RATEX Business Solutions Adds MITS Report to its Retail Management System

RATEX Business Solutions, Inc. (RBS), an independent provider of comprehensive inventory management and point of sale business solutions to university bookstores has announced the addition of MITS reporting technology to its retail management system (VisualRATEX). VisualRATEX is an end to end solution that handles all major aspects of retail bookstore operations including product ordering, product sales, general ledger, and accounts receivable.

As part of its initiative to provide superior business consulting, software, hardware, training, and support across all aspects of collegiate retailers' information systems, RBS is offering MITS Report as an additional technology to meet their customers' reporting needs. Through MITS Report, RBS clients have additional tools necessary to access the data in their VisualRATEX system and report on that data quickly and easily.

With the VisualRATEX system running on IBM UniVerse, RBS had been relying on the use of basic reporting facilities to complete query statements. Jere Warner, CEO of RBS explains, "We wanted to provide our clients with a more powerful, state of the art, way to generate ad hoc reports. In cooperation with MITS, we were able to integrate a successful method of utilizing the data contained in our system. MITS Report makes it possible to create a variety of customized reports where users, on the fly, can manipulate the format of the report while maintaining the data integrity."

MITS President Fred Owen adds, "We are very pleased to be associated with RBS and welcome them as a MITS partner. Their desire to extend the value of their software offering with the addition of MITS Report fits perfectly with the design of the product and our vision for its use."

About RATEX Business Solutions

RATEX Business Solutions, Inc. (RBS) is a leading independent provider of comprehensive and powerful inventory management and point of sale business solutions to university stores. RBS is dedicated to aligning technology with smart business to help collegiate retailers succeed. RBS's flagship software product is VisualRATEX, the industry's most comprehensive retail management system. VisualRATEX integrates all store operations, including Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), inventory management, retail accounting, and point of sale. VisualRATEX is the preferred solution of many of the largest and most successful college stores.

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Tips and Tricks: Making Flashscreen Creation Even Easier

Most users create and save very specific flashscreens, i.e. Sales by Product Line for the Past 6 Months. As an administrator, you can help make the creation of these flashscreens very easy by keeping a library of common templates. Give your users read but not write permission to this library. These templates will have only company totals or totals for the top-most identifier that a user has permission to view, such as branch or warehouse, and the columns for the flashscreen, such as 6 columns with previous months' sales.

Now users can drill down using the identifier(s) that they are interested in and eliminated the time it would have taken them to create the initial flashscreen. Once they have a flashscreen in a desirable format, they can save it in a library where they have write permission.

To create a flashscreen that only displays top totals without an initial identifier, create the flashscreen with an identifier. Next click on 'Save'. At the bottom of the screen is the MQL statement. You may need to click on the '+' to display it. It will look similar to this:

FLASH SALESDEMO B SALES.M-1 SALES.M-2 SALES.M-3 SALES.M-4 SALES.M-5 SALES.M-6 NOTAGS NOIDS HEADING "Sales - Past 6 Months"

This is the statement used to create the flashscreen shown above with one exception. The initial identifier is 'B' for branch. Remove this initial identifier and click on the 'Execute MQL' button. It will now display as above and may be saved as a template.

To better serve our customers, MITS has focused considerable attention on expanding our Support and Professional Services departments. As a result, we are please to introduce two new members of our team, Samara Owen and Tim Manion.

Samara Owen is the newest addition to the MITS support team. After graduating from the University of Washington in 2006, Samara provided network administration support. Wanting to take her career to the next level, Samara joined the MITS team in January of this year because "MITS has so much to offer." Explaining further, "I get to support cutting edge software products, work in a variety of databases and assist the in-house Network Administrator. Not to mention the fact that I am having fun, we have the nicest customers, I enjoy everyone I work with and I get to problem solve everyday. The learning opportunities are never ending and that's exciting for me." From her first day, Samara has dug into her position, not only providing support to MITS' customers, she has also been a huge asset supporting MITS' internal technology systems.

Joining MITS this January as well; Tim Manion has already proven to be a valuable addition to the MITS Professional Services department. Starting as a programmer in 1983 for a nuclear power consulting firm, Tim was part of a team that wrote preventative maintenance programs for nuclear power plants. Over the past 15 years, he has also served as IT Director for several transportation companies in New Mexico and Montana. Moving from Las Vegas to Seattle, Tim came to MITS looking for a new type of environment to work in that would provide him with additional opportunities, stating, "I heard great things about MITS from other programmers and decided to give it a try. I feel very fortunate to have been given this opportunity and plan on taking full advantage of it." With such a depth of experience, it is no surprise that Tim has already taken an active role implementing valuable additions to many MITS systems.

MITS takes pride in the contributions, through donations and active participation, employees make to the community at large. We would like to take a moment to share some of MITS' employee's recent philanthropic activities.

On March 16th, MITS Product Support Specialist, Samara Owen got to know our home in the Columbia Tower at a whole new level, participating in the Big Climb for Leukemia. One of 5,300 participants, Samara raised $300 dollars for the Leukemia & Lymphoma society and climbed the 1,311 steps (69 flights) of Seattle's Columbia Tower.

More information regarding this and similar events can be found on the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s website.

Next Month, May 30-31, MITS Office Manager, Pat Pritchard will participate in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life. Pat and her teammates have committed to take a part in the fight against cancer by taking turns walking laps at the Stanwood High School Stadium beginning at 6pm on Friday until noon on Saturday.

This is the second year Pat has participated as a walker. This year she is joining forces with her twin sister and sister-in-law (a breast cancer survivor) to form their own team, The Fighting Irish. Pat has a special connection to the cause, walking to support her sister-in-law and to wanting to honor other family members and friends actively fighting the battle against cancer and remember those close to her who lost the fight. She feels it is important to raise much-needed funds and awareness, stating "we hope to help support the Cancer Society's lifesaving mission, and in turn, help fight back against a disease that affects so many".

If you would like to support Pat's participation in the Relay for Life by making a donation, visit her participant page.

For more information on the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life or to find a relay event in your area, please visit the Relay for Life website.

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