Ostendo Update Notes from 24 July 2007 – What’s New

Ostendo Update Notes from 24 July 2007 – What’s New

Project & Asset Split in Job Orders

We have added the ability to split out the Project and either the Customer Asset or Company Asset (dependant on Job Style). Previously if you had created a Job Style for ‘Customer Asset’, ‘Company Asset’ or ‘Rental’, you were unable to link the Job to a Project. This change means that no matter what style of Job it can be linked to a Project.

Recurring Invoices

We have added the ability to define both the Recurring Customer and the Billing Customer for the Recurring Invoice. This is important if the contract is for a Customer Asset, but the billing customer is a separate entity (common where there is a head office billing arrangement).

Override Default Warehouse & Location in Picking & Issuing Screens

We have added the ability to override the default Warehouse & Location pre-filled when issuing for Sales, Jobs & Assemblies. Previously this could have been done line by line, whereas with this update you can set the default warehouse & location for that session. Commonly used when picking from either different Branches in a distribution environment, or from different Vans in a contracting environment.

Changing Customer in Sales Order

We have added the ability to change the primary customer for a Sales Order up to the point that the first issue is made, or a Sales Delivery is created. On changing the Customer you will be prompted to either re-price the order/quote based on the new customers pricing rules, or leave it as is.

Weights, Volumes & Surface Areas for Jobs & Assemblies

We have added the ability to display the weights, volumes and surface areas against Assembly Orders and Job Orders. If this feature is turned on in either the Assembly Rules or Job Rules screen, the default unit weights, volumes & areas will be pre-filled automatically based on the Item, Descriptor or Catalogue values. You will then have the ability to edit the unit dimensions, from which totals for each dimension will be calculated. The header for both the Job and Assembly Order will also display the order totals for each dimension.

Actual weights, volumes & areas are also calculated automatically when any issuing occurs.

Various Small Fixes & Improvements

Various issues and enhancements that have been reported to us over the last few weeks have been fixed in this update.

Ostendo Update Notes from 11 July 2007 – What’s New

Ostendo Update Notes from 11 July 2007 – What’s New

Foreign Currency (Purchasing Only)

We have added the ability to define the currency code against a Supplier (The currency code definition screen is under the Financial Configuration menu). By default if the currency code is left blank against the Supplier, the system assumes local currency (there is no need to define a local currency in the currency code table, the formatting for the currency symbol is from the windows regional settings – as they have always been).

When setting up the currency codes it is important to define the 2 cost centres for receipting, all foreign currency amounts are split out into 2 components, the amount in local currency and the amount for the currency exchange difference (please refer to the Reference Help for further definition).

A currency code can only be linked to a Supplier if that Supplier doesn’t have any existing orders in the system.

Purchase Shipments (Landed Costing)

We have added a new screen for recording Purchase Shipments (either offshore or local). This screen allows the recording of charges, such as freight and duty, and also the Purchase Orders that make the shipment up. The key feature is to calculate the landed costs of all lines in that shipment by spreading the additional charges incurred for that shipment, and therefore attribute those costs to either inventory or the specific Jobs or Assemblies they were ordered for. This functionality can be critical for companies importing goods, or where local freight costs are large and the company wishes to include those in the cost of goods for the purchased products.

Some of the features of this screen are:

1)        The ability to link purchase orders from different suppliers and currencies into a single shipment

2)        The ability to add up to 6 additional charges to that shipment with each charge individually allocated to all the shipment lines by (weight, volume, cost, quantity or duty precent), and each charge can have its own currency.

3)        The shipment can be tracked via tracking codes, estimated and actual arrival dates, departure and arrival ports, and numerous other fields for shipment information

Report & View Developer

We have added the ability to modify and develop new Reports, Pivot Views, Analysis Views & Charts. Previously there was only the ability to modify the report form layouts, now there is the ability to modify what data is available, the selection conditions and even which menus and screens the report or view is associated with. To allow for this we have designed into the reporting framework, 2 layers, the System layer and the Company layer. The concept is that any reports or views that have either been modified or created from scratch are stored in the Company layer, therefore leaving the System layer to hold the standard layouts and queries – this ensures that any updates we bring out do not overwrite any company specific changes.

Say you wish to modify the ‘Purchase Order’ layout:

1)       Firstly you would go to the ‘Report & View’ Developer screen and click the Add button.

2)       After clicking Add you will presented with the ‘New Data Output’ screen – from which you would select ‘Copy from another’ radio button

3)       Then lookup the ‘Purchase Order’ report and select it

4)       Once back at the ‘New Data Output’ screen the ‘Copy to Company’ radio button will be selected

5)       Click on the ‘Create’ button. This will copy the queries and selection criteria to the ‘Company’ layer in the database, and also make a copy of the actual report layout file into a sub-folder (the name will be the same as the company ID you are currently logged into) in the Ostendo Reports directory.

6)       Now you can modify the Purchase Order layout from within this screen (by clicking on the Edit button when in the Detail tab) or via the ‘Report Layout Editor’ in the Reporting Configuration menu

Important Please Note: By introducing this new feature for any reports/layouts that you have modified you will need to do the following:

1)       Follow the steps above for each of your modified reports (likely to be Invoices, Quotes, Purchase Orders etc…)

2)       Copy in your modified report layout (it might be wise to have a copy of all the modified report layout files in one place first) into the sub-folder (named based on Company ID – eg: DEFAULT for the main company) in the Reports directory.

Please refer to the Reporting Help file for further explanation of how this all works.

Creating Purchase Invoices from Purchase Receipts

We have added the ability to create the Purchase Invoice when posting the Purchase Receipt. Although the Purchase Invoice is created and all lines are matched, you will still need to pull up the Invoice for final signoff and posting.

Extra Fields for Items, Descriptors & Catalogue Items

1)       We have added Actual Area as a field in the ‘Item Dimensions’ screen to be used for calculating total surface area in the Jobs & Assembly modules.

2)       We have added Duty % to the Items screen, for use in the Purchase Shipments screen.

3)       We have added Weight, Volume, Area & Duty % to Descriptors for the same reasons as above.

4)       We have added Weight, Volume & Area to be used for calculating total weights, volumes & areas in the Jobs & Assembly modules.

Speed Order Entry

We have added a feature to all the Order Entry screens (mainly applicable to Sales Orders) for speed entry of lines. If the ‘Order Speed Entry’ is set in the appropriate Rules screen the following will occur:

1)       If the user keys in the ‘Code’ field and then uses the ‘Enter/Return’ key, the focus will be moved to the ‘Qty’ field and then if the ‘Enter/Return’ is used again, the current line will be saved and a new line will be inserted waiting for the next code.

2)       If the user wishes to adjust the unit price, instead of using the ‘Enter/Return’ key on the ‘Qty’ field, the ‘Tab’ key can be used to move to the Unit Price field and then after making the adjustment the ‘Enter/Return’ key then saves an creates the new line.

Financial Order Flows

We have added 4 new Financial Flow Reports (Sales, Purchasing, Jobs & Assemblies). These can be run from the General-Reports menu and pictorially display the (Debits & Credits) financial flow for each order style.