Section Eleven

Section Eleven
Data Management

General Description
The Data Management Menu
Select Data Menu
Create Disk Set
Backup Data to Drive A:
Restore Data from Drive A:
Create Financial Year
Close Year
The Business Menu

General Description
The Data Management module is used to perform the data housekeeping functions of your bookkeeping system.
You can work with the current financial year as well as any financial year’s data and export the selected year to TXT and CSV formats for use with word processors and spreadsheets.
You can also choose to work with up to 9 (nine) separate businesses.
When working with another financial year’s records you are limited to viewing only and therefore you cannot change the details of the record unless you use the Unlock Record option found under the Options and Tools menu.
The Data Management menu allows the creation of data disks, the backing up and restoring of data to and from these disks as well as the ability to create a financial year.
An option that is used at the end of financial year called Close Year is included to enable you to "Close off the Books" at the end of the financial year.
This means that on the 30th June of each year all jobs and sales that have not been completed, where the client has been invoiced, any stock purchases and expenses that have not been paid or purchase orders and returns that are outstanding are all marked as "Carried over to the New Financial Year".
The complete database then becomes last financial years database.
All the records that were carried over are then automatically given new numbers in the new financial year and form the new financial year’s data.
The ability to create and work with another business is available from this menu by clicking the Business button.

The Data Management Menu

Screen Presentation of the Data Management Menu

The Select Data Menu

Screen Presentation of the Select Data Menu

The Select Data menu is used to select the financial year you want to work with.
By selecting the year from the drop down list and clicking OK, your working data changes from the current working financial year to the selected financial year.
A message will appear to confirm your selection.

Screen Presentation of the Confirmation Message

The financial year you are currently working with always appears in the title bar of the modules.
Each June as the financial year is closed, that year will then appear in the dropdown list.
You can also elect to read data from a floppy disk set inserted into the data backup drive which is usually disk drive A:
Details of the financial year and the registered business that the data belongs to are displayed on the screen prior to the data being transferred to the hard disk.
You will be prompted to enter each of the four data disks one at a time into the disk drive.
Once the operation is complete, the year of the data being worked with is displayed in the top of the window next to the business name as in all the other modules main menus.
You will be returned to the Main menu so that you can start any of the other modules from there.
Note: Some of the menu options will be ghosted (greyed out), as they are logically unable to be used whilst using archived data.
For example, the New Job option in Jobs and Sales will be unavailable when looking at any other financial year than the current calender year.
The Export Current Data in CSV and TXT formats option is used to send Jobs and Sales, Expenses, Stock Purchases and Inventory
to files that can be opened in word processors and spreadsheets.
You could give these files to your accountant for taxation purposes.
The files are located in a directory called \BOOKKEEP\BOOKEEP1\EXPORTED with an information file explaining their use.

Create Disk set
Clicking Create Disk Set at the Data Management menu will prompt you to insert four formatted disks one at a time into the drive to create a set of data disks.
Each disk will have an identification file put on it containing the backup disk number, business name and the financial year currently being worked with.
This is done so it can be recognised later if you need to restore the data.
Label your disks with their backup disk number and financial year.
You will be firstly prompted to insert Data Disk One into the drive and click OK.
From then on follow the instructions on the screen.
Note: This option will not function and an error message will be produced if the disk that is inserted into drive has not been previously formatted.
If you have selected the Single Disk Backup option in the Option and Tools Menu, then you will be only prompted for a single disk to be inserted into the disk drive.

Screen Presentation of Make Set of Data Disks

Screen Presentation of Make Single Data Disk

Screen Presentation of Single Data Disk Message

Backup Data to Drive A:
By clicking Backup Data at the Data Management menu you can backup your database to the backup data disks created in the last option.
The backup is performed by copying the data in the computer database to the disks placed in drive A: of your computer.
You will be asked to insert four disks into your drive one at a time. Each disk will have its identification file checked to make sure it is the correct disk.
If it is not the correct disk then a message will be displayed.
It is therefore important to label your disks with the backup disk number and the financial year of the data.
Backing up of data should be performed regularly, at least once per week, and the disks kept in a safe place.
You will be firstly prompted to insert data disk one into the drive and click OK.
From then on follow the instructions on the screen.
When you are exiting GEORGE the BOOKKEEPER, you will be prompted automatically to perform a backup of your data, and if you choose to ignore the messages then the reminders are changed until you cannot exit the program without a backup being performed.
The management authority code can be used to override and exit.
Note: This option will not function and an error message will be produced if the disk that is inserted into Drive A: has not been previously formatted or is not a valid data disk.

Screen Presentation of an Error Message

Restore from Drive A:
By clicking Restore Data at the Database Management menu, you can restore a database from the backup data disks created in the last option.
The restore is performed by copying the data in the disks placed in drive A: of your computer to the computers currently selected financial year's database.
You should select the financial year you want to restore as the current working database before you perform the restore.
If the financial year doesn't exist then create it with the Create Financial Year option explained below.
You will be asked to insert four disks into your drive one at a time. Each disk will have its identification file checked to make sure it is the correct disk.
It is therefore important to label your disks with the backup disk number and the financial year of the data.
Restoring of data should only have to be performed when the computer has gone faulty and all previous records lost or corrupted.
You will be firstly prompted to insert data disk one into the drive and press Enter.
From then on follow the instructions on the screen.
Note: This option will not function and an error message will be produced if the disk that is inserted into Drive A: has not been previously formatted or is not a valid data disk.

Create a Financial Year
By clicking Create Year at the Database Management menu you can create a financial year.
This function is to allow you to move GEORGE the BOOKKEEPER data to another computer if you update to a newer computer or your computer fails.
After creating the year, go to the Select Data menu and select the newly created year from the drop down list. Click OK to switch to that year.
You will then be at the Main Menu.
From there select the Data Management menu again.
Click Restore Data and follow the instructions on your screen.
See above on how to Restore Data from a floppy drive.

Screen Presentation of the Create a Financial Year Menu

Close Year
Clicking Close Year at the Data Management menu will permit you to execute the end of the financial year option which will "Close off the Books" at the end of the financial year.
This option requires the Management Code to operate.
On the 30th June of each year or the nearest close of business to that date, all jobs that have not been completed, the client has been invoiced, any stock purchases and expenses that have not been paid or Purchase Orders and Returns that are outstanding are marked as "Carried over to the New Financial Year".
The complete database is then saved as last financial years database and is added to the list of financial years available.
All the records that were carried over are then automatically given new numbers in the new financial year’s database.
This operation should be performed only after backing up the financial year’s data to a set of data disks, as that data will be modified when the End of Financial Year option is executed. (See previous section on backing up data for more information).
The current stock levels (stock on hand) is entered at the prompt and is then saved to the last financial years database as the "Closing Stock" for that year and also saved to the current year's database as the "Opening Stock".
If the value of the stock on hand is not known at the time of using this option just press Enter to accept the value shown and the correct amount can be entered when using the Business Operation Summary found in the Accounts Module at a later date.
Once the Close Year option has been executed, the data in the current financial year will be all the "carried over" transactions.
Those transactions will also be contained in the last financial year’s database but marked as "carried over".
It is therefore important to do a backup of both the financial years records once you have checked each year’s data.

The Business Menu
Clicking the Business menu will permit you to Create a new business database, Select to work
with an existing business, Initalise the database of an existing business or remove the last business created from the system.

Creating another Business
Click the Business number list to display the used business numbers.
Select the last Number and the OK button will become the Create Button.
Click Create to create a new unregistered business.

Switching to another Business
Click the Business number list to display the business name of the business to work with.
Choose the Select Business Radio Button.
A message will ask you to confirm your selection.
After confirmation, click OK to switch to the Business.

Initalise Business
Click the Business number list to display the business name of the business to initalise.
Choose the Initalise Business Radio Button.
A message will ask you to confirm your selection.
After confirmation, click OK to Initalise to the Business.
A Business that has been initalised contains no data.

Remove Business
Click the Business number list to display the business name of the business to remove.
Choose the Remove Business Radio Button.
A message will ask you to confirm your selection.
After confirmation, click OK to remove the Business.
Only the last created business can be removed.

Screen Presentation of the Business Menu

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