Are you using the Standard Short Form Statements (arcustm6) and tired of folding them twice instead of once. STOP! We have found a solution to your problem! We have designed a Custom Single Window ENVELOPE that will fit your #6 Statement with only one fold. Please contact the forms department if you need more information.

Forms Department Manager Blanca Whited

**IMPORTANT: Prices above are valid until July 10, 1998. This is a special order item. Production time 6-8 weeks.

NEXT ORDER WILL BE TAKEN IN JANUARY 1999.

Our goal is to develop forms to help you run your business more efficiently and to provide quality service. We also offer ordering convenience and a fast turn-around on standard orders (5-7 working days). We'll assist you in finding the most cost effective solutions for you and your business. Our price breaks start from 25 thousand on....

• Custom, Standard, Continuous and Laser Checks
• Double Window Envelopes for Checks
• Window & Commercial Envelopes
• Continuous Tax Forms.

Our Forms Department Manager Blanca Whited will be happy to assist you with any of your form requirements. She offers competitive pricing and is dedicated to customer satisfaction.

Call us today with your order at 1-800-991-SAVE Blanca at ext. 246 or Bradly at ext. 204.

I can hardly believe that another month has gone by. It seems to me that life is passing by in a blur. There is so much going on with our sales activity escalating, dealing with existing customers, and lots of travelling. These really are exciting times here at Advantage.

Everywhere I go I hear how busy everyone is, how business is booming. It is heartening to see how many of our customers fully utilize the software, so that they can effectively and efficiently run their business. There are still a few of you however, that are not using the software to its full potential. If you aren't using all of the modules of the software, you are in the minority, and I believe that you are missing a great opportunity to save both time and money. I would like to do an informal survey of those companies that aren't using A/P, the G/L, or Payroll for example. If you aren't, then give me a call at ext. 222, fax me, or e-mail me at gdcuke@abcsinc.com and let me know what you aren't using and why. Our goal is to make "power" users out of all of our customers, so that everyone can enjoy the numerous benefits of to having this great management tool. I recently found a customer that wasn't using the electronic purchasing, and, as a result, they were having to do lots of manual work every week to get their orders out, orders back in, and prices updated, etc. Using the electronic purchasing was like a change of life once they started using it! If you are buying from one of the major co-ops or vendors that we do electronic communication with and you aren't using this facility, then you really need to call me.

In closing, let me welcome aboard those of you that are reading the Advantage newsletter for the first time. I look forward to working with all of you and helping you get the most out of your new Advantage System.

Welcome to our New Customers

SPIRO ACE HARDWARE & FURNITURE Spiro, OK	EBERHARD LUMBER New Braunfels, TX
GALLOWS BAY HARDWARE St. Croix, VI	HEWITTS Pritchett, TX
INNOTEC, LTD. Freeport, Grand Bahamas	WEMPEN LUMBER Assumption, IL
THE FRANK NETT COMPANY Fond Du Lac, WI	HUGHS LUMBER Fairfield, TX
EAST CARROLL LUMBER YARD Providence, LA	FRUGE LUMBER COMPANY, INC. Eunice, LA
AUSTIN HARDWOODS San Antonio, TX

1. Term code validation

What: Added a "Term Code" validation database to the system, with a test caluculator.

Benefit: Prevent operator errors in keying terms codes in Purchasing, Point-of-Sale, and in Accounts Payable. Allows an administrative user to control what the allowable terms codes are and to test the results of sample date calculations on proposed new entries to database as they are added.

2. Extended features of inventory item purging utility

What: Application can now check for sales history occurring after a date entered by the user (YYYYMM) and disallow purging of items that have such history records. Also the application was modified to examine and qualify the item in multi-location environments in each user-selected dataset.

Benefit: Safer automated deletion of inventory items in multi-location environments.

3. POS tracking of abandoned input

What: User-configurable password that can be set to force input of two "password" style fields before allowing an "abandonment" of an order or quote in Point-of-Sale. One of these pass words is a new configuration option password and the other must be a unique salesrep password (manager's) that differs from the one used to gain access to the POS application.

Benefit: Better control and fraud prevention.

4. ICVERIFY forced transaction option

What: A new menu appears when user "closes" a POS transaction after making an entry in the "Approval Code:" field on the payment screen. Prior to this change, these transactions were sent to the ICVERIFY "OFFLINE BATCH" with no recourse. The operator was notified after the fact that this is what had transpired. At that point, they could not reverse the action. Now they must consciously select [N] to send this transaction to the "OLB" before the action is taken. If they elect the default menu action, the transaction is "forced" into the normal sales batch for normal settlement. For either option to proceed, they must press [F10] as it says on the top of the screen.

Benefit: Minimize or eliminate need of customers to use the confusing and difficult ICVERIFY off-line batch settlement procedure.

5. A/P mass change of due dates by vendor

What: A new administrative application in A/P that allows due dates for a given vendor to be changed enmasse to a new due date.

Benefit: More flexibility and ease in determining what gets paid and when. If terms were set incorrectly, this application will ease the updating procedure.

6. Sales and purchase history purges

What:Programs have been placed on the End of Year menu to purge inventory sales (invslhis) or purchase history (invpuhis).

Benefit:These databases, found in the inventory item record (F2 & F3) can be held to a manageable size by purging records prior to a specified date.

In the time of the hand-crank adding machine, and mule drawn dray wagon, business moved along at a steady handwritten pace, but all things change. Forklifts were put to use saving countless hours of loading and unloading, modern gasoline powered trucks replaced mule drawn wagons and hand-crank adding machines were replaced by electric calculators.
	In 1968 following a devastating fire, Simms built an all new 9,000-sq. ft. lumber and hardware store in Mineral Wells. Business went so well that in 1973 Simms added a second store in Weatherford, Texas by purchasing Kennedy Lumber Company…and business prospered.
When the hardware and do-it-yourself business increased in the early eighties, Simms joined H.W.I. (now Do-it-Best Corp.) and computerized. Additional hardware and do-it-yourself items were added, departments were expanded and re-merchandized.

It became obvious in the early nineties that the Weatherford store needed to expand its facility. Customer parking was so scarce that a choice parking spot had caused a fistfight! So with assistance from H.W.I. plans were made to completely redesign, re-merchandise, re-fixture and re-sign, the Mineral Wells store to become the first Do-it-Express in Texas. The Weatherford store would be demolished and a new 17,500-sq. ft. Do-it-Center would be built. New departments and expanded store size would mean an increase from 7,000 in stock items to more than 20,000. Simms needed a computer system capable of dealing with all those new items, they also needed scanning at their checkout counters, electronic purchasing with H.W.I., payroll with 401(k) capability, suggested order quantities and so many features that their existing computer system didn't offer. In 1993 after carefully looking over 4 different computer system suppliers Simms chose the Advantage Computer System. In 1995 Simms Lumber Company had grand openings for their Do-it-Express in Mineral Wells and Do-it-Center in Weatherford.

Simms' General Manager Keith Kirk reports: "1998 is on track to become a record sales and profit year thanks to great partners like Advantage-they have always been there when we needed them"…and business prospers!

From the President's Desk:

This week we had the honor of a visit from some friends from Tru*Serv Corporation. We met with Vincent Doherty and Steven Plotnick from the Retail Systems & Services Division of Tru*Serv to discuss the merger of True Value and Service Star and the impact that this will have on the combined customer base. It appears the impact on the True Value stores will be minimal if any. The Service Star customers on the other hand are facing a complete overhaul on SKU numbers and on Electronic Communications.

It is very important that every Service Star dealer presently using the Advantage system contact me as soon as possible. We need to convert your Service Star numbers over to the new Tru*Serv numbers and get you set up to communicate using the C.I.S. communications package. The C.I.S. communications package requires that you have a PC with a modem for sending orders, receiving invoices and doing general procedures with Tru*Serv. Perhaps this is the first you have heard of this transition and it may be new for some of you, but we are well equipped to assist.

For those of you that are without a PC, we will be offering you one configured to the recommended specifications from Tru*Serv for running the C.I.S. software which is purchased directly from Tru*Serv. It is my understanding, there are monies available from Tru*Serv for the conversion of PC's and software. That makes this an excellent time to add this function if you are not already utilizing the electronic communications aspects of the Advantage system.

This change is going to take place within the next couple of months, and it is very important that we get started. Please contact me at extension 229 to schedule this conversion.

Scott Stanford