On c9 enabled websites, your customers can now verify in-country availability to get an immediate indication whether or not an item is likely to go onto backorder from the factory.  Clicking on the button triggers the website to link with the OEM distributor and check availability. The website will report whether or not the item is in country.

Example screen shots:

• Spares
  • New feature on OEM parts websites, websites can now allow user to perform a magician like query to check if part is available from OEM supplier. website reports either, is available, not available or check with dealer. New setting in edit franchise allows you to c
• Workshop
  • F8 review in workshop dashboard would move a job from booked to in progress, skipping received. Now fixed to revert to old behaviour. Double click provides two new options, one to goto receive or one to skip and go straight to start.
• Bugfixes
  • Defect with recording new creditor bills. Was trying to link the posted journal to completely irrelevant and sometimes not available items causing the bill creation to fail with an error
• Other
  • Some initial work on supporting returns to suppliers. (Not yet functional)

• Magician Query
  • Added support for Husqvarna (Butmac). Login is a bit slow but once in it works reasonably well. Not nearly as fast as original webservice though :-(.  Also requires java 7, will silently fail with java 6.
  • Got Ron Angel working again
• Spares
  • Electronic Export Parts Orders for MV Agusta
•  Workshop
  • Simple job. Allow user to select a customer, so simple job can be used for simple tax invoices. Useful for things like RWC/inspections where only labour is required.
• Other
  • Website image galleries/sliders. Do not force image resize, but warn user if image size is no good

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

Minor tweaks and fixes

• Restocking analysis, improve readability of the graphed image.  Also show daily and stock %
• Spare parts receive : allow config of franchise to track supplier to credit, does not cause newly ordered parts to go onto an order for that supplier like existing supplier setting does.
• Due/overdue bill alert. Can disable on a per terminal basis. (Setup -> Main Setup Screen -> Suppliers )
• Web order notification , an additional new email for orders that are ready to be invoiced but not yet actually invoiced. Design intent is for in store pickup web orders where operator manages the order as  a reserve/pickup later either notifying customer immediately on creation of the reserve if all parts are in stock or once all parts have been received from suppliers.
• Web order notification, notifications can be disabled by conditional tests. i.e. do not set initial email if order type is a pickup. Newly added notify on ready to invoice described above is disabled by default.
• Improve GL posting to deal with following rare situation
  • Create an open P/O for a workshop job
  • invoice the job
  • invoice the P/O
  • cancel the job invoice
  • System will now post an additional journal to balance flipping from 'services to supply' liability to 'workshop services' asset based on implicit reordering of invoicing P/O and invoicing the job
• Delete records may not cascade to related entities in some rare circumstances

Following provides a brief walk through of creditors in c9.

Creditors functionality utilises alot of same mechanisms that exist for debtors.

Recording a new Bill

Read more...

The following proscribes a process for managing a tradein where the tradein unit being purchased has negative equity.

Worked Example

• Buying a new Suzuki for $15000 + GST + ORC (Victoria demoed below)
• Trading in a Honda for $3000 +GST (intend to resell for 3500)
• Honda has finance owing of $4000

Read more...

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

Creditors

• Track creditor terms. Defaults to '2 weeks'. On different suppliers you can define terms such as '2nd week of next month', '4 weeks', etc.  System will automatically default due date on new bills based on this
• Receive spares
  • system can now record a bill to be paid against a supplier as part of receiving spares
  • now allows you to key in precise GST to the cent, to cope with fact that different creditors calculate GST in slightly different ways yielding slight variation (usually 0.01 to 0.02) in the GST on the invoice. Also better copes with suppliers who declare some items as GST exempt.
• Workshop other/sub contract
  • Allow sub contract items to be invoiced, creating a bill on the supplier.
  • Track precise GST from the bill.

Other changes

• Default SMS to contacts mobile phone # in quick sms. Functionality was lost in recent changes.

From c9's point of view, AVG is the worst anti-virus software out there and most anti-virus related support calls I field are about AVG which occasionally decides that because it doesn't know what c9 is, it must be bad, and deletes it. It may ask the user first, but most users will just instinctively click default behavior when frequently nagged about system level questions beyond their expertise as computer operators (which shows poor user interface design on behalf of AVG)

Turns out I am not the only one that thinks AVG is shit.  IF you run AVG and Chrome, you are probably better off without any anti-virus at all. Go with trend micro or malwarebytes instead of AVG if you are shopping for anti-virus.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/avg-forcibly-installs-vulnerable-chrome-extension-that-exposes-user-s-browsing-history-498187.shtml

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

• Contacts
  • First iteration of creditors.  Core functionality
    • Accounts payable balance tracking.
    • Record bills/payments and credit notes from suppliers
    • Alerts on due/overdue bills.
    • Discriminate between capital/non capital purchases, separated on activity report
•  Spares
  • View invoice. Access quick SMS if there is a mobile # number in the ordernum field
  • View invoice. Access view customer
  • Added more capability/sophistication to bulk price file markup rules to cope with things like checking part number ranges etc
  • New option to view and manipulated stocked items that need restocking. Allow for rapid processing of restocking levels, especially with dealing with removing seasonal stock from reorder list. Accessed via order book, sub menu and from within generate all stock order options.
• Workshop
  • Profit report. Allow report to be optionally run on jobs not yet invoiced so operator can get a sense of profit/costs tied up but not yet invoiced in workshop
  • Workshop dashboard double click popup. Have separate buttons for receive job and start job.
• Units
  • Fix rounding error with discounted parts being copied across onto a unit sale
  • Unit invoice. Added new level of detail which itemises on road costs but doesn't itemise the tax invoice.
• Notifications: Consolidated various template systems (paperwork, unit cost formula, system monitors, notifications, price file allocations) to better facilitate more consistent and richer notification behaviours. Example, you can tune email notification to customer based on freight method selected by customer. e.g. :

<html>
{html(import(webheader))}
<p>Your web order has been prepared and invoiced
{include(woh:freight='pk')}
and ready for instore pickup.
{end}
{include(woh:freight<>'pk')}
and will be shipped to you shortly.
{end}
</p>
{html(import(webfooter))}

• Low level systems
  • Added some new systems to help monitor and log issues with messenger lockups which happen occasionally for some users. Idea is to provide more logging and alerts on these problems for future diagnosis and repair by us. (Added a watchdog timer that barks when messenger or connection manager thread fail to periodically checkin. Submits trace information to c9 automatically).
  • When c9 is restored from online backup only a subset of data is restored to get dealer up and running as fast as possible, c9 copies the rest in the background once things are up. An impatient operator could potentially mess things up by trying to do certain things while restore is still running. Modified c9 to disallow any of the following during background system restore : 1. Import fiche, 2. import fiche images. 3. Map remote c9 fiche diagrams.
  • Certain database errors (such as activity date constraint check) can thoroughly break c9 and leave it unusable, forcing operator to logout and start over. Now fixed so system better copes with/heals from such outcomes.

Consider a typical price file, it contains spare parts and accessories. Often you will want to price them differently. e.g.:

• Set spares are our margins ontop of RRP, i.e. +100% for <$2, +50% < $10 etc.
• Set accessories to RRP

C9 for some time has supported this manually (https://c8software.com.au/wp/2013/09/release-4-380/),  but you need to do it one part at a time, with a franchise with over 100k+ parts, might take a while.

C9 now allows you to define rules while importing new price files to automatically categorise price break schemes based on information in the imported price file.

Read more...