The Company Control 3 option, Activate CARE for Company, turns on a feature that is only applicable to BMS customers selling carpet in the state of California. CARE stands for Carpet America Recovery Effort and basically requires retailers buying and selling carpet in California to collect and remit an assessment on each carpet job sold in the state from customers to suppliers. This feature must be activated in the system for any company that sells carpet in California, whether it pertains to only a small portion of jobs or all jobs. To activate the CARE feature, you must set this control option to “Y” for yes, then save your changes before exiting.
The next step will be to access the Branch Control menu to continue the activation process by entering through a couple of prompts to set up defaults within the system. Additionally, you will need to enable the CARE User Control option for applicable Users. Instructions for these next steps appear below.
And finally, to complete setup, you must access the Product Code Maintenance module for all applicable material Product Codes and click in the Care checkbox. The CARE Reporting module can be found in the Special Functions menu.
Branch Control 1 Setup:
Activate Care in Branch- for each Branch that sells carpet in California, this control must be set to “Y” for yes. When you set this control to “Y” for yes, the system will prompt you to enter a G/L Account for invoicing as follows: Enter CARE G/L Acct. for Invoicing. Type in the applicable G/L Account and hit enter to continue. The system will then prompt the following:
The recommended selection at this prompt is to click “No.” The “Yes” option was added to simplify the transition for existing customers, but it will not apply to new clients where 99% of jobs in the Branch are sold in California. The “Zip Code Required for all Quotes/Orders” option looks at the job's existing zip code before determining if the job falls under the CARE guidelines. A database of all California zip codes has been loaded on each BMS system so that when one of these zip codes is entered in the “Ship To” location, the job will be tracked and processed under the CARE requirements. However, if a zip code is entered incorrectly, the system will not track the CARE assessment and reporting job, which could cause an audit issue in the future. For this reason, BMS recommends setting the default to “No” at this prompt unless only a portion of business in this Branch is conducted in California. When this default is set to “No,” and a job needs to be deactivated for CARE tracking for legitimate reasons, only a Manager with User Control privileges enabled can make a change at the job level to switch off CARE tracking. Please see the User Control section below for more information. The system will then prompt the following:
This feature lets you pre-set the default when reviewing POs in the A/P Open Item Maintenance module. The recommended response for new dealers is “Yes” to have the prompt reflect that inventory is CARE assessed. Before July 1, 2011, dealers needed to ensure that existing inventory was properly assessed, so this option was added. This does not mean that the default cannot be changed during the Review PO History process if applicable, and certainly, dealers who only conduct partial business in California within this Branch can decide to have the prompt default to “No.” The final prompt appears as follows:
The recommended response to this prompt is “No” for new dealers. In this instance, the prompt asking if you want to mark the inventory as CARE will not show up during the Receive Inventory process. Again, the option to have the question prompt was added for transitioning existing dealers but has become unnecessary for new dealers.
User Control 5 Setup:
Allowed to Change Care (Job, Inv, Report)- this control is only for BMS clients who sell carpet in California. If this doesn’t apply in your system, leave this control set to “N” for no. This control should also be set to “N” for no for Users who do not have the authority to make CARE changes to jobs, inventory, or CARE reporting options in the system. This control should only be set to “Y” for yes for Managers or System Administrators who may need to change the CARE status on a job, a piece of inventory, or data on the CARE reporting features.
Product Code Maintenance Setup:
The CARE field only applies to customers who sell carpet in California and must track CARE inventory. This field should be set to “Y” for yes on all broadloom and modular carpet Product Codes. When this field is set to “Y” for yes, the system automatically knows what amount to assess on each applicable CARE job. Important Note: Synthetic grass products do not fall under the CARE guidelines and should not be sold under a CARE-enabled Product Code. Additionally, for Remnant Product Codes, the CARE field should be set to “Y” for yes, and any non-carpet remnant items, such as vinyl, should not be mixed under these Product Codes.
Additionally, a drop-down box will appear to the right of that checkbox as follows:
Non-B2B Product Codes for Carpet Tiles will require changes. Carpet Tile is assessed at a higher rate than roll goods. Please change your selection to “Carpet Tile” in this drop-down menu in those cases.
Catalog Maintenance Setup:
In Catalog Maintenance, at the bottom right of the screen, the Cost Tab section will now appear as follows:
The CARE Active - $0.35 displays if the Product Code has been set up as explained above. If a style meets the post-consumer content requirement of over 10%, you can click that box to drop the fee to $0.33. This info should be available from the manufacturer and may also appear on the carpet label. If you do not edit these fields, the system will default to the higher rate of $0.48–$0.50.
The “Edit All Colors” checkbox can be enabled on each style before changing, provided all colors meet the criteria. Another alternative is to use the Catalog Export/Import, where a column now exists to flip this switch on applicable post-consumer content products.
Below is a chart of the Differential Assessment Levels that will be in place as of 4/1/22:
Order Entry procedure:
One more Administrator update requires a User to have the following User Control 5 option enabled: Allowed to Change Care (Job, Inv, Report). Only Users with the authority to make CARE assessment changes to jobs, inventory, and CARE reporting options should have this option enabled. On each Job with CARE enabled, a CARE drop-down box appears just below the Order No option as follows:
The None option turns off CARE assessment for this Job. The $.25 option was the initial assessment amount from July of 2011. The second assessment of $ .35 was implemented in January of 2019 and added here so that Jobs could be toggled between the rates based on when the job was initially contracted. And now, the 2022 option has been added to default to new contracted jobs after April 1st, 2022, but allowing an Administrator to set the Job back to the $.35 rate based, again, on the initial contract date, especially where a Quote or Template is converted to a Job.