Race Pace
Race Pace is a great way to describe the current rate of changes in personal computing. It doesn't matter if the race is chips, or AI, or payments, or agentic something or other.
BigBusiness lets you assemble an onsite collection of personal computers to sell stuff. You need a place for your stuff (Carlin), and computers need security (Nadella, Cook).
Therefore you need your BigBusiness to handle race-pace security changes seamlessly, keeping the old working indefinitely, while building new to easily replace when needed.
Fast Networking is the reason for BigBusiness 16. The reason it is fast, is that it elimates all the security chit-chat that preceeds each request so it can immediately get needed data.
On the surface this seems minor, but if you are doing something voluminous, repetitious, and making countless requests it can cut seconds to milliseconds and improve your flow.
This is tremendous on a remote connection, but, as above, you are probably selling stuff, and your computer is in the same building, so fast already, but secure, too, because wi-fi.
Profit and Loss Exports
Profit and Loss exports are P&L's you save as files you can open in Excel or Numbers.
Dark Mode
Dark Mode is natively supported on the Mac and Dark Prefs have now been removed.
Previously, Big Business had a faux Dark Mode, which is obviated by macOS changes.
Settings for old Dark Prefs are no longer needed and have been removed from MyPrefs.
Profit and Loss By Month
Profit and Loss by Month exports Profit and Loss results for Months and Year-to-Date.
Profit and Loss by Month exports Profit and Loss results for Months and Year-to-Date.
A Date dialog asks for the Month and Year to run through. For example, picking March when you are calendar-fiscal will include results for Jan, Feb, Mar, and YTD for the year entered.
The report includes columns for Account Group, Account Code, Account Name, and the Months and YTD results.
The report includes all Profit and Loss Accounts when running, and skips any that have no Postings.
Profit and Loss by Month with Budget
Profit and Loss by Month with Budget exports Profit and Loss results for Months and Year-to-Date along with Monthly Budget, YTD Budget, and Actual to Budget.
Profit and Loss by Month with Budget exports Profit and Loss results for Months and Year-to-Date along with Monthly Budget, YTD Budget, and Actual to Budget.
A Date dialog asks for the Month and Year to run through. For example, picking March when you are calendar-fiscal will include results for Jan, Feb, Mar, and YTD for the year entered.
The report includes columns for Account Group, Account Code, Account Name, Monthly Budget, Months and YTD Actuals, YTD Budget, and Actual to Budget.
The report includes all Profit and Loss Accounts when running, and skips any that have no Postings.
Chapter 409 Profit and Loss
Profit and Loss shows you income and expense as one comprehensive financial report. Look in Reports, Accounting, and you will find a dozen like, Profit & Loss Statement.
BigBusiness provides several variations to compare and analyze, by printing or export.
Many are custom, sort by Department, or Month, add Groups, and calculate in depth.
This chapter aims to help you review and choose the report that fits your many facets. Start simple and defer Departments or Groups or export to Excel until you really need.
Profit and Loss Percent of Sales
Profit and Loss shows you income and expense as one comprehensive financial report. Percent of Sales shows each row with a percentage of Total Income for five years time.
Item Card
Item card is updated and dynamic, showing tools you need and hiding those you don't. The window is somewhat taller to fit everything into Compact view for Auto-Zoom.
Changes remove This Item Is and Spelling tool--now just set Spell Check in MyPrefs.
Added are buttons for Image and Text to be available for AI or automate content filling. Usage will depend on settings with the default being they don't perform until set up.
Contact Roles
Big Business includes Contacts which are linked to Customers or Vendors to handle a few basic functions:
• you can list Ship-To Addresses for a customer for easy selection
• you can list Email Addresses for a customer for easy sending of PDF's
Contact Roles are checkboxes that let you set a Contact as:
• Refundee - to set a Mailing Address for Refund Checks
• Email Statements - to set an Email Address for Emailing Statements
(7175)
Note Done
Note Done lets you mark a task, system notification, task from another user, as Done.
Note Done can be added as a column in MyNotes and then clicked to check it as done. Done also appears on the Note window under the Schedule Date and Time options.
Chapter 6 Contact
Contact helps you manage Additional Contacts from Customers, Vendors, Employees. Contact also includes Notes used for system notifications and messages to other users.
Customers are often companies and their Contacts are people, roles, ship-to addresses. For a large customer you may have hundreds of Ship-to's invoiced as one big company.
Contact provides the tools to manage lookup and linking so you have Ship-To's, Email Addresses, and presets like Sales Tax or Ship Method easily selected and ready to use.
Customer Ship-To's
Customer Ship-To's are the main use for Contact especially with your large customers.
On Quote, Order, or Invoice after selecting Customer, click Other in Ship-To to choose a Contact to fill in Shipping Name, Address, Email, Tax Status, Store, and much more.
Choose Live List in My Prefs, Dialog Prefs, to use a dynamic list with column Filters. Filter to find addresses instantly among hundreds of Ship-To's for national customers.
Customer Email Addresses
Customer Email Addresses is another popular use for Contact for emailing to multiple.
In Print Options for a Quote, Order, or Invoice choose Send Email To and select a few. Contacts for the customer will be listed and selectable by name or title to send as CC's.
Chapter 805 Item Labels
Item Labels help you show your Item Codes, Pricing, Allocation, or custom Barcoding.
This chapter reviews a few options for price labels, allocation tags, and custom labels.
Item Materials
Item Materials let you select built item components, subassemblies, and raw materials.
To make kits, create subassemblies, sell bundles, or repackage bulk product, use BOM. Bill of Materials let you choose all Components that make your Built or Bundle Items.
Item Purchases
Item Purchases lets you change cost on a Purchase Order or Bill and save the new cost.
When you add an item to a PO it fills in the Item Cost for you. If you change this cost a dialog will ask if you want to save the new cost. Say, Yes, if this the new Item Cost.
If you are entering a one-time cost for a special order say No to keep its old Item Cost.
Item Obsolete vs Inactive
Item Obsolete lets you set an item as discontinued. Inactive is lets you pause the item.
Big Business includes an Obsolete option on Item Cards with the following features:
• Testing to see if an Item can be marked Obsolete including checking that all inventory quantities (On Hand, On Order, etc.) are zero (0). Big Business also tests that the Total Cost is zero (0).
• Obsolete Items are suppressed from the Item Listing making them unavailable for buying and selling.
• Obsolete Items are included on reports and searches, and can be excluded using the Obsolete or other (Qty On Hand, etc.) search criteria.
• You can readily remove the Obsolete attribute of Items, to accommodate a return or similar situation, where the Item becomes active again.
To Locate and/or Remove the Obsolete attribute on an Item:
1. Use the Item QuickSearch to find the Item
2. Open the Item Card from the QuickSearch, by double-clicking or selecting the Item and clicking the Go button.
3. To remove the Obsolete attribute, click the Obsolete checkbox, so it is unchecked.
4. Save the Item Card by clicking the OK button.
5. Quit and Restart Big Business (single-user) or click the Update List button on the Item Listing (Big Business Client, only) to load the un-Obsoleted Item.
Items Search
Items Search lets you find items, by any field, add columns to view, and make changes.
There are 58 searchable fields for Items in Big Business. Use the Item QuickSearch to find items by:
Item Code Taxable Customer Listing on Order
Description 1 Item Type Customer Listing on Invoice
Description 2 Vendor Listing Vendor Listing on P.O.
Price Level 1 Vendor Part # Vendor Listing on Bill
Margin Level 1 Item Cost Note Title
Price Level 2 Average Cost Tag
Margin Level 2 Total Cost Custom 1
Price Level 3 Quantity on Hand Custom 2
Margin Level 3 Quantity Allocated Custom 3
Price Level 4 Quantity Available Custom 4
Margin Level 4 Last Bought Date Custom 5
Price Level 4 Last Sold Date Custom 6
Margin Level 5 Order at Least... Custom 7
Buy Item ...When Below Custom 8
Sell Item Qty on Order Custom 9
Inventory Item Qty Needed Custom 10
Obsolete Item ETA Date Custom 11
Expense Category Ship Weight Custom 12
Asset Category Build/Bundle Item
Cost of Goods Category Customer Listing on Quote
Items Find vs Filter
Items Search shows a Find Dialog and has Filters above each column on the results list.
The goal is to find exactly what you need just like shopping online. Find all Sale items. Filter to my size, color. Except that it is much faster and there are more filter options.
You know your inventory and need a way to find and filter by certail details as needed.
Item ETA's
Item ETA's let you know the next estimated time of arrival based on your PO's entries.
On a Purchase Order, BigBusiness helps you estimate ETA's using Vendor ETA Days. You may also set individual PO Line Item ETA's based on feedback from your vendor.
At a glance,you know the next date a shipment is expected, and if you need more detail you can Show, Allocated to see a list of Orders by Ship Date and PO's by your ETA's.
BB tracks several ETA dates including:
• P.O. ETA - the ETA of the Purchase Order as a whole
• P.O. Line Item ETAs- the ETAs of Line Items on the Purchase Order
• Item ETA - the ETA of the Item as a whole (next expected shipment)
• S.O.. Line Item ETAs - the ETAs of Line Items on the Sales Order
1. When you create a new Purchase Order (and select the Vendor), Big Business sets the PO Date to Today (using the Date&Time on the Server for Multi-User), then sets the P.O. ETA to Today plus the number of Vendor ETA Days listed on the Vendor Card.
2. P.O. Line Item ETAs are set to the P.O. ETA automatically and can be overwritten with individual ETAs (if these vary for various Line Items).
3. If you change the P.O. ETA, you will be asked if you want to "Change the ETAs of all Line Items?".
4. When a PO is Saved, Modified, or filled by a Bill, the Item ETA is updated to the next (chronological) P.O. Line Item ETA, which has an Open Quantity (is not yet filled).
5. When an Line Item is entered on a Sales Order the S.O.. Line Item ETA is automatically set to:
- today if it's (inventoried) On Hand
- the Item ETA if it's not on hand, but on order
- Today plus Vendor ETA days if it neither on hand, nor on order, but has a Vendor listed
- today if none of the above apply