Getting Started

This document is an introduction for Virgo Accounts. Virgo Accounts is a trademark of Irwin Associates. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

1. Overview of the System

Virgo Accounts is a single-user accounting system designed primarily for the one to three partner solicitor's practice. In particular it has been designed to comply with solicitors' accounting regulations of England and Wales, and those of Legal Aid franchising.

2. System Requirements

The system will run on any PC running MS-DOS version 3.0 or later, Windows 3.1x, Windows 95 or 98, with a minimum of 640kb of RAM, a hard disk and a printer. The system requires about 2½Mb of free disk space for initial installation. Ideally, the printer should be connected to the first parallel port (LPT1).

When running the program under Windows, care should be taken not to start two copies of the software running together as this is likely to cause corruption to the database.

3. Installing the System

Installation of the software is a simple procedure. The installation routine loads all the software onto your hard disk and, following a series of prompts, sets up most of the parameters required to get started quickly and easily. To install the system, put the Virgo Accounts installation diskette into your a: drive and, from the DOS command prompt, enter the following commands (in Windows 95/98 press Start, Programs and MS-DOS Prompt):

a:
install c:\dtm (where c: is your hard disk and dtm is the directory into which you will be installing your Virgo system - you may specify a different drive and directory if you wish)

(Note: It is important to enter these as two separate commands, pressing Enter after each one; this is not the same as typing a:install c:\dtm. Likewise double-clicking on the install batch file should not be used either.)

Note that if you are running Windows 3.1 you should exit completely from Windows to install the software; once installed Virgo Accounts will run happily under Windows 3.1, but it will not install.

You should then start Virgo Accounts as described in section 5.

You will be asked to input details of your PaperKey Certificate. Enter the details exactly as they are shown on the Open M/DTM license key.

When you start Virgo Accounts for the first time you will be asked for details specific to your practice. Simply follow the prompts given on the screen, answering the questions presented and complete the installation. You will be asked to input the following details:

Enter U - Update or press F5 to update. Once the installation is complete, remove the installation disk from the diskette drive and keep it in a safe place.

4. Getting Started

Before using the system, you should read the rest of this introduction, as well as the initial section of the user manual. The user manual is provided as a web document and may be viewed using a web browser. This provides hypertext links and also enables you to search for words or phrases. If you do not have a web browser, a printed copy is available for an additional fee.

You are also advised to run the Print System Parameters program to get a printout of the parameters, and check that all details are correct. To amend any of the details select the appropriate program from the System Maintenance menu. You may also wish to input any additional fee earners, bank accounts (or other cashbook accounts, such as petty cash, credit card or deposit accounts), nominal ledger accounts, activity codes and charge groups at this stage.

On installation, the system is set up for summarised time entries. If you wish to hold detailed time entries, use Maintain System Parameters to amend the detailed time indicator to Y. If the practice is not registered for VAT, use Maintain System Parameters to amend the VAT rate to 0 - the VAT rate has no accounting function, it is used simply to provide a default VAT amount for postings.

You will need to input your clients and matters before making any financial entries, other than nominal ledger entries. It would also be wise to input the opening balances for your cashbooks. You must also input the client interest rates before posting any client account transactions. For details of how to insert and amend details, refer to the appropriate program documentation in the main manual.

It is worth spending a little time considering how you wish to number your clients and matters. Two options - by no means the only ones - are, for clients: i) sequentially number each client, so the first is 1, the second 2, etc (or 001, 002 etc.); or ii) use the first letter of the client's name followed by a number, e.g. J1 or J001 for the first client with a name beginning with J. And, for matters: i) sequentially number each matter for a client; or ii) code the matters by type of work, e.g. matters numbered 100 to 199 may be conveyancing matters and 200 to 299 matrimonial, etc. (Note that leading zeros are significant in both client and matter codes; e.g. 1, 01, 001 and 0001 all refer to different clients or matters.)

Setting up opening balances needs careful consideration with any accounts system. Guidelines are given in an appendix to the user manual. You may wish to consult your accountant as to how best to set up the details for your needs.

5. Running the System

To start Virgo Accounts under DOS enter the following commands at the DOS command prompt:

cd\dtm
virgo

To set up the system to run under Microsoft Windows 3.1, from Program Manager select File, then New, and click OK. For the description enter Virgo Accounts, in command line enter dtm.pif spas, and enter c:\dtm for the working directory, and click OK.

To set up under Windows 95, 98 or NT, right click the mouse button on the desktop, select New, and then Shortcut. In the command line, enter c:\dtm\virgo95.bat and select Next. For the name, enter Virgo Accounts and select Next. Then choose an icon from those displayed and select Finish. If you are running Virgo Accounts under Windows 95/98/NT, always run it using the shortcut.

Once the system is started, you will be presented with the Main Menu. To perform any function, simply select the option you require from the menu presented. For day-to-day activities, there are just two levels of menu. To select a menu option, just type the number corresponding to the function you require and press Enter. To return to the main menu from a sub-menu, just press Enter or Esc.

To exit the system and return to DOS, enter 0 from the Main Menu or press Alt+F4. Always ensure that you exit Virgo Accounts before switching off your computer. Failure to do so could cause corruption of the database. If you accidentally switch off without exiting, or suffer a power failure then you must run Consistency (see main manual) the next time the system is started, answering No to all options except Compress?, to which the response should be Yes. (You are also advised to run the consistency program on a regular basis in any case, probably monthly, responding Yes to all options.)

6. Backing Up Your Data

It cannot be emphasised strongly enough the importance of taking regular backups of your data in order to avoid loss of information that may result from a system failure caused, perhaps, by power fluctuations or a disk crash. Loss of certain information from your computer may be little more than inconvenient; however, loss of accounting data is likely to cause you significant difficulties.

There are many options for backing up which will depend on your hardware configuration and the version of DOS or Windows. Each option has its advantages and drawbacks. If you have a lot of data, it is strongly recommended that you purchase a tape unit or a removable high-capacity disk unit to backup the entire system or selected parts of the system. If your data files are small, you can simply copy them using the DOS copy command, Windows Explorer or File Manager. Please consult your system's manuals for details of how to perform a backup.

To backup just your accounting data you may copy just the two files named user-gbl.*.

Whatever way you perform backups, always use more than one set of disks or tapes, using them in rotation. For example, if you take daily backups then you could have one diskette or tape for each day of the week, labelled MONDAY, TUESDAY etc.; if you backup on a weekly basis you should use at least three diskettes or tapes labelled WEEK 1, WEEK 2 and WEEK 3. You should also have one or two sets of diskettes or tapes for use, say, before running period end processing.