From the Misc/Setup pull-down menu, choose Company/Misc Info. You then see the Company Setup screen, which has the following options:
General
On the General tab, you will enter your company information, such as your company name, your address, your phone number, etc. This information is used on some form layouts and also in some mail merge documents.
There is a known issue that if you have an apostrophe in any of these company information fields, it will cause the reports that are set to use that information to not work properly.
So instead of an apostrophe, use the accent mark (´), which as you can see looks the same as the apostrophe, and can be typed in by holding [Alt] on your keyboard and typing 0180 on the num keypad at the right of your keyboard ([Alt]+0180).
Regional
The Regional tab is where you will enter some defaults dealing with where you do business. The postal code lookup length is the significant or lookup portion of the postal code and is used when entering a zip code and when running sales reports for zip codes. It will be 5 for the US, and 3 for Canada, and may be more or less for other countries. Also, enter the state, country, and area code where you most commonly do business.
Be aware that for the US, you will most likely not make any changes to the formatting fields (short phone format, long phone format, date and time formats, and currency format). These are the display formats for data that are used throughout the program. See the help for Data Display Formats for examples of different display formats. If you are unsure about what these formatting values mean, then just leave them as they are and you will probably be fine. The other options on this screen should be self-explanatory.
Tax Rates
This tab is where you enter the default tax rates (most common tax rates) for the area where you do business. Usually in the US you will only use the Tax 1 field, but you may have some local county tax in addition to your state sales tax that you want to separate into the other tax fields. These are the tax rates used when the tax rate fields for a zip code are left blank, so you want to enter whichever tax rates are most common for where you do business, and then on the Cities/Postal Codes list screen, you will leave the tax rates blank for the codes that have these same default tax rates, and you will enter in a different tax rate for the postal codes that are different. See the help for Tax Calculation Troubleshooting for more information.
Order Numbering
The Order numbering tab is where you go to set your starting Order number, again following the on-screen directions. For example, if you want to start your work order numbers with "3000", you would enter in "2999", one less than the desired start point. The program actually has its own internal unique ID for the orders called OrderID, so if you don't really care where your numbers start, then you can just check that box, then the current work order number will be ignored and it will just use the internal ID as the work order number. It really doesn't matter which of these options you choose as it is just up to you.
Order Verification
On this tab you can choose certain items that you want to be reminded to fill in if they are left blank when you close an order form.
The Key Note Suppress time is the amount of time in minutes between when it will automatically display the Key Note if one exists for a client when you first choose to add the client to an order or open their contact information screen. Usually you will leave it set to 10.
One of the neat features of the program is that as you enter information for a new client, if the company name, first name and last name, address, home phone number, or work phone number matches a client record you already have entered, then you will be asked if that is the client you want and if you choose yes, then the new client record will be cancelled and it will open the one that already exists. You can turn this feature off here with the Don't check for duplicate clients as you enter checkbox.
The default status boxes here are helpful for client management. You can choose what status you want new client records to default as (usually "Prospect") and when you have entered an invoice for a client, their status will automatically change to the other status you choose here (usually "Good"). Refer to the help for the Client/Contact Information screen for more information.
You can also choose to delete corrected bills and correction transaction entries instead of leaving them in your transaction history.
QuickBooks®
If you plan to use the Post to QuickBooks options in the program, then you may need to set some of the values on this tab. The Accounts Receivable, Undeposited Funds, and Uncategorized Income account names will usually not change at all. The Tax Account names will be the name of the accounts you have setup in QuickBooks for taxes. The Tax Vendor is also the name of the entity that you pay taxes to as you have it setup in QuickBooks, and the Tax Description is the description of the tax that will appear on the invoice in QB. If you don't charge sales tax at all and you have your QB company setup to say so, then you need to check that box on this tab.
If you are using a version of QuickBooks prior to QB 2000, then you will want the Max Item Length field to be set to 13 or less. The program will also post an employee description as the sales rep for invoices, but this will create an employee entry in QuickBooks that you may not want, so if you don't, then leave the box here unchecked to post sales rep with the invoice. See the help on the QuickBooks Connection for more information.
Logo/Message
Most of the form layouts used in the program are set to show your company's graphic logo at the top. The way that you set what logo file is to be used for this purpose is by setting the "Path to Logo Graphic File for Work Orders/Invoices" here on this tab to the logo graphic file on your computer. The file type must be either JPG, BMP, or WMF and you may have to resize the logo beforehand, or customize the form layout slightly for your logo to look as you want.
If you are a network user, then you want to be sure that you put the logo graphic on each machine in the same location as the path that you choose here. It is a good idea to put the logo graphic file into the program folder on the C: drive (i.e. "C:Program FilesCamelotMyLogo.jpg") and put it in that same location on each computer on your network (you will use the Windows Explorer to copy the file from your main network computer onto each of the workstation's C: drive, so consult your Windows Help on how to copy a file).
The "Path to Logo Graphic File for the Navigator Screen" is an option for you to choose your logo graphic and it will be displayed on the main menu Navigator screen in place of the Camelot logo that may be there now. The same principles apply for this logo as for the one for your work orders and invoices.
Backup
The program will automatically make a backup of your database file onto your hard drive by default, or to the location you specify in the Path for Auto Backup box the first time the program is opened each day for the days of the week that you have checked here. We recommend leaving all of these boxes checked. For networks, you need to be sure that this path is a valid path for each of the workstations on your network (if you are unsure, then leave it blank and it will backup to the Backup folder under the Camelot folder on the Server machine). There is also a default path for a manual backup and we recommend that you set that to some external drive (usually a Zip drive). This is just the default location that will come up when you choose to do a backup from the Tools pull-down menu in the program.
You must have a good backup plan where you backup your database onto some external media on a daily basis (again we recommend a CD-Recordable drive , or a Zip drive is also a good choice). It is no fun when your computer crashes and you lose days, weeks, months, or years worth of data, so don't let that happen to you! Take the time now to setup a good backup plan, and confirm that you know how to backup and restore your database when necessary!
Pictures
This tab allows you to set default folders for pictures that you attach to orders when you use the Pictures form layout. This is just a convenience for you so that you know that all your picture files are in the same place.
Contacting Alarm
This is how often Camelot will check for phone calls that you have checked the Remind Me box for. We suggest a 10 minute interval until you find the need to adjust it to your personal preference. See the help for Calls and Mailouts for more information.
Email
This tab is for SMTP mail host name you use for sending emails. You may have to refer to your email program or your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to get this information. This must be entered for you to be able to send emails directly from the program. See the help on Emailing your Clients for more information.
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