Mobius Business Builder Product Specification -- 11/4/95 ======================================================== Mobius Business Builder is a suite of native Visual Component Library (VCL) components, experts and reports for Borland Delphi. It has been designed to allow you to add typical accounting and business functionality to your Delphi applications. Full source code is available. The system is built on the concept of embedding business rules into specialised table subclasses so that database integrity can be maintained independently of the user interface. Additionally, all Business Builder tables are derived from a common TTable subclass which implements features such as automatic linking to parent master tables and automatic initialisation of link fields in newly created detail records. The following is a list of some of the tables that are provided: customer, supplier, purchase order, sales order, purchase invoice, sales invoice, statement, payment, job costing, stock, department, staff, VAT/Sales tax. In addition, many of these have specialised item tables such as invoice line items. The business rules are all pre- programmed into these tables for you. For example, when you create an invoice line item record and post it, this causes the invoice total to be recalculated automatically. In turn, this cascades up the tree and causes the amount due in the customer record to be recalculated and even the aged analysis is updated, i.e. how much is owed in the current period, period to 30 days, 60, 90 and 120 days. This is all done fully automatically without any need to write code. Experts are provided to create these tables and also to create standard forms such as orders and invoices that use them. You can start with one of these generated forms and tailor it or create a blank form from scratch - it's up to you. Because of the automatic updating, a form such as an invoice can be created in minutes by dropping on components and linking them visually by setting properties. Since the business rules are encoded in the tables, you don't have to write any code to get the invoice to add up or update the customer record - it will all just work like magic! A Business Builder application expert can build a complete accounting application using the tables and forms you specify simply by selecting from checkboxes. You can then go in and modify it as required. Business Builder requires certain fields to be present in the tables so that it can maintain data integrity and linking. However, additional fields and indexes can be defined in a set of data dictionary tables. A special table structure editing utility is provided for this purpose. You can add your own field and index definitions as required in your specific application and when you use the expert to create such a table, the fields and indexes you have specified will be created. The product is shipped with a Windows help file which fully documents all of the classes and gives step-by-step instructions on how to use the toolkit. A printed manual is also supplied. Business Builder is supported by electronic mail on CompuServe or the Internet. For pricing, ordering or additional information please send email to Mike Scott on CompuServe 100140,2420 or internet 100140.2420@compuserve.com