Windows 7?

Q: Is Dazzle OK with Windows 7?

A: It's excellent. Windows 7, like Vista, can be run in 2 different ways -- as a 64-bit system or as a 32-bit system. At this time the majority of commercial software is 32-bit, including Microsoft "Office" which is the underlying engine of Dazzle Pawn. Therefore unless you have some compelling reason to use the 64-bit mode, you wil find it easier and less troublesome to use the 32-bit version of Windows 7. Our installation program will detect what version you are running and will make adjustments accordingly -- so you will have no problems with Dazzle in 64 bit. However you will find yourself severely limited in your choice of peripherals, printers, scanners, cameras, etc. 64 bit Windows has a much stricter set of standards for "driver" software, and a lot of present-day device drivers just won't work.
There is NO difference whatsoever in operational speed between 64-bit and 32-bit Windows 7 when running 32 bit software. The benefits of 64-bit computing are largely still to come.

FASTER PRINTING !!!

F-F-F-F-FASTER PRINTING !!!

What more need we say? Download the newest "serverupdate" release from the "download" page at the http://www.dazzlepawn.com/ website. Printing speed should increase by as much as 40% on older or slower hardware. We re-wrote the print engine to accommodate customers with slower hardware. Your password will be required for download.

ID Scanner won't read some drivers licenses properly

Q: My ID Scanner can't seem to read some new drivers licenses from Ohio and Michigan. What's going on?

A: New licenses for some states are more complex because they being used in place of passports for travel back and forth to Canada. Make sure you have version 9.36 or higher of the ID Scanning software installed. In October, version 9.39 will be available which will contain even newer scanning capabilities. (Now available)

This picture shows you where to click to check your software version no.


To download the latest update, go to the Dazzle downloads site
http://www.dazzlepawn.com/freedownloads/idscan939setup.exe

download and save the installation file, then UNPLUG your scanner and double click the downloaded file to run the installation/update.
When the update asks for your Activation Key click the box that says "Don't need one; I have a Scanshell Scanner." Then select Scanshell 800R from the list.

How do I install Government anti-terrorism lists?

Q: How do I obtain and install government anti-terrorism lists? How do I install them? How does DAZZLE check names against these lists?

A: Both UK and US government provide lists of names. You are required to check your customers against these lists. Dazzle(tm) handles all this for you. Click here for instructions.

Barcodes not printing / Labels not bold

Q: Why do my barcodes print as big numbers, not as barcodes? Why are my labels not printing bold?

A: If the barcodes are missing on any of your DAZZLE(tm) printouts, or if they are printing as large numbers rather than barcodes, or if the numbers on your pawn labels are not bold, it means you have a FONT missing or not properly installed on your workstation.

Download our Fonts installation Utility from our website. Save it to your computer desktop then run it. You need to do this on every computer that is having fonts problems. Click here to download.

If this still does not work, Click here for a solution.

Q: How do I filter lists (and specifically what lists) in order to get a grouping of customers who have made purchases in excess of $200.00 this year?

Getting ready to send out invitations to our special customers sales event.
... cr

A: DAZZLE has a built in feature to let you select your best customers for mailings.
Just go to OFFICE-->REPORTS-->CUSTOMER REPORTS-->MAILING LABELS
You will see a list of all customers. Click the "Statistics" button to compile an up-to-date list of their buying and pawning totals. When it is done you will be able to sort and filter in the usual way to narrow down the list to the ones that interest you (according to your criteria).
Then click the PRINT button to generate mailing labels to just those customers. If you want you can also select the entire list, then right-click to copy it and paste it into Microsoft Word, for mailmerge.

Tech support

3-inch "slip printer" sales receipts

Q: Hi. How do I configure Dazzle to print the 3" slip-printer sales receipts instead of the A5 or half-page laser tickets? dg.

A: In Master configuration. See screenshot below.

Strange ID pics appear on new customer.

Q: If I start to enter a new customer, when I get to the photo/id tab, If I check the id "dot", some random picture id of someone else pops up as the id. ... steven.

A: back in August 2009 the ID subsytem was changed to allow multiple ID scans for customers. You can now have up to 26 ID scans, which Dazzle will automatically label A-Z. Part of this change involved renumbering your existing ID's to a new format. The format of an ID is now the prefix "ID" followed by a letter A-Z followed by an 8-digit customer no, padded with leading zeros if needed. Example: IDA00001234. The second ID for this same customer would be IDB00001234, etc. It sounds as though the renumbering process has not fuly completed on your system and you are getting some kind of numbering conflict. Check in your data folder under \graphics, and make sure all ID graphics have the format shown above. If not, you may have to re-run the update. ... support dept.

Follow Up: Oct 16th, all seems to be working OK now.

Express Pawn not asking for fingerprint

Q: The "Express" Pawn screen is not insisting on a fingerprint, even though we have re-validation set up to ask for a new fingerprint for every pawn.

A: Was a problem - but is now corrected. Download "ServerUpdate"

"MISC" SKU items on a sale - can't enter a cost.

Q: I just discovered that when ringing a .misc item that Dazzle does not ask for a cost. Since all the items do have a cost, usually a fixed percent of the sales price, I need the ability to enter one... ST.

A: We got into a big debate with another Dazzle user who is also a CPA. He was saying – what’s to stop an employee selling a $10,000 Rolex to a buddy for $10 as a MISC, and putting in a cost of $1? It’s a big security risk and there’s no way round it. He feels (as do many others) that employees have no business knowing costs.

We’re weighing different ideas, and we’d appreciate any suggestions. Just passwording it is not useful because then employees will be asking for passwords all the time. For the time being, as a security precaution, asking for costs on these items has been disabled.

Did you know you can disable asking for all costs all the time? Go to MASTER CONFIGURATION --> OPTIONS, look for the line that says "NoCostPopups" and put a "1" (one) beside it. You can also prevent asking for cost on cost-averaged items by putting a 1 in the line that says "NoAskAverageCost"

By the way DAZZLE now has 3 built-in preset SKU's. They are: .MISC .TRADE And .DISCOUNT. You don't have to create these presets yourself they are integral to the system. (Note that they each begin with a dot). Use of the .TRADE or .DISCOUNT SKU's will automatically create a negative amount for that line on the sales receipt.

Please be aware that accepting a trade-in on a sale, using the .TRADE option without writing up a full BUY, and without seeing the customers ID etc., may possibly be a contravention of your local laws.

--- support dept.

"Quick Find" behaving strangely

Q: When we use quick find to enter a customer - the list of names comes up - then we choose a name down the list - the first customer on the list opens up everytime. We are double clicking the one down the list yet the first one is highlighted. It works properly when we choose the one down the list by clicking once to highlight then doubleclicking to open.
This is a problem because we are pulling up the wrong customer. Everyone is used to just double clicking... dan.

Q: When I come to a list of customer names. If I double click angela g smith it gives me angela f smith. It doesn`t give me the person I double clicked on. I can highlight the customer and then click goto and it will work. Just not the way it was, whatever that’s worth. ... brad

A: We confirmed this is happening. When trying to double click a name it ignores your choice and brings up whichever name was first on the list. It seems to be something that just started and we can't understand how or why because there have been no program modifications to this screen (except cosmetic ones). We will check into it.

FRIDAY OCT 16th: this behavior has now been corrected. The corrected version is on the website at www.dazzlepawn.com.
... support dept

New customer gets mixed up with old customer.

Q When you put a new customer in, the last customer you put in will come up on the screen instead of the new customer. Whatever name is in the quickfind is where it goes. That’s the best I can explain it. - brad.

A: this is related to the previous question. Do not use People-->New customer for this purpose. Update your system and the problem should go away.

Can't enter new customer. Screen blanks. Freezes.

Q: When putting new customer in, during the process you get stuck and you have a blank screen. Then you have to go back out and look up the customer you were trying to put in, then carry on with your transaction. brad.

A: Another customer reported the same thing, and we noticed the first thing he did was click on PEOPLE -->NEW CUSTOMER. Then he entered the new customer then tried to start a pawn. Then it locked up. Is this the way you are doing it?

We never intended PEOPLE-->NEW CUSTOMER to be used this way. It is just for entering a customer. Nothing else. You are not supposed to try and start transactions from there. The correct way to do ALL transactions is to click F10 and SEARCH for the customer. If not found, then you will have a choice of SSEARCH A DIFFERENT WAY, or ADD CUSTOMER. You then choose ADD CUSTOMER and continue. This seems to work perfectly every time.

A customer will often tell you he has never been in before but it is never safe to believe them. They may be in your database, and the PEOPLE --> NEW CUSTOMER method would cause a duplicate.

In v01.11.05 this feature has been changed so you cannot start a new transaction from here.

Can't find original sale when doing return/refund

Q: . We tried to do a return on a sale. When the box came up asking for a number, we entered the ticket number. The response was that no ticket could be found (we know the number entered was correct) -- CR.

A: there are several Questions about this on this site. But in the present version (01.11.05) we are not aware of any remaining problems with this, and we can't reproduce your error. Is anyone else having this problem?

Inventory Search not working right

Q: Am still finding that when working with items for sale sometimes P- will find the item, sometimes P1- finds the item. Can not figure out a pattern for this. Yes we have a colon not a dash as the range separator. --CR

A: we cannot reproduce this error. Is anyone else having this problem? BTW the range separator is not relevant here.

your general journal codes failed to update

Q: I did the 01.11.03 update, when you bring up dazzle on a work station you get a box with "sorry, an unexpected error has occurred" in the box "your general journal codes failed to update properly"

A: This error message with 11.03 is annoying but harmless. You can just ignore it. It was corrected with later releases.

How do I create a daily police report in BWI format?

BWI (BusinessWatch international) is the most complex of all the police formats. Fortunately DAZZLE handles it with ease. Check out this 5 minute instructional VIDEO to learn how to do it.

How to do ATF quarterly report?

Question from DAZZLE user:

Q: We do a quarterly report to the ATF and we need to print a report by date pulled.
The report is for pawn forfeited and buy firearms. The info we need printed is
PAWN DATE, MFG, MOD, SER#, CALIBER, TYPE, .
We printed an “Inventory recently out of pawn”, it would find all the guns, and the only info needed on that report is the serial number. Is there a place in the program we can add fields??? --ross.

A: To get that info Most people just go to WORK WITH INVENTORY-->ITEMS FOR SALE -->CUSTOM SEARCH
Click CLEAR ALL a couple of times then specify ItemType = FIREARMS AND New = FALSE (white not grey) and First Entered = 06/01/09:09/30/09 (don’t forget the colon in the middle) and click FIND.

Save this query and name it whatever you like by clicking the SAVE QUERY button. Next time just change the dates.

You’ll see it produces a spreadsheet of inventory information which is too much info for the ATF but SORT IT and FILTER IT as needed, then left-click the top left corner of the spreadsheet (see below) to select all rows and columns. Then right-click and choose COPY then open Excel or Word, and PASTE, then remove whatever you don’t want, format it, give it a title, etc. and give to ATF. (see picture)

the Fingerprint SENSITIVITY setting

Question from customer

Q: Our current fingerprint scanners have a hard time getting a good fingerprint from some people. I tried to adjust sensitivity. What does the word HARDER in the setup mean? Is it more sensitive? --as.

A: The sensitivity setting has no bearing on scanning a print. It refers to the degree of similarity required for a “match”. Those Digital Persona readers can be troublesome as they age. When they wear out, replace them with Futronics FS80's. They are cheaper, more durable, and give a good reading.

Why do I need the Sale Ticket No. to do a return/refund?

From a user:

Q: I attempt to return an item and the window that opens for me to look up the invoice # only shows 2 sales for the month of October (that are dated today) and no sales for previous months.
How do I return something with Invoice # from my old DOS Program?
Hopefully you have a method for me to turn off the requirement of an invoice # for a return. -rr.

A: There is no means to turn off this requirement. It's just good business to know WHEN you sold it, WHO you sold it to, IF you sold it, HOW MUCH you sold it for, HOW it was paid for, etc. Without this basic info you can't really issue a refund or return. The orig. sales ticket gives you all that info. You can look it up by no. or by month, or by year, or for all time. However, only sales for the customer in question are shown... not all sales. What would be the point of that? That's probably why you only see 2 sales.
If it was an "ANON" cash sale, you can still look up all cash sales during the month in which the customer purchased it, and quickly identify the sale by the SKU of the item. If it is a Bucket SKU and you sell a lot of them,, then it really doesn't matter which one you "return".

If you don't know the SKU, you pretty much have to be able to find the original sale.

If you really have to issue a return on a sale with no orig ticket no., you can take the returned item in TRADE on a new ticket, (use the SKU No. ".TRADE"). You will have to manually adjust inventory quantity. Or you can issue a BUY which will re-stock the item.

How to create a report of all active inventory (video)

Q: How do I see all my active inventory for sale, and print a report of it? --alan.

This silent 3 min video walks you through the steps of finding all your inventory and printing a report.

What exactly is on a DAZZLE jewelry tag?

Q: We cannot figure out exactly what is on the butterfly tag. Can you explain? --lb.

This diagram should help explain the butterfly tag