1. Changing tax Processing on documents
To quickly change from Tax Inclusive processing to Tax Exclusive (and vice versa) while processing documents such as an Invoice, GRV etc, press the Control and F5 keys on the keyboard while the relevant document is open. Select the Yes option.

2. View gross margin Per transaction
Pastel Evolution allows you to view the gross profit or loss generated per transaction line when processing inventory transactions.

• Customise the way the document displays by right clicking on the header row (as indicated below) and selecting the Customise Grid Columns function
• Click on the Gross Margin field and drag it to the header row
• You may also do this for the Gross Margin % field if required

This will indicate your gross margin and assist you with determining the correct selling price before updating the document.

3. Fixed asset dePreciation
When capturing a take-on balance for a fixed asset, Pastel Evolution needs to adjust its calculation of depreciation per period from the first processing period onwards. It does this by using the following formula to determine the new depreciation per period:

[Purchase Price – Total Take On Balance (Prior Year's Take On plus Current Year Take On) – Residual Value] divided by the number of periods remaining on the asset’s life from the first processing period

4. Easy logon
Single users of Pastel Evolution who frequently work on a particular company, can save time by skipping the logon screen and going directly into the company by creating a shortcut. To set this up:

• On the Login screen, enter the correct agent name and password for that company (e.g. 'Budget'), select the Save Password and Default Profile options
• When the Pastel Evolution program shortcut is selected, the company ‘Budget’ will open automatically, skipping the logon screen

5. Automatic discounts
Customers can be setup to automatically receive a fixed discount percentage on their purchases and credit notes. This percentage is allocated on the Customer Maintenance screen | Customer tab.

Activate automatic discounts by clicking on this option in the Default screens for Inventory Invoices and Credit Notes. If this option is not selected, the user will still be able to manually enter a discount on the document.

6. Performing bank reconciliations on purged bank transactions
When a Purge First Year is performed, all un-reconciled bank account transactions are not deleted with the rest of the General Ledger accounts for the first year. This is to ensure that users are still able to reconcile the bank account for the purged years thereby ensuring that the bank reconciliation is always in balance.

7. Running BIC reports from the desktop
Frequently used BIC reports can be accessed from your desktop, without having to open the Pastel Evolution program. To set this up:

• Open the BIC Report Manager utility
• Right click on the relevant BIC report and select the option: Create PR2 File
• Browse for your Desktop, verify the shortcut name to be used and click on the Save button.
• Click on OK to complete the process

8. Adding new BIC reports to the Pastel Evolution’s BIC reports screen
Customised BIC reports may be added to the BIC Default Reports screen without having to open the BIC Report Manager utility. To do this:

• Open BIC Report Manager utility
• Select the specific report on the left
  

  

• On the Properties tab, select the option Show Advanced
• Enter the selected report’s System Module Classification code on the Properties tab

For example :

• You may assign one of the following 5 System Module Classification codes:

  AP – Accounts Payable module
  AR – Accounts Receivable module
  GL – General Ledger module
  IC – Inventory module and
  PAY – Payroll module

• Select the option Make Available in Pastel Evolution Menu on the Properties tab

  

• Enter a report code value on the Report Code field, to enable the report to be published.
This can be any alphanumeric value.

• Click the Apply button to save the changes
• Re-open the Evolution program to access the report in the main Evolution screen.

9. Preventing ‘My Desktop’ items from loading when opening an Evolution company

When a Pastel Evolution company is opened, it may take a while to load the My Desktop items on the System Tree. To speed up the loading process, you may disable these items from being loaded on start up as follows:

• On the Pastel Evolution Utilities menu, select Explorer Options
• Select the Performance tab, tick option Do not pre-load any forms and click OK

10. Auto summing exported Evolution data in MS Excel
After exporting Pastel Evolution data to MS Excel, you may find it difficult to sum the numeric data using the auto-sum function. The reason for this is that not all cells are recognised by MS Excel as proper numbers. You will also notice that these cells have been flagged green.

To resolve this, do the following:

• Highlight the data within the numeric column, excluding the relevant column heading
• Move your cursor slowly to the top left of the first row until you notice the yellow flag
• Select the yellow flag and then the Convert to Number option from the menu
• This will convert your data to number formats and you will be able to make use of the auto-sum feature