BMS begins Newsletter

The AIRPEX Newsletter


BMS begins Newsletter

This marks the first edition of BMS's new AIRPEX Newsletter. It will be sent to all of our current customers and to others we think might be interested. We will be happy to send it to anyone you may suggest.

We will try to tell you about the latest changes in AIRPEX, our plans for the future and where we think the use of computers in the Transportation Industry will go in the future.

Please send any articles about your successes or any other topic you may think appropriate to Ad.


We've Moved!

Moving your office is not something you do without a lot of thought and planning. After nine years in the same location, we finally decided that the time had come. While the old space was adequate, we felt that we could use more space and a different environment. So far, things have been working out well.

The first step in any move is to reduce what you have to move and we worked for weeks to shed ourselves of much of the detritus of twenty years of operation. Finally, we packed everything and the movers came in. Since we moved on Saturday, we only lost about 1/2 day of work time. We were up and fully operational Monday morning.

The new space is in a 3-story office town house. The top floor houses Dennis, Stuart, Ed and Greg. The ground floor has Ad, Susan and Donald. We have a conference room, kitchen, storage and computers in the basement. Please come and see us soon.

BMS's new address is:

Business Management Systems
4001 Williamsburg Court
Fairfax, Virginia 22032

Our main phone numbers are unchanged. They are (703)591-0911 for voice and (703)591-6154 for FAX. The modem numbers did change but have been entered on all systems.




AIRPEX Meets the Internet

The Internet is a fact of computer life right now and BMS is prepared for it. We now have an Intranet (the Internet on a local system) running in our office and we can show you a Home Page with connections to our database. We have acquired a software product (called Lynx) which allows HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) inquiries on the text terminals most of our users have.

We are in the process of writing context sensitive HTML help files for all application programs. This will take a while, but it will greatly enhance our system.

These capabilities will also enable you to set up home pages on the Web with ties to the data contained in your databases. There will be some cost involved. For performance and security reasons the web site must reside on a completely separate computer system with direct serial connections to your main system. You will also need to contract with an Internet connection provider.

The benefit is that your customers will be able to use the Internet to inquire into the status of their shipments, order your services and learn about your company.

If you want to learn more about this new capability, call Ad.


Welcome Greg

We are happy to welcome Greg Rice who joined us recently as a Programmer. Greg is finishing his degree in Biology at George Mason. His many accomplishments include gourmet cooking, playing the bass in a jazz band and being an expert cabinet maker. Truly a Renaissance man. He has also proved to be a fine programmer and has learned our system quickly.


User Group?

John S. Connor, Inc. in Baltimore, MD has proposed that we establish user groups so that the users of our programs may meet periodically and share ideas. This might also give BMS some direction about how best to enhance our systems.

This certainly seems to be a good idea to us and we hope it does to you also. We think that there might be three groups, devoted to Import, Export and Domestic. Possibly the Export and Domestic groups could be combined.

Connor has offered to host the first of these meetings. We hope to schedule the first of them for April or May. Please let us know your ideas on this matter and whether or not you would be willing to participate.


Backups...Backups!

We have recently enhanced the backup routines on all AIRPEX systems. You probably have noticed some of the results of this work because you may have received e-mail about the process. There are several elements to this.

The first is that each tape is assigned a unique ID. This does two things. The first is that we maintain a catalog of the contents of each tape which includes the date and time of each file on your system. If it is ever necessary to restore a particular file, we can find out right where it is. The second benefit of the Tape ID is that we can tell whether or not the tape has been changed. Not changing tapes can lead to loss of data, so you are warned by a program that runs each day if the tape has not been changed.

The backup is set to run automatically in the middle of the night. After the tape is created it is checked and you are notified of any errors. This is important because the most likely thing to fail on your system is the tape drive.

Finally, the results of this process are e-mailed to BMS each day and reviewed by Donald. You need to carefully review the mail you receive about backups, but Donald will probably be talking to you if there are problems.


Our Staff

Ad Brault, Dennis Makurat, Stuart Gathman, Ed Bond, Donald Warf, Greg Rice and Susan Bond.



Some New ABI Features

-WORKSHEET - DATA ENTRY

There is a new option in entering worksheet data. F18 accesses a screen that provides an alternate method of entering tariff numbers. It is particularly useful with files having multiple lines requiring second tariff numbers, such as 9802 entries.

The new screen allows you to enter or display additional HTS numbers along with the primary number. The CTRL field is used to identify secondary or additional HTS numbers. An "S" indicates that the HTS number is a second tariff number. The CTRL field can still be used to control how multiple lines with the same tariff number are combined on the 7501.

This screen displays more HTS lines than the regular worksheet entry screen so it has advantages when entering invoices with many lines of data.

-7501 DATA ORDER

We have also come up with a method of displaying and printing tariff numbers in the order entered from the invoice, rather than sorting them in numeric sequence. There is a system flag that can be set. It then applies to all entries.

-STATEMENT DATES

Program modifications are available to provide more flexibility in assigning the number of days before an entry appears on statement. Most brokers prefer to have files show on either the 8th day or 10th day statement. You may have an importer on ACH that wants their entries to be on some other day, such as the 9th day. This can now be done automatically.

These features are currently available and will be installed as upgrades to your system. If some of these features are especially important to you, give us a call and we will expedite the software updates to enable you to begin using the feature.


User Responsibilities

You are responsible for changing backup tapes, cleaning the tape drive heads and cleaning the air filters. If you need training or supplies for any of these tasks, please contact Donald.
Published by Business Management Systems Inc.,
4001 Williamsburg Ct., Fairfax, VA 22032.
Copyright © Business Management Systems Inc. 1997

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