• Apple mobile users: the Timesheet mobile app is now on the App Store (vs Test Flight). All users should switch to this as the test-flight version will expire 31/10/2023. Apple store link: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/easesuite-mobile/id1470076703 or scan the QR Code that is now available in the system.
  
• Online template gallery added (Settings > Word Templates). This is an area that allows you to download templates. We regularly update and add templates so this allows you to download an updated one and compare it with yours, or add any new ones you need into the system. 
• Dashboard has been improved. All Saved Searches are listed there and these can form worklists for staff. We've added some typical Saved Searches here and will evolve this page.
• Recommended hardware list lists hardware we've integrated with.
• SMS texting is now possible in the system (available from any Print Preview). More info.
• Mobile timesheet activity is now more transparent and the ability to see who has received what (Help > Timesheet Service Info).
• Hire dates are now easier to select (drag range and click little button next to date). Items can have a minimum hire period.
• Numerous bug fixes and enhancements.
• Rates & Holiday timesheet report, column added for "Standard + Hol + Sick" for payroll usage. Timesheet report search also now works from the main timesheet search area (rather than have it's own criteria). This means you can group staff together using tags and use additional search functionality of that area.
• Staff planner has been updated. This is essentially a visual way of assign staff to jobs.
• Stock take button has 3 other modes. This is for aiding stock to be put back/increased if an order gets deleted.
• Tags & Tag group improvements.

News

• We have a part time person starting on the 15th May. Once trained this person will be dedicated to making videos, documentation, training and marketing activities.

All Searches

• Wildcard searching now available (for begins with, ends with, in the middle type searching) - see video: https://www.screencast.com/t/zwz7bzOXxo
• Wildcard searching also in dropdowns.

Purchase/Sales

• Added more info to the quantity tooltip to convey some useful info in case of distraction - see video: https://www.screencast.com/t/O0NS43Ku8yof
• Highlights last amended line when using +/- or scanners and ensure it always becomes visible in a large list and is followed correctly.
• Customer/suppliers can now be displayed globally in the format "Code - Name" as opposed to "Name (Code)", for more code-centric users. This makes them sort by code first in lists.
• In the discount box on a line if you type in say 5 (for £5) then press %, it'll convert that £5 to 5% and do the calculation (a shortcut to keep you on the keyboard instead of finding the % in the dropdown)
• Supplier code now searchable in product dropdown.
• If supplier changed, now a bit more forgiving and ad-hoc items can be retained (non-supplier product lines still need to be removed).
• A product can now be a generic (reusable item). It starts with 0 cost and the cost is specified each time. Typical example includes Freight or generic services. Dropdown can be filtered to just show these.
• Features for better dealing with External freight added.

Sales

• Customer display and digital signatures are implemented, we are using https://www.ers-online.co.uk/o9033/e155834-elo-m-series-10-and-15inch-touch-screen-monitor and pens https://www.ers-online.co.uk/a5005/d82064-000-touch-pen 
  • Customer display lists out items customer has bought along with price and photo (when present), and displays your customer logo at the top.
  • When customer display is idle, a specified folder in Settings can be set and it will work through it showing any images and/or videos contained in the folder for business showcasing. Video to follow.
  • New {Signature} placeholders have been added for Word Templates. When these are present on a template, on the print preview an option to Take Signature becomes available. The customer display then turns into a signing device, and the print name, signature and current date/time is inserted into the print preview and the print preview stored as a file against the item (sales order, purchase order, reservation, job etc.).This can be printed or just stored for internal reference. Very flexible for any kind of document.
• Markup rules have been extended quite a bit and different markups percentages can be applied based on different cost ranges, see Markup Rules (often the higher the cost, the less markup you want to add).
• A TBC unit cost can now be specified. Essentially when you clear the cost on a line, it becomes TBC. Sales orders with TBC cannot be pushed to Sage and must be dealt with first. This has a tie in with external freight (when not yet known yet) but may have other uses also. Sales orders often need to be created in advance for e.g. advice/delivery notes without prices so TBC items can exist to be dealt with later. Sales orders with TBC items can be searched out.

Sage

• Option to turn off site name being appended onto the customer name on the invoice when there is a site present.
• More of the notes field pushed through to Sage Line 50's 3 notes fields (various best fits attempted).

Files

• Files have had a bit of an overhaul.
  • Preview area much larger.
  • File types extended and your own custom properties/fields can be added (e.g. fields you can transpose core scan details onto for searching, noting we also support OCR searching if your scanner has been set up for that).
  • Cross tag search added, e.g. find all purchase orders that have a file that have a certain tag. Useful for virtual rubber stamping file tagging activity, e.g. supplier invoice / purchase orders.
  • Area tags can be set for a file, for example in the case of jobs, we recommend creating tags for each job type, then those tags can be associated with various files such as procedures, and when the tag is selected on a job, it will gain all the relevant files. Video to follow.
  • Everything gets converted to PDF now so that is potentially searchable. This including dragging and dropping of emails from Outlook into files areas.

Jobs

• Added a field Timesheet Template. Empty by default, but if set some default text can form the basis of the timesheet description, this might be a simple form or prompt to record something for a particular job and will appear on the timesheet app.
• File approval implemented (timesheet app, desktop). Send out procedures depending on job type (noting the file tags above to quickly populate files for a job type). Staff must read and approve the procedure before they can submit a timesheet. A list of approvals is then held against the job for audit trail purposes. Add any PDF you want to form a procedure, checklist etc.
• Assets shown on mobile app (if you have asset module) and a job can be update an assets service schedule (the asset test or service can be selected on the job and it will move it on once job is complete).
• Timesheet report - you can filter some users out of it (Staff > Timesheet required field added).

Documentation

• Have fleshed out more documentation but more to do. 
• Aiming to capture various workflows and concepts because a lot can be achieved through saved searching and tagging.

General

• Many items in the list/grid can now be right clicked an Apply to all and Apply from this line onwards selected a simple generic shortcut for fast population.
• Customer Sites - can now be set Active/Inactive and the default active is only shown in dropdowns (but can switch into inactive like other dropdowns).
• Word Template dedicated printers now enhanced. See help how to deal with multi-trays and different printing strategies.
• Option to only search code and name in a dropdown (vs searching all shown fields), for more code centric users so dropdowns will show exact results.
• Tags display at the top right of items to make them more obvious.
• Splash screen displays as soon as possible and startup time improved.
• Update server speed improvements.
• Various bug fixes.

• Status brought forward in bulk actions dialogs for easier access (Sales, Purchasing, Job, Hire).
• Sales/Purchase orders - last scanned or added via +/- buttons item should stay visible in list and will scroll to it.
• Job Invoicing - detailed pre-Sage preview added in a second tab.
• Saved search management improved in settings (default, active and user assigned to visible in main list).
• Settings > Pair Mobile is a slightly quicker way of getting to the staff QR code for pairing, and QR code now auto generated.
• Various fixes and validation improvements.

• For Sage (or alternative accounts package) Customers/Suppliers deleted there are now made inactive in EaseSuite when synchronised (previously just went by Sage active state but deleted records from accounts package still remained active our side).
• In Sales / Purchases / Job / Invoice Preview dialogs the Next Actions area (or corresponding section bellow) is now collapsible to extend visible lines (useful if there are many to remove letterbox effect). Some areas also have a fullscreen toggle button - see video https://app.screencast.com/ni7dg0LmBLQ4o 
• Application should now shut down more gracefully when a database connection is lost (happens when server reboots overnight due to backup or updates and the client is left open).
• Various bug fixes.

• Sales Order discounts - choosing the percentage in the dropdown can now apply to the current line only (as was), apply to all lines, or apply to current line onwards (noting you can drag undiscounted lines to above or to help group them by different %) for quicker entry. The percentage is also now stated in Discount Reason. A Discount Calculation setting (Building Settings > Sales) was also added and allows two modes: calculate discount on item price, round, then multiply by quantity, or calculate % at sub total level (both very similar but rounding differences, for those that are used to the latter).
• A new setting Invoice combine mode (Building Settings > Sales) allows for sales orders with same customer/job to be merged into one invoice when pushed to Sage/Accounts Package when multiple are selected.
• Orders/Timesheets - when going down through a price or quantity cell using arrow keys, the cell would sometimes select all, sometimes not, now consistent (selects content for overwrite mode, which is easier when transposing).
• Stores Mobile App - new Setting added to allow application to exit when docked.
• Equipment Hire module enhancements.
• Database tables updated for synchronisation (database can sync between physical sites is being implemented for multi-location clients).
• Various bug fixes.

• Sage Customer/Supplier import now quicker as only looks for changes since last. Full imports can still be done in Settings > Background Tasks > New Task then selecting customer/supplier import full.
• Sage Line v50 updated to look at more recent address tables (fixes a delivery address issue).
• Sage Job push (simplifying) doesn't ask for options now since most of the time this is a set once/set as default and forget. If required, it is available pressing Options button in the job preview screen. Similarly, it doesn't ask to refresh data after the push since this is usually always desirable.
• Default Travel Rate Accounts Category can be set in settings (for when consistent).
• Pressing F1 takes up context sensitive interactive help in many areas now.
• Various bug fixes, speed ups and enhancements.

• Products
  • Sell price rules, as well as adding markup, can now optionally round up or down to a nearest decimal (e.g. .99,.95,.00).
• Sales
  • 3 options allow On Account, Card, Cash, which will quickly selects the generic customer accounts for card & cash when taking the order. The card and cash customers are defined in settings.
• Jobs:
  • Work Completed status added (when additional job statuses switched on)
• Timesheets:
  • Each role with charge rate in Settings can now be extended to link with customer groups (tags), allowing varying charge rates for different customers if appropriate. For example customers with a specific tag can influence the timesheet hourly charge rates to go up or down for a specific role to allow automatic pricing when a customer has different charge rates.
  • Various report updates, there are now 5 to choose from.
  • Reporting searching above and timesheet search offers the option to search within the payroll month range (i.e. the cut off date just before end of month) for current or previous month. Payroll daty set in settings, defaulting to 25th.
  • Timesheet can be approved directly on line now (new tick button next to status) or from Job tab when viewing them as part of a job, allowing them to be approved there too now.
• Sage job invoice: can be ordered by labour or sales first (for non bespoke Sage push).
• Search enhancements:
  • The date range selection button now offers a lot more date ranges, including older than, newer than, and financial year quarterly tie ins. Using with Saved Searches allows the flagging of items older than x or newer than e.g. last week, with these being relative (saved search recall takes range to today).
  • In the search grid right click on any cell and Preview Cell can be selected. This is useful for longer notes or text fields and will grow the rows height to show the selected preview cell field (to a maximum of 5 lines) allowing you to inspect the content in the search results over records without opening each. Select again to come out of this mode (or reopen search).
• Files/Scans
  • File inner contents can now be searched by ticking on Search Content. Note scanner software needs to have OCR (optical character recognition) enabled so the text data is also put into the PDF file as scanned, which most offer.
• Various purchasing & jobs bug fixes and improvements.

Various updates:

• All areas have a simple search box at the top now. The advanced search is now accessible using a button (or Alt + A). This is to make things a bit simpler for new users and to increase visible search results, since most searches are done using the free search text box (this functions the same by the way, with commas etc.). The search box also has a pulldown for Saved Search to quickly load one up.
  If you don't like this, then Settings > General > My Settings (and at the bottom) Default to advanced search will bring it back to how it was before.
• Product search is gone (if you ever used it), there is now just a single Stock search that shows all. All products get a default Unassigned location if they weren't assigned somewhere before.
• We've overhauled Purchases a bit. Deliveries are simpler - where you ordered a stock from, is where it will go to when a delivery is received, with the option to move it somewhere else afterwards via the new Move Stock screen (accessible when receiving a delivery or Move Stock in the stock search). This is for those with van stock or multi-building, if you have a single building there is no need to Move Stock.
• Deliveries are editable, so can go in and make stock adjustments if you got something wrong and it will adjust stock levels accordingly from an edit (adjust the difference only).
• Customer reservations have been improved when converting a purchase to one or more sales orders, with the layout easier to follow now.
• Remove Barcode added to barcode modes in main desktop application stock screen (mirroring mobile functionality and a quick way of re-pairing a barcode).
• Email signature can take pictures, or if left blank in settings, will now use your Outlook signature.
• Purchase orders and sales order lines now have a List Products button underneath, which will open all products on them in a new stock tab for quickly locating the list. Customer reservations also have similar for listing sales orders.
• Purchase supplier last discount is now searchable.
• Sage
  • Customers / suppliers on-hold/active status could be wrongly interpreted depending on your Sage settings
  • In settings a preferred Sage email can be picked for line 50 (Email 1, 2 or 3) for a customer or supplier and import will prefer that one instead, i.e. if for suppliers you have an email for ordering and one for remittances.
• Various fixes and speed improvements.

• History tab loading time improved (various dialogs)
• Unnecessary history entries were getting added (fixed)
• Stock take - now recording item's cost price at time of stock take for later cost reporting/valuations
• Settings - scrollbar could prevent plus button being clicked
• POS screen beta
• Company/building restructure (for multi-site locations), some settings moved
• Supplier minimum reorder total cost added for purchases (can ensure discounts or freight cost effective)
• Customer's can be flagged as always requiring a PO number for sales and the sale order will require this before it can be saved
• "On hold" hooked up from Sage, message displayed if customer/supplier selected on SO/PO to prevent undesired sale/purchase
• Payment dialog improvements/fixes
• Customer display integration made generic (Epson)
• Tags - now have their own filter within search areas and are also ordered naturally if numbered (to prevent 1, 10, 2)
• Stock replenishment bug fixes
• Locking can now utilise staff tags for enhanced security between departments and rules can set them at different stages
• Sales order number reverted back into prompt rather than temporary green message
• Stock mobile app "+" button appears in first page now for manual adding
• Additional stock placeholders made available for template printing

• The first purchase order for a product for a new supplier will use the line's unit price to update the supplier's cost price if it is at 0.00 (mobile app new supplier tie in / first supplier order sets cost price, which useful for other areas too)
• "Tied down" computers can now see the job column in sales order search list

• View button added to product edit dialog, which allows purchases or sales that feature this product to be viewed in separate lists (for e.g. applying bulk actions to, price checking/usage, or a reverse way of finding from product etc.).
• View button added to the jobs edit dialog, which allows timesheets, sales orders or purchases attached to this job to be viewed in their own lists (for e.g. applying bulk actions to).
• Purchases and sales orders that are in early stages no longer require a single line to be present and can be saved without, to be added to later.
• Stats efficiencies - stats are now not realtime but produced nightly on the server, which should see a speed improvement for large data sets and reduce network activity between client and server.
• Sage invoicing tweaks and options added for a variety of summarisations. Greater activity logging for troubleshooting.
• Timesheet transport cost fixes.
• Locked jobs can't get sales orders or timesheets added to them via outside means.

• "Send from email address" added in settings (for when emailing a report, this one gets used instead of yours, e.g. useful for accounts email addresses)
• Signature added in settings, which gets appended to emails when sending (for when global signature required).
• We've introduced the first version of a form & procedure builder, where you can design one of these items against a file type in an interactive designer. Each file type can relate to an external file (scan) or have one of these custom internal types selected for utilising these specific internal builders.
• These designers allow you to create fully customisable forms or procedures for files/scans, which can then be input by users. Each field input is searchable. This is useful if you need to extract specific core information from a scan or go into detail for specific forms or procedures for jobs. This is an extension of the previous custom fields but with a lot more features, including ability to produce form templates for printing/emailing using the existing template system.
• A revisioning system is in place for files, meaning forms, procedures, or anything else can have different revisions over time. For example, some jobs may be carried out using earlier versions of procedures or forms, which can change considerably as new legislation requires, so this becomes a benefit for auditing and compliance showing what rules were followed at what time.
• Any area (e.g. jobs, POs, SO) can now automatically get furnished with certain files, such as forms, procedures or any other scan through the use of tags. For example, create a job, tick a specific tag, and if that matches the file type's tag, it will immediate gain the current revision of those documents on creation. Job files get delivered to mobile app users, so this is useful to ensure procedures don't get missed. It also allows specific forms or procedures to be followed in different areas for more regulated operations/quality control.

• Application chat has been added
• Access it by clicking the chat icon top right of the application
• Choose a person, type message, then send
• "Relates To" shows a list of open forms (sales orders, purchase orders, jobs etc.). You may select one to chat about this item. When you view the item, you'll see a history of the chat in the new "chat" tab.
• Staff images can be added in staff
• If you are utilising the mobile app, you can send messages to mobile users and they can send message back, similarly selecting items to talk about (or general chat)

• Scans has been renamed Files
• Each file can now be revised, and be put between Draft, Live or Archived, with a revision number set
• Use default saved search to exclude types you don't want to see, e.g. draft or archived by default
• If a new scan comes along, you can revise the existing and archive it, then update associations with the new references (if desired, see job example below)
• This can be important when associating scanned procedures or forms with a job. At a point in time, it can be seen what job followed what revision of procedure/form, with new revisions coming to replace it on future jobs and archive the older versions, yet still retain them and see where they were used on older jobs for compliance/auditing/investigation purposes

Various links have been added when POs/Jobs/SOs are created in Sage Cloud (View Info), with the link taking you straight to the online record.

In supplier / customer areas links are shown on the record and in the search list to take you to Sage Cloud to view or add more suppliers / customers.

The tablet search bar, accessible in the stock screen, makes stock taking easy with large buttons, quantity, and search box. It sets the quantity and last verified date and who by when the tick is pressed.

Tags can:

• Now be grouped. Tag groups allow similar tags to be grouped together and they will be kept together in search lists and when selecting. These can be set in settings.
• Each tag group can dictate where a) one tag allowed or b) at least one tag is mandatory for the item to help ensure they are selected correctly.
• Each tag can have a different colour, which can be set in settings.
• Scanned document tags can appear over the top of scans like stamps, e.g.Paid, To Check, Faulty, and use the colour coding for easy status checking.

• Email attachments, or even whole messages themselves can be dragged straight from Outlook into the files sections of a purchase order, sales order, job, product (or any other item with files) to associate them. Previously you had to save the attachments first before dragging them on.
• We've started work on a "trainer" that can extract email content from the likes of Amazon/Ebay/Paypal into a purchase order and automatically attempt to create lines and fill in other info from the email, saving a lot of admin time transposing. We'll ship with Amazon/Ebay/Paypal trainers by default, but it will be possible to make your own after you've done it once for a supplier. (Beta)

Saved search notifications have been improved.

• Notifications can be specified when records are found or not found (and more)
• A saved search can look against a related saved search, then notify/run based on it's results
• The notification can trigger for one saved search, then lead to the results of another (on notifications/dashboard)

Here is an example of typical use for recurring sales orders:

• For a sales order, add in a tag "Recurring Monthly"
• Create a saved search "Last month's recurring sales orders", which should search for "Last Month" on order date and contain the tag "Recurring Monthly"
• Create another saved search "Notification for this month's recurring sales orders", doing similar but looking at this month instead
• For this saved search, pick the related saved search to be "Last month's recurring sales orders" and set notify when to "Related Record Count Greater Than This" and tick "Use Related Search For Notification Listings" (optional).
• What this does is trigger a notification if you have more recurring sales orders last month than you do this month, then from the notification lists last months recurring invoices are shown.
• You can then start cloning those that are missing into this months, or if they should no longer recur then you can simply remove the tag from last months to stop them recurring and the notification.
• This is just one example. The feature is powerful and can be used for many more notification uses.

In purchasing and sales search listings in the Tags search, there is now a new dropdown box that lets you do the following for example (purchasing):

• Find orders containing one or more purchasing tag(s) (as before)
• Find orders containing one or more product tag(s) by selecting "Has Products With Tag(s)" first
• Find orders containing one or more supplier tag(s) by selecting "Has Supplier With Tag(s)" first

The same is implemented for sales orders.

• File types (Settings)
  • Can now have their own code prefix, so when you add a file, select type, it can code it by that type (for ISO9001)
  • Print out dialog now has option to attach associate files from a SO/PO/Job onto the email as well as the generated PDF (useful for e.g. statements, quotes that also need to be send with the item). The files that are to be emailed are set by file type in settings, so files of that type will be attached by default.
• Various job/invoicing update enhancements, which allow for internal invoice templates to be used before or after Sage push
• More search fields added to timesheet search
• Complex accounts category population reworked into rules for greater flexibility
• Various synchronisation and enhancements for mobile app, including customisable status filter option for what transfers to app and what doesn't
• Staff map screen added in application for determining mobile app user's last location (updated every 5 minutes when has signal). This requires registration for a Microsoft key (contact us for info).
• More placeholders added for various templates (viewable in Settings > Placeholders)

• Sales orders
  • VAT Exempt dropped (now goes by 0 rate VAT instead, if 0 all lines 0, if not lines will pick up VAT regularly)
• Jobs
  • Total purchase amount now totalled on jobs, alongside sales orders and timesheet totals
  • Recalculate job totals button added
  • Option to turn off timesheet billing (for e.g. fixed price or using service sales orders only, staff timesheets are counted as normal but not billed).
  • 3 new status's added - Enquiry, On hold & Awaiting Invoicing (a state before complete)
  • In progress status can either be set manually or automatically by switching on a setting (when automatic, job put into in progress when the start date arrives)
  • Job invoice options enhanced with many new options for filtering what you want to bill and how it's laid out
• Timesheets
  • Added charge and hour adjustment with reason, allowing billable hours to be adjusted from actual staff hours before invoicing
• Purchase orders
  • Added sales price rule selection on reservations, making clear what markup will be added and allowing the chance to change on the fly before converting to sales order
  • Supplier invoice no / supplier invoice date added as search columns
  • Showing created sales order(s) as search column and additional reservation info
  • Reservation search field enhancement
• Payment areas / information can now be turned off/hidden (when fully dealt with in Sage)

We've introduced the initial version of this and will be shipping with some inbuilt rules that can be enabled.

Create rules, such as:

• Auto-lock a sales or purchase order when invoiced (when locked, no more changes can be made)
• Automatically set & progress statuses based on other information
• Apply discounts on a line when customer & product tags match, for example creating flexible loyalty/contract-based discounts
• And a flexible amount of other rules on various items achievable
• The setting of accounts categories on lines can now be achieved by rules/tags

The EaseSuite login form, which if enabled appears after a timeout or computer lock, is now less intrusive. It appears with a minimise button now and may be minimised. The application will also now no longer display until credentials supplied or cancelled (to close).

We've added Update Field & Update Value to the bulk update option, available on several search screens.

After selecting one or more records, you can pick a field such as status, then choose what to change it to, which will affect all selected records at once.

The concept of goods & services has been added throughout the system.

• A product can be goods (i.e. physical stock) or a service (i.e. utility bill, 3rd party service purchased or service sold)
• On each sales order & purchase order line, there is now "Supply Type", which can either be goods or service
• Customers & suppliers can have a default supply type set (goods or service) and this will default onto the so/po lines when creating a new order (note when selecting a product, it's supply type is used instead)
• Customers, suppliers & stock/products can now be searched by supply type
• Supply type can be set in bulk using the "Bulk Update" functionality, which is available in the 3 areas mentioned for quick population
• Goods/service lines carry onto Sage cloud invoices for European customers & suppliers and thus onto ECSL submissions

Features:

• Create sales orders/credits, both full invoices and quick entries
• Create purchase invoices/credits, both full invoices and quick entries
• Supplier download/sync
• Customer download/sync
• VAT rates and accounts category/sync

Based on customer feedback we've modified the way codes auto generate (sales orders, purchase orders, jobs).

Instead of supplying a provisional number that may change if it is allocated elsewhere in the interim by another user, we're now only generating this number at time of save and it will only appear then. Whilst the previous approach was OK for infrequent orders, in a multi-user situation it lead to showing a number that may not be final and be wrongly supplied before items were finalised, so we've opted to hide it until final, which also solves number conflicts.

Along with this we've left in the flexibility of different prefixes, since often customers use prefixing as a categorisation. Numbers run sequentially per prefix.

The generated number can also be manually changed after save, retaining this functionality, for cases where e.g. a purchase order number book is being followed and they need to match/ be aligned.

• When a listing refreshed after saving, occasionally fields would be blank when the list immediately refreshed (the workaround was to re-search to reflect up-to-date list). This happened in slower network conditions but should now be resolved.

All grids now show record position and count (searches, sales/po lines etc.)

• Sage Line v50 (desktop)
  • Sage customers & supplier import now much faster and it only processes records from Sage that have changed or are new
  • Importing occasionally stopping mid way now fixed
  • Percentage indicator added
  • More customer/supplier fields coming through, such as website
  • Address handling now much improved by hooking into new Sage fields, plus address fallbacks e.g. the contact address is used instead of registered if registered is not found (usually a legacy data issue)
  • As a consequence of improvements, support for early Sage versions is now dropped. Was backwards compatible to v12, but now from around v19/20 to match customers
• Sage Cloud initial release
  • This can pull in accounts categories, VAT rates, customers and suppliers from online Sage Cloud
  • Invoice and purchase order pushing is currently in progress, but all the groundwork has been set for it. We will be implementing quick entries, which push straight to the ledger.

• Customers, suppliers, recent activity and staff planner added to "Start Area" (individual users can choose what area they wish to start on when the application opens)
• Minor bug fixes
• The DirectX issue mentioned in the previous release has been resolved and the setting can be turned back on in Settings (essentially when on graphics card hardware acceleration is used for faster rendering)

• Currently there are minor issues with cells overspilling text or top aligning text when they contain highlighted regions after using search. To solve this in the interim there is a new option in Settings > My Settings > Force DirectX. Turning this off fixes these issues at the expense of slightly slower rendering if you find this is affecting you. It can be turned on again in a future update once the DirectX component rendering issues are resolved.
• Minor bug fixes in purchasing & timesheets, additional timesheet search fields

• When viewing product images in the product dialog, there is now a right click > Export option on the image which allows it to be exported. This is useful if you want to re-use the same image elsewhere but have lost the source file.
• Next to the +/- buttons in search is now an info "i" button. This shows flyout information on the product now instead of the timed hover over delay, which could be annoying.

These supply us with a number of useful information about a PC to help troubleshoot and individual computers issues quickly.

• As well as send usage stats, a view usage stats is also available under the top-right help menu.
• Some network speed metrics have been added, which report network card speeds (states if below recommended) and packet loss, as well as timings for a query to the database. This gives insight into network conditions and allows comparing the metrics of fast PCs with slower one in order to troubleshoot specific circumstances.

• When clicking the "+" button in the stock search area to create a new purchase order from a stock record, it will now look for PO windows that are open for the same supplier and add the item to that order (if multiple open for same supplier, it will prefer the last one you had focused).
• If a window is not found, it will create a new purchase order for that product's supplier, allowing you to start (or add to existing, see next) multiple purchase orders from the stock search screen.
• You may open any existing order(s) first that you want added to from the stock search and the "+" button will add to them if they are the set to the same supplier as the product (otherwise it will create a new order per previous).
• If there are multiple suppliers supplying the product, you will be asked to select which supplier you want.
• This removes the one PO window/same supplier limitation of the "+" button. 
• Used in combination with barcode scanning/tablet you can go around stock isles and build up multiple purchase orders for different suppliers by visibly finding low stock and scanning items to build up quantities, which will be correctly directed onto any open purchase orders (or new created).
• Note you cannot create a sales order from "+" button until all purchase order windows are closed (once one or more purchase orders are open, the stock search goes into purchase add mode, likewise if you begin with a sales order).
• Note the "-" button in stock search will now attempt to remove from the last focused window when multiple purchase orders are open.
• Note there are no changes to sales orders when clicking "+", they are still singular when adding from the stock search screen (one at a time, which makes sense).
• Note clicking "+" from a stock item will now focus/bring into view an existing line with the stock item when adding to it (PO and SO), useful for large orders will many lines.

• Timesheets can now be approved (or unapproved). This is for the forthcoming mobile application where you may want to assume staff time is unapproved first before someone checks it off/tidies it up and approves.
• One or more timesheets can be selected and approve/unapprove buttons used on the left to set their status.
• The default behaviour for a new timesheet can set in Settings > General > Jobs, i.e. they can automatically go to approved if you want to assume correct before unapproving by default.

• Jobs can now be fixed price, with eiher fixed price labour, materials, or both. This tails of the maximum that can be billed.
• Fixed price can be set and adjusted (or even removed) at any time.
• Associated labour (timesheets) and sales orders (stock/hire) will be totalled individually on the job as a separate statistic. This allows you to see at anytime how the fixed price is looking compared to what the costs/charges would otherwise be on a non-fixed price job.
• The "Cost Analysis" section on the job form breaks down costs/charges/profits and now adds extra information for fixed price labour/materials. This is hidden in "sensitive mode" or for users with non-access to sensitive information.

When you save a record and there are errors due to invalid or missed entry, affected fields will now be outlined in red as well as have the small cross (and appear in the popup dialog as before). 

If the field is in a tab, the tab will also now be outlined in red with a small cross. 

These changes make it easier to locate where the validation problem is in complex forms and to fix.

Flyovers, which show usual information and imagery in several areas such as when hovering over a staff members name, or a product line in a purchase or sales order, are now also available with an "i" icon in some places. This allows the information to be shown instantly instead of waiting a couple of seconds for it to be displayed when hovered over.

The behaviour of VAT on sales order lines has changed to be closer to Sage.

• If a customer is VAT exempt, each line will now take on the customer's VAT rate and code, i.e. T0/0% for example, and the lines will not calculate VAT.
• Previously VAT was calculated per product but then removed at the sales order total stage and also on the Sage invoice lines for VAT exempt customers. This meant the invoice produced in Sage was correct and sales order final totals were correct, but workings on the sales order lines displayed incorrectly for a VAT exempt customer.
• Our "VAT Exempt" checkbox is loosely equivalent to "Use Default Tax Code for Sales" and the "Default Tax Code" pairing on the customer record in Sage, but behaves slightly different (generally reaching the same result) in that:
  • When "VAT Exempt", the customer's tax code is put against product lines instead of using the products (e.g. T0, 0%), it is the equivalent of "Use Default Tax Code for Sales". In this case, it is best the customer's default tax code is an exemption tax code, otherwise they will take on whatever is there and the line(s) will need manual adjustment.
  • When not "VAT Exempt", the product's VAT rate is used (e.g. T1 20%, T5 5%).
• Note VAT Exempt is set per customer (then is the default for the sales order when they are selected), but there is also an opportunity to uncheck it at sales order stage should a different VAT setup be needed for a particular case and VAT rates are selectable per line there. This is also left in for edge case scenarios.
• Please note (breaking change): any sales orders that have been created for VAT exempt customers but yet to be invoiced will need line adjustment to the 0% tax rate to go through to Sage correctly (or they could be corrected afterwards in Sage). This is because in this release we no longer correct the invoice line for Sage afterwards, instead we respect what the selected tax code is per sales order line (which is now set correctly for new orders) for a straight push through. This solves various edge cases and consistency issues.
  • The easiest way of dealing with these pending sales orders is to open them and toggle the "VAT exempt" twice (once to change, once to move back to what it was). This will correct the VAT on lines, then save the record and invoice as normal.

• This means you have a new desktop shortcut icon EaseSuite. The StockEase icon will no longer work but can be deleted.

• Pressing CTRL + L in the application will open up a quick launch text entry top left. From here you can start typing the first few letters of the area name e.g. "sales" then press enter to go directly to that area. Similarly you can type e.g. "new sales order" to open a new sales order. This works for all areas and can be a very fast way of navigating. 
• We will look to extend it with more entries in later releases.

• Each asset can now have an unlimited number of services or tests associated with it, with different frequencies, start dates associated with each
• More complex case test/service logic can be specified for greater frequency control, e.g. a service every year but on the 4th this is replaced by a test

• An extremely detailed price rule structure is now implemented allowing for the most detailed customisation of price degrading over time. For example, a hire item can be X on day one, Y on 2-5 days, Z on 5 days plus etc. Units can begin from hours, go to days, weeks, or even into years. 
• All periods and prices are customisable, starting from after 1 hour onwards
• A clever percentage system allows bulk price updates should price rules be revamped at any time