Version 4.2.111 Enhancements

General

A New Look!

• Costar has a new modern look. Any tabs that previously existed in a window have now been moved the left of the window as additional menu items. The examples below show how these changes have affected the Item Mainteance window.

Date Format

• Dates can be entered day first, then month then year (i.e. dd/mm/yy format). While the dates can be entered in "ddmmyy" format, they are displayed in "dd mmm yyyy" format as per the Order Date column in the example below.

 

Improved Network Management

• Costar has an improved handling of network drop outs. Costar no longer needs to be restarted when the network drops out. The user simply selects to retry their last task and Costar will continue.

 

New Help Format

• Costar's help documents are now completely on line. All documents that were in the Costar Documentation folder on you computers are now available online from any computer with an internet connection. Simply go to the How To's menu after clicking on the Costar help button in Costar.

 

Branch Name

• The space allocated to the branch name at the top of the Costar window has been increased so the full branch name can be seen.

 

Order Entry

Invoice/Repair Order

• New “DocTotal” column now displays the total of each document in the search results. The ability to search by the document total has also been added to the selection criteria.
• New Source column displays where the document originated if created electronically.
• The following columns can now be included/suppressed from the WIP search results;

• Time In
• Promised
• Written By
• Order Date
• Ship Date

To change these settings please contact the Microhouse support desk.

• MDX documents that can be sold are now highlighted GREEN and MDX documents that are not ready to be sold and require changes in eCommerce are now highlighted RED.
• Repair Order Incoming/Job Card now includes the Tread and Brake percentages in the tyre location graphic

Stock Check

• In multi-branch databases, the Show-In stock only can now be set to include the items with stock on hand from the other branches. To change this setting please contact the Microhouse support desk.

Sales Reporting

Sales Reports

Generic Sales Report

• Relieve Branch has been added to the selections and sorting options.

Document History

• New “DocTotal” column now displays the total of each document in the search results. The ability to search by the document total has also been added to the selection criteria.

Product/Service History

• Date finalised and Vehicle details now displayed in the search results.
• Can now filter by Cust/Doc/Vehicle Details. The examples below show how using Cust/Doc/Vehicle details can find documents using either the customer name, document number or vehicle details.

 

Appointments

Appointment Properties

• Increased customisability for your Appointment Scheduler. You can set the appointment intervals, hours of operation, the name of the bays in your shop and control what additional information is shown.

Appointments

• The Vehicle Details search now includes the Vehicle Type.

Appointment Scheduler

• Once in the scheduler, appointments can now be moved/copied from one bay to another by either

• cutting and pasting or
• Holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the relevant appointment, then clicking in the time slot the appointment needs to be copied to

• An appointment can have it's allotted time expanded by dragging the bottom/top of the appointment accordingly.
• New optional "Month view" when entering the Appointment Scheduler. Clicking on the date in the top left corner of the screen also opens the Month View.The Month View also displays

  • Number of appointments for a given day

  • Hours booked compared to hours available
  • Number of hours blocked

• New Hide Already Scheduled Appointments setting that will suppress documents already scheduled from displaying in the appointment list
• Quick Appointments - Mobile, business and home phone numbers can now all be entered into the Quick Appointment screen.

• Item quantities now print on the Appointment report print out.
• For more details on the changes to the Appointment Scheduler view the online Costar help.

Customers

Customer Maintenance

• The Customer balance can be suppressed from the search results. To change these settings please contact the Microhouse support desk.

A/R Reports

Aged List

• When prepared on screen, the document details can be seen by double clicking on the customer.

Customer History

• Added Customer Group, Customer Type, Buying Group and Territory to the selections and sort

Customer Reports

Customer Summary

• The phone number displayed on this report now includes the customer's mobile number and business numbers. If the customer has a mobile number then this will be displayed, otherwise the business number is displayed, and if no business number then the home number is displayed.

 

Suppliers

Supplier Maintenance

• The Supplier account and accrued balances can be suppressed from the search results. To enable this setting please contact the Microhouse Support Desk.

 

Purchasing

Purchase Orders & PO History

• MDX documents that are now available to be sold are highlighted GREEN and MDX documents that are not ready to be sold are highlighted RED.
• New columns Supplier Order# and Source added to the outstanding PO screen.
• Can now sort by Order Date either in ascending or descending order. To change this please contact the Microhouse Support desk.
• In multi-branch databases, the Show-In stock only can now be set to include the items with stock on hand from the other branches. To have this changed contact the Microhouse support desk.

Receipt History

• Can now sort by Order Date either in ascending or descending order. To change this please contact the Microhouse Support desk.

Inventory

Item Maintenance

• In multi-branch databases, the Show-In stock only can now be set to include the products in stock at the other branches. To enable this functionality please contact the Microhouse support desk.

Service Code Maintenance

• New selection "Rate Type" that allows the services to be selected by their rate type.

Stock Counts

• The stock count preparation process/report now has the same format as all other reports in Costar.The old options are in the Options part of the report definition, the oldSelections are in the Selections area and the oldSort options are now in the Sort area.

Inventory Reports

Product List

• New selection that allows only products with stock on hand to be reported.

Individual Customer Price List

• The quantity on hand now prints for each product.
• New selection that allows only products with stock on hand to be reported.

Employees

Employee Maintenance

• The employee name is now displayed First name then surname

Settings

Order Entry Options

Entry

• Copy document group to customer - Allows order entry buying group changes to automatically update the relevant customer's buying group permanently

Integration2

• Web Links - used to add web site links to the Order Entry document item search.

Packages

• Pro-rate revenue - Any changes to a price in a package can now be distributed across the items in the package according to one of the following criteria
  • Parts and Labor Proportionately
  • Parts first, then labour
  • Labour first, then parts
• Code Used for Package Surcharge - This is the special item code created in Special Item Maintenance under Inventory in the Main Costar Menu. This code is used to handle the surcharges when a packages price total is exceeded.
• For a detailed description on the new package settings go to Costar Help

Payment Methods

• Cashier rounding of cash payments - when set, Costar will round cash sales to the specified amount. A "Cash Rounding" GL account must be created before the Cash rounding can be set up. Once the "Cash Rounding" GL account has been created, it can then be stipulated as the GL Account for the Cash Rounding payment methods.
• 

Passwords and Events

Accounting

• Change opening bank statement balance - this setting stops the opening bank balance from being changed accidentally.

Theme Selection

• A different menu colour can now be set for each branch or you choose to change the menu colour of your single branch. See below for examples of the 12 different colours you can choose from.

Database Views

Database Views

All Documents

• Email, Combined Vehicle details, Business phone, Mobile phone, Service Category and Service sub-category are now available fields to be exported.