Timeslips Speeds up the Billing Engine

One of the major areas of improvement touted for Timeslips 2010 is the presence of a new and improved billing engine.   That sounds nice, but how much faster could it really be?  I decided to take it for a test drive so I can give potential upgraders some hard data. 

I have a client using Timeslips 2008 that is very frustrated by how long it takes to print bills – typically around two hours just for the printing stage, before approval.  I created a copy of their database and decided to do a comparison.  I no longer have Timeslips 2008 on my system, so I ran the first test in Timeslips 2009.  The only filter I used was slip date, which I limited to the month of June.  There were 2042 open clients so I printed to a PDF file in order to conserve paper.  Bills were generated for 912 clients, and the process took an hour and 45 minutes.  It then took another 3 hours to approve the bills.  I could see why my client was frustrated. 

The next day I took the original Timeslips 2009 database, created before I generated the bills, and converted it to Timeslips 2010.  I then generated the same batch of bills, and it only took 7 minutes.  7 minutes!  That is some improvement.  Kudos to the Sage development team. 

Unfortunately, it still took 3 hours to approve the bills, so there is some further improvement to be done on that side of things.  The billing process has gone from over 5 hours to around 3, though, so that is a pretty significant upgrade. 

Do you feel the need for speed?  TriStar is currently offering significant discounts on Timeslips 2010, so order your upgrade today.

How to Avoid Address Violation Errors

If you’ve used Timeslips for any significant amount of time, you’ve most likely received the dreaded “Address Violation Error”.  The message sounds pretty scary and is somewhat vague, so it’s hard to know what caused it and how serious it really is.  Most of the time it is not terribly serious. It just means that your computer’s memory has been maxed out.  If you get these errors repeatedly while performing the same function, then you may have some data corruption.  If they are random, however, then it is more likely an issue with your computer hardware.  Here are some troubleshooting tips. 

These tips are fairly technical in nature, however, so before performing them you may want to consult your firm’s IT person, or contact one of the experts at TriStar. 

Does your computer have sufficient RAM?  Timeslips lists a minimum requirement of 512 MB, but recommends 1 GB.  We routinely recommend at least 2 GB if you plan to run any other programs at the same time as Timeslips.   To check your RAM right click the My Computer icon on your desktop, or click the Start button and choose Properties. 

Are the BDE settings correct?  Behind the scenes Timeslips uses the Borland Database Engine (BDE) and its settings can significantly impact how Timeslips functions.  Go to Start – Control Panel – BDE Administrator – Configuration – System – INIT to check and/or edit these settings.

You may also want to check these settings in your computer’s registry:
Click Start and choose Run.  Then type Regedit.
Once you’re in the Registry Editor expand to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE – SOFTWARE – Borland – Database Engine – Settings – System – INIT

The settings should be as follows:

LOCAL SHARE = TRUE
MAXBUFSIZE = 8192
MAXFILEHANDLES = 256
MEMSIZE = 179
MINBUFSIZE = 1024
SHAREDMEMLOCATION: 0x6BDE
SHAREDMEMSIZE = 4096

 Timeslips versions 2009 and above will tell you if these settings are incorrect,t and fix them for you the first time you open the program. 

 You should periodically delete temporary files created by Timeslips.  By default they will go to either C:\Program Files\Timeslips\Temp or C:\Windows\System32\Temp.   You can specify the temp file path in Timeslips preferences.  Setup – Preferences – Other.  The temp files that Timeslips creates are folders labeled FulSes and APISes, as well as files like NAVXXXXX.TMP.

 You can also get an error if Timeslips “times out” while trying to communicate with the server.  One way to speed up the communication between your workstation and the server is to enable Opportunistic Locking in the registry.  Timeslips automatically disables opportunistic locking when it is installed so you need to manually change this setting.

Click Start and choose Run.  Then type Regedit.   

One you’re in the Registry Editor click Edit and choose Find

In the Find what box, type OplocksDisabled and click Find Next. 

When the first key is found, double click it and change the Value Data to 0.

Press F3 to search for the next instance and repeat the process.  There should be three registry keys. 

Restart the computer for the change to take effect.

 Sometimes your Timeslips preferences file can become corrupted, especially if you have used the same preferences file over several versions.  By default the preferences file is located in C:\Program Files\Timeslips on each workstation.  You can delete the preferences file (PREFS.PRF) and then Timeslips will automatically re-create a fresh, new one the next time it is opened.  You will then have to go to Setup and choose Preferences to get your settings back the way you like them.  You may want to make some notes about how your preferences are set before you delete the file. 

 Try to limit the number of other programs and processes that are running when using Timeslips.  You may want to open the Task Manager to the Performance tab to view how your CPU usage is affected by Timeslips processes.  If it is up near 100% then you probably need some more RAM. 

 If none of this makes any difference then it may be an issue with the data.   Try running Data Verification (File – Data Verification) to look for errors — or contact a Timeslips expert. 

Timeslips 2010 is now shipping.  Order from TriStar to take advantage of significant discounts.