciarān Marron
Technical Support Manager
cm@suntowersystems.com