A. Customer Invoice
B. Vendor Request for Quote
C. The P/O Receiving Report
D. Customer Summary Bill

The Evergreen

• Automatic updates of the United Product Catalog. We have created a parallel database to store the more than 25,000 items that United Stationers offers.
• New files have been created to store all the United price plans as well as files to store contract pricing.
• The TopForm Customer Masterfile has been modified to include price plan rules.
• Order entry has been modified to read the files for the product information and pricing applicable for the particular customer.
• TopForm Web.ec is being modified to access the new file plus another file that will store all the images of the products.
• Following the entry of the order, the item ordered will be setup in the standard TopForm Item Masterfile for inquiry and historical order reporting purposes.
• The Order will then be automatically transmitted via United's Interlink using TCP/IP.
• Upon receiving the vendor Invoice file from United, TopForm will run it through our Customer Invoicing Gateway Plus. This will perform all of the following functions; close the order, close the purchase order, setup the accounts payable invoice to United and bill the customer.

Why Survive, When You Can Thrive?
Thursday, October 17
8 - 8:45 a.m.
TopForm Software, Incorporated

Today, companies who are enjoying growth are the companies who lead with technology. Technology demonstrates that they have the tools to provide the ultimate in service so buyers naturally gravitate towards them. They are also able to accept high-transaction volume business and the associated incremental revenue; and, they do this without additional staff. Come see why not all e-business tools are the same.

Technology that Counts (Bar Code Aided Inventory Management)
4 - 5 p.m.
TopForm Software, Incorporated

To be successful today, you need to squeeze every profit dollar out of your business. Have you considered that those extra profit dollars just might be sitting on your warehouse shelves? Learn how TopForm can combine radio frequency and bar code technology to more accurately and efficiently receive, pick, store and count…. it's NOT just inventory, but extra profits.

• Finite number of purchase orders per sales order. For any of you that regularly enter sales orders into TopForm, you know that the PO code is a single character code. If you use alpha characters for the PO code, you would be limited to 26 purchase orders that could be created from a single sales order. Do you see yourself hitting this limit and if so with what type of frequency? Our current thinking is that in the majority of the cases, when you hit this limit, it will be for stationery type orders, that is, business cards. One relatively easy solution would be to combine multiples line items on a single PO as long as the vendor is the same and as long as the item has been flagged as to not require specs. We can have over 200 line items on an order. The line items can be any combination of Purchase Orders and/or inventory releases, as long as there are no more than 35 purchase orders. What do you think of this solution to the problem?
• Since Four51 allows the user to type in free form shipping addresses, there is the potential for the ship-to address to show the incorrect state. As you know, in TopForm, we use a two character validated state code. In Four51 the user might type the full name of the state. For instance, if the user types Mississippi, we take the first two letters of the state and the picking ticket would show MI for Michigan. This would not be a good thing. The same problem would exist if they type the full word, Alaska, we would assume AL for Alabama. We could develop a map to find the two character state code. However, if the user misspells the state, we would not have a match. Our preference would be if Four51 would employee a drop down box like many other Internet ordering systems and then send us the two character state code.
• Since you can have a mixture of releases and custom orders on the same order, it is as though you have entered the orders into O1 Order entry and the order type is "I". That means if you are using the automatic req charges, you may need to rethink your methodology. If you are doing summary billing for only certain types of orders, the type comes into play as well.
• TopForm order entry allows you to have multiple ship-to's per order, actually multiple ship-to's per line item, however, currently Web.ec does not provide for more than one ship-to location per order. (WEBec is the conduit for orders coming in via XML). Do you see this as a significant problem or one that you can live with until we can complete additional programming to add this capability to Web.ec?
  
  These are the issues that have surfaced during testing and the actual day-to-day use by MHC. It is certain that there will be others. However, one by one, we plan implement additional programming and/or recommend external procedures that facilitate greater interoperability.
  
  Did you know...
  
  …that TopForm check printing now spells out the quantity to pay. A dictionary has been added to convert a numeric statement to an alpha written statement. It was also necessary to perform a calculation of the number of characters that the alpha statement would require. If the alpha statement is greater than the space provided for the quantity to pay, it would then revert back to a numeric statement.
  
  The electronic version of TopForm Customer Statements Now Available.
  
  Contact Jean Dudek for more information.
  
  Customer Spotlight
  Northern Printing Network - Wheeling, IL
  
  "It's not about how you start, but about how you finish," says John Fox, co-owner along with Art Collins of Northern Printing. Northern was born in a small, rented house back in 1984. Art, John and Paul Nicholson, their first salesman, each had an office in one of the three bedrooms. Since then, they have grown tremendously reaching sales of $18 million with 20 employees. "We have an excellent team of hard working employees. Our sales group is as strong as any in our industry. We are also very lucky to have an outstanding customer service and administrative team who are not only very conscientious but also work well together." Fox stated. TopForm Software became a partner of Northern in 1987 and has played an integral role in the growth. Debbie Barnes, System Administrator, said, "I've been with Northern for 10 years and initially there was a learning curve to get familiar with TopForm, but I have come to really appreciate the system's interface and built-in efficiency."
  
  John said, "When we bought the TopForm system, it was considerably more money than the other systems we looked at, but even with the limited knowledge Art and I had about software, we felt the integration of one module to another made sense. We felt their accounting system was excellent and really liked how well it tied into the Forms Management software. We feel the systems efficiency is one of the reasons we have such an excellent sales to employee ratio. Since then, the system has grown with us and we have continued to add modules. We added Web EC last year and recently added the Variable Print application.
  
  One of TopForm's very own, Jean Dudek, is a former employee of Northern Printing and still carries fond memories of her time there. "Art & John have created a special environment where all the employees feel a part of the team. My expectation is that they will continue to be successful because they strive for nothing less."