RSS Feed c9 logo Australia's best motorcycle shop retail software
Release 4.771 March 27, 2019 barney

Requires Database changes, you'll need to log all terminals out during upgrade. Make sure you also update computer running messenger to keep backup/SMS working.

  • Tweaks and fixes
    • Receive Spares from C9 E-Ref, was not importing tax invoice date. Now working
    • Unit sale. Renamed sell/discounted columns to more intuitive names
    • Messenger : would log messages saying 'optout sync failed' : the reported message is incorrect. Now only reports on real sync errors
    • Creditor trial balance : was not coping with recently added txn types and would show wrong balances for suppliers using this. Now fixed.
    • Process unit deal : under some circumstances could rewrite unit buy/sell info in destructive ways. Obvious when you do a unit on order then receive it then finish the deal. The units purchase date is zeroed out. Fixed
    • Subtle business rule change for writing lastincost on received stock : avoid rewrite lastincost when receiving stuff for workshop or customer only, i.e. not for inventory. Idea here is if you buy things for stock on special buy, don't let a warranty/workshop/customer order blat over this price. Circumstances where receive for customer will still write lastincost
      • if qtyonhand is zero
      • if there is no lastincost yet
    • Point of sale, key in an incomplete/incorrect part number and hit enter. Should jump to F2 screen and show nearest match but was sensitive to dashes and spaces originally typed in positioning you in an unexpected part of the F2 list. Now repaired.
    • Miner report on customers : customer distance to shop (based on postcode) limited to 99.9km,  allow user to key in numbers upto 9999.9km
  • Bank Rec Changes
    • Disallow changing day for banked operations. Doing so can break previous cash till counts.
    • bank rec screen. Display main counter GL code name, not the GL code we are reconciling. This information is (usually) far more useful.

 

Release 4.770 March 22, 2019 barney

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

  • Tweaks and fixes
    • Monza Magician check : working again. Some sort of changes on their systems to cope with changes to warehouses broke our check
    • Add payment. Select invoices is a bit smarter about pre-selected txn so you can for example add a bill money and check it off against credit notes that might be already assigned (e.g. settling rebates)
    • Some advanced payroll feature adds to capture some non-standard entitlements . specifically
      • super paid on overtime and/or allowances
      • leave days work like normal work days and accrue same regular + overtime hours (except Leave without pay) + additional leave loading for annual leave. As opposed to default which is normal work hours + leave loading (for annual leave only).
    • New workshop job : if select unit with no prior history then default job odo/hour reading to what is stored on units
    • Spare parts : new option to flag a part as not being discountable via group/customer discount setting. This setting overrides group discounts or trade discounts but itself can be manually overridden by tweaking line discount on item in point of sale
    • Sell units : display/edit unit cost inc GST
    • Order for stock via POS where ordering from a supplier, not default OEM: would switch to default OEM order. Keep it with supplier.
    • Spares receive + Import c9 e-reference from parts order. Also grab and map the dealers details in as a supplier automatically adjusting who the receive is from.
    • Workshop Progress & completion report : sort results by job# or type/job# and allow filtering of results based on type of job (retail, warranty,internal)
  • Workshop jobs
    • significantly relax restrictions in workshop relating to completed jobs.
      • You can now add additional labour etc to completed jobs from modify job screen.
      • You can start a job in 'completed' state. To save a heap of clicks for simple jobs already done. Creating a new job in 'completed' state automatically pops open modify job screen
      • Other screens and processes generally will have existing restrictions still in play. e.g. you cannot sell parts from spares screen to completed jobs. If job was completed while you were simultaneously selling parts to it, it will fail. Motivation here is you may not have total insight into job to understand whether or not selling is permissible.
    • Main workshop screen. Display cost so far for jobs in progress.
Release 4.769 March 19, 2019 barney

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

  • Tweaks and  fixes
    • Print supplier txn. Would show option to email+a4 for supplier credit / supplier bill when it should show nothing at all.
    • Cash till count. Under some circumstances involving doing cash till across multiple terminals, on saving cash till the screen may reload older/incorrect previous saves generated for same day but on different terminal. Now fixed.
    • Added new function ORC adjustment to bounce +ve difference between ORC costs and what ORC authorities actually issue as a separate taxable invoice.
    • Payroll : voluntary super contributions would bounce incorrectly onto bank statement as increasing payroll payout, not decreasing.  Now fixed.
    • Miner : ability to query on customer disc type
    • Cash till count : a field to just key in the amount of cash counted. Useful for dealers that have counting machines or similar and don't want to bother with separating out notes/coins manually
  • Cash Basis GST reporting changes + Floorplan.  Prior version of c9 was mishandling these if you selected supplier to record curtail against and would misreport GST (older way we trained creditor integration, a process we no longer recommend).  This version fixes the issue when combined with Cash basis reporting + tracking curtailed to supplier for txns added after this upgrade.

When Honda switched their IT systems last year they implemented some business rule changes that are impactful on how dealers need to manage ordering particularly around managing back orders and making sure back ordered items are freighted appropriately, sea vs air freight.

C9 now contains changes that potentially streamline some pain points around this. It has taken a few iterations but following process might be useful.

Breaking down the process:

  • Put everything on stock order by default
  • Before sending an order to honda identify items likely to go onto backorder, and relocate those items onto a daily order.
  • Send your stock order.
  • Send your daily order.

Step 1 - putting everything on stock order by default

  • spares -> utilities - > add/edit franchise
  • Select Honda franchise
  • Goto pack/ordering tab
  • Select option 'Both stock and daily orders' (Default stock), so that ordinarily when you order stuff it goes onto Stock

Step 2 - Identify items likely to go onto backorder

This step is where most of work in c9 recently has gone to streamline things. Latest version of c9 contains a streamlined magician check with ability to move bits around before sending. To do this:

In order book, highlight the order. Press Send action and pick magician check

Now this pops up a screen where c9 will check each part against SAP. Generally should only take a few second to scan all items. Normally c9s magician check for Honda SAP is slow taking 10+ seconds per part, but managed to make it quicker by only grabbing availability figures on this screen. So it returns as '?' for price data.

In the above example, the piston kit cannot be fully supplied. You need 7, Honda have 5.  So highlight the item, click on 'Move Part' button and then move it onto a daily order instead.

What you can also do is click option 'Check other c9 dealers' and the screen will tell you other dealers that have it as an alternative to backordering from Honda.

Step 3 / 4 - Send orders.

As per normal.

Caveats / warnings

Magician checking in c9 is not something that is formally supported by the distributor, it isn't part of their published API, so the data c9 grabs here is not assured by the distributor (unlike the ordering API).

There is possibility that you might be trying to order parts other Honda dealers might be simultaneously considering getting, so what magician says is available may not actually be there when you hit the submit button and you might miss out.

End result is it is possible for stuff to still go on backorder for stock orders. It should be rare but it may still in theory happen. Longer term, the distributor needs to provide a robust process to provide assurances backorders end up on planes, not boats for stuff you need in a hurry. New features in c9 so mostly provide this but possible gaps still exist.

 

Release 4.768 March 16, 2019 barney

Includes Database changes you need to log all terminals out during upgrade

This release includes a potentially valuable change with how txns between debtors and creditors interlink that should dramatically simplify individual txn reconciliation for complex suppliers.

Firstly, describing the problem we are trying to solve:  c9 provides a mechanism which allows payments to track against invoices they are paying and the process is largely automatic with controls for users to override and manipulate, via selecting invoices to pay and being able to unlink/modify txns after the fact. Things get complex although when things like supplier credits get thrown into the mix. Issues being:

  • Credits will automatically track against oldest open bill, which can be undesirable behavior, and can be turned off in reasonably recent versions of c9
  • When it comes to to record a payment, you can only select invoices to pay: you cannot indicate that individual credits are factored into the decision on what to pay. This limitation is what this version fixes.

 

Illustrating the issue. Consider two statement periods with following txns.

Now a statement from supplier will come and it may show that for period #1,$250 is owing, but in c9, the first txn is considered partially paid, so adding $250 will partially spill into allocating transactions for period #2.   The payment of $250 will be composed of transactions across multiple periods

Now the above problem can be mitigated in c9 already via an option to not automatically assign txns.  But when we get to period #2 a new problem surfaces. Period two owing is $65, but when you goto select txns there is no way in c9 select txns screen to select both the invoice and the credit note. You can only select the invoice ,for $100. In payment screen the credit note remains unallocated.  This version of c9 provides tools to deal with specific case.

The above describes a very simple scenario, as simple as it gets before you run into trouble. Reality is that you have payments and credits and invoices flowing through a supplier statement in complex ways, sometimes with incorrect dates etc, and the result is a complex ball of mud.  New changes in c9 allow you to more effectively untangle this.

Specific details:

How to disable automatic allocation on a supplier

In modify contact, at bottom of 'discounting sand billing' tab is the following option. Select second option to disable automatic allocation of txns.

With above option enabled, txns remain unallocated if you don't select txns to pay

New options for selecting  transactions for reconcile/payment/settlement.

Now when you pay a txn, it now gives you the option to select the unallocated supplier credit by default if we want to flag the credit as dealt with and flag corresponding txns too

If you ran the supplier with automatic assignment and the supplier credit is already assigned, the select transactions screen allows you to override this. You goto the tab 'All transactions- force reassignment if necessary' and it will allow you to select the allocated supplier credit. On completion, the credit is deallocated and forcefully relinked to the payment you are now adding.

Other

This change also applies to modify connected txns in view transactions screen. As such it makes the unlink option largely redundant.

A new option is  added too : reconcile txns which allows you to reconcile a bunch of txns together without modifying a specific txn or adding a txn. Mostly useful if you are clearing a statement period with bills + credits cancel out to $0 exactly or at a net credit for the period. A rare occurance, but still possible.

Finally this version provides visual indication whether or not txns where involved in a explicit selection of txns to settle/reconcile with a leading + sign infront of the txn type.

 

 

 

Release 4.767 March 15, 2019 barney
  • Magician and EPC tweaks
    • Honda changes on last version busted  : was no longer showing if an item was discontinued. Now fixed
    • Cykel 'fixes' last version didn't actually fix cykel.  Should now be working
    • Added support for importing Landboss EPC
    • Mojo EPC import, some years return extraneous results with c9 would flip to year 0. e.g. '2014Â' from mojo system now converts to 2014, not 0000
  • Other misc
    • Point of Sale : disallow quickorder + order for stock combo as they are mutually exclusive.
    • Browse below RRP : print list. If you just printed barcodes it will try to send the RRP report to barcode printer. Reset printer back to report printer first.
    • Slight wording tweak on point of sale when scanning a part which is already on order
    • Web web order/web booking.  Previously was not extracting out firstname/lastname.  Now repaired.
    • Modify deal :  if deal was locked on another terminal and that terminal finalised the deal, then on getting the lock the first terminal would not check if the deal was finalized. Could result in deal be double handled.  Now fixed to explicitly verify deal is still open on getting lock.
    • Select bank for payment,  filter out banks flagged as loan accounts.
Release 4.766 March 14, 2019 barney
  • Magician changes
    • Tweak honda magician so it is lightening fast for doing a backorder/order check.  Compromise here is it will not show you honda buy price, only availability.  For individual part checks it will remain slow version which also grabs price info
    • Suzuki magician tweaks to deal with some oddness/complexity with how data is displayed on their dealer portal
    • Fix cykel magician, recent changes were damaged and couldn't work.
    • Mojo : map landboss & SWM for magician querying
    • Point of sale magician check: put the response from distributor at the top of the list.  For c9 dealers, organise dealers which are mapped into local c9 towards top of list
  • Tweaks and bug fixes
    • This version fixes a potential bug when upgrading before version 4.764.  The upgrade may permanently fail requiring c9 support to repair. Issue itself is rare and anyone running a version greater than 4.764 is not going to be affected anyway. This change is for slackers who don't update c9 often, their systems will still be at risk without this fix
    • Recent changes to email report where you can select dropdown of sender didn't actually work.  Changing sender had no effect. Should now be working
    • Delete txns via the unpaid bills screen. Protections recently added to key screens to disallow deletion on irreversable deletes (such as deleting a txn linked to a unit sale) do not apply here. Tweaked this screen to enforce the same rule about disallowing such deletes.
    • Print barcodes screen: delete all button floating in middle of list of parts. Rejigged things.
    • Stock ordering for franchises configured to order direct to supplier a bit broken. Fixes:
      • Would order under franchise, not preferred accessory supplier. Now fixed
      • Would not factor in parts on order from other suppliers or franchise. e.g. if parts are on order from another dealer (unusual use-case but still a bug)
      • Will now generate all franchise parts for a specific supplier when you select option to generate order for that supplier