Release Notes for Connected Business 14
Release Date: 03-28-2014

New Features and Key Benefits

General

• Import Manager now run as an application.
• The Import Manager application is 32-bit ONLY, however, it can be executed in 64-bit system regardless of the MS Office version. For more information, refer to Run Import Manager in Connected Business v14.
• Support for MS SQL Server 2012
• Support for MS .NET Framework 4.5
• Support for x86 and x64 MS Windows Platforms
• Optimized web services for US region. Web services for the rest of the regions (e.g AU, UK, etc) will be addressed in future releases.

eCommerce

• New! In-Store Pickup
• Customers can now pick up their orders directly from the store location.
• New! Gift Card/Certificate
• Customers can now purchase and redeem gift cards/certificates directly from the webstore.
• New! Loyalty Points
• Customers can now earn and redeem loyalty points when buying items from the webstore.
• New! Virtual Pages
• You can now assign virtual pages to show items from one category to another, show helpful topics, or even load a website within the webstore.
• New! Invoice Online Payment
• Customers can now partially or fully pay their open/unpaid invoices directly from the webstore.

CRM

• New! Duplicate CRM Activity
• You can now duplicate CRM activities to save time when creating new activities.

Customer

• New! Gift Card/Certificate: Purchase, redeem, recharge, and apply gift cards/certificates directly within Connected Business.)
• New! Loyalty Points: (Track, earn, and redeem customer loyalty points from within Connected Business.)
  Note: Default values for loyalty points purchase and redemption multiplier have been updated, wherein, the purchase multiplier is now set to 100 and the redemption multiplier is now set to 0.01. In line with these changes, users who are already using loyalty points in their system must;
  1) Manually change the multiplier defaults.
  2) Update customer available points (if there is any) from the Adjustment form.
• New! Apply Credit on SO and Invoice: You can now apply existing customer credits (credit memo and opening credits) directly from the sales order or invoice form.
• New! Customer Payment Allocation Usability Enhancement: The total amount to be paid is now automatically entered upon selecting the invoice/s when creating new customer payments.
• New! Void Payment on SO/Invoice: Allocated customer payments on sales order/s or invoice/s can now be voided directly from the Receipt form.
• New! Location Taxation: Set up tax based on the pick-up location.
• New! Set Default Website on Phone Orders: Pay phone orders online based on the defined default website.
• New! Default Selling UM: Unit of measures for items added on the sales order is now set by default to the selling UM.
• New! Online Payment Integration: Invoice sent via email now has a URL link that allows the customer to pay the invoice online.

Shipping

• New! Fedex Smart Post Rates: Shipping rates for FedEx Smart Post service can now be viewed.
• New! USPS Address Validation: Customer address can now be validated by comparing the data directly from the USPS database.

Supplier

• New! Addendum on Auto Generate PO Wizard: Validate the quantity of items to be ordered, when auto generating purchase orders for your suppliers, with the Use Supplier Minimum Quantity option. 
• New! Supplier Receipt Enhancement: Easily process supplier receipts using the new simplified Supplier Receipt form. Also, supplier receipts can now be applied to debit memos directly from the Debit Memo form.
• New! Ability to Save and Post Bill: You can now save and edit bills before posting.
• New! Supplier Internal and Public Notes: Internal and public notes are now added on supplier transactions screens.

Inventory

• New! Gift Card/Certificate Setup: Setting up of gift cards and gift certificates now supported.
• New! Rounding Rules in Item Pricing Wizard: Streamline the pricing process for your items by defining rounding rules.
• New! Store Hours Info on Location: You can now set up store hours to be displayed on the web store for customers with pickup orders.
• New! Selling UM: You can now set the default unit of measure for selling products.

Accounting

• New! Retrospective Analysis: Retrace and review your receivables, payables, and product stock info as far back based on a specified period or date.
• New! Financial Reports by Period Range: You can now view your financial statements by period directly from the Financial Reports option.

System Manager

• New! Audit Trail Purge and Archive: Save database storage and keep important logs by deleting and/or archiving audit trail logs.
• New! Locked Account (Idle Users): View and log out users from different locations.

Reports

• New! Edit System Report: You can now modify the layout, sub report, and email template of system reports.
• New and Enhanced Report Designing: Easily create and modify reports with the simplified report designer.
• New! Mail Merge Support: Easily create and send customized reports thru email and fax using Mail Merge.
• New! Rich Text Format Support: You can now add and use format text and images on email and fax templates.

Connected Sale

• New! Customer PO Field: Track and cross-reference sale transactions by entering the PO transaction code in POS.
• New! Add New Selling Unit of Measure: Create and define new selling units of measures that suit your business needs directly from the POS.
• New! Gift Card/Ceritficate in POS: Sell and redeem gift cards/certificates in POS.
• New! Allow VAT Invoice: View the excluded value added tax computation for each purchased item in POS.
• New! Signature and PIN on Secondary Display: Customers can now enter their signature or gift card PIN via the secondary display to complete POS transactions.
• New! Order Notes: Create and view customer, order, and item-specific notes directly from the POS.
• New! Loyalty Points in POS: Customers can now earn and redeem loyalty points for POS transactions.
• New! IPS Encrypted Card Reader Support: Support for IPS Encrypted Card Reader for POS iPad application now added. 
• New! Amount Tendered and Change Due on Receipts: View amount tendered and change due on printed receipts for POS transactions.
• New! Tender Reports: View the full history of all outgoing and incoming payment transactions from the POS Tender reports.
• New! Edit Customer and Ship To: You can now edit existing customer and Ship To details directly from the POS.
• New! Update Quote: You can now update quote transactions directly from the POS.
• New! Tax and Payment Term Lookup: You can now modify the tax and payment term assigned to the customer ship to directly from the POS.

Posting

• New! Multi - Location Financial (Optional): Track your financials per location with the Multi Location Accounting feature.
• New! Gift Card Posting: Properly record your gift card/certificate transactions to your financial statements.
• New! Loyalty Points Posting: Review customer loyalty points and properly record all loyalty-points related transactions to your financial statements.

Enhancements

Customer

• Improved! You can now add products with additional UPC codes to sales orders.
• Improved! Customer refund amount is now automatically entered upon selecting the credits to be allocated.
• Improved! You can now simultaneously change and update the payment term across all the customer's Ship To.
• Improved! You can now specify the G/L account to use for discounts when generating Solid Commerce orders.
• Improved! User-entered sales price in the sales invoice is retained unless the unit of measure is changed.
• Improved! You can now batch update prospects, customers, ship-tos and leads when changing the assigned sales rep or user.

Shipping

• Improved! You can now configure your customer to use their account for billing shipping charges.
• Improved! Shipment notifications for multi-package shipments can now be sent in one email.

Supplier

• Improved! Supplier Part Code can now be added to the GRN screen through the User Role.
• Improved! GRN are now billed in full.
• Improved! Quantity ordered does not update anymore when changing the received quantity in the GRN, regardless if the customer is set to allow backorder or not, to avoid confusion.

Inventory

• Improved! You can now view the item analysis data from previous years.

Reports

• Improved print dialog loading speed.
  
  

Known Issues and Limitations

Customer

1) Error occurs when voiding receipt in the following scenario:
Prerequisite:

• Accounting Preference is set to Sales Analysis by Location.
• Sign-in to a different location or edit the admin user then change the location.
• Create a customer where the Ship To default location is set to your main location (since for Current Sign-In, all transactions will be from other locations) and the payment term set to Payment Term Discount 2%.

Steps To Reproduce:

1. Use the customer created above to create an invoice. Set Price to 20. Save and Post invoice.
2. Create new receipt with the same customer and use credit card as the payment type.
3. In the Receipt form, select the invoice (created above) under the Debits tab. Click Authorize/Capture then save and close receipt.
4. Reopen the created receipt then click De-allocate.
5. Create another receipt, still with the same customer.Set the payment type to check then change the location from main to other location. Click Apply Credit then select the de-allocated receipt above (Step 4).
6. Create refund for the customer above. Set the payment type to check then change the location.
7. Click the receipt under the Credits tab in Refund form to load the receipt.
8. Void receipt.

Result: The output of this bug is that the receipt did not allocate the VR code transaction.

Workaround: Find the receipt of the voided receipt, select the voided receipt under the Debits tab, then save the receipt. The voided receipt should now be allocated.

2) Adding an item to a credit memo that has been converted from an invoice deducts incorrect amount of loyalty points.

Prerequisite:

• Loyalty Points Purchase Multiplier is set to 100.
• Loyalty Points Redemption Multiplier is set to .01

Steps To Reproduce:

1. Create a new customer with 10% overall discount, 5% tax, 2% payment term discount, and $2 freight charge.
2. Create an invoice and add an item worth $10.
3. Add a cash payment (payment total should be $11.32)
4. Save and post invoice (earned loyalty points should be 900).
5. Convert the invoice to credit memo then add the item (same item added in Step 2).
6. Save the credit memo and create a customer refund.
7. Check the loyalty points history.

Result: Loyalty points history shows -1132 earned points.

Workaround 1: Create a new credit memo, that was not converted from an invoice, for the item.
Workaround 2: Adjust the customer points manually.

3) Activated gift cards/certificates are still included in the number of quantity reflected in the RMA, which should have been deducted since the items have been already used or redeemed.

Steps To Reproduce:

1. Create a gift card and a gift certificate item, both worth $10 each.
2. Create a sales invoice then add the gift card and gift certificate, each item having a quantity ordered = 5. Save and post the invoice.
3. Create another invoice then add a stock item.
4. Use one gift card and one gift certificate for the payment. Click Save and Close.
5. Save and post the second invoice.
6. Open the invoice created for the gift card/certificates (invoice created in Step 2).
7. Convert the invoice to Credit Memo (the quantity of both the gift card and certificate are equal to 1/item). Save and close the credit memo.
8. Go back to the invoice created in Step 2.
9. Convert the invoice to RMA then click Save.

Result: The quantity of each item does not match the count of serial numbers in the RMA.

Workaround: Open the saved RMA then change the quantity of the serial number to the correct count then click Save.