Overview
Stores and restaurants can carry anywhere from a few dozen items to tens of thousands of items. Regardless of how many inventory and menu items your business sells, it is useful to break your items down into smaller groups of items to perform a certain task or search. In CRE\RPE, items can grouped into Departments. A few uses of a department:

· For items without barcodes select the Touchscreen Lookup button which will list all your departments.  A subsequent selection of the desired department will list all the items within it and the particular item can then be selected and added to the current invoice. 
 
· Report on the sales of one or a combination of departments, example, report how much in vegetables you sold in a retail store, or how many beverages you served in a restaurant  
 
· Quick Lookup -- Look for Saltines in the Crackers department, instead of looking through your entire inventory list  
 
· Count and reorder inventory by department, breaking one huge task down into separate sections  
 
· Make price changes, put items on sale, etc. one department at a time. Instead of adding a sale price to 2 liter coke, 2 liter sprite, 2 liter root beer, etc. you can put the entire 2-Liter-Soda department on sale   
 

Department Reports
Once departments are established for your inventory items and sales are rung up the following reports can be produced:
- Department Listing - View a list of all the departments
- Items by Department - View a listing of all the items within a particular department
- Top 10 Sellers - View a listing of your top sellers by department within a certain date range
- Detailed Department Sales - A list of each department and what was sold inside that department
- Grand Totals by Department - View the sales totals of a particular department within a date range
- Daily Sales by Department - View the total sales of all items within a particular department
- Customer Purchases by Department - View a listing of items sold within a department, including who they were sold to.
 

Navigation
Please note that CRE\RPE comes with a default department of 'NONE'. This department can not be deleted.

You can access the 'Department Maintenance' screen by choosing button 5B (Administrative-->Department Maintenance) from the 'Options' Screen.
 
The 'Department Maintenance' screen display one department's information at a time. The right side of the screen display properties of the current department. To navigate between departments, use the arrows and drop down on the bottom of the screen. To Add, Update, Delete and Exit, use the buttons on the left of the screen (explained in detail below.)
Add Department-- Click or touch this button to add a new department  
 
Save Changes -- Use this button to save changes you've made to the current department   
 
Duplicate -- This will copy your department information so you do not have to enter it twice  
 
Delete -- Permanently remove a department. Items inside of this department will be set to the NONE department.  
 
Exit -- Exit the Department Maintenance screen.  
 
Next -- Display the next department in the list  
 
Previous -- Display the previous department in the list   
 
There is an Info menu on top left of the 'Department Maintenance' screen. In the Info menu are two options.
'Change Department ID' -- will allow you to change the department ID from what it currently is to a new ID. This is rarely used.  
 
'Toggle Sort Order' -- (shortcut Shift+F2) will toggle the sort of the search box between Search by ID and Search by Description.  
 

 
 
Screen Breakdown
Department ID (required) -- A unique identifier of the department. Some businesses use numeric IDs to match accounting and tracking systems already in place. Others use a word such as "PRODUCE", "LIQUOR", etc. You may not have more then one department with the same department ID.  Note:  You have the option of grouping Departments within a Category (Category for this Department).  This is optional and usually not used. 
 
Department Description (required) -- A 30 character description of the department that appears on many buttons, searches and reports within CRE\RPE.   
 
Department Type (required) --  The standard department type used for any type of merchandise or service is "Regular"  e.g. VEGETABLES