Resizing your Stamina system improves your speed and backup time and should be considered at least, every six months (this depends on the size of your database). The process is called RESIZYS is found in System Maintenance and of course, is best carried out at a weekend and only after you have taken a valid backup. There are a number of options (all found by pressing F1 Help key) when doing the process and if you haven’t resized for a while (or at all) then you should call us for advice on the better option to choose, at least for the initial resize. It will make an improvement to your system’s speed and reduce the backup time considerably.

It’s wise to run SPOOLDEL on the Stamina system regularly (how long ago did you do it?) this helps to maintain disk capacity and improve backup time as well. In fact, you could set the SPOOLDEL function as a KEYSTROK along with your BACKUP so that when you run your backups each night, the system could clear the spooler and run the backup for you – all in one fell swoop – Howz dat!

I know we’ve reported this in previous RaVe's, but, you could set up a KEYSTROK to complete all your mundane tasks, like posting etc so you only press a limited number of keys – but accomplish a whole lot of work AND, not miss out on completing anything because you’re running late or too much to do or whatever!

We had a good example of ‘blissful ignorance’ recently when a user had not had a back up for over twelve months. Because of some hardware changes, certain ‘connections’ were not set up properly and although the backup verified, no information was being recorded on the backup media. It was by pure chance that we discovered the problem – called in to do something completely separate but we did some system checking as part of our overall process and actually averted a potential disaster.

It may well be worth considering having a system check-up to make sure that all that should be happening is actually happening. The cost of Stamina on site for a few hours may be cheap when you consider the alternative as described above.

When is the last time you checked your Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) to make sure it’s working properly? Have you got a UPS? Consider driving a car without a seat-belt or insurance – she’s apples while the road ahead is clear – hit something, fall out of your seat and the seat belt idea suddenly becomes a pretty good idea – that’s the UPS. There are many types of power fluctuations (black-outs, brown-outs, spikes etc) the UPS will generally protect your connected machine from these and, life goes on, ahhhh!

The longer you leave the reconciliation process – the harder it becomes. All Bank Charges should be entered through BANKSTAT as well as the deposits and cheques.


You can use BANKCHGS for more than just entering bank charges. You can set them up to address any General Ledger account (including the GST control accounts) and either Debit OR Credit amounts. For example, if you pay periodical leasing charges via direct debit, loan repayments or even receive interest or rent by direct credits, set up BANKCHGS to address the relevant accounts. You’ll notice that there is a Tax Code in the set up (at Field 7) and if you enter your GST Inclusive or Free tax code here, then the appropriate GST amount is calculated each time you enter your bank statement amount. Therefore, your GST control account is updated, as is your expense or income account simultaneously. If you have more than one entity, you can direct the amounts to the appropriate entity as well (Field 4).

Keeping this up to date keeps everyone happy, the boss – because she can be assured of accurate and up-to-date figures, the accountant – because she can verify the amounts immediately and the data input operator – because he won’t get into too much trouble for taking so long to do the bank reconciliations. See, they’re all happy vegemites!

Then type any large value, say 999. This is telling the computer to go straight to page 999, so, if your report is 900 pages long, guess what? You magically go to the last page. (now that beats pressing the Enter key over and over)

An example to ponder, using say ARDOCENT you need to create a new job; at the Job field, simply press Shift F1 and magically you will be transported to the Create mode of MAINJOB. Create the new job and when completed, you will be taken directly back to ARDOCENT where you can now insert the new job number.

Alternatively, if you come to the Customer code field and decide to create a new customer, Shift F1 will take you straight to CUSTMNT. If you are already in that field and you need details, or change details, on the customer, Shift F1 will take you directly to CUSTMNT but this time it will put you in Amend mode.

Also, say you are at the Salesman field in, say INVOICE, and you needed to change the commission rate for the salesman. If the salesman code was already selected, you would be taken directly to the Amend mode in SALESMAN when you press Shift F1 and you could make your changes, End out and be returned to INVOICE. If however, you had not selected any salesman when you pressed Shift F1, you would be taken directly to the Create mode of Salesman.

Try it with ARDOCENT or CUSTMNT or PRODENQ etc. If it doesn't work, go to TERMDEF and Amend your Terminal Code (most will be using ACCUWYSE) go to screen 4 and at line 11 & 12 you should see the following ...

P11 MNT 1 96 13 <Shift> + Function key 1
P12 ENQ 1 97 13 <Shift> + Function key 2

Go to KEYSTROK and Create (call it POST)
POSTJLAB
Y
N
F
<RET>
POSTDOC
N
N
F
<RET>

Use upper case and it's a good idea just to run through the procedure and jot down the key strokes you make on paper and then create it. Basically, any procedure you run in the system can be set up using the KEYSTROK function. To run it, simply type RUNSTROK and then the code used and sit back-this way you don't make mistakes and you make sure that you don't miss any posting you want run each day.

For example, imagine you were to establish a smart default on the "CUSTOMER" file. If you entered a customer number into the customer maintenance process, "CUSTMNT", and then went to a customer enquiry screen like CHASDEBT", then the customer code you had maintained in "CUSTMNT" would appear as a default entry for your enquiry.

This allows you to more easily and efficiently link multiple processes together with hot keys, and generally moving between any related processes.

You can add or delete files via the SMARTDEF process. This process is user specific. If one user has smart defaults set up for certain files, this does not necessarily mean these same smart defaults are set up for all users.

Most users would have their systems set such that when something is printed out, either to paper or to file, the system will keep a ‘copy’ of the printed document in case it’s needed (for whatever reason) It is simply a precautionary measure. You will find if you run SPOOLENT a large number of items just sitting there waiting to be re-printed or waiting to be cleared. The system will allow you to keep a large number of these on file but it pays to clear them out regularly. You do this procedure through SPOOLDEL. By clearing for all accounts, the system will simply erase the held printed files from memory—it won’t delete any records and if you need to reprint something already printed, you’ll simply have to go through the normal print procedure rather than the backup procedure you’ve just erased. So get into a habit of each week, deleting the spooler at SPOOLDEL and give the system a ‘flush out’

If you wanted to be really good, you could set up a keystroke so that a whole host of procedures could be run very simply and such that you don’t forget a specific routine. It’s all done in KEYSTROK but before starting, simply write down all the keystrokes you make to run a particular program (including the <enter>). The KEYSTROK routine emulates what you tell it. You can enter a routine that incorporates a large number of commands such as posting all invoices, times, vouchers etc etc and through RUNSTROK, you set the routine off to go through all the commands you would have otherwise had to enter (and chances are, you might miss one) Anyway, this makes it precise and once set up, you can run it whenever and you can’t forget a command.