Topp's Grocery Program System Requirements Hardware: IBM compatible Operating System: MS-Dos 2+ Ram Memory: 380K Available Minimum Disk Drive: A hard disk is strongly recommended. System will operrate on a high density floppy (speed will be impaired). Monitor: Color is recommended. The system is self checking and will run on a monochrome monitor with or with out advanced graphics. Compatibility: All databases in the program are "dDase" (Trademark of Aston- Tate, Inc.) compatible. The program is written in "Clipper" (Trademark of Nantucket Corp.) System Checks Disk Space: The program will check for a minimum of 100K operating space. An message will inform you if space is not available. Databases/Indexes: The program creates databases/indexes. If the system must create a new help databases, it will be empty. Use the one on the disk. Printer: The printer is checked before/during operation. If the printer is not on prior to running, the system will automatically print to screen. Setup Requirements You may make your own directory and copy the files yourself by typing md copy a:\*.* :\. Introduction This program was written to take advantage of the offers and coupons we see every day. Before we wrote the program, We put the coupons in a desk drawer and tried to remember to sort through them before we went to the store. It didn't work very well. We needed something easy and quick to use. We wanted something where we did not need to spend a lot of our time fooling with coupons. We spend at the most 1 hour per week with this program, and our average savings amount to about $20.00 per hour (We have had months over $200.00). Our inventory of coupons/rebates averages about 1600 per month. Do not expect to jump into the program and expect huge savings immediately. You must develop an inventory of coupons/rebates and get use to working with them. Registration The standard program is $29.95. There is a deluxe program for $34.95, which has a set of desktop utilities. You get a calculator, calendar/day timer, and address book/phone list. When you register, you will recieve a copy of this program that does not mention shareware or register now anywhere in it! You will recieve not only the latest version of the program, but free updates for one full year. You will recieve Topp's Starter Packet with valueable coupons and information. At the present time, we are issuing coupons equal in value to the cost of the program (subject to change without notification). You will recieve discounts on other Topp's Home Software products. You will recieve technical support for the life of the program (currently only by mail to the address below). We are sorry to mention we do not accept credit card orders at this time. You may press the F10 key at the main menu of the program to print an invoice, or mail today to: Topp's Home Software 16541 Redmond Way Suite #242 Redmond, WA 98052 Thank you for your support. General Program Use The menus use light bars. Move the arrows to your selection and press the enter key, or press the first letter of the menu selection. Look at the bottom of the screen for comments. F1 is the help key. Hot keys are listed in the help message. You may find some fields to be too small for what you wish to enter. It is ok to abbreviate. This is your program. The note pad contained in this program is designed for SMALL files, making a list of specials for example. Writing a novel may crash the program. It is limited by the amount of ram memory you have. Coupon/Rebate/History Programs These programs are extremely similar. Menu: File movement - Next - Next record. Prev - Previous record. First - Top of file. Last - Bottom of file. Goto - Go to record by the numbers. File altering - Edit - Editing current record. Add - Add a new record. Delete - Delete current record, by date or record number. Change - see below Browse - Files are presented in list order to edit, add, or view. File reports - View - Ad hoc report generator. Create your own reports. Change: Will alter a class, brand, or manufacture through out the file. You select what you want to change ( class, brand, or manufacture ). Topp's Grocery Program Enter the old name. Enter the new name. Select a filter. Enter the filter name. And presto they are changed. Example: You have a class called "BEANS". This class is getting too large to manage, so you decide to divide it into two classes ("BEANS" and "CHILI" ). You run a report showing all the coupons you have in class "BEANS". You find the manufacture "TOPP'S CHI" is all chili and nothing else. to change Topp's Chili's class to "CHILI". Select class Old Name: "BEANS" New Name: "CHILI" Select manufacture Name: "TOPP'S CHI" They are now changed. Quick work of a long job. Fields: Amount - Value of the coupon (estimate if necessary) Expire - Expiration date (leave blank for none). Mfg - Ten letters to define manufacture. Class - Ten letters to define category. Brand - Twenty letters to define brand/description Terms - Conditions of rebate. Offer - What you get. Files and Fields Coupons and rebates are seperated. If there are terms and conditions to a coupon (other than a certain size or quanity), then it's a rebate. The history file allows you to track selected offers. I track any mail in offer which does not require an cash register receipt. After a period of time, you will see some of these offers or similar offers appearing (at least once a year), This means you can plan for them in advance and start saving the UPC codes or whatever now. When you are in the store and have a choice of two similarly priced products, you can pick the one which will have a rebate later. Why are there three levels of identification (class, brand, mfg)? This makes if very simple to find what you want. Class segregates your coupons into a group of like types. Brand gives you a description of the product. Manufacture further divides brand, and gives you a tool to find coupons of an unlike type by manufacture. This is useful for rebates which require you to buy different products. You can quickly see if you have the coupons to make the offer a real good deal. Savings Program The savings program has a few minor differences. Menu: Spend - Enter the amount of your grocery expenses and it will automatically be added to the current month. Report - Gives you a month by month, year by year report of your monthly expenses, coupon savings, rebate savings, and total percent of savings. Fields - Coupons - Total monthly coupon savings. Rebates - Total monthly rebate savings. Expense - Total monthly expenses. Date - The day means nothing, since the program uses only to month and year. This program is very valuable as a report card to see your progress. You can see each month how you are going. You can see the dollars you are saving and the dollars you are spending. After a period of time, you will have the needed information to help you prepare more accurate budgets, or to start one. The program makes you more aware of where your money is going and helps you learn to save some of it. Grocery List This is the handiest feature of the program. Use your coupons and rebates to help prepare your grocery list. I will walk through one with you. It's time to go to the supermarket. You need milk, eggs, bread, cold cereal, soup, chili, and pasta. Your classes for these items are: Milk = DAIRY Eggs = DAIRY Bread = BREAD Cold Cereal = CEREAL Soup = SOUP Chili = CAN MEAL Pasta = PASTA First we page to class selection menu and select DAIRY, CEREAL, BREAD, SOUP, CAN MEAL, and PASTA using the "X" key. After we press "Esc", the program creates a list of coupons from the classes we selected. We find no coupons for our dairy items, the store we are going to has brand 'X' bread on sale for less than we can buy it with our coupons so we pass bread, and then we select coupons for the balance of products we want. To select an item, we mark the q_select field. Make sure the light bar is over the q_select column and press "X". If we want to make a multiple store list, use 1, 2, 3, etc. or whatever you want. To make a title for each store, go to the bottom and enter the number in the q_select field and the store name with an "*" first in the manufacture field. Now we can add those items we did not have coupons for. Then press "Esc" again and that's it-- a grocery list or lists ready for the store or stores. Price Comparison Program This program is designed to compare prices between stores on key items. The menu has a selection called "Sheets" which prints blank worksheets for price comparing at the store. Monochrome Monochrome is designed to help in those situtations where the graphics card thinks the monitor can interprete colors, which it can not. If you can not see the text through the light bars on the menu, use this option to force the program into monochrome. F A S T F A S T is designed to help those of you trying to use our program on a floppy drive or older PC. It eliminates some of the graphic effects, which speeds up the display time. Hot Key Programs Help Program - F1 - This program operates throughout the system giving you useful help messages. Note Pad - F4 - This is a SMALL text editor. It is useful as a scratch pad to make notes to remember. I use it to list the weekly sales at the various supermarkets that are of interest to me. Then I print the list and compare the offers before making my grocery list. Invoice - F10 - Prints an invoice for registration. Browse The browse program shows your files in a list format, so you can see several records at one time. Since many times the width of the screen is much less than the length of all the fields each record contains, you must use the left and right arrows to examine different fields, or use the home key to go to the first field and the end key to go to the last field. The up and down arrows and the pgup and pgdn keys move you through the file, or use Ctrl PgUp to go to the top of the file and Ctrl PgDn to go to the bottom of the file. Use the Esc key to exit. Press {F2} for a list of key assignments. To edit a record. Press enter when the light bar is covering the field you wish to edit. When you are finished editing, press enter again to save the edit or press Esc to loose the edit. You are in the editing mode if the field color is not reversed and the cursor is showing. To add a record. Press Ctrl PgDn, or go to the last record in the manner easiest for you. Press to down arrow so that the light bar covers an empty line. Follow the same procedures as if you where editing a record. Remember the Esc key will loose edits or additions. Use the enter key. This is the same basically as the normal edit\add module. Use the Esc key when you are finished to return to the main program. Use the {F2} key for a list of key assignments. Use the {F1} key for browse help. View Main View Screen Use the up and down arrows to find the desired report and press enter to activate. This menu is not key sensitive. At the bottom of the menu are a list of key options to preform various tasks. F7 - Count = Press {F7} and the report covered by the light bar will be counted to see how many records match the conditions of the report. Example: If you had 453 records in your file and you had a report to show all the records, the count would be 453. F8 - Delete = Press {F8} and remove the report covered by the light bar. F9 - View = Press {F9} to see the formula for the highlighted report. F10- New = Press {F10} to create a new report. Esc will return you to the main program. Query View Option The view option shows you the formula for the filter of the report selected. This is valuable if you need to know how a report is filtered. Example: You have a report labeled Expired. You view the filter and discover it is filtered to Expire not equal to / / .and. Expire less than 07/05/91. English translation: Expire not equal to blank (no expiration date ) .and. Expire for dates before 07/05/91. Index Builder The index builder will build an index or sort for your file. It may be up to four levels or selections. Use the esc key to go to the next operation or the program will automatically proceed after the fourth selection is made. On the right side (facing the screen) is a sub menu box containing a list of the fields in the file. Use the arrow keys to find the desired selection. Press enter to accept the highlighted field. You may repeat this process until you have reached four selections or you press the esc key. Your first selection will be your primary sort and so on. If you wish to sort by expire, and class, you would select expire first, then class. Sorting requires extra time for the program. The more sort levels you require, the longer the processing time will be. Query Builder The query builder creates a filter for your reports. It can be used to show only information you select or show all information except information you have selected not to see. If you wish to see everything, you do not need a filter. A filter acts like a strainer. It passes everything through except the chunks of information you want. As with the Index Builder, on the right side (facing the screen) is a sub menu box containing a list of fields in the file. Use the arrow keys to find the desired selection. Press enter to accept the highlighted field, then follow the instructions. This process may be repeated until you are finished. To by pass the filtering operation press {Esc}. Query Builder Select How Filter This is a typical sub-menu. Move to the desired selection using the up and down arrow keys and press enter to activate your selection. The selections: Equal To = The same as what you will enter. X is equal to X Less Than = An amount smaller than what you will enter. A is less than Z Greater Than = An amount greater than what you will enter. Z is greater than A Less Than Or Equal To = An amount the same or less than what you will enter. A is equal to or less than A Greater Than Or Equal To = An amount the same or more than what you will enter. A is equal to or greater than A For Character Fields Only (not for Expire or Amount) Contains = A string you will enter that is somewhere in the field you have selected. ABCD contains C Does Not Contain = A string you will enter that is not somewhere in the field you have selected. ABCD does not contain Z Sounds Like = A phrase that sounds like the phrase you enter. Cat sounds like kat If these selections are not clear, experiment a little with them and see how they work. Query Builder Information Field: After you have selected how you want your data filter, you must enter a value describing what the filter will be. Examples: If you want to see all the records for Class "Baking", you would have already selected the field to be class and the operator to be equal to. Now you would enter Baking. The filter would be Class = Baking. If you want to see all the records with a value over $0.99, you would have already selected the field to be amount and the method of filtering to be greater than. Now you would enter $0.99. OR You could have selected the field to be amount and the method of filtering to be grater than or equal to. Now you would enter $1.00 Query Builder Alt V Option: This option shows the data entered in the field selected for every record in the file. Use the arrows to find your selection and press enter to activate your choice. This will automatically enter the choice in the ask for field. Use the Esc key to escape. Query Builder Connector When you are creating a filter with more than one element, you must connect them in some manner, so the program will know how to handle them. This is a sub menu. Use the arrows to find your selection and press enter. The selections are: Discard = discard or forget the current selection. .AND. = to add another element to the filter. Example: Expire less than 06/01/91 .and. Expire does not equal (' / / ') Do not use .and. to connect like things. Example: Class = Laundry .and. Class = HouseHold Since no single class can be both, no records will be displayed. The correct input would be Class = Laundry .or. Class = HouseHold. This would display all the records with either Laundry or HouseHold as the class. .OR. = To separate another element to the filter. Example Mfg=Kellog's .or. Mfg=Post <> = Finished. Complete. You made it! Query Builder Title Box If you wish to save the report you have created, enter a description or title for your report. If you do not wish to save the report, but want to see it, press {Enter}. If you want to forget the whole thing, press {Esc}. Final Word On The Report Program: View is a very powerful program, and fairly complex in nature. The number of variable factors you could use in creating reports is astronomical, and you will probably find some we never thought of. The best way to be an expert with this feature is to use it. Experiment until you feel comfortable. Backup Requirements Backing up your files is always a good idea to prevent lose. This program produces everything it needs, except the information you have supplied to the databases. Anything ending in dbf or dbt should be backed up. You should backup Coupon.dbf, Rebate.dbf, Save.dbf, History.dbf,Queries.dbf, and Queries.dbt regularly. As long as you have your original disk, the rest is not important. These are small files and you should be able to just copy them to a floppy disk and store them in a safe place. Your comments and suggests are requested to continue making this a better program. I look forward to hearing from you and wish you the most savings possible.