Version 8.5.0.0 - May 25, 2010

Version 8.5.0.0 requires the purchase of the 2010 Update License. All future updates for 2010 will require Version 8500 or later.

FILE STRUCTURE CHANGES

The 8.5 Release of AccuBuild is a version update release which indicates that existing company data file structures have been modified and new tables have been added for this version.  AccuBuild will automatically restructure your company data to the new format the first time you open the program.  You must allow the restructure process to finish so that your company data will be compatible with all of the new features in AccuBuild Version 8.5.  The File Structure prompting screen will occur several times as follows:

Each user should refresh their AccuBuild screen after an update is installed so that new menu options and reports (as applicable) may be visible. Instruct each user to follow these steps to refresh their screen. Open the AccuBuild program and open the company.  Click on the down-arrow on the main screen that is located under the X that is used to close the AccuBuild program.  Click Add or Remove Buttons; click Reset Toolbar.

SCHEDULING

•NEW MODULE - The AccuBuild Scheduling Module is used to create project schedules which incorporate both tasks and resources.  The tasks and resources can be created manually or automatically by importing the information from AccuBuild data files.  Tasks are imported by linking the schedule to an AccuBuild job number and then importing selected job detail items (estimates, billing items, sub payment sheet items) to the schedule.  Resources are imported to a global resource list which is available to all projects and are pulled from work classification codes (union file), employee list, vendor / subcontractor list, and the equipment list.

In addition to scheduling tasks, one of the biggest benefits of the AccuBuild Scheduling module is the ability to produce Cost Loaded and Billing Loaded schedules.  When the schedules are linked to a job, a vast amount of cost and revenue projection data can be tracked on a daily basis including scheduled costs, revenues, and profit as well as actual costs, revenues and profits.  In addition, these schedules can be used to track cash flow and schedule employees and equipment as task resources.

Other benefits include automatic import of completion percentages from the job schedule to the schedule of values for contract billings and importing of schedule tasks and resource usage to the Daily Reports in the Project Management module.

ACCOUNTS PAYABLE

•CORRECTION - ComData MasterCard Payments - The Schedule Payments Advanced Grid Screen was not working correctly for paying invoices with the ComData MasterCard option.  This problem has been corrected and the advanced grid screen option can now be enabled – see Accounts Payable Properties option for more information on the Advanced Grid option.

ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE

•CORRECTION - The MAR Form for A/R Invoices did not include overhead and profit markup lines on the invoice. This has been correct in the update.

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

•CORRECTION - The Folder Templates option was not allowing folders in a folder template to be deleted and this feature is now working correctly.

•CORRECTION - When documents were moved from one folder to another, any additional index tags relating to master list data were being cleared.  For example, if an employee document was moved from one employee folder to another employee folder and that document contained an index link to a job number, the job number index link field was cleared.  This problem has been corrected.

GENERAL LEDGER

•ENHANCEMENT -  The General Journal and Post Closing Journal entries will now save the reference group number in the "gl_ref_no" field of the gldetail.adt table.  Previously this field was only available in the batch file before the entries were posted.

INVENTORY

•ENHANCEMENT - Several Unit Pricing methods and descriptions have been added to the inventory module for inventory part pricing:

•LF - Lineal Foot

•LY - Lineal Yard

•SF - Square Foot

•CF - Cubic Foot

•CY - Cubic Yard

•QT - Per Quart

•LB - Per Pound

•HR - Per Hour

•WK - Per Week

•MN - Per Month

•DY - Per Day

JOB COST

•ENHANCEMENT - A new feature has been added to the Contract Billings to automatically import the percentage of completion for each line item from the Job Schedule.  Job Schedules are created under the new Scheduling Module which is part of the 8.5 Software Release and now available for purchase.  Refer to the documentation on the new Scheduling Module for more information.

•CORRECTION - The billing description on Contract Billings was being truncated on jobs where the job number was 8 characters (numbers/letters) in length and the progress billing number was greater than 9.  For example "Job 12345678 Progress Billing No. 1" would be used for billing number 1, 11, 12, 13, 100, 101 etc. because the billing description field is limited to 35 characters.  This problem has been corrected in this release by shortening the word "Billing" to simply "Bill" as in "Job 12345678 Progress Bill No. 1"

•CORRECTION - The Job Templates screen now checks for valid cost phases and valid billing phases during the entry process to prevent invalid phases from being posted to the detail items file (estdetl.adt) in the job cost module. Maximum Phase value is 999999.99.

•CORRECTION - The Estimate Import screen which imports job breakdowns from Excel now checks for valid cost phases and valid billing phases during the entry process to prevent invalid phases from being posted to the detail items file (estdetl.adt). Maximum Phase value is 999999.99.

•CORRECTION - The Residential Templates screen which creates cost and billing breakdowns for residential track construction projects now checks for valid cost phases and valid billing phases during the entry process to prevent invalid phases from being posted to the detail items file (estdetl.adt).  Maximum Phase value is 999999.99.

MY ACCUBUILD REPORTS

•CORRECTION - Changes were made to the report calculations on the job cost report titled 'Future Year WIP Schedules' where the Prior Year Estimate Cost was not respecting the setting for calculating estimates based on profits.

•ENHANCEMENT - The job cost report titled 'Job Cost by Category' has been updated to include new accumulators for cash basis cost, prior year and future year costs and units.

•ENHANCEMENT - The pop-up menu on the MAR Report Viewing Screen now allows you to enable an export dialog for ALL types of export options.  Previously this option was only available for PDF Exports.  The export dialog allows you to make changes to the default export settings for reports that are export to Word, Excel, PDF, or HTML.

•ENHANCEMENT - The MAR Reports Menu has been expanded to include a new section for Job Schedule Reports.

•CORRECTION - Accounts Receivable Aging Reports - The calculations for retention amounts have been adjusted in order to properly report retention amounts under the retention column.  In some instances, the retention amounts were not being shown under the retention column.

•ENHANCEMENT - The Custom Form Assignments option in MAR now supports Purchase Order Forms to be assigned to specific job numbers.  Now you can have specific Purchase Order forms for specific job numbers in the same manner as contract billing forms can be assigned to specific job numbers.

PAYROLL

•ENHANCEMENT - The 2010 HIRE Act will exempt employer's portion for Social Security Tax for qualified Employees on wages PAID from March 19, 2010 through December 31, 2010.  If you have employees who qualify under this Act, you can flag them using the new HIRE ACT (HR2847) Employer FICA Tax checkbox on the Fed Tab of the employee list.

The AccuBuild Program has been changed with new business rules for tax calculations and employer burden pro-ration along with a set of revised payroll reports to help track employer FICA taxes on employees who qualify for this plan.

•NEW FEATURE - Expansion of Direct Deposit feature from handling a single bank account to now handling up to eight bank accounts.  If you are currently using direct deposit for an employee bank account, then you do NOT need to make any changes unless you want to enable the new feature for multiple employee bank accounts.

•ENHANCEMENT - Three new versions of the employee transaction report have been added to the Payroll Reports in MAR for reporting by the week ending cutoff date instead of the transaction date (check date):

•PRRep16D.645 – Employee Transaction Detail – by WE Date

•PRRep16E.645 – Employee Transaction – Employee Totals – by WE Date

•PRRep16F.645 – Employee Transaction – Totals Only – by WE Date

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

•ENHANCEMENT - The Daily Reports have been enhanced to interface with the Scheduling module.  Tasks and resources in a schedule can be imported into a daily report.

•ENHANCEMENT - A new MAR change order form has been added to the project management system which includes a summary of the current change order to the owner as well as the individual change orders to each applicable subcontractor.

•CORRECTION - Whenever a new user was created and the user accessed the PM Log and tried to print a PM Log Form in MAR, an error was generated because the USERGLOBALS.adt table was never being created for PM Forms and always relied on the table being created from any MAR Report.  This table will now be created automatically whenever the PM Log is opened in order to avoid this problem for new users in the AccuBuild System.

SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR - FILE HANDLING IMPROVEMENTS

Changes were made in the AccuBuild System to handle the new Microsoft Windows SMB 2.0 Protocol file caching changes that were causing File Missing 5004 Errors on selected report options in environments where the workstation and the file server were running Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.  Any mixture of these operating systems on the client and the server would cause the SMB 2.0 protocol to be used which caused the writing of disk files to remain in cache for up to 10 seconds before committed to disk which would generate a FALSE reading of File Missing when attempting to access the file.

NEW SETTING – The Main Menu will now show the internet protocol being used for the Advantage SQL Server.  The Default Protocol is UDP which is normally the fastest setting, however on networks where performance is marginal due to slow server / connection speeds, setting the Protocol to TCP/IP may help to eliminate timeout issues and some firewall issues.  To enable the TCP/IP protocol, set up the following entry in the [Settings] Section of the ADS.INI file which is located in the AccuBuild Program Directory:

         USE_TCP_IP = 1

The Connection Type Setting at the bottom of the AccuBuild Main Menu will now indicate if the system is set for the UPD or TCP/IP Protocol.