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Release 5.2.127 May 27, 2025 barney

Includes DB changes. You need to log all terminals out during upgrade.

Not yet released. In another day or so

Low level system fixes and tweaks

  • Very subtle bug where switching to fiche first time of day at exactly right moment can cause some data corruption when the system does a remote fiche refresh. In the one known instance where it happened it disabled online backup for that dealer.  Thread race bug with c9 configuration, and requires perfect sub millisecond timing to trigger. Fixed in this version.
  • General ledger balance caching can cause all c9 terminals to lockup requiring a server restart.  Potentially happens in environments where the terminal network access is unreliable.; this is fix is motivated by a new client who as experienced this issue twice in ~ 2 months.  General ledgers need to be able to tally balances to a set date for things like cash up screen etc. Instead of tallying 10+ years/ 3 million postings every time c9 needs to show you yesterdays cash on hand, c9 uses some sophisticated caching to speed this up 1000x fold. The current algorithm, cache on demand, requires very carefully managed locks between all computers. A cache request on one terminal needs to be sure other terminals are not simultaneously manipulating the general ledger while it is generating a figure for caching; otherwise it might miss changes currently in flight and incorrect information ends up being cached. If that terminal that requests a lock for caching then falls off network then all terminals are broken until a restart.  This version of c9 introduces a new approach : mark/sweep cache. Advantages : alot faster overall. Cache updating only happens once a day and usually at midnight / first thing in morning. Recache cannot not trigger system wide freezes . Disadvantages : more complex to create.

 

Other tweaks and fixes

  • Unit sale with tradein : print tradein unit framenumber on cost tally. Needed for some finance companies
  • Payroll employment types: UX issue with how casual rules are shown on the screen. Redesigned so it is obvious these setting affect ALL staff in the employment type, not just staff tagged as casuals
  • Stihl Warranty : reword warranty questions as requested by Stihl
  • Spare Part history graph: provide grand total for all time sales #
  • Unit Deals : add color code icons similar to workshop jobs
Release 5.2.126 May 16, 2025 barney

This version of c9 introduces another new remote access / support tool. Called RustDesk.

Last version of c9 we switched out AnyDesk for RemotePC.  RemotePC we have discovered in the last week is not suitable for shops where internet access is slow.

 

Release 5.2.125 May 7, 2025 barney

Includes DB changes. You need to log all terminals out during upgrade.

Managing banks

There have been some rough edges with this for some time.  A system starts off with a bank 1-1200 and this is assumed to be main trading account. But if you configure additional banks these drop as sub codes, making 1-1200 a control code now. There are some consequences around this which are messy . This version of c9 introduces a heap of improvements:

  • Define a default bank on a sub code : 1-1299 migrate all postings to 1-1200 to this new code
  • Include this default bank in select bank screen. : Hide it though if custom banks are defined or if the default bank gl has a non zero balance
  • Streamline bank rec for default bank ; always select an explicit bank now
  • Setup screen : remove 'x' buttons as they are now redundant with bank select screen now being able to explicitly select default bank in select bank screen
  • Make appropriate adjustments to bank rec, make sure balance sheet includes newly minted default trade bank code.

Remote Support

This version of c9 swaps out AnyDesk for RemotePC when you click on remote support.

Bugfixes and Quality of Life Tweaks

  • 100% line discount on spares was not saving correctly, on pickup stage of reserve would rewrite as 99.99% : now fixed
  • Finance Settlement with a AP flagged finance company : was broken and would show wrong figures on screen. Normal convention of using AR worked fine, just AP only a problem.  Now fixed for both.
  • Spares Point of sale :  make Loc column longer
  • All lists : provide a visual indicator if column content is clipped. e.g:
  • BAS  Guardrail Refinements
    • Initial computation of 4 (copy of W2) broken. It is supposed to copy w2, but it's behaviour was quite damaged and difficult to predict what it would store. Now fixed. Broken with recent introduction of guardrails, previously was fine.
    • Memorise payroll limit setting on each bas. Previously would default to last month of bas period always
    • Orange highlights on Payroll figures (W1,W2,4) : do not highlight when underlying payroll figures are zero : assume payroll is managed elsewhere
  • Aged Balance /Historical Aged : make sure negative sign is shown on aging % for relevant columns
  • Availability / Leave  : Do not allow records where no day/time/DOW is set : allowing it blows up scheduler and it has happened enough times now it deserves a strict guardrail
  • General Ledger Control Code Posting : c9 being loose in design allows posting to control codes. Almost always though this is unwanted, this version of c9 includes locks to guard against this. The lock is configurable in same place bas/gl locks are configured. By default with this version you cannot post to a control code whose balance is zero: this default setting should discourage practice and for dealers who use it, they will not be immediately impacted by this tightening of rules
  • Point of Sale Import - allow PDF importing of invoices we support for suppliers. Could be useful in some situations. Main thing this can be handy for is importing from generic excel files with following format:
  • Add customer with duplicates - on select screen highlight whether or not a potential match is archived. Score archived matches much lower than active matches. When selecting an acrchived customer automatically un-archive them.
  • Label printing - added some guards against null pointer exception walls of text : one consistent way to trigger this is configuring labels with 0 size but suspect other things at play too like font caching in java etc.
  • Payroll pay run screen - multiplier column would only show 2 decimal points, not full 4. So results like leave loading of 0.0175 would display as 0.18.  All the math was fine, and payslips print correct too but on screen it looked incorrect because of visual rounding of result to fit 2dp on the manage payrun screen. Now fixed.
  • Miner - allow query of workshop order number field
  • TillPay tokens for payments - expand their use
    • deposit handling
    • workshop job payments
    • AR/AP/Cust Deposit Txn processing
  • QLD Form Updates
    • F5245 - LOA Individual
    • F5244 - LOA Company
  • Profit Summary - would misreport profit change totals in cases where in current period there is nothing to report but past comparison period there was activity. The comparison data would effectively be ignored and not make it into the report. Now fixed
  • High DPI Screen sizing tweaks
    • Changed the algorithm slightly so resizing is consistent across all screens. Previously it could vary slightly depending on the open window.
    • Left hand menu screen didn't do sizing very well; effectively double dipping screen size configuration making the side menu look massive. Now fixed
  • Tillpay Weborder Fixes : cope with some exotic scenarios where preauth isn't voided when it should. c9 tries to avoid calling void unless it is confident it is needed. C9 miscalculates when it is needed by failing to distinguish between a capture and a debit. It sees debits >= original preauth and assumes the preauth is already done. Generally not an issue for most setups, but impactful for small % of dealers who do not do on website capture, customer authorises recurring payments and the txn funded is greater than original capture.

Notes about remote access

  • Note things included in this c9 do not automatically show up when using c9 remotely. We need to build a new version of remote access for those to kick in. This will be in a week or so. Specifically
    • screen sizing improvements
    • list column clipping indicators

Other

  • TxnEngine update : allow rearrange lines on a journal post. Needed for reorganising workshop line items in 5.3. Non functional impacts on v5.2
  • Event Logging : added ability to permanently record and centralise debug/performance activity with critical systems. Initially implemented on tillpay for online + instore terminals. Intent is to allow us to assess performance and reliability of critical dependencies without having to request logs off individual terminals.