F12 magician check : is now working again. Key in a suzuki part into c9 and press F12 magician. click "dealer login" button if it doesn't work right away and it should then return an instant result.

Suzuki Website EPC : For c9 dealers who run a website: contact Suzuki to request an API key. They will request two things before providing a key.

Those two things:

• IP Address : 101.0.111.74
• Website domain  : the address of your website e.g my-dealership-x.com.au

Once you have provided above and have an API key feed it into c9 here:

• Spares -> utilities -> import fiche
• Select suzuki franchise
• Select 'Suzuki API as import method'
• Press on from there to finalise import

 

 

Bugfixes relating to web orders, tillpay and paypal

• Refund logic : c9 is only supposed to recommend a refund on tillpay/paypal when we are at the final txn in a web order cycle. A bug meant it would recommend refund early could inappropriately trigger an unwanted refund for insufficient funding to cover parts still on order  , freight not yet invoiced.
• Web order finalise logic : c9 would regard a reserve /pickup as finalised for signalling tillpay/paypal when to trigger a refund of over captured funds. It isn't.

Includes db changes you need to log all terminals out during upgrade

Pay online for workshop jobs

This version of c9 includes a very cool new feature where as part of outbound email /sms alert for workshop completion you can include a link for customers to prepay work.  Customers can prepay jobs and prepayment lands as a deposit on the job in c9 automatically.  The solution requires you run a c9 website and you have either paypal and/or tillpay integrated into the website.

On job checkout is a new option : send pay link.

On selection and press on email and SMS sent to customer will contain a link back to your c9 website where they can pay for the job (and possibly buy other stuff at same time)

Operator clicks on link and sees below:

Once paid , a deposit automatically syncs into your c9 for the payment on the workshop job.

In time the feature will be expanded to also cover accounts receivable payments and unit sales but for time being, will implement on workshop only.

Configuring this

For this to work you must have a c9 website and either paypal or tillpay card processing integrated. It only works with these two payment methods.

There is some configuration in c9 need to bring it together. You need to tell c9 where your c9 website is, and you need to configure SMS and email templates to include payment link.

C9 website : setup -> other settings -> dealership details. Website and email. There is a configuration slot for exact c9 website (as this may be different to website address you print on invoice)

SMS / Email templates.

Setup -> main setup screen -> notifications. You need to include {paysms} in sms template for include cost. Hit reset button to add it automatically.

Similar for email : notifications 2 if you've used custom url here. Modify email body and then click on reset.

Reconciliation Analysis

A new screen / report has been added to view journals / view details : it shows for a given posting what reconciliations that posting affects.  Can be useful for tracing / inferring impacts of changes made to payment methods etc. Accessed via reconciliation on txn details, or in browse journal. Example output:

Other changes

• Tillpay terminal surcharging : you can now configure tillpay terminals to compute surcharge for you instead of c9 doing the calculation and this will be sync backed and included in c9 tax invocie.  The advantage of terminal surcharging is that the terminal can be configured to surcharged based on type of card swiped : e.g. EFTPOS free by credit cards 1%. This is not possible in c9 because c9 doesn't know what sort of card has been swiped.
• Deposit refund on modify job : changes made recently to make sure customer deposit was available when adding deposit wasn't implemented fully; the case of refunding deposit back to customer wasn't done. Now fixed.
• View contacts : highlight if contacts has sms reply / comment or attachment.  Colour code buttons to show if there is anything there
• Delete job bugfix : if job has deposits delete triggers a deposit refund, but if refund fails for any reason such as backdating refund before a gl lock, the job will be deleted even though it still has deposit. Fixed so that the delete operation is aborted if the deposit refund fails
• Sell Unit : profit breakdown in sell screen did not show unit other costs as a separate entry. Now displayed
• New GL Expense Code : IT / Cloud / Hosting fees

Tillpayments terminal audit and error handling

This version includes a fix with tillpayments terminal integration.  c9 is supposed to permanently log a record of eft interactions for future reference but certain operations cause this log to be destroyed. Common one is a failed /declined txn and operator then picks manual txn. Now fixed.

further the manual option is pretty brutal in its behaviour and often the incorrect option to pick : so pop an alert to confirm this is what operator really wants to do.

Finally when a txn is declined failed etc, log it as failed not OK. Otherwise output in eft journal screen is confusing.

Other Tweaks and fixes

• Magician checks
  • Kawasaki  : make sure results displayed are for AU warehouse only : not combined AU+NZ warehouse
  • Link  : working again
  • Triumph  : working again
• Workshop deposits : modify job and deposit tweak was not providing option to use customer deposits. Now fixed

 

Include DB Changes. You need to log all terminals out during upgrade

• Tillpayments refinements and tweaks
  • bank rec : Tweak output to make it easier yo reconcile paypal / tillpay captures. Recent introduction of gateway clearing GL codes made it difficult in reconcile screen to match a payment to a txn in c9. Now sorted.
  • Disable INCAUTH as it is problematic for some bank issuers : like CBA. Only support DEBIT
  • DEBIT : change indicator for debit : from recurring to merchant initiated
  • Bugfix with terminal config. Live/standbox toggle wasn't working correctly
  • Cancel web order : auto pop tillpay / paypal to manage refund / void
• Suzuki Magician Check : reimplemented using a new system provided by Suzuki . MFA no longer required
• Statement penalties / discounts : not automatically applying after elapsed delay. Broken since migration to v5.2 . Now repaired.
• WA paperwork : couple of years ago incorrectly switched MR9B form for MR9.  Switched back in this version.
• unit deal : substitute unit with blank : would not clear model year. Now fixed.
• Workshop benchmarking - completely removed. Instead report accuracy of job effort on jobs vs charged labour. Affects staff and profit report
• SMS Reply Alerts - add ability to configure a courtesy alert email to send an email when there are unread SMS replies to review. Alert is only sent with first unread sms to come in. Subsequent unread replies will not trigger fresh emails
• Workshop profit - option to filter report by a specific mechanic who is involved in the job. Filters down to only jobs associated with selected tech : be it scheduled, or charged or clocked
• Modify Ar/AP payment bugfix : if you modify payment such that it reverses direction of the txn; from money leaving (e.g. pay bill) to money coming in (e.g. collect money to pay bill), the txn will fail with a journal error bc it would force the direction change on modify. Now fixed.
• Receive spares
  • Some txn combinations where GST is set to or near zero fail with a journal balance error. Root cause is a subtle bug with how GST is amortised across multiple lines and default rounding strategy.
  • When receival GST is zero, do not force GST to zero, instead change Tax Code to EXPENSE_FREE
• Other Misc tweaks
  • When reciving into stock a part for first time where auto stock take is in play, c9 would not update the last stocktake date and leave it blank. (Subsequent receivals would then fix it up). Now fixed so initial add to stock also performs an auto stocktake
  • Daily SMS templates : make them bigger in configuration
  • Job invoices : print claim number on insurance jobs without a unit (previously would only print if a unit was also assigned to the job)
  • AP Bill + Pay. Write the reference into both bill and pay lines.
  • Paypal void pre-auth. Looks like paypal auto voids preauth on full capture so do not trigger void. Previously with recent fix in last version paypal screen would pop to finalise an ordder and will nag void attempt failure.

This version of c9 fixes a subtle defect introduced around / after December in 2023.

Sometimes when you process a receival with some sort of small -ve residual in tally of parts vs invoice total if you selected 'ignore difference' c9 would sometimes fail with a reconciliation then journal balance error.

But previously it worked fine. Further if you go and attempt to do work on previously recorded txns, such as relink them, then the relink would fail.

The core issue is how a fixed gst amount as amortized across multiple lines, with some of the change added to parts and some added to the inverted delta posting. As part of v5.3 alot of work has been done to make amortization of tax more sophisticated; but this introduced some undetected edge cases for a receival where tax invoice tally is slighty less than tally of parts and proscribed gst amount variation exceeds this value.

This version also formally codifies build fixes described in update section of below (v5.2.102) update

 

There appear to be further build issues with v5.2.101.   If you goto biz activity and click on details for any txn involving AR/AP or deposits it will trigger an error. Even though problem was also obvious in AR/AP the exact issue was different from bug in 5.2.100 fixed in 5.2.101

Again problem is build system, not software code. Did a complete clean rebuild after a reboot / memory wipe. Seems to work fine now.

Update 4.6.24: detailed decompile analysis of version 99, 100, 101 and 102 show build process generated significantly different outputs for v100 and v101. v99 and v102 are the same for a key class.  Further analysis revealed an non deterministic issue with build process. The issue is now fully understand and expect it to not occur again.

more specifics : clarion->java interface autoboxing doesn't provide fine grained precedence for clarion to java type mapping; so java methods with different prototype signatures are considered functionally equivalent. So code written at java/clarion interface must enforce this contract. TxnItemType.get() and TxnLocationType.get() broke this contract : purely for purpose of automated regression testing and this break in contract on both these methods are responsible for problems in v5.2.100 and v5.2.101. Repaired using different method names.

There was an high impact issue with 5.2.100 related this morning. Most of AR/AP type txns would fail with an error. this version fixes it.

The root cause of issue wasn't a software code bug but with how new versions of c9 are prepared and uploaded. This is the second time we have been caught out in last couple of years by this.  Further changes have be put in place to make sure it doesn't happen again; as original tweaks made were not enough to catch this mornings issues.

Root cause : some sort of issue with incremental build for the main c9 software package resulting in corrupt compiled software : possibly a clash between in IDE incremental build process and command line build; switch to strict clean builds from now on.

Includes Database changes you need to log all terminals out during processing.

Online payment processing reconciliation : this version of c9 tweaks how paypal and tillpay txns make their way through the general ledger. Funds now flow through a set of GL clearing codes 1-1410 : Payment Gateways Unallocated.

This change creates a separation between funds being captured and funds used to fund a sale. So on capturing funds from an online sale we now post DR into existing gateway code : 1-1041-xxxx, but we also post a CR into new code 1-1410-xxxx.  Then on invoicing we DR this new code to bring it back to zero.

Previously c9 would just DR the 1-1041-xxxx code and most of the time, as long as c9 was used way we liked it to be used what you capture and what you invoice are same so you could just reconcile off what you invoice. But there are some edge cases where things would not line up, like bailing out of creating a txn at a critical time and never redoing the operation.

Purpose of this change is two fold:

• make reconciliation more robust in face of a couple of edge cases.
• a new feature with tillpay processing is we can now capture and pre-auth automatically on website. This allows alignment card experience with what is commonly expected for online CC sales for consumers. This situation though will definitely create a delay between capture of funds and invoicing, so fund capture in this future scenario must be indirect to maintain ease of reconciliation

Other features / consequences of this change:

• For existing historical web orders they will remain as is, a posting to original 1-1041-xxxx code only. But when installing this version if you touch sales in progress these will be, on demand, migrated to the new models. This approach is to allow smooth transition into this model without risking journal /reconciliation issues with trying to touch up very old txns.
• unallocated web order transactions will report under the deposits held report
• New codes report on the balance sheet
•  impemented for Tillpay, Paypal Rest and Paypal NVP
• Important: it is impossible for us to properly test Paypal NVP integration since Paypal have disabled ability to create NVP credentials for testing. It is strongly advised to no longer use NVP; since c9 cannot test it we cannot debug or support it any more. C9 screens make this even more obvious now. NVP will be forcefully disabled in a near future version of c9.

Other tweaks and fixes:

• Some floorplan tracking bugs fixed:
  • Some floorplan modifications ,such as modifying or deleting a curtailment in a way that moves a floorplan from paid to unpaid or back would not log correctly in the database, resulting in issues with auto adjust process incorrectly posting an inappropriate result : which would usually clear up after you modify the unit but still would leave ugly resullts in accounting reconciliation report to deal with.  Now fixed.
  • Treat overpaid floorplans as unpaid : do not log a paid out event, in dealership units code /filter them as unpaid.  Previously would treat them as paid. This change will hopefully help detect errors with floorplan management where result behaviour is floorplan is flagged as overpaid
• Subtle bugfix in processing final receival for paypal / tillpay. If auto invoice doesn't trigger and operator needs to trigger pickup manually, system would assume because balance outstanding is zero , no instrument is needed. So it clears instrument entirely and doesn't pop tillpay/paypal processing screen to void the preauth. Now fixed.
• Tillpay integration
  • option to trigger a debit in case extend auth fails and the underlying txn was created with recurring
  • tweaks to cope with possibility of preauth arrived pre-captured too. To align with more common ecomm experience where goods are paid for at checkout. Requires setting on website to be enabled
• Payroll.  New 24/25 tax tables
  • Linear equation tables as published mid May at https://softwaredevelopers.ato.gov.au/PAYGWTaxtables
  • Super guarantee 11.5 for 24/25
  • Annual tables for following cross referenced with either .gov published sites or x-ref with above tables : resident, foreign, working holiday & STSL
• WA paperwork changes.
  • Add new form 4 particulars
  • Add new form 5 defects
  • Note  : separate warranty forms you need to source and print yourself from WA Gov websites . Not bundled in c9 since nothing prints on them
• Add/edit franchise : advanced tab option for web api filter. Used by a couple of different dealers
• Freeform stocktake : stocking a part currently not stocked but on price file broken since last version. Now fixed.
• Merge weborder : hide secure token alter alert if there is order being merged doesn't have a token.
• In some shops, when is c9 left on login screen for a long time if you try to login it will fail but second login will succeed. The cause is a stale network disconnect is misinterpreted as login not found. Fixed by double checking a failed login test to give network connection a chance to re-establish if it is stale.
• Point of Sale finish : hotkey invoice date to Alt+T, to allow keyboard only editing since inv date is no in normal keyboard tab list.
• Browse dealer units : filter input will now also filter on rego/plate.
• Gas Gas Magician : would not work if there was a space in franchise name "Gas Gas". Now fixed to match with or without

Includes database changes you need to log terminals out during upgrade

This version includes a new POS terminal integration option into Tillpayments terminals. At time of release the solution is not certified for production use yet but assuming all goes well with ongoing testing/cerification this version will be the first version that permits direct connectivity to tillpay terminals without having to go via PCEFTPOS / Linkly. Desired outcome is to eliminate presence of Linkly entirely and avoid all the reliability and complexity issues that come with it.

This version includes a significant functional change with Unit Finance Sales.  Previously finance sales would post sporadically to AR and AP balances creating a mass on AR/AP statement for the finance provider. This behaviour is mainly because of how v4 AR/AP worked and has remained in place since. This version of c9 exploits newer capabilities in v5.2 c9 to heavily rationalise onto one or the other while keeping the number of lines on the contact txn list to a sensible minimum.

• For Finance contacts tagged as debtors / both : everything will rationalise onto AR
• For Finance contacts tagged as creditors : everything will rationalise onto AP
• For straight purchases invoicing Both / creditor : everything will rationalise onto AP, otherwise AR
• Note that encumbered tradeins the encumbrance will always post to AP (as before)

Generally with this change in place you may want to flag your finance providers as being 'Creditors' so that circumstances where encumbrance is same as finance provider then everything rationalises onto AP.

This version advances a ease of life too started back in 2018 : statement reconciliation.  Import a PDF statement file and cross check it against txns in your system. A heap of changes here to try and make it more useful. Targeting KTM group dealerships first because their 'statements' are not statements in the classic (correct) sense and their accounts are extremely challenging to reconcile against because of this. Hopefully this tool will be especially useful here. Goto view transactions on your KTM Group supplier, click on statement reconciliation and feed in a KTM statement pdf. Things it does

• Match txns on PDF statement against txns in c9.
• Matching is 'fuzzy', so copes with slight typo variations, missing or extra characters in reference, mistyped numbers etc
• Help visually identify missing or misinputed invoices.
• print or export result to csv
• KTM specific nonsense:
  • filter to spares only to remove pages of floorplan stuff
  • Mash split payments on statement into a single record
  • Some logic to try and filter older records in c9 but not on ktm statement because ktm only show things they consider 'open'

 

Other tweaks and fixes

• miner order receive query fixes.
  • Previously could not link order item to received order. Would output an error
  • Tweak state radio toggles on orditem to allow more filters
• Timesheet report : option to filter results to mechanics only
• Today Clocked Screen : option to filter results to mechanics only
• freeform stock take : screen blows up in subtle ways when you scan a superceded part number. Now fixed.
• BRP fiche importer : working again for Can-Am ATV and SXS importing
• Leads  : new tabs. Alerted leads only sorted by date and tab for leads sorted by create order only
• Honda op2ma : tweaks to reporting. Unit counts were misreporting and incorrectly double tallying units on deals.
  • Specifically repairs Fields P28, P29, P30, P31, P35 , P36
• Browse Eft journal : add column to show provider now there are 4 (PCEFTPOS, Tyro, TillPay online and now Tillpay Terminal)
• Returns on Predeliver on deals : handle better in deals. Show -ve on modify unit screen. Allow -ve inputting on editing of lines
• Point of Sale Import Miner query :  Default qty to qty on hand. Some issues with POS importing zero qtys. Now tidied
• Spares profit report bug : displayed QoH incorrectly copied from a different part for parts no longer on file (in stock or pricefile). Now fixed
• EMail setup : make it visually obvious that sender From addr for c9 routed emails requires SPF entries to be in place first and to contact c9