BOOKS™ Manual

Your BOOKS data files are the records of your business and should be guarded with the same care that you would guard your blank checks.  Besides Backup and Restore, Import and Export, there are several other file management commands to understand.
Clean Up, Delete Files, Purge Account, Replicate and Display Statistics are all commands that help you control your files.

Clean Up

Clean Up is the most neglected command by users. It is a very useful command, though, since it keeps your data easy to access.  If you use the Clean Up command, then exit and restart BOOKSä, often a problem will be fixed. Clean Up will not harm your data, even if you run it when it is not needed, but it will often make your program run faster. Click on File then on Utilities then on Clean Up. If your data files are large, or if you have never run a clean up, clean up can take some time. It is a good command to issue just before going for coffee or lunch.
Purge Balance Records
If you having been using BOOKS for many years, or have many managed accounts, you may want to delete balance records that were downloaded from the Home Office. Use this Toolkit command to get rid of them.

Delete Files

Repeated backups or exports can eat up hard disk space rapidly. While this command should be used sparingly, judicious use to delete older Backup and Export files will conserve your hard disk space. Click on File then Utilities then on Delete Files. The Open dialog will appear. You will be able to tell which are your oldest files by the backup and export naming conventions. Usually your most recent are at the bottom of the list, and your oldest files at the top. Select a file that you want to delete, then click on OK.  The file will be deleted. Repeat until all files that you wish to delete are removed.

Purge Account
Purge Account will remove accounts from your BOOKS™ database. All orders and balance records AND the account record itself will be removed. You should only use this command when you are not required to keep records for compliance, such as for managed accounts where the orders are placed directly to the floor by the manager. USE VERY CAREFULLY AND SPARINGLY, remembering that electronic data should be kept as long as paper data would.
Display Statistics
This command tells you how many accounts, orders and securities are in your database, and also gives statistics on memory usage by BOOKS™. It can be informative to a technical support person to tell them this information.