Home >Release Notes>October 2007 – January 2008

October 2007 – January 2008

Release Notes

Release Notes – October 2007 – January 2008

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Order & Quote Entry System

  1. New Flag – Importing Orders – If you are importing sales orders using our handheld scanners, you can now limit the number of line items on a single order. This new flag is located in Entity & System Flags – Order Entry. Order Import – Maximum Lines Allowed on order – the default is set to 999,999.
  2. New Feature – The F8-Set PO key can now be changed to use the Automatic Replenishment System instead of only Set PO. This flag can be changed in Utilities, System Administrator System, System Setup, Setup miscellaneous, Entity & System Flags. On the last screen – Order Detail Line F8 Key. Choices are Set PO, Automatic Replenishment System and Cost Estimate for the Manufacturing System.

    The Automatic Replenishment System is the newest feature. When you have this feature turned on, the system uses the ARS logic to add the product to an ARS batch that is specific for the user. Each user will have their own list of product on the ARS. The product is added (if replenishment is needed) and the user is brought into their list of product in the ARS. The User can add, change and delete these products.

    Once the user is done editing, they will be asked if they want to create the documents. If they do not create the documents the list is kept and added to by the net order. This allows the user to accumulate RFQ’s and PO’s throughout the day and then creates them all at once when ready. The user decides when to create documents.

  3. New Wording – Changed “Custom Restock Assortment” question on form printing to be “Show Order Total Only?” It has the same functionality.
  4. New Feature – When in the Sort function key on the Final Screen of a Sales Order the Sort by Classification has been activated.

Counter Sales System

  1. New Flag – Create Uncosted when Available is Short – When using the optional Counter Sales System you can specify whether non-tracked items can be billed out when the system thinks the quantity on hand is zero. This flag is located in the Counter Sales Flags. If you allow users to bill out non tracked items with zero on hand the system will track those items as uncosted. An Un-Costed Sales Journal will need to be checked and balanced out each month before financials are completed. This flag is separate from the System flag that pertains to normal Order Entry.
  2. New Feature – Added field to input freight charges on the heading information screen. These freight charges will be added to the invoice. This is for a customer who is picking up goods that they need to pay the freight on the shipment from the vendor.

Purchase Order System

  1. New Feature – Close Po – If you have an open P.O. that you know will not be shipped; you now have the option of closing it instead of deleting it. When in Enter & Edit PO’s you can close a PO by using the F9-Close P.O. Fkey. This way you can refer back to the P.O. if needed in the future. You can also utilize the Po Notes to indicate why it was closed for future reference. PO Notes can be accessed in a PO Inquiry, F3-Basic Info, F3-PO Notes.
  2. New Feature – Confirming Purchase Orders – You can now mark a Purchase Order as confirmed by your Vendor. If it is your practice to have your Vendor confirm your prices back to you this new feature will help you keep track of those PO’s that still need confirmation. In Enter & Edit Purchase Orders on the Final Screen the F12 – Confirm PO key will record the User, Date and Time the P.O was marked as confirmed.
  3. New Report –Open PO Not Confirmed List – This new report will present a listing of all of the Purchase Orders that were not confirmed through the new F12- Confirm PO Fkey explained above. This listing can be viewed on the screen, exported to Excel or printed using the Shift * feature. This report is located in Purchase Order Reports, Open PO Reports, Open PO Not Confirmed List.
  4. New Function Key – When in a Purchase Order Inquiry, F3-Basic Info – F4-Vendor Invoices. When a Purchase Order has been paid this new function key will show the payment information.
  5. New feature – When in a Vendor Inquiry – Show Purchase Orders Fkey – there is a new user option to include Accrued PO’s in the same screen. This is a User Flag located in User Flags – Purchase Orders – on the second screen – Include Accrued in Open PO Inquiry. The default will be set to No.
  6. New Feature – Laid in Cost – You can now add freight, duty or other charges to the value of your inventory after you have received your Purchase Order and even sold the product in the system. The Laid in cost can be allocated by Value, Weight, quantity or Number of Detail Lines. This preference is setup in Entity & System Flags – Accounts Payable.

    When the invoices arrive for additional costs that you want to add to your inventory value, those invoices will be entered and instead of selecting an expense account you can press F7 – Laid in Cost. You will be prompted for the Purchase Order Number to apply the costs to. If you vendor is billing you for freight on the same invoice as your product and you want to add in the cost, the freight portion must be entered as a separate invoice.

    You can setup the Laid in Cost Allocation method in Entity & System Flags – Accounts Payable.

  7. New Report information – Open Orders by Order Number – This report now gives statistics about the orders – the number of lines, the number of lines that can ship, and the number of lines that need purchasing.

Processing Purchase Order System

  1. New Features – Quick PPO’s – There is new menu has two new options – Enter & Send PPO’s and Enter & Receive PPO’s. Enter & Send PPO’s enables the user to enter a PPO and Send it to the Processor in one step. Enter & Receive PPO’s enables the User to complete the PPO entry, Send and Receive Processes in a single step. The enter and receive PPO’s is a great option for a lot traceable finished good or internal Bill of Material
  2. New Feature – If you change the quantity to create on a PPO that is NOT sent, and there is a Bill of Material (previously called PPO Definition) for that product, the system will ask the user if they want to re-load the detail lines from the bill of materials. If you have edited the original PPO and then re-load the BOM, any lines you added on the fly will be omitted unless you also added them to the BOM.
  3. New Feature – PPO Component Expediting Report – for ISO/Manufacturing Systems – There is a new option for including / excluding / limiting the PPO’s listed on this report to the internal Vendor.

Accounts Receivable System

    ** Note – Items #1 and #2 below only apply to systems with PDF Invoices

  1. Menu Change – The Print and Fax Invoices Menu has been changed to accommodate the new feature which allows Users to setup their customers to receive Printed, Faxed or E-mailed Invoices. The Menu Item to process all three of these options is now called Send Invoices in Process. There is still a separate selection to Fax Invoices in process. If you do not have your customers setup for emailed or faxed invoices this new selection will just print them as it did in the past when using Print Invoices in Process.
  2. New Feature – Send Invoices in Process, you can now Print, Fax, or E-mail your Customer Invoices based on their preference. You can also choose any combination of those choices. With one step the system will output the Invoices in process using the Customer default settings. This new feature is selection number 3 in the Print & Fax Invoices Menu.

    Two fields have been removed from Enter & Edit Customers – Fax Invoices Daily and Invoice Fax Phone. These fields have been replaced with a new screen – Default Invoice Output. As a default when your system is upgraded this will be the F6-Invoice Output from the first screen in Enter & Edit Customers. This will move the current F6-User Defined keys to F6-Invoice Output, F3- User Defined. There is a system flag that can be changed if you prefer the F6 to remain User Defined; in that case the F3 when in F6 would be Invoice Output.

    In the Invoice Output screen the fields that can be entered are:

    Contact
    To Fax Number
    Fax Cover Sheet Y/N
    E-mail
    CC:
    Blind CC:
    Also Print?

    The contact will be printed on the Fax Cover Sheet and/or in the E-mail.

    The Fax number will be used for the faxing of the invoice. If you happen to update your Customers Fax Number on the main Enter & Edit Customers Screen you will see a question pop up asking if you would like to change the default fax number as well. If this field is blank no fax will be sent.

    You can indicate whether or not you want to send a Cover Sheet with their Fax.

    E-mail – This is the primary E-mail address you want the invoice to go to.

    CC: – If you would like an invoice to go to another E-mail address type it here. This E-mail address will be visible to your Customer receiving the Invoice.

    Blind CC: If you would like an invoice to go to another E-mail address and you do not want your Customer to see where it is going you can type in an E-mail address here.

    Also Print? – If you would like to print a copy of the Invoice answer Yes here.

    ** The E-mail capability is only available if you have PDF Forms

    ** You must have purchased Outbound Faxing to use the Faxing capability

  3. New Field Exported – When exporting Customer Sales History through F5-Sales History in a Customer Inquiry a column will be included for the current Quantity on Hand.
  4. New Display field – If your Order and Invoice Number are the same document number, when viewing Customer Invoices in a Customer Inquiry the column that was used for Order Number will now be Purchase Order Number. Also when exporting the Customer Invoice information all data will be included in Excel even though it may not fit in the column on the screen.
  5. New Display – In Customer Invoice Inquiry, on the first screen the Sent field will now display “faxed” if the document was faxed.
  6. New Feature – Customer Notes Follow up Report – Previously Users had to go to the Accounts Receivable Reports to run their follow up listing. There is a new User option to show this report when Users login. The options are never which is the default, All up to Today and Today Only. This is a User Flag – Accounts Receivable located on the second screen – Show Customer follow Up Notes on Login
  7. New Feature – Customer Information – Major Account Flag – Major accounts can now be split into Groups A-F. This will be used in the wireless warehouse to have the system suggest what sequence to pack up orders in (group A is a more important account than Group B and should be packed up first).
  8. New locking – Contacts – We are now record locking when a user goes into contacts – no other user can go into the contacts for that group (a group being a customer, vendor, or personal user contacts).
  9. New Feature – Customer Mandatory Miscellaneous Charges –
  10. New Feature – Customer Account Status report will now be presented in a scroll box when Screen is selected. The Customer Account Status is located in Accounts Receivable Reports, Customer Activity Reports.
  11. New Feature – Remove all Alternates for a particular customer – If you would like to remove every alternate part number for a particular customer you can now do so. This menu item is located in Accounts Receivable, Customer Misc. Maintenance.

Accounts Payable System

  1. New Report Option – When printing the Vendor Financial Report you now have the option to only include vendors requiring a 1099. The Federal Tax Id will also be included in this report when you answer yes to print address information. This makes it easy for you to isolate Vendors that need to be sent a 1099.
  2. New Feature – Vendor Audit – When fields in the Vendor Master File are changed the system will now track the User making the change, when it was changed and what program the field was changed from. The inquiry to view the audit can be found in two locations. Utilites, System Administrator, Enmployee System, Audit Inquiries and also in Accounts Payable, Accounts Payable File Maintenance, Vendor Audit Inquiry.
  3. New Feature – The Cash Requirements report can now be generated by different currencies.
  4. New Feature – Vendor Inquiry – New Fkey F8=Parts. This new screen will show alternate products that are associated with this vendor

Inventory System

  1. Inventory System – New System Flag – You can now have the system automatically change your default vendor and default PO cost to be the same as the default alternate. There is a new flag “When Setting Default Alternate Part”. It has 3 options. Do nothing; Change Primary Vendor; Change Primay Vendor and Default PO Cost. When setting the default Alternate, and this is set to option #2 or 3, you will be asked if you do want to make the change. This flag can be found in Entity & System Flags – Inventory, the default will be Do Nothing when your system is upgraded.
  2. New Feature – Inventory Classification Defaults – You can now setup default values for your inventory classifications. The options for Inventory Classification have now been grouped into a sub menu in the Product Properties system to accommodate this new feature.
  3. New Feature – You can now import locations into The BUSINESS EDGE instead of entering them manually. If you have a large number of Locations to add you can create an Excel file, save it on the server and then import it into the system.
  4. Menu Change – The Import Inventory Menu’s have changed to accommodate more options.
  5. New Display – In Product Inquiry – F5 Show Usage – this screen will now be displayed in a scrolling box and now includes the summary usage for PPO Receipts and PPO Usage (detail lines being consumed) as well as Work Order Receipts and Usage for Manufacturing Systems.
  6. New Feature – Enter & Edit Inventory – Alternate Products – When entering an alternate code that already exists, for another product, the system will warn the user.
  7. New Feature & Menu Change – Enter & Edit Product Classification Defaults – you can now setup defaults for Product Classifications. The Product Properties Menu has been changed to group together the selections pertaining to Product Classifications.

Sales Analysis

  1. New Heading and column– When the Product Sales & Profit Report is generated to the screen it is presented in a scroll box. The Totals will now be displayed on the heading of the scroll box. When this report is presented in a scroll box a column will now be included for Gross Profit %.

documentConnection

  1. New Feature – Vendor Debit Memos are now included as a document type and also in scan manager, Inbound and Outbound history Fkeys are available in Entr & Edit Debit Memo. New Fkeys are also available in the Debit memo Inquiry.

Utilities

  1. New Feature – Multiple e-mail recipients – You can send to multiple e-mail addresses by entering them on the same line separated with a comma.

    Example: dennis@ci-inc.com,dmiller@ci-inc.com

    The default e-mail addresses for Customer and Vendor documents can store more than one recipient. This is essentially the same using a CC: or Copy To:

  2. New Feature – Increased number of characters for e-mail addresses. You now have room to enter more than one e-mail address in the defaults for the Customer and Vendor.
  3. The printer setup screen now has a new flag: Number of Copies in Label Templates?

    Set this to Yes if the label script includes how many labels to print.

    If the label script does not tell the printer how many labels to print set this flag to No and The BUSINESS EDGE will send the label script the number of times the user has selected in Number of Copies.

    Label printers that use DPL, EPL or ZPL will normally have the Number of Copies in the Label Template – set to these to Yes.

    The DPL bag printers do not support the number of copies in the script, set DPL bag printers to No. Reliance Supply has a bag printer.

    This flag does not currently affect printers that use PostScript, Installed Drivers or Dot Matrix.

    All existing printers will be set to their default settings when systems are upgraded to this version.

    	System Admin                        fastenersNOW                     Fort Myers
	+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
	|ENTER & EDIT PRINTERS                                                  (ins) |
	|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
	|Printer                              |                                       |
	|-------------------------------------+---------------------------------------|
	|Windows Printer Name                 |                                       |
	|System RAW Printer Name              |                                       |
	|Printer Name with Drivers            |                                       |
	|-------------------------------------+---------------------------------------|
	|Printer Language                     |PostScript                             |
	|Printer Style                        |Grayscale                              |
	|Printer DPI                          |                                       |
	|Label Report Name Suffix             |                                       |
	|Form Feed Control                    |Top of Form                            |
	|Number of Copies in Label Templates? |No                                     |
	|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
	|Delete                                                                |  OK  |
	+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
  4. New locking – Contacts – We are now record locking when a user goes into contacts – no other user can go into the contacts for that group (a group being a customer, vendor, or personal user contacts).
  5. New System Flags – When it is important that you link your Customers and Vendors to Alternate Product Codes you can now force a warning when a User does not select a Customer or Vendor. This is simply a warning to remind them that they may need to link the Alternate Product Code to a Customer or Vendor so that it can print on their documents.

    These new flags are located in Enter & Edit System Flags – 3. Alert when no Cust for Alt? and Alert when no Vendor for new Alt Part? It may be that you don’t use Vendor Alternates but you do use Customer Alternates so you can choose them separately.

  6. General Utilities – F2=Print Screen – We are phasing out the use of F2 as the print screen. For clients using Powerterm, the “Print Screen” button on the keyboard will print to the screen to the powerterm default printer. Also, they can use the menu system in Powerterm and choose File –> Print Screen to print the screen. Pressing CTRL-P will also bring up the Print Screen like pressing F2 used to do. If the user presses F2 and another program has not been put in the F2’s place, a message “PLEASE USE CTRL-P TO PRINT SCREEN”
  7. New Feature – There is a new “Alert” feature in The BUSINESS EDGE

    The person that is listed as the Alert Contact will receive an E-mail and or an Instant Message when certain things happen. Following is a list of some of the alerts that may be sent out by your server:

    1. Upgrades are installed
    2. Fire Wall settings are changed.
    3. Disk Space falls below 15% free
    4. Modem requires reset

    The Alert contact is setup in documentConnection Maintenance.

Branch Related Features

  1. New Report Feature – The Product Sales and Profit report can now be generated by Branch. This is located in the Sales Analysis System, Product Sales Analysis, Product Sales & Profit.
  2. New Feature – Branch selection has been added to Enter & Edit Invoices.