As of pending version 4.223 of c9, a significant change will be made to c9.  An existing feature (deferred payments) will be completely removed and instead be replaced with an alternative and improved mechanism that achieves the same aim.

The primary purpose of this post is to alert dealers that use the deferred payments facility so that you are aware of the change before you upgrade.  Also this post will highlight how to solve an occasional spare parts selling arrangement: the ability to reserve stock for a cash customer, but not actually raise an invoice for the stock until they come in to receive the parts.

We try to avoid making significant changes to the software that modify the way the software is used for daily operation.  In this circumstance, we are of the view that the existing deferred payment system is broken and it weakens the c9 product so we taken the decision to remove it entirely from c9.    The primary reason why is that the solution is confusing and error prone and difficult to properly manage.  We instead went with a solution that merges behaviour of customer order processing so that the same process you use to process customer orders that have been received is the same process you use to process items placed on reserve.  This approach has numerous advantages which we hope will come clear to you as you use the new capability in c9.

Putting spares in reserve

You prepare an invoice in point of sale as you would normally.  You add items to the invoice, either stock items or items on order as you would normally.

For example: POS screen shows some items on order and some items supplied from stock.

Note the order total of 49.95 and stock total of 7.95. The significance of this will become clear soon.

Now normally you press F10 and continue the sale. Point of Sale complete window appears. Normally you see the following:

A new option for invoice type is now available : a Reserve/Pickup Later.

On a normal cash/receipt: the value of the invoice is value of parts supplied (7.95) + the deposit (defaults to value of parts on order, or 49.95).  So total tax invoice is $57.90

Now if you selected reserve/pickup later what happens is that all parts on the invoice are treated as though they are placed on order, and deposit defaults to 0. The parts that are in stock are taken out of stock, but instead of being sold to the invoice, they are placed on a special order, already in receive status.  So the result is an invoice with 0 and no parts supplied. But the parts are moved onto F12 customer order pickup.

Illustrating.  In example we set customer order number to '12345678' for purposes of example. Now consider:

The invoice changes to a zero value invoice, and parts on order now reports value of $57.90 : all parts on 'order'. One of the parts is really on order, to go through normal ordering process. But the supplied part, valued at $7.95, is actually not put on order. All that happens is that one part in stock is moved out of stock to the physical location where you keep parts received on order to be picked up by customer. The order is essentially a special type of order that takes the part out of inventory and effectively reserves it for the customer.

The system defaults deposit to 0, but you can set the deposit to something other than zero. For example, a customer doesn't want to carry any parts out of the shop until parts on order are also ready.  So they pay a 'deposit' on parts on order and parts reserved, and only pick the lot up when the customer order is fulfilled by the supplier.

Now you just F10 and complete the sale as you would normally.

Now this function is normally intended to be used for reservation of spares for cash customers only. For account customers what you would normally do is raise an invoice, and put the tax invoice and  the spare parts aside. The sale has occurred and the account has been debited. Reserve sale is intended for cash customers where you have no means to take payment at initial point of sale (i.e. phone in request to purchase for a cash customer).

The resulting A4 tax invoice will notify you that items reserved will be supplied later.

Picking up parts on reserve

To pickup a part on reserve simply use F12 customer order pickup in point of sale. Parts on reserve and parts on order appear together. If you pickup parts on reserve which also have real parts on order, asssuming those parts have arrived you only need to select the one invoice and all parts ready for pickup, both reserved parts and parts ordered will appear on the new invoice. Process the invoice as you would a customer order pickup. Pickup screen allows you to filter for reserved orders only, to minimise clutter on this screen.

Navigating C9 with reservations

When you navigate c9 spares or c9 orders you will notice some changes as a consequence of this new feature.

Firstly in view invoices, such as view account or reprint invoice, you will see a new invoice type: called 'reserve'. These are invoices where parts are initially reserved for later pickup.

Next in orders, when you view orders, you will see a new order type; also called 'reserve'. These are similar to quick orders and are used to track parts moved from inventory into reserve. You can view/modify/cancel these as per normal. To cancel a reservation, you actually will use cancel customer invoice as you would normally when cancelling a customer invoice.

C9 currently will try to minimise the number of 'reserve' orders created so as to not clutter up order management.  So multiple customer invoices will share the same 'reserve' order number where possible.  There will be a unique reserve order for every type of franchise; but accessory items on reserve will all appear under a supplier-less order, irrespective of the items accessory supplier.

Other parts of the system that deal with orders will also reflect this. For example view account, parts on order will provide a handy list of parts both on order and parts in reserve. i.e.:

Migration of c9 for deferred payment functionality

When you upgrade c9 to later version that removes deferred payment the system will automatically migrate any open/active deferred payment invoices to use the reserve system. The active deferred payment invoices are converted into reserve invoices and customer pickup F12 is primed with those invoices.  Any invoice that was deferred but paid will be left as is and not converted. So only active deferred items are converted as part of the upgrade.