Address
502 Blue Mountain Rise Canton, GA 30114
Contacts
support@encompossoftware.com
Toll Free: +1 (866) 669 5679
Direct: +1 (678) 921 9673
1. Launch Retail Operations and open the suppliers section on the tree menu and go to Supplier Catalogs.
2. Select the supplier from the drop down list that you will be importing the catalog for. Once selected, click the Show All icon in the toolbar to retrieve the current catalog data.
3. With the data retrieved below, click the first toolbar icon to Import Catalog. This icon will be disabled until the current catalog data has been retrieved.
4. This will open a file browser to locate and select the text, tab delimited catalog file you are importing. Once found, open the file from the browser.
5. Selecting the file will open the Catalog Map interface. The columns showing on the left are those that are in your catalog file. You need to match the catalog fields on the left to the EncomPos Catalog Map fields on the right. To do that, click in each field on the right and select the corresponding catalog field to match the field from your file on the left. (i.e. Brand in your catalog file should be Brand in the EncomPos catalog field, Size should be size, and so on.) If you do not want to import a column from your file, then your drop down map option would be
6. Once all of the fields on the right are matched up, you need to choose between the three radio button options below on how to update the data from your file to your current catalog file.
a. Complete New/Replacement Catalog means it will replace your entire catalog with a full update. This discontinues products no longer carried, updates existing products, and adds new products to your catalog.
b. Catalog Addendum/Partial Update – this will update existing items and add new items, but not discontinue any items in your current catalog that are not in the new file. (This is what I used to append the new ScubaPro items to your existing catalog).
c. EncomPos Apparel Catalog - This is a very specialized file type for apparel. The catalog file is formatted completely different than a normal catalog file and requires special work. It is hardly used anymore now that the SCUBA industry is barcoding most products with unique item numbers.
7. Choose your update option then click the OK button. The catalog will be processed and when done, you will need to click the Save icon in the supplier catalogs toolbar to commit the changes/updates.
Yes. Under the Document Center there is a report on the tree menu (not located under a report section) named Tax Filing Statement. It can be run to display each day or rolled up by month for the date range you select.
Open the Loyalty Programs section on the tree menu and go to Accumulation Rewards. You’ll need to Load the Customer Stats by clicking the link located between the top window and the lower windows. Find your customer in the top list, highlight their row and right click to access the options.
Select the option to Adjust Customer Balance. You can either assign products purchased or just set a total amount that you are adding to their current Total Spent. Use the top counter to set the number of items purchased, then use the “Click to Assign Product” link to pull up items from your inventory and select to pull back into the adjustment window.
Or don’t click to assign products and set a cost and a retail, cost is optional, then click the OK button. The amount you set in the retail will add to the current total spent for that customer and the customer total in the list will refresh.
The first thing you'll need to do is pull up the duplicate customer records in the customer search in the retail operations. You can do that by searching specific customers or you can use the search option "Duplicate Last, First Name" to pull up a list of all duplicated names in the database. There are also other search options to help find your duplicate customers, such as duplicate email address, business names and phone numbers.
Select the customer rows you want to merge together (it can be more than two), and right click on one of the selected rows. This will bring up a menu of options, which you want to select to Merge Customers. Selecting merge customers will open a window where you must select the customer record you want to keep and merge the other ones into.
Customers that are signed up on events, have product program cards and those who have line of credit accounts are what you need to focus on. Any customers with any of those are the account you should keep or merge into. You will get a warning if you are merging an account that has events or an LOC account into one that does not, but it doesn’t stop you from doing it, you will simply lose the customer information tied to events, cards and LOC accounts.
There are a few steps that need to be done in order for you to be able to send attached files with emails sent through EncomPos. You will need to get the pdf printer setup file from EncomPos prior to beginning. This is a printer that once installed will show up in your computers Printers and Devices. Then follow the steps below.
Step 1: Install the ghostscript.exe file provided by EncomPos – just double click the executable and click Setup and then click Install on the second pop up window. Close the final window that opens once the Install is done.
Step 2: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement in Windows 10 – Windows 10 doesn’t allow drivers without a signature to get installed, so you have to go into the settings and disable that enforcement to install the printer.
a. Press the Win + C and click on PC settings.
b. Switch over to the “Update & Security” section.
c. Then click on the Recovery option on the left hand side.
d. Once selected, you will see an advanced startup section appear on the right hand side. You will need to click on the “Restart now” button.
e. Once your Computer has rebooted you will need to choose the Troubleshoot option.
f. Then head into Advanced options.***
g. ***2nd Page of Advanced options, click Startup Settings.
h. Since we are modifying boot time configuration settings, you will need to restart your computer one last time.
I. Here you will be given a list of startup settings that you can change. The one we are looking for is “Disable driver signature enforcement”. To choose the setting, you will need to press the 7 key. Once you do that the computer will boot up into Windows.
Step 3: Install the file printer – Now that driver signature enforcement is off you can open your Control Panel, go to Devices and Printers and click “Add a Printer” at the top of the devices and printers window. This will open the Add a device window. It should automatically scan for a device, just click the “The printer that I want isn’t listed” link below the scan window and it will open the Add Printer window.
Click “Add a local printer or network printer with manual settings” and click the Next button.
Drop down the selection for Use an existing port and select “File: (Print to File)” and click the Next button.
In the Install the printer driver window, click the “Have Disk” button and another window will open where you will click the Browse button and navigate to C:\Program Files\gs\gs8.71\lib and select the ghostpdf.inf file located in that folder. Then click the Open button to pull that location back to the install from disk window and then click the OK button in that window.
Click the Next button to continue to the Type a printer name window where you will need to type in the following exactly, exact spelling and caps. Sybase Datawindow PS
Click the Next button and leave the setting to Do not share this printer set. Click the Next button and leave the setting unchecked to set it as the default printer. Click the Finish button and you are all done.
You can now email receipts and pdf purchase orders through the software. Let me know if you have any questions.
There is only one way to have multiple costs on an inventory item and that is to change your inventory valuation type to FIFO, in which items from inventory are sold in the order in which they are purchased. Most likely you are currently valuing your inventory using the simple valuation method, which values the inventory at the current cost on the item.
With FIFO, the cost of older inventory is charged to cost of goods first. And when you run an inventory valuation report, for items where you have multiple cost points, it will report them separately by cost. So if you have 5 on hand of an item, 2 at $1.00 and 3 at $2.00, with the $2.00 price being the last received price, it will report them as separate rows valuating showing a value of $2.00 and $6.00 for a combined total of $8.00. Having it set to simple valuation, would value that example at $10 since it’s only using last cost to valuation the total number of items on hand.
To change your valuation, you will need to log into the Retail Operations, go to System Configuration, Retail Environment and click on the Back Office Settings tab. The very first top tab, Inventory, is where you can see the Inventory Cost and Valuation Method options along with a description of each. When you go to change your valuation over it will bring up a message explaining that prior valuations will be lost. Clicking through that message will reset the table, which may take a minute depending on the size, and then come back with a message saying FIFO is now ready. Click the Save icon in the toolbar and you’ll be valuating at FIFO from that point forward.
I recommend exiting the software completely at all stations after changing the valuation method, just in case someone decides to receive a purchase order immediately after changing over to FIFO, we want the new valuation to take effect and you may need to exit the software for that to work right – not sure, but best to be safe.
Once you have changed over to FIFO, anytime you make a cost change inside a purchase order, you’ll want to update those cost changes to inventory in the PO receive window, which is the default setting in that window, but in case you usually change that, you’ll want to stop doing that so the new cost can be received and put into the valuation table.
Likewise, any time you manually change the cost and quantity on a product in inventory, it will store the cost with the QOH change in the valuation table.
Yes, it's a tender option, appropriately named Running Tab. You may need to open the option up in security if it blocks you. If so, go to security/permissions and in the bottom section look for Running Tab. Make sure it is not checked to prevent access, its default setting. You'll need to exit the software and relaunch for the security change to take effect.
Once a transaction is saved as a running tab, any time you pull that customer up at the POS it will bring up the tab where it was left off.
You can also assign Running Tabs to a POS button in the POS Pad layout to access a list of open running tabs.
If you open a tab and add to it or make any changes you then need to tender it back as a running tab. The tab will close out once it is pulled up and tendered as anything other than a running tab.
Yes there is... bring up your items in the inventory search (show all icon in the toolbar if you want to bring up your entire inventory) and right click to access the options list. Look for Reorder Method. It may be on the main list or in the more mass updates. Once you find it, choose to update all work set items and choose your reorder method as Replace Quantity Sold.
There sure is. Go to Retail Operations/System Configuration/Retail Environment/Edit Rules tab. There you’ll see the default formatting for inventory, department, customer and supplier fields. Make your change here, save it and then you’ll need to exit the software at each station and re-launch for the system setting to take effect.
You can also fix those currently capped by going to the Inventory search, showing all items (top toolbar icon), and then right click in the bottom window to pull up the options menu and go to More Mass Update Options and select Format Description. Here you can set how you want the description formatted and then choose the radio button for All Inventory Workset Rows. Click the OK and all of your inventory descriptions will re-format.
Go to the Document Center, Transaction Journal and view the report for the day the sale was on. On each transaction where the customer would be listed you can right click to assign a customer where there was none or unassign a customer on a sale where there is a customer assigned. It will ask if you want to assign, click yes, then use the find to get to the name in the list. Click ok and when you view the report you'll see their name as well you'll see the sale in their cart.
There is a setting in Windows 10 that let’s Windows manage your printers for you. Any time you set a printer, windows will then try to use that printer for all future printing, which is bad when you have different printers for your retail environment.
Go to your windows icon in the bottom toolbar and click it to pull up the menu. You should see a little gear icon that represents Windows Settings. Click the gear to open the settings. Click on Devices and this will open another section. To the right while selected on Printers and Scanners on the left menu, there is an option to “LET WINDOWS MANAGE MY DEFAULT PRINTER”. Make sure that is off. You may need to close and relaunch EncomPos after doing that, but that should fix it.
We only trigger the Return Reason list on a return to supplier transaction. You can add custom reasons by going to the Retail Operations/System Configuration/Drop Down Lists and going to the Return Reasons in that list. Use the small Add button in the list to add more reasons and Save in the toolbar when done. I don’t think you have to exit the POS software for them to show up but it is possible you may need to since it is a system setting.
EncomPos Retail has 3 backup options, 2 of which happen automatically and the other is for the store to plug in their own external backup drive/device. The first automatic backup runs locally and can run multiple times a day. The second runs at night after the store is closed and the automatic valuation and order analysis processes have run. This goes to an offsite ftp for encompossoftware.com in a folder for your store that is secured. We’ve had to use the offsite backup a few times now to recover databases after fatal losses our customers have incurred (fire sprinklers took out one customers PC’s one night and others have been due to hard drive failure and the customer not running their own external backups as you mentioned). So that one is our most important and in the event the backup does not run, you can set it up to get an alert.
There is no cost to the automated backups, whether you are on support or not, but it is the customers responsibility to ensure they are backing up and that it is not failing – we have too many customer’s to be able to monitor that. The offsite backups run every night or early a.m. – so only once/day, which is why we also highly recommend the local external drive backups to be able to get the newest backup as possible so you don’t lose data.
In the Retail Operations, System Configuration, POS Pad Layout. You'll see the thirty direct ring buttons that can be pulled out to the pad. Use the the direct ring text fields to put in text for the button. Put something in each field even if it's a space because you don't need three lines, otherwise our default text, i.e Direct Ring 1 and so on will bleed through.
Use the last field to identify the product code for the items you are setting up as a direct ring. You'll need to exit the pos and relaunch for the buttons or any changes to the pos Pad to take effect.
You’ll start by putting your air fill(s) and air fill card(s) in as an inventory item. You’ll need to reference both of them when setting up the program.
The actual program is located under Loyalty Programs/Product Card Programs. Here you’ll click the New program icon to set up your first program. Give your program a name, i.e. Air Fill Card, and select the type as a Product Card. (Dive Cards are for charters).
In the second window pane to the right, click the Add symbol to open the inventory finder window to search for your Air Fill Card that you created in inventory. Find and select the air fill Card and click the OK button to pull it back to the Product Card window. You’ll need to set the number of air fills eligible for that card program. If you have multiple card quantities, i.e. 25, 50, 100, you’ll need to create a unique item in inventory for each Air Fill Card quantity, then bring each card into the Product Card window for the same program and set the quantity of air fills eligible for each card.
Finally, in the third window you need to bring in the eligible product for that program, so your air fill(s) that created in inventory. If you have multiple air fills you’ll need to bring each one in from the add symbol, just as you did the product cards.
I recommend setting the air fill card up as a Quick Sell button on the POS or in the express sellers to make it easier to sell the card. Same with the Air fills. Of course you need to sell the card to a customer so it tracks the card under their name along with their air fill purchases used against the card.
You’ll need to fill out the email settings and change the receipt options in EncomPos.
For the email settings, launch Retail Operations and go into System Configuration/Retail Environment/E-mail Setup. In there you’ll need to fill out your email address, smtp server address, smtp port, username, password and if it requires encryption, the select either SSL or TLS depending on your email account settings. Usually that is all you would need to get that going.
To get the option of email receipts, you’ll need to go up a few tabs to Receipt Options and in the General Settings, select to either Email or Print and Email.
When you set your receive quantity to less than your order quantity on a purchase order, there is a reason off field which you will want to set those items to backordered.
You can make this the default system setting by going into the System Configuration/Back Office settings/purchase orders and set the reason off to Backordered there. You'll need to close and relaunch the software for the setting to take effect, but essentially anytime the receive quantity is less than zero it will automatically default to backordered. You can always override that with any of the other reason off settings if needed.
The easiest way is to set up a Promotion in the Promotion Zone. You can create a new promotion by clicking the first toolbar icon and going through the steps of naming it, setting the dates you want the sale to be active and indicating which customers can take part in the promotion.
Once you have it created, go to your inventory search and highlight the items you want to ring. Then go back to the promotion and in the toolbar click the add selected items icon. This will open a window where you can set the promotion details, like 20% off.
If you want to put all merchandise on sale for the same price, set up the promotion and in the top window, set the Promotion Type from Product Based to All Inventory. This will insert one row in the bottom window where you can set the discount.
If you don’t have a portable inventory device to scan and set counts remotely you will want to utilize the Physical Inventory Worksheet located in the Retail Operations, Document Center under the Inventory Reports section. Here you can pull up either the entire inventory, or select a specific department or supplier to report against.
This worksheet will show you each item for your department or supplier and how many the software says you have on hand. There is also a line to hand enter the current physical count on the worksheet, meant for you to walk the store and mark your counts. Once you finish a section or sheet, you can take it back and pull up the same list, department or supplier, in your Inventory Search screen and then make any adjustments necessary there. I suggest making your on hand adjustment reason Physical Inv. Adjustment to distinguish those changes in the QOH tracking and for pulling reports.
There is an Adjustments report located in under the Inventory Reports section that you can pull for the days you do you physical inventory and filter the report to show only Physical Inv. Adjustments. This report will show you the on hand change up or down and the net impact on your cost value. Additionally you may want to run the Inventory Valuation report once you are done to get a current cost and retail value of your inventory. That report is located in the same report section as the other two reports.
EncomPos emailers use dynamic HTML content. All of the tag symbols are replaced with real information on the fly, so that any number of emails can be sent with personalization in one shot.
When building a draft from the document center, HTML Newsletter/Email section, you can hover over the dynamic content link to see what tags you can add to an email Most are only relevant for scuba shops and some are only meant for our automated email subscription service. But the basic tags like @customer, @first, @last, @date, and @Store can be used in the built in manual emailing system.
EncomPos email drafts are designed to bulk send dynamic personalized content. Typically, more than 1 is being sent at a time. The email system uses the HTML file to rebuild the dynamic content for each customer being emailed and send it off. So it reloads the draft in between each send to modify the content.
There are three ways to transfer inventory between stores.
1) Use the RF handheld to process inventory out at location 1. This requires scanning in the inventory and setting the count transferred. Likewise, the store receiving the products will also need to use the RF to transfer in the inventory.
2) Use the Inventory QOH adjustment and set the reason to Store Transfer. You will need to select store transfer OUT in store 1 when adjusting the QOH and store Transfer IN at store 2.
3) Use the semi automated store transfer from the EnCorp Package Center. If you own the sync software, this is a part of that software license.
A. Bring up the items in your inventory search to transfer out. Right click the search screen and choose Add to EnCorp HQ Package.
B. A window displays where you need to choose New Package in the bottom left (if there is not one already created) and name your transfer package.
C. Highlight the new package and choose the Create a Store Transfer Package option.
D. From the Retail Operations Tree View menu click the + sign on EnCorp Package Center then Choose EnCorp HQ Packages. Highlight the package name at the top and click the store Transfer Tab in the bottom to verify your items are in the package. If more are needed, go back to the search and add more items to the same package.
E. Adjust the Transfer Quantity being sent in the list of items on the Store Tranfer Tab. When setting the transfer quantities click the save icon in the top toolbar.
F. When ready, click the send icon in the toolbar, choose the store you are transferring this package to and click the send button. This will send the store transfer package, thus reducing the onhand count in store 1.
G. In the receiving store, click the EnCorp Package Center and choose EnCorp Client Inbox
H. Click the Check for Packages icon (1st icon) in the toolbar. The package should be found and downloaded. When the products have arrived, you can click the last icon, Process Package, to update the inventory counts for items in the package.
For a store transfer to be successful, the items have to exist in the second store. If they don’t then you can force them over in the automated sync by right clicking the inventory search and choosing EnCorp Sync, and Send as New Product. Wait a few minutes for the sync to occur then process the store transfer package.
Making an item an express seller is pretty easy. Bring the item up in your inventory search and double click the item to go to the Inventory Form View. At the bottom of the form there is a check box for Express Seller. Check the box and save the item using the save icon in the toolbar.
You can now also sort your Express Sellers by going to the Express Sellers on the tree menu below your inventory search and form view. In that window you can set the sort order and should you want to separate them you can also put a page number. You don’t have too many so you would probably only want to sort – the express sellers display in alphabetical order by description at the POS.
1. First step is to bring the item up in your inventory search and double click the item to go to the Inventory Form View. At the bottom of the form there is a check box for Image Sell. Check the box and save the item using the save icon in the toolbar.
2. Next step is to go to the PLU Image Sell on the tree menu below the inventory search and form view. When items are marked as an Image Sell, they go into the Unassigned PLU category be default. You need to go to that category, find the item you marked as Image Sell and in the toolbar, click the edit icon and edit that item’s PLU category to the category it should be in. Save the category change using the save icon in the toolbar. You should now see that item when you click on that category.
3. Third step involves assigning an image. To assign the image to your new PLU item, highlight the item in the right window and click on the image on the bottom left. This will take you to the Image Store on the tree menu. The image store has three image categories located in the toolbar. The first category is inventory, the second is PLU Images and the third is for customer images. You’ll need to click on the PLU Images icon in the toolbar to display the images for all of your PLU items.
To bring in an image that is not there, making sure you have selected the PLU Images icon to pull the image into, click the camera icon in the toolbar. This will open a file browser for you to locate the image you have for your item. (Ideal image size is 180 x 160 pixels – if your image is too large it will not load, if it is too small or outside of the relative dimension, it will stretch the image when it loads at the POS). Find your file and click to open it and your image will be pulled into the PLU Images.
4. The last step to assign the image you need to go to the image you just brought into your PLU Images and double click the image. This will bring you and the image back to the PLU Image Sell item you were assigning the image to. There is no need to save once the image has been brought in.
Yes, go to the System Configuration, POS Customer Settings and on the Customer Rules tab there is a radio button option, top right, to require a customer on every sale. Select Yes, Save the setting in the toolbar and if you are already in the POS, you will need to exit the software and re-launch it for the new setting to take effect.
502 Blue Mountain Rise Canton, GA 30114
support@encompossoftware.com
Toll Free: +1 (866) 669 5679
Direct: +1 (678) 921 9673