How to set up a new Tasting Room

Introduction

Already using AMS and in need of opening a new Tasting room? Not sure where to start? While there is a lot of back-end setup required to get a new Tasting room fully functioning this document will go over what is needed. Please make sure that you have full access to your system and the central tables to get started. If you have any questions while going through this set up please contact the Helpdesk.

Table of Contents

Articles Referenced in this Article

Create Tasting Room Master (SYA-CTL-CCT table code TRM)

An entry is needed in this table for each tasting room.  You will typically set up separate tasting rooms for sites that you run as separate businesses or that have separate inventory locations.  Certain defaults for cash registers and batch credit-card processing are set up in this table.  This important table is one that you will most likely “set and forget”.

  • Description - Will appear on reports and show on the cash register screens.
  • Default transaction type & transaction cat (category) codes - Each register may have its own defaults that override these defaults. These codes are discussed in detail later.
  • Use implied decimal point – If this is “Y”, typing 53 on a cash register would mean 53 cents, 2053 would mean $20.53. If this is “N” you must type the decimal point on the register to indicate cents.  e. 53 would mean $53.00, and 2053 would mean $2053.00.
  • Print discount on receipt – If “N”, discounts will not print on receipt. This would only be done if you have a confusing discount structure.  It was created for a brewery, at which a 6-pack was heavily discounted compared to a single bottle.
  • Print receipt for nosale – A no-sale is used to open the cash drawer. You may, or may not, want a receipt printed.
  • Print receipt for void – This has four options: “O” means print receipts for voided orders, but not voided items within an order; “L” means print voided items on receipts, but do not print receipts for voided orders; “Y” means print both voided detail lines and voided orders; and “N” means do not print voided orders or voided items.
  • Total sale after each entry – Enter a “Y” to have the system recalculate the sale total after each item of the sale is input. If this setting makes the register too slow, an “N” can be entered instead to speed up the cash registers.
  • Check quantity on hand – If “Y”, the cash register operator will be warned when trying to sell an item that is out of stock in the location, and the operator will have to press an extra key to acknowledge the problem. This is a way of having the system notify you of inventory problems as they occur.
  • Product Price Tag Price Class – A code from table PRS (discussed later) that determines what price prints on bar code labels.
  • Product Price Tag Price Category – This is an obsolete field that is on the screen for backward compatibility.
  • Default sales tax per TR location – This is the area where you will identify your State and County Code for Sales Tax calculation. You would also identify your City where the tasting room is if you City has a City Sales Tax rate.  You can also identify your Zip Code for Sales tax calculations
  • Balance Sheet Cost Center – This is used for AMS clients who have multiple “companies” within one company on the AMS system. This allows for a specific Tasting Room to be assigned to a certain Balance Sheet Cost Center.

Transaction Codes

Overview

Every item in a sale from the tasting room is a “Transaction”, as are no-charge samples and pours.  The basic set of transactions that most tasting rooms use is the following:

  • Carry-out sales
  • Ship-to sales
  • Carry-out no-charges
  • Ship-to no-charges
  • Returns of any of the above
  • Pours

Any given winery may have to expand one or more of the above into several different transactions.  For instance, you may ship from multiple locations, or need to account for different kinds of shipments differently (i.e. ship orders placed by tasting room walk-in customers vs. mail-order shipments).  More commonly, you have to account for several different kinds of no-charge samples.  In these cases, you would set up a different transaction code for each kind of transaction.  This allows accounting to book them to the appropriate general ledger accounts, and remove inventory from the proper locations.

In addition to the need to post costs and income to different general ledger accounts, and to relieve inventory from different locations, you may also simply wish to use different transaction codes for different kinds of sales so you can report back later to analyze your business.

To facilitate the creation of transaction codes, they are composed of three other codes, the “tasting-room”, “transaction-type”, and “transaction-category”.  A transaction type is a “Sale”, “No Charge”, or “Return”; a transaction category is a “Carry-out”, “Mail-order”, “Club-shipment”, etc.

Some of the following discussions may seem complex.  There are samples from a recently set-up AMS winery that you can refer to.  The samples are after the technical descriptions and should help clarify any obscure points.

Table TRT – Transaction Types

A transaction type is used in building a transaction code to indicate whether the transaction is a sale or return and whether it is Revenue or Non-revenue (sample, pour, etc.).  See the examples later for a typical winery.  The below example is No charge.

Table TTC – Transaction Categories

A transaction category is coupled with a transaction type (and the tasting room code) to create a transaction code.  You can think of it as variations on the transaction type.  The below is a specific kind of No charge.  The later examples show that this winery uses several no-charge categories.

Table TTX – Transaction Codes

Note that the transaction code below consists of tasting room code (1), transaction type code (SA), and transaction category code (TR).

  • Description – Prints on sales reports if you run them by TTX code.
  • Default ship location code – from what location does this kind of transaction usually ship? This comes from table LOC, which is not documented here.  Your LOC codes should have been set up between AMS training and accounting already.  If the transaction is a shipment, but not a “quick” ship (see below), you can change the ship location after the order has been entered, but before inventory has been relieved (see Point of Sale Shipping manual).
  • Default PS bill-to customer number – the default customer for this kind of sale. For instance, you may have a single “generic customer” (see Point of Sale Customer Management manual) that represents carry-out sales to people not in your database.
  • Post to OE customer number – IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO SET THIS CORRECTLY. This helps determine how this kind of sale posts to the General Ledger for accounting.  Mistakes here are difficult to correct.  This OE customer (set up in menu ARCSM, option CCC) supplies the Customer Financial Code used in setting up the G/L cross reference (see Point of Sale G/L Posting manual).
  • In addition, this is the customer that is used in our Sales reporting database. There are two sets of customers here: tasting room customers (you may have tens of thousands of these), and wholesale customers (usually a lot fewer).  The Sales Reporting database has to post your tasting room sales to one or more customers in the wholesale database.  Usually, these are “generic” tasting-room customers.  In the examples shown later, you see that all tasting room sales at this winery post to the same “wholesale” customer, 9999.  Thus sales reports run from menu SA will show all tasting room sales as being to this customer.  Sales reports run from menu PSRPM will use your tasting room customers.
  • Carry out/Ship – A single transaction cannot be both. However, there can be several different kinds of transactions in one sale.  (For instance, a customer may carry out a bottle of wine and ask for a case to be shipped to his home.)
  • OE post to customer number source – As mentioned above, all transactions end up posting to an OE customer, which helps determine how costs and income are posted to the general ledger. In addition to this screen, an OE customer can be attached to a tasting room customer (see Point of Sale Customer Management manual).
  • If this flag is “T”, then any OE customer attached to a tasting room customer is ignored, and the OE customer attached to the transaction is always used.
  • If it is “C”, then the OE customer attached to the transaction is ignored, and the OE customer attached to the tasting room customer is always used. (OE customer is optional on tasting room customers.  If you have a transaction that requires an OE customer on a tasting room customer, and try to make a sale with that transaction using a tasting room customer without an OE customer, the register will indicate that it is not allowed.)
  • If this flag is blank, then the OE customer from the tasting room customer will be used if it exists, otherwise, the OE customer from the transaction code will be used.
  • Require clerk information input – Often used to prompt the clerk to enter the name of the recipient of a no-charge, or the reason for a return.
  • Clerk information prompt/rpt desc – The left field is what the cash register program will use to prompt the sales clerk for a reason, the right is what will appear on reports to the left of whatever the clerk enters. This might be the reason for a return, or the recipient of a sample.
  • Inventory transaction code – All movements of inventory (sales, returns, receives, etc.) have an associated inventory transaction code.  These are set up in central table ITC, which is not documented here.  Your ITC codes should already have been set up by AMS and your accounting department.  If you need help choosing one or think you need a new one, please check with your AMS expert, or call the help desk.
  • Sales type code – Sales types are used for reporting purposes.  For instance, you may want different sales types for each kind of no-charge you support.  Sales types are set up in central table SAT, which is not documented here.  If you need help choosing one or think you need a new one, please check with your AMS expert, or call the help desk.
  • Notify if not in batch – usually used to remind clerks to enter pours at the end of the day. If this flag is “Y”, the clerk will be notified when “cashing out” the register if transactions of this type were not included in the batch.
  • Futures only – Futures must have their own unique transaction codes, as they are accounted for differently.
  • Require Event code – Event codes are defined in table TRE, discussed later in this document. You may wish certain transactions to require the clerk to enter an event code.
  • Ship date entry mode – shipment orders require the entry of a ship-date.
  • If this flag is “T”, then today’s date (current date of sale) is filled in automatically (it can be overridden).
  • If it is “E”, then the clerk will be prompted to enter the date for each such transaction.
  • If it is “R”, the clerk will be prompted for the first such transaction in a batch, and the register will “R”epeat that date in subsequent such transactions (again, it can be overridden). Quick-ship transactions always use the current batch date for the ship date.
  • Override shipping code – Shipping codes (which include calculation of shipping charges) are discussed in detail elsewhere in this document. When a shipment transaction is entered, the shipping code will be filled in from the customer, unless an override is entered here.  In either case, the clerk can manually override at the time the order is entered.
  • Allow “quick” shipping – If this flag is “Y”, inventory is relieved in the system as soon as a sale is completed (using the current batch date as ship date). In this case, no further steps are required to complete the inventory update.  Alternatively, if you leave this flag blank, you can leave orders unshipped after tendering.  In either case, you can later print packing documents, create export files for UPS, etc.  See Point of Sale Shipping manual for details.

Below are examples of transaction types (TRT), transaction categories (TPC), and transaction codes (TTX) from a typical AMS user.

Tables used for pricing

This may be hard to follow, but you probably only have to create price classes once, and the AMS help desk is available to guide you.  There are three central tables involved:

Table PRS – Price class, used to enter prices into the system

Table TPT – Price type.  This is the code that is attached to customers.

Table TPC – Price class translation. A combination of tasting room code and TPT code.  This links customers to a price class (PRS) for each tasting room.  This allows you to have different prices for the same customer and the same product in different tasting rooms.

Pricing is determined by what kind of customer makes a purchase (i.e. walk-in retail customer, employee, club member, etc.).  In AMS we refer to a group of customers having the same pricing as a Price Class, and prices are entered using Price Class codes.  These are defined in central table PRS, an example of which is shown below.  This table is used for both tasting room prices and wholesale prices.  The three Y/N questions on this screen pertain only to wholesale orders, so it doesn’t matter what you put in them.

Table PRS – Price Class

This is a 2 digit code that will be used in the pricing system.

Table TPT- Price Type

On page two of the customer maintenance screen is a single character field called Price type, as shown below.

Table TPC – Price Class Translation

In this example, customers with price type “I” who purchase at tasting room “1”, will be charged the prices set up under price class “IW”. Price category code on this screen is an obsolete field, and is here for backward compatibility.


Register Set up - PSFMM.MRM

All order entry is done through the cash register program, whether run on an actual register PC with cash drawer and receipt printer, or a Windows PC used to enter mail-order type orders.  Even wine club orders that are created in mass are associated with a register (register code is always “$” for these orders). You want to set up any registers you will need for your new tasting room, once you are done please contact the helpdesk to have the Tasting Room Merchant added to each register that will be processing credit cards.

The following screen is in menu PSFMM, option MRM. See Maintain Register Master File (MRM) for details


Setting Receipt Message - PSFMM.MTM

In menu option PSFMM.MTM you can set the receipt headings, such as company name and address. Followed by any special messages to your shoppers and the ending of your receipts. Most registers today do not have a pole, you can disregard the pole message section.


Order Control - PSSCM.MOC

In menu option PSSCM.MOC - Maintain Order Controls you will set your state, shipping, and if applicable wine club controls. This menu option also sets 'Tasting Room Defaults" if your system is set up to use Dynamic Pricing for Retail and Wine Club Customers.

Since you already have a fully functioning Tasting room you can use the copy feature to copy from one Tasting room to the next. This will help eliminate alot of data entry for both STATE CONTROL and SHIPPING CONTROL. If your new tasting room will not be accepting orders from specific states I would still recommend fully copying from one TR to the next and then make any edits after the copy is done.

1- State control

State control defines which state you can accept and ship orders to.

Using the Copy feature at the top of the screen and then selecting the copy FROM TR code and the copy TO TR code. Verify the copy of entries will be correct and press YES to continue.

  • T.R. - Tasting Room Code
  • Tasting Room Desc - Description of TR code found in central table TRM
  • State - State code
  • OK ORM - Allows order entry for orders for the specified state.
  • OK Inet - Allows order entry from AMS Web cart for the specified state.
  • OK EVM - Allows event reservations for specified state through AMS Event system.
  • Temp hold-
  • Quick Add MCT Template - Defines the template used for customer pages 2 and 3 when a customer is added via Customer Quick Add.
  • Quick Add Template Desc - Description of template code from menu option PSCUM.MCT.
  • INET Cust Template - Defines the template used for customer pages 2 and 3 when a customer is added via the AMS web cart.
  • Template Desc - Description of template code from menu option PSCUM.MCT.

3 - Shipping Control

Shipping control defines what shipping codes can be used in which states.

Using the Copy feature at the top of the screen and then selecting the copy FROM TR code and the copy TO TR code. Verify the copy of entries will be correct and press YES to continue.

  • T.R. - Tasting Room Code
  • Tasting Room Desc - Description of TR code found in central table TRM
  • State - State code
  • Shipping Code - You can type in the shipping code you are wanting to add, or use the drop-down to choose. Shipping codes are added and maintained via PSSCM.MSC (Adding a New Shipping Code).
    • Shipping desc/ Level of Service code/ Level of Service Desc - all this data is pulled from the shipping code set up in MSC.
  • OK ORM - Allows use of the shipping code in the specified state within AMS.
  • OK ORM - Allows use of the shipping code in the specified state within the AMS web cart. Will show the shipping option in checkout to the customer. IF this box is checked the next few fields are optional.
    • SORT - This allows you to choose the order of the shipping codes in checkout. Sort option 1 is what will be the default option for the shopper shipping to each state, options 2, 3, 4, follows.
    • Only Valid for Member of club(s) - If a shipping code is for wine club members only you would fill in the wine club code here. Then only members of that club can use that shipping code. It would also display online to only members of the specified club.
    • Inet Description - This is the description of each shipping code that will be displayed to your shoppers in checkout.

Optional Customer codes

If you plan to use Quick add in the front-of-house registers or have a webcart for your new tasting room you will want to create tasting room-specific customer templates. These templates are created and maintained via menu option PSCUM.MCT - Customer Default Templates (MCT). This is where you will want to think about how you will run your reporting on customers. You can now set up tasting room specific Source codes, Market codes, and/or Region Codes.

Email Templates - PSSCM.MET

If you have the need for tasting room-specific emails such as receipts, order confirmations, shipment confirmations, etc then you will want to add those at this time. Please notify AMS if you would like to add an image as a header and footer information. You will need to supply the image in the size you wish it to display and the footer info you would like. More information on creating and maintaining email templates can be found here: MET - Maintain Emails & Texts, Communication Template Maintenance.