mBase 4.8 was first released in March 2007 Overview
New facilities1. New Member Search functionality addedMicrosoft Access limits the number of items in a combo box lookup to 64,000. Combo boxes are used to lookup members on the Member form, and many other forms around the system. If an mBase client has more than 64,000 members, as some now do, some names are simply not accessible from the member lookup. To resolve this problem, a new mBase Search form is introduced which has no size limit, and provides extended functionality. The mBase Search form allows allows 9 separate criteria to be searched simultaneously; Surname, First Name, Organisation, Member Number, ID Number, email address, member category, bill item, and marked record. Each field may contain all or just part of the data to be searched for, beginning from the left. For example, to find all members whose surnames begin with the letters "wat", key just those 3 characters into the Surname field and press enter. All members with names like "Watkins", "Watson", etc. will appear. The Email field will search for ANY string entered, anywhere in the email string. For example, to find all members using the "gmail" facility from Google, enter "@gmail" into the Email search field. A search is initiated by clicking the Refresh button after entering data in the desired search fields. The results of the search appear in the subform below the search criteria. A search is automatically initiated whenever the Surname field is used, by pressing Enter, or Tab, or using the mouse to move the focus out of the Surname field. The Clear button clears all search fields and resets the search results. The Communicate button brings up the Communication Centre form, from which the currently selected set of member records may be emailed, printed, etc. This new search form allows multiple search criteria to be entered simultaneously, rather than the single criterion allowed on a combo box. For example, when using a combo box search, if searching for a common surname, such as "Smith", one may be presented with several hundred surnames, then have to scroll through the associated first names until a desired match is found. With the new search facility you can enter all or part of the surname, first name, organisation name or any of the other searchable fields, then execute the search by clicking the Refresh button. Only those records which satisfy ALL the given criteria will be retrieved and displayed, resulting in a much shorter list to scroll through. For example, to quickly locate "Jeremiah Smith", enter "smi" into the Surname field and "jer" into the Firstname field, click the Refresh button, then select the desired record by clicking on the appropriate surname. To select a specific member record from those displayed, click once on the Surname field of the desired member. That member's record will be opened on the Member form, or that member's record selected if the search was triggered from a subform. Multiple individual records may be selected from a search by clicking in the leftmost X column on the Search form. An "X" will appear in the box for the selected record. Any number of records may be selected in this fashion, across any number of searches. When finished selecting, click on the leftmost yellow search field at the top of the form. Only previously selected records will now be displayed. To clear all the tagged records, click on the X button in the top left of theSearch form. A Message Box will appear, indicating how many records are about to have their tag field cleared. Click OK to proceed. 2. New Bill Search functionality addedOn the Cash Book/Journal form you can link a payment received to a specific member's bill by locating it on a combo box lookup, either by Invoice number or by Member's surname. However, the same restriction of a maximum of 64,000 entries applies to these combo boxes as well. In addition, some clients prefer to lookup members by member number, or statement number, or organisation, which is not possible in the current combo box based system. A new Bill Search facility is introduced, very similar to the Member Search functionality described above. Cash book details may be captured manually line by line or may have been preloaded automatically by the Bank Statement Capture facility. Commonly, when manually capturing payment information into an mBase cash book from a bank statement, you would go to the New Line record at the bottom of the cash book. Now click the blank grey button under the Invoice # heading. The Bill Search form opens with the cursor in the Invoice # search field. If you wish to search for a matching bill by invoice number, key in the appropriate number and press enter or tab or click the Refresh button. The billing item (bill item) matching that invoice number is displayed. Click on the Surname field to select that bill and post an entry into the ledger. If you click on the Firstname, the member record for that member will be opened, allowing you to investigate further. If the cash book details have been preloaded using the Bank Statement Capture facility, then you need to go to the appropriate cash book entry representing a specific member payment you wish to process. From the information downloaded in the Description field you should be able to identify the invoice number or member name to which this payment applies. Click the blank grey button under the Invoice # heading on the line in question. The Bill Search form opens with the cursor in the Invoice # search field, and the Amount already filled in under the Billed heading on the search line. Only Bill items for that amount are consequently displayed. If you do not wish to restrict the search by that amount, click Clear. If you wish to search for a matching bill by invoice number, key in the appropriate number and press enter or tab or click the Refresh button. The billing item (bill item) matching that invoice number is displayed. Click on the Surname field to select that bill and post an entry into the ledger. If you click on the Firstname, the member record for that member will be opened, allowing you to investigate further. 3. Event and bill item terminology changed to Bill Class and ItemThe Billing subsystem in mBase was originally developed as an Event Management System. Over time it became clear that event management was just one component of a powerful billing system, but the event/activity terminology lingered on. In version 4.8 this terminology has been changed to more accurately reflect the true nature of the billing system. Events have been renamed as Bill Class, which represents a class or collection of specific Bill Items, such as Annual billing or 2008 Conference. Activity has been renamed Bill Item, which generally represents a particular named item which the user charges the membership for, such as "Associate fees 2008" or "Gala dinner". 4. Payments can be processed directly on the Member Payments subformThe Member Payments subform on the Member form has been upgraded. The subform now shows both paid and unpaid Bill items. Paid Bill items show the date, cash book, account, tax, amount paid and ledger transaction description details for the payment. Unpaid Bill items show only the invoice number, bill item name and amount billed. A grey button under the Pay column is new on this subform. When this button is clicked against an unpaid bill item, a ledger transaction for that bill item is automatically added with the details shown, making that bill item paid-up. The details for the ledger transaction to be added are obtained from the "standard" fields on the associated bill item. A new standard field is now included on the bill item form, the Standard Book. This field identifies to which cash book automatic settlements of this bill item will be posted, and is required if the automatic settlement facility is to be used. The details of the automatically added ledger transaction can be edited directly on the Member Payments subform. The date, cash book, account, tax, amount paid and ledger transaction description may all be modified. Please note, this facility adds transactions into the selected cash book, thereby changing the balance of that cash book. The selected cash book will need to be reconciled to the appropriate bank statement if the mBase Ledger is to be kept in balance. 5. Payments can be processed directly on the Member Billings subformIn some cases the payment for a bill item is available at the same time the bill item is raised, such as cash payments, for example. In these circumstances it is useful to raise the bill item and settle the payment all on one subform. Automatic settlement of a bill item can now be done directly on the Member Billings subform, by double-clicking the Amount field. When this field is double-clicked against an unpaid bill item, a ledger transaction for that bill item is automatically added, making that bill item paid-up. The details for the ledger transaction to be added are obtained from the "standard" fields on the associated bill item. A new standard field is now included on the bill item form, the Standard Book. This field identifies to which cash book automatic settlements of this bill item will be posted, and is required if the automatic settlement facility is to be used. The details of the automatically added ledger transaction can be edited directly on the Member Payments subform. The date, cash book, account, tax, amount paid and ledger transaction description may all be modified. Please note, this facility adds transactions into the selected cash book, thereby changing the balance of that cash book. The selected cash book will need to be reconciled to the appropriate bank statement if the mBase Ledger is to be kept in balance. 6. Payments on the statement are shown individuallyThe Statement has been enhanced to show the date and amount of each payment for a bill item individually, plus the total of payments for that bill item. It is now possible to see all the part payments which make up the settlement of a specific billed amount, and the date of those payments. 7. Extended logging of changes is addedThe change logging system has been significantly extended. The following events are now logged
In addition, various reports have been added to allow inspection of these change logs, on the Association Reports subform. In particular, a facility to inspect specifically selected logs from the last week is available. The types of log to be monitored is setup in the LogMatch table. When the Logs for the last week button on the Association Reports subform is clicked, a report of only those logtypes for the last seven days is produced. This report is useful for monitoring certain key types of change. 8. Report description and inspection form addedmBase now has over 130 reports defined. Inspecting and understanding this many reports scattered across various parts of the system has become a challenge, resulting in many users not being aware of the existence of some useful reports. To address this problem, the View Reports option has been added to the Special menu. This opens the Reports form, on which all available reports are described in some detail, and from which they can be run and inspected. Most reports need to have some parameter set before running the report. For example, the Accounts Structure report must be told for which Association the Accounts Structure is required. After selecting the desired report in the Search box on the Reports form, click the View Form button to view the form appropriate to this report. Select the appropriate value on this form (e.g the desired Association), return to the Reports form, and click the View Report button to view the desired report. The user can extend the report description and report usage fields with any additional information desired. You can also decide whether this report should appear on the Email Reports combo box on the Communications form, by clicking the On Email Reports box in the top right corner of the Reports form. 9. Ledger transaction locking addedThe date-effective nature of the mBase accounting system does not require month-ends or year-ends to be run, although a year-end facility exists for those clients wishing to use it. The year-end facility rolls up all ledger transactions prior to a specified date into a single summed value per ledger account and VAT status, then deletes all the underlying ledger transaction records. This means that the original transaction details are no longer available in the main database, although they are copied to an archive table. In order to keep the ledger transactions visible in the database, but to prevent any attempt to change or tamper with these transactions, a transaction lock facility has been introduced. Now, any ledger transaction on the Cash Book/Journal form can be locked simply by clicking on the Lock flag on each line. All transactions prior to a given date can be automatically locked by selecting the Lock Transactions option on the Special menu, and specifying the desired date. Please Note: once a transaction has been locked it will require the intervention of an mBase consultant to unlock it again. 10. Todo subform enhancedThe Todo facility allows users to allocate a task to be done for a specific member to either themselves or another user. On the Member Todo form, if you click on the MyTodo button on the right, a Todo entry for the currently selected member with your username is added. If your mBase installation is using Security, then your username is the name used when you logged into mBase. If your installation is NOT using Security, then your username will always be the default Admin. To filter the logs by one specific username, select that name from the combo box at the top of the User column. This is a useful way to see all your own outstanding tasks, or some other user's. 11. New ReportsThe following new reports have been introduced with version 4.8: Member Form
Member Supercategory Form
Member Category FormMembership Reports
Analysis Reports
Organisation Form
Organisation Category Form
Bill Class (Event) Form
Bill Item (Activity) FormAttendee Reports
Financial Reports
Cash Book Form
Subject Form
Association Form
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