Database & Audit Trail Maintenance

To access the Database Maintenance process start the INSTALLATION Workshop program and from the main menu select Toolbox|Database Maintenance.

Perform this operation to recovered lost space being occupied by deleted transactions. Running this operation will also usually result in improved performance and may correct "malfunctions" of the software caused by data corruption.

It may also speed up your system if opening files seems to take a long time.

Clean All Databases

Tick this option to execute the main re-pack and re-sort operations.

Clearing System Histories

The operations that follow are optional and only need to be run infrequently. They may reduce the size of your audit trails (at the expense of loosing historical data) which may make database maintenance operations faster to perform:

Clean Audit Trails

Tick this option to clear the audit trail files. This file is used by certain reports, such as the stock movement report.

Empty Records Before

Removes audit trail records before this date.

CAUTION: You will not be able to print meaningful reports before this period, for reports that depend on audit records.

Clean Lay-by File

Tick this option to remove lay-bys that have been fully paid.

Empty Records Before

Only lay-bys before this date that have been fully paid will actually be removed.

Clean Transaction Log

Tick this option to remove transaction log records. These are the records of all transactions added to CAPITAL, by whom and when. Transactions include invoices, purchase orders, stock receipts, stock returns, and others. This log also records if transactions have been edited or deleted.

Empty Records Before

Removes transaction log records before this date.

Clean Cost History Log

Tick this option to remove stock item cost history information (used by special stock costing).

Empty Records Before

Removes costing history information before this date.

Clean Receipt History

Tick this option to remove all records of stock deliveries (either through delivered purchase orders or totalled receipts). This file primarily tracks when stock was delivered, by whom, how much it was worth and how much was delivered.

Empty Records Before

Removes stock receipt history information before this date.

Remove Orphan Records

Tick this option to check for damaged transaction data and remove it from the CAPITAL database. It also removes note pad entries relating to card file notes. The Database Maintenance operation may take a considerably longer time to run when this option is ticked. Generally, this option should only need to be selected infrequently, such as once every 12 months.

This should only be necessary if you have added notes to your card files then removed those card files externally. For example, by deleting them using the Windows Explorer program or by moving them to another part of your system. If the card file is deleted within CAPITAL, note information will automatically be removed, so there is no need to select this option.

Hints & Tips

This procedure can be run directly from a batch file or short-cut icon if the start-up switch "CLEAN" is specified, i.e.,

INSTWIN /CLEAN

Audit trail information is not removed if this switch is used. The syntax for cleaning all companies at once is as follows:

INSTWIN /CLEAN /A

After a database maintenance is performed, an automatic repair is then executed by the system.

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Related Topics:

How To Perform An Automatic Repair

Start-up Switch Settings