• Workshop tweaks and fixes
  • print pro-forma tax invoice in non pro forma mode. Force date to be today
  • Staff report. Broken with latest changes : would not work with either completed jobs or invoiced jobs option set as a filter. Now fixed.

• Bug fixes for release 4.699
  • Workshop profit report broken. Tested new code on wrong version of postgres. Now working with actual version of postgres running at dealerships.
• Future interest estimatation fixes
  • Consider both interest and renewal fee payments for figuring out interest from.  More and more floorplan providers are charging 'GST' on interest so need to be recorded as renewal fees within c9 means interest to pay estimate in c9 is completely wrong.
  • Bug with future interest estimation on units in deal screen. Was effectively showing floorplan costs with double the estimated interest (not quite double, but more or less doing this). Now fixed

C9 incorporates new useful data on cost of workshop techs into key reports to provide better data on profitability and performance of workshop departments.

To use this data some setup and management is required also change in processes. Alot of setup involves enabling payroll functionality in c9.  It doesn't require running full payroll through c9 to access the core useful functionality though the more the payroll data is used the more useful data c9 will provide.

Workshop techs must use clocking to enable new cost reporting features.  C9 will not compute costs off hours entered on job since hours here are editable and designed to represented billed hours, not actual hours, it is computed strictly based on clocking activity.

First. Defining Efficiency / Productivity and Proficiency

Efficiency : Is the ratio of billable hours to clocked hours. The more time techs work on billable work vs unbillable work the more efficient they are. It is possible for a tech to have >100% efficiency if what is recorded on a job card for hours is more than what they actually timesheeted.

Productivity: Is the # of hours a tech clocked as a ratio of their agreed employment hours. So a tech can have >100% productivity if they work more hours than what their employment terms are

Proficiency : is Efficiency multiplied by Productivity. Is is effectively the ratio of the billable hours vs their contracted / agreed employment hours.

Setup requirement. From order of most important to least important and functions setup enables.

Setup	Functionality Gained
Techs to use clocking to clock onto jobs	Compute efficiency for proficiency report
enable payroll access Configure staff hourly rate or yearly salary	Track cost of labour on jobs. displayed in key reports
enable payroll employment types map types to staff	Fine tune accuracy of cost estimates to factor in actual work hours and overtime Compute productivity for proficiency report
Maintain leave and holidays data	Fine tune accuracy of productivity figures in proficiency report
Full payroll : implement pay runs	Provide non COGS labour estimates in profit summary report
Map staff to correct departments	Breakdown payroll figures in profit summary report based on department

Tech Clocking

To make use of data techs need to clock onto jobs in c9.  Techs need to be assigned a unit clerk key.

Workshop -> Utilities - >Staff

Select staff member who is a tech and click change.  Key in a unique secret clerk key for the tech. also tweak clerk settings for oher things in c9 techs can access. Select none of the options for techs that have no other responsibilities in c9 other than logging time.

Now tech can access clocking via 'Clocking' option in top of c9 or via view workshop jobs.  They key in their clerk key and then key in job number they want to clock onto.  Techs must clockoff end of day and also clock off when going on break idle etc.

You can configure non job related items a tech can clock onto. workshop -> Utilities -> Clocking reasons.

Enable Payroll Access

Setup -> other settings -> Login Users.

Select a privileged user and click on Change

Select payroll option and click OK.

Logout of c9 and re-login as the privileged user

Configure Staff payroll particulars

Now in Workshop -> Utilities -> Staff you can access payroll tabs. Key in either hourly wage or salary into appropriate slot.

Note: C9 cost computation adds a compulsory superannuation figure. Make sure wages or salary figure is before compulsory super

 

Tip : setting pay data only applies to clocking performed after the change. To help get things started to extract useful data after initial setup you and run a utility in c9 that will recompute cost of labour on already clocked time based on current payroll configuration. It is only useful for dealers that use clocking already though.

To access : workshop -> utilities -> recompute TS.  Key in period (defaults to a month prior until today) and run recompute

Configure Employment types

Employment types allows you to configure typical weekly hours worked and overtime hours. you may need to configure more than one for techs that work different conditions. e.g. if your techs typically work monday to friday that would represent a base employment type, but if you have one tech that only works 3 day weeks, they will require their own employment type to manage the hours they specifically work.

To manage employment types . Business - >Payroll -> Setup -> Employment types.

Key elements as relevant for workshop cost computation highlighted below

Map Employment types to staff

Employment types are mapped to staff back in Workshop -> Utilities - >Staff. On payroll tab

Maintain Holidays and Leave

Public holidays and leave is managed via Business -> Payroll -> Manage Leave/Holidays

Full Payroll

too much to cover here to explain full payroll. In essence if there are payruns tracked in c9 c9 will use this data for profit summary report.

firstly need to define pay cycles. Weekly etc.  Business -> Payroll -> Setup -> Pay Periods

Next, business -> Payroll -> payruns to create payruns.  No requirement to finalise payruns to get data into profit report. Pay runs can be created and left in Active status and will influence profit summary report.

Map Staff to departments

Workshop -> Utilities -> Staff. On main screen is option to select department staff memory principally works in . This influences grouping in profit summary report

Orange zone : select on of these to flag staff member as a workshop tech

Green zone : non workshop roles that group within the profit summary report

Requires database changes. You need to log all terminals out during upgrade

• Fiche import fixes
  • Step over broken diagrams for KTM/Husky. (e.g. REAR WHEEL for 400 SUPER-COMP WP (EU) 1996 on factory website gives a blank page and causes c9 importer to quit)
  • Add SWM as an import option for Mojo
• Contract of Sale changes
  • Redesigned contract of sale so it now prints on a4 portrait and may dynamically print over multiple pages for complex sales. Allows for easy inclusion of more information
  • Regulatory changes (ALL)
    • Include salesperson
    • Provide an option to select a nominated registered owner as separate from purchaser
  • Regulatory changes (NSW)
    • Included new contract terms and conditions : referencing correct NSW legislation.
    • New Form 7 - redesigned so it fits on a single page
    • Added Form 8
    • Added Form 12
• Payroll - Workshop labour costs
  • C9 now records labour cost on clocking. It requires clocking to be used within c9 and requires staff members to be minimally configured with either an hourly wage or salary.  It will use employment type data if set to better estimate impact of overtime etc if set.
  • Labour costs reflected in following areas
    • View time : timesheet tab
    • Business -> Profit Summary
    • Workshop -> Reports -> Staff Report
    • Workshop -> Reports -> Profit/Activity
  • New workshop report : proficiency report. Provides per staff report on productivity & efficiency metrics.
  • Workshop -> Utilities -> Recompute TS. Recompute labour costs on time sheet records. So you can quickly get some 'historical' data working in terms of COGS on labour to reflect in above mentioned reports. Only useful for dealers that are diligently using timesheeting
  • Business -> Profit summary . Show payroll costs accrued broken down based on principal area where staff work.
  • Misc
    • Modify staff : allow linking staff to 'spares' or 'sales' departments to affect profit summary report
    • Workshop Wait reasons. Now track whether or not the wait reason is paid time. i.e. 'Idle' is paid but 'lunch break' isn't.  Reflects in profit/summary report
• Bulk accounts processing and ABA File generation
  • Generate ABA files for creditors (bill payment) and bulk generate the bill pay operation
  • Generate ABA files for debtors (direct deposit). To be used by c9 for DD billing, but dealers can use it themselves too if they want.
  • Generate ABA files for payroll payruns
• Misc Tweaks
  • Units of measure fixes
    • if count of unit exceeds 1000 do not work correctly in point of sale. C9 misreports QoH as 0.
    • Initial computation of count for length based UOMs broken.  now fixed (was applying uom adjustment twice resulting in completely wrong results)
  • Select payment method : option to select bank to record bank payment directly. No longer any need to define one of 8 instrument slots as a bank
  • Add Generic Txn broken : working again
  • AusPOST tweaks
    • Modify UI flow on creating a new shipping record to minimise keystrokes.
    • Allow setup options to allow setting of default copy freight and create invoice options.
    • Allow configuration of page offsets to help align label prints on AusPOST provided label stock
    • Limit item description lengths to 40 chars for international freight.
  • Webcontent text+logo. Increase size of hyperlink field
  • Modify estimate : Only allow one terminal at a time edit an estimate
  • Print estimate : forcefully recompute estimate tallies before printing incase edits from another terminal somehow slip in and mess up tallies on the printed edit.
  • Modify deal.  Would render deposit as #### at top of screen for deposits of 10k or more. All computations were fine, just the display on screen was incorrect. Fixed
  • Browse received orders. On view order show created/sent dates on individual items
  • Add transaction.  On selecting txns to offset only forcefully change txn type to Payment if selected txn type is not consistent with selected txns. i.e. if you select Supplier Credit and pick txns to offset do not change txn type to payment as credit and payment are functionally consistent in terms of being able to be linked to bill txns.
  • Add transaction
    • allow selection of suppliers as well as customers.
    • Bill+Pay : post txns in separate GL postings so one can be deleted without deleting the other.
  • Unit floorplan report : show floorplan owing (tr value less curtailments)
  • New workshop job : new setup option to allow you to preconfigure a default deposit.
  • Unit purchase tweaks
    • Purchase only on account will now receive the purchase as a 'payment' against debtor balance
    • For purchase as deposit, select cash, in select payment method is a new option for 'Customer Deposit'

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

• Multiple bank tracking facilities
  • Track multiple banks.
  • Link banks to different parts of c9. i.e. floorplan payouts by default goto bank X
  • Provide  reconciliation for different banks
• AusPOST Shipping integration tweaks
  • Allow selection of different c9 customer to ship to
  • Allow generation of shipping record at point of sale, so invoice is created with an AusPOST tracking ID
  • Allow auto-population of freight cost from AusPOST freight data at point of sale
  • Allow Review/modification of shipping address on freight query / create ship.
  • Freight query : provide visual feedback why there are no shipping options. i.e. maybe because there are zero weights on selected packages
  • User mobile # from main phone field if set. Preferentially use field if it looks like a mobile number
  • New config option to suppress printing of headers on labels, for dealers that use AusPOST provided stationary
  • Automatically record tracking ID against invoice once shipping record is created
  • Explicitly enable AusPOST email tracking for customers
  • Include c9 invoice # as a customer reference that prints on the shipping label
  • Authority to leave change:  disable safe drop if authority to leave is not given. So postie should always leave a card, even if postie thinks there is a 'safe drop' place at delivery address
  • View Invoice. Add button to access AusPOST tracking info
• Fixes and tweaks
  • Cash till : next day algorithm bugfix. Prior computation was flaky. New algorithm : the most recent todate before today + one day.
  • Bugfix with Suzuki EPC import. One model on EPC site contains a broken image which kills c9 import.  Fixed so c9 will handle these more gracefully
  • Bugfix with SMS billing. C9 has not been billing full price for SMS msgs longer than >160 chars since switched SMS provider at start of year. Long SMS will be billed correctly from now on.   We will not retrospectively bill for prior msgs not billed correctly
  • Bugfix with freeform stocktake. Under some difficult to replicate circumstances system would not apply requested stocktake modifications.
  • Bugfix with print statements. Was not generating statements for suppliers/creditors correctly. Did not know how to deal with supplier txn types.
  • Bugfixes relating to txn allocation, with modify linked txn option
    • Linked txn option would force a relink even if there are no user selected changes, even if user selects 'Cancel' button. Modified to not make DB changes if there are no user changes. Generally should not of caused a problem because relinking should result in same functional output where it not for the second bug:
    • Linked txn option would fail to apply changes to certain txn types instead reallocating based on default rules for the contact in question (i.e. oldest txn first).  Bug would trigger for modifying a Supplier Bill, but not a Supplier Bill Pay. Would kick in on a Bill Pay for example, if on that supplier contact ,there exists a currently unallocated billpay whose due date is earlier than the one modified. Payments linked to the bill would preferentially relink to the older, unrelated, bill. Now fixed.

• Unit+Deal tweaks
  • Bugfix: Parts on order for a deal.  For partial supply, parts that go on backorder double up on the deal on each receive.  Now fixed
  • Deals : add ability to start a PD job from within the Deal screen
  • Deals: add ability to complete and pickup jobs from within the Deal screen
  • Deals : modify job on deal automatically recomputes carried over PD costs
  • Bugfix : presales labour inherited on a deal was not respecting new quote management logic where quote info can influence pricing on a job. Now fixed
  • Unit invoice : new detail level : prints itemized list but suppresses line pricing and only shows tax invoice total figures
  • Paperwork additions
    • Added VicRoads Certificate of Approved Operations (Special Work Vehicles)
    • Bugfix with existing Cert of Approved Ops for Vicroads. Printed literal "middlename" instead of customers actual middle name
• Import part image improvements
  • Option to reimport fitment info but skip reimporting content + attributes. Faster refreshing of fitment data for KTM/Husky
  • Option to report errors. Previously would just fail silently. Error report currently implemented on KTM/Husky only.
• Profit Summary
  • Tweak reporting on warranty jobs. Previously would report value of job on pickup without consideration for what supplier actually paid. Now fixed
  • Default period to today: single day
• Cash / Bank Rec tweaks
  • On cash rec allow access to debtor txns and generic txns
  • Generic txn : tune list based on bank or rec
  • Generic txn : usability improvements
    • Balances shown reflects balance based on txn date
    • Show balances for all asset and liability codes
    • Visualise direction of txn and GL codes affected
• Misc Tweaks
  • Spare parts attributes: value was limited to just 20 chars on screen. Increased to 200
  • Import parts images. Merge parts attributes into both master file and stock records
  • Workshop job cards
    • option to suppress printing bold/red rego expiry/not set option. Accessed via setup -> main setup screen -> workshop tab.
    • option to forcefully print keyloc slot, when blank

• More cash till changes
  • Allow configuration of instruments to include in daily till count. Managed via setup. Instruments which do not settle/reconcile daily should be excluded from cash till processes and instead cash reconciliation process should be used instead.
  • Cash till float manipulation: post manipulation record on same day as cash till.  Makes things easier to read in reconciliation screen.  Backwards compatibility support for prior mechanism of posting on the day before.
  • Cash till aggregation : NET out conflicting records linked to a single operation to make cash till easier to read. For example say you sell something as EFTPOS but then want to flip it to cash via modify in activity screen.  Previously cash till would look like this with in & out for EFTPOS showing add and change canceling each other out.
    
    Now modified to only show the NET result on a per operation basis
    
• Miscellaneous Tweaks
  • Allow config of global website discount in setup
  • Tweaked AusPOST integration to allow configuration of overriding labels. Default startrack to disabled, doesn't appear to be working at the moment on live or test.
  • Rebates : removed 'rebate to tax invoice recently' when I shouldn't of.  Now readded.
  • Delete unit : under some rare circumstances system would allow you to delete a unit that has been subsequently sold. Fixed
  • Vicroads rego check : working again.
• Added support for clerk keys constraints on returns/refunds. Specifically:
  • Returned spare parts at point of sale (even if net effect of the sale is +ve)
  • Returned spare parts added to a workshop job
  • Following debtor txn types : bad debt.  Payment reversal. Refund. Credit note
• Low level DB tweaks
  • everytime c9 starts it attempts to insert a duplicate record which is used as a cache management thingo which burns through primary key sequences fairly quickly. Fixed to only insert if needed
  • Added some system support for postgres 9+.  (A couple of system tables change in 9+. i.e. getting PID for pg_stat_activity)

• Workshop
  • department sales. Recent changes broke ability to sell to department with an ID of -1.  Now working again.
  • Create new job. Do not use customer discount % if job involves an estimate
  • Print pro forma. Option to print it as a full tax invoice.
  • Add labour.  Select tech now optionally allows you to filter non techs. For non tech staff set their type to 'Non Tech - Other'
• Unit sales
  • New 'Finance settlement' option in browse dealer which simplifies settlement of finance/floorplan arrangements where dealers only get partial finance based on floorplan owing. e.g. YMF
• Online backup error : last two versions of c9 added a record into database that made online backup complain.  (They set a couple of time fields to milisecond precision but online backup only supports upto second precision. The records would backup, but not with millisecond and backup would complain. This fix fixes the problem by rounding these two records to nearest second. Not a critical backup issue, backup still working, just whinging about the lost milliseconds on 2 records).

Changes to minimise variations between old cash till and new so older cashtill records can be meaingfully viewed

• recording of banked funds slight different between old and new. Tweaked new so it will also pickup old
• new cashtill is sensitive to 'reconciled' txns.  Flag prior till ops such as float and bank as reconciled since this is what new cash till does automatically
• Display till float manipulation for following day so it is more obvious what is happening when reviewing historical counts
• save till : make it obvious what has changed on save nag.
• force paidout to be what is posted on the GL, not what was recorded on old cashtill count

Other tweaks

• View spares invoice. Option to modify cust order number
• Factory Unit Purchase : option to receive goods only & process incoming invoice separately.

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

• Job card bugfix. Was printing 'not set' for rego if rego expiry was not set. Fixed to print 'not set' on expiry, retaining rego info (if any)
• Manage website content tweaks
  • Allow for more detailed summary text.
  • Allow window to be resized
• point of sale bugfix.  Complex scenario where a heap of parts are ordered under customer, with a deposit.  Some come in, and those items are assigned to a workshop job instead, with other parts remaining possibly intended to be sold direct to customer. C9 will assign the entirety of the deposit to workshop job, not just the bit that would be normally allocated for a partial receive sale potentially assigning more deposit then the job will be worth, including considerations for labour.  Tweaked logic to allow partial assignment only.  Tweak F10 complete screen so amount of deposit moving from spares to workshop is obvious (read only).
• Cash till. Major rewrite of cash till to revert to older style cash till in terms of ease of use but still retain mechanisms to feed into bank reconciliation. Specifically:
  • Complex save/delete mechanics all disappear. There is still a 'save' mechanic, but it is there purely to memorise till count only if you want to pull it up at a later date It serves no other function. (It also posts variations on bank settlement to GL, but this is not impactful on cashtill, strictly bank rec).
  • No restrictions on till count periods.
    • Skip days ,no worries. (C9 will still default to next day. But you can more easily push forward here now)
    • System now relies posted journals to figure out previously posted bank settlements etc.
  • System uses bank rec tilling for cash till count. So powerful bank rec tooling is now accessible within cash till to help figure out why things do not add up.
  • Got multiple till counting working properly.  (Till nos now post to different GL codes)
  • Rename GL chart of accounts to reflect action instrument & till names. Instead of Instrument #1, Instrument #2 etc.
• Bank rec changes
  • Overhauled classification and computation of discordant transactions.  Discordant txns are now:
    • Back dated (& live) txns. Created during or after reconciliation period
    • live txns that are flagged as held over from prior reconciliation.
    • Txns which were either deleted or undeleted after the fact.
  • Overhauled computation of effect of discordant txns.
    • Backdated transactions will be included in till count as though they happened today.
    • Discordant deleted txns now affect the reported balance. idea is if you delete an old workshop job, you need to backdate some sort of record of what happened with the money in order to reconcile.  Undeleting also requires action to reconcile.
  • DB changes to boost efficiency, both to general ledger and bankrec/cashrec computation. Previously over time the GL and bankrec/cashrec would get progressively slower as more and more records are added to the system. New DB changes should result in fast, consistent performance more or less indefinitely.