FarmBooks will receive the following enhancements in our upcoming version:

New Application Preferences - Number of Decimal Places

• User may specify the number of decimal places for entry of units and unit price between 2 to 5 digits of accuracy. This change applies to inventory entry, invoicing, check / deposit entry, memorized check / deposit entry, and allocation entry. In check/deposit entry in the grid, the user is not limited to the number of digits specified in preference but the display of these values will be limited to the set value. This preference does not apply to how information is displayed in the report for this release. For instance, if the price amount is changed by the user, the price divided by the number of units could cause the unit price to be adjusted such that the unit price results in up to 5 digits of accuracy. If this happens, the reports will display up to five digits regardless of the preference setting for unit price.
• NOTE: Users that received 4.0.1.0 or 4.0.2.0 that required more decimal places will need to set this value in preference after the installation as the default is two decimal places.

Laptops

• Wide Screen Laptops - Users could not see buttons at the bottom of Screen for Registration Number Change. The screen sizing was updated.
• '+' or '-' key in the date field would not increment or decrement the date by one day.

New Menu Options

Help Menu - FarmBooks FAQs

• Added a link to FarmBooks FAQs (frequently ask questions) on the web.

Balance Menu - Transfer Funds

• Added "Transfer Funds" under the Balances menu as this option was hard to find within the Register Tab for new users.

Utilities Menu - Recalculate Customer Balances

• Added "Recalculate Customer Balances" should you need to recalculate the customer balances used in invoicing.

Check/Deposit Entry

• Pressing a quick Ctrl-A resulted in 'Dataset Not in Edit Mode' Message when closing the detail entry window.
• Access Violation would sometimes occur when closing the check/deposit detail window for some users.
• Some users that received version 4.02, may have received an error "Cannot perform this operation on a closed dataset" when closing the check / deposit detail window.
• Pressing an Alt-A to 'Add' check / deposit detail line in the check/deposit detail window did not work when adding a new line. The accelerator key was conflicting with the Assign button. Alt-S will now be used for the assign button.
• Entering two or more memorized checks/deposits for the same vendor in a row would result in the detail records for the memorized transaction not being pulled in after the first check / deposit for the vendor.

Incorrect Check / Deposit Number Defaulted on New Check/Deposit

• After editing an existing check or deposit and then entering a new check / deposit, the check or deposit number that was defaulted would be the previously edit check or deposit plus one.

Voiding a Paycheck

• Voiding a Payroll Check was not clearing detail amounts. It was clearing only the gross pay amount. This result would cause the payroll reports to include the voided detail amounts.

Paycheck Voucher

• YTD Totals of 0411x would not carry over on paycheck voucher. If 04113, for example, is set up for Vacation Pay and 8.0 hours on enter on a paycheck and recorded, it shows this on the paycheck voucher. However on the next paycheck done, the YTD for the vacation line shows 0.00 and this also causes the gross YTD to be incorrect.
• Paycheck voucher updated to include a line next to account information for Sick and Vacation or PDO tracking that shows Available / YTD Used hours. The pay stub report updated to include Available / YTD Used / Period Used tracking information if defined for the employee.

Payroll Reports Footnote Clarification

• Social Security Wages is Gross Wages minus Pre-tax Health. W-2 Wages is Gross Wages minus All Pre-Tax Deductions.
• This footnote was applied to the "Payroll Summary", "Payroll Summary By FICA Status" report, and both of the "Payroll Analysis".

Employee Setup

• When setting up a new employee, automatically retrieve default payroll items when changing to the “Earnings and Deductions Info” tab. Also, ask a confirmation question if an employee has been created without any payroll earnings and deductions defined. It will indicate that it is not possible to create a paycheck without these records.
• Added a warning message that will be displayed when saving the employee record indicating that it is recommended to recalculate the payroll taxes for a salaried employee if any of the payroll information has been changed.

Reconciliation Status on Transaction Detail was not Updated

• This issue was introduced with the 4.0.0.0 release. You would notice this in the register view with the check/deposit marked with an 'X' and the detail lines still showed a check mark. However, the reconciliation of check worked without any problems and was a display issue only.
• NOTE: User that use the reconciliation process should run the data analysis from either the detail register tab by pressing the analyze button or from the utilities menu by selecting "Analyze / Recalculate Farm Totals".

Unable to Delete Backup File when Single Backup File

• Users that had the backup option set to only allow one backup (append timestamp for multiple backups was unchecked) would receive this error message when trying to do a database backup. The read-only file attribute flag was set as the default which prevented the file from being overwritten. Now, there is a new option "Set Read-Only Attribute" that the user may check during the backup if they want to prevent accidental overwrite of the file.

Windows default printer used and not Report default printer if specified

• Detail Register and Reconciliation Reports were not using the report default printer if a report printer was specified in the application preferences. It was using the windows default printer.

Invoicing - Changing the Customer on an Existing Invoice would not recalculate the original customer balance

• Now, when changing a customer on an existing form, it will ask if you want to update the customer only, create a new form based on the current document, or cancel the update.
• Both the original and new customer balance is recalculated. Also, added a "Recalculate Customer Balances" from the Utilities menu.
• NOTE: If using invoicing, it is recommended that you verify that your customer balances are correct by using the "Recalculate Customer Balances" from the Utilities menu.

Invoicing Entry Changes

• Get Default Weight / Unit from Product and Service Item.
• Item Quantity entered on Invoice rounded to two decimal places for the deposit. Now, the quantity decimal places is preserved on the deposit.
• Verify that the payment receive date within the fiscal period specified for the bank.
• Receive Payment will validate that the required fields are specified for an invoice only if a paid amount is specified for the open invoice.

Invoice / Statement Address Moved to fit within Dynamics' Check Windowed Envelope

• The address was moved to be compatible with Envelope # DW-84.

Invoice Receive Payment or Invoice Preferences – Error 7004

• Opening and closing the "Receive Payment" or "Invoice Preferences" window several times without closing the application could result in error 7004 Maximum number of work areas exceeded. Now, the database connection is closed on form close.

Invoicing - Receiving & Applying Payments

• It was difficult to know that an invoice payment can be applied to any open invoice in the Receive Payments window by clicking down in the grid. The program automatically applies payments to oldest invoice, forward, but payments can be applied specifically to an open invoice in the window. Added a Help button to the receive payment window to display information about receiving a payment, discounts, or overpayments / credits.

Invoice Receive Payment for Customer with Credit Balance or Applying a Credit Only

• Applying a credit to an open invoice without also including a payment amount would not close the receive payment window. This could result in duplicate payments being applied if pressing the save button again. Now, the window properly records the credit and continues by either closing the window (save & close) or prompting for the next customer payment (save & new). It may be necessary to manually delete any duplicate payments and recalculate the customer balance by selecting "Recalculate Customer Balances" from the Utilities menu.
• The applied amount line on the invoice document would not be displayed on the invoice if a payment amount was not entered along with the credit amount.
• Give an informational message that "Transaction has NO payment amount. Hence, NO deposit will be created." when applying a credit without a payment.

Invoice Preferences

• Once the remitter phone, fax, or postal code was set, they could not be removed by clearing the field value.
• Window opened in maximized state.

Transaction Journal Reports - Price/Unit Heading Below Line

• The "Price/Unit" column heading drops below the heading line on all of the various Transaction Journal reports. The report column heading was expanded.

Investment in Growing Crops - Some Missing in Inventory Grid Entry

• The 518x3 and 519x3 categories under Investment in Growing Crops were not properly displayed in the inventory grid entry lookup listing in the tree view. Also, these codes would not correctly validate and were not allowed to be entered.

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Data Conversion Issues Determined with the 4.0 Release and Fixed in the 4.01 Update – See below for the type of error with log entries

• Duplicate Bank Account in Farmtot file (Error 7059)
  farmtot: Add Index - BANK_ACCTS...
  tblDst: Error 7059: An index with the UNIQUE property was not able to be created because data in the table produced non-unique key values. Check the Advantage error log for record numbers that caused the failures.
  farmtot: BANK_ACCTS Status: Failed
• Fiscal Year - Mixed match of fiscal year start dates - Could not get ATIG/D codes to create payroll default values for fiscal year
  Processing Calendar Year 2002...
  Error Creating Payroll Defaults for 2002
• Bank Account Error - Data Incomplete or Missing between ATIGD and Ext_mast Tables atigd: 100-10 Add and Expand Columns...
  qryUpdateDB: Error 7200: AQE Error: State = HY000; NativeError = 7008; [Extended Systems][Advantage SQL][ASA] Error 7008: The specified table, memo file, or index file was unable to be opened.
  atigd: 100-10 - Status: Failed
• If the database conversion fails, all database files are deleted from the farm folder.
• Temporary ADS tables are deleted that could have been created years ago.
• Force timestamp to be appended to the backup file name if doing a backup from the convert database window regardless of preference setting.
• Farm Manager may have recieve an error "Maximum number of connections has been exceeded" if converting multiple farm databases without closing the application. Connections are now freed.

Backup Changes

• Show farms with empty database folders with a blue database icon.
• Do not let empty folders be backed up. Although, if backing up a folder which contains no (adt,adi,adm, or add) files, it will not actually create a backup file in prior version. However, this will not help with multiple selected farms or all farm backups without the "appending a timestamp" option being selected.

Restore Changes

• During restore and there was an incorrect number of database files detected in the farm folder, the files were not being deleted. Now, all the files are erased from the farm folder before a restore regardless of the number of files after a warning message and answering yes. It is important to erase the files before a restore operation so that only files contained in the backup are the only ones in farm folder after the restore completes. If the database conversion failed, it would be important for the restore process to remove all files. Also, this would be especially true if a user restored a database set for a prior version of the application. 4.0 dealt with a prior database version being restored only if the expected file counts were found.

Invoicing Changes

• Forms (Estimates, Invoice, and Credit Memo) updated to show the total line if Invoice Preferences set to Not Collect Sales Taxes.
• Fiscal Year to determine lookups list for ATIGD, Enterprise, External Codes, and receive payments and deposits was corrected to properly handle non-calendar years.
• Item Qty was being rounded to a whole number in the application and printed document. Now a number with 5 digits of accuracy may be entered. The Item Qty * Unit Price = Amount which is rounded for money. This rounded amount field could cause the unit price to be extended to up to five digits of accuracy. In a future release of the FarmBooks that includes a database conversion, there will be a new option to allow the user to specify the number of digits of accuracy for unit price on the first invoice line.
• All invoice forms and statements updated to show 5 digits of accuracy for item qty and unit price.
• Invoice Line Entry: Using the tab key after entering / selecting “Item” from dropdown list would lose entered value. Also, after entering a new line on the invoice, it would focus the record just entered and not setup and focus on the new row to allow entry of another line without using the mouse to reposition in the list.
• Changing the amount in line 1 for the form document (estimate, invoice, or credit memo) would not adjust the unit price on line 1.
• If tracking income per line, then the amount column has gray background color to denote amount field used to determine the form total.
• Sales tax rate is refreshed if form in editor and user make a change in invoice preferences.
• Form editor automatically saved if pressing the print button, receive payment, batch print, and generate statements. Without the save, a user could potentially print a form with a different amount than was actually saved with the form (estimate, invoice, or credit memo) or statement.
• When receiving a payment, the deposit with a bank code of less than 4 characters would record it into a non-existent bank account with three digits and the first character of the bank name. These deposits can be found in detail register view. The data analysis process was updated to detect this condition and tag the entry for review. The application will allow these deposits to be deleted or corrected.
• User could possibly get message that "Discard changes to current invoice?" when no changes have been made to the form in the editor.
• Using e-mail with authentication - authentication username and password was not being provided to the SMTP outgoing server when emailing a form. However, it was being provided to test e-mail settings in preference setup.
• Invoice tab is hidden on farm open until all invoice associated tables are opened. User could obtain error "tblIForms: Index is not set." if quickly opening the invoice tab after farm open.
• Invoice Form Setup: Unable to Clear Image Path for logo once set as validation required it to be set. Now the path to logo may be cleared and saved.

Check / Deposit Entry

• Recording a Check/Deposit without an ATIG/D Code - Edit a previously recorded transaction and blank out the ATIG/D code without leaving the field and then recording the transaction would result in the detail record being saved without an ATIG/D Code. The use of the Analyze button from the Detail Register or Analyze / Recalculate Farm Totals will detect and tag the transaction for correction. Then from the Detail Register tab, use the “Corrections” button to generate a list of tagged items to correct. Also, a final validation of all detail lines was skipped and is now done before recording a transaction.
• "Balance and Record": Ctrl-Z for Check / Deposit now allows a user to enter the ATIG/D without leaving the field, whereas in the past the user would receive an error that the "transaction are out-of-balance". After pressing the OK button for the error message, the ATIG value would be blank.

Analyze / Recalculate Farm Totals

• Added "Backup" button to allow the user to backup the database as it is required before a recalculation.
• Verified that the database is the correct version to be analyzed or recalculated. Show DB icon as red if a conversion is required.

General Application

• Ensure SQL Table Objects are closed with the connection freed. This could lead to “Maximum number of connections exceeded” error message or "Maximum number of work area exceeded".
• Increased number of "connections" from 20 to 30 and explicitly defined 750 "Workareas" in the adslocal.cfg file.
• If the application requires a new registration when opening the farm, ask a question and then call change registration if they answer yes.
• Change Registration - Buttons at the bottom of the screen were not visible for laptops with widescreen. Made form adjustments to correct.
• Bank Code - Don’t allow the following characters to be used *, % , ' , `, or the blank character.

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New Application Preferences

Options

• Check Print Order (Standard or Reverse)
• Format Check Numbers with Leading Zeros
• Use Upper Case for Payee and Code Entry
• Show Company Paid Payroll Items on Pay Stubs
• Link to Allow Farm Automobile and Utility % Splits to be defined in the tax Table

Cover Page

• Customize the application main screen startup size and location (Application best viewed with screen resolution 1024 x768 or greater).

Backup

• Number of Backups to Retain (if append timestamp for multiple backups is checked). Use 0 for unlimited.
• Secure Off-site Backup Service is available for a fee.

Email

• Outgoing Email Setting can be configured and used with the New Invoice Module.

Sound

• Customize sounds to be associated with application startup along with selected save and delete operations (sounds can be enabled or disabled).

Printers

• Allows default printers and paper sources to be defined and used for check and report printing.

Sort

• Sort the External Code list by either code or description.

Unlimited Bank Accounts

Number of bank accounts definable has been expanded from 9 to unlimited. Bank code is user definable and no longer restricted to 002x numbers. Any combination of letters or numbers may be used for a length of 5 characters.

New Payroll Module

Expanded D-Code Setup for Payroll ATIG Codes

• Use the D-Code to allow you to create additional earnings and deductions lines in payroll defaults setup. Payroll Reporting is still at the G-code level.

New Payroll Defaults

• User definable descriptions for multiple earnings and deductions lists for the calendar year. Set the default codes indicator to quickly setup earnings and deductions used for all employees. Set the print priority to define the order that they are listed on the pay stubs.

New Employee Entry

• New demographic fields to capture various phone numbers and email addresses.
• New employee information to track hire, release and termination dates.
• New sick and vacation tracking. Tracking Method can be tracked as Paid Days Off (PDO), Sick and Vacation time, or Not Tracking.
• New payroll state withholding filing status and number of allowances.
• Easily create earnings and deductions description lists per calendar year based on active and default indicators setup in payroll defaults. Multiple wage lines can be created. Designate deductions as company paid. Set deduction extra withholds amounts along with limits. This could be used for employee loan repayment deductions. Also, activate and deactivate lines to include or exclude line detail within paycheck entry.

New Paycheck Entry

• For hourly employees, enter either hours worked or gross pay and the system will calculate the deductions. YTD hours, Gross Pay, and Net Pay are displayed. Only the employee’s currently active earnings and deductions are included in the list.
• Salaried employees have all active earnings and deductions included based on employee setup data. All that is necessary is to review and apply to create the paycheck with detail.
• YTD values per ATIGD account code can be viewed including prior earnings and deductions that are currently deactivated.
• Summaries show for employee withholdings, company paid, and total deductions are displayed.

New Payroll Report

• Payroll Pay Stubs - The payroll pay stub report can be used to re-print pay stubs or when the paycheck writer is not used to print paychecks. A single employee or all employees can be printed for a specified bank account.

New Invoicing Module

The invoicing module allows you to easily generate estimates and billings, post payments and deposits, generate statements, track sales tax collections if your business is taxable, and monitor customers balances. Various invoice forms and statements can easily be emailed to your customer. A first look at the invoice preferences setup, it seems like there is a lot of setup required. Only a few decisions (less than two minutes of setup) need to be specified on the invoice options tab and you are ready to begin creating invoices. You need to enter your business remitter mailing information, indicate if you collect sales taxes and apply finance charges to statements, decide how you want income to be tracked (detail deposit for each line item or as one lump sum deposit), and provide a default income ATIGD. Customers and “Product and Service Items” can be created and built up as you create invoices. You can later go back to setup to further customize the invoice module. The invoice module ships with template data which you can modify as desired. For instance, you can decide what invoice columns and column names best reflect your business activity.

New Invoicing Preference Setup

• Invoice Options
  Set business remitter mailing information, important decision in the options section (collect sales tax, track income per line item (detail deposit or lump sum deposit), apply finance charge to statements, prompt on new item), starting numbers, default form and income ATIGD used for customer entry, and customize your default view settings for the invoice tab used during application startup.
  
  
• Forms
  Customize column name or hide unwanted columns, include your business logo, or include footer and image text messages per form type (estimate, invoice, credit memo, finance charge, and statement), archive printed forms if desired.
  
  
• Email Forms
  Customize email message and decide whether you want to archive document per email form type.
  
  
• Payment Terms
  Set due date days and any discount given within x days.
  
  
• Sales Tax Items
  Setup tax rate, description, payment vendor, and ATIGD expense code for a single tax authority.
  
  
• Sales Tax Groups
  Use if you need to report and pay tax amounts to several tax authorities (state, city, local) otherwise just use sales tax items if only one tax authority.
  
  
• Customers
  Define bill-to / ship-to addresses, emails and contact information along with default payment terms, taxable status, sales tax or tax exempt number, credit limit and opening balances, preferred delivery method (mail or email) along with income ATIGD.
  
  
• Product and Service Items
  Define Item / Short Description, Long Description is unlimited text, taxable indicator, unit quantity code, unit price (sale amount) and weight per Unit, along with a default income ATIGD.
  
  

Invoice Tab

From this tab, you can create estimates, invoices, credit memos, statements with finance charge invoices, and post payments and deposits. You can preview, print, email, or batch print/email forms. Forms can easily be copied by pulling an existing form back into the editor and changing its form type. Also, you easily edit / delete forms or payments along with viewing the payment transaction history.

• Navigation Bar with Customer / Transaction View Tabs
  
  
  • Define Date Filters to customize data viewed in the top most grid list.
  • Customer List View with Customer List Filters
  • Transaction Type View with Status Filters
• Receive Payments - Apply payments, discounts, credit memos / overpayments, and write-offs to open invoices.
• Create statements and apply finance charges
• View Payment Transaction History
• Preview, Print, Email, or Batch Print/Email Forms
• Edit Forms, Deposits, and Customers

Invoice Reports

• A/R Aging (Customer Detail Aging and Aging Period Summary)
• Customer List
• Sales Tax Liability (Under Tax Values Report List)

New ATIG/D (Account-Transaction-Item-General/Detail) Features

• Length of descriptions fields expanded from 20 to 40 characters. Use some restraint when creating G/D Code descriptions as this will cause the transaction journal report to grow into two lines per item as the description is allowed to wrap to the next line.
• Expanded to include D-Code Setup - Allow 9 additional codes to be defined for each G-Code for an additional 81 accounts per ATI code below.
  • 041xD and 941xD - Labor Hired / Payroll Withholdings.
  • Non-Farm Income and Non-Farm Expense Codes.

New ATI Budget Features

The budget entry has been updated to include a footer summary for each column. Also two new tabs have been added to allow the user to compare Budget Values to Actual YTD Values as either a chart or table grid view.

• Budget Entry - Summary Total for each column
• Options
  
  
  • Show amounts to nearest penny or dollar
  • Synchronize Budget VS Actual Chart and Table Views
  • Exclude ATI with Zero Amounts
  • Show Yearly Only OR Yearly and Monthly Amounts
• Chart View: Budget VS Actual - Navigation bar at the top or click chart item for drill downs
• Table View: Budget VS Actual - Toggle Synchronize with Table to see detail ATI amounts
• Export - To Excel or Image

New External Code Features

• Activate and Deactivate All Codes - Once codes are used on a transaction, the codes cannot be deleted, now they can be deactivate to prevent future usage
• Vendor Codes
  
  
  • 1099 Vendor indicator - This allow a special 1099 vendor summary or retail report to be created.
  • Additional Fields include Tax Id, two contacts with multiple phone numbers and emails, memo line (will be included on the check/deposit memo)
  • Memorized ATIG/D List - Checks / Deposits for a vendor can easily be memorized so that once you enter the vendor all the detail is include for easy editing. Also, from vendor maintenance, you can create, edit, or delete lines and include as much detail as desired.
  • Vendor Name with square bracket text - include text within [] to allow the same vendor name to be used and easily identified when writing checks/deposits. The bracketed text will NOT print on the check but will be displayed on reports.
• Miscellaneous Codes
  • Additional contacts with multiple phone numbers and emails.

New Payroll Calendar Year-End Features

When copying employees from one calendar year to the next, it will exclude any employees with a termination date or inactive status. There is a link provided so that you can quickly review/edit the current year employee.

• Payroll Defaults
  • Copy Payroll Defaults from a selected Calendar Year
  • Use System Defaults Payroll Defaults for Calendar Year
  • Let me Create the Payroll Defaults for the Calendar Year

New Fiscal Year Features

Now, you have the option to copy only active codes or ALL codes from the current year to the new fiscal year. You can click the link and make any edits or deactivate unused codes before creating the new fiscal year. Also, you can decide to copy the memorized vendor ATIGD list or start over and create new ones for the new fiscal year.

Before you begin, if your backup is not current, it warns you so that you could stop and create a current backup. This would allow you to restore the backup and rerun the new fiscal year if you discover that you have several negative loan balances. Negative loan balances are caused by the fact that you used incorrect combinations of ATIGD and external codes that were probably entered incorrectly when checks were written. After the restore, you could either correct checks or add the missing loan ATIGD / External Codes assignments. It is recommend that you run the credit analysis report before creating the new fiscal year.

• External Codes
  • Active Codes or ALL Codes
• Memorized ATIGD List
  • Current Farm or None
• Budget Roll-Over Options (one new choice)
  • Use actual amounts as budget amounts for the new fiscal year
• Log updated so you can easily review loan/receivable entries.
• Bank account roll-over balance amount captured in log.

New Tax Table Update Features

The tax table update can now be downloaded from the internet. It simplifies the process of installing the yearly updates. However, if you do not have internet access, you can still request an update CD.

New Restore Features

The restore process now captures the current database so that it could be uninstalled if discovered that your backup set is corrupt. The current farm folder is erased before restoring any files. Do not attempt multiple restores if you discover you have a corrupt database or you may not be able to uninstall the last restore. Call support immediate if this situation arises for assistance with uninstalling the last restore.

Also, it is possible to restore prior versions of the dataset after your database has been upgraded to the current version. If a prior version was restored, the next time you open the farm database; it will be converted to the current version format.

New Register Tab Features

A new filter row at the top of the grid allows you to quickly filter the list when looking for a specific value (enter the value in the column of interest). The filter row can be hidden or shown by clicking on the "View button" within the register tab and uncheck or check the option "Show Filter Row".

Remember once a filter is applied, you can clear it by unchecking the box in the yellow bar at the bottom of the grid; delete the information from the filter row, or by selecting options from the "Clear button".

New Detail Register Tab Features

• Change View Button
  This button lets you toggle between the payee (check, paycheck, or deposit) and the detail. The color scheme was updated to match the register tab for the payee view. In the past, you had to press the options button within the detail register tab and select view to switch views. Now, you can toggle between the views with the press of a button. The view option will still let you customize the column order as in the past.
• Search by Dollar Amount with Specified Comparison Operator.
• Add Price / Unit Column and show only non-zero values otherwise show blank.

New Check / Deposit Features

• Recall Last Button - Once the vendor has been entered, press the recall last button to pull in the details of the last transaction for this vendor.
• Memorize Button - Pressing this button will memorize all the detail data associated with the vendor and create an ATIGD list for this vendor. The next time the vendor is selected all details with the ATIGD list will be automatically be included. This list can be maintained from the vendor external code window by pressing the ATIG List button.

New Menu Items

• Report
  • View Invoice Archive - Printed or Email Forms archived (Controlled by Invoice Setup for Form and E-Forms).
• Balances
  • Reconcile Bank - Exposed this function from the menu. In the past, it was only accessible from the register tab reconcile button.
• Setup
  • Bank Accounts - New users could not find this setup which was under the balances menu.
  • Payroll Defaults - New codes for this release (see notes payroll module).
  • Invoice Preferences - New codes for this release (see notes invoice module).
• Help
  • Quick Keys - Press Ctrl-Q to popup this help window listing quick keys along with an explanation.

New Report Options

Since the number of bank accounts has been expanded from 9 to unlimited, reports that have bank account selection as part of criteria now have a report header page with all the report criteria instead of including it in the page header. The report header page can be suppressed.

• Options
  • Suppress Report Header Page
  • Auto adjust rules for Bank Accounts on New Fiscal Year Change
  • Batch Printing Rules includes Bank Account

New Reports

• Farm / Non-Farm Financial Statements
  • Transaction Journal Report: New Report by selected ATIG-Code
• Payroll
  • Payroll Pay Stubs (Single Employee or All)
• Invoicing Reports
  • A/R Aging (Detail and Summary)
  • Customer Listing
• Tax Value
  • 1099 Vendors (Detail and Summary)
  • Sales Tax Liability

Net Taxable Income Statement Report - Not including all Tax Planning Values

The report was not including all tax planning values if there was no associated transaction data for that report section. The report now includes all values regardless of transaction data.

Editing a Check/Deposit ATIGD Detail - Zero Units and Description

When Editing a Detail Line and changing an ATIG/D for a Check/Deposit, it resulted in the description along with Units and Weights being Changed/Zeroed. Now, if there is a description on a line, then the Description along with Units and Weights will not be erased on an ATIG/D change for the line.

Setting Starting Check Number during Print

The value entered as the starting number when printing checks will always update the next check number for the bank account.

In the past, if the starting check number provided during check printing did not match the starting check number defined in the setup for the bank, then it would not save the next starting number. It was assuming that you were printing checks out of sequence. Now, it always updates the starting check number.

Deposit Data Fix - Missing Vendor Code and Name for Payee Record/ Vendor Code missing on Detail Records

This fix was important to support the new 1099 Vendor Report.

New Check Format Setup Feature

• Option added to Suppress Memo Line by Check Format

Fix Error 'number' is not a valid floating point value for field "where value" could be Amount, Units, or Total Wt

Edit an existing amount, unit, or total wt where the amount was one thousand or greater resulted in error when the value was changed in the check or deposit grid. Value could be changed within the detail window without an error.

Minimum Main Window Size

When clicking "restore down" for the main window would result in it being very small and you had to stretch it out each time. Now, there is application preference to control main window size and location on application startup.

Detail Register: Payee View shows bank account in ATIGD field

This has been corrected. In fact, the ATIGD should not be shown for the payee view as this field does not apply. Change the view back to detail would not show the ATIGD field again until application restart.

Ask to Set / Change Check Format Used for Printing Checks

Ask question during the bank code setup. Also, if the user changes or does not have a check format defined for the bank account, ask if they would like to change / set selected format as the default check format.

Check with Two Vouchers: Move memo line up

ANSI standard requires nothing to print within bottom 5/8" of check. The memo line was moved up and can be suppressed for the check format if desired.

All check formats can be purchased from a new vendor. See the website for order information.

Auto Split Non-Farm Automobile Code Mapping ATI 008x

In the prior version, the split would map to inappropriate codes. It has been changed to use the codes below when splitting Non-Farm 008x codes to Farm codes.

Flow of Funds Reports - Not returning correct number of records

The report was returning the data for all fiscal years. Now, the report just selects the requested fiscal period.

Balance Sheet: Suppressing Zero Lines

Suppress beginning inventory values BIV zero values from the ending inventory value EIV report.

Check / Deposit Date Default - Hold the date value for Farm Session

Currently, the date defaults to the current date and is held once the date is changed for the edit session. Once you leave the check/deposit tab, the last date is lost and returns to current date when going back to tab. Now, the last date used is held while the farm is still open.

Data Analysis - Inspect Loan and Receivables for missing Inventory Type

The inventory type was not set for receivables in the transaction data. This resulted in an invalid variant being reported. Also, the balance sheet would not be accurate.

Change Transaction from Detail Register Changes Bank Account

If you had the register tab set to say bank account 0021 and the check being changed from the detail register was assigned to bank account 0022. Changing the check and saving it from the detail register would result in the bank account changed to 0021.

View Log New Features

• New Invoice Activity Logs
  • Email Form, Invoice Batch Print, and Invoice Statements
• Viewer can be set to FarmBooks Viewer or Microsoft WordPad
  • If strange characters are being display when viewing the log, then switch log viewer to see if it corrects the problem.

Check / Deposit Payee Dropdown List show Additional Fields

The dropdown list now show whether the vendor is active and if it has an associated ATIGD List.

Accelerator Key (key on tab show with an underline) not working when changing to another tab

Accelerator keys are maintained between tabs. Also, some accelerator keys conflicted with the menu accelerator keys and have been dropped.

Negative Accounting Allowed

Using negative accounting principles to adjust an ATIGD was changed so that this was not allowed. Now, the user is permitted again to adjust accounts with negative amounts. Check with your farm manager to determine how he would like the account adjusted for your situation.

New Grid Feature (Register or Detail Register) Payroll Company Paid

Show company paid payroll withholdings in a blue font color.

Payroll summary report show company paid amounts.

Tax Planning Names Expanded

Names for tax planning values expanded so that abbreviations are eliminated.

• 99950 Changed from Annual Depreciation of Equipment to Annual Book Depreciation of Equipment
• 999963 is a new code for Annual Tax Depreciation of Equipment.

Backup Process Cleans up / Ignores Unwanted Files in Farm Database Folders

• Deletes any backup files or preferences files from the farm folder
• Backup only files with the correct database extensions. This will keep the backup file size small.

Credit Analysis Report

The report has been changed to include Non-Farm Loan Interest 0045 and 0085. These family living codes have been changed to "loan type" codes which now require an external code. When you use ATIG 0437 without an external code, the user receives a warning that an external code is recommended.

Income Statement Report

The report no longer includes “Investment in Growing Crops” when computing the beginning and ending operating inventory values.

Schedule F Report and Net Taxable Income Statement

The "depreciation value" now comes from the new tax planning ATIGD of 99963 Annual Tax Depreciation of Equipment instead of 99950 Annual Book Depreciation of Equipment.

New Fiscal Year

Tax rates for salaried employees with semi-monthly pay periods was not correctly computed when creating the new fiscal year. Weekly rates were used.

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Enforce FICA Limits

Incorporate into the Payroll Module the maximum limit for the withholding of Social Security tax.

This change has been implemented during paycheck entry and all payroll reports updated to utilize the FICA limit defined in the tax table for any year. Paycheck entry shows all YTD amounts prior to the current check being entered or edited.

Form 941 - Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return

Payroll Form 941 (Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return) was redesigned for the 2005 calendar year, and future calendar years. Additional lines have been added and other changes incorporated.

Form 940 – Employer’s Annual Federal Unemployment (FUTA)Tax Return

Payroll Form 940 was redesigned for the 2006 calendar year, and future calendar years. Additional lines have been added and other changes incorporated.

Form 943 - Employer’s Annual Federal Tax Return for Agricultural Employees

Change the 12.4% and 2.9% values on Lines 3 and 5 to the decimal format of .124 and .029.

Form 944 - Employer’s Annual Federal Tax Return

A new IRS form developed in 2006 for depositing of FICA taxes and income taxes withheld on employees. Form 944 is used by employers instead of Form 941 if the employer is notified in writing by the IRS. Tax deposit is done annually instead of monthly, quarterly, etc.

Paycheck "Other" Withholding Values

After a paycheck has been completed but not recorded, pressing the Enter (or Tab) key through the address line will cause the program to automatically reopen the Paycheck Detail Window. If the user had entered a value in the "Other" withholding box, then this value would have moved to the "Retirement" box when the Paycheck Detail Window was reopened. (NOTE: The Paycheck values will be correct because the values for Retirement/Other are combined on one detail line with the ATIG code of "9414".)

This has been accomplished by back figuring the percentages from the employee window when showing the detail window. If the employee has no values defined, the split values will not be maintained. The final solution will be incorporated with additional payroll changes in the next release.

Payroll Analysis – Single Employee Report

On the report setup screen, the user enters the Employee’s Number. When the number is entered, the Employee’s Name should be displayed.

Paycheck Detail Grid Changed

The grid was changed to remove columns that were not relevant to payroll. Hours and Gross Pay columns were added.

Crop Enterprise Analysis Report

Beginning with the Net Sale Grain line, the "$/Unit" values should be derived by dividing "Dollars" by "# Unit Produced.” Currently, the dollar values are divided by "Pounds/100".

Inventory Analysis Report by Type of Livestock

Do not print this report for a type of livestock if no inventory, purchase, sale, death, weaning, and birth entries have been entered for that type of livestock. That is, the report is blank.

Non-Farm and Nonfarm Issue

Standardize all reports and screens on use of either "Non-Farm" or "Nonfarm", but not the use of both. It was decided to use Non-Farm and the following changes were made:

• Change ATI = 007: "Nonfarm Utilities" to "Non-Farm Utilities"
• Change ATI = 008: "Nonfarm Auto Expense" to "Non-Farm Auto Expense"
• Change “Nonfarm” in the Balance Sheet & Support Schedules and Detail Inventory Listing Reports to "Non-Farm".

Other than the above, the term "Non-Farm” is used throughout the program.

Balance Sheet Report Dates

Allow the user to enter a specific date to be printed in the heading of the ending Balance Sheet and Supporting Schedules Reports. This "date" is especially important for the ending Balance Sheet. For example, an ending inventory may have been entered on the data of August 15th to obtain a Balance Sheet report as of that date.

Balance Sheet Supporting Schedules Revisions

In the Supporting Schedules, include the "Qty Code Terms" such as Bushels, Acres, Head, with the units. Also, change the term "value" to "Amount".

Report Dates and Page #’s

Move the page #’s as well as the date and time a report was printed to the bottom of the report.

Balance Sheet Supporting Schedules and Detail Inventory Listing Reports

Change the following terms:

• Supporting Schedules: Section 16:
  - Change "Account Payable" to "Accounts Payable"
• Detail Inventory Listing:
  - Change "Account Payable" to "Accounts Payable"

Vendor Recall Last Transaction

Provide a method of recalling the last check or deposit detail for a vendor. This feature is only available during new check / deposit entry.

"+ / - " Sign Quick Key for Check Number

Pressing the plus or minus key within the check number field will increment or decrement the check number by one if the field contains a number.

Vendor Quick-Fill Mixed Upper-Lower Case Issue

If typing in a name that is not set up as a vendor but starts with a few of the first letters of a vendor that is set up in upper and lower case letters, it starts to do the quick-fill of the vendor, but the rest of the name that is then typed is in all capitals. For example, if a vendor is set up as "John Deere" and the user is entering a check for Johnson County, then it will pick up the "John" part of John Deere but the rest of the name is in all capitals. Thus, the name will be listed on the check as "JohnSON COUNTY".

Retain Check Amount on Payee Change

The check / deposit amount will be retained if the payee is changed. It was always reset to zero in prior versions.

Bank Balance Summary Report of Check Register Reports and the Separate Bank Balance Summary Report

The print screen allows for the entering any range of dates, but the report does not cross fiscal years.

Example: The report for transaction dates of 7/01/2006 – 12/31/07 will be identical to the report with transaction dates of 01/01/2007 – 12/31/07. Since you can not cross the fiscal year dates, then the "YTD Balance" does not make sense and is not needed.

Example: A Bank Balance Summary report for the dates of 01/01/2006 to 12/31/2006 will show a balance as of 12/31/2007. If the report was processed on 2/9/2007, then the YTD Balance as of 2/9/2007 will print. But, the balance will be identical to the 12/31/2007 balance. That is, the YTD value printed is not the balance for this checking account as of 2/9/2007. Also, the **End of Report** term can be removed.

New and Changed ATIG Codes

See the Code Changes List
Analyzing an existing farm database will apply the new and changed code descriptions. Any new farm created will have the new and changed codes without doing the data analysis.

Access Violation When Changing Fiscal Year from Register Tab

Changing the fiscal year on the register tab could result in an access violation being reported. The application would continue after closing the message box. This has been fixed.

Reconciliation New Features and Fixes

Counts added for "cleared" and "un-cleared" checks and deposits.

Changing the sort view could result in un-reconciled transactions from other bank accounts to be included with the current bank account.

Fixes to Register Tab Grid

The new grid with additional features was introduced in Version 3.0, sometimes the grid did not show the data or would show additional fiscal years.

When setting up a new farm database and entering checks during the same session, the checks would not be displayed in the grid. It would require you to close the farm and then reopen it.

Entering new checks and then returning to the register tab grid would not always display the new checks.

Having the view set to "Show Detail" as unchecked would result in all fiscal years data to be display on application startup. It would appear to user that it was showing the wrong fiscal year when comparing the data being displayed to the fiscal year in the drop down list.

New Fiscal Year – Loan / Receivable Roll-Over Balance

When creating a new fiscal year the loan / receivable beginning balance for the new fiscal year was not always correct. This was especially true if the same external code was used on all loan payments or receivables.

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Registration Changes

The application had three different places where the registration information could be changed (File menu - Change Registration, Setup menu - Personal Information, and Utilities menu - Maintain Registrations). Each one had a strength or weakness from the other ones. This set of changes will bring consistency between them and did eliminate the option from the Setup menu - Personal Information.

History of the various methods:

• Method 1 (File menu - Change Registration):
  This option would only allow you to change the farm registration number. You were not permitted to change the farm number and / or name.
  
  
• Method 2 (Setup menu - Personal Information):
  This option would change the registration number and / or name and update the farm number in the transaction file; however, the folder name would not reflect the current registration information. To update the folder, it would require you to go to maintain registrations and delete the registration number and open window explorer and rename the farm folder, then go back into maintain registration and ADD the registration. Again, the main benefit was that it updated the farm number that was stored in the transaction files.
  
  
• Method 3 (Utilities menu - Maintain Registrations):
  Maintain Registrations would allow you to ADD a registration with a new number and / or name, but the farm database folder is not renamed to reflect either the number and / or name change. The transaction files have the farm number stored in them to be checked against the registered farm number when opening the database. However, this process would NOT update the farm number in the transaction files and so it would result in an error when opening the database - "Transaction files do NOT belong to registered farm."
  
  This method still has one advantage over the two methods. If you create a new fiscal year and you have NOT entered any transactions, it will allow you to remove the fiscal year along with ALL the setup data. However, if the farm has loans and or receivables defined for the farm (New Fiscal Year process creates beginning balance), it will require you to manually delete these beginning balances before you can remove the fiscal year. This would allow someone to delete the fiscal period should it get created with the wrong start date. It does require you to have at least one fiscal year before you are permitted to remove one. Without a fiscal year, you don’t have a registration record. This functionality is not available from the File menu - Change Registration.

Solution:
Since it was desirable to rename the farm folder if either the farm number and / or name changed, the second method (Setup menu - Personal Information) had to be removed since it is not possible to rename a folder while the database is actually open. The other two options were changed to allow you to change the farm number, name, and or registration number. The process will now rename the folder, update the transaction file with the new farm number, and update the registration information.

Maintain registrations shows a database legend as to what the various colors indicate for the database icon. Also, a new status was added to show registered farms that no longer have a valid number (version 3.0 required new numbers). A new properties level was included to shows the farm number, registration number, and database folder. This should help in determining what folder is being used by what registration.

As a side note, "Open Farm" and "Change Registration" will now show three different database icon colors, yellow - active usable database, blue - registered but no data folder, and gray - registered but not valid) the same as maintain registrations (no legend provided here as the user will receive an error message).

Check Printing Changes / Register Grid Refresh

Added printer dialog prompt to allow the user to change the printer before the printing of checks; Windows default print is still the default but now the user can override if they have more than one printer;

If the checks did not print correctly, the user can specify the first check that printed incorrectly. However, the next check number was incorrectly set to the next check number. Also added some additional description on the check confirmation window to better explain the use of the voided check range.

After printing one or more checks that were marked "PRINT" and designating the appropriate starting check number during the process and clicking "OK" to say the checks printed fine, the word "PRINT" shows in the Register instead of the appropriate check number. If more checks are printed later, then the previous set of checks then reflect the check number but the current set of printed checks will still show "PRINT" as the check number. Closing the bank account or the program and opening again seems to "pop" the check numbers in. The register is now refreshed properly.

If you would change the bank account when entering a check, paycheck, or deposit and then return the register grid, the grid would show the correct bank account name, but the data shown in the grid was not properly refreshed to match the bank account. This has been corrected.

Check Number Change

In this version, we no longer left fill the check numbers with leading zeros. No change was made to your existing data.

If you use the "Next" or "Next and Cleared" (used if you don’t print checks from FarmBooks) preference options for "Check Number and Status", then you should set your beginning number for each bank account you have defined from the Balances menu and Bank.

Report Changes

• ATIG Codes Listing was not sorting by G Code. If you added a new code that did not exist, the code would always appear at the end of ATI group.
• Detail Register List and the Check Register Reports had the rightmost column moved as it was being cut off. Also, updated the drill down report for the same reason.
• Income Statement - The report has been updated to show the G Description from the ATIG instead of the transaction user description.
• Inventory Detail Listing show 5182 "Bermuda" with the "a" on the next line by itself.
• Monthly Cash Flow - Report has been updated to read its data from the transaction file instead of the summary file.
• Schedule F had a misspelling. Is correct on the statement but not on the worksheet. Under the caution statement at the bottom of the page it is listed as "Feader Steers", but should be "Feeder Steers".

Version number updated to 3.01 for all changed reports.

New Report Control Features

Batch Printing Options - Added a "mark all" and "clear all" buttons to allow user to quickly select and deselect ALL reports without drilling into the various report levels.

General Report Preview Options - Added default Magnification Percentage. This value can be set from the "Report menu - Reports and then select the "Options" button.

Inventory Grid Entry

Entry into the quantity code field required you to use the mouse to select the value from the list. Now, the user can enter the quantity code without using a mouse or the drop-down list. The novice user can still browse the list of codes if necessary.

The grid is designed for quick entry of information from left to right using the enter key to move between columns.

Automatic Default Preference Change Notification

The backup option for the local device was set to "C:\MCFP Backups". During the installation to FarmBooks, the user is instructed to change this to "C:\FarmBooks Backups". Now, when the user opens the preferences, it will detect the prior setting and automatically adjust it to the FarmBooks default. During this process, the user is notified of the change.

If you set the backup folder to any location other than C:\FarmBooks Backups, it will automatically save a copy to this folder on the local computer as a secondary backup.

New Fiscal Year and Export Process - Loans / Receivables with no Beginning Balance

Summary of Problems for Roll-over and Export.

• Loan always created as Current Liability
• Receivables always created as Stockholders A/R
• Grouping by External Number limited External Code to only one Liability and / or Asset Type

The roll-over options would not create the correct liability and / or asset type if there was no beginning loan and / or receivable balance defined. Also, if there was no beginning balance for the loan and / or receivable, it could have possibly been created using the bank account name instead of the external code. For instance, a loan with external code 003 would get the bank account description for 0023 instead of the loan/receivable code. Loan 004 received the correct description in the case where there was no bank account defined for 0024. Both of these problems have been corrected in the case where no beginning balance was defined.

In prior versions, the loan/receivable roll-over grouped by external number only and limited the external code to one liability or asset type. Now, the process has been updated to group by both the external code and the ATIG. This allows both a current, intermediate, and / or long term (liability or asset) to be created for the same loan external code. The roll-over in general was incomplete for new fiscal year. This has been corrected.

Minor Application Changes for Error Messages, Images, Register Grid Advanced Filter, and Quick Key

• Updated open error message to include the farm number and name to be more clear which farm open was in error
• Updated and added new images within the application - Inventory, Livestock Production, Maintain Registration, and View Log. Most of them now have more of a 3-D look
• Added Callout Control with Application Icon to show Fly-Over Text Messages
• Cleaned up the names of filter field name list for the advance filter popup window. Also, removed some that did not make sense in this setting. For instance, the grid is restricted by bank account and fiscal year so these would not be of additional value in filtering. This would be for the advanced user or could be used by support.
• Detail Register Grid – Pressing the enter key will automatically apply the filter. In prior versions, it was necessary to select the filter button and then select apply. However, if you want to enter several criteria values and then apply the filter all at once you can tab between fields and then select the filter button and then select apply or press the enter key on the last criteria field.

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