Business Assistant/Business Assistant.iso/acctg/payus311/whatsnew.txt

Text File | 1991-04-02 | 26KB | 504 lines

                     ANTHISTLE SYSTEMS & PROGRAMMING LTD.
                              563 Patricia Drive,
                              Oakville, Ontario,
                                CANADA L6K 1M4

   Telephone [phone] (Area Code will change to 905 Oct.4th. 1993)


             PAYROLL USA - SHAREWARE RELEASE V3.10 2ND. APRIL 1991
             =====================================================

We have been very busy so far this year so are late getting this year's
ShareWare version of PAYROLL USA out.  We aim for an early March to mid March
ShareWare release each year. This year's release has many new features but
there has been no time to update the Slide Show or documentation files. The
new features are self evident so we felt our major distributors and ShareWare
users would rather have the program released now instead of waiting a few more
weeks for revisions to the slide show etc.  We may release an update to the
slide show etc. later in the year.  We trust you will find that PAYROLL USA
continues to be THE VERY BEST PAYROLL SYSTEM ON THE MARKET - it certainly
cannot be beaten on a price to feature comparison.

NEW SINCE JANUARY 1991
----------------------

There has been a complete restructuring of the program.  Several large .EXE
programs have been combined into just one program PAYUMAIN.EXE thus reducing
the overall disk space taken by PAYROLL USA by eliminating the duplication of
program code that was common to each of those old .EXE files.  The new
combined program makes more efficient use of memory by loading segments of
code as needed from an overlay file PAYUMAIN.OVR

There seems to be no loss of execution speed even when accessing the .OVR file
from disk, and if you have expanded memory (EMS) which conforms to Vers. 3.2
or later of the Lotus/Intel/Microsoft Specifications the .OVR file will be
automatically loaded into EMS for fast in memory transfers of program code. We
have tested this on a machine with no EMS and it works fine without EMS.
However, if it gives any problems on your particular machine the EMS access
routines can be disabled by starting it with a command line parameter of
NOEMS, example PAYUSA NOEMS or PAYUMAIN NOEMS - the NOEMS parameter should not
be required unless there are problems as it automatically senses whether or
not EMS is installed.

The restructuring, and the new features, have required some minor changes in
the menu choices.  Note that although PAYUMAIN can be started directly from
the DOS prompt you should avoid doing so.  As in previous years, start up with
PAYUSA which is the overall menu program which handles multiple configuration
files, and which can start several other utility programs either automatically
or from its menu, as well as being able to start PAYUMAIN as a menu choice
from PAYUSA.

In addition we have added the following new features since the January
Registered User release:

- Allowing PAYUSA to be started from any DOS prompt with \PAYPGMS\PAYUSA or by
adding it to the DOS Path and just typing PAYUSA from any prompt. In other
words you no longer need to change directory before starting it. To add it to
the DOS Path just alter the PATH statement in your C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT file and
re-boot the machine.  Example if you currently have

PATH C:\DOS\;C:\UTILITY\

and PAYROLL USA is installed on drive D: then change the above to

PATH C:\DOS\;C:\UTILITY\;D:\PAYPGMS

(Add a semicolon then the name of the drive and directory PAYUSA is installed
on).

This is a convenience feature, you do not have to use it, you can still access
it the old way by changing directories first to where PAYUSA lives, example

D:   { OR C: etc. whichever drive it is installed on }
CD \PAYPGMS
PAYUSA

- Prompting for change in dollar values of Sick and Vacation accruals when pay
rate changes so as to offer the option of keeping the equivalent time off the
same after the pay rate change as it was before.

- Hours entry used to be hours and decimal parts of an hour, example 35.25
hours was 35 1/4 hours.  It is now shown on the screen as 35:15
(hours:minutes) and can be optionally entered either way.  If entered with a
period the figures following the period are is assumed to be a decimal part of
an hour, if entered with a colon it is assumed to be hours and minutes.

- Optional recording of employee and company bank account information so that
pay can be optionally deposited directly into the bank for bank transfer into
the employee's account.  The bank deposit/transfer list can also be printed.

- LISTMAKER is a new report generator that will print a list of employees who
had a particular pay or deduction item on their pay check.  Example, if your
health insurance carrier wants a list of who paid what premiums in the last
pay (or for the year to date) then LISTMAKER will provide the answers.  You
can select any item, for current or YTD figures.

- Adding new employees: There is a new check performed each time you add an
employee to see if any of our test employees are still on file (because we
have had several users who forgot to delete them before setting up their own
employee file). If any test employees are found it offers you a choice of
either deleting them, or deleting the entire employee file, or leaving them
there (in case you are adding more test cases).  There is also some on screen
help on how to get out of the new add if you got there in error, and you can
now page backwards through the screens during an add in case you realize you
forgot something on a previous screen and do not wish to wait for completion
of the add before you review it in update mode.


NEW AS AT JANUARY 1991
----------------------

Registered Users receive their updates early in January.  The first year
following Registration is free, future years are currently $50.00 per year.
Example, Register for $149.95 in 1991, receive 1991 Registered User Version
(adds Government Reporting capability) at time of Registration, -AND- receive
free 1992 Registered User Version in January 1992.  You will then be billed in
November 1992 for the 1993 Registered User Version.  The annual upgrade
includes not just Federal Taxes for the new year but anything else that has
been added that year so you always have the most current version.

We have been offering this service since 1986 and our users so far have been
very pleased with the value for money.  We keep thinking that we are going to
have a product so perfect that one year we are not going to be able to find
anything new to add. We have thought that for several years, but each year so
far there have been new features.  We can't promise to continue making
improvements, but odd's are good we will think of some more by the end of the
year, and of course the Federal Government can be relied on to keep making
changes to taxes (and possibly to the W-2) which will be included in the
upgrades.

For January 1991 we added:

- Greatly expanded customization of dollar prompts, allowing almost all such
prompts to be changed, with calculation capability to be attached to them, and
allowing special tax treatment of most items to more adequately cover Deferred
Compensation Plans and other tax saving schemes.  We also added the capability
of customizing which box they are to be shown in on the new 1990 W-2 form.

- A completely rewritten W-2 print program to handle the new 1990 W-2 form,
-AND- we allowed full screen editing (changing) of the W-2 forms before they
are printed for those last minute changes and for special situations.  All
W-2's are totalled before printing so you can see if your changes have thrown
them out of balance with your quarterly reports and tax deposits.  You can
even delete any W-2's that are not needed.  Change them as often as you like,
print them only when you are satisfied, change them again and re-print them if
necessary.  A number of users said this feature alone was a BIG time saver
that transformed the annual headache of iss