CMI Fixed Assets Blog

There are a couple of methods for accessing past year data within CMI Fixed Assets. Today we're going to discuss one of the easiest methods for creating past year files under the Select Company screen. This method is a handy way to have current and past year files all at your fingertips.

First, you'll want to open your current company within CMI Fixed Assets. You'll notice my Demo company shown in the photo below is my 2013 file. Now we'll make a copy of the current year. {Make sure all of your Depreciation Schedules have been run for the most accurate data to be copied.}

Choose the Year End icons on the left hand side of your screen and then select Copy Company. Copy Company can also be found under File | Copy Assets | Normal Copy.

The Copy Assets screen will pop up as shown below. You'll want to make sure that the 'Copy Company from folder' gets copied and pasted down into the 'Copy Company to folder'. In other words you want the second line, the to folder, to match the top line, the from folder.

Select the option 'Copy One Company at a Time'. The Company Number copied from will automatically be populated with your current company. You'll want to leave that as is. The Company Number Copied to will need to be changed to the past year file that you're trying to create. In this case since my current year is 2013, the year I am getting ready to close, I named my file DEMO2013 so I know what year that file represents. Then click Copy in the top right corner.

A Question screen will then pop up asking if you want to copy the company backup data (assuming your current company has backup files available). I always choose yes since backup data can come in handy and doesn't take up much space on your computer or server.

The copy process will then complete and you'll be back at the Copy Assets screen. Here just click Exit.

Now we'll complete the process for closing our current year end, in this case I'm closing my 2013 file. Again choose the Year End icons on the right side of your screen and then the Year End Close icon. Year End Close can also be found under File | Year End Close.

The Year End Close dialog box will pop up. As long as all of your Depreciation Schedules have been printed the Close Year End button will be available. If any of your schedules say 'Not Printed' you'll need to run that schedule to the screen and then come back to the Year End Close process. Click the Close Year End button.

You can now follow through the prompts of the Year End Close wizard. They include such items as Deleting Prior Year Dispositions and performing a backup of your company.

Now you'll notice my current file has rolled over from 2013 to 2014 indicating that the Year End Close is complete.

Using the process we've just discussed I now have a file for last year (2013) that I can easily open and use to print prior year reports or look at other prior year data. I also have a current company (2014) available to continue with my fixed assets for the current year.

Now, next year I can perform this process over again to create a 2014 file for my past year and then roll over the current year to 2015. This creates a database of each past year under my Select Company screen that is easily accessible.

If you have any questions on this process or would like to discuss anything within CMI Fixed Assets please contact us at 1-800-678-3658.

Have you come across the situation where you sold a company; or a branch of the company; or otherwise needed to dispose of several assets at one time?

Did you know that there is a Multiple Asset Disposition feature with CMI Fixed Assets? Well, there is! For this week's Tip Tuesday, we're going to discuss how to use that feature.

To find this feature, click on Tools in the top left corner of your CMI screen. Then Change Multiple Assets > Disposition.

This brings up the Multiple Asset Disposition Box.

Here you can choose to dispose of ALL the assets in your company by selecting Change all assets OR a specific group of assets by selecting Select Assets to Change.

It also gives you the option of what disposal code you'd like to apply to the assets depending on whether you are selling or abandoning.

If you are utilizing a different basis for each schedule, you can select the schedule that is used to determine the asset basis. In this case either Book or Tax up above. Yours will have whatever schedules you are using within CMI available to you.

You'll then be able to type in your Disposal Date and the Total Sale Amount (if selling, if abandoning this area will be grayed out) for the group of assets you are disposing.

*Something to keep in mind here is that this tool is most useful for assets being disposed of on one date. If you are disposing of assets over several dates, it is best to use the Dispositions tab under Edit Asset to dispose of each individual assets with their own dates.

Once you're finished making your selections as discussed above click ok. If you chose to dispose of all assets, the report will run with those dispositions. If you chose selected assets, the Asset Selection box will pop up next. Here we talked about selecting multiple assets through CMI. You can review that Tip Tuesday on more ways to use that feature.

If you have any questions about disposing of multiple assets within CMI Fixed Assets, feel free to contact us at anytime!

1-800-678-3658 We're here to help!

Have a great week!

The Asset Selection dialog box allows you to select criteria used by CMI Fixed Assets to determine which assets to print or display.

The left side of the dialog contains checkboxes for many of the asset input fields. If you check a field, you can then enter criteria to be used. For example, if you check Asset Number, you can enter a range of assets to be selected. If you enter 150-200, only assets 150 through 200 will be printed or displayed.

Asset selection criteria can be saved and retrieved. This feature is helpful if you find yourself repeatedly making selections using the same criteria.

Entering Ranges

For ranges, you can enter either individual values (such as 10,20,30) or minimum-maximum pairs (such as 100-200 which indicates the range of values from 100 through 200). Individual values and minimum-maximum pairs can be combined (for example 1-10,20,30). Some input fields allow hyphens (-) or commas (,) as part of the value. For example, account numbers may have hyphens in them; if you enter 100-200, you may be indicating the range of values from 100 through 200, or you may be indicating a single account number 100-200. To distinguish between the two situations, you can enclose the value in quotation marks (either ' or "). For example "100"-"200" means the range of account numbers 100 through 200, and "100-200" means the single account number 100-200.

You can leave out the upper or lower limit. For example -100 means all values up to and including 100. 5000- means all values above or equal to 5000. If you need to indicate a negative number, put it in quotation marks.

Wildcard characters are allowed when entering values for the asset description and user-definable fields. Enter a question mark (?) for a single character that can have any value, or an asterisk (*) for any group of characters that can have any value. For example to select all assets with a description that begins with Chevy, enter

Chevy*

in the description field. To select all assets with the word Chevy anywhere in the description, enter

*Chevy*

If you want to select all Chevys with model years in the 1990s, you might try entering

199? Chevy

in the description field. Finally, if you want to select an item that actually has one of the wildcard characters, enter a backslash (\) before entering the character. For example, enter

\**

to select all assets that begin with an asterisk. (\* represents the asterisk, and then the second asterisk means any characters can follow.)

For more on entering Asset Selection criteria see the Manual under the Help menu in your CMI Fixed Asset software. Pages 66-68

As always if you have questions or comments concerning this blog post or anything else related to the CMI Fixed Asset software please contact us at 1-800-678-3658 or at support@cmifixedassets.com.

Have a GREAT week!

Let's say your accountant or other colleague emails you a backup file of a company to open within CMI Fixed Assets... How would you go about opening that file?

First save the file to your desktop, or other easily accessible location. We most often recommend the desktop as that's easy to remember and easy to access.

Here you can see I've saved my Demo company backup file to my desktop.
*Make a note that backup files are a .bkp file.

Next you'll open your CMI Software. Click on Tools -> Company File/Backup Restore in the top left of the main CMI screen. It will require you to select a company at this point. Any company will do. The company you select has nothing to do with the retrieval, it simply allows you to access the next screen.
*Another note: You must have at least one company saved within your current data path to be able to perform this action.

This brings you to the Company Backup Files Box. Here you'll select Browse in the upper right of the box.

There you will scroll through your computer to find your Desktop. Usually at the very top of the list, or the location to where you backup file is saved.

Once you've located that spot click on it so that it's highlighted in blue, then Click Ok.

Now you should see the company file in the Company Backup Files box that you are trying to retrieve. Click on it so that it's highlighted in blue, then click on the Retrieve button to the right.

Here it will ask you for a new company number. Be sure to give it something distinctive so you can tell it from the other files are located in your data.

*Note: Once you click ok, you will still need to select this retrieved company from the Select Company Screen. But once you do you will have access to that company and can print reports, enter depreciation, etc. just like normal.

If you have any questions concerning this Tip or anything else related to CMI Fixed Assets, please contact us at 1-800-678-3658.

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Last week we discussed accessing your CMI Fixed Assets data on a network from a new computer. This week we would like to share another option of data retrieval; copying company files from an old computer to a new computer.

This is as simple as copy and paste. To access your the CMI data on your old computer, first locate the CMITSWIN file on your C drive.

Once you locate that file, open it, then scroll down to locate your company files. They will be files with your company number as the prefix. In my case my company number is DEMO1. So I am looking for all files with a DEMO1. prefix.

The number of files per company will depend on the items included in that file as well as the size of that company and it's data. You can see my DEMO1 file is a rather large company so there is a large number of files. Make sure you find all of the company files for the company or companies that you keep track of and highlight those files.

Quick Tip* - To highlight a huge list of files at one time, click on the top file, hold down the SHIFT key on your keyboard, then click on the last file. This will highlight all the files between the two.

Then simpy right click and Copy. From there you can either paste the files into an email to send and open on your new computer, or paste them onto a USB or other external drive to open on the new computer.

Once you get those files opened on your new computer, simply copy and paste them into the new computer's C:\CMITSWIN folder.

Once that's been done you may need to rebuild the Master File so that the software will know to read those new files. To do that click on Tools > Rebuild Files > Master File.

Rebuilding the Master File will only take a second, then you can select a company and start using the CMI Fixed Assets on your new computer.

Have a great week! And if you have any questions or comments, or need any assistance with your CMI Fixed Asset Software, please feel free to contact us at 1-800-678-3658.

Since we are located in Arizona, we are available from 8:00 am - 5:00 pm Pacific time during the summer months.

Last week we talked about installing CMI Fixed Assets on a new computer. This week, we'd like to discuss accessing CMI data saved on your network from a new computer.

If your data is saved on a network, it can be accessed from the new computer simply by changing the configuration.

Here you see the data path of the new computer is currently, C:\CMITSWIN. That's the location of your new computer's hard drive.

To access the network where your files are saved click Tools > Configuration.

Click 0 Standard so that it's highlighted in blue (if it already isn't), then click Change.

Now you will see the 'Edit Configuration' box. You will also see the data path again and below it to the right a Browse button. Click Browse.

Now you can scroll through the 'Browse for Folder' box to find the network location of your CMI data. Once you find it, click on it so that it's highlighted in blue and click OK. Click OK in the 'Edit Configuration' box.

Now your data path should read as the Network file location of your CMI Data. In this case, it now reads S:\Ron's Computer\CMITSWIN which is the network location of my data. Yours will be different obviously according to the file name of your data location.

From here you can select a company and begin working in CMI Fixed Assets on your new computer.

The other option for accessing data from an old computer is to move the data from the old computer to the new computer. We will be discussing that process next week.

Enjoy your day! And if you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact us at 1-800-678-3658.

When completing a year end close backup files are automatically created prior to completing the year end. However, if you would like to make a backup file at any other time, the steps to do so are as follows.

1.  Tools -> Company File Backup/Restore

2. Select the company you wish to Backup

3. See that the Path for company backup files is correct

4. Click Save

5. You will be prompted with “Save backup files to path…” Click Yes if path is correct

6. Now you will see the new backed up file listed under Backed up company files

Welcome to another Tip Tuesday.  Todays video clip will be on a commonly asked question:  How do I copy my company files from one computer to another?  These steps can be used in many different scenarios, but the basics will normally be the same.

CMI has the tools built in to automatically copy your company files from one location or directory to a new directory, whether on your local drive, to the network or to a jump drive for transfer to a clients computer.  In any case, this can be accomplished quickly and easily.

We hope this provides more help to you in using CMI Fixed Assets!

Copying Company Files