In continuing with our expansion into other markets, we have changed our web site URL to: http://www.profit-master.com. The site can still be accessed via http://www.carpetmaster.com.

If you are a regular visitor to our web site you may have noticed some changes. Most noticeably, is an area to send us your email address so we can notify you when a new version of ProfitMaster is available for download. This can be found on the Download page at http://www.carpetmaster.com/download.htm. You can also register simply by sending us an email at tech@profit-master.com. Please write EMAIL NOTIFY as the subject.

One of the main functions of our web site is to provide an easily accessible, quick way to download updated versions of ProfitMaster and/or other software we produce. There are two different versions of the Windows based ProfitMaster available for download, ProfitMaster Update and ProfitMaster Demo.

The ProfitMaster Update is designed to be installed from the Internet. Some browsers such as Internet Explorer (IE) have an "Open from Internet" option, while others prompt you to save the file to disk. If you have to save the update file to disk, be sure to jot down the saving location of the file! Otherwise, once the download is finished you will not be able to find the file to run the update. When you are installing the update from a saved file you will need to have your Internet connection active during the installation so the proper files can be retrieved.

We have been notified by some of our America On Line (AOL) users that AOL is not friendly to our Internet installation process. If you are an AOL user we recommend you download the ProfitMaster Demo instead and use that to update your ProfitMaster. The Demo is a stand-alone application that takes a little longer to download but does not need an active Internet connection during the installation. This file will recognize your registration and act as an update.

An Auto-generated number is a number ProfitMaster automatically inserts into certain fields. The user cannot modify this number once the program has input it. This would include the Job #, Invoice #, Sales & Service Item #, Personnel Record #, Source #, Journal Entry #, Receipt # and Estimate #.

The program uses these numbers to identify records. Though you cannot modify these numbers you can control the starting & stopping range, and the next number that will be generated. This is done through the Global Preferences. And, as the name implies these settings affect all users of the program.

To get to the Global Preferences go to the Utilities menu, choose Preferences, Global. You will then be able to change the Auto-generated numbers as well as the Calendar scheduling time slots.

For example, if you want your Job numbers to start at 00001 and end at 5000, you would input 00001 in the Min field and 5000 in the Max field. Check the Next column to see if the next number being generated is 01. If not, change it to 01.

Press O.K. and you will be asked to Save the New Settings. Click Yes and you are finished!

Some of the improvements of ProfitMaster over previous versions of CarpetMaster are its ease of use in Closing Jobs, Entering Payments and Printing Reports. All of these functions can be performed directly from the Customer Order screen!

Closing Jobs and Entering Customer Payments are interrelated so we'll cover them together. Essentially, there are three stages a job can be in ProfitMaster:

• A Work Order/Estimate - A job that has been booked and scheduled. Characterized by having a Job # but no Invoice #.
• An Invoice (Closed Job)- A job that has been completed and is awaiting payment. Characterized by having both a Job # and an Invoice #. A payment cannot be applied to a Job until it is in the Invoice stage. A Work Order cannot be converted to an Invoice until the date of the job or after.
• PAID - A Closed Job in ProfitMaster is one that has been completed and paid in full. Characterized by having a Job #, an Invoice #, and PAID IN FULL in the Status line.

In ProfitMaster the term Closed as pertaining to a Job merely means that the work has been completed. Therefore, closing a job is the process of converting the Work Order to an Invoice and maybe applying payment. There are several ways, depending on how you input jobs, to do this and they can all be done from the Customer Order form.

The first, and probably the easiest, way to close a job is to call up the Work Order and convert it to an Invoice. To do this, use the Search and Display command from the Utilities menu to locate the Work Order. Once the Work Order has been retrieved, choose the Edit the Current Record command from the Edit menu. This should place your cursor in the Work Order and allow you to make any changes that need to be made. When you move to the second screen of the form you will be prompted to Mark the Job as Invoiced. (If you do not receive this prompt it means the date you are editing the Work Order is before the job date.) Now that the job has been marked as Invoiced you will be able to enter the payment in the Receipt area at the bottom of the Invoice. After you enter the payment, save the record. You have just Closed this Job!

If you follow the above steps to convert the Work Order to an Invoice but are not ready to apply payment, simply skip the receipt amount and save the Invoice. We'll discuss the next way to apply payment and Close a Job. This process is very similar to the previous one. First locate the Invoice you wish to close by using the Search and Display command. Then, choose Edit the Current Record. ProfitMaster will recognize that the job has been completed and is awaiting payment and will ask if you want to apply payment to this Invoice. Choose Yes and the Quick Receipt form will appear. Enter the payment information, click O.K. and the payment will be automatically applied and the Job will be marked Paid!

Another variation of Closing a Job from the Customer Order form is based on entering all of the job information after the job has been completed. This means that no information is entered into ProfitMaster until the technician has completed the work and returned from the job. There is a benefit and a drawback to this technique. The benefit is that since the Work Order will be entered into ProfitMaster on or after the work date it can instantly be converted to an Invoice and payment can be applied. The drawback is that in order to credit a technician with an Add-On sale you would first have to save the original scheduled work as a Work Order, then edit that Work Order to add the additional work. (See October’s Newsletter for an article on Add-On Sales) Another drawback is that you won’t be able to take advantage of the Scheduling, Dispatching, Printing, Work Orders and other features. As you can see, whichever way you decide to close a job you can easily accomplish it directly from the Customer Orders screen.

Another way to close jobs is the Close Jobs/Invoices screen. This can be found under the Forms menu. There are two differences between using the Close Jobs/Invoices screen and the Customer Orders screen. The first difference is when you Edit a Work Order in this screen it will automatically be converted to an Invoice without any further prompt. The second difference is when you Edit a Work Order the cursor will appear in the Service Description area instead of the Job or Site Information area's. This method works best when you are closing a group of Work Orders at one time.

Not only has Closing jobs been made easier in ProfitMaster but printing Reports has been made easier too!

Almost all of your daily reports can be printed from the Customer Orders screen. To print reports from the Customer Orders screen go to the File menu and choose Print. You can also press the Print Reports Icon (Windows).

Backing up your data files has never been easier with the new independent Backup feature contained in ProfitMaster. Without getting into too many technical details, the Backup feature contained in CarpetMaster was relying on other files contained in your computer's operating system. Therefore, if your computer did not already have certain files on it, the Backup feature in CarpetMaster did not work. Also, you couldn’t always restore a backup to a different (newer) computer as it may have a different version of the backup program.

In ProfitMaster the Backup feature has been revamped and is now completely independent. It will work regardless of what other files are on your computer, and one customer informed us that what used to take 8 diskettes to Backup now only takes 1!

We are happy to announce that through an arrangement with Advanced Forms Management you can now order pre-printed Invoices directly from us designed to work with ProfitMaster.

It's a fact of life, Microsoft Windows can and will freeze with what appears to be no rhyme or reason! Why does Windows freeze? You can spend hours perusing through Microsoft's on-line Knowledge Base viewing articles on why Windows will freeze with a Matrox Video Card to why it will freeze with a certain motherboard chipset. The truth is there are a lot of different reasons why Windows will freeze and unless you are a computer scientist guru you probably will not understand Microsoft's explanations of faulty memory and processor errors at xxxx:xxxxxxxx.

As a user all you know is that when Windows freezes it's very annoying! As a user there are certain things you can do to recover from, prevent and troubleshoot a freeze.

How to Recover From a Windows Freeze

There are certain degrees of Windows freezes ranging from minor to severe. The good news is most times it only appears frozen. In a minor freeze, you will be working in a program and BAM! it freezes! To recover from a minor freeze quickly press the CTRL (Control), ALT & DELETE buttons on your keyboard all at once (if you hold them down too long it might restart your machine). In Windows 3.1x press the CTRL & ESC buttons. This will bring up the Windows Task Manager ( this screenshot is from Windows NT but Windows 95 & 3.1 are very similar)

You can see that there is a list of the open applications and their current status. Ideally they will all be "running", but during a minor freeze you will see "not responding" as the status of the application causing the freeze. To correct this, move the cursor to that application and press the End Task button. After a moment another screen will appear confirming this action. Usually, this will close the offending program and put you back into Windows. Sometimes you may need to repeat this a few times before the application will close. As a precaution, close and save anything else you were working on and restart the computer.

During a severe freeze, no matter how many times you press the CTRL, ALT, DELETE keys, bang the keyboard or kick the your desk, nothing happens! Unfortunately in this situation you must hit the Restart button on your computer and then run scandisk when the system comes back up. If you experience a severe freeze, please call us for assistance.

How to Prevent Freezes

There are several things you can do to prevent your computer from freezing. First and foremost, if you get error messages while or just after Windows starts, or at any other time, this indicates something is wrong with your system. It could be a major problem or a minor one, but not determining the cause of these messages and having them corrected could lead to Windows freezing.

Also, having a lot of Tray Icons open at once can slow down performance, use up the system resources and cause a freeze. Tray icons are the little icons just to the left of the time and represent programs that open automatically when Windows starts. These programs run in the "background".

Finally, having many applications open at once can also lead to a freeze. The word "many" as used previously is dependent on the amount of RAM in your system.

How to Troubleshoot a Freeze

Trouble shooting a freeze is a very tedious process, in fact, Microsoft has numerous articles in its Knowledge Base on how to document and troubleshoot Invalid Page Fault's and other errors. Unless you have nothing to do all day but diagnose your PC, these articles will not entertain you.

However, there are some basic, common sense techniques you can use to try to track down the culprit.

One of the first things to look for is if the freeze is recreatable. This means that you can cause the computer to freeze every time by doing the same thing. For example: If every time you start ProfitMaster and try to print a customer order the computer will freeze as opposed to sometimes it freezes in ProfitMaster and sometimes it freezes in Word.

This leads to the second thing to look for, does it only freeze when you use a particular program or does it freeze regardless of the program or what you are doing.

For laymen, these are a few things to look for when your program freezes and though it does not tell you how to solve the problem it can help you to avoid having the problem occur. For more in-depth detective work consult the Microsoft Knowledge Base, but don't get your hopes up.

You can reach the Knowledge Base at: