Inventory Price Updates

Price Update module

Menu Path: Inventory -> Utilities -> Price Updates

The price update module provides a staging area where pricing information can be imported, verified and manipulated before being applied to the inventory master. The price update module works in conjunction with the Class Code auto pricing feature to calculate price levels based on either cost or retail price. It also allows for importing a vendor specific price that will be loaded into the vendor (nvavn) tab in inventory.

The main list screen displays any existing price update records and provides buttons to Load, Auto Price, and Update Inventory. The contextual menu on the list of records provides an option to clear the update record database, as these records are essentially “throw away” once inventory has been updated.

 

The three main processing buttons at the bottom of the screen represent the main steps in importing and applying price updates.

Load: opens a window where you can select a tab-delimited file and specify which fields correspond to which columns in the file.

Auto Price: Applies the auto pricing formulas from the inventory Class Codes to the price update records. It will add location-specific records as needed if there is location-specific pricing in the class code.

Update INV: Updates the inventory master with price values from the update records.

 

Load File window:

Pressing the Load button on the main list screen will open the Load File window.

Here you can set up the file to use and map the columns to the various fields in the price update record.

File/Browse: Enter the (tab-delimited) file name to load, or browse for the file.

Vendor: (optional) Enter the vendor to be associated with this pricing.

Effective: the effective date for this price update. Updates are applied by effective date. This allows you to have multiple price updates being staged, but apply them separately.

Update Code: a 6-character designation for this update. It will be loaded into the inventory master for each part number affected by the update.

Part No: The column number in the file where the part number will be found.

Price: (optional) The column number for the price, if present in the file.

Cost: (optional) The column number for the cost, if present in the file.

Ven Cost: (optional) The column number for the vendor-specific cost, if present in the file. Only applicable if the vendor has been filled in.

 

Mapping Fields

Once you select a file to import, the first line of the file will be displayed in the “Source” field, with each column designated by “|” pipe symbols.

You can view the contents of the file a line at a time by changing the value in the “Scan” field. Use the following keystrokes to navigate the file:

  • N – Next record (increment the value).
  • P – Previous record
  • B – Go to the Beginning of the file
  • E – Go to the End of the file

You can set the column number for each field (Part No, Price, Cost, Ven Cost) by typing the number into each field or by clicking into the field and then clicking the corresponding column in the Source display. You can also use the Page-Up and Page-Down keys to increment or decrement the column number.

 

Import the Data

Set the number of lines at the top of the file to skip in the Skip field (to ignore column headers, for example) and press Generate. The number of records processed will display next to the Generate button. Press the List button to return to the main list screen.

 

Auto Pricing

Press the Auto Price button to apply the price formulas from the Class Codes, if applicable.

 

Apply the Price Updates

Press the Update INV button to update inventory. It will first display a prompt for the Effective date to apply. The button label will change to “Execute?”. Press the button again to apply the price changes.

Additional Customers & Vendor Lookup Methods

You can lookup a Customer or a Vendor:

  • by Name
  • by Number
  • by search — by adding a ‘?‘ to a partial name

We have modified the number option and added a new one.

The changes affect these versions:

  • Accounts Receivable Transactions — 1.1.5.45+
  • Sales Order — 1.1.9.25+
  • Ship Order — 1.1.8.95+
  • Accounts Payable Transactions — 1.1.5.93+
  • Purchase Order — 1.1.9.10+
  • Receiving Editor — 1.1.6.91+
  • Make Order — 1.1.5.53+

   Page 1 — customer / vendor lookup
   Page 2 — archive access
   Page 3 — phone access

Next – archive access >

File Name Options in Quiz and the Scheduler

In Quiz and the Background Schedule Task programs you can assign a fixed file name for the output of a report. The output format can be PDF, spreadsheet (in report or row formats), comma delimited or tab delimited.

We have added the ability to format the file name with variable embedded information.

  • Quiz (sqrstd.exe) version 1.1.6.50+
  • Schedule Task (smtask.exe) version 1.1.1.52+
  • Server Schedule Task (smtasksrv.exe) version 1.1.1.34+

The variable data is enclosed with < (left) and > (right) angle brackets.

For example, a file name is set as: “c:\temp\testfile.pdf”

Embedded Date fields:

  • “c:\temp\testfile <yyyy-mm-dd>.pdf” —  testfile 2013-01-01.pdf
  • “c:\temp\testfile <mm-dd-yy>.pdf”testfile 01-01-13.pdf
  • “c:\temp\<yyyy-mm>testfile.pdf”2013-01testfile.pdf
    • yy or yyyy — year
    • mm — month
    • dd — day

The date parts can be anywhere in the file name, in any order. They are replaced with the corresponding parts of the report date (or the trigger date if set in the Scheduler).

Embedded Number field:

  • “c:\temp\testfile <yyyy-mm-dd  ##.pdf”testfile 2013-01-01 00.pdf
  • “c:\temp\<###  mm-dd-yy> testfile.pdf”000 01-01-13 testfile.pdf
  • “c:\temp\testfile <###>.pdf” testfile 000.pdf
  • “c:\temp\<###>testfile.pdf” 000testfile.pdf
    • the # (pound) sign sets the position of the sequential number in the file name.
    • the number of # signs sets the maximum number that can be assigned: # = 0-9; ## = 00-99; ### = 000-999, etc.

The report program will look up the exact file name (with the variable date if present) starting with zero.  If that file already exists, the number is incremented by one until a matching file is not found. If all the possible numbers are used up, the file with the highest number will be overwritten. In the example above — testfile 2013-01-01 00 — testfile with that same date would have to be printed 100 times before the number ran out (00-99).

All of the embedded information must be contained in one set of left and right angle brackets.

Managing Contact Information in Purchase Order

We have always had a contact table in Accounts Receivable. I got a request for the same sort of thing in Accounts Payable.

There is a growing tendency to email Purchase Orders to vendors. Though we had a contact field in the Vendor master, the person that the P/O is directed to isn’t always the same as that contact. So, we added a Contact table for this purpose.

   Page 2 — Contact Editor
   Page 3 — Email

Next — Contact Editor >

Purchase Order — History

For a given line item, it would be nice to be able to see how the item has been purchased in the past. We do this with a popup window for the highlighted line:

image

The popup will list all the receiving documents that contain the item. The list is sorted by receive date beginning with the most recent receipt.

On the popup, you can jump  to the Receiving Document. (Press J on the highlighted line).

The History popup is also available from the U/Cost field (accessed by ctrl-W, right-click, or pressing H)

image

Field Search — popup window

When using the search option (adding a ? (question mark) to the text of a field), the behavior was to display the resulting first closest match in the field. You could then use the Page Up and Page Down keys to cycle through the records that matched.

We have changed that to automatically open the popup window displaying all the matching records in the list. An example is the main A/R Transaction list window:

NEW-017

Entering House? and pressing the Enter key will open the popup list with all the Customers containing House in the name.