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Briggs & Humm February 8, 2023 barney

Briggs have a programme in place where they will reimburse 50% of fees for any unit sold using Humm Finance. To avail to this reimburse you need to issue a tax invoice which Briggs will then credit parts account.

This can be modelled in c9 but it is a bit clumsy because of need to manage flows across creditor/debtor barriers. Some recent changes will make it easier in that they allow looser operations with things traditionally debtor/creditor.

To illustrate. Example sale, for $2000.  Humm charge $100, so Briggs will rebate $50.

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Release 5.2.54 February 4, 2023 barney

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

This version includes some tweaks to loosen up the pairing of Tax invoice = Accounts Receivable credit note = Accounts payable. Suppliers keep introducing increasingly complicated things such as requiring the dealer to raise tax invoices but then they drop them as credits on their parts statement. Since suppliers play loose with these terminologies c9 will need to play loose as well to keep things easy to use.  Specific concerns here:

  • For unit costs + rebates you can now fine tune txn type. Screen grab of relevant section:

    • Tax invoice : for rebates, tag as a tax invoice but still track on supplier on Accounts payable
    • Purchase (Track on AR) : for costs, you can track a cost but instead of posting as purchase on AP it will post as a purchase on AR. This can be useful for modelling merchant fees for things like Humm
  • For contact add transaction - there is a new suppler txn type. Tax Invoice. It generates a tax invoice but it tracks on AP/Supplier

Other changes

  • Revised/Updated Paperwork for QLD TMR
    • Inspection  (F3529)
    • Registration  (F3518)
  • View Bulk Txn screen : drop a print receipt button here to allow printing of individual remit advise
  • Dead stock report : include retail price on report. Potentially useful info as aq nudge on what stock to focus on trying to move as a priority
  • Old biz rule in c9 around part numbers not working correctly. If a part starts with 'P' look for matching parts without  'P'. Was supposed to only apply this rule where franchise name is 'POLARIS' but seems to sometimes trigger in other situations too. Tweaks to more thoroughly enforce the franchise test.
  • Bugfix with claimnumber not printing on workshop invoices in some exotic instances ( where claim number is a pure number and > 2 billion will trigger this )
  • Bugfix with recent unit changes : on purchase unit could no longer feed in default onroadcosts for subsequent sale. Now sorted.
  • Some tweaks to help with Harley spares reporting requirements
    • price file : Import part class as an attribute
    • Spares sales report : allow filtering based on manually keyed in attribute (TODO: example below)
Release 5.2.53 January 20, 2023 barney

Support / Subscription policy changes with c9 from Feb 1 2023.

Starting Feb, your c9 must be kept up to date.  Once a new version of c9 becomes available you'll have two weeks upgrade your c9.

Upgrading c9 is easy, click on Main in top left then click on Check for updates. Only needs to be done on one computer.

If you allow your c9 to get older than 2 weeks then txn processing in c9 will progressively slow down with alerts until you install the latest version.

Tweaks and fixes

  • More tweaks to Stihl warranty export. Modify date format to conform to strict iso-8601 requirements of zero padding date.
  • Honda Magician check is a bit fragile for some users. Changes made which I hope will make it more robust (specifically flush all cookies on re-login attempts. I suspect stale cookies are causing problems sometimes)
  • Payroll monies report. Rerunning the report would not reset allowances tally so allowances total line would keep increasing. Now fixed
  • Some unit sale bugs and tweaks
    • System would let you add liability encumbrance to a resale unit. Removed as doesn't make sense here
    • Bugfix with a tradein where 'reconciliation warning' pops and user selects cancel.  If you retry save the resulting journal postings are a mess, doubling up on recipient invoice. Now fixed
    • Edit unit deal, resale unit, if resale contains onroad costs you could not do any further modification to these costs. Now fixed
  • C9 Version policy changes. Changes coming to force dealers to keep their c9 relatively up2date. Once a new version comes up you'll have 2 weeks to install it before subscription becomes adversely affected
    • C9 now logs when you were alerted to a version change to help implement new policies coming
    • C9 license / subscription warnings will advise subscription is being affected by running an old version of c9
  • Unit deals : add sell unit to order. Default unit type to 'New'
  • Nidasu Integration: added a couple of slots in edit franchise to drop an ID + password for nisdasu data transport
  • Piaggio group EPC importer : now working again
Release 5.2.52 January 17, 2023 barney

Tweaks and Fixes

  • Tax invoice for Insurance job with excess. Bottom of invoice tallies are a bit muddled. Caused by recent changes in 5.2.50 to cope with using deposit to pay on account invoices in that it shows net accounts receivable now.  Tweaked workshop invoice so printed payment lines show excess as adding to this.
  • WA paperwork - fixes to MTA form.
    • print dealer address under dealer section (not customer address)
    • Tweak monospaced alignment on following fields : plate number, license expiry, engine number, chassis number
  • import parts from job, allow importing from invoiced jobs.
  • complete job, do not nag about zero line items for parts on order
Release 5.2.51 January 8, 2023 barney
  • Payroll super tweaks
    • New config switch to distinguish between compulsory guarantee and employer additional. Previously any manually added super record was assumed to be a employer additional. There was no way to add in compulsory guarantee records manually which meant it was not possible to fix super stuffups. Now sorted. STP export / Super Report to capture this tweak
    • Redesign add/edit payroll line item so additional settings are not so visually cluttered. e.g. if you pick super, you'll only see additional settings relevant for super
  • F7 Import in spares: option to import from workshop jobs
  • Deposit history screen, show status of lines to indicate deposit movement lines which have been deleted
  • Stihl & Husky Bulk Warranty report : option to set a default email addr for customers who did not provide an email.
Release 5.2.50 December 15, 2022 barney

UX changes for bulk transaction/ABN and Bulk Warranty

These two screens in c9 have historically been difficult to drive. Their original design intent is to ensure that what is captured in this screen is exactly what could of ever been exported so that the screen serves as an audit of the export. But this design constraint is very non-intuitive and contradicts C9's general UX design approach of being loose / flexible  and un-opinionated and creates pressure to perform these two bulk operations flawlessly with little/no ability to tidy up mistakes.  So changes coming here:

Bulk Txn / ABA:

  • Ability to preset txn date so you can forward date payments for example
  • Export is accessible within create screen where it more intuitively belongs.
  • A modify button which opens up the same screen as create so you can manipulate txns that are part of a bulk after initial creation
  • Bulk Txn didn't respect selected bills to pay and would just apply default auto allocation rules. So if you bulk txn a bill who isn't the next to pay, the payment would follow auto alloc rules and attach to the next to pay.  Now tidied.
  • Bulk Txn didn't aggregate multiple payments for a single contact.  Now tidied.
  • Improved performance of View / Export bulk txn : with some database search optimization

Warranty Export

  • Modify button which drops you straight into  view warranty
  • Export button is in view warranty screen where it more intuitively belongs
  • Within modify screen:
    • Modify button to quickly modify warranty details attached to a unit
    • Modify customer button to modify customer details
    • Delete button to quickly remove a unit from bulk warranty
    • Add button to add units (such as units removed using delete)

Other Tweaks and fixes

  • Stihl warranty export
    • couple of header column names are backwards. I don't think it matters as stihls system ignores header and is sensitive to positioning only, but it is confusing to eyeball manually. Fixed
    • Tidy up options so they size nicely with resized view/modify window
    • allow exported options to be edited
    • tweak defaults a bit so easier to glide through warranty config,
      • advertising setting of no set will send no's to all questions
      • Indiciate which questions correspond to which ZN field so on errors you'll have a better idea what their website is whinging about
  • Stihl  / Honda warranty export. Would misbehave with screen sizing. Now fixed.
  • Invoice payment list, where operator has opted to use customer deposit to offset invoice, more clearly indicate resulting balance. (show balance after deposit not balance of txn overall)
  • Spares invoices : print green 'PAID' vs red 'OWING' so it is visually obvious which invoices are paid and which are on account
  • Lodge BAS.  Under some exotic circumstances BAS lodgement would fail to post a GL representing payment. (create a bas flagged as paid but with a date that overlaps a prior bas period). Now fixed.
  • Disable manipulation of part number for price file backed stocked items. The price file is the authority on what a part number looks like
  • BRP Magician query : working again
  • Deals screen bugfix. $ figures display would max out at 100k. Internal representation of deal was fine and could still be finalised as expected, just the screen wouldn't show result. Now fixed.
  • Edit sold dealer unit stock price from 0 to non zero, would throw a journal error COGS propagation recently added not working correctly in this precise scenario. Now fixed
  • Internal changes for payroll / STP billing  to capture new pricing ( $3.50 per run. $0.05 per employee)

 

Release 5.2.49 December 1, 2022 barney

Includes database changes, you need to log all terminals out during upgrade

Lots of bug fixes in this one

This version also includes some low level changes to general ledger as part of ongoing preparation for v5.3 : nothing that is functionally accessible in c9 yet but needed to be in play now.  (a more efficient asset revaluation framework, for spare parts mainly to model dead stock write downs )

  • Tweaks and fixes
    • Modify unit : propagate cost changes to cogs on sale posting if any. To prevent autoadjust popping up and posting an adjustment to realign general ledger with actual inventory in this scenario
    • Profit summary - include on road costs paid by dealership in unit costs. Previously was excluded
    • Spares / Profit.  Discount computation on parts incorrect. Now fixed. (Was not factoring in supplied qty)
    • Reconciliation discordant triggers : consider periods A -> B -> C.  B is reconciled. If you forward date a txn in A to C the reconciliation for B would not correctly capture & reflect discordant impact of this.  Now fixed.
    • Warranty report : 1st and 6th report options inappropriately excluding supplier warranty work on dealer floorstock. Now fixed.
Release 5.2.48 November 27, 2022 barney

C9 Price File Repo: This version of c9 'fences' the price file. If you are running older versions of c9 you will not see any price file updates until you install this version of c9.

Tweaks and fixes

  • C9 repo price files. There might be a possible bug with c9 repo where a network glitch can stop price file download halfway but c9 thinks it grabbed all the price file changes. Result can be a pricefile only partially updated but c9 things is fully up-to-date. Fix is to force a c9 repo download using download all option. This version of c9 includes a change where c9 checks that all changes were successfully downloaded first, if not the price file update will not go ahead and will need to be retried.
  • Setup - allow individual beneficiaries to be setup under distribution to beneficiaries GL code
  • View web order
    • A slot to display geoip info so you can cross check the geoip match location against the supplied address.
    • A slot to display weborder security alerts. Currently alerts if the operator who submitted the order might possibly be behind an anonymizing traffic relay like TOR.
Release 5.2.47 November 21, 2022 barney

Tweaks and fixes

  • Recent Unit stock take report changes : got new/used unit sections labelled incorrectly. Now fixed
  • A4 Deposit Receipts : would not print deposit amounts of 100k or over. Now fixed
  • Modify txn date, would not let you modify txns connected to issued giftcards. Now fixed
  • Couple more expense GL codes:  water and utilities

OEM Image encoding

This version of c9 replaces an internal library used to saving OEM fiche diagrams. Previous library in c9 is ancient, pre-2000 and it contains some code that is suddenly problematic for most recent versions of java in that it calls a function deep in java that is nowdays consider unsafe (in terms of reliable operation of java) and latest java version now refuse to allow that function to run.  Looked at patching the library to minimise change risks but too hard to source and recompile the original library. So instead have replaced it with something newer.

One upside is that OEM images encoded from now will be even more space efficient.

Sample image, 1045x1600 resolution

New library: 38k
Prior library: 43k
Std built in java img encode: 54k
Naive grayscale encoding: 53k
Naive RGB: 75k
Naive jpeg encoding (80%): 146k

Alot of work goes into processing images for c9 OEM to balance how images look and how much storage they require. C9 automatically clips, resizes, and auto contrast balances images to try and achieve a maximal result.  Side by side image comparison of an EPC image from and older version of c9 compared to recent version to illustrate:

 

QL700 printer configuration November 15, 2022 barney

QL700 / C9 configuration cheat sheet

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