Document 6493903

H ELPING S PRUCE C USTOMERS M AKE P ROFITABLE T ECHNOLOGY D ECISIONS
Volume 25, Issue 2
April, 2011
Five Questions: Grev Coomer
How to Read
English
A series of informal Spruce customer interviews
If the article to the right has
you scratching your head at
any point, fear not! We had
to translate ―millwork‖ to the
British when speaking with
Grev, after all.
Builder’s Merchant
Retail Construction Supplier
Extension
Addition
Ironmongery
Hardware
Joinery
Millwork
Refurbishment
Remodeling
Till
Cash Register
Timber
Lumber
Inside this issue:
Five Questions
Customer Interview
1
Head in the Sand
PCI Compliance deadline
1
What‘s in a Name?
―SpruceWare.NET” origins
2
Call Log Rollover
The Call Log Moves Online
2
Employee Snapshot
John Maiuri
2
High Potential Parameters
SprucePlus Parameters
3
Delivering Profits
Delivery Charges—not?
3
XM What?
.NET XML Imports
4
Users United
The Spruce Users Group
4
Coomers Ltd. Lies in a hilly area
about 40 miles southwest of
London and perhaps 35 miles
north of the docks at
Portsmouth. Once known for
dangerous highwaymen (and
their hangings), it is now a place
of residence for
many
London
commuters, who
take
the
Portsmouth
Direct line to
work. It is also a
popular
hiking
area due to its
position at the
end of the 110-mile Greensand
Way Footpath and the 64-mile
Serpent Trail. We caught up
with Grev Coomer, who has
helped all SpruceWare.NET
users since 2006 by acting as
our third beta test site (and our
first in the UK).
Can you tell me a bit about
Coomers Ltd. and your
relationship to the business?
C o o m e r s i s a s e c on d generation, family-run business
that began life selling
woodshavings and ended up
becoming a builders merchants
more by chance than planning!
My parents started the business
in 1956 and I joined full-time in
1993. We were very proud to
be awarded the UK‘s
Independent Builders Merchant
of the Year for 2010!
Your
three
branches
(Haslemere, Oakhanger and
now Bordon) offer a wide
range of product lines,
including
bedroom
furniture,
millwork,
landscaping
p r o d u c ts ,
kitchen and bath products,
f l o o r i n g ,
decorating
goods,
tools,
ironmongery
(known to us
Yankees
as
“hardware,”)
and more.
Is
this typical for a
UK
merchant
or
is
this
something that sets you
apart
from
your
competitors?
When we started out our
product range was
very small but the
buying group that we
belong to (NBG) has
deals in a huge
number of products
and that has given us
the confidence and opportunity
to diversify. We like to think
we now have a pretty
comprehensive offering and this
does give us an edge.
Haslemere was granted a
charter by King Richard II in
1394, and much of the
heathland and woodland
surrounding the town is
protected by the National
Trust. Presumably not a lot
of your sales come from
new construction – so what
is a typical customer doing
with the products they buy
from you? And what’s a
typical day look like for you?
Although you‘re right in saying
the town has old roots, there
are still plenty of new houses
going up in the area. We also
do well from extensions,
refurbishments and maintenance
projects but we don‘t tend to
worry about where it‘s going to
all the time the tills are ringing.
A typical day: arrive at the
office at 7.30am, and the day
flies by in a whirlwind of ‗phonecalls and emails. Leave the
of f ice jus t bef ore 6pm
wondering where the day went.
You’ve
been
using
SpruceWare.NET since it
was released for UK
beta.
How has it
changed the way you
do business?
We‘re really pleased
with the system we‘re
running and all our staff are very
comfortable with it. I don‘t
think it‘s fundamentally changed
the way we do business but it
has made us more efficient in
every sense. We‘re still learning
new features all the time.
When are you coming to
visit Spruce HQ in Latham,
NY?
It‘s on the list, I just need to find

a good excuse.
Is your credit card clearing head in the sand?
In January, letters went out to those Spruce customers using non-PCI-compliant signature pads and/or
IC/Verify versions. Though there is a clear July 1st deadline for action, many users have yet to
respond. You must take action or you will lose the ability to process credit card transactions on July 1st! In
addition, we strongly recommend that everyone contract with their clearing house for quarterly
security scans—it‘s a small price for a lot of added peace of mind.
What’s in a Name?
Do it Card
SM
If you‘re a Do it Best®
member, you already have
the ability to work with TD
Bankcard to accept the Do
it Card.
They have a
convenient website where
you
can
transactions
authorize
online—no
hookup to a Spruce system
necessary!
SpruceWare.NET became the
name of our flagship Windowsbased software early on in its
development cycle. Did you
ever wonder where the name
came from?
SpruceWare was, and is, the
name of our original Windows
software. It is text-based and is
missing modern features, but it
continues to serve the needs of
a number of Spruce customers.
The software is no longer sold,
having been replaced by
SpruceWare.NET (though we
have no intention of ending
support for existing
SpruceWare users).
Retail LBM & Hardware dealers.
The .NET suffix is intended to
highlight another point about
SpruceWare.NET: it has been
developed completely in
Microsoft‗s
revolutionary .NET
development
environment,
which has become
the gold standard
for
modern
graphical software.
We have developed all the
code using Microsoft Visual
Studio .NET, and ours is the
only 100% .NET software for
We always transition the entire
package to newer Visual
Studio .NET versions so our
SpruceWare.NET
customers can continue
to take advantage of the
most modern Windows
features available. In
keeping with this
philosophy, when Visual
Studio 2010 is released
this month, we‘ll begin testing it
in anticipation of a transition to it
in
the
next
major
SpruceWare.NET release.

Call Log Rollover
“...your own

company logs will be
securely available
24/7/365…”
We have made major
improvements to the support
call log, and as a result, your
own company logs will be
securely available 24/7/365 in the
customer area of the Spruce
website beginning this month.
Open and recently closed calls
will be viewable through the
―Issue Tracking‖ link after you
log in. New support calls and
updates will be posted to this
area each night for easy review.
Employee Snapshot: John Maiuri
Name: John Maiuri
Tenure at Spruce: 3 years (but
wait...)
E d u c at i o n & P r i o r Wo r k
Experience: 30 years in the Retail
LBM Industry; 26 years as a Spruce
Customer (President, Dunn
Builders Supply).
Main Duties: Regional Territory
Manager in the Northeast,
covering Maine to Virginia.
When he‘s not beefing up the
r an ks of Sp r uceWar e.NE T
users: John likes waterfowl hunting,
motorcycling, camping, fishing,
Page 2
In the past we have mailed call
logs monthly to a specific
contact person.
To curtail
waste and allow easy access to
log information from any
location, we will stop sending
printed logs, and we will open
up access to your company logs
to anyone your management
team approves.
The person who has been
receiving the printed logs will
automatically be set up to have
online access to the new logs. If
you would like others to have
online access too, assuming they
alre ad y hav e cus t om er - ar e a
logins, have your main Spruce
contact email us the website IDs
(without passwords) to
support@sprucecomputer . com.
As always, website customer area
IDs can be requested through
support.sprucecomputer.com.
Each issue, we briefly profile a Spruce employee
reading, and spending time with his
grandchildren, family, friends, and
dog (a chocolate lab).
Favorite Quote: ―Life can be a
tragedy for those who feel and a
comedy for those who think.‖
—2011 fortune cookie
Favorite films:
westerns.
Old John Wayne
Favorite type of Book: Fiction.
Favorite type of Music: 50‘s.
In his own words: Terrible at body
surfing. Built a deck in Alaska in 3
days. Once taught a friend’s son to tie
a Windsor knot over the phone.

John with a salmon dinner near Pulaski, NY
SpruceNews Volume 25, Issue 2 • April, 2011
High Potential Parameters
SprucePlus Special Parameters
Part One of a Two-Part Series
On the Spruce Plus system
there are a number of functions
or features that are parameter
driven, so as not to affect the
standard system. These are
found on the
S p e c i a l
Parameter
s c r e e n s
(Operations
Management >
System Maintenance > Special
Parameters). There are many
parameters that were put in
place over the years. Here is a
list of some of them that might
be of interest to you. Each
parameter is listed as it‘s
displayed on its parameter page.
For each of the parameters
there is Help available with
more information. Most of the
parameters can be set by the
user without any intervention
from Spruce Support and most
will take place immediately once
activated.
POS GM CALCULATION –
Answer Y to this field if you
want to be able to modify under
System Parameters, the cost
that is used at Point of Sale for
calculating gross margin.
STOCKED FLAG DISPLAY –
Answer Y to this field if you
want items to display
***STOCKED***, ***NON-
Delivering Profits
If you‘re reluctant to
automatically charge for delivery
because of the effect it may have
on your best customers,
remember that there are many
ways for a SpruceWare.NET
user to assess such charges.
You can even let your great
customers off the hook!
As
we
discussed
in
the
S T O C K E D * * * ,
o r
***DISCONTINUED*** when in
Inquiry screens.
FINANCE CHG NAME –
Answer Y if you want to be able
to modify the
system parameter
finance
charge
name that prints
on statements.
EOD SMAN-PRC
LVL
TRK
–
Answer Y if you want to be able
to have the EOD Salesman-price
level tracking turned on.
If
turned on, the system will track
the pricing given to customers
by salesman. If the pricing is
overridden, the system will
round to the nearest price level
and track the price given to that
level.
BR PRINT OF ORDERS –
Answer Y if you wish to have
the location (Bldg/Aisle/Bin) and
quantity available printed on the
order when orders are printed
to a backroom printer.
GS REPRICE IN POS – Answer
Y if you wish to allow the
repricing function in the options
box at Point of Sale to reprice
only items from a specified
group and section.
PRINT LAST 6 CHARS INV# - If
you answer Y to this field, only
the last six (6) digits of the
invoice number will print on the
invoice. This does NOT shorten
the actual invoice number. It is a
―print only‘ option and all
references to the invoice will
continue to have the full 12 digit
invoice number.
DON‘T SHOW CRLIM POS – If
you answer Y to this field, the
credit limits of the customer
accounts WILL NOT show at
Point of Sale.
POS SELL BACKORDER – You
may answer Y if you want
orders shipped incomplete to
remain open and N if they
should be closed and the
remaining items not
backordered. This defaults the
Backorder field on the Invoice
Closeout screen. You may also
enter a P to backorder the
remaining items and print a
backorder copy of the order at
the same time.
RECV ON ACCT MNG OVR –
If you answer Y to this field, you
will be required to get a
manager override when taking a
payment on an account using
BANKCARD as the method of
payment.
PRT ORD MSG IN INV – If this
field is set to Y, the userentered information that is
contained in the message field
on orders will print in the
header area of the invoice form.
PRT REPRINT IN INV – If you
answer Y to this field, the term
REPRINT will print in the
header of the invoice when you
reprint invoices.
NO DATE=CUST PICKUP – If
this field is set to Y, when no
delivery date is entered at Point
of Sale the delivery date will
SpruceWare.NET
TimeSaver
You may have wished you
could
have
each
Spruce
separate
window
display a different
icon so it would
be easy to tell
them apart in the
system tray.
way to do it is
through the ―File‖
option from any
menu.
Choose
―Change Icon‖ and pick a new
icon for that window. You can
do this permanently too—for
information on that option,
enter ―change icon‖ in the
SpruceWare.NET Help index.
Charging for delivery doesn’t have to be one-size-fits-all
September, 2008 SpruceNEWS,
which is still available on our
website, there are methods of
assessing delivery charges that
offer different features, including
hidden vs. printed, automatic vs.
manual, taxable vs. non-taxable,
and global vs. per-customer.
One Spruce user recently began
putting global zip-code-based
SpruceNews Volume 25, Issue 2 • April, 2011
delivery charges on their best
customers‘ contracts with zero
prices
so
they would
automatically
show up, but
at no cost.
This is a
clever way
to let your top customers know
who‘s got their backs!

The
 “...let your top
customers know
who’s got their
backs!…”
Page 3
High Potential SprucePlus Parameters
SpruceNews is published by
Spruce Computer Systems.
© 2011. All rights reserved.
Log in!
Spruce1 .com
(Continued from page 3)
display and print "CUST
PICKUP" on the invoice/order.
DON‘T PRT QTY BLW AVL –
Answering Y to this field turns
off the "Quantity Below
Available" message that displays
at Point of Sale when the user
tries to sell a quantity of an
item that is greater than the
quantity the system shows as
available for that item.
ORDER CLOSEOUT QTY –
This field is used to determine
the default for the Price/Qty
field on the order closeout
screen. The options are:
XM What?
Phone: 800-SPRUCE1
Fax: 518-783-6685
Hooah!
Longtime Spruce Customer
a n d
c u r r e n t
SpruceWare.NET
Dykes
Weehauken,
user
Lumber,
NJ,
was
mentioned in the March 9th
PROSALES Business Update
as having been recognized
for their 75th Anniversary as
an LMC Member.
Dykes
also recently added their
10th branch location after
acquiring the J.J. Demarest
Supply facility in Closter, NJ.
Two XML imports, WTS
Software‘s Base Camp and
Saberis‘s XPressPOS,
work
with multiple vendors, and you
can thus get a lot of bang for
the buck.
Base
Camp
allows the import
of POS information
from any vendor
Users United

N - to not print prices and
quantities.

P - to print only prices, but
no quantities.

1 - to print the selling
quantity only (NOT
extended/shipping).

2 - to print the selling
quantity (NOT extended/
shipping) and prices only.
not want to print totals by
default.
PO REPL COST DEFAULT –
Enter Y if you want the
replacement cost to be used
when writing a purchase order
rather than the market cost.
POS NO CASH DEFAULT – If
you answer Y, the system will
not default a sale that is using a
cash account or no account to
the cash field on the closeout
screen. Instead, it leaves the
user at the "Enter field to
modify" prompt. The user must
then choose the appropriate
method of payment.

ORD CLOSE TOTAL PRNT –
Enter Y if you want the default
for printing totals on orders to
be yes and enter N if you do
that uses an up to date version
of WTS‘s manufacturing
software, WTS Paradigm.
Some of the vendors that
allow
import
into
SpruceWare.NET Point of Sale
through Base Camp include:
 Alenco
 Atrium Doors
 Eagle Windows
 Great Lakes Window
 Hurd Windows
 Kolbe & Kolbe
 Lepage Millwork
 Mathews Brothers
 MW Patriot
 Paradigm (Kohltech)
 Pella
 Ply Gem Pacific
 Ross Windows & Door
 Sun Windows
 Ventana USA
 Windsor
XPressPOS
operates with a
number of vendors
as well, including:














Andersen iQ
BROSCO
BWI Bridgewater
Comsense
Jeld-Wen
Kitchens for 2020
Kolbe & Kolbe
Lincoln
Luxwood Design Tools
Marvin MOE
Milgard
Paradigm (Kohltech)
Professional Estimating
Silver Line iQ
Contact your Spruce Territory
Manager to order Base Camp or
XPressPOS.
Don’t miss out on the Spruce User’s Group
The Spruce Users‘ Google
Group is alive and well. If you
are a member but you haven‘t
set your Google Account up to
deliver the group‘s messages via
email, you have to read it online
or you will miss out on the
topics being discussed.
Recent topics have included
Page 4
Y - to print both prices
and quantities on the
order.
Base Camp and XpressPOS XML Imports Improve Productivity
SpruceWare.NET includes a
number of ways of importing
data that can really make life
easier for everyone in Sales.
Many of these
are available at
no
charge
with in
the
software, but
XML imports
r e q u i r e
customized setup and so
require a nominal fee.
Spruce Computer Systems
9 Cornell Road
Latham, NY 12110

thin clients brands, document
security, customer statements,
balancing Accrued Accounts
Payable, and document
attachments.
If you aren‘t a member of the
group already, signing up is
easy. Just log into the spruce
website customer area (at
support.sprucecomputer.com)
and enter your email address in
the box on the right side.
The group is not an alternative to
the formal request process, but it
is a great way to discuss thoughts
and questions!
Open to all Spruce customers. 
SpruceNews Volume 25, Issue 2 • April, 2011