This program is used to remove records for:

• Inactive customers from the Customer File
• Inactive vendors from the Vendor File
• Extended Address records (if turned on) for the Customers and Vendors being purged.

PURGING THE CUSTOMER FILE

The following explanation assumes the Introduction to Purge chapter has been read.

Customer records consume a considerable amount of disk storage.Therefore, it is impractical to retain all customers on the system indefinitely. This program should be run regularly to remove old records, and make space available for new ones.

If a customer's last activity date is more recent than the cutoff date, the customer will not be purged.The customer's last activity date is updated automatically when a rental occurs.

Customers can be purged by customer type. but certain special customer types will never be purged:

• FOP codes (B, C, BC, CC);
• Location codes (O and F);
• Bad customer code (BAD)

To purge a customer with one of these type codes, first change the customer's type code.

Customers will not be purged if they match any of the following conditions:

• Balance due is not zero;
• Records for the customer exist in the A/R Open item file;
• RA, Reservations, Non-Revs, or Deposit/Payment records exist on file for the customer (whether as the renting customer or bill-to or FOP);
• This customer is referenced by another customer record as bill-to or pre-signed FOP.

TIPS

Be careful to follow the instructions regarding proper purging sequence as addressed in the Introduction to Purging chapter.

In general, most of the purging should be for the customer type specified in the Main Control record as the default type.

If all customers within a particular Type Code should not be purged, manipulate the type code of the records to purge (or not purge) to make the correct selections.

Additional drivers become customers, and are, therefore, subject to purging.

PRIOR to running this program the Selected Customer Report can be run with the same Type Code and date range that will be purged in order to get a listing of the records that will purge.

PURGING THE VENDOR FILE

Over the course of time, the Vendor File can become rather large due to travel agents who have referred business infrequently. Occasionally this file must be purged.

The Purge Customer/Vendor File program will purge a vendor if it meets the following criteria:

• The vendor must have a zero balance due.
• The vendor must not be referenced by any RA, Reservation, or Non-Rev on file. If the most recent 12 months of RAs are kept on your system, any vendor who has had activity with the last 12 months will be saved.

REMINDER OF THE ORDER OF PURGING

Remember, Reservations, RAs, and Non-Rev’s must be purged first in order for Customer and Vendor Records to purge.

EXTENDED ADDRESSES

When the Extended Address feature is turned on, the extended address records are purged when the customer and vendor records are purged.

To access this program: To access the Purge Customer/Vendor Files program, type PURGECV (RET) at any menu "OPTION:" field or the appropriate line number from the Purge Dependent Files menu. The screen will then display:

OPTION: __ PURGE CUSTOMER/VENDOR FILES 1. Purge customers Y 2. Purge vendors Y 3. Cust Cutoff Date 04-20-08 4. Cust Type WLK 5. Start Cust # FIRST 6. End Cust # 008003 7 Vend Type COM 8 Start Vend # FIRST 9 End Vend # LAST 7. Second Employee 1DO PURGE 2 3 4 5BACKUP 6 7HELP 8

Enter data as follows:

1.PURGE CUSTOMERS	Enter: Y=The Customer File will be purged according to the parameters defined in Fields 3 through 6. N=The Customer File will not be purged. EXAMPLE:Type Y (RET)
2.PURGE VENDORS	Enter: Y=The Vendor File will be purged. N=The Vendor File will not be purged. EXAMPLE:Type N (RET)
3. CUST CUTOFF DATE	Using the selected date format, enter the Cutoff Date to purge through. The cutoff date will be compared to the Last Activity date on the customer record. Customers with a last activity date later than this date will not be purged. This date defaults to yesterday and cannot be run through the current day. EXAMPLE:Type 123106 (RET) User tip: The modification date is updated whenever a change is made to the customer record. Customer records cannot be purged when their modification date is the current date. The user must wait at least a day after a modification is made to purge.
4. CUST TYPE	Enter up to 3 alphanumeric characters to indicate which Customer Type is to be purged. Press RET to default to the Customer Type which is defined in the Main Control Record screen. Enter "ALL" to purge all customer types. When this field is left blank only customers with no type will be eligible for purging. EXAMPLE:Type WLK (RET) This will cause customers with type code WLK to be purged.
5. START CUST #	Enter up to 6 alphanumeric characters to indicate the starting Customer number to be purged. Press RET to default to the FIRST Customer number. EXAMPLE:Type 501 (RET)
6. END CUST #	Enter up to 6 alphanumeric characters to indicate the ending Customer number to be purged. Press RET to default to the LAST Customer number. EXAMPLE:Type 3000 (RET) User tip: The following rules apply to the order in which customer records appear in the Customer File. a. A Customer Number is considered numeric if its first character is numeric, and alphabetic if its first character is an alpha character. b. Numeric Customer Numbers appear before alphabetic Customer Numbers in the Customer File. EXAMPLE: A purge with starting Customer Number "A" and ending Customer Number "1000" would only purge customers with alpha numbers and none of the customers with numeric numbers.
7. VEND TYPE	To limit the vendor purge to a single type of vendor, enter up to 3 alphanumeric characters to indicate which vendor type is to be purged. Press RET to default to the Vendor Type "COM" (commissionable). EXAMPLE: Press (RET)
8. START VEND #	Enter up to 8 alphanumeric characters to indicate the starting Vendor number to be purged. Press RET to default to the FIRST Vendor number. EXAMPLE: Press (RET)
9. END VEND #	Enter up to 8 alphanumeric characters to indicate the ending Vendor number to be purged. Press RET to default to the LAST Vendor number. EXAMPLE: Press (RET)
10. SECOND EMPLOYEE	This field may or may not display for your operation. User tip: A field in the Edit Miscell. Control Fields screen specifies whether or not a second employee code is required in order to perform a purge of this file. If this field appears, a second employee (who is allowed access to the purge program) is required to enter their employee code and password before the purge will be performed. If the purge is attempted without the second authorized user, the following message will display and the purge will not begin: INVALID VALIDATING EMPLOYEE, PROGRAM ABORT EXAMPLE: Press(RET)

The screen will then display:

OPTION: __ PURGE CUSTOMER/VENDOR FILES 1 Purge customers Y 2 Purge vendors Y 3 Cust Cutoff Date 12-31-06 4 Cust Type WLK 5 Start Cust # 000501 6 End Cust # 003000 7 Vend Type COM 8 Start Vend # FIRST 9 End Vend # LAST 10 Second Employee 1DO PURGE 2 3 4 5BACKUP 6 7HELP 8

PRESS "F1" AT "OPTION:" TO BEGIN PROCESSING.

The following 2 promts will appear:

HAVE YOU BACKED UP YOUR DATA ?

HAVE YOU PURGED RA'S, RES'S, AND OPEN ITEM'S ?

Answering "N" returns the cursor to "OPTION:" field from which the program can be exited.

Answering "Y" to both questions causes processing to proceed.

The program will display various messages and counters at the bottom of the screen to confirm that processing is occurring. Careful observation of these messages and knowledge of the size of the data files will provide the ability to estimate the time required to complete the process.