CSTA
Financials Food Distribution Software
Company Setup
Tutorial
This tutorial will allow you to setup a new company after the MSDE 2000 has been installed, the IIS has been configured, the Web-Services installed, the client application installed and a new company has been created. When you start this process you have an empty database with only a sample Chart of Accounts on it (if that option was selected in the create company function). When you finish this tutorial you should be able to do functions like purchases and sales.
Bank Setup
1. After you have logged in CSTA Financials Food distribution Software, go to the main menu and click on Setup/Accounting/Banks
2. Click on the Search button to the right of the Interest Account and select the right Account. This account reflects all the Interest Income that you have received from your banks. This account usually carries a Credit Balance and at year’s end its balance goes to the Retained Earnings.
3. Click on the Search button to
the right of the Miscellaneous Deposit and select the right Account. This
should be an asset account and it should carry a debit balance
4. Click on the Search button to
the right of the Miscellaneous Withdrawal and select the right Account. This is
an expense account and it should carry a debit balance.
5. Click on the Search button to
the right of the “Other Charges” textbox and select the right Account. This is
an expense account and it should carry a debit balance
6. Click the search button to the
right of the “Finance Charge” text box to select the right account. This is an
expense account and it should carry a debit balance
7. Click the search button to the
right of the “Service Charges” text box to select the right account. This is an
expense account and it should carry a debit balance.
8. Enter in the "Bank
Annual" field the APR for the current account if applicable (This is done
by erasing the entire box and entering the desired percentage in decimal
format. Use the method for changing the Bank Minimum Finance and Bank Monthly
Charge fields as well.)
9. Enter the "Minimum
Balance" required on the current account. This is very common for accounts
that carry an interest rate
10. Enter the "Monthly
Charge" that your bank debits to your account for any concept
11. Check the “Finance Charge”
checkbox if this is a credit account and finance charges are assessed
12. Check the “Interest” check box
if this is a Savings account and the interest is credited every month
13. Press the "Update"
button in the lower left portion of the form
14. Press the “New” button to the
right of it to add a new bank account to this company.
15. COA Number: Select the GL
Account that will be tied to this bank account. You can only assign one GL Account
to one bank account
16. Account: Enter here the Account
number that was assigned by your bank
17. Enter a meaningful "Bank
Name" and try to enter as much extra information as you can about the
Address, Phone and contact information of your bank in the respective fields.
This will later be used in the bank reconciliation tasks.
18. Next Check/Deposit: Enter here
the next check number that you have. The system will not allow you to repeat
check numbers. Therefore, you have to be careful to enter the appropriate
number. The information entered will be reflected when you are printing the AP
checks in the Pay Many Vendors, Pay One Vendor, Receiving and Voucher.
19. Bank Balance: This text box
will reflect the balance of this bank account taking into consideration all
posted transactions. In order to make this number agree with your bank
statement, we recommend you do bank reconciliation every month.
20. Unposted:
This text box will show all of the unposted
transactions that will eventually affect the balance of the Bank Account.
21. Enter any relevant notes about
this bank account.
22. Press the "Update" button to save the Bank information
Setup Accounting Periods
1. Go to the main menu click on Setup/Accounting/General Ledger
2. 2. Make Sure the "Post to GL" option is checked
3. 4. Enter 1 for System Date or 2 for Transaction Date as the default date for the transaction postings
4. 5. Enter the Fiscal year you will use and make sure the Start and End Dates show the right information
5. 6. Hit the "Update" button and the "Close" button to exit the form
6.
7. 7. Go to the main menu and click on Setup/Accounting/Periods
8. Enter First day of the Fiscal Year
9. Enter the last day of the Fiscal Year.
10. Based on your company's historical information,
decide what periods you are going to use. Monthly or Quarterly periods are the
most popular choices. However, the system allows you to have any number of
periods from 1 to 13.
11. Press the Auto Setup button. This button
will automatically setup the periods on the left side according to the First
and Last day of the year and option selected in the period selector
12. 12Press the "Update" button to save
your changes to the database.
Setup a Warehouse
1. Go to the main menu click on Setup/Inventory/Warehouse/Bins
2. Press the “New”
button
3. Enter the
Warehouse ID.
4. Enter the
Address, Contact and Phone Information. Even though this information is
optional, you should enter the most accurate address and contact information if
you will have
5. Press the
"Update" button. This will create a default Bin (A1).
6. To create
a new Bin, Click the “Add Bin” button and the system will add an empty line at
the end of the Bin List. Enter a Bin ID that reflects its relative position in
the Warehouse. For Example many companies use Bin Locations that Express a combination of Line, Location, Level (A10C). The
Description should be less than 50 Characters including any special comments in
the remarks. Furthermore, you can activate this bin by checking the box in its
Active Column. You can also make this Bin a bin where you will accept receiving
by checking the box in its Receive column.
7. Click "Update" to save to the database.
Company Setup
1. Go to the main menu click on Setup/Company/”
2. Enter the company Id, Name, Address and telephone Numbers. This information will appear in the header of most of the reports
3. Enter “Days to Retrieve” Information. This field represents the number of days back information will be retrieved from by default
4. Select the default Warehouse
(Required) by clicking on the corresponding Search button (the button with a
picture of a folder on it) and selecting from the list
5. Select the default Bank Account
from the list (Required) by clicking on its corresponding Search button and
selecting from the list
6. Select the Default POS account
by clicking on its corresponding Search button and selecting from the list.
This is required if the company will use the POS Module
7. Select the Default Account by
clicking on its corresponding Search button and selecting from the list. The
system will use this account to post all cash receipts before they are
deposited to the bank
8. Check the “Use Sales Tax (Y/N)”
box if some customers will pay taxes in your system
7. Check the “Use Numeric UPC’s” boxes to allow ONLY Numeric Item Ids in the system
8. Check the “Use Passwords"
box to make some areas of your system more secure from non-administrator users
9. Check the “View All Customers
(Y/N)” box to open the “Customer Account Status” Lookup showing all clients
with outstanding balances in the system
10. Enter in the “Name for
Expiration Date” Field any other name you want to show in your system
11. Enter optional Notes about your
company in the space provided. The notes are for reference only and they do not
show on any reports
12. Use the Reset User log button to see all the users that are concurrently logged in the system. If you esteem that some users already exited the system and the list is longer than usual we advise to tell all the users to exit the system and press the “Reset” button.
13. Press the
"Update" button to save your changes
14. Press the "Edit" button inside the "Application Setup" frame to access additional settings for the company
15.Check the "Order by Bin Y/N" option to Sort Items by Bin Location in the Inventory Adjustment and Receiving form
16. Check the "View Categories with Descriptions y/n" box to show the Item Categories followed by a comma and its description in all item search forms.
17. Check the "Make Standard Cost=Real Cost" option to update the standard cost on every receiving according to the calculated real cost.
18. Check the "Use Standard Cost instead of Real cost in Sales Transactions" box to base the cost of all invoices/returns on the standard cost of the items. Therefore, the profitability and commission reports will be affected by this cost too.
19. Check the "Use Bill Back on Real Cost" option if you want the Bill Backs that are entered on the receiving of merchandise to affect the real cost of the items they have been assigned to only.
20. Check the "Include SO Items with 0 Qty in Invoice Y/N" box if you want to show on the invoice the items the customer ordered that were not fulfilled.
21 . Check the "Use Category Surcharges Y/N" option to charge monetary amounts to items in specific categories if the customer Tax Group allows for it (See Item Category Setup).
22. Check the "Mark Items to be Ordered in the Sales Order by Default" box to check the "to be ordered" option whenever a new Item is added to the Sales Order.
23. Check the "Do not Allow Backorder" option to Eliminate all On order quantities associated with a specific sales order once it has been fully or partially shipped. This option also makes it impossible to ship a Sales Order more than once.
24. Check the "Print Invoices on Special Form Y/N" option to print the invoices on special forms that go directly to the default printer
25. Check the "Print Second Invoice" option to prompt the user to print an alternative type of invoice form.
26. Check the "Use Nw as Temporary Item" option so that all items which Id starts with "Nw" are treated as temporary and will not show in the price lists and profitability reports.
Item Category Setup
1. Go to the main menu click on
Setup/Inventory/Item Categories
2. Press the “New” button
3. 3Enter Item Category Id and Description
4.
4Check
the “Exclude from Sales Analysis Report” box to mark this Item Category as
Non-Profitable. When the user is preparing a Sales Analysis, he can opt to
include this Item Category or not if necessary.
5.
5Check
the “Cigarettes” box to mark the Item Category as special Cigarette category.
This will differentiate the category in some sales analysis according to the
customer's needs.
6.
6Enter
in the “Tax Percentage” the system will add to the items in this category. This
percentage is used to markup your real cost and determine the final selling
price. You can leave this value as $0.00.
7.
7Enter
the "Order" of picking of this category in the "Picking
Tickets".
8.
8Enter
the "Code" of this Item Category. This number is used in the Salesperson
Commission Report as a way of differentiating the Item Categories
9. 9Special Percentages: This percentage is use in the Special Percentage Report. This number has no other applications through the system. This is an optional feature
10. 10. Enter the default Market Price for this category of Items. This option will only be valid if Price Lists that use market Price are used.
11. 11. Select the General Category of this Item from the dropdown list
12. 12. Select if this Item is "Dry", "Frozen" or "Chill." This will help to print separate Picking Tickets by these categories.
13. 13. Enter a monetary surcharge you would like to assess to the prices of all items in this category
14.
Press
the “Update Prices” button if you want to update all Cost-Markup Price lists
and the Tax Percentage is greater than Zero.
Setup Ship Methods
1. Go to the main
menu click on "Setup/Shipping/Shipping Methods”
2. Press the
"Add" button to create a new Shipping Method
3. Enter the
Alphanumerical information
4. Press
"Update"
Setup Payment Methods
1. Go to the main
menu click on Setup/Payment/ Payment Methods”
2. Press the
"Add" button to create a new Payment Method
3. Enter the
Alphanumerical information
4. Press
"Update"
Setup Payment Terms
1. Go to the main menu click on Setup/Payment/ Payment Terms
2. Press the “New” button
3. Enter the Terms Description. We recommend that
to use a descriptive name. A descriptive name is something along the lines of
2% 10 Net 30, or anything else that thoroughly and succinctly describes the
payment terms. In this example, 2% 10 Net 30 means that if the bill is paid
within ten days, it will be discounted by two percent; the entire bill (net) is
due within thirty days. If they do not pay the entire bill by the discount
date, then they must pay the entire invoice (i.e. no discounts) within thirty
days.
4. Enter Net Days. This specifies
how many days the customer has to pay the bill in total.
5. Enter in the “After” field the
day of the week that the net days start being counted. If you want to start
counting the Net days from the moment of the transaction posting, leave this
field blank
6. Enter Discounts- Discount % -
this tells what discount you are willing to give the customer if he or she pays
the bill within the number of days specified. Change this field by selecting
the entire contents of the box and replacing it with the desired percentage in
decimal format then click tab or enter
7. Enter Discount Days - this is
the number of days the customer has to pay the bill before the discount
expires.
8. Press
""Update""
Employee Setup
1. Go to the main menu click on Setup/Employee/Employee Setup
1.
Press
New to Create a New Employee
2.
Enter
the Employee
3.
Enter
the Employee Name, Address and Phone. The employee name is used in the system
as the Login Name of the user. This field has to be carefully selected as it
will show in many reports and lookups through out the system. The rest of the
contact information for this user(such as Address and
phone) is optional.
4.
Hire
Date. Select the employee hire date. This information is optional
5.
Social
Security Number. This information is also optional
6.
Group.
7. Select the Group that this
employee is part. The company is created with one default general group (000,
Administrator). If you want to create more groups you need to add them the system(Group Setup) and assign the rights employees assigned
to that group will have(Groups and Rights)
8.
Select the Department. This Optional Feature allows you to select what
in what department this employee is in.
9.
Location. This allows you to associate the employee to one of the
companies Locations/Warehouses.
10. Pay Type. Select “Salary +
Commission” if this employee is a Salesperson. Otherwise, select the most
accurate choice from the list.
11. Pay Frequency, Annual Salary, Hourly Rate, Overtime Rate. All of
these fields are for informational purposes only as the CSTA Financials food
distribution software software does not include a
Payroll Module at the time
12. If the employee was assigned to the “Salary + Commission” Pay type,
you need to enter the Commission (%). This commission will be assigned to
the salesperson based on his/her sales or profit. This percentage can be
changed at any time. (See commission Report).
13. If the employee was assigned to the “Salary + Commission” Pay type,
you need to enter the Disc Commission (%).This commission percentage will be
assigned to the salesperson if he/she sells any items below the Minimum Profit
Level (See Customer Type Setup) based on his/her sales or profit. This
percentage can be changed at any time. (See commission Report)
14. Check the appropriate ratio button to decide if the commissions will be paid based on Gross Sales or Profit.
15. Check the "Warn if Items Below Reorder Point Y/N" option to
show a window of all items that are
below reorder point to this employee when he/she logs
in the system.
16. Enter any notes that are
related to this employee. These notes will remain in his/her employee file for
as
long as you want and they will not be reflected on any
other area of the system.
17. Press "Update" and
you will get a confirmation message saying that “Your changes were saved.
Customer Types Setup
1. Go to the main
menu click on Setup/Customers/Customer Types/”
2.
Press
New to clear the fields to enter a new Customer Type
3.
Enter
the Customer
4.
Enter a
meaningful description for the price lists in question. This Description should
never be more than 100 characters
5.
If you
decide to make this Customer Group into a Cost Driven Price List Check the
“Cost Markup” Checkbox. In addition to this, enter the percentage that will be
used to calculate the prices based in the real cost of the items in the “Cost
Markup” Text Box. Change this field by selecting the entire contents of the box
and replacing it with the desired percentage in decimal format then click tab
or enter
6.
Enter
in the “Min Profit” text box the minimum profit percentage management has
decided to assign to this customer group. If the salesperson sells the
merchandise below this percentage he/she will get a warning and the commission
for that sale will be affected. Change this field by following the instructions
from step 5
7.
Enter
in the “Group Commission %” Text box a percentage that will be added to the
salesperson commission percent. This is used to entice sales to specific
customer groups. Change this field by following the instructions from step 5
8.
Check
the “All Items” checkbox if you want any new item added to the system to be
added to this price list automatically. If this is a manual price list, the
items will be added at regular price. If this is a “Cost Markup” price list the
Items will be added according to the Item’s Real Cost and the Price List “Cost
Markup %”
9.
If this
customer group has customers with excellent payment histories or significant
size, you might want to entice your salesperson to increase your sales to them
by paying them commission right after the sale and not when payment is
received. Check the “Assume Invoices Paid (Y/N)” checkbox to pay commission on
any posted invoices to this Customer Type.
10.
Click
the “Update Prices” button to recalculate all the Prices based in the updated
Markup Percentage Information if this is s Cost Markup Price List. If this is a
manual price list, this action will open a lookup of all the items that are
part of the price list. The user then can modify any of the listed prices and
press Save.
11.
Click
the “Add all Items” button Add All Items to add all items in the company to
this price list if they are not already part of it. If this is a manual Price
list all items will be added at regular Price. On the other hand if this is a
“Cost Markup” price list, the items will be added to this price lists using the
real cost of the item and the Cost markup % on this form.
12.
Press
the “Remove All Items” button if you want to take all the items from this price
list leaving it empty. Therefore, any customers that were already assigned to
this price list will get regular prices until this price list is again
populated. This button will prompt the user for confirmation
13.
Press
the "Update" button to save your changes
Setup Customer Discount Levels
1. Go to the main menu click on
Setup/Customers/Customer Discount Levels/”
2. Press the “Add” button to add a new discount
level
3. Enter the Discount
4. Enter the “Discount Percentage.” Enter the
percentage of the final price that you want to affect. For instance a Discount
percentage of 100% will mean no changes to the final price. A discount
percentage of 105% will mean the customer will get a 5% increase over his
price. A discount percentage of 99% will mean that the customer will get a 1%
discount over his best price before that price gets inserted in the Quote,
Sales Order or Invoice. Follow the same method as mentioned above to change the
percentage.
5. Press the “Update” button to save your
changes.
Setup Tax Authorities
1. Go to the main menu click on Setup/Tax/Tax
Authorities/”
2. Press the "New" button
3. Enter the Tax Id
4. Enter the “Percent” amount for this tax.
5. Press the search button to the right of the
“Account” textbox to select the tax liabilities account where taxes will be
posted
6. Press the "Update" button
Setup Tax Groups
1. Go to the main menu click on Setup/Tax/Tax
Group/”
2. Press “New” to add a new Tax Group to the
database.
3. Enter a Tax Group ID
4. Enter a description
5. Press "Update" to save your
changes
6. Press the “Add Tax Authority" button.
This will open a lookup of all Tax authorities in the system
7. Select the Tax Authority that you want to
add to the Tax Group and Press the “Select” button.
8. Close the “Tax Authorities” lookup form
9. Press the "Update" button to save
your the new additions.
Setup Sales Preferences
1. Go to the main menu click on Setup/Sales/”
2. Select the “Sales AR Account” by clicking
the search button to the right of it.
3. Select the “Sales Cash Account” by clicking
the search button to the right of it.
4. Select the “Cost of Sales” Accounts by
clicking the search button to the right of it. The actual cost of the sale goes
into this account. This is the amount of cost associated with the sale that
takes place. It is calculated by Average cost. This account is used only if the
corresponding account on the Item is blank.
5. Select the “Sales Discount Account” by
clicking the search button to the right of it. Whenever you discount a
customer's invoice or the discount amounts from payment terms post to this
account. This account cannot be overridden by item Setup.
6. Select the “Freight Income – Freight”
account by clicking the search button to the right of it. Shipping charges will
post to this account. This account cannot be overridden by item Setup.
7. Select the “Sales Write-Off Account” by
clicking the search button to the right of it.
8. Select the “Sales” Accounts by clicking the
search button to the right of it. This is the default revenue account used for
invoices and sales memos, if not overridden at the Item level. This account is
used only if the corresponding account on the Item is blank.
9. Select the “Sales Returns” Account by
clicking the search button to the right of it. When customers return items, the
negative revenue goes into this account, while the regained cost of the
inventory item goes into the Inventory account. This account cannot be
overridden by item Setup.
10. Select the “Sales Miscellaneous Account” by
clicking the search button to the right of it.
11. Select the “Inventory” Account by clicking
the search button to the right of it. When you sell an item, its cost is
subtracted from this account, since you no longer have the item. This is the
default inventory account that is used when there is no inventory account on
the item.
12. Check the “Use Finance Charges” - If you
want your customers to be billed finance charges for late payments. Then, at
the end of every month you will assess finance charges using the Month End
Closing Assistant. If you decide to use finance charges, you must also set up
the rest of the information, described below
13. Enter Monthly Finance Charge - This is the
percentage amount charged to your customers every month if they have over the
Minimum Balance. It is calculated by dividing the Annual Finance Charge by 12
(months are used, not periods, in calculating finance charges)
14. Enter the Minimum Balance. If customers owe
more than this Minimum Balance at the end of the month, they will be charged
the Monthly Finance Charge.
15. Enter the Minimum Finance Charge. Customers
are charged based on a percentage of the amount they owe. Regardless of how much
this amount is, if they owe more than the Minimum
Balance they will be charged at least this Minimum Finance Charge.
16. Check the “Charge Interest on Finance
Charges “ if customers do not pay the finance charges.
You can calculate additional finance charges the next month based not only on
the amount they owe on their purchases, but also on the amount they owe in
finance charges
17. Select the “Finance Charge Income” account by clicking the search button
to the right of it. When Finance Charges accrue they post to this General
Ledger account.
18. Select the “Sales Number Account” by
clicking the search button to the right of it. This account will be used as the
default sales Account when any new customer is added to the system.
19. Select the Payment Terms, Shipping Method, Customer Type, Tax Group,
Discount Level, and from the different dropdown boxes. That information is used
when a new customer is created as the defaults.
20. You can set up four distinct periods.
Usually these are from 0 to 30 days, 31 to 60 days, 61 to 90 days, and over 91
days. Invoices you have sent will each fall into one of the periods. This
allows tracking of your receivables.
21. Select the right option in the “Age Invoices
by” to choose to age your invoices either by the date the invoices were posted or
by the date on which they are due. The due date is calculated from the payment
terms. The invoice date is the date the invoice was posted
22. Select the right option in the “Account
Default.” This option chooses whether the item card or customer card will be
used for the primary account defaults. If there is no information on either the
customer or item Setup regarding the Sales account, then CSTA Financials food
distribution software will use the Sales account you defined on the left side
of the form. If, on the other hand, there is information on both the customer
and item Setup, then you must tell CSTA-Financials which one to use. Do this by
selecting either the Customer or Item option
Setup Customers
1. Go to the main menu click on
Setup/Customers/Customer Maintenance/”
2. Press the “"New" button
3. Enter the Customer Id and Description. The
customer ID can be alphanumerical but it must be unique. Try to enter a
meaningful description not exceeding 30-50 characters.
4. Enter the Customer Billing Information
(name, city, state, address, etc).
5. Enter the Customer’s “Tax Id” number. This
is for customers who are exempt from taxes.
6. Enter the Customer’s “Credit Limit.” For
unlimited credit, enter 0 in this field. For no credit, enter a small number
like $0.01
7. Select the default “Payment Term” for this
customer
8. Select the “Customer Type” for this
customer. This action will assign the prices on that Customer Type/ Price List
to this customer.
9. Select the default “Tax Group” for this
customer
10. Press the button to the right of the “GL
Sales Account” textbox. Select an account that will reflect sales to this
customer. This account comes by default from the Company Sales Setup when a new
Customer is created.
11. Select a “Salesperson” from the list. You
can only select employees who are marked as salespeople
12. Enter the default “Discount %” for this
customer. This figure will be automatically inserted in all Sales
Orders/Invoices. Leave it as Zero for no discount
13. If you want to sell all items to a customer
at a fixed percentage margin over Real Cost enter a value greater than Zero in
the “Cost Markup %” textbox
14. If you want the customer to receive printed
Statements, then check the Statements option.
15. If you want the customer to be charged for
past due invoices, then check the Finance Charges option
16. Select the default “Shipping Method” for
this customer
17. Select the default Discount Level for this
customer
18. Select the default Truck that will cover the
route for this customer if that information is available. Leave it blank
otherwise.
19. Enter the customer’s Bank Name if available.
20. Click the “Consolidate” checkbox if this
customer will be the consolidated contact for all customers in that customer
group. The system will not let you have more that one “consolidate” customer
within a price list. You can print a consolidated statement for the entire
customer Group when you select this customer(See Statement Printing)
21. In order to setup this customer route there
are some fields that should be filled. First of all, you need to enter the
Route Code. Furthermore, The route order field has to
be filled to reflect what order of delivery has this customer in the selected
route. Furthermore, if the customer has a fixed route, you need to select what
days of the Week (M-F) and what weeks of the month (1-5) they have to be
visited as part of the delivery route. This information will be vital when
designing the daily trip.
22. Press the "Update" button to save
your information.
23. When a new customer is created a new Ship-To
Address will be created according to the customer information. You can press
the “Ship-To” button to edit the default address or add more.
24. Press the “Transactions” button to see a
lookup of all transactions related to this customer in the “Days Back” Period
of the company (See Company Setup). Those transactions are ordered by Date and
the list is updated real time as the transactions get posted.
21. Press the “Financials” to see
the financial status of this customer. This feature will contain meaningful
data after some transactions are posted
23. Press the “Beg Invoices” button
to enter any prior Charges to this customer.
A.
Enter
the “Reference Id”
B.
Enter
the transaction date
C.
Enter
the amount
D.
Press
New
Setup Purchasing Preferences
1. Go to the main menu click on
Setup/Purchasing/”
2. Select the “AP Account” by clicking the
search button to the right of it. All Accounts Payable transactions post to
this account. The AP Account cannot be overridden by the item or vendor Setups.
3. Select the “Inventory account” by clicking
the search button to the right of it.
4. Select the “Cash Account” by clicking the
search button to the right of it.
5. Select the “Prepaid Account” by clicking the
search button to the right of it.
6. Select the “Freight Account” by clicking the
search button to the right of it. Cost of Shipping transactions
post to this account. The Freight Expenses Account cannot be overridden by the
item or vendor Setups.
7. Select the “Discount Account” by clicking
the search button to the right of it. Any discounts from your vendor that you
decided to take advantage of post to this account. The Discount Account cannot
be overridden by the item or vendor Setups.