EXP-RO01-4.0.12.1

Entersoft Expert^®

New Features & Functionality (Outline)

This document aims to report the new features and extensions of Expert Version 4.0.12.1. First, the newly added functionality and features are briefly listed and, then, a detailed presentation follows. User guidelines and examples are provided where necessary.

Entersoft ERP

• New Physical Inventory finalization process
• Advanced functionality for the calculation of Shipping Costs in Documents
• New sales reports, that enable you to monitor systematically the results at Corporate Group level through comprehensive descriptive statistics, are now available
• Functionality for monitoring Provisional Expenses.
• Fixed Asset position monitoring per Warehouse.

Entersoft Framework

• Integration of the new version of Crystal Reports^©
• New controls for dashboard grids are available in Dashboard Designer; e.g. grid sparkline chart, grid bullet chart, grid bar chart
• Attachment administration is extended by allowing the user to select the ‘save in’ folder (location)

Entersoft ERP

Physical Inventory

A new Document Type for Physical Inventory is now available specialized for packaging counting: INV- Introducere Inventar.

Additionally, several new Transition Rules are now available for issuing corrective stock documents, based on stock counting. Most of the associated Document Types were available before Expert Version 4.0.12.1, apart from PIN - Plusuri de Inventariere (Export Negativ). All associated Document Types are available at the “Warehouse offsets” menu.

Image 1: Physical Inventory | New Document Types

Image 2: Physical Inventory | New Transition Rules

Physical inventory finalization

The Physical Inventory process -and the steps required for its finalization- are now organized into a new finalization process. This new process allows the ERP user to proceed to the finalization of the Physical Inventory through three distinct steps by registering the Counting document only.

The new Physical Inventory Finalization process

The new Physical Inventory Finalization process is available at the menu: Inventory / Physical Inventory / Physical Inventory Finalization; the process is implemented as a wizard. Hence, starting from the Stock Counting Documents, you may issue the finalization documents and, if required, the documents for Surpluses and Shortages.

Step 1

Here, the process initialization parameters are available. Specifically:

• Stock counting – date range. Here, the user defines the date range when the counting documents were issued in.
• Finalization based on. There are two alternative options available:

Specific date. By selecting this option, the finalization documents and the documents for Surpluses and Shortages will be issued on a specific, selected date which is not necessarily the same as the date the counting document was issued on. The process will ensure that the counted quantity will correspond to the finalization date by adding or subtracting, as appropriate, the differences between the registered balance on the finalization date and the counting date. E.g., if the Physical Inventory for an Item on the 15th of December is 10 units and the finalization date is set to be the 31st of December, and if the difference of the registered balance between these two dates is +5 units, then the process will consider as counted quantity the 15 units (instead of the 10 units), i.e. as if the counting had taken place on the 31st of December.

Date of counting. The finalization document will be issued on the date of the counting document. If more than one counting documents on different dates exist in the defined date range, then more than one the finalization documents will be issued, one per date (older to most recent). Image 3: Step1 | Parameters

• Physical Inventory finalization date. This parameter is activated when the selected value of the previously described parameter is ‘Specific Date’. Here, the user is required to define the date on which the finalization document and the documents for Surpluses and Shortages are to be issued on.
• Warehouse. Here, the user is required to select the Warehouse for which it is desired to execute the particular process.
• Not-counted Items. When activated, then the process will automatically insert to the finalization document any items that are not included in the counting document, as ‘not-counted’. If the selected value of the parameter ‘Finalization based on’ is ‘date of counting’, then any not-counted item will be included in the document of the last counting date.

In this step you may also select to display some additional parameters (use the ‘for advanced users’ button: ).

Image 4: Step 1 | Parameters for advanced users

These are:

• Counting Document - Document Type.
• Physical Inventory - Document Type.
• Auto-correct differences. If selected, then the process will also issue a document for correcting any differences, after having issued the physical inventory finalization document.
• Transition rule for differences. Here, the transition rule for the auto-correction step of the process is defined.
• Not counted items (View). If the ‘Not-counted Items’ parameter is activated then this parameter becomes available; here, the user can define the view that is to be used for identifying the not-counted items.

The default values of these parameters are defined at Tools and Configuration / Customization / Company Parameters, Category: Periodics-Fiscal Year Closing. The default company parameter values are in accordance with the default Physical Inventory scenario; i.e. the Physical Inventory finalization document is the: NVN; the Document type for stock counting is INV; correction of differences through transition to DIF.

Image 5: Company parameters

Step 2

The second step of the process includes a series of checks that aim to update the user on any issues that may be identified at the beginning of the process.

The checks focus on the accuracy of updates, inspect the data for discrepancies, and review the counting document. If any issues are identified then the above checks return related warnings. The user may select to proceed despite them; however, it is strongly recommended to resolve any issues before proceeding.

The step also includes checks on the existence of finalization documents or documents for difference corrections that may have been issued manually or by a previous execution of the particular process. If such documents exist, then user action is required; specifically, the user is required to define whether these documents are to be deleted or cancelled.

Image 6: Step 1 | Preliminary checks

Step 3

At the third and final step of the process, the following actions are executed.

• The process searches for any counting documents for the selected W/H
• The stock counting is grouped by Item, Dimension, and W/H and summed; these are to be included in the physical inventory finalization document.
• The process searches for any not-counted items and their dimensions in order to include them in the physical inventory finalization document.
• The Physical Inventory Finalization Document is issued. More than one documents of this type may be issued by this process.
• The transition from the ‘Physical Inventory document’ to the ‘document for correcting differences’ is executed.

Finally, the process reports the process results i.e. the issued documents, the number of processed items, etc.

Note that…

If the same Document Type is selected for registering the stock counting and the finalization of the physical inventory, then the process will not issue new finalization documents. This is related to the case of finalization based on the date of counting and if every item on every counting date has been counted exactly once. In every other case new finalization documents will be issued.

Reporting for preparation & review:

Two new reports are now available (at: Inventory / Physical Inventory):

• Stock Counting administration. The report presents the Stock Counting Documents, for a selected period of time. The value of the Company Parameter «Physical Inventory - Document type for stock counting» is the default value of the corresponding report filter.
• Shortage-Surplus management. The report presents all the documents for correction of differences, for a selected period of time. These documents have been issued through the transition from Physical Inventory finalization documents. The second level of the report presents the specific Items and the related differences.

New Stock Adjustment Documents

Image 7: New stock adjustment documents (imports & exports)

Inter-warehouse transfer order cancellation

A new document type CTA - Anulare Comanda de Transfer Inter is now available for the (partial) cancellation of an inter-warehouse transfer orders with the purpose of canceling any pending order lines that are not going to be fulfilled. The documents of this type are issued through the Transition Rule 301. CTM=>CTA.

Calculation of shipping costs

New functionality for the calculation of shipping costs is now available. The following dimensions are taken into account for the calculation: delivery geo zones, weight, volume and shipping methods. Additionally, the incorporation of the shipping costs to Trade Documents is now standardized.

Delivery Geo Zones

The calculation of shipping costs is based on the utilization of the various delivery geographical zones; i.e. the destination of the shipment is the most important factor for the cost calculation. Therefore, the definition of the delivery geo zones is required i.e. a grouping of the Geo zones based on the shipping rates e.g. domestic, abroad etc. The new supplementary table Delivery Geo Zones serves this exact purpose (at: Tools and Configuration / Customization / Transaction Parameters).

Image 8: Transaction Parameters | Delivery Geo Zone

Next, it is required to assign a Delivery zone to the ZIP Codes by updating the column ‘delivery geo zone’ that is now available at the list of ZIP Codes. In order to facilitate the update of the ZIP Codes, the bulk modification feature is now available at the vertical toolbar of the ZIP Codes list.

Image 9: Assigning Delivery Geo Zones to ZIP Codes | New column and bulk modification

Shipping Plans

The calculation method of shipping costs is defined through a new entity called ‘Shipping Plans’ (at: Tools and Configuration / Customization / Transaction Parameters). A Shipping Plan is used for the definition of the charges per delivery geo zone and weight (form section: ‘Charges)’. The combination of a delivery geo zone and a specific weight must be unique. Hence, multiple lines for a single Delivery Geo Zone may be inserted if the shipping cost depends on the weight. The shipping cost can is inserted in the column ‘Value’. If the shipping cost does not depend on the weight, but on the Delivery Geo Zone exclusively, then the weight can be set as zero (default).

Image 10: A Shipping Plan

If the Shipping Plan is intended to be used in documents for the calculation of shipping costs, then it is also required to define the following information:

• Weight field. Here, it is required to select the document line field that is to be used for the calculation of the total quantity (weight) of the document’s items. Commonly, this is the Weight field per se; however, some other may be selected.
• Volumetric Weight field. Transportation Companies charge their shipment based either on weight or on volume by calculating an alternative weight, the volumetric weight. The cost calculation is based on the maximum value of the two fields: weight or volumetric weight. Here, it may be optionally selected the field of the volumetric weight.
• Value field. It is used if the shipping cost is not charged when the value of the goods is greater than a specific amount. For such cases, the line field that will be used for calculating the total value of the shipment is selected here. The ‘Maximum calculation value’ field is used for the definition of the amount that if exceeded the shipping costs is not charged (e.g. no shipping charges for orders greater than 100€)
• Calculation based on. In some cases, shipping costs are calculated based on the most valuable item of the shipment rather than the total weight of the shipment. E.g. if the shipment includes two items and the shipping cost for the first item is 10€ while for the second item is 20€, then the shipping cost is 20€.
• Additional charges. This can be used (optionally) for defining the field of an amount that is to be added to the shipping cost of particular items. E.g. due to special packaging (gift wrap, fragile etc.) the shipment of some items may cost extra.

Shipping methods and Shipping Plans

Next, it is required to assign a Shipping Plan for every shipping method.

Image 11: Assigning Shipping Plans to Shipping Methods

Calculation of Shipping Costs in Trade Documents

In order to automatically incorporate the shipping costs into documents, it is required to create a Special account for surcharges that must be among the active surcharges of the Document Type. The shipping cost automatically updates the new document field ‘Shipping Cost’, based on the Shipping Plan. In order to include automatically the special account in the document, the special account and the shipping method must be linked.

Image 12: Sales - Shipping costs

In further detail, the configuration steps are:

• Configure the Shipping Methods and the related Shipping Plans as described previously.
• Define a special account: independent; of type: surcharge; that depends on the Shipping Method. The value of the special account must be set as one of the new Shipping Cost fields of the document header.
• Additionally, insert the apposite Shipping Methods (tab page: ‘Shipping Methods) in order to ensure that the special account will be automatically included when one of these shipping methods is selected in a document.

Calculation of Shipping Costs in Automations

The new function ‘Calculate shipping costs’ is available in the Automations Tool which allows you to determine the shipping cost based on the Shipping Plan. The function call required the following parameters:

• ShippingMethodCode: Shipping Method Code
• ShippingRegionGroupCode: Delivery Geo Zone Code
• TotalValue: Total Shipment Value
• Weight: Total Shipment Weight
• VolumetricWeight: Shipment’s Volumetric Weight
• AdditionalCharges: The value of the shipment surcharges

Invoicing and Shipping Cost

In some cases, the shipping cost is calculated and included in the Sales Order. When the Sales Order is fully invoiced, then the Shipping Cost must be the agreed Cost as this was presented in the Sales Order. The transition and the field property profile ‘1-TRS-Header-NOTransportCostCalc’ combined with a field property profile that copies the special account lines, ensure that this specification is met. The new transition rule 112. COV=>FAV Invoice - Delivery Note from Customer Order with no recalculation of shipping costs (that can be imported from the corresponding Entersoft XML) incorporates this functionality.

Business Dimensions & Reporting

New fields in Business Dimensions

Business Dimensions are now extended by adding new user defined fields. Specifically, the: Comment 1 & 2; Flag 1 & 2; Date 1 & 2; Number 1 & 2. Use the Add/Remove Columns functionality to include them in the layout.

Moreover, Business Dimensions are extended by new fields that organize them in a more detailed and effective way, and can be used for reporting purposes i.e. grouping the results in various flexible ways. The content of these new fields can be administered through the corresponding new tables / lists that are available at Tools and Configuration / Customization and, specifically, under the node ‘Business Dimensions - User Defined Tables’. The name of the tables can be customized according to your needs. The new tables are:

• Division, associated with Dimension 1
• Section, associated with Dimension 2

Budget: new Cube Groupings

Budget Sheet Profiles now support additional groupings that facilitate budget compilation and enrich the ‘Budget vs. actual’ cube.

• Specifically in the Budget Grouping configuration, when among the activated dimensions are the Item or the Trade Account, then the following groupings can be –optionally- incorporated: Business Unit - Sector, Business Activity - Activity Type, Business Dimension 1 - Division, Business Dimension 2 – Section.

• In the Cube Grouping configuration, two new sets of optional groupings are added. These groupings are conditionally activated if the corresponding Dimensions are selected.

New reports at Corporate Group level

Several new sales reports, that enable you to monitor systematically the results at Corporate Group level through comprehensive descriptive statistics, are now available at: Business Intelligence / Corporate group - statistics. These reports are the intercompany versions of existing well-known reports. A specific Group Company can be defined if desired.

These are:

• Sales statistics
• Item sales per customer
• Profitability by item category
• Retail Sales Audit View
• Branches' Audit View
• Branch sales per hour
• Average transaction rate per branch per hour
• Sales and Visiting Traffic comparison
• Sales comparison per date and weather conditions
• On-line branch monitoring

Monitoring Provisional Expenses

New functionality for monitoring Provisional Expenses is now available in cases that it is required to register the expenses (e.g. due to their contribution to an Import Folder or for fiscal year closing purposes) while no actual document from the supplier exists.

The document type CPR - Cheltuieli previzionate is intended for the registration of such expenses. The document updates the subsystem of Expenses and, obviously, the Supplier is not updated. The registered expense is posted to the suppliers’ account “invoices to be received” and the provisional VAT account “4428” is also updated.

Image 13: Provisional expenses and Accounting Posting | a Ledger entry (example)

When the actual invoice is issued by the Supplier, the provisional entry must be cancelled by issuing a CAP - Anulare cheltuieli previzionate. If the entire Provisional Expense Document is to be canceled, the CAP document can be issued through the new transition 148. CPR=>CAP - Anulare cheltuieli previzionate.

Image 14: Cancelation of provisional expenses and Accounting Posting | Ledger entry (example)

Configuration

• It is required to import (update) from the corresponding Entersoft XML the Document Types CPR & CAP.
• The accounting groups ES.0.EX.0003 & ES.0.EX.0004 have been modified and it is required to “Restore default values”.

Image 15: Provisional Expenses | Document Types

Foreign firm Purchase Invoices: price monitoring

The cubes: Purchases per category and supplier and Purchases per Supplier for time period are extended with the following counters: Quantity, Total Quantity, Invoiced value, Purchase price & Cost. These new counters allow the monitoring of the initial value (purchase price) in the case of Imports from abroad (When the Stock is updated with the total cost value).

Fixed Assets

Fixed Asset position monitoring per Warehouse

The ‘Fiscal year closing’ process now supports the distinct, quantitative inventory for fixed assets. The available options are:

• Fixed Assets - Opening Entries (Quantities) - This option allows the quantitative inventory of fixed asset acquisitions per quantity and warehouse. Therefore, (a) the report “Details by position” (filtered and grouped by Warehouse) can be utilized and (b) quantitative only, intra-warehouse documents can be used during the fiscal year. If this option is selected, it is required to also activate the next one that refers to values (only; not the ‘Quantities and Values’ one), similarly to Opening Inventory.
• Fixed Assets - Opening Entries (Values) - To be selected in conjunction with the quantitative option (described above). It is performed per fixed asset acquisition and branch (not per Warehouse) for the acquisition values; the closing/opening entries are also created.
• Fixed Assets - Opening Entries (Quantities and Values) - This option results the inventory of acquisitions per quantity and values, as in the previous ERP versions. The analysis per Branch is mandatory, based on the branch each fixed asset was placed at, at the end of the fiscal year.

Image 1: Fixed Assets | Fiscal Year closing

Bulk modification of Depreciation start date

The action “Bulk modification - Depreciation start date”, which is available at the “Fixed asset acquisitions (for editing the depreciation start date)” view, now supports the assignment of a specific Depreciation start date.

Image 2: Bulk modification - Depreciation start date

Fixed Asset value transfer | Post to Accounting

The TCM (Fixed Asset Accounting Transfer) document can now be posted to more than one accounting documents. Distinct Accounting Documents will be created for transferring the acquisition values and for transferring the depreciations.

Image 16: Post to Accounting | Fixed Asset value transfer

The grouping of the records is based on the Packing Code of the Journal Entry groupings: 005, 350 & 351.

Image 17: Grouping of Journal Entries | Packing Code

Various improvements

• New User Defined Fields are now available at Trade Accounts and, specifically, at Transaction data per address. These can be added to the layout by the Add/remove Columns action.

• The transporter defined at the Transaction data per address is now used as the default transporter when issuing a Document, depending on the selected delivery address. Moreover, you may narrow down the search for alternative transporters to those associated to the specific delivery address. This feature can be activated by adding the new field “Select Transporter” to the Transaction data per address. When selecting delivery address, the transported will be automatically filled-in. If you search for alternative transporters, the system will return a list of the transporters associated with the specific delivery address.

• Henceforth, it is required to define VAT Category for Services and Expenses. This way, several issues related to issuing Service or Expense documents without VAT Category are now resolved.

• The Stock Valuation process is enhanced and it can now handle returns of items sold in a previous fiscal year, when the stock balance -at year closing- is equal to zero and there are no transactions in the current fiscal year. For such cases, and besides the fact that the stock balance is equal to zero, the cost values are standardly updated, to ensure that Stock Valuation will calculate accurately the return transactions; hence, there is no need to enter manually the cost values.

• The BOMs and BOM lines are extended with User Defined Fields and information about the user who created/modified the record and when.

• The Bank Account information is enriched by adding the field ‘Type’. The new column can be included in the layout through the add/remove columns functionality. The field contents can be administered at Tools and Configuration / Customization / Liquidity / Bank Account Types.

• The Ledger Account information is enriched by adding the enumeration field ‘Account Type’. The upgrade to the EBS Version 4.0.12.1 automatically updates the enumeration field.

• A new table “Date Analysis” (ESGODateAnalysis) is now available. The table serves reporting purposes and, by default, it is updated automatically. It contains one record per day, starting from the first fiscal year registered in the system and until 30 years in the future. It can be particularly useful in cases when it is required to report data on a daily basis and no data for all days exist. It is, hence, possible to implement a JOIN using this table and report the (absence of) data for these days. Moreover, it is possible to redefine the limit of days contained in the table (Tools and Configuration / System Administration – DB / Update Date Analysis table).

• The check that forbids the save of a document on a date other than the login date (commonly activated for Retail Documents) is now improved. In addition to the login date, the system date is also checked. The enhanced check is implemented by a Field Property Profile (1-SALE-RETAIL) and in order to be activated it is required to import it from the corresponding Entersoft XML.

• A new grouping table is now available: The “Industry” table is to be used for the grouping of the professions and effective reporting is intended to be its primary use. The related column (Industry Code) is available at the List of Professions. The upgrade inserts a short list of standard industries and attempts to update the existing, common professions accordingly.

• The Company Parameters of the three following categories: “General – Operational”, “General – Systemic” and “Document Administration” were reorganized.

• The available tools for processing Pricelists is reorganized and henceforth available at the pop-up menu "Processing tools".

Entersoft framework

Crystal Reports: new version

The 13^th version of the Crystal Reports^© (third party reporting tool) has been integrated in the Expert Version 4.0.12.1. Among the most important features of the latest version of the Crystal Reports is that it is fully compatible to 64bit Operational Systems. The installation must be done manually by using the ESClientAddOn.msi setup-file, available in the application folder. Note that there are two versions of the particular setup-file available:

• ESClientAddOn.msi, which must be installed on all terminal (client) PCs and on the Entersoft Application Server.
• ESClientAddOn64bit.msi, which must be installed on terminal (client) PCs only if the application runs on the 64-bit mode and Entersoft Application Servers only if the OS is 64-bit.

It is not required to uninstall any existing, former Crystal Reports^© version before the installation of the latest.

Grouping of Company Parameters

The grouping of the company parameters is now improved by including the new group: “System Administration”. All parameters related to the technical characteristics of the application, were assigned to this new group. These parameters are usually been administrated by the Application Administrators.

Attachment administration

It is now possible to save Attachments to selected folders at the Application Server. Previously, only one folder could be selected per Company. Henceforth, additional folders can be used and the user can select the one that is desired to save the attachments in. The available folders are configurable (Tools and Configuration / Customization and General / Attachment locations). The location column contains the subfolder (or path) name that, when appended to the higher-level folder that is defined in the company parameter Attachment storage folder on Application Server, constitutes the full path where the attachment will be saved.

Example

Let’s assume that the Company Parameter value is as C:\RelDocuments and it is desired to organize your attachments in the following subfolders: C:\RelDocuments\GeneralDocs, C:\RelDocuments\TradeDocs. In this case it is required to create two Attachment location records where the Location column will contain one of the subfolder names correspondingly: GeneralDocs and TradeDocs.

When attaching a file, the user may select the desired folder. If no location is selected and the Save to DB check box is not activated, then the attached file will be saved in the folder defined in aforementioned Company Parameter.

Dynamic Forms

You can edit the layout of a dynamic form during the run time. You can use this feature by opening the form in the runtime, then right click in the clear space of the form header and a dialogue is displayed to re-create the structure of the form. This activity can be performed by users that possess administrative rights.

Image 18: Screen layout | Menu options & Expanders

The dialogue provides the following features:

• Re ordering of expander – assignment blocks of the form
• For each expander block you can set the following properties: Expanded, Visible, HideOnNew.

The recreation of form layout does not create a custom form. In the future, if a new expander - container is included in the form the new assignment container is will be displayed automatically in the form. Using the aforementioned mechanism, you can edit the layout in order to hide or show (if the assignment block is hidden by default) the new expander(s).

Moreover, you can set the visibility property for commands, document transitions and actions.

Release Document for EXP-RO01-4.0.12.1