In Revision 3.12

Version 3.12 is a convergence update, combining the Series 200 and Series 300 into a common program for all Homes.
Series 200 Users will notice the absence of the Payroll function, (discontinued on 1 April 2001). A smaller backup file will result after the first Syscheck is run, as the old Wages backup files are deleted.

Series 300 Users will not notice much difference, although the program 'footprint' will also become smaller when a Syscheck deletes the '200' type files. These files were present in the background in case the User had decided to convert to the 200 series for the Payroll function.
Certain safety issues have been addressed. There were reports of problems accessing Residents Register after an occurrence of memory shortage. If this should occur in 3.14, ProCARE will switch the display filters off (revert to 'ALL'), and reinstate the master Residents database.

In Revision 2.08

(1) Monthly Rollover Diskette Backup
A bypass for the Monthly Rollover diskette backup if the diskette drive fails or is otherwise not available. The Monthly Backup is written to the hard drive instead.
This is for emergency use only to enable a rollover to be completed.
If the hard drive fails, both the current database and the backup are lost.

(2) Staff Wage Records
Addition of a separate "Cashup Value" line for a final pay.
This feature will work in retrospect. The new line will appear on the wages records for employees who have been terminated in the past.

(3) Resident Discharge Dates
It has been possible for a Resident discharge date to be entered prematurely in the Register. e.g. entering a July date while entering data for the June Accounting period.
This could have been the cause of some mysterious failures of Charge & Receipt postings to Board Accounts in the past.
ProCARE now checks and traps such entries and disallows Rollover until rectified.

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In Revision 2.07 (also incorporated in 2.08)

(1) BNZ PC Banking module update.

Works in conjunction with the BNZ upgrade diskette. The ProCARE update is loaded before the BNZ update.
(also applicable to the 300 Series Update 3.07 in Creditors Payment)

(2) Staff Terminations

Attempted fix for the problem of persistent Staff after employment termination. Only a couple of homes are having this problem and it can't be duplicated in the Wellington office. We will wait for reports.

In Revision 2.06 (also incorporated in 2.07)

(1) PAYE Module
New PAYE rates for the IRD year 2000-2001.

(2) BNZ PC Banking
The "Show individual transactions on Bank Statement" facility which was introduced in 2.05 has drawn a request to make it optional. It appears that some geographical areas are incurring extra Bank charges per line of Statement.
A switch added to MTS files setup makes this optional. The default is "Show Lump Sum per Batch" on Statement.

(1) Residents Display Filter
Extra filter "Current Home & Hospital" added to the Residents display filter. A little status colour identification work has also been done in the Staff and Resident subdirectories.

In Revision 2.05 (also incorporated in 2.06)

(1) Staff Termination Dates.
After the programming had to be changed for the IRD348 regime, Staff termination dates were no longer entered in the Staff Register. You waited until the PAYE to Pay function asked for them.

But the only way to terminate a (true) Casual and avoid the holiday pay calculation was to skip the "99" and enter a termination date in the Staff Register. This meant that the Casual didn't appear on the IR348 report for the month.

The following changes have been made -

The Termination date is never entered in the Staff register (in fact, it has been locked out). Staff are always terminated via the "99" function. However, when you "99" someone, you will be asked whether you want the holiday "cashup" value to be calculated and included in the final pay.

(2) IR348 icon on the Windows Desktop
Most Homes are OK and the system works as planned. When a PAYE to PAY report is run, the file under the desktop icon should be updated. Some didn't (and still don't).

It depends on whether your Windows Logon has been set to cater for multiple Users (each with a different password). If this is the case, then a separate Desktop is created for each User and ProCARE is writing the IR348 file to a "Desktop" that is not in use. ProCARE can't detect these extra "Desktops" (for the technically minded, because they are created under a 'long file name' directory called "All Users").

ProCARE now writes the IRD348 file to a new location - the folio "IRDfile" on your C: drive. If you create a shortcut to this folio on your Desktop, you can still call it from there.

The IR348 file is written simultaneously to the old location so that Single User and No Password Required types don't lose the plot. In other words, this is an addition, the old system is still in place for those who can use it.

(3) Staff Establishment Report
Was missing some Rates of Pay, depending on your mix of the selected options in 'Setup' of Penal or Contract rates. This has been sorted.

(4) BNZ PC Banking
For batches sent via the Creditors Banking Services function, your Bank Statement will now show individual transactions complete with Reference and Particulars, instead of a lump sum (the Statement will record what was paid to who).
Batches sent via Wages Banking Services are still returned as a lump sum.

A note on the background thinking here -
If Wages were returned as individual "Wage Packet" entries, they would all have to be entered separately in Receipts.
However, although your Creditors batch will be returned on the Statement as separate transactions, none of them have to be entered in Receipts because they are already in the ProCARE system.

(5) Backup Diskettes
Are now identified with the Home name as well as Session/Month and time/datestamp. You will see this when checking the date of a disk on the 'Log Backup Diskette & Date/Time Check' under 'Setup'. This update is for the benefit of those who run two or three Homes from different directories in the same computer.

The compression ratio on backup diskettes has also been increased.

 In Revision 2.04 (also incorporated in 2.05)

(1) Additions to the Creditors Payments via EFT.
Additions made in response to feedback from Users.
The Batch Total of EFT transactions was available only after the Banking Services had been run and the Batch created. The Batch Total and number of transactions appears on the resulting printed report.
In the event of an unexpected Total (errors made during invoice entry), it was a tedious job to erase the 'Paid' dates in the Creditor Edit function (this is necessary to enable the Batch to be re-run after corrections have been made).

(1) The Batch Total is now displayed on the Banking Services screen before the 'Due Date' is entered. If no 'Due Date' is entered, Banking Services exits immediately back to the Creditors function list.

(2) In Creditor Edit, the 'Paid" date can now be erased with a single key-stroke from entries on the EFT transaction list.

There was also a minor bug in the first release (2.03). EFT transactions could be deleted only in the "All" mode. The deletions appeared to take place in "EFT" mode, but immediately reappeared. This has been fixed.

(2) Resident Admission and Discharge History
As you know, ProCARE works on a monthly cycle. Admission and discharge fields for each Resident are checked just before Monthly Rollover. This makes it difficult where a Temp Resident is dropping in and out of the Home like a yo-yo during the course of any one month. ProCARE picks up the first and last dates for charge posting and loses sight of the intermediate dates. It's just as well that Temps don't create board accounts and finance tracking isn't a problem, otherwise we would have to have Daily Rollovers (like a Motel) rather than our Monthly Rollovers.

The new report (under Resident Reports) prints a log of all changes made to the admission and discharge date fields. This means that one record can be used per Resident and continuous changes to the admission and discharge dates will leave a track record of his/her movements.

This report can be called at any time, it never clears - latest entries are at the top. We can decide later whether to drop 3year old entries off the end as we do in the wages records.

(3) Addition of an automatic Memory Optimiser
Computers are now being released from manufactureres and retail outlets without any provision for memory management for MS-DOS programs. They are sometimes released without even a basic CONFIG.SYS file. This is fine for 100% Windows based and light-weight MS-DOS programs like Westpac DeskBank, but ProCARE can encounter memory problems in 'high-load' work areas.
The main areas of concern are -
(a) Entry into Residents and Staff subdirectories where filtering and sorting takes place.
(b) The creation of Batch files for Wages and Creditors in 'Banking Services'.

The Memory Optimiser takes the form of a switch in ProCARE (under 'Setup').
The default setting is "Off".
If switched on, the Memory Optimiser checks for the existence of a CONFIG.SYS file, creates one if absent, then sets up the 'HIMEM" and "EMM386" memory managers.
If the switch is returned to 'Off', the CONFIG.SYS file reverts to the original state.

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In Revision 2.03 (also incorporated in 2.04)

(1) Separation of Wages and Creditors payments via EFT.
Creditors payments were attached to the bottom of the wages file and were transmitted to the Bank at a time dependent on the wages schedule.
This method dates from a time when Creditor payments via EFT were few and far between. Now it is common practice.

Creditor invoices may now be marked for payment via EFT and accumulated in numbered batch files.
The wages function remains unchanged (except for the deletion of the Creditors attachment facility).
Updated Userguide. The Creditors EFT facility is described in the UserGuide under the Creditors function list, para.5.05.

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In Revision 2.02 (also incorporated in 2.03)

(1) A "Resusitation" (yes or no) field in the Resident's Personal Detail page.
We understand that Residents now have a legal right to choose not to be resusitated in cases of potentially fatal heart attacks or similar occurrences. This new field reports to the Residents Register page.

(2) Staff Holidays - Change of terminology.
The "Proportional Pay" system of calculating holidays has always caused initial confusion among part-time Staff. Most Homes consider the 15 days holiday to be 15 units of annual leave of xx$ per unit. The suggestion has been received that we should formalise this way of thinking by changing the term "days" to "units" on the pay advices and elsewhere in the program. This cosmetic alteration is the only change to the system. I am assured that part-time Staff would find this easier to understand instead of "but I didn't ask for 5 days, I just wanted 1 !!!".
"The less hours that an employee works per week, the more units represent one day." This appears to be much easier than saying " The less hours that an employee works per week, the more days represent one day."
Please advise if this change creates unforeseen problems.

(3) End of Month Summary Report.
Somewhere along the line, we lost the Title Heading to the End of Month Summary - Expenditure Report. It has been reinstated.

(4) Addition to the error sensing enhancement in 2.01
Some Homes use ProCARE in the clipped down '240' mode, (don't do accounts or monthly rollovers because accounts are done by Head office). The new error sensing mechanism in 2.01 immediately got to work and gave them huge lists of missing Board Accounts on the "For your Urgent Attention" screen - sigh.
In future, if your Accounts are in "locked" mode, you won't get the Board Account reporting.

(5) Slow/Fast Scan Option for Wages "Preview All"
The "Preview All" function has deliberate pauses built in to enable you to check individual employee calculations and to freeze the display if necessary. There are occasions where a "Preview All" is done only for the purposes of wages calculation with no requirement to visually check each one. In this case, you would use the 'fast' scan.

(6) Bug fix in Resident's Reports - Past Occupancy

The software was interpreting an empty 'discharge' field (current Resident) as equating to a value greater than the requested 'start' date and not less than the 'end' date. The result was that some Residents outside the requested time span were included in the report.

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In Revision 2.01 (also incorporated in 2.02)

(1) A new error sensing routine in the "For your Urgent Attention" power-up screen.
This detects missing Board Accounts, specifically those Residents whose admission date fell outside the operating month in which they were entered into the database.
This provides a follow-up for the warning which occurs at the time of the 'New Resident' entry. It will also report on Board Accounts which should be present, but are missing for any other reason.

(2) An over-ride facility for deleting duplicate employee records.
The 'Permanent Erasure' function will not allow an employee to be erased if the totals in the record are required for the Financial End of Year report (Gross YTD & PAYE etc).
In the event of a power spike or glitch of some kind during processing, ProCARE will restore a record which appears to be lost. If it turns out that it wasn't lost after all, then a duplicate record may appear in the Staff Register.
ProCARE has erred on the side of safety, but the duplicate must still be removed. Prior to Version 2.01, the removal had to be performed by Link from Wellington.

(3) New error messages report.
On occasion, the For your Urgent Attention screen may overflow and some messages may not appear until others have been cleared. The new report is found under the subject "MISC" and is a list of all errors found during the last daily system check. It also includes, under a separate heading, all messages from the last SYSCHECK to be run.

(4) Daily system check reset.
The daily system check runs only on the first ProCARE session of the day. Prior to Version 2.01, if you wanted to check your For your Urgent Attention screen again, you had to wait until tomorrow. When the flag is reset (under MISC), ProCARE will perform another daily system check when next accessed.

(5) Bank files for transmission by modem are directed to a separate folder named BANKSERV.
This is a convenience measure only to cater for certain Bank programs that do not remember the path/filename location of the (e.g.) DB1234.AFI Bank file. Having to locate it via a browse function in the ProCARE folder among 200+ other files was a little tiresome. The Bank file/s now have the folder BANKSERV all to themselves!.
Note: The Bank files are also written to their original location in the ProCARE folder so that Bank programs that do remember won't lose the plot!
This amendment was introduced in the last of the IRD Betas (Build 7).

(6) Summary Report Board Accounts.
Has been split into separate sections for Home and Hospital. Each section has its own credit and debit totals.