FMS Printing Problems - Particularly Cheque Runs

SIMS FMS uses print drivers to send information to your printer.

With the huge range of printers out there, each with a variety of bespoke and generic drivers and endless combinations of both - together with the variety of programmes which may be installed to each workstation and which could potentially cause problems, nailing down solutions which we can reliably share with schools is nigh on impossible.

Nevertheless we regret the situation and continue to encourage Capita to bring about improvements as far as they can.

Please find below a list of actions which have resolved printing issues in the past and which we ask you to try - some of which will require the input of your school technician or network administrator.

1.       Check other workstations – they may not have the same issue and at least you will have a work-around

2.       On your workstation, open Control Panel and then Printers. Right click the printer in question and open its properties. Access the Advanced tab and change the settings to 'Print directly to the printer' - In around 90% of cheque printing issues this has been the resolution.

3.       Remove all redundant printer drivers (through Microsoft Management Console > Add/Remove Snap-in > Print Management).

4.       Try a using a different driver for the printer - we recommend a series PCL5 driver.

5.       Try a different printer

6.       Try a printer connected directly to your machine via USB

7.       Print to document image writer and then from there, e.g. http://www.primopdf.com

8.       In FMS go to Focus | Print settings and on the Cheques tab make the cheque printer a specific printer

9.       Try re-booting the FMS server.

10.     Within task manager processes tab look for:-

a.       Iexplore.exe where IE is not running.

b.       Winword.exe where Word is not running

c.       Excel.exe – where Excel is not running

d.       Adobe updater

e.       Net .exe – (hung network connections)

f.        Try closing SIMS .net

g.       Try closing Outlook 

11.   The sledgehammer solution has been to create a new network user account which will only be used when printing cheques.

When testing to see if printing is working following the above, use the Test Print button in  Tools > Accounts Payable Parameters to save on spoiled cheques