Revision as of 07:26, 16 July 2014

Unlike the 'Asset Management' module (which manages the companies assets), this module deals with the products and services that an organization sells to its customers. It keeps track of quantities, back orders, markups, commissions, and more! There is also the ability to convert inventory items into company assets and vice-versa.

Tabs

Each module will contain several tabs that help group the various types of associated information. Below we will cover the details of each one currently available in the latest release of the module.

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This tab is found in each module as the way to access helpful documentation and, when clicked, will load this wiki page for the module. Of course you can always go directly to our wiki and read through the entire software documentation.

General

Also found in most of the available extensions, this tab provides the general information associated with the module. Below you will find the details of each field available on the form.

• Products & Services As the name suggests, this is the list of all the products and services currently available to customers.

• Included ID codes This field will need a little further explaination. Upon selecting an item from the 'Products & Services' combobox, this one becomes enabled for interaction and will allow you to select multiple items in the list by holding the 'ctrl' key and clicking on the desired options. As you will also notice, this field contains the same values as the 'Products & Services' which acts like a parent to this one and is used to specify what ID Codes should be associated with the top-level selection. So for example, lets say that you own a restuarante and you have the following items: COMBO1, COMBO2, HAMBURGER, CHICKENSNDWCH, DRINK, and FRIES. You can select the 'COMBO1' option in the 'Products & Services' combobox and then select 'HAMBURGER', 'FRIES', and 'DRINK' for this combobox. You can then select 'COMBO2' for the 'Products & Services' and then 'CHICKENSNDWCH', 'FRIES', and 'DRINK' here. That will specify that when you are creating an invoice and 'COMBO1' is selected, the items 'HAMBURGER', 'FRIES', and 'DRINK' should be included (which their quantities adjusted accordingly). This is a way to group items while having the ability to sell them individually as well (since they company can also singly sell a hamburger, fries, and a drink).

• ID Code The value entered here is what gets added to the above to comboboxes upon saving the form and is also what is used to identify products or services when creating invoices and work orders.

• Short description Currently this is not used in any official modules, but was included as an optional value that can be used if webBooks is integrated in your organizations website.

• Long description The value here is used to completely describe the product or service and is used by other modules such as 'Quotes & Invoices' when filling out an invoice. As a way to provide flexibility, there are some variables that can be used within this value so that the description can be more encompassing. For example, you may have a service that you re-bill every month with the name of the month as part of the description and instead of having to edit it before printing an invoice, a variable can be used. The syntax for a variable is a capital identifier (e.g. MONTH, YEAR) surrounded by curly brackets (e.g. {}). The ones available are listed below:

{MONTH} specifies the current month.

{MONTH+n} specifies some month in the future (from the current month) as designated by 'n'. For example, {MONTH+1} would have the next month substituted for the value, {MONTH+2} would have two months from now substituted, etc.

{YEAR} specifies the current year.

{YEAR+n} specifies some year in the future as designated by 'n'. See '{MONTH+n}' above.

{CUSTOMER} specifies the customer account name.

If any user would like to have more added, please contact our staff!

• Quantities As the name suggests, this field contains the current stocked quantity and uses a default value of 0 (meaning that you are out of stock). If you are migrating from a prior system or already have items in possession, you would need to enter the number currently onhand for this value. This works great if you are creating or updating a product, but services do not usually have quantities to be tracked. For those situations, just erase the value here altogether. This will inform webBooks not to track quantities or back orders for this particular ID code.

The other field on this line is a read-only value that specifies the back ordered amount.

• Reorder method These next three lines of fields enable webBooks to automate some aspects of your business. This particular value can enable automatic reordering of the selected ID code based on criteria specified in the following fields. There are currently three values to choose from within both listboxes on this line. The first one has:

Automatic (webBooks) if your vendor is also using webBooks and the two instances have been connected via the 'Commerce URI' and 'Commerce SID' from the 'Business Configuration' module.

Automatic (email) if your vendor is using webBooks but is not connected to yours (via 'Commerce URI' and 'Commerce SID') or they are not using webBooks, you can have your software automatically send an email to the vendor asking for a reorder.

Manually this option disables all automatic reordering of the ID code.

The second listbox populates values based on the selection from the first listbox. All the values will be presented below and will mention when each option will be available.

Not Applicable this option takes not automatic action and is only available when 'Manually' is selected for the first listbox.

Priority Value this option means that the automatic reordering will take place based on the priority value you have assigned to each vendor in your vendor list for the selected ID code (see 'Vendors' below). This option is available when 'Automatic (webBooks)' and 'Automatic (email)' is selected for the first listbox.

Lowest Price this option will perform some intelligent processing before making an automatic reorder. It will contact all the vendors in your vendor list that have been connected to your version and will check the pricing currently offered. After it has compiled that list, it will make the necessary purchase with the vendor with the lowest price. This option is only available when 'Automatic (webBooks)' has been selected for the first listbox.

• Reorder criteria This line contains three values: the quantity level that informs the 'Reorder contact' once reached, the quantity threshold that begins the automatic reordering process, and the quantity to reorder from the selected vendor. The separation of the values means that the business has the most flexibility as well as the ability to define these parameters on a per ID code basis.

• Reorder contact Just as a precaution, the software can alert an employee when the automatic reordering process takes place. That way they can make sure that no unintended issues arise.

• Price & Commission Another line that contains multiple values with the first field containing the MSRP for the ID code currently selected. The next two fields let webBooks know how to handle commissions for any sales of the ID code with the listbox either enabling or disabling this type of payout. If that value is set to 'yes', then the final field contains the commission to pay to the employee. This field can take several types of values and include a fixed commission (e.g. '$10' would mean a fixed ten dollars of commission per sale) or a percentage (e.g. '2%' would mean a two percent commission per sale).

• Markup There are another three values on this line that are used to set suggested sales prices when creating invoices. The markup that gets added to the suggested price relates to the account type (e.g. wholesale, resell, or retail as defined in the 'Customer Accounts' module) and it determined by subtracting the related value from the 'Price' value above. So for example, lets say that you have '$100' as the value for 'Price' and these values are '20%', '10%', '0' respectively. If the customer account is a resellers account, then the suggested price would be $90 ($100-10%).

Like the 'Commission' field from above, each value on this line can accept multiple types - a dollar amount (e.g. $10) or a percentage (e.g. '15%') that is subtracted from the 'Price' value.

• Discounts Unlike the Customer Accounts module where you can assign per customer discounts, the discounts configured here deal with all products sold under the selected ID Code. Please remember that this section is optional and applies the discount based on the 'Price' value (e.g. gross value)! There are several fields in top of this section that we will cover below:

Start this field defines the starting quantity value for the range that applies to the discount. For instance, to create a discount code for quantities between 10-15, then you would enter '10' for this value.

End this field defines the ending quanatity value for the range that applies to the discount. Using the example given above, you would enter '15' here.

Discount like the 'Commission' field from above, this value can be several types of ranges that include a fixed discount (e.g. '$10' would mean a fixed ten dollar discount) or a percentage (e.g. '2%' would mean a two percent discount).

Promo Code an optional field, you can enter a promo code that must be used before the discount is applied to the customers invoice.

Expires another optional field that can be used to control when a discount can be used, this field specifies the expiration date. It is important to note that the discount can be applied as soon as it has been created, so do not use or release (the promo code) for any discounts until you are ready to have them used by your customers.

• Vendors this optional block of fields permits the user to add all the vendors (via the vendor list within the Business Configuration module) to the associated combobox. We will cover each field below:

Vendors this listbox contains all the vendors that were entered on the 'Business Configuration' module. Select, one by one, which items do sell the ID code that is currently selected.

ID Code & Priority unlike the 'ID Code' referenced at the top of this document, this value refers to the vendors ID code for the same product. For example, you may sale the product using your own ID code (from the top of the document) 'XYZ123' whereas the vendor that you buy from sells it as 'ABC321'. This creates the link between your own codes and each vendors.

The second field on this line sets the priority of the vendor to buy the selected 'ID Code' (from the top of the document) when you are using automated reordering (see 'Reorder method' above).

Contact this list is dynamically populated with the vendor contacts that were entered in the 'Business Configuration' module. Select which one will be the contact when using 'Automated (email)' as the 'Reorder method' value.

Purchase this value defines how the purchase will be made from the vendor and is also referenced in the automated reorder email (if that is the method chosen). The second listbox specifies how tax should be handled when purchasing from the vendor.

Shipping terms if the product(s) needs to be shipped, this listbox defines who will pay for the shipping.

Shipping accounts changing the 'Shipping terms' to either 'We ship' or 'Vendor ships' will dynamically populate this field with the respectively configured freight accounts from the 'Business Configuration' module.

Notes

Also found in many of the modules for webBooks, this tab allows co-workers to add notes to your account. Most likely the ones adding information here will be managers, but for flexibility anyone can add notes (access should be defined by company policy). There are only three fields on this page with the 'Creator' and 'Note' values being self explainatory. The first field, however, may need more details. This listbox is used to define who has access to the note being entered and contains two fixed values along with any number of dynamic values. The two fixed are '_EVERYONE_' and '_MANAGERS_', meaning that either everyone can see the note being entered, or only employees who have the 'Manager' flag set for their account. Any other value in the list will be a dynamic value that corresponds to each department you have entered on the 'Business Configuration' module. This in turn will restrict access to the note being entered to all employees that work in the selected department.

Specs

Sometimes a user will need to check certain information on a product. This tab will help with that problem and has three columns that deal with three different types of specs. Working from left to right, the first column presents a standard set of specifications that deal with the asset, the next column deals with specs that were set by the vendor, and the final column defines any further details about the item that are of interest to your organization. With this many fields to store part information, you should be able to store all the information you will need at any point in time.

Data

Another tab found in many of the modules in webBooks, this page allows you to upload various data that you feel are important (or necessary) to keep on file for a particular record. You may see several default items that you can use, but you also have the ability to dynamically add any number of additional fields by clicking the 'Add new Entry' button. This gives you a way to name and select each added entry.

There are two different ways that you can upload your files. The first way is by simply clicking on the upload box itself. Please note that if you are using this way, you can click the checkbox in the lower right-hand corner to select multiple files at once. Contrarily you can also use a file manager to drag-n-drop file(s) onto the upload box. Either way will create an icon (with progress meter) for every file you are currently uploading. After you have uploaded at least one file, you will be able to select the file from any of the listbox entries. And after performing those steps, click the associated 'Update' button.

You may notice two addtional buttons next to the 'Update' buttons. These remove the entry and encrypt the file respectively. Currently the encryption button is disabled as this feature will come online in a future version.

History

You may also notice this tab as the final tab on many modules in webBooks, and it keeps track of all the history details that deal with a loaded product or service. In order to add a line to the history, you will need to specify a date when the action occurred, the action that occurred, associated tag information (this will dynamically change depending on the action selected), and a note that corresponds to the selected action. After filling all of that out, simply click the '+' button towards the top of the form and the line item will be added to the details list at the bottom.

The list allows a company to define various bits of information on the product or service so that its history can be reviewed at any time. For example, the following can be a common starting list of details (by action) for each product:

Purchased: when the item was purchased along with the invoice number that corresponds to the purchase of the item from the vendor.

Shipping (sent): an optional detail that only deals with vendors that have shipped the product as opposed to an employee picking the item up. The additional tag information for this action specifies the tracking number assigned by the freight company. This will allow tracking the shipment until it is delivered.

Shipping (recieved): another optional detail that outlines when the package was received by your company. The associated tag information here is also the assigned tracking number from the freight company.

Stocked: this detail has uses outside of just being part of the history list, and allows the user to define the shipping and product costs associated with the asset. Other modules use this specific history detail for various reasons. For example, if the asset gets converted into an inventory item (via the 'Associated info' listbox on the 'General' tab) at some point, that module will use this history detail to determine a product cost (included assigned shipping costs) when the product gets sold.

Installed: the action that will usually wrap up most asset history details, the associated tag information will specify the invoice or work order number that offers more details on the installation of this particular asset.

From this point, the history per product will become unique. For example, you may turn the product into an asset item which will add the appropriate information to indicate this. Or perhaps the product may stop working at some point which would prompt the use of any of the 'Surplus' actions being added to the list. There are several many actions that can be used to track all sorts of information per product and it is up to the business to inform the employees on which ones are applicable to use.

Buttons

The buttons located in the header of each form will be covered below (see the respective sections above for inline buttons).

Clear (General)

Clicking this button will clear all the tabs loaded data so that you can create (see the 'Save' button below) or load another record (see the 'General' tab above).

Save (General)

One of two buttons available in the header of the 'General' tab, click this button once you have filled out all available fields to save or update a new or existing asset. It is important to note that this ONLY saves information listed on this tab - no others!

Save (Notes)

The 'Save' button on this page will add the note to the list.

Save (Specs)

Just like the other 'Save' buttons, this ones saves all the information with in the tab.