Frequently Asked Questions / Troubleshooting
1. General
1.1 EaseSuite Icon Not On Desktop
If the software is installed, then right click an empty space on your desktop and choose New > Shortcut. Click Browse and then This PC > Local Disk (C:) > EaseSuite then locate EaseSuite.exe (one with coloured icon) in list and select it then OK. Click Next and then Finish and you should have an icon on your desktop.
1.2 Some display text in search lists are out of date/showing previous text after I've made a change
The system will still operate fine, basically some "cached" display text hasn't been updated right away but it has no bearing on anything operationally. The system is cached (doesn't load everything all the time) for performance reasons.
To solve, in the desktop application you can go to Settings > Background Tasks > New Task and choose Rebuild Display Text then OK and it will go through and refresh all records. You can close out of this Background Job form and continue working whilst it completes.
1.3 Monitors have scrambled / Touchscreen is not working or applying to wrong screen
This is for when the touchscreen and two monitors are in play, usually on a sales counter.
Sometimes a Windows update or hardware change can cause this to happen.
To resolve:
On your desktop, right click an empty area and choose Display Settings. You'll see a representation of all 3 monitors numbered. Drag them left or right so that representation matches where they are physically then click apply. Identify will help you identify what monitor is what.
When you tap or swipe on the touchscreen and it is applying to another screen instead of itself: open Start menu and type Calibrate then choose Calibrate the screen for pen or touch input (this may be called Tablet PC Settings on Windows 11). At the top push the Setup button and following onscreen instructions (you want to tap the screen that is the touch screen but if that's not it, press enter to move it onto the next screen until correct then tap).
Also note the Calibrate button can help resolve touchscreen issues by redefining where the edges are or for first time use.
1.4 Drag and dropping Files / Outlook Emailing is not working
Some sites require the updater to run in administrator mode (that Yes message you choose when updating and the background greys out). When this happens, EaseSuite will then immediately start in admin (or elavated) mode after the update. Unfortunately when it is run in this mode drag and drop files no longer works and Outlook emailing fails, basically because it is technically running under a different account with different privileges.
The solution is to simply restart EaseSuite to resolve.
2. Stock
2.1 Should I Use Sell Price Rules?
Sell Price (or markup) rules allow automatic sell price calculating from the product's (overall) cost, e.g. add 20% onto cost to determine sell price. I state overall cost, because if the product is supplied by more than one supplier, that cost can be averaged out/the most popular supplier picked etc.
Benefits:
- Sell price reviews and updating don't need to be carried out, the sell price is generate automatically based on the cost.
Downsides:
- Since sell prices can fluctuate more frequently, meaning published shelve prices and similar can quickly run out of date and unwittingly. Ideally you don't want to publish sell prices in this mode if cost prices are subject to frequent change. If you are wholesale with no price publishing or don't have a public facing shop/store (items are supplied as part of a service), this tends to be the more ideal scenarios for using markup rules.
- You have to be careful when updating costs, since those costs have a direct impact on sell price. i.e. you get a discount, but it is short term, it will instantly affect a sell price. But note other same stock may have been purchased at a higher price and so the profits of that haven't been realised and will instantly diminish, meaning you are then selling them at a potentially great reduced profit or even loss.
- Accurate cost prices can be valuable for many reasons (stock take, write offs), so if you are delaying updating them because they are sell price linked, and they become inflated and inaccurate, that might be a cause for concern if it ends up somewhat falsifying other accounting activities.
Cost Calculation modes, which effectively choose a strategy for averaging down to a single products cost when the product is supplied by more than one supplier, can be switched to Custom. This lets you update supplier costs freely and then decide yourself what the overall cost should be, but with sell price rules on, you simply switch from reviewing sell prices to reviewing overall cost price in this mode, so you lose that benefit.
If in doubt, start with sell price rules off. The stock search allows you to search out costs vs sell prices within specific percentage differences (i.e. usually targeting low, like under a 20% profit margin say) so that you can semi-regularly use this as a list to update your sell prices as cost prices creep up, and you can do this in a controlled way.
2.2 Can I add products to different shelf locations in the system?
You can have different items placed in different shelves in different buildings in the system, but not different shelve locations in the same building.
We deciding against this because it was problematic for a few reasons:
- Each stock location in the system takes on its own stock quantity and gets purchased and sold using that quantity. When you start divying up the same product into multiple shelf locations, each gets its own maintainable stock quantity. The leads to easily getting false flags for low stock in one shelf location when another shelf may hold ample stock. All the ins and outs have also been split up with each shelf's stock taking on a life of it's own, which is usually undesirable and leads to more mistakes and maintenance than benefits.
- Even to represent this with an additional layer of data structure adds complexity. For every delivery you need to divy up items and record what shelf they are going to in the system, which can easily make the system prohibitive to use if it is asks unanswerable questions or requires a lot more data entry to facilitate it. For example product X has arrived, what should go to shelves A, B and C? Much easier is for it to be checked in and automatically attributed to the most common location rather than not be checked in at all if a more complex decision has to be made.
- There is a physical reality vs virtual to take note of. For virtual, the system is mainly concerned about a single product within a single building, which holds the sum total of that product and can easily be accounted for as things are bought and sold or stock checked. If it gets low, it gets re-ordered, or sold then stock reduced, with the overall quantity changing, to keep things simple. For physical, other things can happen outside the system such as shelf splitting that it is easier to happen outside of the system. This reduces a great deal of granularity inside it for ease of use reasons.
- We advise when creating locations, that if more than one shelf location exists for the same item in a building, you add its single primary location along with a comment stating where else it can also go physically, also perhaps indicating how it is divided up i.e. 80%/20%. The physically reality is these can be divided up outside the system without adding more granular complexity inside it. We want you to get through the system part as quickly as possible and so certain physical realities like this are not beneficial to incorporate.
- Comment fields on the stock item or customer reservation may be used to hold who's got what and where if you want to maintain that, or attribute different overall percentages to where stock items goes internally. This could go on the purchase order comments also as well as attribute it to a staff member or several locations so it can be viewed on arrival.
- Van stock we quite often get asked about and it stems the same problem: do you want to maintain an item with an overall quantity total across an overall building/site, or take on 30 new locations (per van) with each holding their own separate quantities? It can sound appealing at first, but those who have tried it quickly came to realise there is a lot more data maintenance required for not much benefit and that constantly moving things around inside the system becomes cumbersome and is always playing catch up. With the best will in the world, the levels themselves are rarely correct when you introduce this amount of admin work into a busy business and it disadvantages stock control as a whole. Essentially one store is usually difficult enough to maintain and keep quantity levels correct without introducing many more spin offs.
- Buildings can have the same product record but have it located at a different location (stock tab), but this is more of a controlled segregation within workable boundaries with staff resources at each building to back that up. Purchases and sales will generally take place per building independently, and moving stock between each is possible here also.
- Stock can also go out with provisional sales orders (e.g. Picking List status) and be attributable to a staff member and anything unused can also come back in (or just left out), which will quantity adjust. The history tab shows this activity on a product should the location of an item be questioned, so this is another way to gauge where an item has gone if it has gone missing and happens as a side effect of doing this.
- Also to clarify: one stock item can only have one location (in a building), but one location can have many stock items, i.e. many can share the same location, and for one off items this might be a temporary location. So for a Product in its Stock tab you might see the same location appear again with quantity specific to the product, that is OK.
3. Sales
3.1 Refund button is hidden on new order. How do I create a new refund?
The refund button is used to create a refund from an existing order. If you wish to create a refund with no pre-existing order applicable, select the Order Status dropdown and set the status to Refund.
3.2 How does stock replenishment work? Do I need to manually adjust stock levels after saving an order?
EaseSuite automatically adjusts stock quantities depending on the status of the order. See Stock Control & Replenishment for more details.
Stock Quote does not have any allocations, quantities can be adjusted as desired through multiple saves and stock levels will remain the same.
Any status after (Including Stock Allocated) will affect stock levels.
If an order is edited on a later date and additional quantities added to a line, stock levels will be decreased respectively, and vice versa if quantities are lowered on the sales order.
4. Jobs
4.1 Why can't I change a customer on a Job?
Once a Job is created with a Customer and various areas reference that Job (Sales, Timesheets, Reservations, Purchases, mobile apps), it is no longer possible to change the Customer. This is because these items all have that Customer now associated and it's not easy to change without consequence at this stage. The workaround is to create a new Job and move items to it, which can be done by following these steps:
* If only Timesheets on a Job, following step 2 below, you can set all to Non-billable in bulk actions (to disassociate job). Next change customer on the Job and save, then back in Timesheets bulk set them back to the Job (which will pick up any customer charge rules if set). This avoids having to create a new Job.
1. Open the Job and use Clone to clone it (which doesn’t clone its Timesheets or Sales Orders, just the basic Job) to create a new one, then select the correct Customer, and save.
2. In Timesheets search you can select your previous Job and in the advanced tab tick on search date range (doing that will bring in all days) and search, which will list out your Timesheets.
3. Select All (top checkbox), Bulk Update on right, then choose the new Job and OK. That will move all the timesheets over from the old Job to the new.
4. If you have sales for the Job, in the Sales area do similar by searching out by the Job and bulk updating those to the new Job and Customer.
5. Finally you can delete the old Job if required. Once deleted you could give the new Job its code if you wish to retain that.
5. Timesheet App
5.1 I attached a file to a job but it is not going out to mobile devices?
When you add a file, ensure the selected File Type you selected has "Staff can receive files of this type on mobile" switched on or alter that file type so it can. See File types and custom properties.
6. Stores App
6.1 Troubleshooting Guide
The stores app relies on a connection to the server and the server runs a web service to supply and receive data in real-time from the devices.
We recommend all customers are familiar with restarting their server since it can solve most problems quickly. This usually involves Remote Desktop (Start > Remote Desktop Connection), typing the server name and logging in. Once connected and you see the desktop, right click the start menu and Restart just like you would your own computer. Beforehand, notify existing users there will be downtime while the server reboots and this may include Sage if it is running on the server.
Each step below is progressive and after each one you can try for success.
1. Restart the handheld device. Check for updates via Settings cog if you can get there (note the version number, as the same update may reapply itself and be unnecessary).
2. Restart the server, it may be in an unstable state after updates for example or other network issues have occurred.
3. Check the mobile devices haven't roamed onto WIFI that has no server access. For example, some routers have public facing WIFI for clients (internet only) but also private that has access more including the network. The app will generally need to be on the private internet to be able to gain direct server access. The public WIFI should ideally never be connected to and it is sometimes easier blocking it / forgetting it / not saving settings to prevent device automatically roaming onto it if it has been connected to in the past.
4. Verify WIFI connection via a mobile phone is possible (ensure data off) and you can access an internet website OK to rule out WIFI issues. Note it is not uncommon for WIFI to go stale but continue to serve cabled only connections fine, so needs a reset (6)
5. Try the web address http://<YourServerName>/staff/list first on a desktop, but then from a mobile phone and then the device's web browser (proceeding to successive if former tests pass, i.e. if it fails on desktop it's going to fail everywhere). This tests if the server is reachable and if there may be a fault there. I recommend bookmarking this link on various devices for quick access. If an error is displayed or it times out, get in touch. Success will list staff in a tag encoded language (and not have an error message).
6. Power cycle the main router, usually an on/off switch at the back. This will interrupt the network and desktops so inform other staff, e.g. they may be knocked out of applications like Sage, so best they close those first.
7. If applicable power cycle nearby repeater routers/the rest if required (may be required to pick up after the reset in 6, though I'd hope they'd connect automatically). Try connecting a device to WIFI near the main router first, since this may not be problematic whilst the repeaters may be. Repeaters can go stale also and so it can be worth trying WIFI from various locations.
7. Sage
7.1 Sage Line 50 (Desktop)
- Sage login already in use. If you get this error but the Sage username you used isn't logged into Sage on any computer, then what you need to do is browse to your Sage data folder (this is noted in Settings > General > Building Settings > Account Package Settings > Path), and inside the ACCDATA folder, delete the file QUEUE.DTA to resolve the error. It is recommended to run Check Data in Sage (File > Maintenance) afterwards.
8. Server Related Issues
8.1 The database server time vs your clock differs by X seconds
This message appears when launching EaseSuite. Either your PC or the server's clock has run off. If this happens on only one PC and other EaseSuite installed PCs don't have the issue when opening, then this indicates the problem is your computer. Rebooting and re-logging in may be enough for it to gain accurate time again.
As part of a wider strategy, we recommend the server is set to update it's time regularly from a reliable online source and that all network workstations obtain their time from the server so all clocks are kept in sync.