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

• Spares
  • Receive from PDF or c9 E-Reference.  Cope with parts not on system, give user option to add part into c9 during receive process.
  • Freeform stock take. On auto barcode mode, system would drop new location on scan of subsequent parts. Now fixed
  • General ledger automatic re-valuation of inventory broken and has been broken for a few versions now.  Now fixed.
• Unit paperwork
  • Fixed issued with printing of deposit involving sale of multiple units.  Now allocating deposit on individual sheets correctly
  • Tidied QLD/NSW/WA Contract particulars to print info more clearly. (VIC was already okay)
• Workshop
  • Track a new state, received. So a job can now be booked -> received -> in progress.  F8 will push a job across these states without further input
  • Popup customer details window when completing a job and no SMS/Email notification is sent.
  • Sub contracting/ purchase order. Add 'Other' line item to a job. You can:
    • Track a supplier
    • Track if sub contract is in progress or finished
    • Add additional detailed notes
    • Print a purchase order sheet
    • On main view job screen, open purchase order jobs are indicated.
• Miner
  • Stock query : filter based on supplier (removed after supplier/customer consolidation. Now restored)
  • Stock query : filter based on web part group
• Low level Systems
  • System now tracks names of terminals. Will show names in terminals that lock resources and will show names on upgrade c9 waiting for terminals to exit screen
    
  • System permits you to force terminate sessions on DB upgrade. But only those sessions are idle > 1 hour which are assumed to be stale connections caused by network issues. C9 will still not yet you kill active sessions. You still have to log them out.
  • New option : Terminal -> Where is messenger? Helps you figure out what computer is running messenger
  • Install Online backup.  Opens a session screen first

This post describes a possible way to manage selling electric Husky gear where an item bundled with battery and charger is cheaper than buying 3 items (unit + battery + charger) separately.

The brute force way to do this manually is to fiddle with unit invoice everytime you sell one in c9 until you land on correct price.

C9 potentially provides an easier option, by bundling the battery + charger into a part kit that is already discounted will save time with subsequent unit sales.

Consider a Hedge Trimmer.

The idea is we add a part with part number : 136LIHD45KIT that contains the 2 spare parts which are discounted to $250. This is achieved using part kits in c9. See following page on how to do this bit: http://c8software.com.au/wp/2015/05/how-to-create-a-spare-parts-kit/

Read more...

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

• New paperwork
  • NSW: Form 7
  • QLD :  unregistered vehicle statement to be signed by customer
• Spares
  • Print supplier reorder number on receive spares sheets
  • Point of Sale, status line showing OT: ST: GT: M: could clip when dealing with lots of info.  Increase size on screen.
  • Print invoice notes on credit note (previously was printing on invoices only).
• Contacts
  • Merge contact : do not delete old contact. Instead flag them as archived (just in case)
  • Merge contact : merge stock and order history to cope with merging of supplier contacts
• Spares
  • Move parts : provide option to move details of parts on active order/reserve and/or move entire part history
  • New magician integration: Steve Cramer, Stihl and Ron Angel
• Units
  • Deal : allow user to key in detailed notes on  a deal
  • Deal : access deposit history information
• Jobs
  • Some new colour codings to highlight:
    • Booked jobs expected to be received today or expected to be received before (todays receives and/or no shows)
    • Booked jobs where receive and start date differ (could be rescheduled jobs where customer has not been informed)
  • New/modify job. Disallow start date < receive date. You cannot start are job that has not been received!
• Other:
  • Stock re-order monitor/reminder broken since changes to consolidate suppliers+customers as contacts. Now fixed

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

Bugfix : print receive parts, would print all order notes ever created for a given part destined for stocking, not just notes attached to the specific order involved.  Now fixed to only print notes relevant to the order just received.

Bugfix: Newly added transaction allocation/open invoice system could cause system to refuse to cancel an invoice under some rare circumstances. i.e. cancelling an old workshop job on account which has a debtor balance owing involving partially paid invoices. See illustration below. Now fixed.

Bug fixes

• Workshop
  • Qty displayed on ordered items was incorrect. Would display '1 of 2' when it should of displayed '0 of 1'
  • Pricing on screen for items on order completely wrong. Now fixed. (Was not impacting calculations or invoicing, just a screen error)
• Backup : remove extraneous database sequence (manual backup was complaining about it)
• 'Pink screen' c9. Do not purge old c9 program files.
• Web orders. System could resend old web order notifications, even years after the original order, for systems where invoice numbers were reset back to 1. (typically done when a change of owner occurs).

Requires database changes, you need to log all terminals out.

Apologies for disruptions this morning.  This version hopefully will straighten everything out.

Fixes:

• Total account balance displayed is wrong.  Individual debtor/depositor balances are okay. Should now be fixed.
• System would crash at multiple points in c9.  For example when adding a new customer when you key in phone numbers as part of add. Would crash searching for customers with same phone number. Now also fixed
• For dealers that have not updated past 4.579, also includes changes to actual database upgrade to make it more reliable.  Prior updates could cause c9 to fail to upgrade due to issues with conflicts between supplier and customer codes.  Also fixed

Some items may be supplied in packs and you will want to sell them individually.

To do this with a stocked item you F6 modify the part and modify details highlighted below.

Firstly, all numbers in c9 are for the unit price, not the pack price. Your quantity on hand, retail price, list price etc all need to reflect the unit price.  C9 converts to packs at only a couple of points, at the point where you interface with the supplier. Remember:  numbers in c9 are always individual unit.

• Pack Quantity. Here you set how many are in a pack
• Ec Re-Ord.   Here you set how many you want to reorder. This must be a multiple of the pack.  i.e. for a pack of 4, ec- re-ord needs to be 4, 8, 12, 16. For example if you set it to 12, c9 will want to reorder multiples of 12, or 3 packs.
• Received Price files:  Is the price on the price file from the supplier the pack price or individual price?
• Send order qtys.  When you send a qty to order to the supplier, does that qty need to be # of packs, or # of individual items

Similar configuration exists on price file for non stocked items. (Spares -> Utilities -> Edit Price File)

Finally, you can configure default pricing/order settings on  a per franchise. Setting to save having to key it in all the time.

One very last thing, when you import price files via Generic you have option to select pack if price file provides this (few suppliers provide this)

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

• Accessory suppliers now merged in with customers.  More preparatory work for creditors.  Customers are now contacts, a contact can be either a customer or supplier (or both). To be added soon (in future versions of c9)
  • A 3rd balance : supplier balance.
  • Ability to add supplier transactions : bills, credit notes, bill payments and payment refunds.
  • Bill tracking and payment notifications
  • Tracking of capital purchases/assets.
• Bugfixes
  • Resize workshop spares window, didn't relocated buttons correctly
  • Convert workshop estimate into job, was not handling units of measure correctly within new job (import estimate in point of sale works okay)
  • Order query broken (with recent changes to supplier. Functionality now restored)
  • Point of Sale F12 pickup.  F6 non stocked item and edit price file, c9 forgets that part is being received and part remains in orderbook as uninvoiced.  Now fixed
  • Miner queries on suppliers would fail (not mapping to correct SQL column name)
  • VicRoads authority form: print SOLO instead of type. Print compliance date not year model.
• Tweaks
  • Print customer code as well on transaction receipts.
  • Workshop : show customer icon
  • View workshop job : show qty on order, show discounted price.
• New merge on pickup feature, coalesce interesting details from merged invoices into a note. Display note. Specifically:
  • Order number if not blank and different from workshop job.
  • Any notes left by customers on adjunct weborders and/or invoices.

 4.581: Patched add supplier. Was not setting customer/supplier flag correctly.

 4.582: Patched view/modify contact. Removed ability to delete (can only archive now). Tweaking naming from customer to contact in some spots

4.583: Bug could stop upgrade from working due to mismatched lengths of phone numbers on older supplier record and customer record

To send a bulk email/sms to everyone.

Important notes and caveats

Australia has strong anti-SPAM legislation in place.  C9 includes facilities to ensure you are on the right side of the law. SMS and email messages provide an automatic opt-out option in them. When users click this is on email or reply STOP on SMS this modifies the 'marketing' flag on their c9 customer record so they will not receive any further messages sent via miner

Miner email requires that you configure your c9 to use your own mail server.  C9 mail server will not send miner emails, again for anti-SPAM reasons.

Click here for info on how to configure

Some background information on why C9 will not send miner emails

SMS messages can be expensive if you use them to message everyone. C9 allows you to send messages to just a subset of customers, i.e. all customers that own a GSXR-750.  Look at 'Load standard query' option in miner for some prepared miner recipes for this sort of thing.

For SMS make sure you include the name of the business in the message body so people know who the SMS is from. Unlike normal notification SMS messages, bulk SMS is sent from an internal 04 number to allow people to reply to opt out so it will not be obvious to recipients of the SMS who the message is from.  Make sure you make it clear in the message text who is sending the message.

Basic steps:

1) Miner at the top

2) select Customers and click add

3) Select option Enabled under Bulk Email/SMS from this account record. Click done

4) Click f4 process query

5) Click F6 bulk mailer, select mail merge to email

6) Key in your message. Don't forget message. Recommend leave unsubscribe feature at bottom of email.

7) Click on Send Preview

8) Click on Send all

Personalising messages

There are some powerful options for personalising your messaage.

In add customer screen, put a * in every field you want to include for personalising

Now in compose screen you can drop down these fields and insert them into your message:

The final result:

 

• Ability to merge multiple spares order/reserve/layby pickups into a single pickup.  When you F12 pickup if there are merge candidates c9 will ask you if you want to merge. Constraints on this functionality:
  • Same customer
  • Global discounting options on original invoice match. (i.e. same discount scheme and %)
  • Invoices have at least one part pending pickup
  • Are not paypal initiated weborders (other web orders will merge okay)
• Visual improvements to layout/alignment of newly added QLD form10 + form12 paperwork.
• Profit summary :print report date range
• Modify Account bugfix : options to set individual early/late payment options not working correctly.  Options actually work but ability to alter them on the modify screen is problematic. Now fixed
• Browse web orders
  • Allow searching by order no
  • Allow filtering on things like name, email address, account code etc
• Browse receive orders
  • Allow filtering by franchise/supplier
• Printing : for print jobs that have a print preview provide a mechanism to memorize and reuse that specific printer instead of default invoice/report printer. Memorized printer works on subsequent prints even if no preview is offered.  Allows for very fine grained control as to where certain jobs go. i.e. ability to print job cards on paper from a different tray that has higher GSM. Does not apply for label printing as label system has it's own fine grained control mechanism
• Fixed an unusual and rare bug that has been in c9 for a very long time.  Some browse lists under very limited circumstances would create situation where data would repeat and loop forever. Happens when scrolling up through dates or times and top of the list contains records with blank dates, noticed it in browse received orders.  [Cause: bounding on key field of date was not coping with iterating before null dates due to wraparound. NULL ould goto -1 which decodes as 1801.  Arguably dates shouldn't be using bounds optimization anyway, bounds is supposed to optimize limited set ordinals in composite keys, dates are not ordinals.).
• Picking up $0 workshop job on account would fail due to debtors now no longer allowing $0 invoices. Now fixed.