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| Minotaur held it’s annual User Conference on October 27th at the Courtyards by Marriott in Brampton, Ontario. Users from across North America gathered for this full day event filled with information on new product development, free training sessions, third party speakers and much more. This year’s conference was a great success and we would like to thank everyone who attended. For those of you who were not able to make it, this is what you missed; |
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Minotaur .Net Interface Project Update
Minotaur has been working on a .NET Interface as a replacement for the existing GUI. The .Net Interface will have a new look and feel including new keys, buttons and features. Some of the features of this new Interface including sophisticated architecture and new technology make it much more powerful. Also new functionalities will be easier to add. The new interface will soon be ready for beta test sites. Once it is proven and stable, we will stop supporting the old GUI and then only be supporting console and .Net versions of the Minotaur System. If you are interested in being a beta tester, please let us know. |
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Minotaur’s Hand Held Interface: Bringing Technology out of the Office
Minotaur’s Hand Held Interface allows you to use hand held PCs to scan barcode information into a terminal server session. This information is captured live within Minotaur and there is no need for data transfers. The Hand Held Interface can be accessed from the standard Minotaur menu. During the scanning process data is being captured live in Minotaur so as the office staff enters new sales or purchase orders, staff in the back are able to receive and ship those orders using hand held devices. Inventory is updated without the need for docking the device and transferring data. Available interfaces include Shipping, Receiving, Product and Inventory transfers. |
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Minotaur Touch Screen Interface: Managing Real Time Production With
Ease & Accuracy
The Minotaur Touch Screen Interface is an application developed specifically for the production floor. It allows you to record product weights, generate serial numbers, print barcode labels, track production as it is produced and allocate it to specific orders. The Touch Screen Interface improves efficiency. Product can be produced against a specific sales order with customer specific labels. The completion of the order, produces a production run and shipment within the Minotaur system. All related documents are ready for printing. All touch screen production impacts the system in real time, there is no need to import or transfer scale data. It also offers improved accuracy and controls. For example it can eliminate errors due to production staff keying incorrect sales orders or part numbers into the scale interface, staff are advised when they have completed the order and also if a box is outside the acceptable weight tolerance. Although the existing application is designed to work with sales orders, it can be customized to work with work orders. |
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Tracking Quality Control Specifications & Managing Customer Criteria:
FIFO Lot Picking now takes into consideration customer criteria such as product age and quality control test results. The Invoice and Shipping programs have been modified to allow the user to print a Certificate of Analysis (CA). The CA reports on how the product meets the customer’s specifications. The program generates one CA for each lot shipped. Only criteria specified for that customer is included on the CA. |
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New Features of the Flexible Financials System
Minotaur’s Flexible Financials are 5 years old this year. As most of you know the available functionality is incremental. There are now some 24 versions of the income statement column layouts and about 15 versions of the balance sheet column layouts. As time progressed new functions were added to the newer versions but older versions were not updated for the new functionality. So if the flexible financial column layout you are using is older, there may be features that you cannot access. Some of these features include; bolding and un-bolding a line, underlining heading lines, centering heading lines, centering page headings, additional lines of page heading, setting the ratio multiplier, the ability to print columns for more that 10 periods at a time, |
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| use of parenting to identify departments, and much more. Please contact us if you would like to have access to some of these new features. We can add any of the existing column layouts to your system at a time and materials cost of installing them. We can also upgrade your favourite column layout to have access to the new features on a time and materials or flat fee basis. |
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Minotaur’s Flexible Financial System and Consolidation
Some of our customers have data in multiple databases. Sometimes this is because the companies are separate entities so this is entirely appropriate. In other cases, the various databases are simply divisions of a single company. In those situations, it would be beneficial to be able to get consolidated financial statements. In order to accomplish the consolidation, you will need a consolidation database. That database would exist almost solely for the purpose of printing financial statements. You will assign a divisional code to each of your databases. You can also assign the accounts related to a particular database a divisional parent in order to allow easier printing of divisional statements from the consolidated company. There are new options to export summary records and also to import summary records. Once complete the consolidated company will contain the general ledger summaries from all your divisions. You can then run consolidated financial statements. Please contact your Minotaur account representative if you would like more information on Minotaur’s divisional consolidation. |
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New Features of the Minotaur System
Minotaur has recently added some exciting new features to our system. Some of these features include High Speed Order & Invoice Entry, Order Entry Assistance, Order Entry Unit of Measure, Expiration Dates, and Unlimited Item Categories. |
| High Speed Order and Invoice Entry: Minotaur has developed a fast transaction entry process that does less interactive checking but allows the user to move more quickly. All critical checking still happens at the end of processing the order.. There is a fast template entry option that allows setting up templates for each day of the week and/or setting up templates with zero quantities. All the user has to do is adjust the quantity of each product for the current order. |
| Order Entry Assistants: We have developed additional information provided by the interactive order entry option. These include Drill Down (F11) and Purchase History(F12). The Drill down function allows you to see more information on a given item, when positioned on an item code in the order entry screen. The user can choose to display the item master file, complete stock information, MRP report, or the Audit report. The Purchase History function lists each part purchased by the customer and indicates the total quantity purchased over a user definable period of time, last price paid, and last date purchased. |
| Order Entry Unit of Measure: In the standard system each item is assigned a single ‘selling unit of measure’. It is actually the unit of measure the system uses to track inventory quantities throughout the system for that item. There is now an Order Entry Quantity on the Order Entry screen. The data entry clerk can enter the order entry quantity and the order entry unit of measure. The system converts this to a quantity in the ‘selling unit of measure’ using the system unit of measure conversion tables. |
| Expiration Dates: There is a new capacity to assign expiry dates to lot controlled parts. An expiry date can be assigned when receiving an item and can be calculated at production time based on the normal shelf life of the item being produced and the expiry date of raw materials used. |
| Unlimited Item Categories: We have recently added Attributes to our system. Attributes are a mechanism to provide you with essentially unlimited categorization capabilities for parts. There is a new option to define attributes. They can be set up to contain the following data types; dollars, dates, numbers, integers, upper case, yes/no, free. It is also possible to define the length of each attribute. Attributes are available on the standard system item selector so you can select only items which have particular attribute values when running reports which use the item selector. |
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Warehouse Management System-Containers:
We have recently added Containers functionality to the Minotaur WMS. The Container system allows users to assign product to a container. By referencing the Container serial number this product can be transferred, used, or shipped. Containers can be boxes, pallets, a room or a even trailer. This functionality will also enable tracking of inventory at the bin level. |
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Point of Sales:
For manufacturing and distribution businesses that also operate a retail store, an integrated computerized store checkout system will enhance business management through improved inventory controls and transaction processing. Minotaur has recently developed a new integrated POS module. The Point of Sale module is effectively an additional mechanism to process an invoice. These invoices, which are generally direct invoices that do not immediately reference a sales order, allow the user to efficiently scan product being sold. The POS invoice program integrates seamlessly with most wedge scanners available for attachment to personal computers. Your Minotaur account representative will be more than happy to provide you with more information on the new POS module. |
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Minotaur’s Sales Report Writer:
At this years conference we had an actual user of the Minotaur system as one of our guest speakers. Ed de Vries of Macgregor’s Meat & Seafood Ltd. presented on Minotaur’s Sales Report Writer. Macgregor’s implemented the Minotaur System in November of 2005. One of their key requirements was improved management reporting which was achieved through Minotaur’s Sales Report Writer. Ed’s presentation took us through the various steps of creating custom reports using the Sales Report Writer demonstrating the ease with which Minotaur users can create their own custom reports. |
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HACCP Compliance and Your Minotaur System:
Karen Cawley, an independent contactor used Minotaur to successfully get HACCP certification for a Minotaur dairy manufacturing customer. As one of the guest speakers at this years user conference, Karen emphasized the importance of lot tracking, stating ‘ one of the critical control points in HACCP is the records of the shipping/ receiving department.’ She goes on to speak about how HACCP records can be easily accessible in Minotaur. Some key points she emphasized include; additional information can easily be added to inventory files, lot tracking reports are easily obtainable, categories allow ease in look up of specific products, and updated information and changes are easy to do |
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Maximizing Your Return on Investment from your Web Site:
Ron Pineo of RWR Technology spoke to users on how they can maximize their return on investment from their web sites. RWR Technology is a full-service web site development firm focused on helping companies attract, capture and retain customers through world-class design, consulting, and online marketing. Ron has worked with Minotaur customers who wish to tie their Minotaur system into their web sites. For more information visit their Web Site at www.rwrtech.com. |
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Congratulations to Rhonda Bolema of Premier Foods Hazekamp in Muskegon, Michigan for winning the August newsletter contest. Rhonda is the lucky winner of $50 towards any fall home improvement project.
Hazekamp is a family owed business which started in 1905 as a slaughter house for beef products. No longer in the slaughtering business, Hazekamp now produces and delivers ready-cooked entrees, pre-packaged fresh meat products and seafood.
Congratulations Rhonda and we hope you enjoy spending your prize money! |
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| Jana Matthews Joins the Minotaur Team |
| We would like to welcome Jana Matthews to our Outside Sales team for new systems. Jana grew up in what is now the Czech Republic as an athlete traveling the world competing as both a World Cup downhill skier and as an Olympian in the 1984 Moscow Olympics, in wind-surfing. Her world travels allowed her to become fluent in five languages but she chose to make Canada her home eleven years ago. Most recently she has been running her own business in the cosmetics and aesthetics industry. Although Jana is new to software sales we are confident her international experience and background in sales will help her contribute to our organization. |
| Welcome to the Minotaur Team! |
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| Minotaur’s Newsletter is used to keep our current and future customers up to date on software enhancements and happenings at our company. For a free subscription to this publication, just click this link SIGN ME UP. |
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Out of the Maze is a publication of Minotaur Software Ltd.
18 Automatic Road, Unit 27
Brampton, ON L6S 5N5
Phone: (905)458-7575 Fax: (905)458-5585, Copyright 2006
Please write to us with your comments.
info@minotaursoftware.com |
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| Out of the Maze is published to inform our current and potential customers of the latest events and happenings at Minotaur. |
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| The information in this newsletter is provided to customers to use at their own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for professional advice. |
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