Format Options

(Accessed through Maintenance / Program Options / Formats.)

Confirmation # Format -- This selection allows you to specify how the confirmation number is created from the reservation record ID.  You can change this any time, but it will not affect reservations made previously -- it will only affect new reservations.  The format is entered as text with a number of optional "tags" that will be replaced accordingly.  Any text that is not recognized as a tag will be included verbatim.  The default and most common format simply includes the internal reservation record ID and the workstation ID.  Each tag can also specify a minimum number of digits and whether it's padded with 0's.  Specifications and examples appear below.  Note that upper/lower case does matter, since some tags have a different meaning depending on the case.

Tag        Meaning

<W>        Workstation ID (will always be 0 if networking not used)

<R>        Reservation Record ID, excluding workstation prefix

<WR>        Complete Reservation Record ID, with workstation ID prefix

<S>        Shift number (e.g. if Shifts are enabled)

<M>        Month (current date)

<D>        Day

<Y>        Year

<J>        Julian date (day of the year)

<H>        Hour, in 24-hour format (00 to 23)

<h>        Hour, in 12-hour format (01 to 12)

<m>        Minutes

<s>        Seconds

<a>        AM/PM (or A/P if only one digit specified like <a:1>)

Modifiers:

:digits        Minimum number of digits, e.g. <W:2>

:#digits        Maximum number of digits (truncate the left-most digits if necessary), e.g. <R:#3>

         To truncate the right-most digits, use :#-digits, like <Y:#-2>

:0digits        Fill any extra characters with 0's instead of spaces, put a 0 before the number of digits

:-digits        Left-justify the tag contents, include a minus sign (-) after the colon (or after #, if used).  

         Note that 0-filling cannot be done if left-justified is also specified

Examples:

Format:                Result:

R<W><R>                R1345                Workstation 1, record 345 (record ID actually #0100000345)

R<W><R:5>        R1  345        Same as above, 5 digits minimum (note the spaces)

R<W><R:05>        R100345        Same as above, with 0-padding specified

R<WR>                R100000345        Save as above, but the complete raw record ID is used

<Y>D<J>R<R>        2004D40R345        Feb 9th, 2004 (Julian day 40), record ID 345

<Y:#2>D<J>R<R>        04D40R345        Same as above, but 2 digit year specified

Note --  It's important that you make sure that each reservation has a unique confirmation number.  For instance, don't just rely on the <R> tag if you have multiple workstations, since each workstation could potentially have the same workstation-stripped record ID (the <R> tag excludes the workstation portion of the complete record ID).  Use <WR> or a combination of <W> and <R>.  Potentially you could use a date and time combination, but even this has potential for duplicates if multiple workstations are present.

Receipt # format -- This is used for the Receipt # field for each transaction, and follows the same formatting rules as the Confirmation # except that the Transaction record ID is used instead of the Reservation record ID.

Date Format -- There are several date formats to choose from, which will be used most places that a date appears on a report or printed receipt.  Selections include several variations of both m/d/y and d/m/y formats, with or without the weekday.  Note that the computer's regional settings (for instance U.S. or Canada) will automatically affect the date-picker controls, but will not affect this setting.  This setting must be changed manually.

Currency Symbol -- You can enter the currency prefix symbol here, if '$' isn't appropriate.  It can be up to 3 characters, so you can use US$, CD$, etc. if necessary (but be aware that these do make prices look more cluttered, especially on receipts.)

Show "Prov" and "P.Code" instead of "State" and "Zip" -- For users outside the United States, check this option to use the Province and Postal Code everywhere in the program that State and Zip code would otherwise appear.

Show discounts, payments, and other credits as negative in the "Total" column of transactions -- Check this to see a more "natural-looking" credit in the Totals column, e.g. to show a payment as a negative number (subtracting from the charges) instead of showing everything as a positive number.

Automatically format customer information to mixed-case (e.g. "smith" becomes "Smith") -- Check this option to let Campground Master auto-capitalize name and address field entries.  It will generally capitalize the first letter of each word, but it knows a few common exceptions to the rule (e.g. McDonald, PO Box, etc.).  The text won't be capitalized as you type, but will auto-format when it's saved.

Validate customer E-mail addresses for being in the correct format (e.g. name@domain.com) -- Before closing the Customer Details or New Reservation dialogs, the customer E-mail address entered will be checked against several standard rules for valid E-mail addresses. and a warning will be shown if there's a problem.  The warning can be ignored (in case there is a good reason for the variation), or the operator can go back to fix it.

Automatically format phone number fields to (999) 123-4567 format -- This is selected by default, so that if the phone number is entered as 10 simple digits, eg. 9991234567, it will auto-format to the U.S. / Canada standard.  Uncheck this if you prefer not to auto-format the number, e.g. if you're in a country that uses different formatting.

Minimum / Maximum digits for "valid" phone # filtering (in reports) -- These settings determine which phone numbers are considered legitimate phone numbers, by the number of digits.  For instance you may want only 10-digit numbers to be valid (U.S. standard with area code), or your country may have different standards.  This is primarily used in the Phone List functions under the Reports menu, if filtering by whether a valid phone number is present.

Font sizes, thickness and custom fonts -- While the size of some parts of the program change automatically with Windows settings, like the dialogs and menus, the font used for controls in tab view and grids is defined in the program.  The normal size is considered a size of 12 with a thickness of 4 (don't worry about what the numbers actually mean).  You can increase the size to a higher number if needed to see the text better on your computer.  A small size increase to 13 or 14 may be all that's needed.  If a larger size results in a font that's too "thin", you can also try increasing the thickness to 6 or 8 to make it bolder.  Note that for the default "MS Sand Serif" font, there are only 2 thicknesses, "normal" (4 and under) and "bold" (anything above 4).  You can also select Custom font if you want to use a different font like Arial, which may have more variety available in the thickness (which is always a range from 1 to 9, with 4 being "normal").

There are 3 different areas that can be independently changed:

Tab view controls -- this is for the row of controls above the main grids in the Tab views, e.g. the From & To date selections, Reset/Today button, etc.

Tab view grids -- this is for the main grids in the Tab views themselves, e.g. the Rack, Arrivals, Departures, etc.

Other grids (in dialogs) -- this is for grids used inside dialogs, e.g. Find Reservation and other reports that open a new window.

Tabbed list view options (Arrivals, Departures, etc.) -- These options affect the appearance of several of the tab views -- Arrivals, Departures, On Site, Unassigned, Non-Reserved, and Payments Due.

Show a "Total" row -- This enables the extra row at the bottom of the view, showing the total number of entries (reservations, transactions, etc), plus totals for any appropriate columns such as number of adults, extra vehicles, or balance due.

Show reservations not assigned to a site even if a Site Type is selected -- Used for the views that have a Site Type selection (all except the Unassigned and Non-Reserved views).  When this is not enabled, the list will show only entries for the specified site type selected in the drop-down list (unless of course All Site Types is selected).  When this is enabled, it will show entries for the selected site type plus those for any with unassigned sites.  Use this option if you prefer to think in terms of "it might end up as any type, so show it with all types".  For example, if you want to show all Arrivals that "are" or "might be" for the selected site type.

Show grid lines by default (must restart to take effect) -- This is the default, so all grid views show the grid lines.  If you prefer not to see lines in the grids for a cleaner look, then you can turn this option off. It will not immediately turn grid lines on or off, but will take effect the next time the program is started.  You can manually turn off the grid lines on each grid (except the Rack view) using the Grid Lines option on the right-click context menu.