Productivity Suite future plans

Release details

Major features

Sales Assistant: restrict dropdowns on invoice creator and sales order creator

• Same restrictions as for POC for the dropdowns (but with customer instead of supplier)

POC: expenses feature

• A new dropdown will define the request type:
  1. A normal PO (existing functionality);
  2. An expense paid by company card in advance (this produces a PO which when approved can have deliveries recorded against it or can be completed without receiving deliveries, but will result in no purchase invoice as the payment will be dealt with elsewhere when the card is paid off);
  3. An expense paid by personal card to be reimbursed (this produces a PO against a supplier account which is created for and linked to the user requesting the PO, and at the end will result in a purchase invoice so that the employee can be reimbursed).
     N.B. The supplier account created for the employee will be locked once selected by the POC administrator.

POC: use email addresses on supplier records not present in Sage Accounts

• There are three email addresses available in Sage against a supplier but other addresses may be required. We will provide a new supplier admin screen in POC web. This would have the three emails from Sage automatically populated, but it would allow you to enter some more email addresses against the supplier. Against each email address, there would be a tick box which would say "Email PO". Multiple email addresses against the supplier can be ticked. There would be additional Settings indicating that Auto Emailing is required. If this is ticked (and there is at least one email against the Supplier with the "Email PO" ticked) then the PO would be automatically emailed to the appropriate addresses when it is authorised.

Minor features

POC: require multiple approvals in a team before the PO is regarded as "approved" within that team

• Specify the number of approvals that are required for a PO to be approved. E.g. there are three approvers, and the rule is that two of them must approve it before it can leave the approval team. It will then be created if both those approvers had the sufficient level of financial control to give final approval on that PO. Otherwise, it will be escalated to the parent team.

POC: allow memorised POs to be shared between users

• Add a property of "shared" to the memorised POs table, and include it in the index so POs can be shared between users under a unique name, but also different users can use the same name to save private memorised POs.

POC web: show session timeout warning in browser before the session times out on the server

• Currently, when the session times out on the web server after 24 minutes, the user has no indication of this in the browser. It's unlikely someone would not act within that time, but one customer has reported it.

POC: allow for nominals to be put on hold when budgets are exceeded

• Add an option in POC system settings so that - in conjunction with the option to suppress budget exceeded warning messages - selected nominals can be put on hold so that the warning does get displayed for that nominal, and the user is not allowed to request that PO.

POC: allow PO list columns to be sortable

• Some fields in the PO database table are not held at table level, so they cannot be sorted by. Add these fields to the table so that sorting is possible for all other PO list fields.

POC: show dropdown with all user names to allow for filtering by any name on the PO list

• For users who are allowed to see all POs, add all user names to the filter by dropdown on the PO list.

POC: export to Excel using sorting and status settings on the PO list screen

• The user can change the sorting of the PO list, and (in a future release) will be able to select the status settings shown. The Excel output should respect these settings.

POC: allow approval/rejection reason via web when clicking email link

• The approval or rejection message can be entered via the desktop application and also the webapp, but not when clicking approve/reject links in notification emails. This needs to be added.

POC: combine orders to suppliers into one PDF

• Allow for multiple selection of orders and the generation of multiple or a single PDF to be sent to the supplier.

POC: default the purchase nominals from the chart of accounts.

• Default the purchase nominals used as a global restriction list to be the purchase nominals defined by the default (or a selected) chart of accounts.

Back to Back Ordering: allow for part allocation and allow for customer order number to be saved on PO

• Add an option to untick order lines to allow for part fulfilment, plus quantity options if the whole line doesn't need to be ordered from a supplier. Also add an option for the customer order number to be placed in a selected field (PO notes 1, 2 or 3, or supplier order number).

CC: add multiple internal reporting email addresses

• Add a setting in to allow multiple internal reporting addresses. (A customer needs to be able to send the internal reports to a team manager and the credit control team.)

POC: read PO updates (including deliveries recorded) in Sage and update POs in POC accordingly

• Currently, the information flows one way from POC to Sage. If a user records a delivery or amends a PO in Sage, that change should flow back into POC to keep the systems in step.

CC: add option to send email to internal contact as a PDF

• The reminder emails are currently sent directly to customers, but for users who don't want to send emails and instead want to print out letters and post them, send all emails to the internal email address and add a task to the calendar view to say that the letter needs to be sent out. Ticking the task off as complete will update the communication history in Sage Accounts.

CC: add tasks to calendar view tab

• The calendar view shows what emails and printed letters are sent out on each day. Include the option to not chase invoices on this screen. Also allow for tasks (letters to be printed and posted) on the calendar view.

POC: add request creation of new supplier to POC

• Allow POC users to request creation of a new supplier -> goes through normal authorisation channel, automatically escalated until a user is found who has permission to confirm creation of suppliers.

CC: add ability to delete (unused) reminder patterns; allow bulk selection from dashboard view

• If a reminder pattern is no longer needed, then the new button allows for its deletion, but only if it's not assigned to any customer accounts. The dashboard view needs to show the reminder pattern for all customers and allow a method of bulk selecting to assign to many customers in one go.

POC: require optional login to validate approval/rejection via email link

• The emails containing approve/reject links can be forwarded on, so to ensure that the links in the emails can't be used by anyone else, add an optional login requirement to make sure the same user who clicked the link is the one who originally received the email. This option will be controlled via POC system settings.

CC: show history (and planned emails) per customer

• The calendar shows all emails sent out previously and all future planned emails, but add a link to the customer record to show this for a specific customer.

Code Changer: change bank rec file

• When a bank reconciliation is run, this information is kept in the bank rec data file. This needs to be changed as well (only from v25).

CC: make email subjects configurable

• The subject of reminder and statement emails sent out is not configurable. Make this configurable per customer group.

POC: add a button to change the supplier address

• The supplier address used on a PO is usually the supplier's main address, but it could be a depot or satellite office address. A button offering the selected supplier's addresses would help fill this in.

POC web: add settings to restrict the order date

• At the moment the order date can be any date entered. Add new settings so that the order date can be locked to current date, and also to independently disallow past and future dates.

POC web: add a button to request invoice from supplier

• If an order has been delivered (or part-delivered) but the invoice hasn't been received from the supplier, add a button to the PO (if it's in the a relevant state only) to chase the supplier for the invoice. The email that gets sent will be taken from a template set up in the settings area of POC web. The default template will be along the lines of “We haven’t received the invoice for purchase order #X. Please could you send it to us”.

POC web: make PO list column headings optional

• Make existing headings optional (per user, per group, per company or per licence - to be decided), in particular make it possible to hide the sage PO ref. column and add in global project ref. and name.

CC: don't show future invoices on reminders and statements

• Currently, the "other invoices and credits" shows anything not covered by the reminder being processed. Add another replacement which only shows those which have a due date which has passed by the time the reminder or statement email is sent.

CC: have an invoice template setting per customer group, and individual customer level override

• Currently there is just one invoice template, but more can be added and then selected at customer group level, with a further option to override at individual customer level.

CC: report to show emails sent in a selected date range

• Another report for the webapp version of Credit Controller. (Customer request: the ability to add chase notes in on Credit Controller to pull onto the said report before, also to add an outcome if the customer has promised payment, for it to then remove from future reminders.)

POC web: use the supplier invoice rules to preset the due date when invoicing

• The due date field on a purchase invoice is currently not set, but it should be set using supplier invoicing due date rules to take into account any terms given by the supplier.