Older Release Notes:

SoapMaker 3.7.3 Release Notes

Released May 6, 2015

This update provides some improvements, and fixes several bugs.

Improvements

• Recipe Wizards have an added note explaining that you must define new ingredients in MySupplies before using them in recipes.
• A new (optional) reminder message will be displayed the first time you open SoapMaker each year, suggesting you capture your supply and product stock values for tax purposes. It is important to capture these amounts at year end using the Tax and Income Summary report, as they represent a snapshot of your inventory and will change as you record new purchases and sales.
• In MySupplies and MyProducts you can now include your Notes in an exported file.
• In Sales History and Product sales forms, the heading 'margin' has been changed to 'profit'.
• When Consolidate Products is checked in MyProducts it is not possible to select a single batch from the list. Now if that box is checked and you click an item in the batch list, a message explains that you need to uncheck the box before you can select a batch.
• The users manual was changed to make it clear that checking the 'Not for Inventory' box in new purchase orders means the cost of the affected item will not affect the costs displayed in MySupplies or in recipes.
• If an error occurs when attempting to open the database, additional error info is now included.

Problems Fixed

• If a pending supply order was somehow saved with a null date, this caused an error when re-opening the order.
• A bug in the Usage History report could result in the same batch being listed twice, once showing lot 'unknown'.
• If you made a batch using a recipe with only packaging items, and then tried to print the batch details, an error occurred.
• The Tax and Income summary report failed with an error if a supply order referred to a tax group that has since been deleted.
• When editing a supply order which refers to a tax group which no longer exists, the warning message was unclear.
• If a Blend was saved with zero weight, it caused an error in Shopping List. Now this error is avoided, and you can no longer save a blend with zero weight.
• When marking recipes for update after recording a new water purchase, an error could occur due to a bug in the database query statement.
• When saving a recipe, it was possible to paste in the name with an apostrophe which causes an error.
• When specifying a zero or negative lye discount, a warning message would keep appearing. Now it will only appear once while the recipe is still open if you say it's OK.
• When recording a new batch, If you edited the sub-batches so the first line had no bars/portions, this caused problems later when recording sales from this batch because the stock remaining in MyProducts was not recorded correctly after the sale.
• An old bug made it possible to delete a blend formula while still leaving the blended ingredient in MySupplies. A warning message appeared telling you to delete the ingredient as well, but if it was a blended oil, this would cause an error. Now it is fixed so, if needed, you can delete orphaned oil blends with no formula.
• An error occurred if you tried to save a new blend formula with the same name as an existing custom oil which still has stock remaining.

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SoapMaker 3.7.2 Release Notes

Released October, 2014

This update provides some new features and improvements, and fixes several bugs.

New Features

• MyProducts has a new option to consolidate batches of the same product in the batch list using the new 'Consolidate Products' checkbox.
  • If you select 'Show batches by Recipe', all batches from the same recipe will be consolidated on a single line of the list.
  • If you select 'Show batches by Product Description' then all batches with the same Product name will be consolidated on a single line.
  This will enable you to see at a glance how many bars/portions you have in stock for each recipe or product. The Date column shows the most recent batch. Note: Since each line in the list represents multiple batches, you cannot select a line to edit or record sales - you must first uncheck the Consolidate option.
• You can now customize printed invoices using your own header image with your company logo, and fancy fonts and colors. See the Users Manual topic 'Invoice Header' (just type 'invoice' into the index to see a list of topics).
  If you prefer to continue using a plain text header, the maximum length of the address field has been increased from 100 characters to 200 characters.

Improvements

• The New Supply purchase form now allows vertical resize, and remembers your preferred size.
• Changed behaviour when cancelling a batch if you specify that you want to restore ingredients to your supply stock. Previously, if there were no purchase records for an ingredient, or there was insufficient capacity in existing purchase records to receive the restored ingredients, then a 'dummy' purchase record would be created to hold the restored quantity. This is no longer done because it could create confusion. Now there will just be a notice that some ingredient stock could not be restored.
• INCI names can now have up to 255 chars to allow for purchased blends with many ingredients.
• Improved response if SoapMaker cannot find or cannot open the database file.
• When editing your invoice header text, if the length of a field exceeded the maximum allowed, the cursor jumped back to the beginning. Now it remains at the end, making it more obvious that the limit has been reached.
• Users Manual additions and improvements:
  • New FAQ topics for re-batching soap ends, and for Super-fatting.
  • Improved topic Blends and Infusions to better explain how to create formulas to deal with waste when straining infusions.
  • Clarification added for how labor costs may affect the Tax and Income summary report.
  • The topic Making a Batch has additional explanations for various warning messages that may appear.

Fixes

• In the Cancel Batch dialog, if no purchase records were found where an ingredient could be restored, that ingredient's unit cost was not being set to zero - instead it was nonsense.
• A bug in MyMolds could cause an error when deleting or replacing a mold.
• Large totals on recipe forms were not displayed correctly if the currency symbol included a space separating it from the number.
• If you deleted a tax group after recording sales with those taxes, an error occurred when attempting to open the Tax and Income Summary report. Now the affected taxes will be shown with the group name 'unknown'.
• In the New Batch dialog, changing the waste factor did not refresh the bars/portions size calculations.
• A bug in MySupplies caused the unit cost of an item to be displayed incorrectly if the Track Usage box was unchecked, even though the cost was stored correctly.

SoapMaker 3.7.1 Release Notes

Released April 10, 2014

This update fixes a couple of problems found during 3.6.12 beta test, and adds improvements to the Recipe Ingredients Export feature.

• When exporting a Recipe Ingredients List to make labels, you now have several options for formatting the list, and what is included (Common name, INCI name, and percentage).
• Under some circumstances, an error occurred when updating from version 3.6.9 or earlier if there were entries saved in the Price List table.
• Adding a new invoice language could cause an error if the language name contained an apostrophe or slash character.

SoapMaker 3.6.12 Beta Release Notes

Released March 31, 2014

This beta release provides several new features and improvements, and fixes a couple of problems. Please give it a try and report any problems.

Improvements

• The Liquid Soap calculator now allows you to specify the neutralizer solution strength if desired.
• Shopping List production planning tool:
  • You can now save the current list and load it later to use again.
  • The total bars/portions are calculated and shown for each recipe selected.
• Customer Invoices:
  • When creating a new invoice, you can now specify packing items with the order. Their calculated cost can serve as a guide in setting your handling fee. When you save the invoice, the packing items will be deducted from your packaging inventory in MySupplies.
  • If you live in a region where English is not the primary language, you can select a different language for the terms on a printed invoice.
• When you export the batch list from MyProducts, it now includes each sub-batch size and stock. You also have the option to include any notes saved with the batch.

Problems Fixed

• Prices in the Price List and Sales Record did not show trailing zeroes
  (e.g. 5.00 just became 5).
• The Supply Orders report sometimes caused an error when opening it, or re-sizing the window.
• When updating all recipes, affected Blended ingredients would be set to Tracked in MySupplies even if they were previously not Tracked.
• The Supply Usage report showed a non-functional mininmize button. Clicking it caused an error, so it has been removed. If not using this window, simply close it.

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SoapMaker 3.6.11 Release Notes

Released March 6, 2014

This update fixes one problem. A bug in the Price List margin calculation code could cause a fatal error.

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SoapMaker 3.6.10 Release Notes

Released March 5, 2014

This update provides some improvements, and fixes a few problems.

Improvements

• The Price List can now save both retail and wholesale prices.
• When filling a New Sales Record form, the Fill Prices button now has a drop-down list to choose either Retail or Wholesale prices from your Price List.
• The Price List form now shows your profit margin as an aid in setting prices.
• The Price List and New Sales Record forms now allow more than 2 decimals in unit costs.

Problems Fixed

• If a non-soap recipe contained an unknown ingredient (due to an earlier bug), the recipe could not be opened because an error occurred. Now it can be opened, and any unknown ingredient names will be blank so you can re-select them and save the recipe.
• The New Blend Batch form could cause an error when checking/unchecking the box next to an ingredient with multiple supply lots listed.
• In the Tax and Income Summary, the tax rate column was not wide enough to show the % sign for large values.

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SoapMaker 3.6.9 Release Notes

Released January 25, 2014

This update fixes the following problems:

• When adding new Tax Groups in MyPreferences, the tax names and rates could be assigned to the wrong group in some cases.
• On the Sales Register form, if you entered a discount amount before entering any product prices, an error occurred.
• If you save a recipe with the same name as an existing one, you are asked to confirm replacement. But if the new name was the same as the original but with different capitalization, the database still found a match and the new recipe was saved with the same capitalization as the original. So you did not actually get the new name as you typed it, and MyRecipes did NOT find a match when it updated the 'Organize by Group' list, so an error occured.

Two new FAQs were added to the HELP menu:

• I just got SoapMaker 3. How do I set up my inventory?
• How do I create a recipe with only Packaging items? The cost is not showing.

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SoapMaker 3.6.8 Release Notes

Released December 5, 2013

This update fixes several problems, including one serious problem that could result in corrupted recipes. It is recommended that all users install this update.

Problems Fixed:

• Using the Insert Row feature in a soap recipe could lose the identity of the adjacent ingredient when the recipe was saved. Attempting to open it in future, or use the Update All Recipes command would result in an error.
  This bug has been fixed, and any affected recipes can now be opened so you can correct the unknown ingredient entry.
• The Update all recipes command (under the main Recipes menu) will now check for any recipes with unknown ingredients. If any are found, a log file is created listing the problem recipes so you can correct them.
  It is recommended that you run the Update all recipes command immediately after installing this update.
• On the Tax and Income Summary report, the Taxable Income amounts were not calculated correctly.
• Tax rates are now displayed with 3 decimal places.

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SoapMaker 3.6.7 Release Notes

Released November 5, 2013

This release marks the successful completion of the 3.6.6 beta test, and fixes a few small problems discovered during testing. It is recommended that all users install this update.

Please see the 3.6.6 changes below for a complete list of new features and improvements.

Problems Fixed:

• MyProducts has been changed so that batches made with archived or deleted recipes will not be listed when All groups (except Archive) is selected.
• The New Blend form was not calculating product cost correctly when drawing stock from an older purchase lot which has different units than the most recent lot of that ingredient.
• When opening an existing Supply Order for editing, if the order contained only Other Expense items but no materials or packaging, the correct page was not displayed. The Other Expense tab was selected, but a blank Materials page was shown instead.
• When opening an existing Sales Register for editing, the Customer name was sometimes not filled in.
• In the Sales History report, the Total Margin was wrong if any listed items included a discount.

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SoapMaker 3.6.6 Release Notes

Beta release October 17, 2013

This release contains some new features and several improvements and fixes. When installed, it will modify your database structure, so please backup your database first.

Because it affects many areas of the program, it is being released for beta testing by experienced users before general release to new users.

Please report any problems, however small, by creating a trouble ticket.

New Feature: Tax Groups

If you sell products in more than one sales tax region, you may need to specify different tax rates when creating an invoice. Previously you had to do this by editing the taxes in MyPreferences each time, but now you can specify multiple 'tax groups', each with one or two unique tax names and rates. When creating an invoice, you can then simply select the desired tax group, or create a new one if needed.

When you first install this release, your current tax settings will now appear in the 'Default' tax group.

New Feature: Supply Lots Used report

Since release 3.6.0, SoapMaker has provided the ability to track individual supply lots right through your production to particular product batches and customer sales.

Now this new report provides the opposite view by listing each supply lot used to make any selected product batch, showing the supplier, the lot number and the quantity used. The report can be printed or exported to a spreadsheet.

Improvements

• New KOH Purity field has been added to liquid and cream soap recipe forms. Since Potassium Hydroxide typically is only about 90% pure, this allows you to set a value which will give you the correct amount of KOH without having to fiddle with math to adjust your lye discount. You can also set a default value in MyPrefernces for each recipe type. This value will then be set automatically in all new recipes of that type.
  In this release, existing recipes will be set with a value of 100% for KOH Purity so the lye calculation will not change. But the default value in MyPrefernces is set to 90%. You should adjust this to suit your own KOH supply. If the purity is not shown on the label, contact your supplier.
• Shipping and Handling - When creating a new invoice on the Sales Record form, there are now separate entries for postage and handling fee. The postage amount is what you pay to ship your products (this cost is included in your invoice total), while the handling fee is whatever you charge to cover your labor and packaging costs to ship.
  When you print the invoice, the postage cost and handling fee are combined into a single 'shipping and handling' item. The total taxes appear below the shipping and handling item, and include whatever tax you collect on those.
• Tax and Income Summary report
  • Your Postage Costs are shown as a separate business cost, and any tax you paid for postage may be included in your tax credits.
  • Your Handling fees are simply included as part of your income.
  • The report now shows a breakdown of tax information for each defined tax group. The report can be stretched vertically to show more tax groups if needed. SoapMaker will remember the size and position of the report next time you open it.
  • Tax collected is no longer included in the net income line.
• Sales History report - Now includes a customer discount column, and any discount is excluded from the Totals column. When exporting the report, it now shows the flags for any taxes which were included in the price.
• Export Invoice feature - The exported text file now includes tax indicators, and multiple entries for the same product are consolidated as in the printed invoice.
• Customer List - the Export button is now available even if no customer is selected.
• Other improvements:
  • Added FAQ about return/exchange of products from existing invoice.
  • Added page to recipe Wizards describing how to re-arrange recipe rows.
  • Added Unit Cost column to Purchase History report.

Problems Fixed

• The recently introduced feature which enables manipulating recipe rows (shift up or down, insert or delete) was not working correctly, and could scramble the recipe when saved.
• When opening the Supply Orders report an a computer with a very small screen, an error sometimes occurred.
• The Sales Registers/Invoices report did not refresh the tax names if they were changed while editing an invoice.
• In the Make New Blend dialog, changing the percentage made caused an error if the blend contained no oils, or no additives.
• Attempting to delete a purchase history item with 'not for inventory' checked caused an error.
• On several reports, if you chose Export and then cancelled before saving the file, an error occurred.
• If you selected a packaging item from the list in MySupplies and checked or unchecked the Track Usage box, an error occurred.
• In Non-soap recipes, the percentages are now always shown with two decimal places to match the precision with which you can enter changes.
• In MySupplies, untracked items in the list were being included when calculating the total value of stock. Now only items with 'Track Usage' checked are included in the total value calculation.
• The New Batch form caused an error if one of the supply lots being used showed a quantity purchased of zero.
• In the Supply Purchase History report, attempting to delete an item marked as 'not for inventory' caused an error.
• When editing recipes or blend formulas using 'enter by percent' option, the total percent may have been highlighted blue (too low) or red (too high) due to internal rounding even if it showed 100%.

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SoapMaker 3.6.5 Release Notes

Released June 20, 2013

This update fixes a few problems, and addresses some issues with large forms on small screens that were not fixed properly in 3.6.3.

• If your system is set to use large icons, recipe toolbars may not show all the buttons unless you stretch the recipe form wider. Now if you do this, the graph color patch will also move so it becomes visible.
• When resuming a supply order, the 'Other Expenses' tab was not being populated with blank fields if there were no items when the order was previously created. (Similarly for the 'Materials' tab).
• When importing a cream soap recipe, the lye page incorrectly showed pre-mixed lye being used.
• When making a new batch, if MyProducts was already open, it sometimes did not update or move to the front as it should. If not already open, sometimes it did not open.
• In the New Batch form, if you edited an item so that multiple supply lots are used (instead of just one) and then checked or unchecked the last item in that supply list, an error occured.
• When unchecking an item in the New Batch list of ingredients, the correct icon was not being shown.
• On the Supply Orders report, if there is insufficient space to show both the 'Materials' list and 'Other Expenses' list for a selected order which contains items in both lists, a button will appear which can be used to switch between these two lists.
• The New Blend Batch form will now adjust itself to fit on smaller screens.
• The following forms now display scroll-bars (horizontal and/or vertical) if needed when the screen is too small to show the entire form:
  • New Supply Purchase form
  • New Batch form

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SoapMaker 3.6.4 Release Notes

Released May 30, 2013

This small update only affects users living in regions where the numbering system uses comma as the decimal point. (e.g. 100,23 instead of 100.23)

• Opening the Price List caused an error which prevented any data from being shown.
• When creating a new Additive, if the name contained an apostrophe and was pasted in instead of being typed, an error occurred.

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SoapMaker 3.6.3 Release Notes

Released May 29, 2013

This update fixes a few problems that were not discovered during beta test.

• Several large forms could not be viewed properly on small screens. The following forms will now fit within the main SoapMaker window, so there will be scroll-bars if needed to see the entire form on small screens:
  • New Supply Purchase form
  • New Batch form
  • New Blend Batch
• In the New Batch form, product cost was not calculated correctly when drawing stock from an older purchase lot which had different units than the most recent lot of that ingredient. The batch was then saved in MyProducts with an incorrect cost, affecting the total product value.
  If you have recorded batches since first installing version 3.6, and the costs look wrong, you may want to delete and re-record those batches.
• If a recipe was resized, and then the original recipe was closed leaving the resized copy open, trying to then re-open the original caused an error.
• If a non-soap recipe was saved overwriting a soap recipe with the same name, it could leave orphan recipe oil records in the RecipeOils table because this table is not used by non-soap recipes. However, if you made a batch with the new non-soap recipe, all the oils from the old soap recipe with the same name would appear in the New Batch dialog.
  Now you will not be allowed to save a recipe by overwriting an existing recipe unless they are the same type.
  When you first run this update, it will check your database for orphan recipe oil records and delete them.

The Users Manual has a new note about currency symbol, and a new topic explaining the various places in SoapMaker where you can set bar (or portion) sizes and quantities, and how they relate.

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SoapMaker 3.6.2 Release Notes

Released May 22, 2013

This is the official release after successful beta test. 3.6 is a major update with many new features and improvements. Please see the notes for 3.6.0 below for a complete list of all the changes.

In this update, one new feature has also been added:

• The Price List now includes the latest cost of each product as an aid in setting your prices.

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SoapMaker 3.6.1 Release Notes

Beta Release May 8, 2013

Fixed a few problems discovered in beta testing...

• Printing an invoice could cause an error if the customer's record had been deleted from the Customer List.
• In regions where comma is used as decimal point, an error occurred on first run when updating the database if there were any supply orders with Unlisted amount > 0.
• The new stock value option to use actual prices of each lot caused an error if a purchase record had a null price. (This could have been imported from the old SoapMaker 2). Now your database will be corrected to replace any null price with zero.
• Changed non-soap recipe so more decimals can be used when entering percentages (had promised this but forgot to include it).

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SoapMaker 3.6.0 Release Notes

Beta Release May 4, 2013

This is a major release with many new features and improvements, as well as several fixes.

When this release first runs after updating from version 3.5, it will make several changes to your database. So please save a backup copy before installing.

Report any problems promptly using our Support page contact form.

New Feature - Other Business Expenses

SoapMaker was designed as an inventory control tool, but in response to many user requests, it now has the ability to record and track expenses not related to raw materials or packaging. These can be anything related to your business - tools, books, even rent or travel expense.

• The New Supply Purchase form now provides two tabs - one for raw materials and packaging (as before), and one for any other expenses. (Previously, this form had a single field where you could enter other expenses just so the order overheads would be correctly allocated to your supply costs.
  If you had previously saved supply orders with an amount showing in the 'Unlisted items' field, then when you first run this release a new dummy Other Expense item will be created for the order to capture this.)
• The Supply Orders report now shows both Materials and Other Expenses items (if any) in separate areas of the contents display.
• A New List of All Purchases report shows every supply or expense item purchased - you can select a particular supplier, category and/or date range. This report can be accessed from the main Supplies menu.
• With the Pro edition, the Tax and Income Summary report now includes a separate line for Other Expenses, and these are deducted from your total sales in calculating your net income.

New Supply Lot number and Expiry Date feature

Now you can record the manufacturer's Lot number with each purchased ingredient, as well as the expiry or 'best before' date. With the Pro edition, you will be able to track individual supply lots throughout your production process and sales. This is a major enhancement which affects several forms and reports...

• The New Supply Purchase form provides fields for recording the Lot Number and Expiry Date for each item purchased. These fields are optional - you can leave them blank if desired.
• The Purchase History report has been changed to show Lot Number and Expiry Date for each lot purchased.

With the Pro edition:

• Any expired lots will be highlighted with a special icon in MySupplies and the Purchase History report.
• From the Purchase History report you can now open the Usage History for a particular purchase lot.
• The Make Batch dialog has been changed extensively:
  • A new ToolBar provides easy access to all commands.
  • Instead of a single line for each ingredient, it now shows a line for each lot of each ingredient that will be used to record the batch.
  • As before, SoapMaker defaults to drawing stock from the oldest available lot first, followed by the next oldest. But now you can now select which supply lots and the quantity of each to use. So if you purchased a special order of an ingredient and want to use that instead of older stock, you can easily do so.
  • Product costs are now calculated from the actual supply purchases used for the batch, rather than from the recipe cost (which is always based on the most recent purchase of each ingredient). This is better accounting practice.
  • You can specify the batch date here to avoid the need to edit the batch after recording it just to change the date.
  • You can now adjust the number of bars/portions and their size before saving the batch. This is especially useful for packaging items – previously if you split a batch into two or more different portion sizes, there was no way to ensure the packaging item quantities would match except by changing the recipe before making the batch. If the quantity used from any supply lot is more than the remaining stock, the quantity left is set to zero, not a negative amount. So if you managed to scape more out of a container than SoapMaker thought you had in stock, you do not have to edit the quantity left after recording the batch.
  • If any stock being used for the batch has passed its expiry date, a warning icon will appear.
• The Make Blend dialog has also been changed:
  • You have the option to select particular supply lots for your blend batch.
  • When you make a blend, SoapMaker assigns it a 'lot number' for your reference.
  • It is now possible to trace a particular supply lot through blend lots you have made, product batches made with those blends, and sales to customers.
• The Supply Usage report has major changes:
  • A new Toolbar provides easy access to available commands
  • The list of batches now shows Supplier, Lot #, Purchase date, and Product name (instead of Recipe name).
  • You can choose to show only batches made with an ingredient from a particular Supplier, Lot # or Purchase date.
  • For a selected batch, you can view the Supplier info, the Batch details, or the Sales History
  • You can print the list, or export it as a CSV file
• The Sales History report has added features:
  • You can choose to display the list either by Product name or by Recipe used.
  • You can show only sales of a particular Batch number.
  • As well as printing the list, you can now export it to a CSV file.

Other New Features

• Recipe forms have been improved to allow:
  • Stretching the form horizontally to better display long ingredient names
  • Inserting, deleting or shifting rows up or down. Click on a row number to see a pop-up menu for editing the row.
• In the Supply Orders report, you can now print the list, or a selected order's contents. You can see the entire list, or select a date range for viewing or printing the list. When first opened, the date range defaults to 'Year to Date', but you can then select any desired date range.
  (NOTE: The Product Photo pop-up menu was removed to make room for new menu items in the Supply Orders report (had reached the maximum menu items for the project). You can still access all the photo features via the toolbar.)

With the Pro edition:

• There is a new option for calculating supply stock value: Previously, stock value was calculated using the saved unit cost of each ingredient based on the most recent purchases. Now you can choose whether to use that method (called 'Current Market Value'), or to calculate the value of each ingredient's stock based on the actual adjusted costs of each lot purchased (called 'actual price'). This choice will be reflected in the value of each stock item as well as the Total Value shown at the bottom of MyProducts. It will also affect the product stock value shown in the Tax and Income Summary report.
  NOTE: Regardless of which option you choose for stock value, when you make a batch, the batch cost is now always based on the actual costs of the particular supply lots used for the batch.
• A new optional warning appears if there are Base Oils with stock remaining which are not currently listed in the MySupplies Oils list (i.e. not in your Favorites list). You can add these oils to your list by clicking the MORE OILS button, so their stock value will be included in the total value of all your supply stock.
• The Tax and Income Summary report has these added features:
  • Separate line for costs of other business expenses (no longer included in Materials and Packaging total).
  • Sales Tax table now shows the taxable income for each tax.
  • New Export command to save the report in CSV format so it can be opened in a spreadsheet.
• In the Sales Registers/Invoices report, you can now select a date range for viewing or printing the list. When the report opens, it defaults to the 'Year to date' option, but you can select any desired date range to see older invoices.

Other Improvements

• Added Q and A topics regarding stock value, special purchases, lot numbers, and adjusting the stock remaining of a supply item.
• Added an optional warning about Specific Gravity when an additive or oil is purchased by volume and SG = 1 (same as water).
• Improved error reporting when updating all recipes to ensure any problem recipe's name is recorded in error log.
• A new 'edit notes' command for saved supply orders enables you to edit the Notes without changing the rest of the order.

With the Pro edition:

• When a new batch is made, we now ensure it is visible in MyProducts without needing to scroll the list
• When making a batch from a recipe having packaging items with the 'quantity per portion' option, and a total number of portions which is not a whole number, the calculated number of packaging items is now rounded down to the nearest whole number.
• In the main Help topic for MySupplies, an explanation has been added showing how SoapMaker warns when a supply item is getting low.
• A new optional warning is displayed if you change the shrinkage factor for a batch – this will change the cured size of products and may inadvertently create new 'products' in your Price List.
• Added warning before editing a previously saved purchase order if any items have been used – stock quantities may then be incorrect and a mini-audit will be required to correct them.
• When MyProducts opens, the batch list defaults to 'Show only batches with remaining stock'. This avoids cluttering the list with empty batch records, but you can uncheck the box to see older batch records with no stock remaining (e.g. In order to use the Repeat Batch command).

Problems Fixed

• If a recipe was exported with water option 'Lye Solution Strength' instead of 'Water Discount', then it could not be imported again.
• Under some circumstances, SoapMaker would attempt to display a reminder dialog when another was already open, causing an error.
• When entering recipe oils by percentage, the program was not working correctly if the system was set to use numbering with comma as decimal point.
• When a recipe was set to use lb~oz as calculated weight units, the lye weight was not showing the desired number of decimals.
• The Expected water loss on the recipe Lye and Water page was overflowing the text area.
• Typing or Pasting in a supplier or customer name with an apostrophe or slash caused an error.
• In MyPreferences, tax names are now prevented from being blank as this causes an error.

With the Pro edition:

• Previously it was possible when editing a batch in MyProducts to delete all the contents, leaving the batch showing no bars/portions made. This could then cause subsequent errors. Now you will not be able to save a batch with no content – instead a message will tell you to delete the entire batch instead. When MyProducts first loads, it checks for empty batches and provides a warning if any are found.
• If you had saved batches containing only packaging items, their value was not included in the Tax and Income summary 'total products value' amount.
• The Price List can now handle products with more than 32,000 in stock.
• When MySupplies was set to show only items which need replenishing, the total stock value only included those items. If you then opened the Tax Summary report, it would show this smaller number as the total stock value. This has been fixed so MySupplies always shows the total value of all stock items regardless of which ones are displayed in the list.
• Fixed problem preventing entry of fractional threshold values in MySupplies.

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SoapMaker 3.5.2 Release Notes

Released March 1, 2012

This release fixes a single problem, which affects the Professional edition only:

If you had saved product batches containing only packaging items, the Tax and Income Summary report would abort with an error.

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SoapMaker 3.5.1 Release Notes

Released February 18, 2012

Problems Fixed

• The new Price List feature would not load if there are many combinations of Product Description and Product Size in your Batch List. Now it will open with multiple pages if needed to display all the data.
• The Additive calculators in Liquid Soap and Cream Soap recipes showed error messages on systems with Europearn style numbering (with comma as decimal point).
• Version 3.5.0 would not install on some systems because of Registry errors. (I believe this is fixed now, but I cannot test it myself, so please report the problem if it still exists.)

Improvements

• In MyProducts, the Ready column now shows the number of days remaining until product is ready, or 'Yes' if it is ready now.
• The Date field in the Batch Details area has been widened so French style dates display fully.
• Bar or portion sizes on the recipe Options and in the batch details area of MyProducts are displayed with an additional decimal place for small values.
• When resizing a recipe to specific number of bars or portions, the specified waste factor is now included in the calculation so when you make a batch with the resized recipe, you should get the number of bars or portions desired.
• The Invoices report now has the option to print the list of invoices.
• A new Help topic has been added to the Q and A section with tips for organizing your products.
• In the sample database, the benchmark recipe name on the graph has been changed to 'Soy Base recipe'.

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SoapMaker 3.5.0 Release Notes

Released February 9, 2012

New features

• The new Price List feature enables you to define your standard price for each unique product and size. You can then automatically fill in all the prices on a sales register with a single command. See the new 'Price List' Help topic for details.
• MyProducts now provides the option to list batches by product description as well as by recipe. This is useful if you make the same product using different sized recipes – now you can view all batches of a particular product even if they were made with different recipe names.

Improvements

• On the Shopping List the number of decimal places is now adjusted to display small numbers accurately.
• When creating a new batch, parameters will now be assigned default values according to the following:

  Situation:	No previous batch with this recipe	New batch made from recipe which has previous batches	Repeat Batch command
  Parameter:
  Product Description	Initially set to recipe name	Same as most recent batch from that recipe	Same as selected batch
  Waste Factor, Cure Time and Expected Shrinkage	Set to values in MyPreferences	Same as most recent batch from that recipe	Same as selected batch
  Bars/Portions Made and Nominal Size	Based on recipe settings	Same as most recent batch from that recipe unless recipe units have changed	Same as selected batch unless recipe units have changed

  This can save having to edit the batch record after creating it if you typically make the same mix of products each time. Of course you can always change these values if needed by editing the batch record.
• Batch consolidation on Invoices: When you create a new invoice or sales register, you have to select specific batches from which to draw your products. If you are selling more of a particular product than is available in a single batch, then multiple entries are required in the sales register. But now, when you print a customer invoice, if there are multiple entries of the same product and size then they will be consolidated into a single line on the printed invoice (provided they have been entered with the same price and tax rate).
  If you print the 'sales register' format instead of the 'invoice' format, consolidation is not done, and the specific batch number of each entry is shown on the printout as before.
• When printing an invoice or sales register, the total amount of each item is now flagged with the letter T if it is taxable. With this feature, you can include both taxable and non-taxable items and your customer can see which ones contribute to the total tax.
• When creating or editing a sales register, pressing the ENTER key will move the cursor to the following line – SHIFT-ENTER moves up to the previous line.
• When you edit a batch record in MyProducts, and change the Product Description, now you will be given the option to update all batches which share the previous description to match the new one.
• Recipes are now printed with a horizontal line separator every few lines to aid readability.
• A new option allows you to include or exclude the packaging items from a recipe printout.
• When printing a Blend formula, the costs can now be omitted as with recipes.
• The Waste factor when making batches or resizing to fit molds can now be set to fractions of a percent.
• The Expected Water Loss parameter is now available in non-soap recipes as well as soap recipes, and can be set to fractions of a percent as well as integer values.

Problems Fixed

• When cancelling a batch, SoapMaker attempts to restore ingredients to saved purchase records starting with the most recent purchase which no longer has all of the original purchased stock remaining. In some cases, a bug resulted in the total batch stock not being restored correctly resulting in the wrong value for stock remaining in MySupplies.
• When printing an invoice, sometimes the Invoice number would overlap the date.
• The Invoices Report Delete Invoice command, when used with the option to restore products to inventory, caused an error if an affected batch had previously been deleted. Now this will simply show a message to inform you that the affected products cannot be restored.
• In MySupplies, the total stock value was incorrectly including additive purchases that were flagged as non-inventory in the purchase record.
• Scrolling of long lists has been improved in the following forms:
  • Soap Recipe
  • Non-soap Recipe
  • Supply Shipment
  • Sales Record
  • Shopping List
  • Print Preview
• Invoices were not being printed correctly if the system was set to use numbering with comma as decimal point.
• After completing a new sales record, pressing Ctrl-S on the keyboard now correctly executes the Save command, the same as with other forms.
• When you complete a new sales record using the 'Save and Show' button, if the Invoices Report is already open, it will now be brought to the front correctly.
• Under some conditions, when saving a Sales Record, a warning message was displayed saying there was insufficient stock for some items even though this was not the case.
• Selecting a list item by using the keyboard up/down arrow keys did not work correctly in the following forms:
  • MyRecipes
  • MyProducts
  • Supply Orders Report
  • MyMolds
  • Oil Qualities list

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SoapMaker 3.4.6 Release Notes

Released July 15, 2011

Problems Fixed

• In Cream Soap recipes, the lye amounts were not calculated correctly to reflect the entered ratio of NaOH to KOH. As a result, the NaOH amount was slightly lower, and the KOH slightly higher than specified. This has been corrected.
• In the Purchase History report, if you tried to delete the only item in the list, an error occurred.
• When batch edit is cancelled in MyProducts, the batch details area is now refreshed correctly to show the previous contents.
• The Liquid Soap tab in MyPreferences said 'Lye (NaOH) Discount' - this has been corrected to say 'KOH discount' (there is no option to use NaOH in liquid soap recipes).
• With Windows 7 'Aero' themes, list columns were not right-aligned correctly, and some columns were not wide enough to display the header text. The following forms have been changed to correct this:
  • MyRecipes
  • MySupplies
  • MyProducts
  • Sales History report
• Error handling in initial startup routines has been improved to avoid program freezing if a system error occurs.
• In rare cases, cancelling an oil properties edit session could result in deleting a factory oil from the database.

Improvements

• The Sales History report has been improved as follows: (Pro edition only)
  • The window can now be stretched wider as well as taller by dragging an edge or corner. SoapMaker will remember the position and size the next time you open the report.
  • Tax columns will be shown if you have any saved invoices/sales registers which charged sales tax. If tax was included in the price of any item, this is flagged next to the tax amount, and the price shown has the tax component removed.
  • The product quantities are now totalled at the bottom of the report.
  • The Print Dialog includes a recommendation to set your printer to Landscape format before printing this wide report ('Printer Setup' under the File menu). If printed in Landscape format, the recipe names are included in the report – otherwise there is not enough space to include them.
• A note has been added to the Users Manual about the importance of specifying Specific Gravity correctly if you will be recording purchases by volume – otherwise the unit cost may not be correct.
• I finally found time to make a better looking desktop icon.

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SoapMaker 3.4.5 Release Notes

Released April 2, 2011

New features and improvements

• When printing a recipe, you now have the option to not show costs on the printout.
• When printing supply lists, the printout header now indicates if the Show only tracked items or Show only items which need replenishing options have been selected.
• If your screen is not quite large enough to use the Recipe Full Screen view, you will see a warning if you choose that option, but can still use the full screen view if desired.
• A new Help topic How can I track packaging materials by the roll? has been added to the Q and A section.

Problem Fixed (affects Pro edition only)

When a new batch was made, it was not being automatically selected in the batch list as it should be. If you then tried to edit and save changes without first selecting the batch, an error occurred.

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SoapMaker 3.4.4 Release Notes

Released February 5, 2011

This release fixes one problem (affects only the Pro edition):
If you updated an earlier version to 3.4.1 (or 3.4.2 or 3.4.3), your Customers list was changed to separate the Address into several fields, and to add a new Email field. In some cases, this could result in a null entry which then caused an error when trying to print or export an invoice.

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SoapMaker 3.4.3 Release Notes

Released February 3, 2011

This release fixes a couple of problems with 3.4.1 and 3.4.2:

• When first run, an error occured if SoapMaker had not previously been installed on this computer, or if the previous version number included a non-numeric character (e.g. 3.1.1b).
• On the Customers Report, the Email button would not work if the website address was blank.

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SoapMaker 3.4.1 Release Notes

New features and improvements - Both editions

• The Help menu now has a new item to open the Frequently Asked Questions in the users manual. The On-line Support item now takes you directly to the Support page of the SoapMaker website.
• After you install an update, SoapMaker will offer to display these Release Notes. You can also access them any time from the HELP menu. (Note: you need to be connected to the internet to use this feature.)
• The Suppliers report (and Customers report in the Pro edition) have a new format, with buttons grouped in a toolbar. A new Email field has been added, with a button to create an email addressed to the selected supplier or customer.
• Changes to the Users Manual:
  In the Getting Started topic, added an explanation of the   Pro  flag seen throughout the document (indicates topics relating only to the Professional edition).
  
  New topics in the Q and A section explain:
  • how to use melt and pour soap base in recipes.
  • how to determine the properties of a purchased base oil blend.
  The index has been reworked to make it easier to find relevant topics.
• New daily tips have been added.
• When defining the properties of a new custom base oil, you could always copy the properties of any standard oil included with SoapMaker 3. Now you also have the option to copy the properties of an existing custom oil or blend.

Water calculation in soap recipes

• In Soap recipes you have the option to specify the expected water loss. This is intended to handle evaporation during hot process, and affects the total recipe weight and volume, as well as the bar/portion size or number of bars/portions.
  
  Previously, the water loss calculation only included the water quantity from the Lye/Water page (and for liquid and cream soap recipes, any water from the Additives page). However, if you used a water substitute such as milk and checked the 'Adjust Water' box, this was not included in the water loss calculation.
  
  Now, any water substitute is also included in this calculation. If you have saved recipes which include a water substitute and have the water loss option set to non-zero, the recipe size may change slightly as a result.
• If the quantity of water substitute results in a calculated 'water needed' which is negative at the specified water discount, no added water is included in the recipe. Previously, however, the calculated negative quantity was shown just to let you know you had more water equivalent than the suggested amount. This could be confusing however, so now if the calculated 'water needed' amount is negative, the recipe form will display Water needed: 0, and show the negative calculated amount on a separate line just for information.
• The 'recipe water amount' in Liquid and Cream soap calculators now includes any water substitutes (i.e. Additives with 'Adjust water' checked). To avoid confusion, the recipe water amount shown on the calculator no longer reflects expected water loss due to evaporation.

New features and improvements - Pro edition

• When you make a batch and there is insufficient stock of one or more items, a beep will sound as well as the red warning message being displayed.
• When creating a new invoice/sales record, you now have the option to enter a customer discount amount directly instead of the percentage.
• Changing the contents of an existing recipe which has already been used to make batches may cause Supply Usage History reports to be inaccurate, because SoapMaker will assume that those previous batches were made using the current contents of the recipe. A new (optional) warning message will now remind you of this when you save changes to a recipe which has associated batches, and suggest that you use Save As to save the changed recipe with a different name.
• The Recipes list command in MySupplies shows all recipes which use the selected ingredient, but previously did not show blend formulas. Now when you list recipes using a selected ingredient, the list includes Blend formulas as well as recipes. To track usage of an ingredient, you can now click the Usage button once for the ingredient, and then repeat for each blend which contains that ingredient to get a full view of all batches made with that ingredient.
• You can now export your customer list contents as a CSV file which can be used to create a mailing list. To facilitate this, the Customers report now separates the postal address into several fields consistent with standard address databases. When you first install this update, it will attempt to break your existing customer addresses into the correct fields, but you will need to examine them and make any corrections needed.
• You can also export a selected customer's address as a text file for making a shipping label.
• Labor cost: Previously, if you recorded a supply purchase as 'non-inventory', it did not affect the unit cost used in your recipes and shown in MySupplies. This feature was intended to handle a case where you purchased a soap-making ingredient for personal use as part of a larger shipment. (e.g. Olive oil for cooking). However, if you wanted to create a 'labor cost' packaging item, you had to treat it as an inventory item so it would have a unit cost.
  
  Now, if there are no Inventory purchases recorded for a particular ingredient, the most recent non-inventory purchase, if any, will be used to derive the unit cost. This should have no effect on regular ingredients, but can be used to record a 'purchase' of labor-hour as a non-inventory packaging item. This way, your labor costs will show up in recipes, but the 'purchase' price will not be included in your supply cost summary or your current stock value. The Help topic 'Labor Costs' has been revised to explain this.
• The following improvements have been made to commands associated with Blends:
  • Shipment button, and pop-up menu 'Make Blend' now open the Make Blend dialog directly, instead of opening the Blend formula.
  • A new pop-up menu item enables you to open a Blend formula from the Oils or Additives page. Double-clicking a blended ingredient still opens the formula as well.
  • 'Purchase History' is now called 'Production History' for blends.
  • The main Supplies menu now has a Blends submenu from which you can create a new blend formula, open an existing one, or make the selected blend, regardless of which page you are on in MySupplies.

Problems fixed - Both editions

• On several reports, if the Notes or Memo area contained more lines than can be displayed at once, it was not possible to scroll down. The following reports are affected:
  • Supplier list
  • Supply Orders report
  • Customer List
  • Invoices and Sales Records
• If all recipes that need updating are deleted, the 'needs update' flag in MyRecipes remained set, even when you clicked the Update Now button. Now, you will see the message 'No recipes need updating' and the flag will be removed.
• When updating all recipes, if an error was encountered while attempting to open a particular recipe or blend, it was skipped and we continued with the remaining recipes. However, if the error was due to a common element affecting many recipes, you would see the same error message over and over again as each recipe was opened. Now the updating is aborted if there is an error. Any recipes which have not been updated successfully will still be flagged for updating, so you can try again once the cause of the error has been determined and corrected.
• On computers with a small screen, there may not be enough width to display the 'Full screen' recipe view. Previously, SoapMaker would attempt to display it, but part of the recipe ingredients were cut off. Now if you click the 'Full screen' button on the recipe toolbar, and your screen is not wide enough, a message will appear asking you to use the normal tabbed view instead. You will still have access to all the recipe ingredients and other features.
• On the Supply Shipment form, if the quantity of an entry was too large to display, SoapMaker decided to not show the units in order to make enough space. However, this caused a problem if you later decided to edit the saved order, because the units are needed to recreate the order contents before you can edit them. Now the Quantity field has been widened, and the units are always shown.
• With some currency systems, the recipe total cost was not being displayed correctly because there were too many digits. Now larger numbers can be displayed.
• If you started to create a new base oil, and then cancelled without saving anything, an error occurred in MySupplies attempting to display the properties of the non-existing oil.
• When specifying the properties of a new custom base oil, under some circumstances the relative qualities numbers could be incorrectly computed and saved that way. This has been fixed, and when you first open SoapMaker after installing this update, it will audit any custom oils and correct their quality numbers if needed.

Problems fixed - Pro edition

• If a batch was deleted while in edit mode, an error occurred later when attempting to save the changes. Now you cannot delete a batch while in edit mode.
• When printing an invoice or sales record, the print dialog choice of 'invoice' or 'register' format had no effect - it always used the format chosen from the Print button drop-down menu.
• Printed Invoices only showed the first 4 lines of the notes.
• When creating or editing an invoice, If you first entered a discount precentage, and then changed it to zero or a non-numeric value (i.e. just a decimal point), the previous discount amount was still saved and displayed on the Invoices Report, although it was not deducted from the total.
• MyRecipes has been changed to match the way a Recipe Form handles opening MyProducts after making a batch.
• Prior to version 3.4.1, it was possible in rare cases for a new blended ingredient to reference the wrong formula, or to lose its formula altogether. I believe the problem has been fixed, and MySupplies now performs a check for existing blends with this problem. If any are found, they are listed, and you are instructed to see the online knowledge base for a recovery procedure.
• After using Save As to save a copy of a Blend formula with a different name, the Blends list was not immediately refreshed to show the new Blend.
• The Usage History command on the MySupplies Blends page pop-up menu was not working.
• In some circumstances, it was possible to cause an error or unexpected results when creating or editing an invoice. (e.g. If you deleted an existing invoice while in the process of editing it, or if you deleted or edited a batch record while creating an invoice.) The program has been changed to avoid this interaction, and will also prevent you from changing the invoice list or any batches until you finish the invoice in progress.

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SoapMaker 3.4.0 Release Notes

Database management changes:

The way the database is managed has been changed in order to fix some problems, and enable new features. You won't see much difference, but there have been substantial changes under the hood.

Changes include the following:

• Although SoapMaker is installed for all user accounts on your computer, only the administrator account could actually use it due to a limitation in the way the database location was registered. Now, any user account can run SoapMaker, and if multiple users share the same computer, they can each have their own private database.
• A new Share Data command (Pro edition only) enables you to share the same database with other user accounts on the same computer, or with other computers connected by a local network. It will no longer be necessary to synchronize by using Backup and Restore each time you make changes. (If you use a database located on another network-connected computer, you may see some performance degradation.)
• It will now be necessary for SoapMaker to restart when you backup your database. A new warning message reminds you to save any changes first. (If you enable the backup reminder at closing rather than backing up while still using the program, then you will not have to worry about this.)
• The SoapMaker Splash screen is now shown when restarting, just like initial startup.
• SoapMaker now remembers the date of your last database backup. This is displayed in the About SoapMaker dialog, and in the backup reminder. It is also recorded in error logs.
• When your database needs updating after installing a new release, you used to be given the option to backup your current data first. This option has been removed because backup now requires a program restart. Installation instructions on the website caution you to always backup your database before installing a program update.
• It's good practice to compact your database occasionally, but it does not need to be done each session. Now the offer to compact the database will be shown only every 20 sessions. Even if you do not have the backup reminder enabled, after 20 sessions without compacting the database, you will see a message reminding you to backup and then compact.
• The Compact and Repair Database command now causes SoapMaker to restart - a message warns that you should save any pending changes first. Since repair may take several seconds, a progress bar is displayed as assurance that something is happening.
• When you use the Restore Data command, any pending changes in Oil Properties, Batch records, or Sales records are cancelled since they would be lost anyway. This avoids errors on restarting.
• If an error occurs when attempting to save a backup copy of your database, SoapMaker attempts to provide a more useful message.

General Improvements:

• To speed things up when recipes are being updated, the Graph and Menu captions are no longer updated as each recipe is opened and saved.
• When you try to enter an unknown category or ingredient name in a recipe or blend, a message now explains how to add it in MySupplies so you can use it in your recipes.
• Blend formulas (Pro edition only) now have right-click pop-up menus similar to recipes.
• Added Help topics about small quantities and scale precision, and sharing the database. Also added more index keywords to make it easier to find relevant topics.
• The Clear Database command is intended to be used once after first installing SoapMaker 3. It will remove selected example data that was included with the program before you start adding your own. It now includes an option to delete Suppliers and Customers.

Problems Fixed:

• In the Sales History report, if you selected an invalid date range and then selected a particular customer or recipe, an error occurred.
• When you restore or backup data, SoapMaker restarts. If no dialog was displayed after the restart (e.g. you have turned off the daily tips), then the hourglass pointer could continue to be displayed, giving the false impression that the program had hung.
• After backing up your database, if you chose the option to have your database compacted, the backup location was not saved as the default for future backups.
• Using the Save menu, or Ctrl-S (instead of clicking the Save button) while the cursor was still within a data entry field with invalid content (e.g. An unknown ingredient name) would result in a program error.
• After editing Oil Properties, if you tried to do something else before saving, or tried to save with an invalid property, an error sometimes occurred.
• When selecting different items in MySupplies, the list was being refreshed unnecessarily, causing it to go blank momentarily.
• MyPreferences was not checking existing blends when you specified a smaller maximum number of ingredients. If you set the maximum to be less than the number used in an existing blend formula, then an error occurred next time you opened that formula.
• It was possible to save oil properties with a fatty acid % greater than 100. Now this is not allowed.
• In the New Customer and New Supplier dialogs, if you started a new entry and then decided to cancel, you were asked twice to confirm. Now you are only asked once.
• The Customer List window has a button to take you to the selected customer's website, but this feature was not working.
• When the Merge Oils command is used to replace a custom oil with a standard one, SoapMaker updates saved recipes to change the replaced oil name with the standard one. However, it was not updating saved blend formulas which used the replaced oil.
• When making a batch, a spurious error sometimes occurred if MyProducts was not already open.
• Most toolbar buttons, and many other buttons, have tooltips which pop up when you hover your mouse over them to explain their purpose. Several were missing, and have now been added.

SoapMaker 3.3.2 Release Notes

This update fixes one problem. An error would occur if you edited any property of a base oil whose standard INCI name is longer than 50 characters. The same problem could cause an error when importing a version 2 database with an oil whose properties had previously been edited.

SoapMaker 3.3.1 Release Notes

New Features and Improvements:

• SoapMaker is now available in two editions:
  • Professional - The full featured edition. If you purchased SoapMaker before version 3.3.1 then you have the Pro edition.
  • Lite - Intended for hobbyists who do not need inventory management on other business related features.
• From the Supply Orders report, you can now repeat a previous order as a starting point for a new one. This may be handy if you typically order a standard list of items from the same supplier. Of course the new order can be edited to make any changes needed.
• If you have many supply items, the program can take several seconds to populate supplies lists, or to flag recipes for update after something has been changed. The mouse pointer now changes to an hourglass while these activities are in progress.
• The Update Recipes progress window is now a modal form to prevent possible errors if you try to use another command while the update is still in progress.

Problems Fixed:

• Recipe costs are based on each supply item's unit cost, which should be based on the most recent inventory purchase of that item. However, costs may not have been calculated correctly under the following circumstances:
  • When editing an existing supply order, the unit cost for an item may not have been updated correctly if the date was changed, or an item was deleted or it's inventory status was changed.
  • When you deleted a supply order, or individual purchase orders, calculating new unit costs did not consider the inventory status of purchase records correctly.
  • In soap recipes, the water cost was not being added into the total recipe cost.
  These problems have been corrected. When you first run this release after installing it, SoapMaker will offer to scan your database and correct unit costs if necessary. If any corrections are made, affected recipes will be flagged for updating.
• If a pending supply order was opened, and then cancelled without saving, it was not removed from the list in the Supply Orders report if the report was still open at the time.
• On some systems, data entry rows did not line up correctly on the following forms: Soap and Non-soap Recipes, Blend Formula, New Supply Purchase, Shopping List, and New Sales Register.
• MySupplies export to CSV now includes non-tracked items.
• When updating recipes or blends, the progress message would sometimes say 'another blend needs updating' even though this was the first one.
• The Resize routine was not handling a mold type of 'unknown' correctly, resulting in an error whenever attempting to resize a recipe.
• If you created a blend with calculated weight units set to 'lb~oz' and then made the blend, the units were not being converted to 'oz' correctly for display in the supplies stocklist.
• If the daily tips file was missing, the Tips form entered a permanent loop until Windows halted the program.

INCI Names:

In the database distributed with SoapMaker, some INCI names have been changed to match current regulations.

If desired, you can change these names in your own database using the Oil Properties dialog in MySupplies. The following oils have been changed:

Common Name	INCI Name
Almond Butter	Hydrogenated Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil
Almond Oil	Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil
Apricot Kernel Oil	Prunus Armeniaca (Apricot) Kernel Oil
Avocado Oil	Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil
Avocado Butter	Hydrogenated Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil
Babassu Oil	Orbicular Oleifera (Babassu) Seed Oil
Borage Seed Oil	Borago Officinalis (Borage) Seed Oil
Camellia Oil	Camellia Sinensis Leaf Oil
Carrot Seed Oil	Daucus Carota Sativa (Carrot) Seed Oil
Castor Oil	Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil
Cocoa Butter	Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter
Coconut Oil	Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil
Corn Oil	Zea Mays (Corn) Oil
Crisco Shortening (US)	Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil
Evening Primrose Oil	Oenothera Biennis (Evening Primrose) Oil
Grape Seed Oil	Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Oil
Hazelnut Oil	Corylus Americana (Hazel) Seed Oil
Hemp Oil	Cannabis Sativa Seed Oil
Kukui Nut Oil	Aleurites Moluccana (Kukui Nut) Seed Oil
Macadamia Nut Oil	Macadamia Ternifolia Seed Oil
Mango Butter	Mangifera Indica (Mango) Seed Butter
Meadowfoam Seed Oil	Limnanthes Alba (Meadowfoam) Seed Oil
Neem Oil	Azadirachta Indica (Neem) Seed Oil
Olive Oil	Olea Europaea (Olive) Oil
Palm Oil	Elaeis Guineensis (Palm) Oil
Palm Kernel Oil	Elaeis Guineensis (Palm) Kernel Oil
Peach Kernel Oil	Prunus Persica (Peach) Kernel Oil
Peanut Oil	Arachis Hypogaea (Peanut) Oil
Pumpkin Seed Oil	Cucurbita Pepo (Pumpkin) Seed Oil
Rice Bran Oil	Oryza Sativa (Rice) Bran Oil
Rosehip Oil	Rosa Canina Fruit Oil
Safflower Oil	Carthamus Tinctorius (Safflower) Seed Oil
Sesame Oil	Sesamum Indicum  (Sesame) Seed Oil
Shea Butter	Hydrogenated Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter)
Shea Oil	Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Oil)
Soybean Oil	Glycine Soja (Soybean) Oil
Walnut Oil	Juglans Regia (Walnut) Seed Oil
Wheatgerm Oil	Triticum Vulgare (Wheat) Germ Oil

SoapMaker 3.2.8 Release Notes

This release contains minor improvements and fixes:

• Added note to Help file for Blends, explaining how to handle liquid wasted when making an infusion.
• In lists where multiple selections are allowed, Shift-click or Ctrl-click without a previous selection caused an error. Affected forms are MyProducts, SupplyOrders list and Invoices List.
• Purchase History report:
  If the ingredient displayed is not being tracked, a red 'Not Tracked' is displayed at the top. Since the quantity in stock is unknown, attempting to edit it will result in a warning message.
  For all non-inventory items, and items not being tracked, the Quantity Left now shows 'N/A' (not applicable).
  The pop-up Menu now says Edit (instead of Audit) to match the button.
• On the MyPreferences Blend tab, changed spelling from 'formulae' to 'formulas' for consistency.
• After creating a new blend formula, the blend is automatically selected in the blends list. But if you immediately tried to use a command on that blend, an error occurred.
• The delete blend command, now warns that components will not be restored to stock.
• The Help topic 'Recording Purchases' referred to a 'bottle' example in the screen shot, but there was none!

SoapMaker 3.2.7 Release Notes

This release only fixed one problem - Updating from an earlier release to 3.2.6 did not work correctly if your system is set to European numbering (decimal point is a comma rather than a period).

SoapMaker 3.2.6 Release Notes

New Features and Improvements:

• Blend formulas may now include other blended ingredients.
  If some formulas include other blends, the Update All Recipes command may have to do several stages of blend formula updates before starting to update recipes.
• When making a blend, there is a new option to increase/decrease quantity without having to resize the formula first.
• Mold volume display precision is now adjusted with extra decimal places for small numbers.
• The Purchase History report and the Edit Stock Quantity dialog now show more decimal places for small quantities to match the display format in MySupplies.
• The Maximize button has been disabled on the following forms:

  - MySupplies
  - MyProducts
  - MyRecipes
  - Blend formula
  - Recipes with Selected Ingredient
  - Sales History
  - Supply History
  - Supply Usage

  All of the above forms are designed to work in conjunction with other forms, so maximizing them is not useful, and can cause errors if the main screen is subsequently re-sized. To change the size of any of these forms, drag an edge or corner. For the management center forms, SoapMaker will remember the size and location for the next session.

Problems fixed:

• The New Batch dialog and MyProducts form did not prevent entering a product description that's too long for the database field. This caused a database error to occur.
• When a database error is encountered while using a dialog window, the automatic database repair and restart of SoapMaker is not able to close the dialog correctly. Now when such an error is encountered within a dialog, instead of repairing the database automatically, SoapMaker just displays a message asking you to cancel the dialog and repair the database.
• After resizing a recipe which has a long name, if you then closed the original and attempted to save the resized copy to replace it, you received an error message saying the recipe was already open.
• When editing a Blend formula, if an ingredient name was misspelled during entry, a program error occurred.
• In MySupplies, when the Show Stocklist button was clicked on the Blends page with an Additive blend selected, the Blended ingredient entry was not shown correctly if the Additives stocklist was previously displaying a category other than the one containing the blended additive.
• If you used the Update All Recipes command when blend formulas needed updating but no recipes needed update, and then subsequently tried to open a recipe or blend formula, it did not show.
• In the Supply Orders Report and Invoices Report, selecting a different order by keyboard will now update the contents display.
• On the Sales History report, the View Invoice command did not select the correct invoice if the Sales Registers/Invoices report was already open.
• When first installing SoapMaker, if the registration number had extra blanks, registration would fail.
• In MySupplies, if you deleted a Category, then switched to the List view, you could still select the deleted category - switching back to the Tree view would then cause an error.
• In MyRecipes, if you started to delete a group and then cancelled, an error occurred next time you switched views.
• In MySupplies, the Purchase button now brings the Purchase History report to the front if it is already open.
• Attempting to register your SoapMaker would fail if your name includes accented characters. This has now been corrected. If you were affected by this, and would like to have your SoapMaker re-registered using the correct spelling of your name, please contact me at support@SoapMaker 3.ca

SoapMaker 3.2.5 Release Notes

New Features and Improvements:

• A new File menu command has been provided to Compact/Repair your database - this can reduce its size and improve performance, as well as repairing any corrupted records.
• Now each time you backup your database, you will have the option to automatically compact the active database file after saving the backup copy.
• When you close SoapMaker, the reminder to backup your database will not be shown if you have already created a backup copy during the current session.
• Error handling has been improved:
  • If a program error occurred, SoapMaker attempted to save an error log at the root level of your hard drive, but Vista does not allow this if User Account Control is turned on. Now the error log is saved in your Documents folder instead.
  • If a database error is detected, you now have the option to have the database repaired automatically.
• An 'Import Recipe' feature has been added to complement the existing Export Recipe command. Now you can easily share recipes with other SoapMaker users.
• A new Keyboard shortcut (Ctrl-Z), and new commands in the 'Recipes' main menu and pop-up menu have been added to 'zoom' a recipe form (switch between full-screen and normal).
• New daily tips have been added to describe the recipe 'zoom' feature and the IMPORT/EXPORT commands.
• Recipe forms will now allow you to show fractional quantities for packaging items
  (to accommodate labor-hours).
• When printing a stocklist from MySupplies, you now have an option to print only Additives in the currently selected Category.
• When exporting your stocklist from MySupplies in CSV format, Additive Categories are now included.
• In MyMolds, very small mold volumes did not show enough decimal places. Now smaller volumes are shown with more decimals.
• In MySupplies, very small stock quantities did not show enough decimal places. Now smaller quantities are shown with more decimals.
• New HELP topics have been added for:
  • recipe sharing (with import and export)
  • exporting ingredient lists for labels
  • what to do if you get an error message
  • database compacting or repair.

Problems fixed:

• Editing a batch with unit 'items' caused the units to change to 'fl oz'.
• If MyProducts was closed while editing batch details, and the 'Save before closing?' dialog was answered 'No', then next time MyProducts was opened, the same dialog was presented twice before the form appeared.
• If you entered invalid units in an otherwise blank recipe slot, SoapMaker insisted you correct it. Now if there is no ingredient name or quantity in that slot, the units will just be forced back to the default.

SoapMaker 3.2.4 Release Notes

Problems fixed:

• After editing an existing Sales Register, product inventory was not being adjusted correctly: unchanged items were restoring their quantities in error, and when an item was deleted, the quantities to be restored were associated with the wrong products.
  If you have experienced this, you may have to audit your product stock quantities.
• When opening an existing Sales Register for editing, a message indicating tax rates have changed would appear even if no taxes were defined.
• If a non-soap recipe somehow got null values in unused database fields (lye and water), this caused an error when making batches. Now when a recipe is saved, these fields are set to zero instead of null.
• In MyProducts, entering a blank 'Expected Shrinkage' while editing batch details caused an error.
• Making a batch with a recipe which has zero portions caused an error. The non-soap recipe form now checks for this before saving.
• Recipes with long ingredient lists would occasionally open with no scroll bar visible, so the entire list could not be accessed. This appears to be a Visual Basic bug, but the SoapMaker code has been changed to avoid the problem.
• If a program error occurs, the error could be propagated further if you continue trying to make changes. Now any error message will include instructions to close the current form and restart the program.
• When making a new recipe batch, or a new blend batch, if an ingredient quantity was specified in volume units, and the ingredient was not being tracked in MySupplies, an error occurred.
• When updating a previously saved database after confirming the Restore Data command, the Cancel option has been removed since this would leave you with no valid database.

SoapMaker 3.2.3 Release Notes

Improvements

Cancelling Sales:

• When you delete a sales register/invoice, you now have the option to restore all the listed products to your inventory. This is useful if an order was canceled.

Maximizing Recipe form:

• When maximizing a recipe to show all ingredients at once, the right column could be cut off if your screen is not large enough. Now a new Recipe toolbar button has been added for switching to a Full-screen view with all ingredients displayed, as well as the Notes area. If the main window is not large enough to show the entire form, scrollbars will appear.
• The standard Maximize Window button has been disabled on Recipe forms, since it is no longer needed.

Reselling accessories:

• If you buy accessories (e.g. Soap dishes) and then resell them, you can now include them in sales registers, and track them in your products inventory more easily than before.
  
  To facilitate this, MyProducts gives recipes special handling if they contain only Packaging (i.e. with zero weight).
  
  See the Help topic 'Reselling Supplies' in the 'Q and A' section for step-by-step instructions.
  
  Note: Soap recipes cannot be saved now if the recipe weight is zero. Non-soap recipes cannot be saved if the weight is zero and there is not at least one non-zero packaging item.

Long names:

• When printing columnized lists (Recipes, Blend formulas, Invoices, Supply Inventory lists, or Batch lists) if names of recipes or ingredients are too long, the following column will be shown on the next line to avoid overlapping or truncating the name.
• Printouts are now formatted to take advantage of extra page width when the printer is set to use landscape format.
• When renaming a recipe in MyRecipes, a warning is shown if the new name is too long and will be truncated.

Problems Fixed

• When recording product sales, if the same product and size was listed more than once, stock was not adjusted correctly in MyProducts. (This could be a problem for venue sales with many instances of the same product being sold.)
• When editing an existing sales register containing a single item, you could not set the quantity to zero and then save (e.g. for returned consignment items). You could also not delete the only item (caused an error).
• When recording new supply orders, the Total Business Cost was not including the Unlisted Items total. When you install this version, any saved supply orders which include an Unlisted Items amount will be adjusted to correct this.
• If a new custom oil was created, and then cancelled while editing oil properties, an error occurred when the Oil Properties window was closed.
• If a new supply purchase was saved using the Finish Later button, and then deleted from the Supply Purchase Report, the next time Finish Later was clicked for another purchase, an error occurred.
• When renaming a recipe in MyRecipes, if you changed your mind and entered the same name as before, you would see an unnecessary warning that the name is already in use.
• Deleting a supply order which included Packaging caused an error if there were no other purchase records for that Packaging item.

SoapMaker 3.2.2 Release Notes

• A new Printer Setup command is available under File menu. You can select different printers, paper size and orientation without having to change your system default printer setting. A new Help topic covers this.
• When the Import Database function encountered a non-soap recipe with a blank water quantity, an error occurred and the import was aborted.

SoapMaker 3.2.1 Release Notes

Highlights

• New Product Photo feature - displays a photo associated with each batch or recipe
• New features and improvements for dealing with taxes
• Supply Purchase Orders and Sales Registers can now be edited, and several improvements make it easier to track your business expenses and income.
• All known problems have been fixed.

New Product Photo feature

A new Product Photo window can be opened from MyProducts by clicking the Photos button on the toolbar. Photo files can be saved in a special folder, and assigned to your product batches.

When you make a new batch, the photo assigned to the last batch made with the same recipe is copied to the new batch. You can change it if desired.

The photo window can be resized by dragging a corner. Photos can be printed or copied to the clipboard.

Taxes

Several new features and improvements can help in tracking sales tax or value-added tax, and preparing your income tax and sales tax returns.

• A new Tax and Income Summary Report is available under the Tools menu. It shows the current value of your supplies and products inventory, and summarizes your income and sales tax or VAT for a selected date range.
• Previously, if you changed a sales tax rate, the new rate would affect already saved sales registers and invoices. Now the tax rates at time of sale are recorded with the invoice. (When you first run this version, any saved sales registers will have the tax rates set to the current values defined in MyPreferences.)
• When creating or editing a Supply Purchase form, you can record sales tax (or value-added tax) as either a part of the purchase cost, or as a tax credit. Tax credits are not included in the total business cost, but instead are saved and totaled on the Tax and Income Summary Report.
• The Sales Register form showed a 'Tax1' option even if there was no tax rate set. Now if there are no tax rates set, the only tax option is 'None'.
• The Sales History report now adds optional extra columns to show sales tax collected (if used).
• Tax on shipping is now handled differently when recording sales or viewing invoices. Previously, the shipping tax was calculated for you and included in the total tax amounts. However, this is unnecessarily complicated, since you are simply paying the shipping (including tax) on behalf of your customer, and then collecting it back as part of the invoice total. Now you simply enter the shipping cost (including any tax) and the whole amount is treated as a business cost in the Tax and Income Summary report. When you first open this version, your database is modified to adjust any saved invoices to reflect this simpler approach.
• A new Help topic 'Sales Tax' explains how to set up your taxes, and how to record and track them.

Supply Orders

• Supply Purchase Orders can now be edited from within the Supply Orders Report. The Report window can now be left open while you access other functions within SoapMaker 3. This makes it easier to check the status of a particular stock item in MySupplies, or view its purchase history.
• In addition to the total cost of an order, the Supply Purchase form now calculates the Total Business Cost, which excludes the cost of any non-inventory items in the order, as well as any tax credits. This business cost is now the total shown for each saved supply order. When this version is installed, any saved supply orders are updated to exclude non-inventory items from the total cost.
• Previously, when you deleted a saved Supply Order, you had to delete all the associated individual supply purchase records individually. Now when you delete a supply Order, all associated supply purchase records are also deleted automatically. If any of the deleted records was the most recent purchase for that supply item, the unit cost is recalculated using the next older purchase record, or set to zero if there is none. All affected recipes are flagged for updating to show the cost changes.

Sales Registers

• Sales registers can now be edited from within the Sales Registers/Invoices Report. Use this feature if you make a mistake when entering sales, or if consignment products are returned unsold. Your product stock is automatically adjusted in MyProducts to reflect any changes you make. To edit a particular register, double-click it in the report list, or select it and click the Edit button on the toolbar. The Help topic 'Consignment Sales' has been updated to suggest a way to track status by editing the sales register.
• The SalesRegisters/Invoices Report can now be left open while you access other functions within SoapMaker 3. The report now includes the Batch Number of each product sold to make it easier to correlate with MyProducts or the Sales History report.
• The Sales Registers/Invoices report now provides the option to print either as a customer invoice, or in a format more suitable for recording venue sales. When printing as an invoice, the customer's address is now included. (Tip: if you need to show the customer's tax number on the invoice, include it in the address in your Customers List.)

Other Improvements

• The bar/portion size display in Recipe forms and in MyProducts will now show additional decimal places if needed to accommodate very small portions.
• When Soapmaker opens, it measures the size of toolbar buttons, warns you if they may be too large to fit, and tells you how to fix it. However, the warning may show unnecessarily if you have your screen resolution set to a non-standard value. Now you have the option to suppress the warning.

Problems fixed

• In recipes and blend formulas, if a Category was set to 'Base Oil', then moving through the Category field by pressing Tab or Enter would cause the selected oil name to be cleared.
• When importing 2.8 database, SM3 attempted to handle European numbering in recipe quantities by converting commas to decimal points. However, if you had entered a quantity like 1,234.56 it was converted to 1.234. This conversion has been removed since SM2 did not really handle European numbering anyway.
• Previously, although you could not delete an ingredient from MySupplies if it was used in saved recipes, it was possible to delete it even it was used in a Blend formula. Subsequently attempting to open the formula would cause an error. Now you cannot delete an ingredient if it used in either a recipe or a blend formula.
• In MyProducts, if total products made exceeded 30,000 an overflow error occurred. The capacity has been increased.
• The Export Invoice function has been changed to correct some errors and to include the Customer address.

SoapMaker 3.1.5 Release Notes

Improvements

• When the Oil Properties window is opened, SoapMaker attempts to position it so it does not overlap MySupplies.
• When trying to close Oil Properties (or move to another window) while still editing properties, the warning dialog has been improved with the addition of a Cancel button.
• In the New Supply Purchase form, the check boxes previously labeled Add to Inventory have been changed to read Not for Inventory and the logic has been reversed to make the function clearer.
  
  Now if you check this box, the associated supply purchase will NOT be included in your inventory total. Use this feature if your shipment includes an item which is not intended for your soap business, but you are including it in the order so the adjusted costs of other items will be correct.

Problems Fixed

• Choosing Print when previewing an invoice caused an error.
• When making a new batch or new blend, unchecking an ingredient to prevent stock being deducted had no effect - stock was still deducted.
• When making or cancelling a batch, purchase records might have been affected even if they had been flagged as not for inventory.

SoapMaker 3.1.4 Release Notes

Problems fixed

• Purchase records with invalid units are now handled in MySupplies and Purchase History without causing an error.
• Importing 2.8 database with international numbering is handled without errors.

SoapMaker 3.1.3 Release Notes

Improvements

• Importing 2.8 database has been improved to better handle names with illegal characters.
• Maximized recipe forms now show the Notes as well as all ingredients at once.

Problems fixed

• If a batch has zero weight (e.g. Recipe contains only packaging items), an error occurred when MyProducts opened.
  
  Attempting to create a sales record for a batch with portion weight of 0 also caused an error.
  
  
• When selecting a batch in MyProducts using the keyboard arrow keys, the batch details were not being displayed for the selected batch.

SoapMaker 3.1.2 Release Notes

Problems fixed

• When a new blended additive was created, it did not appear in recipe drop-down lists until SoapMaker was restarted.
• Names that are all numeric cause problems in tree views (invalid Key error). For example, if you imported a 2.8 database which had recipe class names like '2008' the recipe list could not be populated.
  
  Now when importing a 2.8 database, any recipe groups whose name is all numbers
  have 'Recipes' appended to the name.
  
  If you have experienced this problem, you will have to re-import your old database after installing this update.

SoapMaker 3.1.1 Release Notes

Improvements

• The maximum number of recipe ingredients (set in MyPreferences) has been increased to 99.
• The users' manual now has a topic explaining the Merge Oils command.
• The Import 2.8 Database topic now explains what happens when importing custom oils.
• The Shopping List Done button has been relabeled Close to be clear what it does.
• The Edit Stock Quantity dialog now preselects the existing quantity value for easy editing.

Problems fixed

• If a recipe ingredient name was deleted and then the recipe closed without making any other changes, there was no reminder to save, and the deleted ingredient was still present in the recipe next time it was opened.
• A bug in the autofill procedure sometimes prevented actions from being triggered when moving from one entry field to another. (e.g. When in a recipe form, after moving from one Category box to the next, the first character typed would not trigger the autofill.)
• Pressing ENTER when in a recipe's ingredient name box could cause an error if the following box was not enabled (e.g. No category selected yet, or category is 'water')
• Blend formula: When Enter by percent was selected after ingredient quantities had already been entered, the total formula weight was doubled.
• When importing SM2.8 database, if any oil properties had already been edited in SM3, or if importing again and a SM2.8 custom oil had the same name as a SM3 standard oil, the standard oil property values were lost. If you then tried to Revert, an error occurred.

  If you are affected by this, please contact me at