All information necessary for Minor files (other than the few items entered ‘on-the-fly’ - see under Accessing Minor Files above) will be entered in the Data Manager volume. Please refer to the Data Manager manual for more details about individual files. Note that you must possess the necessary entry privileges if you wish to enter the Data Manager or to delete records.
In the Data Manager, information is always entered to Minor files in a consistent manner. Selecting the appropriate menu item will first produce a list of all items currently in Enterprise 6. For example, selecting the Accounts menu item will produce the following list:
From here, items can be modified by double-clicking, items can be added using the [+] button and items can be deleted using the [Delete] button. For example, double-clicking an Account from the list shown above will produce the Accounts entry screen:
It is a good idea to spend some time planning the structure of the records in your Minor files before you implement use of Enterprise 6. Nowhere is this more important than in Accounts. The Accounts list which comes as standard contains many examples of good practice.
First, the structure is sortable and insertable - the items can be sorted into a meaningful order, and gaps are provided for later insertions. This practice is probably only necessary for Accounting files.
Second, the coding structure moves from the general to the specific, thus providing its sortability. For example, all sales items begin with 4, all cost of sales items begin with 5, thus the beginning of the Account Code represents the general The next two digits represent the more specific. As well as providing sortability, this practice makes reporting and looking up much easier. It is easy to produce a report on Cost of Sales items as you know their code has to start with 5, and similarly it is easy to produce a look-up list of all such items.
Finally, the list is comprehensive. This means that when being used as a look-up file, the desired option will always be there. This reduces the time needed to create records ‘on-the-fly‘ (which may be created by someone with no knowledge of the structure of the file, thus reducing its effectiveness) and also reduces the irritation of those who do not have the clearance to create records ‘on-the-fly’