To Our Valued Customers....	Congratulations!
From the President's Desk:	From the Desk of Gregory Cuke
End of Month Reminder	Accounts Payable Auto-Vouchering, Is It For You?
Customizing Your Advantage System	NEXT RELEASE OF DATABASE VERSION
Mailbox Q & A's	Welcome to Our New Customers!
Imigit Software	Spotline 100

  Twenty years ago, when I set out to create a software package for the lumber industry, I was trying to solve the problems unique to a lumberyard. Armed with a sincere desire to provide that solution, and my programming experience, I began a journey that has brought us to where we are today.

In those days, an install could take up to a year, as it did with Bob McCarley, when I sold him a system. I literally moved on-site, and with Bob's cooperation, I wrote the software around the needs and desires of his business. As the first full-service large-scale lumberyard I ever sold, Paris Lumber and Building Center greatly impacted the development of the software package. It is because of people like Bob McCarley who allowed me the opportunity to learn, develop, and grow in the early days, that I learned a lesson that continues to be a cornerstone to who we are today. I learned to never lose sight of what it takes to run a profitable yard/store on a day-to-day basis. Our software package is and will always be a package developed by keeping tuned in to the industry and listening to the needs of our customers.

Our success is directly attributable to our customer's willingness to enter into a partnership with us. This partnership is what has kept us both moving forward and growing stronger each year. Forward because we are never loosing sight of where we can improve. Growing stronger because joining forces and working together have a proven record of being a winning combination for both of us. It's very rewarding to still be working side-by-side with all of you who have grown with us over the years.

After five and a half years of development, the Database version of the Advantage System has matured into a full-featured software package. While our commitment remains solid to its continued development, I have allocated additional resources to reinforce our commitment to you for support issues, also. We have appreciated all of the positive comments about our recent changes in support procedures. We continue to handle 92% of all calls as the calls are received, an unheard of statistic while the industry as a whole still dispatches all calls. Averaging only 9% of the calls requiring a callback after each day, we are proud of our support statistics. Customer service continues to be our priority. It is for that reason that I am asking each of you to join our efforts and assist us in identifying how we can better serve you. Over the next several weeks, we will be contacting several different customers who use the system in dissimilar ways: retailers, wholesalers, single-store, and multiple-store. Your cooperation in this process will allow us to continue toward excellence in serving you.

Our commitment to you continues to be the provision of a software package that not only meets your needs but provides the customer service that you expect and deserve. Please help us to identify those expectations and the areas where we can better serve you by completing and returning the enclosed Customer Service Survey today.

Thank you for your continued confidence in our partnership. We look forward to the challenges of the future and our continued growth together.

Greg Matatall, Chief Executive Officer

Bob McCarley of Paris Lumber and Building Center

Each year the Lumbermen's Association of Texas recognizes the accomplishments of one of their members. This year's award goes to Bob McCarley of Paris Lumber and Building Center in Paris, Texas. Bob McCarley has been active in the lumber industry for 52 years. His first job began at Lingo Lumber Company [unloading boxcars] during his high school years. After moving to Paris in 1961, McCarley went to work as the manager of the yard which he purchased five years later.

In 1967 the downtown lumberyard was renamed Paris Lumber Company. Under McCarley's hands-on management style, the lumberyard had outgrown its location. A new modern lumber and building material center was built at its present site under the name of Paris Lumber and Building Center. The seven-acre site included 125,000 square feet of building, showroom, and lumber storage. The building was completely destroyed four years later by a tornado April 2, 1982. Under the leadership of McCarley, the business was closed for only one day. A sign was posted on what was left of the building which read, "Yes, We Are Open". The lumberyard was rebuilt and has been expanding on a steady basis ever since.

Paris Lumber's lighting department has evolved into one of the largest in northeast Texas and southeast Oklahoma. The manufacturing division was added in 1983 to build custom door units. In 1994 custom countertops and installations were added. The manufacturing division continues to grow as cabinets and installation have been added.

The business, which began with McCarley, four employees and no forklifts, now employs approximately 50 employees. Together they are serving their customers with ten delivery trucks, seven forklifts, and the Advantage System. Seventeen years ago McCarley joined forces with Advantage by investing in a computer system. As a pivotal player in the development of the Basic Version, his influence is still reflected today.

McCarley has not only served his company, he is actively involved in his family and community. Married to his wife Florence for over 50 years, they have raised five children and are proud grandparents of five grandchildren. In addition, he continues to serve as a deacon at his church and on the board of trustees for St Joseph Hospital. A past local school board member, he was also the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Lion's Club, and Salvation Army. As the first president of the North Texas Lumberman's Association in Sherman, he has been active in the LAT since 1949.

Congratulations Bob McCarley. Your success and contributions in your business, community, and family are a commendable example to us all.

From the President's Desk:

In the last month my travels have taken me to one of my favorite cities in the state of Texas, San Antonio. This is an annual pilgrimage to the Lumberman's Association of Texas Convention and to indulge in some of the finest Mexican food available.

This year Advantage was proud to have the "Lumberman of the Year" as one of our customers. Congratulations to Bob McCarley on this honor. This makes two years in a row that an Advantage customer has received this award, with 1997 going to Steve Dean of Dean Lumber. These conventions are one of the finest opportunities we have to sit down with customers, one on one, to discuss how their business is progressing and what Advantage can do to assist them with new projects and future plans. The next best opportunity for this type of exchange of information or ideas is at the regularly scheduled training classes held at our Corporate Office in Big Sandy. We currently are conducting the Spring Session of this training, as this is being written. It is interesting to me that there are definitely two schools of thought concerning training. There are those who attend at least once a year or more and then those whom you couldn't drag into a classroom. For the most part, the Advantage software is so user friendly that almost everything can be figured out by simply reading the help screens and following through the menus. One of the biggest things that is gained by coming to class, is that here you actually have the time to sit and completely go through all of the menu options and different configuration options which can be utilized to make the software perform differently. It is a definite fact, that the customers who make this investment of time and money are getting the most from their investment in their computer system. Each individual has their own special hot buttons for buying a computer system. Some are as simple as managing Accounts Receivable and others to completely manage their entire business. No matter what level of implementation you are at, there are certainly money and time saving ideas to be pick up, from other individuals whose daily tasks include the same routine as yours.

Keeping along the same lines of, "why you buy a system ", one of the biggest reasons is to manage one of your largest assets _ Inventory. Your computer system will tell you what you are selling, how many you are selling and when and where to buy them. It will also inform you of what is not moving, in the form of a "DOG" report. Now that you know what doesn't sell, what do you do with this merchandise? Some re-merchandise, others add the items to a sales table, while others have a sidewalk sale, and in some cases just give it away. If you have come up with a creative way of liquidating this inventory from your store, others would be interested in learning from you. I will include the suggestions and ideas received, in next month's newsletter. These responses can be mailed, phoned in or e-mailed to scott@abcsinc.com. If this type of information gathering is successful it will soon become something that is included in our monthly format.

Scott W. Stanford

President

From the Desk of Gregory Cuke, Vice President of Sales and Marketing

The computer vendors within the building materials industry are all a buzz as the pace is quickening to make all systems year 2000 compliant. Although we at Advantage don't have the same problems as many of our competitors, the frenzy has started with us also. I am constantly hearing the horror stories of companies that are using a competitors product that is not year 2000 compliant and are being told by their vendor that it will take big money to ensure that they will still be in business on January 1, 2000. After the shock of hearing they are not compliant, they are then told that to become compliant they will have to do a major systems upgrade. These upgrades in some cases are so costly that quotations have equaled the cost of a new Advantage System. Needless to say this thrills me, considering these people are now becoming new Advantage customers.

I would like to take this opportunity to add a sincere thank you to each of our customers for the wonderful referrals that you have provided to our prospective customers. No one in this industry purchases a system without references from existing users. I realize that our continued growth is largely as a result of all the kind, complimentary, and reassuring words from each of you. As we continue to grow, we are able to do more of the things that end up benefiting you the user. That is, we continue to enhance our product and offerings. Thank you all.

ACCOUNTS PAYABLE AUTO-VOUCHERING, IS IT FOR YOU?

Accounts Payable vouchers for costs being received from purchase orders may be generated automatically by your Advantage system. If you are using the Purchase Order System and Accounts Payable, auto-vouchering is the winning combination.

The most common reason users don't auto-voucher is that they are not confident that the purchase orders are being received at correct costs or quantities. If this is so, whether the voucher would be correct is the least of your problems. Consider the results of a purchase order being received incorrectly:

Cost is wrong

Average cost gets updated improperly; therefore when these items begin to be sold from POS, the margins will be reflected incorrectly. Decisions being made by sales staff, commission being paid on profit, overall

store performance based on these incorrect costs can rapidly spiral into lost profits. In addition, the General

Ledger will be out of balance with the inventory value.

Example: PO received 10 items at $10.00 each. This added $100.00 of value to the inventory. The A/P voucher was created at $120.00 because the cost was not accurate on the PO. You would be $20.00 out of balance. These two values would not likely be reconciled until you did a physical count. At that time, you would adjust your General Ledger to match your inventory evaluation. This $20.00 adjustment would reduce your profit for that period, causing you to write it off into that period.

Market cost, if you are configured to update them at receiving, can have additional repercussions. If you are using market cost to drive prices or to notify your sales staff of current market costs, incorrect information can have devastating impact on your profits.

Last cost is updated causing the next PO to be generated at this same cost and to continue the down-

ward spiral in data integrity.

Quantities are wrong

Quantity errors undermine the many of the benefits of the system. Entered incorrectly they corrupt data integrity and confidence in the system's accuracy. Incorrect quantities makes everyone's job more difficult as deci sion making relies on additional labor to go physically check actual quantities before selling or buying items. As in incorrect costs adjustments, when made, directly effect the bottom line for that period.

Creating a correct voucher or modifying the system generated voucher does not correct the damage done by any of these problems. It only masks it for a time. Multiply it by the hundreds of PO's being received and you have a very skewed view of where your true costs and profits lie. The time it would have taken to do the PO correctly has now been passed down through the company impacting sales staff, yard crews, A/P clerks, and management to correct the problems. The exposure to your profit line is more difficult to measure, but there is absolutely no doubt of its impact.

WHY AUTO-VOUCHER?

1) Auto-vouchering saves you time. The voucher has to be created for payment, so why not let the system generate it? The system will reference the PO number. No need to determine how to dispurse the expense, the system will automatically dispurse the costs of the PO to all of the appropriate G/L accounts based on your configuration.

2) Confront your problems. Don't hide behind the thought that all is well because you paid the voucher correctly. A system- generated voucher will make you see the errors in receiving in a more timely manner. Know who is serving the company well by creating accurate PO's and who is not. Those extra margin points you are looking for can be often found by uncovering problem buyers.

3) Save money! Keep your vendors accountable. When your buyers are doing their job, you can hold your vendor to their agreements. How often is your A/P clerk paying whatever the invoice says simply you know that your procedures are not accurate? Your vendor has the same problem you do with the potential of their people making mistakes. Since we know that they rarely ever underbill you, how many profit dollars are you willing to give them because you cannot trust your procedures? There are significant dollars to be regained by taking control away from the vendor and giving back to you.

SO HOW DOES IT WORK?

Once turned on, the system will create a voucher for each PO that is received. The system places these vouchers in an "in-transit" state. In-transit means that the voucher is posted and represented throughout Accounts Payable reports, but it will never become available for payment. It remains in-transit until the user accesses the voucher and saves it. The theory is that when you receive the vendor's invoice, you will then be updating the voucher to include their invoice number, confirm due dates, amounts, etc. Only after this has been done would you want it to be made available for payment. Typically, you would not pay without an invoice. This feature protects you from that ever happening.

HOW DO I TURN IT ON?

STEP ONE: Main menu > Purchasing > Maintenance procedures > Company header configuration for purchasing > Screen 2

"Generate vouchers upon receiving?" [Y]es, we want to make a commitment to improved procedures.

"A/P In- transit G/L number" This number is typically an account created specifically to track the value of vouchers in-transit.

"Require a vendor invoice number at receiving?" This is optional based on your preference. You may not always know the invoice number at that time, but some people choose to use an alternate number until the invoice arrives.

STEP TWO: Main menu > Purchasing > Maintenance procedures > Configure forms and printer configuration

Select each workstation that receives PO's. Arrow to "A/P audit trail" and enter the printer name that should be used to print the A/P Voucher Register report that will print with each receiver. Typically this is the same printer used to print to the receiver. [Insert] to save and select the next workstation. Repeat until all workstations have been setup.

The Image number is the connection between the Advantage data and the imaging data. This number is passed from the source data record to the General Ledger account detail records. What this means is that the accountant/comptroller may view the G/L detail and, via the right mouse button, also view the scanned images from the transaction that created this G/L entry.