The good news about Merchant Plus! is that it doesn’t force the user to perform routine maintenance. The bad news is that it doesn’t force the user to perform routine maintenance! In Merchant Plus, important database management and purging processes are handily tied into a single, very easy to use function called Close Period. It’s a very simple, yet important, step.
The Close Period performs the following tasks:
- Un-posted transactions are identified. This is a great way to assure any work in process is completed before important reports and exports,like Open to Buy planning, are run.
- Prepaid Credits are Expired and Purged. If expiration dates are defined for Gift Certificates, Store Credits or Gift Cards, they will be expired: effectively removing them from the system and reclaiming any unused balances.
If expiring forfeited funds, the general ledger entries are made automatically. - Expired Sales Orders are Purged. Sales Orders are purged based on settings by Sale Order type (such as Approvals, Holds, Lay-aways, Special Orders, etc.). Sales Order with open Deposit balances are never removed.
- Improve system performance with Data Base Cleanup – Databases cleanup is an important step that can affect the speed and performance of processing. Several files are removed:
- Expired “Notes” are purged.
- Temporary Price Changes are removed
- Old aborted temporary database files are removed. This can significantly affect performance and even has it’s own transaction that can be used when processes are abnormally terminated.
- The Period is marked as Closed – Closing the Period prevents back dated entries which can be an important security and audit concern, even if the General Ledger isn’t being used. But, when using the G/L, the period can be closed immediately following the end of the month because it can so easily be opened as needed for back dated corrections and reconciliation entries.
Even if not using the General Ledger, the close period process should be run as soon as possible after the end of the month. In fact, if the General Ledger isn’t used, there is no excuse that it isn’t run on the first day of every month. As a matter of fact, if accounting isn’t integrated it is even more important to make sure all transactions are posted and no changes can be back dated when using system reports and exports for accounting purposes.
