BEFORE YOU GET STARTED
The Office Express user interface was designed for speed. Layers of menus have been removed and replaced with single keystrokes or mouse cilcks.
When viewing each of Office Express' "pages", each page has many powerful features at your disposal though it might not be obvious to you at first.
All you need to remember:
* Press the INSERT key to insert.
* Press the DELETE key to delete.
* Click the RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON to view a menu of options. An "Edit" option will be in the menu.
* The Main Menu along the top of the Office Express window.
If you find yourself staring at the screen wondering what to do next, the answer most likely will be one of the four things just mentioned.
ITS BEST TO FOLLOW THE STEPS BELOW IN ORDER
Though you can always add. modify and delete data, it is HIGHLY recommended that in the begining to follows the steps as described below.
A little patience in the beginning will go a long way to avoid confusions and having to edit data later.
Each step will only take a few minutes and for the most part, once defined, you will never need to change these settings again.
EDIT SYSTEM SETTINGS
From the Home page, click on the "Edit System Settings' link, located at the top right of the screen.
For now, click the "Data Paths" tab and define the two paths for the backuyps. Office Express automatically backs up the database each time you exit the software.
Click the "Printers" tab and select a printer for each of the options.
Click the "OK" button to save your changes and close the dialog box.
For more information click here...
EDIT YOUR COMPANY
From the Home page, click the "Edit" button where your company name is displayed.
Change any of the address and phone fields as necessary.
Click the "Tax Codes" tab. Define that tax code rates for the areas you will need to charge tax.
Click the "Default Job" tab. Select the job you do most often. Note that this is simply a time saver for various features of the software. By selecting a Default Job, you wont need to search for it later.
To get started, you dont need to make changes in the other tab pages. You can go back at any time to change information.
Click "OK" to save your changes.
For more information click here...
VIEW YOUR CUSTOMER CATEGORIES
Click the "Categories" icon at the top of the Office Express window.
Office Express comes with a few categories already defined. Think of categories as "groups", where you can group customers together. Example groups could be: PROPOSALS, TREE SPRAY CISTOMERS, SNOW PLOW CUSTOMERS, FULL SERVICE CUSTOMERS, INACTIVE W BALANCE, PAYMENT PLAN CUSTOMERS, BILL AT TIME OF SERVICE and so on.
Note that you can always add more categories at any time later on.
For more about Customer Categories click here...
UNDERSTANDING JOB CODES
Every item placed in a customer’s transaction file (ledger) must be assigned a job code. Whether it be a payment, completed job or comment. Job codes define how each item is to be interpreted. Job codes are easy to understand and provide enormous flexibility on how you manipulate your customer balances. There are two basic kinds of Job codes, codes that change a customer balance and the codes that don’t.
Codes that don’t change customer balances are considered “note” codes. There are two kinds of note codes: notes that will print on an invoice and those that don’t. The notes that don’t print on invoices are designed to be used for “your eyes only”, an internal note the customer never sees. The notes that do print on invoices are considered “description” notes. These notes in most cases describe some kind of work performed. For example, if you did a Design job, you would assign the Design a chargeable code and use the note code to put in descriptions of what was included in the design.
Codes that change customer balances fall into three categories: charge codes, payment codes, and a balance adjustment code. There are a variety of charge codes that control how an item will appear on an invoice and there are payment codes for cash, charge, credit card and other.
For more about Job Codes click here...
VIEW YOUR JOB LIST
Click the "Jobs List" icon at the top of the Office Express window.
Office Express comes with many jobs already defined. Review the job list and add jobs your company provides that are not in the list
TIP- There is no limit to the number of jobs you can add to the list. Feel free to add job names even though you might only do them once or twice per year. The concept is to get the jobs defined at the start so that they are already there when you are busy.
NOTE- you can delete any job(s) from the list. You should only delete the jobs you are 100% sure that your company will never do.
For more about the Master Job List click here...
ENTERING CUSTOMERS
Once the above steps have been completed, you are now ready to begin to enter your customer data.
Though you do not have to schedule jobs for customers to use Office Express, it is highly recommended that you do.
IMPORTANT! Scheduling customer jobs before hand will save you an awful lot of time during your busy time when time counts the most! Spend the time in the beginning to save time later!
You should review the help page that describes the "Office Express Concept". Click the link below for further information.
Also, Office Express will reschedule the jobs automatically at the beginning each year. You will only need to do the initial setup once. Each year following, you only need to "fine-tune" your schedule list.
To start entering customers, click the "Customers" icon at the top of the Office Express window. Your customer list will be displayed.
All of your customer related functions will be done from the customer screen.
You can enter all your customer names/ address/ balance at once, then go back and schedule each customer's jobs, or you can enter each customer one-by-one and schedule jobs as for each as you go. It's up to you.
You are now ready to begin to enter customer data. Click the options below to continue. You should view each of these options to gain a further understanding of the power of Office Express Professional.