Not yet released. Next week

Includes DB changes. You must log all c9 terminals out to install

Security enhancements

This version of c9 includes a range of security changes as part of our regular security audit efforts

• General Cryptography improvements
  • Passwords / Clerk keys migrated to PBKDF / HMAC-SHA256 hashes
  • At rest encryption of all other critical data migrated to AES/GCM using a new key management regime that will allow use to easily rotate and expire old/compromised keys
• Remote Access improvements
  • Add ability to set a per user remote access password, configured in login users. A new remote client needs to be installed in order to make use of this. This will allow disabling /retiring of the existing global remote access password for stricter access control
  • Part of above change mobile capture on remote access will use 2FA mobile configured on login user to enforce strict MFA authenticiation
• Stricter C9 support tooling.  For our own remote access into dealer systems as part of our support work, this version forces our existing access to use strict MFA linked to staff mobile phones. Previous support access was /only single factor verification.
• Other security related changes
  • clerkkey input now requires an explicit Enter key press to test the clerk key. So clerk input now requires two enter key presses to continue on. This is necessary to both improve security of clerk access to minimise risk accidental/intentional discovery of low entrophy clerk keys, but also because PBKDF algorithm is intentionally slow, it is no longer possible to check for a match on every key stroke
  • TFN presentation on payroll tab is by default hidden. There is a unhide button you can click to review TFN
  • PayDay super log / STP log clearing: interaction with STP and PayDay super now clears potentially sensitive request payloads once the operation is finalized (failed or completed)
  • Disable access to database menu until login is completed. Contents of this menu have security implications so access to be constrained
  • Payroll super report : make it obvious export will also export TFNs
  • VicRoads : fix misaligned DOB on new authority form

Other small changes

• New GL expense code for tools
• delete unit costs /floorplan costs / rebates etc. Previously when deleted if you viewed the deleted journal it wasn’t obvious what unit the deleted entry was for. Now this can be interrograted. This change is expected to be useful for untangling reckless pulling of levers in the backoffice that sometimes happens at some shops in order to try to make a bankrec align for example
• unit Stocklist / stocktake reports : sort results by reference. Previously didn’t apply any sorting, output was whatever postgres felt like doing. Now fixed

Note: this version moves from 5.2.162 to 5.2.164 : this is intentional because of nature of re-encryption changes on database.

This version of c9 fixes a long standing nuisance when transactions auto allocate. It is mostly a problem with bulk transactions so mostly affects when we install a new c9 and bulk import AR and AP txn history. But this issue could also explain unexpected results in some scenarios when doing bulk linking. Normally reconcile masks problem because when we reconcile are are usually tallying unallocated txn totals of exact same amount. But if reconcile is unbalance then this misallocation could happen too. Also adding txns one at a time as what normally happens doesn’t trigger the incorrect behaviour.

Scenario is txns are supposed to auto allocate from oldest to newest but because of a bug when processing multiple txns simultaneously it could leave unexpected gaps in txn allocation depending on how AR and AP txns line up in terms of their relative amounts. Illustrating:

The correct outcome is we want unallocated gaps in the most recent transactions, not interleaved in historical txns.

 

Fix 1 : low level bug could lead to unrelated invoices appearing to be tangled on an invoice : depends on what invoices you were eyeballing before and whether or not those invoices contain and merged parts from other invoice.  This bug has been in c9 for a very long time, since 2016. Symptoms explained by this bug brought to our attention today. Even though it has been there for a decade and only just reported now, the symptoms are a nuisance enough needed an urgent fix

Fix 2 : tidy a visual bug with deposit held report. Would not render a date for customer held lines in some circumstances when running the report historically (misfiltering lines)

 

Important Change – payroll bank rec.

This version includes a change to make bank rec restriction on payroll advisory only. The original design intent behind this was to discourage reckless behaviour. What I didn’t anticipate was it would actually encourage even more reckless ‘quick fixes’ to work-around the restriction. Instead it is now advisory only. If your rec is more than 45 days old c9 will delay access to payroll with a countdown timer to encourage good back-office hygiene, but it no longer enforces.

This update also fixes some issues and unfinished fixes in last version

• KTM EPC import, now working
• Select Estimate button. On sort by id tab the location of add/modify buttons was mangled.  Fixed. Caused by introduction of date field and making the window bigger
• TillPay Term integration. Some internal work to rationalise low level webhooks wasn’t 100% done. Now sorted. (webhooks are a thing which allows terminal signal back to c9 the txn is finalised)
• PayDay super waiting for payment status in payrun or browse payday screen: would clip cents off amount to pay if amount to pay was >=$1000.  Now fixed
• Vicroads new auth register form – missing SOLO in body type when it was there previously

Other little fixes

• View deal. When deal is a tradein, print invoice button would randomly print either sale or tradein/recipient invoice. Now consistently prints the invoice
• Low level unit sale bug. Recently dealt with a issue on accounting data for one client which tracks back to some badly formed sales in July last year. Unsure what bug is because of how long it has been since issue and report, and there is a good chance some other change in last 12 months fixed it already: but added some additional guards into software that will hopefully prevent bad data we saw from making it into the database

New stuff

• Web order alert : new alert if there are any finalized orders with unbalanced settlement figures

More impactful changes

• Workshop scheduler : now pays attention to both promise date and promise time to allow more fine tuned alerting of overdue jobs. If promise time is not set reverts to old behaviour (if job runs into promise date  then assume it is overdue)

Tweaks and fixes

• Payroll
  • New pay tables incorrectly calculate withholding for residents where no-threshold is set. The computed withholding is way too high. Now fixed
  • Recurring payments, like Garnish do not draw in settings on other tabs such as whether or not garnish is for child support. Instead you have to reselect every time. Now fixed
  • Edit computed changes : if you only changed settings like garnish, the underlying pay item would not adjust at all and revert to computed result. Previously you needed to edit some other aspect of the item too, like its line. Now fixed
  • Edit line : disallow blank names. This especially messes up reporting of allowances via STP when no allowance type is selected
• PayDay super tweaks
  • Manual transfer : in superstream status show amount waiting for. e.g. ‘Waiting for: $216.00’
  • Manual transfer : if somehow there are multiple amounts being wainted for, separate them into a list, don’t show merged result
  • initial super file upload was not logging useful debugging info. Now fixed (api json reply not logged because request wasn’t a json payload)
  • Added support for some new error codes coming back from Ozedi (generic upload failure & revalidation of superfund details, USI/ABN etc)
• Unit sale – if onroad lines are inputted with ex and gst figure, previously it would render the ex figure only on screen in the list of costs. Fixed to show GST inc price. Nominally what is inputted here is just a fixed non gst figure, so on roads do not have any BAS impacts on the business, but it is possible to input this data into c9 if preferred.  This change doesn’t alter any underlying behaviours with how invoices are printed or general ledger journals the sale, purely a visual thing for the screen where unit sale costs are built.
• Import price file – remove a very old 10+ year rule where lastincost on stocked parts is written as daily buy if it is zero on stock file. Nominally this isn’t needed and in one instance with a dealer doing some data migration it caused problems with stock validation post stock take.
• Unit curtailments :  redesign a couple of screens so it is visually obvious curtailments are functionally paying down inc GST cost of the unit (even though GST isn’t on curtailments themselves)
• Email sending in modern Javas – broken because of a missing library which older java 8’s packaged. Now repaired
• Updated paperwork
  • Vic – VicRoads Vehicle Registration
  • Vic – VicRoads Dealer On-Line Authority to Register
  • NSW – Registration Form (C)
• Workshop part quote / UOM tweaks
  • Where UOM is fractional, convert to supply rounds price such that it reflects a non fractional price. Now fixed
  • Edit uom quote part : quote qty shows as #### because of fraction. Now fixed
  • Convert a quote involving negative parts,  it tries to sell parts to bring -ve back to 0. Now fixed.
• Workshop pickup job : include option to print lines ex GST. Previously was there when you click on pro forma in view job,  but wasn’t an accessible option in pickup screen. Now available.
• Browse Estimates  –  show Start Date on browse screen
• Deals – browse older completed deals, allow private notes to be edited
• Dead Stock Report – show franchise and allow filtering by franchise

System level / other

• Very narrow layer of edge cases could make txns fail in c9 but not report to end user something went wrong so to user there is not strong screen feedback to a problem but it is obvious something went wrong because the screen, like add payment, didn’t advance. Now fixed. The core issue is around c9 general ledger : it contains two layers of defense against issues, layer one in c9 itself does all the warning about inbalanced txns, concurrent edits etc. But the second layer of defense, on database itself asserts critical invariant on posted GL, that it balances among other tests. Rarely errors are trapped here but when they are they do not pump an alert to screen. Now fixed here.
• A Decade or so ago c9 pricing based based  on access to ‘modules’ : unit sales etc. For a long time now convention is everyone has access to everything and our pricing model of market segment dependent was entirely an administrative thing for us, not baked into the software. But we left the old enforced code in c9 as is our habit to keep changes to a minimum.  So some c9 clients may not have had access to some features until we tidied things up. Finally removed this behaviour here.
• Low level change to webhooks we use to monitor tillpay terminal processing workflow. Will allow us to eventually fully hide our comet server behind main rev-proxy webserver instead of exposing on a non standard tcp port.

For dealers who run a website with us. You need to update the ‘A’ records for your domain to point to our new server

The correct ip address is this

27.50.77.33

An example screenshot for say aussiebikefinder shows how these entries are in place

PAYROLL : Error in 2025 Tax Tables

There is an error in existing tax tables that has been in place all year undetected.  Throughout 2025 c9 overcharged tax by about $4 to $5 a week because of an incorrectly inputted tax bracket.  Since it is nearly the end of the financial year we are going to leave this in place. All employee payments made using c9 payroll can expect a slightly higher tax return as a result.

2026 FY onwards we are migrating to a different methodology for handling tax tables. The ATO publish tax tables in form of excel spreadsheets for software developers. For years these have been baked into c9 but we never enabled them as a default tax computation methodology. The reason for this is that the way the excel files are designed and math in them; it is difficult to reason about the results and cross reference them with actual tax legislation and validate their accuracy.  The thinking was that it was more likely that using this dataset will cause computation issues. Given the 2025 undetected error we are reconsidering this and decided to pivot to this data and perform some basic spot checking / automated testing from 2026 FY onwards; and trust/rely on ATO to publish error free formulas.

PAYROLL : Qualifying Earnings and 2026 Tax Tables

• PayDay super also applied some subtle changes to how super is computed. Specifically:
  • Transmit Qualifying Earnings to ATO via STP for pay data after July 2026. June 2025 and earlier will still us previous Ordinary Time Earnings regime
  • For Allowances : add two more types for Allowances which also contribute to qualifying earnings
• Tax Tables – as mentioned above now bakes in excel files provided by ATO to software developers instead of us recoding the tax tables ourselves

C9 Repository changes – Stihl Pricefiles

We are bringing Stihl into our price file repository. This forces a change in repo importing to allow for optional support of per dealer discount codes.

This change requires us to “fence” off our repository from older versions of c9. Older versions of c9 will not see any c9 repo changes. You must update c9 first in order to access future price file updates in the repo.

Other tweaks and fixes

• Inputting a bill with tax code of ‘*** no tax code **’ : the gst presented would show as 10% still. The gst presented is useless and does nothing on any relevant report but it is a bit disconcerting to see it on screen. Tweaked to force gst to 0 if no tax code is set. There are a couple of very narrow scenarios around management of capital purchases where ** no tax code ** is appropriate but they are very rarely used.
• Rebate screens / reports : show supplier
  • Units – >units -> rebate screen
  • Units -> Reports -> Rebates
  • Units -> Reports -> Uncollected Rebates
• No cash collected permission tuning  – couple of screens need nocash. Updated because soon we are going to retire no cash collected entirely
  • Sell / delete discount giftcards : replace no cash with sell below margin permission
  • bank rec : edit opening balance : replace no cash with banking permission
• Spares Receive + already handled bugfix. if there are parts on receival which are already handled but remain still on order / on backorder c9 will incorrectly assume handled parts have come in add will two tax journals that cancel each other out. One influences trade statement and other itemizes on p/l cancelling out trade impact. The net result is zero but it is ugly/noisy. Now fixed for future spares receive.
• Payroll : Pick a consistent naming convention for pay cycle / employment type. Updated menus etc to reflect
• New GL code : prepaid expenses. Appears as an asset on balanace sheet. Can be used to split expenses across multiple tax years as per ATO guidance on prepaid expense accounting. There are no additonal screens in c9 to streamline or track this. For operators to manage themselves using manual journal posting.
• New Email type configured in dealer settings : web order email. Will be used as preferred sender email on c9 enabled websites
• Honda opt2ma reporting : expand matching for commission txns by also looking for DAF or commission in the rebate description.

Low Level / technical changes

• Bugfix with Jordan’s Mac crashing because of recent antialiasing changes.
• Some groundwork on supporting STX programmed barcodes and remote c9. Requires a new ver of c9 remote + this update. To be released later

 

 

Includes DB changes. You need to close and reopen c9

Important Change – messenger

This version of c9 enforces ‘restrict messenger’ mode so that messenger only runs on computers which are explicitly configured to run it

Some dealers might have c9 in permissive mode and will find messenger will not start at all. To fix on main computer goto setup -> main setup screen -> system and database tab. Make sure ‘allow’ option indicated below is selected, save then close and reopen c9

Basic fixes / tweaks

• Payday super / payroll
  • Rename superfund ID so it is obvious this is USI
  • Allow member ID to be blank if SMSF
  • Select superfund : filter out superfund records which do not accept contribution.
  • Fix a  serious issue when there are multiple messengers running and they both try to progress a payday super operation can trigger undefined behaviour upstream. Make sure super records are locked so there is no simultaneous activity. Also escalated to our upstream supplier.
  • when there is a network/connectivity error with our pay provider c9 is supposed to generate an detailed diagnostic trace. Wasn’t there. Added in this version
• Edit Sale unit  : show vin and engine number onscreen

Complex tweaks / fixes

• New lock fixes : subtle bug with locking in some rare circumstances would trigger a shutdown of c9. example, point of sale 2 parts: 1 uom sale + other order on a daily order that doesn’t exist yet. Put on reserve/pickup will fail because of UOM item. A minute later c9 will crash. Root cause is because lock for daily order is done in a txn frame which is then rolled back. Fix : all locks happen in autocommit frames, if current frame isn’t autocommit then establish a new temporary connection to database
• potential performance issues with inputting a part in point of sale fixed. for a couple of dealers have had sporadic reports of certain parts taking a long time (5 to 20 seconds or more) to pull up and these problems seem to disappear after some database ‘ANALYZE’ tuning.  I suspect issue comes down to two  things. This version corrects one of them : how c9 handles ‘use alt franchise’ settings in advanced (2) tab of edit franchise. Previously this was implemented on database, but I suspect it is far more efficient and reliable to implement on client side. So moved logic here. Second area we will explore later if problems continue to happen after this update (relates to instantaneous computation of available partkit qtys in F2 and input part number ).
• Backup Verification : a low level change happening here to progress a very long term project : allow c9 and c9 databases to work with extended UTF charcter sets.  Actual support for this is still a long time away, but this is a critical next step. Opportunity taken since we need to migrate our servers to be a better provider, might as well ensure new servers support UTF at same time
• Bugfix for a very specific set of circumstances with add payment. If you add payment and preselect txns to pay via ‘sel txns’ and then adjust the payment figure downwards afterwards in some circumstances this can cause the txn to fail to save. Now fixed

 

 

Small tweak to cope with using barcode scanners via remote c9 where barcode is configured to transmit STX.

In point of sale screen the barcode would misread as ’42’ instead of actual barcode. This version includes a temporary fix that makes such scanners work.

One subtle variation between remote and local STX programmed barcodes is remotely for now , barcode scanner will behave as though it wasn’t programmed. You’ll need to manually key in qty sold in point of sale for example.

Important Sender ID changes

ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) are mandating stricter controls over Sender IDs on SMS to minimise fraud and scams.

A SMS message like this has the sender listed as BCMOTO

ACMA now require a much stricter process for getting their Sender ID into your SMS messages. If this process is not completed by July 1 your messages from July 1 will now look like this:

IF ACMA requirements are not done then the sender ID will no longer be transmitted , instead it will come from a 04 number controlled by us at C9 and the original Sender ID will not embed at the start of the message.

The new ACMA Process, High level

1. Create an account on ACMA website linked to your ABN
2. Part of above, prove you are the authorised contact / control of your ABN via mygov ID
3. Sender ID you choose must reasonably be linked to name of your business
4. ACMA will manually review request and approve it if all is appropriate

What to Do in c9

Step 1 – send request to register

Make sure you are running latest version of c9 (v5.2.155).

Then Goto setup -> other settings and pick Magician/SMS/Email. Goto SMS tab. Note the From SMS you can see there already (e.g. BCMOTO). Click Request Change button

Retype the Sender ID you want. Ideally keep it the same as what is already there but make changes if you need. Review all details and make sure they are spot on.

Then click ‘send Request’ button

Step 2- wait for email from ACMA

The above will send c9 the request. We will review and submit to ACMA.  Once submitted to ACMA you will receive an email requesting approval for the Sender ID. Click on the link and follow instructions. You will need to create an account on ACMA website linked to supplied ABN. You may need to use a principal contact email linked to your ABN which may well be your accountant.

Once you are logged into ACMA you should be able to see a request for Sender ID sent from C9 Software and from there you can approve it.

Step 3 – finalisation

Once approved by you ACMA will review and approve / reject request.

End to end the whole process can be expected to take a few days to a week. Make sure you get on this early, especially as we expect a rush to sort this out, Australia wide closer to July 1.