2BizBox ERP

This guide will help you setup 2BizBox for your company without outside help. 2BizBox software downloaded from this website has been preconfigured and is ready to run in a real business. As you have noticed, two companies are available on the login screen, default and test. The test company is used to test, practice and evaluate. Default company is for real implementation. Test company has been pre-configured, you can login the test company and use it without extra configuration. Default company as the official database, should be configured more strictly before used. To simplify the configuration process, 2BizBox will run a setup wizard program when you first time login default company. The setup wizard provides a step-by-step construction to guide you how to complete the essential settings for your company. Once you complete the wizard, all configurations will be saved into the database. Login again, you will able to login the system directly and configure more settings, or start to use.

Database Configuration

By default, 2BizBox uses an embedded MySQL server as the database server. The easiest way to run 2BizBox is just to keep the default database configuration. However we suggest you change the default root user’s password of MySQL database to keep it more secure, if you are ready to implement 2BizBox. You can also change the configuration to use different database server and database user.

• Change Database User & Password
  An embedded MySQL database has already been installed with 2BizBox server. By default, 2BizBox uses user root to connect to MySQL. The default password is root. You can use a different database user and password by following steps:
  • Run embedded MySQL database. To do this, execute <install-path>/server/bin/run_database.bat. A command prompt window will display and MySQL is running at port 3307. Closing this window will stop MySQL server.
  • Change root user’s password. Go to <install-path>/server/db/bin, execute mysqladmin -u root password ‘new_password’. Replace new_password with your new password. Also you can go into mysql database, and execute update user set password=password(‘new_password’) where user=’root’” command to update root user’s password.
  • Login MySQL database. Go to <install-path>/server/db/bin, execute mysql -uroot -p -P 3307 and input root user’s password in the coming line.
  • Create new MySQL user. See here to learn now to create new MySQL users: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/adding-users.html. Make sure the new created user has full privileges for all databases start with bb2_*.
  • Change configuration file. Open file <install-path>/server/default/deploy/mysql-ds.xml. Find <user-name> and <password> tags, replace value to the new user name and password.
• Change Database Server
  You can use the embedded MySQL database or change to another one running on the same server or another server. To use other MySQL database, you need to follow these steps:
  • Create databases on your MySQL server with sql script at <install-path>/server/db/database.sql.
  • Update file server/server/default/deploy/mysql-ds.xml. Find all <connection-url> tags, replace localhost and 3307 to your MySQL server IP address and port. By default MySQL runs on port 3306.
  • Find all <user-name> and <password> tags, set the user names and passwords to visit the new MySQL server.
  • Change startup file. The embedded MySQL server does not need to run anymore because another MySQL server will be used and running. Open file <install-path>/server/run.bat, remove the second line start db.bat. Make sure the MySQL server is running before starting 2BizBox server.

Company Setup Wizard

By default, there are two companies in 2BizBox – test and default. Each company has its own data and database. The test company is used to test and practice how to use 2BizBox, the default one is for official usage for your company. Like test company, default company also has been well configured but has no sample data. Before turning on the default company for real use, you have to setup essential configuration according to your business. This can be done by running a company setup wizard program when you login the default company at the first time. With this wizard, setting up the essential configuration for your new company will be easy.

Wizard configuration needs to select “default” company in login screen. If the default company has not been initialized, the wizard program will appear after user login. The wizard guides you how to configure the new company step by step. Complete all inputs in the wizard and check all the settings before you finish. You can save and exit the wizard program in any step. All changes will be saved into default company database. When login the default company next time, you will back to the wizard again.

When you finish the wizard, click “Complete” button to commit the configuration. Relogin the default company you will enter into 2BizBox main screen directly.

Check following steps to learn how to complete company setup wizard.

Setup Company Addresses

First step is to setup address information for your company. 2BizBox Address Box manages all addresses of customers, vendors, and manufacturers. Meanwhile, your company itself also has address and will be identified as an address book entry. 2BizBox needs one primary address to identify your company. You can setup more secondary addresses for other usage, for instance, billing address, shipping address, and printing address. If the secondary address is not set separately, the primary address will be used for it.

A recommended format of address ID is like “ABC001″ – three letters and three numbers. “SER001″, “WPT500″ are all good address IDs. If you want to set secondary addresses, put an extra letter in the tail is recommended. For example, “SER001A” is billing address ID, SER001B is shipping address ID, etc. Well-formatted address ID will be very helpful to make the business data more understandable.

For any address entry, ID and name can not be empty. ID of these addresses should not be duplicated. Inputting all fields of the address is highly recommended.

Check and fix any possible problems listed on the screen at the bottom, click Next button to next step.

Setup Company Currency

2BizBox supports multi-currencies. In this step, you need to give the local currency of your company. Input currency name and symbol, for example, USD and $.

More currencies can be added and get into 2BizBox when you finish this wizard. All other currencies will be considered non-local currencies.

The default local currency is US dollar, name is USD and symbol is $.

Setup Time Zone

2BizBox gives a user-friendly program to set the Time Zone. Select a Time Zone from the drop down list, and then make a choice to check “Display Time Zone” box which will display Time Zone on all related reports with time. With Time Zone, the format is like this: “2011-01-05 10:43:10 GMT-06:00″. Otherwise, it shows time like this: “2011-01-05 10:43:10″.

Setup Employee

This is the first employee of 2BizBox, it will be linked to admin which has all permissions of 2BizBox. More employees of your company can be added after setting up wizard and entering into 2BizBox HR Module.

For any Employee entry, ID and name can not be empty. Inputting all fields of the Employee is highly recommended.

 

Setup Chart of Accounts

2BizBox comes with a template of chart of accounts. These accounts have been setup in this step. Check these accounts and directly use them if these accounts meet your company needs. You can add, modify, or delete accounts as your needs. Also you can edit Account Number by selecting one row and clicking “Edit Acct#” button. However, the change may affect account parameters. You need to double check all account parameters in next step.

2BizBox supports multi levels chart of accounts. When using sub-chart, remember to set parent account number as the prefix of the sub-chart account number. For example, parent account number is 6250, sub-chart account numbers would be looked like 6250010, 6250020, 6250030, etc.

Setup Account Parameters

You need to setup fiscal year and month periods firstly which are needed before the accounting module can be used. The fiscal year is the accounting period and normally it spreads over 12 months. By default, 2BizBox creates fiscal year with 12 months for current and next year according to calendar year. You can add new fiscal years and setup its month periods.  You can name the fiscal year format as “FY2010″.

For 2BizBox v3.0.0, fiscal year FY2010 and FY2011 have been created there.

 

Secondly, more detailed settings are needed for accounting module. In this step, you need to specify many account numbers and let 2BizBox know how and where to keep accounts on the daily business activities. In this step, check each sub steps on the list, and configure the values of each sub step carefully. By default 2BizBox has configured all parameters by using default chart of accounts. So you need to check these parameters if you change the chart of accounts in previous step.

 

Setup Account Categories

Account Categories is a template used to generate Balance Sheet. 2BizBox gives a standard sample template. Check these categories and find whether it is meet your company’s need. You can add, edit, and delete categories.

2BizBox supports multi level categories and the total amount of parent category equals all amounts of its children categories. And it will show total amount of each parent categories in balance sheet report automatically.

In this step, you can set chart of account for each category in editing category screen. Such as the amount of CASH ON HAND category coming from the balance ”1010 Cash on hand”. 2BizBox has already configured all of them and you should check once you change the chart of accounts.

Setup Starting Balance

After the chart of accounts has been established, the accounts balances must be initialized by entering dollar amounts as the starting balances.

In this step, all accounts are listed with an editable cell with red color line where you can input the starting balance amount. The balance field locating at debit or credit column depends on the D/C direction. Select start month period on the top right corner. The start balances will be initialized to that period with a transaction automatically generated by this wizard. Debit and credit totals must equal and match the totals from your company accounting report.

Setup Password

This step is used to setup password for user ‘admin’. Password is very important for user. More complex and periodical password changing are encouraged. The length of password must be bigger than 6.

Complete Wizard

It is almost finished. Check each step and fix all errors. Warnings will not stop you to go further but always try to fix all of them. “Complete” button should appear in this step. Remember after clicking the Complete button, this setup wizard will never show up again. Many settings can be changed later inside 2BizBox, but the change may affect existed business data. So the inside wizard is the best place to double check and configure all settings for your 2BizBox.

If you are ready to go to main screen, click Complete button to commit all changes to 2BizBox server. Wizard program will exist and you will back to login screen. Input the new password you specified in wizard to login 2BizBox. If 2BizBox main screen shows up, 2BizBox has been configured and is ready to use.

More Settings

Wizard program only covers most important settings for the company which should be finely configured before the company startup. After wizard has been completed, more configurations can be done in 2BizBox Control Panel module. See following section to check all further settings for your company.

More Company Configuration

After the wizard, all major configurations have been done. Complete following steps to configure more settings for 2BizBox. Or ignore these steps for now and configure the settings later when you use them.

• Engineering Settings
  • Minimum part number digits. Default value is 3. This property specifies the minimum length for the part number in 2BizBox. This is used to control the part number length for your company. If this is set to 3, then “AB” will not be a legal part number because it is too short but AB1 or 1AB would work.
  • Maximum part number length default number is 20. This property specifies the maximum length for the part number in 2BizBox.
  • Mark to “engineering new part” for newly created part. Default value is “YES”. The newly added part will be marked as “engineering use only” if this is set to “YES”.
  • Default Shipping weight Unit of Measure (UOM).  This is the default value for part shipping weight UOM. If you set “KG” for this parameter, the system will use this as the newly created part’s shipping weight UOM when a new part is created in 2BizBox.
  • Make or buy for new created part. Default value is “BUY”.
• Work Order Settings
  • Initial cost: This is a cost number used to control work order cost. Only when the work order cost is higher than this cost will it be controlled by work order cost control process. Input 0 to make all parts under cost control.
  • Over percent: After setup of the “Initial cost” above, you can also setup the work order over a certain cost percentage limit. For example, 20% means if a part finished in a work order is 120% of its average cost, the work order will be reviewed and processed by work order cost control process.
  • Control By: The cost method used in 2BizBox. Currently 2BizBox supports Average Cost and Standard Cost. Select the one your company will use.

Initialize Data

When the setup of the configuration of 2BizBox is completed, you can enter business data to get your company up and running. Follow these steps to input all needed data in 2BizBox:

• Enter all of the customers and vendors in Address Box. You can also skip this step and enter the customers or vendors only when you need it, such as creating new sales order or purchase order. (It is recommended that the first 3 letters of a company name and 3 numbers such as 001 can be used for the ID of a company. For example Tomato Company will have ID: TOM001. If Tomato Company has a different shipping address ID, it would be TOM001A. The next company might be Potato Company and will have ID POT001 and shipping address ID would be POT001A.)
• Enter all parts including part number, part type, description, standard cost etc. You may have many parts which are needed to be entered. To make it simple, you can skip this step and create a part only when you need it, such as creating new sales order, purchase order, work order, BOM etc. Make sure you already have part numbers for each part and know how to number the parts. If you don’t have a preference for the format of the part number, you can setup 2BizBox to let the system generate part number for all newly created parts.
• Enter all Bill of Materials (BOM). Make sure the BOM already exists in Part Master module, and at least one part item is under the BOM list.
• Rollup standard cost for all parts.
• Enter all sales orders. Set up all sales orders that have not been approved or shipped.
• Enter all purchase orders. Include all purchase orders that have not been approved or received.
• Setup Chart of Accounts in accounting module.
  • Create company needed accounts or sub-accounts in Chart of Accounts.
  • Create sub-accounts for every bank of your company.
• Setup the initial balance for each account except Accounts Receivable (AR) and Accounts Payable (AP).
• Enter all AR:
  • Enter all open ARs (Invoices in 2BizBox) that have not been received.
  • Run an open invoice or AR report to make sure the total amount of receivable is correct.
• Enter all AP:
  • Enter all open AP that have not been paid.
  • Run an open AP report to make sure the total amount of payable is correct
  • Run an open AP or AP report to make sure the total amount of payable is correct.
• Setup inventory by Physical Inventory report and enter all current inventory quantities for all parts. Commit the Physical Inventory report and check that the inventory quantities are correct.
• Check the balance sheet report and make sure the balances of each account is correct.
• Close last month’s period.

Data Review

After entering all data above, go to engineering, sales, purchase, warehouse, accounting boxes and run reports to check that all numbers are correct. Run balance sheet, profit & loss statement, closing statement and other accounting reports to make sure all data is correctly entered.

Now 2BizBox is startup-ready.

Next Steps

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Meanwhile, to know how the basic 2BizBox workflow, see Quick Start Tutorial to get more information. Also, Download page provides User Guides for each 2BizBox module. Each module User Guide contains all detailed workflow and instruction that range in scope from basic to advance. Read this Daily Maintenance Guide to know how to maintain your 2BizBox and the generated data.

To send comments and suggestions, get support, and keep informed on the latest documents, new features and news release, join the online forum or send us email to info@2BizBox.com.