Tweaks and fixes

• Price file tweaks : clear variation info for superceded parts. Dataset is only useful for non super parts. Prior version would create extraneous variation datasets, especially with pricefiles that contain barcodes as well (e.g. monza)
• Update price file screen tweaks
  • Show age since supplier was updated in repo
  • Alert when a c9 update is needed to update a supplier (for future fenced repo versions)
  • Color code supplier list. Green: up2date. Red : needs updating. Purple : old or un-upgraded price file
• Bulk txn
  • Option to sort by supplier then date or just date (as it currently does)
  • Option to print bulk txn list
• Print deal part list : print deal no on the report
• sell parts to a unit. On the underlying created workshop job make sure job is tagged with default location.

Database: you need to log all terminals out during upgrade

Price files: Versions of c9 prior to this will no longer see price file changes. Keep c9 up2date to keep your pricefiles up2date

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Contract of sale terms and conditions changes

On consultation with solicitors c9 engages to create T&C's on vehicle sales, new T&C's are included in this version of c9 for QLD, NSW, VIC, SA & NT

All T&Cs have a new clause added as per below to contend with current climate of significantly delayed supply + steadily increasing costs.

Importing Part variants as part of price file updates

Some suppliers provide some good data on variations, such as size and colour information. Especially useful for apparel & armor, boots/helmets etc.  C9 can now automatically grab this data as part of price file updates. Price files in repo will now encode this information.

To date this has only really being useful for websites. But variation info is now also merged into alernatives.

Initially implemented with a couple of suppliers (Fox and Monza). We will assess repo price files one at a time as we process them to see if we can extract anything useful from other suppliers.

Example screen grab. Key in a monza part number in point of sale. e.g. AS201201497914

Symbol next to part indicates it has variants / alternatives. For variant only parts the symbol is red, if part has alternatives the original blue symbol is visible.

Press f7 and you'll see the lot.

Alternatively on website, variants are selectable for customers to fine tune what they want.

Other changes and tweaks

• various -ve workshop bug fixes. Workshop job is in -ve because $ value of  returned parts exceeds rest of invoice.
  • display -ve sign on all costs tab on fields that can -ve : Modify job, View job, complete job. Pickup job.
  • -ve sign inputs for discounts on above screens could be break discounting on -ve lines too. Now fixed.
  • On pickup would through a low level txn error. Now fixed.
• Bugfix with specific serious of events of adding a payment. Now fix. Add payment. Start with billpay, select amount and instrument and back out. then redo as bill+pay, would blow up with journal error and then a NPe on retry. Now fixed
• realtime reconciliation alert. Accidently disabled in prior version in an attempt to silence it when used in unattended mode. Now restored
• activity report, option to export list of txns linked to AR or AP open as of supplied start date (sort of halfway option between accruals and cash for those what want to deep dive txn listing of open txns).
• Activity report / BAS in cash basis mode : with recent introduction of split payments, spit invoices might incorrectly double up lines in these two parts of c9 on cash basis reporting as each split payment will cause underlying txn to be considered for cash reporting. Now fixed
• Edit price file, attribute value was only 20 characters. Extended to 200, to accommodate recent inclusion of multi supers data as an attribute for KTM group brands.
• Website slider / carousel.  Removed ancient settings  which only applied for v1/v2 era websites. Added settings to control sizing and animation speed for current v3 websites
• Paperwork / contracts
  • Vicroads forms :use registered owner not customer on key forms, e.g. for insurance written off claims.
  • Vic, SA, NSW, QLD & NT : update T&C's to include price change clauses
  • SA Changes
    • used unit contract: was emitting new unit terms, not used terms. Fixed
    • Paper size for new/used wrong. Was US legal, switched to a4 and reformatted
    • Changed T&C font size to make it consistent with other states

Part number 47030005144  ( CYLINDER W. FLANGE 85 SX 07)

It fits A few different SX 85 models between 2006 and 2009

The part supersedes, but instead of superseding to just one part as has been the convention in automotive for decades, it supersedes to all of the following....

   format    |            header             
-------------+------------------------------ 
 0025060256  | HH collar screw M6x25 TX30 
 0402040980  | NEEDLE ROL.DIN5402 NRB 4X9,8 
 0603061001  | CU-SEAL RING DIN7603-6X10X1 
 0770540020  | O-RING 54X2 VITON 
 0770800021  | O-RING  80,00X2,00  VITON 
 47130006000 | CYLINDER HEAD 85 SX 
 47130038000 | CYLINDER + PISTON 85 SX 
 47137007000 | CONTROL COVER 
 47137008000 | GASKET CONTROL COVER 
 47137020000 | CONTROL FLAP 
 47137086000 | STOP PLATE 
 47137091000 | GASKET RUBBER

Now KTM have a facility to create parts which are kits, which explode into component parts ( making reading their invoices painful whenever this happens ). They could use this facility in order to super such parts to a kit, preserving decades long automotive convention of many to one mapping for supersessions, but for the time being they have chosen not to do this, at least not for all affected parts.

Baked into c9's latest price file is some data to help partially manage / mitigate this

You key in such a part number into c9.

The parts description comes up warning you part is a multi SS.

F6 the part. For non stocked items goto modify price file then goto attributes tab. You'll see all parts listed in there as an attribute. For stocked items it will be under the attributes tab.

At time of this post, there are <300 parts in each of the brands in KTM group (KTM/HQV/GAS) price files that behave this way so it is luckily a rare thing.

One final point, years ago during early AX troubles for KTM and supers were also quite fucked, we added a switch into c9 to try and cope with their broken price files, where it would not clear supers incase you added some supers manually in order to workaround their inability to provide accurate pricing/supers info (a problem that now persists today with SAP too). This setting will interfere with above price file changes as in these parts previously supered, but now they don't, but if this setting is enabled, then updating price file will not clear them out. So you now probably want to get rid of the setting.  Edit franchise, advanced tab. Make sure the option is NOT set. The screen in question. Make sure the green section is NOT ticked. So looks the same as below.

 

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

Changes and tweaks

• Payroll
  • new report that shows leave accruals and estimated liability
  • Bugfix with modify staff, payroll stats tab was inaccessible. Now fixed
  • Super report : separate mandatory from additional contributions.
  • super report. Option to export as a quicksuper v2 CSV file
  • Add Member ID to staff, to support export function added to super report. Accessible in modify staff.
• Bugfix with auto adjust postings, was not factoring in whether or not floorplan unit had an upfront tax invoice and was assumption all floorplan units have a floorplan pending GST component resulting in inappropriate autoadjust postings. Now fixed. There is no ongoing compliance impact with this one, but was leaving a mess in reconciliation report.
• Realtime txn reconcilaition : would always pop an interactive nag, even on overnight auto adjusts. Now fixed to not pop a nag on overnight runs.
• View Journal: access txn details from here
• view unit. Access txn details from here.
• Added some GL codes: Dividends Received, Interest Received, Shares at Cost
• new WA paperwork form, VL12 : Application to Licence a Vehicle
• Fixed long standing bug, if you keep c9 perma-open, never open a new c9 and month rolls over into a new month, no new diagnostic data is captured for the new month. So when we need to deep dive into a diagnostic effort to figure something out, sometimes data is missing because of this. Now sorted
• Logged in but idle c9, will logout automatically after 4 hours of inactivity.

You can add a model range page into c9 which shows new vehicles of a specific type in a fairly fancy way.

We have preset data for a couple of suppliers. For example, Kawasaki

https://c8software.com.au/bikeshop/dev/modelrange/products/kawasaki

You can create your own pages on website the same. How to do this below

Read more...

Tweaks and fixes

• Print rebate : show wording tax invoice on print out instead of receipt
• Print spares invoice : Allow freeforms of zero qty to be printed with highlighted text. For embedding notes into a spares invoice
• C9's internal copy of c9 only : embed information about upcoming pricing rationalisation
• Support storing attachments externals to c9, e.g. in a dropbox share folder or network drive. Doing so removes storage restrictions in c9. See more details below
• realtime reconcilation check. Everytime a GL posting is add/modified c9 will verify that its presentation on balance sheet is consistent with P&L. It will nag if it is not. This is useful for detecting in realtime reconciliation errors, e.g. using no cash collected or AR debit/credit txn will always trigger the nag. Also more subtle scenarios, such as selecting tax coding of CapEx but not using a balance sheet GL code for the capital purchase. Mirrors behaviour of reconciliation report but does it in realtime.
• Select transaction : sort date field is showing wrong value on all tabs. Fixed.
• Modify workshop invoices so the invoice number doesn't have commas in it. This aligns workshop inv with spares and units. Apparently vicpol don't like commas in workshop invoice numbers, it messes with their delicate, IT systems. That's some mighty fine police work there Lou.
• Low level v5 bugfix. Exotic txn lifecycle would fail. Now fixed.
  • Specific scenario: record warranty on a supplier. Then delete it.  Then redo the warranty but changing the date from original recording to an earlier date, and the specific supplier happens to have open bill txns which are dated on a date the occurs after the new warranty date and the supplier is flagged as auto allocate.
  • Root cause: materialized last alloc/last supply computation broken in above specific scenario, triggering a database constraint error

Track bigger files in c9

C9 allows you to attach images and files to things like job cards etc. The size limits are very stringent although because our cloud backup services cannot cope with the c9 database being used as a generic high volume cloud storage system.

To workaround this, this version of c9 includes changes which will allow you to store attachments on an external source, such as a network drive or a locally mapped DropBox folder. With such a system in play c9 will no longer nag about limits. Downside is you need to manage backups for network drive yourself. A good solution is to get a dropbox account and use the dropbox share folder. Example screengrabs.

Setup -> main setup screen -> networking 2 tab. Navigate CDN option to point to where your share drive / drop box mirrors to. You may want to create a sub directory to keep c9 stuff distinctly separate.

Now attachments you have on jobs etc will automatically save into the configured sync folder, which in above example is a dropbox folder which will then automatically backup to dropbox

 

Tweaks and Fixes

• Low level systems changes
  • C9 contains a memory leak and it has been there for ages. Toggling between different parts of c9, from workshop to spares and back eats up a little bit of memory which is never returned. Over time c9 will eventually run out of memory. Most people would not run into limit because it clears out when you logout of c9. But if you leave c9 logged in after a few weeks it will grind to a halt. Fixed in this version
  • On a very small % of computers, opening c9 can cause other programs on windows to either open or close unexpectedly. It relates to some work done 10+ years ago. when you open c9 you expect it to become the 'top' program on your screen but on either older windows or older javas it didn't work. There is an old cludge in c9 to workaround this but this cludge can cause behaviour in other programs. Discovering this cludge is no longer needed to ensure c9 pops as top program when you open it, so removed entirely, removing strange behaviour on some computers. (Fix: kill simulated mouse click on window header to force it to gain keyboard focus, tweak focus grab code a little bit too).
• Other changes
  • Bank rec tweak open balance
    • Make sure txn is tagged so adjusted balance is visible on txn posting in business -> activity.
    • allow manipulation of such txns in business -> activity. Previously could out with a 'cannot alter bankrechead' message
  • honda warranty export tweaks to work better with company contacts (include contact in firstname field)
  • import part images, skip over absurdly long image names which are problematic for KTM powerparts importing
  • refresh WA transfer form. Something weird going on with it in some PDF viewers. Suspect color model issue. But hopefully fixed now. New transfer form is rearranged slightly.

• Tweaks and fixes
  • Unit line report : profit figure would not show negative (-) sign for negative profit lines. Now fixed
  • Auto/manual alloc settings. Always auto alloc depositor balances because of strict business rules around deposit management, manual alloc will almost always result in txn failure on usage of deposits. (withdrawals can never be unallocated).
  • Modify Deals screen : ppsr button floats in an awkard position when the window is maximized. Fixed.
  • Orderbook Bulk move function originally added to help manage KTM's weird stock ordering rules... tweaked so it will respond to attributes on either stock or master file. For dealers who manually manipulate / manage stkordcat attribute on stocked items in lieu of waiting for them to ever issue an updated price file.....
  • Split payment fixes
    • Modify existing txn which is split. Amount the split is incorrectly calculated as double the actual txn amount which messes with attempts to adjust splits. Now fixed.
  • Split payment ux tweaks /fixes
    • Due date on payment screen doesn't show last edited split due date
    • Split payment screen. On inputting a split figure, if on update a new line is added for residual, then highlight that new line. Track what has been explicitly edited and make it visually obvious so there is ever only one residual entry
  • Purchase unit : check if inputted invoice lives on a previously purchased invoice.
  • Deals : print part picklist , similar to same function in modify jobs.
  • Online giftcard tweakage
    • View web order : more clearly delineate giftcards purchaseed and giftcards used for payment
    • Reprint print a4 invoice with issued giftcards. The giftcards would display on preview but when spooled to printer would not print. Now fixed
    • View invoice, show $ figure and qty of barcodes issued if any
  • Modify job. If while modifying a job you click on view unit, changes you are working on would revert. Now fixed.
  • Add payment :  debtor payments incorrectly required a clerk key with credit/refund permission , when this permission is only needed for refunds / debt writedowns. Bug introduced on migration to 5.2.  Now fixed.
• Magician and importer integrations
  • KTM parts images : working again. Note KTM modified their website to throttle/rate limit traffic. As a result importer is now significantly slower and less reliable.
  • Ron Angel Magician , working again
  • Added magician query for GA Spares
  • Polaris has been removed entirely from c9. Their new dealer portal cannot be integrated into.

C9 now supports giftcards integrated into c9 enabled websites.

This allows users of your website to:

1. Purchase giftcards off the website
2. Use giftcards to pay for web purchases

Read more...

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

Online Gift cards

This version of c9 includes changes to help facilitate usage of giftcards online. Both buying and selling. A followup post / email will be sent on how to get onboard with this and add it to your website. Specific scope of changes in c9 itself:

• Sync giftcards purchased online into c9 point of sale and add them to bill of goods on point of sale
• sync giftcards used as part of payment options online, and prep them to be used as payment on online orders
• 'safe' giftcard mode. Make sure giftcards are not consumed online same time they are used in store. Requires c9 POS to be online all the time when utilising giftcards. New option in setup to enable it. It is possible to use giftcards online without it and there will be no ongoing double spend problems, but enabling it can make UX a bit smoother by more actively detecting when a giftcard has been 'reserved' / 'consumed' online but not yet processed in c9.  The main point of this change will become more obvious in time, where future version of c9 will support sharing giftcards across multiple c9 instances (for dealerships how have more than one shop). In such scenarios, central authority on where giftcards are managed is more diffuse, and double spend problem is in fact a problem in this setup, so requires more aggressive controls in place to handle it. Inclusion on this version is mainly as a proof of concept to confirm feasibility of safe / accurate consumption of giftcards where consumer/acquirer is a different system from the holder/issuer of the giftcard.

Other changes

• Pay slips : gross figure previously would subtract voluntary super. Now fixed to not do this.
• Unit sales : for sales on account with a deposit print balance owing figure on them, so to not confuse finance companies too much
• Loose mode units: a couple of dealers run c9 in a mode where floor units can be quickly added during sale. This mode conflicts with recent changes to protect against simultaneous selling/modification of units. Now fixed to support these dealers.
• Reworked deals screen for finished / cancelled deals to display a view deal screen. Accessing commonly request things from here:
  • Print deal/ print resulting invoice
  • view customer details
  • View deposit history
  • (New) view deal attachments
• deals : option to attach images etc to deals
• merge parts on pickup : merge freight to charge figures
• Payment methods: this code has been heavily reworked as part of processing importing of giftcards used online. Some subtle variations, for example it is generally better at memorizing selected payment methods, including giftcards and banks, when you come out and come back in to redo a payment.
• Txn allocation : if you delete or wind down a txn c9 is supposed to automatically juggle allocations of adjunct txns. Under some narrow circumstances this doesn't always happen. v4 c9 used a very brute force/greedy check everything approach, v5 is a bit more refined and only allocates where needed. But some scenarios were overlooked. Now fixed. The underlying logic has been heavily rewritten as part of this: a little more efficient/faster ( doesn't open/edit sibling txns, but can manipulate allocations of linked journal entries without loading entire posting).
• Txn adjust aging tool. Could crash with an error in some circumstances with fairly complex aging adjustment requirements ( ConcurrentModificationException ).  Too technical and obscure to explain why and how, so just a note to say it is fixed here.