Did You Know? ProfiitPlus Integrated SMS Functionality

Did You Know? ProfiitPlus Integrated SMS Functionality

Posted on by Foresiight
SMS Key features

SMS is a great way to keep in touch with customers (and sometimes even suppliers). ProfiitPlus/Alchemii includes functionality to send SMS messages from various parts of the system.

Before using SMS you need to register your system – please contact Foresiight Support and we can help set this up for you.

There are a number of areas that you can send an SMS from:

• Your Customer List in the CRM module

• The Sales Entry screen – when you update the status of a transaction (e.g. ready for pickup)

• The bulk marketing facility in CRM

• Loyalty module & more.

Email or phone Foresiight on (07) 3356 2772 to get connected today.

Status Code Setup

One of the most powerful ways to utilise integrated SMS is the Status Codes on Sales Documents.  You can setup status codes to text predefined messages to the customer, to keep them updated on the progress of their sale.  Go to Sales Orders & Invoicing | Sales | Settings | Enter/Edit Status Codes.  Select your status code to modify the SMS text and flag for an operator prompt:

Status Codes
Sending an SMS from the Sales Screen

Whether you are invoicing through Customer Relationship Module or Sales & Invoicing, you can utilise the SMS prompts on sales documents when setting or changing a document status.

Start your sale as normal and proceed to the Header Tab of your sales document.

ProfiitPlus SMS from Sales

Select your contact from the drop down list where applicable – this will allow SMS messages to be sent to the individual Contact’s mobile phone number instead of the primary customer mobile number.  Select your status from the “Status” drop down box.

If you have a predefined status setup (per above) you will automatically be prompted to send an SMS with a prefilled message, which you can review and edit before sending.

If you haven’t set predefined messages, you can simply click the “SMS” button beside the status at any time to send a custom message to the account or contact mobile number.

SMS Text

Enter your text message in the dialogue box and note the number of available characters at the bottom of the screen.  Note that your message must include an Opt-Out message, so this can not be removed.

Click OK to send your message.

Fore more information Email or phone Foresiight today on (07) 3356 2772 to find out more.

It’s easy to get started, and the only cost is for the SMS messages that you utilise.

Email Security Configuration

Posted on by Foresiight

Recently many email providers have introduced additional security requirements when it comes to using their email servers to send email from a 3rd party application. This is part of the ongoing fight against spam and unsolicited email.

In response to these changes, Foresiight has introduced support for a number of different email security options into the application. Other more subtle changes have also been made to the way that the application sends emails, to help ensure a high delivery rate and good anti-spam scores.

This article will show you a brief outline of some of the Email settings that are available. To read the full Email Setup article, please visit the Client Portal.

Email Configuration

To setup emailing through ProfiitPlus or Alchemii, navigate to Administration | System | Communications Setup | Host Email Settings

Basic Settings

Before configuring your email for the first time, or changing to a different email provider, you will need to first contact your email provider to find out their Host email settings. Often this information will be published on the email provider’s website.

In this screen you need to enter the following details:

  1. Email Host (Example smtp.telstra.com)
  2. Port (most often this will be port 25, 465 or 587)
  3. Username & Password (most email providers nowadays will require you to authenticate with user credentials in order to send outbound email – in the past this was not the case)

Additional Security Settings

If your email provider requires SSL or TLS, please select the appropriate SSL/TLS Support Type and Protocol Version. 

Support Type is based on what your provider recommends. 

Protocol version for TLS is normally TLS 1.2, and for SSL normally SSL2 or SSL3.

Please note: If you are using Microsoft 365 or Gmail you will need to generate an “app password”, which allows email to be sent from a 3rd party application. For more information on how to generate app passwords please refer to the following links.

GMAIL – https://support.google.com/a/answer/9003945?hl=en

OFFICE 365 – How to Create App Password for Office 365

More information

You can find the complete Email Setup knowledge base article on the Client Portal or call the Foresiight Help Desk for advice on Email settings.

Extract Customer List

Posted on by Foresiight

Introduction

Exporting a customer list is a great way to send promotional material to your customers, or simply keep track of your customer database. It is also essential to building your brand and is a great tool to use to keep your customers informed of exclusive deals, product information and even run contests!

ProfiitPlus & Alchemii also includes functionality to send SMS or print customer delivery address labels from this part of the system.

To begin with, launch the Customer Relationship module.

Open the Extract Customer List feature

Reports | Extract Customer List

Make your selections

This will bring up the following screen, where you will have the option to apply some filters to determine which customers will be included in the output list.

There are a range of intelligent filters including Post Code range to target a particular geographic area, and Purchase History to target customers that haven’t shopped with you for a while, as an example.

Prepare the List

Once you have made all your selections, navigate to Review Settings and click Ok. The system will now process your selections, and output the results to a grid for you to review.

You’ll now have several options on what to do with the list of customer names, including exporting the email addresses to file (in a format suitable for Mailchimp and other similar platforms), or sending out a bulk SMS message.

Remember, as this data includes customer names and contact details, it is important to ensure that you are keeping that data safe and adhering to any relevant legislation relating to data protection.

Learn More

To read the full article on extracting your customer list, go to our Client Portal.

Want a training session on CRM? Call or email the Foresiight team to book in a training session with one of our consultants.

Save Time and Improve Accuracy with Integrated EFTPOS

Posted on by Foresiight

Are you still spending time after the close of trade trying to balance your EFTPOS with your end of day sales reports?

Integrated EFTPOS is an essential part of doing business. Foresiight can help to configure and install your integrated EFTPOS terminal – there’s no reason to be manually keying EFTPOS transactions!

Stop struggling with incorrectly keyed transactions and integrate today!  With support for TYRO or LINKLY (formerly PC-EFTPOS), integrating is flexible and easy. For more information on Integrated EFTPOS, email Foresiight today at solutions@foresiight.com.au or call us on (07) 3356 2772.

Benefits of Integrated EFTPOS

  • Hands free transactions – your customers are responsible for tapping/swiping and processing their transaction
  • No manual entry means no over/under payments
  • End of day reconciliation is a breeze – EFTPOS totals and POS system totals are kept inline
  • Staff can’t forget to process the card payment – transactions that are tendered as EFTPOS will not finalise without being put through the EFT machine
  • Support for both LINKLY and TYRO means greater flexibility and ease of installation
  • If your current terminal is LINKLY capable, you may be able to enable integration without needing new terminals

With a wide range of banks supported by LINKLY and TYRO, you have the flexibility to negotiate your rates and take advantage of integrated EFTPOS, without being tied to one provider.  To find out if your terminals support integrated EFTPOS, contact your financial institution.

Paperless Office – Reduce Filing, Save Time & Money

Posted on by Danny Gill

Sick of filing paper documents?

It’s time to go paperless!

Why Go Paperless?

Save money by eliminating the cost of printing. Save time by retrieving documents with a single click without time spent shuffling through filing cabinets. Do your bit to help reduce your environmental footprint and reduce stationary costs.

The Paperless Office add-on provides a great way of collating information into a digital container, like a filing cabinet, that can be easily accessed and searched. Adding new information (documents) is as streamlined and effortless as it should be, and the new copy and paste support makes it easier than ever!

Paperless Office capability is integrated into various modules throughout ProfiitPlus & Alchemii. The “Paperless Office” button allows you to easily store and retrieve PDF’s, spreadsheets, images, and many other types of documents in the areas of the system you do most of your work. These areas include:

Customers

Suppliers

Purchase Invoices

Quotes / Orders / Jobs / Invoices

A/R Accounts

A/P Accounts

General Ledger Accounts

and more…

For more information on Paperless Office or to activate this module now, email us at solutions@foresiight.com.au or call us on (07) 3356 2772.

Ratio Items

Posted on by Foresiight

Ratio Items allow us to easily sell a single product in multiple different denominations, at differing price points, whilst maintaining the inventory level of that product all in one place.

Ratio Items (type “R”), are sold based on a pre-determined fraction of a Parent Stock Item. The parent is a “normal” Stock Item – this is the item that we purchase. The Ratio (Child) Item allows us to easily sell a portion or fraction of the Parent Item. The Ratio (Child) Item itself is never purchased.

A Ratio Item can be priced manually, or preferably, calculated based on a markup relative to the Sell Price of its parent.

When should I use a Ratio Item?

A good example to help understand the use case for a Ratio Item is in bulk landscaping supplies.

We purchase our fictitious “Premium Ultra Growth Soil” by the cubic metre (or by the tonne), and we sell it at the following price points:

  • PUGS 1 Metre: $100
  • PUGS Half Metre: $60
  • PUGS Quarter Metre: $40

In this scenario, the PUGS 1 Metre would be setup as the Parent Item. This is the product that holds our On Hand inventory levels, and that we purchase from our supplier (remember, we can still purchase it in a different Unit of Measure using our “Factor” setting).

The PUGS Half Metre and the PUGS Quarter Metre will be Ratio Child Items. These are setup with their own pre-defined pricing levels, making it easy for the operator at Point of Sale to sell at the correct price. Each time the product is sold, the inventory level is updated on the Parent Item.

Definition of Ratio Child Items

  • Ratio Child Item: An Item that is allocated to a specified Stock Item (its “parent”) and has a ratio defined that represents the number of Child units that make up one Parent unit (e.g. 50 individual metres of chain per one roll of chain)
  • Manufactured Ratio Child Item: An Item that is allocated to a specified Stock Item (its “parent”), and that is manufactured or built from raw materials, and has a Bill of Materials associated with it

Setting up a Ratio Item

This short guide will give you an overview of how to create and maintain a Ratio Item.

Step 1.  Set up the Parent Item

Navigate to Administration | Edit Stock Items

First, set up your parent item.  Normally the parent item will be purchased in whole units, in this example, we have purchased a roll of rope, the roll is 100m long and we will be selling it both by the roll and by the metre. 

This will be a normal Stock Item (type “S”) with a preferred supplier, cost price, retail price, etc.   The Sub-Type must be set to Ratio Parent – if this has not been set, the parent item will not be available to be attributed to the Ratio Child Item. 

Step 2. Setup the Ratio Child Item(s)

Navigate to Administration | Edit Stock Items

Create a new Stock Item and set the type to Ratio Child.  If your Item already exists, you can convert it to a Ratio Item by changing the Item Type on the Detail tab. The quantity on hand for this item must be zero before this change can be made. 

Setting up the Ratio Item details

Example one – Rope sold per metre: 

Navigate to Edit Item Detail | Detail tab

In the Parent Item edit box, enter the stock code or use the Lookup button to assign the parent item. 

Number of units in Parent: Enter the ratio value of how many units of the ratio item can be sold from 1 of the parent item. In this example, the Rope Per Metre will be 100, as there are 100 metres of rope per roll. 

% Markup on Parent Sell: If you choose to use % Markup on Sell, the percentage value you enter here will be used to recalculate each of the sell price levels any time the parent sell prices are updated.  Leave blank if you wish to manually enter pricing for this Item.

Learn More

You can read our full range of Knowledge Base articles on the Client Portal – or call the Foresiight team to book in a training session with one of our consultants.

Foresiight Client Portal

Posted on by Danny Gill

The Foresiight Client Portal contains a wealth of information including the latest Release Notes, over one hundred User Guides, and more.

It’s also a great way to track your Support tickets or log a work request for consultancy, training, or software customisations.

Click here to access the client portal and don’t forget to bookmark the website link.

To request your login credentials, please call support on
(07) 3356 2772 or email us using the link below.

Email Us

EOFY Hardware Deals!

Posted on by Danny Gill

Don’t miss out on our End-of-Financial-Year Sale! 
As the financial year draws to a close, it’s the perfect time to upgrade and save on your hardware equipment.
Sale ends 30th June!

Touchscreen POS Workstation

  • Innovative, sophisticated, and flexible; the 200 Series POS Terminal is the new standard in POS technology
  • Display: 15 inch LED touch screen panel (1024×768)
  • Windows 10
  • Warranty: 3 Years RTB
Buy Now

NEXA Docket Printer

  • NEXA 80MM Thermal Receipt Printer USB/Serial/Ethernet
  • Color : Black
  • High performance thermal printer that is ideal for POS receipt printing in retail environments
  • Warranty: 2 Years RTB
Buy Now

Wireless Barcode Scanner

  • Flexible, high performance scanner that will improve productivity
  • Reads all common barcode types
  • Includes a cradle and can communicate to the cradle from up to 150 metres
  • Alternately also has a Bluetooth connection, and can pair directly to laptop computers (range is 10m in Bluetooth mode)
  • Warranty: 3 Years RTB
Buy Now
ProfiitPlus & Alchemii v4.98 Feature Highlights

ProfiitPlus & Alchemii v4.98 Feature Highlights

Posted on by Foresiight
Version 4.98 Features & Improvements

We have added some exciting new features to ProfiitPlus & Alchemii.  Browse some of the highlights below, or login to the Support Centre to read the complete release notes.

Bin/Shelf Location Management

In a previous version, we added a screen for maintenance of Bin/Shelf Location codes and names. This facility has now been extended to:

  • Include a “keyword” search for easier selection from a large list of Shelf Locations
  • Add (optional) dimension fields for each Shelf Location (Length / Width / Depth, and the resulting volume)
  • Allow the use of characters including the period (dot) character in the Shelf Code

Stock Maintenance

There is an existing feature in the stock system where a series of attributes such as shape, size, colours can be defined and used with Variant Item types. It has now been extended so it can also be used with standard Stock Items and Ratio Items.

A new housekeeping feature is now available to recalculate/update the current Reserved quantities for all Stock Items (i.e. the quantity currently on open Sales Orders / Backorders). This is accessed via Administration | System | Housekeeping | Recalculate Reserved Stock.

When the Display Item Details screen is first opened, it now responds more quickly by pre-loading data in the background. This will be particularly evident on systems with a lot of Stock Items.  Additionally, this screen now automatically saves and restores the user’s preferred form size and grid column widths each time it is opened.

eCommerce

Additional Stock Item details including Major Group, Product Group, Sub Group, and Attributes are now included in the Magento stock file integration.

A new feature has also been added to export all Stock Item images, for import into Magento.

Sales Orders Deposits

Deposits can now be applied to a Sales Backorder in the same manner as a Sales Order. Previously paid deposits can also be refunded off a Backorder by using the “Deposit” button and applying a negative amount. Backorder deposits will be included on the Deposits Held report. 

Compliance and Reporting

The system contains a Non-compliance Log, that records various non-compliant activities from the Cash Register module. This facility has been extended to also include non-compliant activities from the Sales Orders & Invoicing module that have been authorised by entry of a POS manager password.  It is good practice for a manager or system administrator to regularly review the Non-compliance Log.

The List of Quotes report will now display whether the quote was “won” or not, with additional filter options for “Won”, “Not Yet Won”, or “All”.

Purchasing

The Calculate Order Quantities feature has received a number of user interface improvements, along with additional confirmation dialogs, and an option to cancel during the calculation process.

The Auto Generate Purchase Orders facility has been updated to standardise the behaviour of the options around Min/Max reorder levels. A new option has also been introduced to select multiple Stock Locations to generate an Order against.

Purchase Orders are now locked while editing to prevent simultaneous modification by different users.

This release has improved the time it takes to process Stock Adjustment batches, particularly large batches generated following a full stocktake

Alternate Suppliers

There have been a series of changes to do with purchasing Stock Items from Alternate Suppliers. This extended XRef (cross-reference) feature now allows you to define differing purchase unit factors and minimum order quantities on an Item, per Supplier.

For example, you might nominate that you would buy from an Alternate Supplier as Box/100 instead of the usual Box/10 from the Preferred Supplier.

Emailing

A change has been made to the construction of email headers to improve delivery rates to recipients, in particular to those with Gmail accounts.

There has also been an enhancement to the generation of the HTML email body to improve compatibility on some systems.

This is just a small selection from a big list of enhancements in this release. Remember to login to the Support Centre to check out all the release notes, and be sure to contact the Foresiight Support Team to have your update installed.

Helpful Tips for Stocktaking

Posted on by Danny Gill

Here are some helpful hints and reminders to make all that counting worthwhile.

  • Ensure that all Stock Receipts (Purchase Invoices / Delivery Dockets) have been entered, if those products are to be counted.
  • The optimal time to perform a Stocktake is outside of trading hours – it’s difficult to accurately count your stock when customers are walking around your store with a basket full!
  • Remember to set your Stocktake Freeze Point before you start counting. This takes a snapshot of the current quantity On Hand for all stock at this point in time. Later, when the Generate Stocktake Adjustment Batch process is initiated, this snapshot is what is used to determine the difference between your “theoretical” On Hand quantities and your “physical” counts in order to determine the required adjustment quantities.
  • Take note of committed stock (i.e. products that are on an incomplete Invoice or Jobcard):
         • Where the stock is committed prior to being counted, the committed quantity must be added onto the count.
         • Where the stock is committed after being counted, the committed quantity must be ignored
  • Use your StockMate Device! It will save a huge amount of time and reduce errors when compared to using paper-based Stocktake Worksheets.
  • If you generate an Interim Stocktake, any products that are not counted will not be adjusted.  If you wish to bring a product back to nil on hand, you will need to enter a Stock Count of zero.
  • Make use of the List of Items Without Count report – this will be useful when stocktaking by Supplier or by Product Group.
  • Check your Stocktake Discrepancy Report – it is advantageous to run your eyes over this report to ensure counts are accurate, double-checking any high value products as well as those with a large discrepancy to be adjusted.

What is the difference between Interim and Full Stocktakes?

Interim Stocktake – will adjust only items that are counted.
Full Stocktake – will adjust all items.  Items with a quantity on hand, but no count entered, will be adjusted back to zero.

Always take a database backup before processing a Full Stocktake

StockMate

Stocktaking Steps Quick Overview

  • Set a Freeze Point before beginning the stocktake
  • Print Stocktake worksheets and record your counts, or use StockMate mobile to record your counts
  • Run the List Items without Count report to check if anything has been missed
  • Run the Stocktake Discrepancy Report to see what adjustments will be generated
  • Generate your stocktake adjustment batch
  • Print and Post the adjustments Journal

You can read our full knowledge base article on Stocktakes on the Client Portal – or call the Foresiight team to book in a training session with one of our consultants.

Are you ready for June 30?

Are you ready for June 30?

Posted on by Steve Williamson

Top tips for end of financial year

Our team has compiled a quick list of must-do items, reports and checks for end of financial year, to ensure you don’t look back in coming months and realise you missed an important step!

Things you can do NOW

Run AR & AP Reconciliation Reports

Check these against the GL balance and ensure that your sub-ledgers are in balance.  If there is an imbalance between AR/AP and your General Ledger control accounts, seek assistance straight away.  You can contact your accountant for advice, or book some consultancy time with our specialists.

Run AR & AP Sub Ledger Verification Reports

This is located in General Ledger | Reports and ensures that all batches posted from AP and AR have made it into your General Ledger.  As above, if you find a discrepancy here, seek advice asap or book a consultancy session.

Run Trial Balance and ensure the movement columns balance

If an end of year close hasn’t been performed for the previous year, there can be an imbalance in the total columns – but your debit and credit movement columns should always balance.  Seek specialist advise if this is not the case.

Perform a Stocktake

Most businesses will perform a full stocktake at or around end of financial year. This is necessary in order to provide your accountant with an accurate stock valuation, and to report movement in stock value from the prior year. Your StockMate mobile scanner will be a necessity at this time of year!

Check Stock Valuation matches the GL Stock Accounts

Run your Stock Valuation report and compare this to the value of stock in your General Ledger accounts. This provides two different views of the net value of your stock on hand. It is not unusual to have small differences due to timing, but generally the two numbers should remain relatively closely aligned. It’s best to check this early – don’t wait until after year end.

One reason why you might find an imbalance is if you have made manual adjustments to the Average Cost of any products throughout the year and not adjusted the General Ledger to reflect this. You may need to do some end of year journals to bring this valuation back in line. This is best done after a full stocktake, unless you have been performing regular rolling stocktakes – in which case you might do smaller monthly journals throughout the year. Contact your Accountant and/or your Foresiight Consultant if you are unsure.

Catch up on your Purchase Invoices

Ensure that all Purchase Invoices and Delivery Dockets have been entered, wherever possible. Enter your stock Invoices via Stock & Purchasing and your non-stock Invoices via Accounts Payable. You’ll want to have your stock and accounts all up to date when end of year comes around.

Tasks to complete on June 30

Post all Sales Invoices and Purchase Invoices

At the close of business, post all Sales Invoices and Purchase Invoices where possible.  If your system is configured for overnight posting, ensure that you are able to take a backup after posting and before trade starts for July 1.  You can manually post in Sales Orders & Invoicing | Sales | Update Sales & Payments.

Run your AR and AP Aged Balances Reports

These reports can’t be printed retrospectively so if you need these reports for your accountant, run them now. Note that you can save them to PDF, Excel or Text for future use. It is a good idea to be doing this on a monthly basis in case you need to refer to previous months’ reports.

Run a Stock Valuation Report

At close of business on June 30, run your Stock Valuation report and save it to PDF or Excel. Again, this cannot be run retrospectively, so it is a good idea to run this report at the end of each month and save a copy.

Open the new Financial Year

To open the upcoming financial year, go to General Ledger | Periods | Open/Close Financial Periods and in the box in the lower-right corner, type in the year and click OK. This step can actually be done at any time in the lead up to the new year.

Update your AP Period

If most or all of your Purchase Invoices have been entered for June, you can now update your AP period. Note that you can still manually change the period on individual Invoices during stock receipting if you need to back-date or forward-date an Invoice.

Update your AR Period

As per your normal end of month process, you’ll want to update your AR period ready for trading the next day.

Take a Backup

It is best to take a full backup of your data as at 30 June, in case this is needed down the track.  It may also be a good time to copy to the Training system. This can be handy in the coming days if you’ve forgotten to run any reports. You can copy to training via Administration | Other | Copy to Training System.

You’re all ready for EOFY!

Following these steps will help make your End of Financial Year as smooth as possible. Every business is different, so there are sure to be other things that you’ll want to include in your own end of year process.

If you’d like a refresher on any of these processes, or if this is your first EOFY, you can book in a training session with a Foresiight Consultant.

Data Import and Export

Data Import and Export

Posted on by Danny Gill

Simplify Your Stock File Updates

Many industry suppliers are now providing their business customers with monthly or quarterly electronic price file updates and promotions.  Manually updating pricing can be laborious and inaccurate, which can lead to selling items below margin or incorrectly quoting customers.

Automate your price updates and stock file changes with Data Import/Export

Using the Data Import/Export module, you can update all relevant information from the spreadsheets or text files provided by your supplier, including cost price changes, with the ability to recalculate sell prices after updating.

Data Import/Export also provides the ability to upload your entire supplier catalogue into a separate lookup catalogue. This allows you to review product pricing for special orders, and transfer a product into your main stock file with a single click when you need to sell or purchase it.  Keeping non stocked items contained in a lookup file keeps your stock file clean and simple – if you don’t sell it then you won’t need to browse through it when searching for stock items at the point of sale.

In addition to importing price files from your suppliers, the Data Import/Export module also includes a number of other useful features for importing/exporting data and applying bulk updates to your system.

FEATURES

  • Import supplier product catalogues from spreadsheet
  • Bulk updates to your Main Stock File and/or Supplier Lookup Catalogues
  • Import promotions / catalogue pricing
  • Customisable to suit many different file formats
  • Bulk update prices (Cost and Sell) by percentage or dollar
  • Bulk update selected Product properties from a spreadsheet (e.g. Product Descriptions)
  • Export your price file to a spreadsheet file for customers
  • Import from a spreadsheet/CSV into a Purchase Order

Call Foresiight on (07) 3356 2772 or email us at solutions@foresiight.com.au for information and pricing on the Data Import/Export module, or to arrange a training session.

An introduction to Item Sub-Types

An introduction to Item Sub-Types

Posted on by Foresiight

In recent versions of ProfiitPlus & Alchemii, a new way of classifying Stock Items has been introduced. This article will give you an overview of Item Sub-Types and how they might be used in your business.

Item Types

The concept of Item Types has been a staple since the very early days of the original ProfitPak application. The four Item Types available in the system are as follows:

  • Stock Item
  • Non-diminishing Item
  • Kit Item
  • Ratio Item

As a regular user of the system, you will already be very familiar with these Item Types and the way in which they are used. What is most important to note is that these core Item Types have not changed. The behaviour of each of these types remains the same as always, but with the addition of new Item Sub-Types to enable further flexibility and functionality for your business.

Item Sub-Types

Recently introduced, the new Item Sub-Types allow us to define specific behaviours for certain Items. Every Item is first allocated an Item Type, and then an Item Sub-Type. The Sub-Types that are available for each individual Item are determined by its designated Item Type.

Below is a list of the available Sub-Types, with a brief description of its purpose.

Stock Sub-Types

  • “Standard” Stock Item: An inventory Item that does not fall under one of the special Stock Sub-Types below
  • Variation Item: A variant of a Virtual Parent Item (e.g.: colour/size)
  • Manufactured Item: A product that is manufactured or built from raw materials, and has a Bill of Materials associated with it
  • Ratio Parent Item: An Item that has one or more Ratio “children”
  • Manufactured Ratio Parent Item: An Item that has one or more Ratio “children”, and that is manufactured or built from raw materials, and has a Bill of Materials associated with it

Non-diminishing Sub-Types

  • “Standard” Non-diminishing Item: A non-inventory Item that does not fall into one of the special Non-diminishing Sub-Types below
  • Virtual Parent Item: An Item that represents a collection of Variation Items (e.g. a colour/size range)
  • Labour Item: An Item that is used for billing out Labour charges
  • Freight Item: An Item used for freight cost recovery
  • Fees/Charges Item: An Item used for recovery of fees and charges (e.g. payment fees)
  • Discount Item: An Item used to record a discount given on a transaction at the Point of Sale

Kit Sub-Types

  • “Standard” Kit Item: A Kit “parent”, containing multiple components that are brought together and sold at a pre-determined price at the Point of Sale

Ratio Sub-Types

  • Ratio Child Item: An Item that is allocated to a specified Stock Item (its “parent”) and has a ratio defined that represents the number of Child units that make up one Parent unit (e.g. 50 individual metres of chain per one roll of chain)
  • Manufactured Ratio Child Item: An Item that is allocated to a specified Stock Item (its “parent”), and that is manufactured or built from raw materials, and has a Bill of Materials associated with it

Incorporating Sub-Types into your system

Each of the Sub-Types outlined above has its own set of rules and behaviours associated with it. These behaviours can influence many workflows from purchasing to sales and right through to reporting.

When your system was updated to v4.97 (or newer), a conversion process would have taken place to automatically allocate all of your existing Stock Items to the appropriate Sub-Type. Therefore, you might already be using some of the extended Sub-Type functionality within your system.

If you don’t yet see any of the new Sub-Type options, please contact your Support Consultant to arrange a software update to the latest version.

Want to learn more?

The best place to begin is your Training system – simply switch to your Training dataset, start creating some new Stock Items and get a feel for the functionality of each Sub-Type.

Next, you might like to spend some time with one of our experts to get a deeper understanding of how this, and other stock management techniques, can help you to drive your business forward. To book a session with a Foresiight Professional Services consultant, contact us today on (07) 3356 2772 or email us at solutions@foresiight.com.au.

Standard Support or Professional Services?

Posted on by Foresiight

As a Foresiight customer with an active Support Agreement, a range of helpful services are available to you as part of your annual Support Agreement.  In conjunction with regular software enhancements, these standard support services are the cornerstone of our software solutions and can help your business to succeed and grow.

As well as the standard inclusions in your Support Agreement (“Standard Support”), Foresiight also offers an extensive range of additional specialised consultancy services (“Professional Services”).  For companies that are looking to enhance their use of the software, our paid Professional Services can help to get the most out of your systems and gain a competitive edge.

For newer customers, and those that haven’t held a Support Agreement with a business software provider in the past, it can initially be a little tricky to distinguish between Standard Support and Professional Services.  To help clarify this, we have provided some common examples below.

Standard Support Examples

Support is provided to help out with your regular day-to-day use of the software, answering operational questions (but not training), providing general advice, and investigating the cause of system errors.

  • I have created an Invoice Reversal and would like to confirm that I have entered it correctly before I post it.
  • My system is displaying an error message that I am unsure about, I’d like to check if this needs further investigation or not.
  • I’d like to arrange a time to have the latest update installed.
  • One of our users did not log out correctly and I’d like to have their logon reset.
  • I understand how to transaction match an Invoice against a Credit but can’t recall which menu option to use and would like to be pointed in the right direction.
  • I’m looking for a sales report that shows Invoices issued last month for all of my Trade Customers.
  • My system isn’t running as fast as it used to, and I’d like some general advice on things to look at to improve it.

Professional Services Examples

Professional Services involve working with features of the software and providing specific business advice and training, to help drive improvement in your organisation.

  • I would like a Foresiight consultant to make some layout changes to one of my Document Formats for me (Invoices, Quotes, Delivery Dockets, etc.).
  • I would like some training to learn how to use List & Label to customise my Document Formats myself.
  • My accountant has found some inaccuracies in my Trial Balance, I would like some help to review my General Ledger movement to find the source.
  • My local technician has installed a new computer for me and I need to connect it to ProfiitPlus/Alchemii and have the terminal settings configured.
  • I have purchased and installed a new label printer and would like to have it configured and my Label Formats customised to print correctly.
  • I am opening a new store and would like a consultant to undertake the setup for me and provide additional support services during the Go Live week.
  • My system isn’t running as fast as it used to and I’d like a consultant to do some investigation and offer specific advice on how it can be improved, or perform the recommended maintenance work for me.
  • I would like to extract some specific data into an Excel Spreadsheet for analysis and I need a consultant to write an SQL query for me.
  • I’d like to review my backups to ensure that the data is being stored correctly, or I am looking to implement a new backup solution.

These are just a few examples of Foresiight’s Professional Services – they are not included as part of Standard Support, but are available to help your business grow and become more profitable.

We hope that this helps to provide an understanding of how our services are classified.  Note that this is only a sample of the range of services that are available to help grow and improve your business.  Please call or email Foresiight if you would like a quote or some additional information on any of our Professional Services.

Still posting manually? Automate Tasks with ProfiitPlus

Still posting manually? Automate Tasks with ProfiitPlus

Posted on by Foresiight

ProfiitPlus is able to automate a wide range of tasks to make your end of day processing trouble free.  There’s no need to spend time each day manually posting sales transactions or banking batches.  Using overnight processing also relieves load on your system and can eliminate posting issues that might occur due to network congestion.

Here are just some of the tasks that can be automated:

  • Post Sales Transactions
  • Post Banking Batches
  • Accumulate Sales Data (with the Performance Monitor module)
  • Synchronise stock to your online store (with the eCommerce Interface module)
  • Download orders from your online store (with the eCommerce Interface module)
  • Custom SQL reports – exported to Excel/CSV
  • Clone Live data to Training
  • Generate pharmacy PBS invoices (Alchemii)

For more information contact us on 07 3356 2772 or email us at solutions@foresiight.com.au

Point of Sale Equipment

Posted on by Danny Gill

Looking to update your barcode scanners, docket printers, label printers or cash drawers for your point of sale terminals?

Foresiight has the solution.

We supply only quality POS equipment with proven reliability, and you can be assured of compatibility with your POS software.

Having the right gear in place can help to create a great experience for your customers and keep your business running smoothly – and it doesn’t need to cost a fortune!

For more information or a quote on any POS equipment, send us an email at solutions@foresiight.com.au or call today on 1800 061 670.

ESET Antivirus

Posted on by Foresiight

ESET helps to secure your computers and devices, protect your precious data, and keep your company know-how safe. ESET Antivirus protects users just like you across 200 countries and territories worldwide, helping them to use and explore all the great opportunities of the Internet.

How does ESET Antivirus work?

Its antivirus engine uses advanced heuristics, machine learning, and cloud-based scanning to effectively detect and eliminate the latest malware threats without slowing down your computer.

Can ESET protect while web browsing?

Yes it can. The ESET Online Scanner runs from your web browser, checks for and (optionally) removes malware. ESET offers multiple layers of protection against malware and can prevent your computer from infection.

Can ESET help with Spam emails?

Yes it can! The Antispam engine available in various ESET products assigns a spam score to each email message it scans and uses that score to determine the course of action (deliver email, deliver to junk email folder, etc.).

Foresiight recommends ESET Antivirus. In recent years we have found ESET to be one of the most effective solutions for detecting and blocking threats.

For pricing or more information on ESET Antivirus email us at solutions@foresiight.com.au or call us on (07) 3356 2772.

Note: Antivirus software is just one aspect of an effective cybersecurity strategy. Foresiight recommends that you regularly consult with your internal or external IT security expert to ensure that your business is sufficiently protected from cyber threats.

Know Your Backup

Know Your Backup

Posted on by Danny Gill

How well do you know your backup routine?

Many small/medium business owners are not aware that they are not sufficiently protecting their business against data loss.  Simply backing up your data isn’t enough – do you review and monitor your backups and take a backup off-site?

A good functioning backup allows a business to have peace of mind. It’s important to know you are protected not only when a malicious attack happens to the computer network, but also when a file is accidentally deleted or modified. A good working backup allows you to be up and running again with minimal downtime.

It is recommended that you not only perform your backup on a daily basis, but keep multiple versions of these backups. This will ensure that you can restore files from the most recent backup, or go back to an earlier version if required.

Backups should not remain in the same building as the data they are backing up. At least one backup should be taken off-site at all times, either by means of external drives or RDX tape backups. We recommend a minimum of two external drives/RDX Tapes in your backup rotation.

Foresiight recommends using the BackupAssist software package, but there are many other great products available and your IT Technician will likely have a recommendation. If you would like some advice on your backup solution, don’t hesitate to call us on (07) 3356 2772.

Christmas Tips for Your Business

Christmas Tips for Your Business

Posted on by Foresiight

Christmas is upon us!  Whether you are closed over Christmas or have extended trading hours, there are some important things to remember.

If you are closing over the Christmas period – shut down all unnecessary workstations and devices.

  • Unplug all devices that won’t be in use, in case the Summer storms cause power surges.
  • If you are in a low-lying area, make sure all equipment is up off the floor at a safe height in case of heavy rains.
  • Make sure your backups are working correctly and ensure you have an up to date backup to take offsite over the holiday period.

Don’t just assume your backups are ok – check, check, and check again (let us know if you need some help)!

If you have some late night trading coming up, check that any overnight processes, such as automatic posting, are scheduled outside of trading hours.

If closing up before the end of December, processing end of month will be no different to normal – this is best done on the last day before closing for the holiday.

Roll over your AR, AP, and GL periods ready for January trading.

Maintaining a healthy system

This holiday period might also be a good time to do some archiving and purging of old data from your ProfiitPlus or Alchemii system, while nobody is using the software.

Some businesses remain open over the Christmas period but are a little quieter than usual. This is a great time to do some system maintenance and tie up a few loose ends. Refer to documentation on the Support Centre for guidance, or enquire about our training sessions.

If you know you have some tidying up to do but aren’t sure where to start, or just don’t want to tackle it yourself, we can take care of it for you as part of our extended Professional Services options. Give us a call today or email solutions@foresiight.com.au for more info.

And most importantly, enjoy this wonderful time of year with family and friends!

Docket Printing Customisations

Posted on by Steve Williamson

Do you use a docket printer at the Point of Sale?

Printing receipts on a thermal docket printer can be a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly option than printing full-sized A4 invoices. And equally importantly – it is usually faster, saving valuable seconds and enhancing the customer experience.

ProfiitPlus and Alchemii allow a range of customisations around the way that your dockets are printed. The screenshot below shows the settings that are available to be configured.

These settings can be accessed by navigating to POS Control | System | System Parameters, then clicking on the Docket Printing button. Most of the options are fairly self-explanatory, but for further clarification you can hover your mouse cursor over each setting to see a “hint” (within the software – not the screenshot!).

A couple of extra options are available via the Receipt Settings tab.

You can select the default type of receipt to print (Invoice or Docket) for each type of sales transaction. For example, it is common to print a Docket for “cash” customers, and an A4 Invoice for account customers.

What’s more, you can even add a message at the bottom of your dockets. This can be a great way to raise awareness about your current promotion.

If you have any questions around Docket Printing, please refer to the Knowledge Base or feel free to give our Support Team a call and have a chat!

Foresiight Server Maintenance

Posted on by Danny Gill

Foresiight is a business services company.  Our focus is to help our clients’ businesses grow and become more profitable.

Our core service is providing the business management software that helps customers to achieve these goals.  However, we also provide other services such as Foresiight Server Maintenance.

Here at Foresiight we have a small team of technicians dedicated to maintaining and supporting the technology that you rely on to run your business – that is your servers. Our technical team services the south-east Queensland region with on-site maintenance and installations, as well as other parts of Australia with our remote technical services.

We take pride in our work and will not settle for anything less than complete customer satisfaction.

servermaint-1

Foresiight Server Maintenance

Our Foresiight technicians will monitor your server on a weekly basis and also includes an extensive monthly check. This includes tasks performed on your server (or servers) to ensure optimum performance.  Server Maintenance can also reduce the likelihood of unexpected downtime.

Our Weekly Server Maintenance Checks include:

  • Check backup results
  • Review virus activity and perform antivirus software updates
  • User security checks
  • Review hardware error logs
  • Review software / operating system error logs
  • Install operating system patches and updates
  • Monitor disk space and performance
  • Check that all users, groups, computer names, domain controllers are still current and being used

Our Direct Debit arrangement provides you with an affordable monthly payment option.

For more information on Server Maintenance email us at solutions@foresiight.com.au or call us on (07) 3356 2772

Manager Override Password Setup

Posted on by Danny Gill

A major change to the manager passwords system has been implemented, allowing individual manager passwords to be set directly against selected staff members (AKA Salespersons).

This gives greater flexibility to setup numerous passwords, rather than the current system of only two passwords. It also provides more detailed auditing on who is authorising transactions that require the manager password.

To set manager override passwords for staff members go to Administration | System | Edit Staff Details.

You can read our full knowledge base article on manager override setup on the Support Centre.

From version 4.95 onwards, your old manager passwords (configured in System Defaults and Store Settings) will no longer work.

This change is a part of our ongoing efforts to help you keep your business system secure and safe.

Foresiight Professional Services

Foresiight Professional Services

Posted on by Steve Williamson

As a Foresiight customer with an active software subscription, our regular help desk services are available to you as part of your annual Support Agreement. In addition to these standard inclusions in your Support Agreement, Foresiight also offers a range of specialised Professional Services.

For businesses that are looking to further enhance their use of the software, our Professional Services are the key to getting the most out of your systems. We help you to drive continuous improvement – streamlining processes and introducing efficiencies in order to gain a competitive edge.

Foresiight Professional Services are available for purchase in blocks of 10 hours. Your package can be used in increments of just 15 minutes for a wide range of services such as:

  • Business process consultancy
  • Document design customisations
  • Custom Excel reports / SQL queries / BI dashboards
  • User training
  • Reporting and analysis
  • Custom software development
  • Technical services
  • System maintenance, data archiving & purging
  • Accounts research/investigation
  • System security audits

Each package remains valid for up to 12 months, giving you plenty of time to plan for your consultancy needs.

If you’re not sure where to begin, we can review your current processes and look at opportunities for improvements. We can then design a consultancy plan together that will help you to take the next steps in your business growth.

Email or call us today on (07) 3356 2772 to find out more.

ProfiitPlus v4.95 New Features

ProfiitPlus v4.95 New Features

Posted on by Danny Gill
Version 4.95 Features & Improvements

We have added some exciting new features to ProfiitPlus & Alchemii.  Browse some of the highlights below, or login to the Support Centre to read the complete release notes.

Manager Override Password

A major change to the use of manager override passwords has been implemented. Manager passwords are now set directly against selected Staff Members (aka Salespersons). This gives greater flexibility to set numerous passwords, rather than the previous method of a store-wide manager password that may have been shared amongst multiple staff.

This subsequently enables more detailed auditing on who is authorising transactions that require the manager password. Set up is via Administration | System | Edit Staff Detail | Detail tab.  


Negative Stock On Hand Report

A new report has been created for reviewing negative stock on hand – to help identify products being purchased or sold under the wrong Stock Code. This report can be printed per stock location or for all stock locations: Administration | Stock | Negative Stock on Hand Report.

Maintenance Records

A new feature to set an internal “Warranty” account is available in Maintenance Records. This would be used where a warranty job is to be performed for a “Unit” but the parts & labour are to be invoiced against an internal account, rather than the owner of the Unit. This is configured via Maintenance Records | System | Set Up Options | Warranty Account.  


Special Buy In’s

A new label design is available to print labels for Stock Items that were purchased in for a customer via a Sales Order, also known as “Special Buy In’s”. These labels can be generated after entering a Purchase Invoice or a Delivery Docket. The label design can be customised to print the customer details, the ordered item details, the Sales Order number, and more. Please contact Support for assistance to configure this new feature.

Productivity Report

A new sales report is available via Report | Sales Analysis | Productivity Report. This report will show revenue by Major Group for the date selected, the current month to date and the two previous months. It includes a summary showing value per sale, item count per sale, and some other productivity metrics.  

 
 

Quick Invoice Search

New search options are now available via the Invoice Enquiry by number lookup to allow the user to search for subtotal, by customer name and keyword search. The “total” search allows a customisable variance – e.g. find an invoice that was approximately $100, plus or minus $5.    

Purchasing

Auto Generate Purchase Orders will now remember certain criteria selections when choosing a regularly used Supplier.  After generating an order, most selections will now be automatically saved for next time you order against that Supplier.

Supplier Catalogues

The Supplier Catalogue (Lookup Catalogue) stock list has been enhanced with new filtering options to assist with a more intuitive search.  Also added is the ability to multi-select Stock Items to transfer to the main stock file.  This is a powerful feature when, for example, you wish to start stocking a new range of products from a Supplier.  

Backup Bundle

Backup Bundle

Posted on by Danny Gill
Many small business owners are not aware that they are not sufficiently protecting their business against data loss. Simply backing up your data isn’t enough – do you review and monitor your backups and take a backup off site?

It is recommended that you not only perform your backup on a daily basis, but keep multiple versions of these backups. This will ensure that you can restore not only the files from the previous backup, but also an earlier version if required. Backups should not remain in the same building as the data they are backing up. Your backup should be taken offsite, either by means of cloud hosted storage, or external drive/tape backups.
 

BUSINESS BACKUP BUNDLE

Bundle Includes:

  • Tandberg RDX USB Caddy
  • 2x 1TB Tandberg RDX Cartridges
  • Installation and setup of BackupAssist software.

$1,499 inc

This proven solution is a favourite amongst Foresiight clients

ENQUIRE NOW

BENEFITS OF USING RDX TAPES

Easy

RDX cartridges combine the portability and reliability of tape-based backup solutions with the speed and simplicity of a hard disk drive.

Fast

Utilizing USB 3.0 and SATA3 data speeds of up to 600MBps, read and write access is near-instant allowing users to work directly with the data on the media as if the drive was internal to the system.

Solid

RDX drives are built tough, meaning knocks and drops don’t mean lost data. Plus valuable data can be further protected through Tandberg Data’s RCE encryption software, ensuring complete peace of mind.

Portable

The RDX media is small and durable allowing the drive to be taken off-site for archiving.

ENQUIRE NOW

Creating an Invoice or Credit in Accounts Payable

Posted on by Danny Gill

Accounts Payable invoices are used for entry of non-stock invoices and credits, the detail lines are allocated to General Ledger codes.

These transactions can be transaction matched to another invoice or credit or allocated in a payment run.

You may want to consult your accountant/bookkeeper regarding General Ledger accounts to be used when creating Invoices/Credits for clearing account discrepancies such as bad debts or rounding.

Open Accounts Payable | Maintenance | Enter/Edit Invoice Batches 

Click the New button to begin a new AP Invoice Batch

Add the following header information for this batch:

  • Batch Date (defaults to today)
  • Financial Period (defaults to current period)
  • Batch Total

Each batch may contain 1 or more Invoices/Credits.

In the Invoices grid, enter the following information for each Invoice/Credit that you wish to process:

  • Supplier ID
  • Invoice Number (always enter an invoice number that is unique to this Supplier)
  • Invoice Date
  • Due Date
  • Description
  • Amount – total will be positive for an invoice and negative when creating a credit note
  • Settlement discount (if applicable)

In the Detail grid select the appropriate GL account/s and update the GST where applicable. More than one GL account can be used per invoice to break up the expense.

Once you have double checked the details entered, select Process Now – then follow the prompts to print and post.

Your Invoice (or Credit) has now been created on the Creditor account and will be posted through to the General Ledger.

StockMate v1.50 Major Release

Posted on by Danny Gill

Exciting news from Foresiight – we have released a major new version of StockMate with a number of new features, including LIVE connection to your stock list!

Check out the feature list below to find out more, and contact the Foresiight Support Team today to install your update.

Overview of new features and improvements released in StockMate Version 1.50

Instant Submit Submitting counts from your StockMate device to ProfiitPlus/Alchemii is now INSTANT!  No more waiting for a synchronisation process to be triggered

LIVE Stock
Direct linking to the ProfiitPlus/Alchemii Stock File means your list of products is now LIVE – new Stock Items and current On Hand counts are all reflected immediately on your StockMate device.

Product Images
View your product images and thumbnails on your StockMate device!

Promotion Pricing
The Price Check screen now displays any active promotions for the selected product.

Smarter Stocktakes
The Stocktake process now lets you know if you scan a product that has already been counted in your current session, and offers the opportunity to replace or combine the counts.
The current freeze point quantity and date is now visible on the Stocktaking screen.

Stock Adjustment Reasons
Stock Adjustments now support selecting a “Reason Code”.  The adjustment automatically goes to the correct GL account and a meaningful adjustment description is recorded in the audit trail.

Benefits

What are the benefits of having a StockMate device?

  • Save time stocktaking and purchasing
  • Help your staff to get out from behind the desk and onto the floor
  • Significantly reduce data entry errors – no more need to write it on a scrap of paper and decipher later
  • Live upload of scanned stock via WIFI
  • User-friendly touch screen interface

For more information on this please contact Foresiight on 07 3356 2772.

Did You Know? Add & Editing Users

Did You Know? Add & Editing Users

Posted on by Danny Gill

Maintaining Users

Maintaining User permissions in ProfiitPlus or Alchemii is quick and easy. Review your system today to ensure your Users have access to just the functions that are applicable to their role.

Navigate to Administration | System | User Menu Options (Access)

Setting Up Users

Click the Add button to add a new user. 

Enter a new username and password in the empty fields provided. You can also force the User to change password on next login by ticking the checkbox.

You can copy permissions from an existing User, by simply choosing the appropriate User from the Select User Name to Copy Permissions From drop-down and clicking Copy Permissions.

If you want the User to have access to change datasets via the Main Menu, then tick the Allow change of dataset (Business) options. This allows the User to change businesses or switch to the training system.

To make the User an Administrator, tick the box Operator is System Administrator.

It is recommended that only one or two Users be made Administrators within any business.

Dashboard

There is an option to show the dashboard on the main menu for the User. For each User, you can opt to display Sales Data only, or All Data which includes account balances. Alternatively, you can set the option to No which will not show the dashboard at all.

The Access Level option is used in conjunction with Customise Options to hide/display some information, such as cost prices. If you have this option enabled, set the Access Level for each User to suit the setting in your Customise Options (found in Administration | System | Customise).

Password reset

You can also reset a password for a User by pressing the Reset Password button. You will be prompted to enter a new password for the selected User.

The Menu Map button allows you to print all of the modules currently licenced in your system. This will give you a guide on what the User can access.

The Cleanup button runs a quick check within the system to see if any modules have changed or don’t exist anymore. This runs the process for every User in your list.

Choosing Modules for each User

By clicking on a User and then the Modules tab, you will be able to select which parts of the system you want this User to have access to. Each module is listed on the left hand side, with each menu option within that module listed to the right.

You can turn on everything for one module by unticking that module, then ticking it.

To save time when adding Administrator Users who have access to all functions, you can click on the Set All button which will tick every option for that User. You can also hit the Clear All button which will untick everything.

The recommended process for “normal” Users (i.e. not Administrators), is to first use the Clear All button, then selectively switch on just the functions that they will need.

Setup User Email (Optional)

You can setup email addresses associated with a username if you choose to do so. You will need to enter your mail server details as well as the User’s email details.

Please note: You might need to add authentication details to connect to your email provider.

These details will be used as per your system choices in Administration | System | Communication Settings | Host Email Settings. Each option that has the User box ticked will use these User Email settings, in preference to the system-wide email address.

Deleting a User

To delete a User, select the User from the list and click the Delete button. That User will no longer be able to log in to the system.

Label Printer Bundle – Label printing made easy

Posted on by Danny Gill

DONT WASTE TIME PRINTING A4 AVERY SHEETS!

BUNDLE INCLUDES

TSC Label Printer

Compatible with Thermal transfer & Direct Thermal labels.

Setup of Label Design in ProfiitPlus

$549 inc

2x LABEL ROLLS INCLUDED

50mm x 25mm Direct thermal Rolls.

2,000 labels per roll.

Enquire Now

Call us on 1800 061 670 to order now, or to find out more. We ship Australia-wide and can install the label printer remotely.

e-PayDay Single Touch Payroll for Australian Businesses

e-PayDay Single Touch Payroll for Australian Businesses

Posted on by Danny Gill

Meet all your ATO Single Touch Payroll Reporting requirements without breaking the Bank!

For over 30 years e-PayDay have been providing software that covers your payroll needs no matter what type of business you have. Cost-effective Australian Made Payroll Software that is comprehensive and easy-to-use. e-PayDay is designed to make payroll simpler for any small to medium sized business.

Foresiight Approved

Foresiight supports and recommends e-PayDay payroll software. It is used by many of our customers all over Australia. e-PayDay includes a feature for exporting a payroll journal in Foresiight’s format. This can then be quickly and easily imported into your General Ledger and posted as you complete each payroll run.

e-PayDay features

Awards and Agreements

Pay Types

Leave Accruals

Taxation

Superannuation

Salary Sacrifice

SuperStream

Electronic Funds Transfer

Emailing Pay Advice Slips

Payroll Costings

Payroll Tax Calculation

Accounting Integration

Comprehensive Reporting

ATO Compliant with Single Touch Payroll Reporting

and much more . . .

Electronic Transfers

Transfer Pays using any Financial Institution that is a member of the Australian Bankers Association.

Pay Superannuation using SuperStream.

Single Touch Payroll reports automatically sent directly to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) every pay period in real-time.

Start employees easily with myGov employee commencement (coming soon).

For more information on e-PayDay, contact us at solutions@foresiight.com.au or call us on (07) 3356 2772.

Foresiight can help get you up and running with e-PayDay, or we can put you in touch with an e-PayDay expert to answer any questions.

You can also check out the e-PayDay site here to learn more: https://www.e-payday.com.au/desktop-single-touch-payroll

Reach more customers with online sales

Reach more customers with online sales

Posted on by Danny Gill

One of the responses we’ve seen from COVID-19 is how consumer behaviors have changed during periods of restricted social interaction. We are now more than ever relying on online shopping for our buying needs. A great option for businesses today is to add another sales channel to take advantage of new opportunities that exist beyond your physical location. eCommerce can help you do that.

Having a great website is just the first step in your business’ journey to increasing revenue opportunities.  As your online presence grows, it will quickly become obvious that there is a need to minimise the burden of manually maintaining stock information and sales transactions across multiple systems.

Foresiight ProfiitPlus and Alchemii business management software can be linked directly to your online store with our purpose-built eCommerce Interface module.  Automatically publish stock updates to your website including descriptions, pricing and inventory levels.  Once a customer makes a purchase online, a Web Order is automatically created in your ProfiitPlus system, ready for your staff to pack and send.

No more double handling of data – keep your inventory always up to date. And keep your customer sales history all in one place, no matter where they transacted – online or in store.
The eCommerce Interface add-on module has been built to integrate with two popular eCommerce Systems, Magento and Neto, giving you the freedom to choose the platform that best suits your business’ needs.

Magento is a mature eCommerce platform, used by a huge number of online businesses both in Australia and throughout the world. Magento is available in both enterprise and open-source versions, meaning Web designers can implement the core system and then extend its functionality by writing custom modifications or adding plugins.  A marketplace is available with an enormous number of plugins and extensions, providing popular functionality such as Payment Gateways and Shipping Extensions. Many integrations are also available for more specific features such as email marketing and social media.

The possibilities are endless with Magento, but this can come at a cost – the work involved to design and deploy a heavily customised Magento eCommerce system can be significant, so most Web Developers will tend to charge a little more than you might spend on some other more basic platforms. Still, this is a great solution for established businesses looking to build upon an online sales platform that allows maximum flexibility, and is based on proven and widely-supported technology.

Neto differs significantly from many other platforms in that it is provided entirely as a Software-as-a-Service solution, meaning the eCommerce software environment is hosted on Neto’s own servers. As a business using Neto, you pay a regular monthly subscription fee that includes the use of the platform and software updates, as well as the hosting and maintenance services.

The SaaS nature of the Neto product means that the time to get up and running can be relatively short. After completing a few simple forms with some details about your business, a sample site can be setup and launched the same day.

A number of modestly priced site templates are available “off the shelf”, providing a quick and easy way to apply some colour and an impressive look and feel to your site. Of course, a polished and professional site will require some help from a specialist web designer and more investment.
The Neto Marketplace provides a host of optional add-on features such as payment gateways, marketing, analytics and shipping integrations.  Another key Neto feature is the eBay integration, allowing you to manage your eBay listings and Orders all from within the Neto ecosystem. Both eBay Orders and Neto Orders flow through to your Foresiight ProfiitPlus/Alchemii system via the eCommerce Interface module, combining with your traditional in-store and phone order sales to give you true multi-channel sales capability.

Whilst the Neto platform is not quite as customisable as a system like Magento, it still has more than enough features out of the box to suit most retail and wholesale businesses, and the list of core features and add-ons is growing constantly. Another bonus is that you are dealing with an Australian business, developed and supported right here in Brisbane (just like Foresiight). For these reasons and more, Neto has rapidly become one of the most popular eCommerce platform choices for Australian businesses.

Whatever your business requirements, wholesale (B2B) or retail (B2C) – there is a solution to suit. Talk to your Foresiight Support Consultant today if you would like to know more about how to get the most out of your online presence.

For more information on eCommerce integration, email us at solutions@foresiight.com.au or call us on (07) 3356 2772.

Foresiight Mini POS Bundle – clear the clutter!

Posted on by Danny Gill

Is your counter area cluttered with big old desktop workstations?
Are you still running outdated and unsupported Windows 7 systems?

Foresiight has the solution – our Mini POS systems feature a powerful small-frame Intel PC in a case that’s smaller than a docket printer!

Stop putting up with big, old clunky systems that are slowing down your business. Update today with an easy and affordable solution from Foresiight.

Enquire Now

Just send us an email at solutions@foresiight.com.au or call on 1800 061 670 to order now, or to find out more. We ship Australia-wide and can configure your new system remotely.

SMS Free Trial

SMS Free Trial

Posted on by Danny Gill

SMS Free Trial

SMS marketing is a vital part of getting your business’ name out there in the mobile-focused world we live in. In fact, most people use SMS every single day.

SMS is becoming an increasingly essential part of effective marketing in businesses today and it is a very cost effective solution.

SMS is a great way to keep in touch with your customers (and sometimes even suppliers). It is also essential to building your brand and is a great tool to use to send your customers exclusive deals, surveys, insider information & even run contests! 

ProfiitPlus & Alchemii includes functionality to send SMS messages directly from various parts of the system – not just for marketing, but also for Order fulfilment, Job completion notifications, and more.

SMS messaging that is integrated into your business management system is big driver of efficiency in business. A simple button click can save a lot of time spent on phone calls. And just as importantly, many consumers actually prefer this method of communication.

We are offering a free trial! If you would like to trial the SMS features in ProfiitPlus/Alchemii, contact us and we will setup your integration for free and give you a batch of SMS to send out to your customers.

Email or phone Foresiight on (07) 3356 2772 to get connected today.

Click here to read some more about integrated SMS functionality.

Foresiight Training Packages

Foresiight Training Packages

Posted on by Danny Gill

Well here are Foresiight we offer affordable and valuable training sessions for our valuable customers.

Are you a new user of ProfiitPlus or Alchemii, and want to get started on the right foot? Or perhaps you just feel like you need to brush up on your knowledge of certain parts of the system?

Standard training packages are now available for each of the following topics:

Bookkeeping/Accounting Introduction

This training session is designed to provide an overview of how to use the day-to-day accounting & bookkeeping facilities within the system.  Primarily focusing on the General Ledger module, we will also touch on the flow of information from other parts of the system.

Topics include:

General Ledger journals

Searching through GL transaction history

Making adjustments

Closing off periods and end of year roll-over

Bank reconciliations

Management reports incl. Balance Sheet and P&L

BAS

Chart of Accounts

Accounts Payable

This training session is designed to provide an overview of how to maintain Creditors and use the Accounts Payable facilities within the system.  Primarily focusing on the Accounts Payable module, we will also touch on the flow of information from other parts of the system.

Topics include:

Entering invoice batches

Updating supplier account details

Regular Creditor payments

Non-Creditor payments

Manual Creditor payments

Transaction matching

Balance adjustments

Reporting

Accounts Receivable

This training session is designed to provide an overview of how to maintain Debtors and use the Accounts Receivable facilities within the system.  Primarily focusing on the Accounts Receivable module, we will also touch on the flow of information from other parts of the system.

Topics include:

Account enquiries

Updating customer account details

Issuing account statements

Transaction matching

Balance adjustments

Invoice batches

Payment/banking batches

Reporting

Overdue accounts

Credit limit and credit hold

Training is delivered by a Foresiight Consultant either remotely (online), on-site, or at Foresiight’s training rooms in Brisbane. You will be able to have up to 2 participants that may attend.

Duration will vary depending on content and participants – Please allow between 1 and 2 hours.

All training packages are priced at $220 per session

Call us on (07) 3356 2772 or send us an email at support@foresiight.com.au to book in a training session.

ProfiitPlus & Alchemii Version 4.93 New Features

ProfiitPlus & Alchemii Version 4.93 New Features

Posted on by Danny Gill

Customer Notes

The Customer Notes system has been re-designed.  You will notice the notes are split into individual text bubbles which can be individually printed, edited, or deleted. There is a new feature to mark a note as Private, this will mean the note cannot be printed and can only be edited or removed by the creator of the note.
The list can be sorted oldest to newest and each note records date, time and user information.

The new notes functionality has been added to:

Admininstration | Edit Customers

Accounts Receivable | Enquiry

Loyalty | Member Maintenance

CRM | Customers and Enquiry

Maintenance Records | Enquiry | Jobs by Accounts

AR Enquiry Screen

New filtering options have been added to the Accounts Receivable Enquiry screen, to easily locate account transactions within a pre-defined date range – for example, the past 90 days. The list can also be filtered by transaction type, such as Invoices, Credits, Payments, or Adjustments.

Paperless Office documents are now highlighted in the A/R Enquiry grid in a new column named “Doc”, with an icon to indicate that this Invoice has a paperless office document directly attached. To easily access this attachment, right click with the mouse and select “Open Paperless Office”.

eCommerce

Download individual or a range of web orders

Orders can now be downloaded manually by a specified range of Order numbers, or for an individual Order number. This can be useful where an incomplete Order from a previous day was not collected in the normal automatic synchronisation processes. This feature is available via Download Orders in the Management Console.

Product Insights

The extended Product Information frame has been added in the Process eCommerce Orders screen. This displays all of the key details about the currently selected line item.

Customer Keyword Search

The Keyword Search function in Customer Lookup Lists throughout the system has been enhanced to become a “multi-word” search. This means that each word (or partial word) entered is treated as an individual search term that may be located anywhere within a Customer Code, Customer Name, Phone Number, or Address. This provides a simpler search mechanism for the operator and a more effective set of results.

For example, you might enter the search term “JANE BERS”. This would display any customer named Jane from the suburb of Berserker.

Item Detail info Panel

In the Display Item Details screen, a new information panel has been added along the bottom of each tab to display quantity Available, quantity on Purchase Order, and quantity on Sales Order.

Purchase Invoice Number length

The maximum size for a Purchase Invoice Number has been increased from 10 characters to 20 characters. This has been implemented throughout the system from Stock and Purchasing through to Accounts Payable with screens, reports and entry points all accommodating this increase in character length.

Paperless Office Copy and Paste

Copy and Paste support has been added to the Paperless Office subsystem – the user may now copy a file and paste it as Paperless Office attachment using the right-click menu. Drag and drop support has also been introduced.

Custom Fields

Where the Custom Stock Fields Add-on is licenced, there is a new property to add a document link. This is separate to the image link and will hold such document types as PDF, Excel, Word, Text, CSV and other file types.

Documents and files can be viewed directly from Display Item Details screen by clicking on the attachment link.

Are you ready for June 30?

Are you ready for June 30?

Posted on by Danny Gill
END OF YEAR

Our support team has compiled a quick list of must-do items, reports and checks to ensure you don’t look back in coming months and realise you missed an important end of year step! For more information click the following link to view our User Guide on End of Year. https://foresiight.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003022467-End-of-Year

Things you can do NOW:

Run AR & AP reconciliation reports – Check these with the GL Balance and ensure that you are in balance.  If there is an imbalance between AR/AP and your General Ledger Control accounts, seek assistance straight away.  You can contact your accountant for advice, or book some consultancy time with our specialists.
Run AR/AP Sub Ledger Verification Reports – This is located in General Ledger | Reports and ensures that all batches posted from AP and AR have made it into your General Ledger.  As above, if you find an error here, seek advice asap or book a consultancy session.
Run Trial balance and ensure the movement columns balance – If an end of year close hasn’t been performed for the previous year, there can be an imbalance in the total columns, but your debit and credit movement columns should always balance.  Seek specialist advise if this is not the case.
Check Stock Valuation matches the GL Stock account – If you have been adjusting average stock values throughout the year and not adjusting the General Ledger to reflect this, you may need to do some end of year journals to bring this valuation back in line. This is best done after a full stocktake, unless you have been performing regular rolling stocktakes throughout the year.
Post all sales and purchase invoices – Ensure that all invoices are posted to AR and AP where possible.  If overnight posting is active you can let this run, or you can manually post sales so you can take your backup for the end of year.

Tasks to complete ON June 30

At the close of business, post all sales and purchase invoices where possible.  If you have overnight posting, ensure that you are able to take a backup after posting before trade starts for July 1.  You can manually post in Sales Orders & Invoicing | Sales | Update Sales & Payments.
Run your AR and AP Aged Balances Reports – These reports can’t be printed retrospectively so if you need these reports for your accountant, run them now – note that you can save them to PDF, Excel or Text for future use. It is a good idea to be doing this on a monthly basis in case you need to refer to previous months’ reports.
Run a Stocktake Valuation Report and save to PDF or Excel. Again, this cannot be run retrospectively, so it is a good idea to run this report at the end of each month and save a copy.
Update your AR Period – if your purchase invoices have been entered for June, you can also update your AP period, you can manually change the period on single invoices in Stock Receipting. NOTE: you may need to first open the 2021 financial year – just go to General Ledger | Periods | Open/Close Financial Periods and in the box in the lower right corner type 21 and click OK.
TAKE A BACKUP!  It is best to take a full backup of your data as at 30 June in case this is needed down the track.  It may also be a good time to copy to the training system, just in case you’ve forgotten to run any reports. You can copy to training in Administration | Other | Copy to Training System.
Archiving & Purging

Archiving & Purging

Posted on by Danny Gill

Over a period of time, a huge amount of historical data can accumulate within your ProfiitPlus/Alchemii database. Whilst the system is developed to efficiently handle very large numbers of transactions, some significant speed improvements in day-to-day processing can be achieved by archiving or purging unused data.

Certain data, such as financial movement and sales transactions, is very valuable for reporting on, learning from and benchmarking against for several years after its creation. But there are a lot of other examples of data that quickly diminishes in value as time passes, and in some cases may lay completely dormant for many years.

As an example, a record of completed Purchase Orders is useful to have for some time after each P/O is filled, but eventually this data becomes redundant and for most businesses is of little use after a couple of years.

The following Archiving & Purging options can be located in Administration | System | Archiving and Purging

To learn more about these processes, follow the link below to the Foresiight Support Centre and login with your credentials, or request a user name and password. Performing an Archive or a Purge can be quite daunting the first time (and even the tenth time!). This in-depth User Guide will explain each of the steps in detail.

https://foresiight.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001215056-Archiving-Purging

If you don’t feel comfortable enough to undertake this on your own, Foresiight can perform these tasks on your behalf at our standard hourly consultancy rate. We also offer the option of doing this after hours, when your users are out of the system.

For more information on Archiving and Purging and our other maintenance services, email Foresiight today at solutions@foresiight.com.au or call us on (07) 3356 2772.

COVID-19 Information

COVID-19 Information

Posted on by Danny Gill

The world is going through an extraordinary time with the outbreak of COVID-19 and we all need to be strong and work together to contain the spread.

A large number of Australian businesses and their employees have already been impacted greatly, particularly in sectors such as travel, accommodation, and hospitality.

At the same time, we are seeing some better outcomes in other industries that have not been as heavily impacted – such as hardware & industrial supplies, landscaping supplies, irrigation, and wholesale.  Some industries, such as pharmacy, are even experiencing an upturn.

With that in mind, we all share a willingness to keep business running and the economy ticking over to the extent that is possible, whilst adhering strictly to social distancing guidelines and other important government recommendations.

We have provided some useful information and links below for your reference.

Economic Response to the Coronavirus

If you are operating a Business, there are a number of stimulus packages and other forms of assistance available to you.

Relief for commercial tenants

The Government has announced a mandatory code of conduct for commercial tenancies to support small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

JobKeeper Payment for employers and employees

Following registration by the eligible business, the Government will provide $1,500 per fortnight per eligible employee for a maximum of 6 months.

Help with your energy bill

If you can’t pay your bill on time, you may be able to delay payment, pay your bill off in smaller amounts, and avoid disconnection.

Increased Instant Asset Write-Off

The Government has lifted this threshold to $150,000 for assets that are either installed or ready for first use by 30 June 2020.

Access to credit for small businesses

The Government will provide a guarantee of 50 per cent to small and medium enterprise (SME) lenders for new unsecured loans to be used for working capital.

Assistance to help pay the wages of apprentices or trainees

Eligible employers can apply for a wage subsidy of 50 per cent of the apprentice’s or trainee’s wage paid during the 9 months from 1 January 2020 to 30 September 2020.

ATO – Tax support

The Australian Tax Office (ATO) is providing relief for some tax obligations for businesses affected by the outbreak.

Qld Government – Payroll tax relief

Measures include refunds of payroll tax for 2 months, a payroll tax holiday for 3 months, deferral of payments for 2020.

Support for Individuals and Households

If you are employed (self employed or other), you will want to take note of the Centrelink payments in case you are stood down in your position or made redundant. We have listed some links below for more information.

Increased and accelerated income support

The Government is temporarily expanding eligibility to income support payments and establishing a new, time-limited Coronavirus supplement to be paid at a rate of $550 per fortnight.

Early Access to Superannuation

Individuals affected by the coronavirus can access up to $10,000 of their superannuation in 2019-20 and a further $10,000 in 2020-21.

Australian Government The Treasury – Supporting Individuals and Households

The Australian Government is providing financial assistance to Australians to support them through the Coronavirus.

 

MORE INFORMATION ON COVID-19

Australian Government World Health Organization

Department of social services

How can I prevent the spread of coronavirus?

Practising good hand and sneeze/cough hygiene and keeping your distance from others when you are sick is the best defence against most viruses. You should:
  • wash your hands frequently with soap and water, including before and after eating, and after going to the toilet
  • cover your cough and sneeze, dispose of tissues, and wash your hands
  • avoid contact with others (stay more than 1.5 metres from people)
  • stay at home if unwell.

Call the National Coronavirus Helpline on 1800 020 080. It operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The phone number of your state or territory public health agency is available at www.health.gov.au/state-territory-contacts
If you have concerns about your health, speak to your doctor.

 

A Positive Outlook

Please remember, our number one priority must be the health of ourselves and those around us.  But secondary to that is maintaining our livelihoods – we must remain positive, take advantage of the measures put in place to help, and believe that we will come out the other side of this and prosper as individuals, as businesses, and as a country.

Upgrade Win7 to Win10

Upgrade Win7 to Win10

Posted on by Danny Gill

Now that the end of Support for Windows 7 has come and gone back on the 14th of January, there is no better time than now to take the leap and upgrade to Windows 10.

Foresiight can assist you in both confirming that your current PC specifications are going to successfully run the newer Windows 10 operating system, as well as performing the upgrade on your behalf to ensure that you can continue using your PC with little to no disruption.

If you are feeling more adventurous then you can attempt the upgrade yourself by following this link: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/you-can-download-windows-10-free-you-should-because-windows-7-dead  *NOTE: You will leave the Foresiight domain when following this link*

Please note: Not all hardware and software is compatable with Windows 10 (however some software may just need an upgrade to become compatable – this may however carry a charge from the software vendor), also not all versions of Windows 7/8/8.1 are able to upgrade to Windows 10.

Foresiight Joins Vela Australia

Foresiight Joins Vela Australia

Posted on by Danny Gill
Vela-Australia

Exciting news for Foresiight

I am excited to announce that effective from 1st March 2020, Foresiight Software became part of Constellation Software Inc. (TSX: CSU), through its Vela Software Operating Group division. As part of the acquisition, Foresiight Software will operate as an independent company within Vela Australia and we will continue to service all our current customers across Australia.

What does this mean for you?
It will be business as usual but business beyond usual.

This is the beginning of a whole new world of opportunity. Backed by the global might of Constellation Software Inc. we will be looking to not only continue to service our customers but to grow the business, products and services even further to provide the best experience and a critical competitive edge for all our customers.

The strategic and operational support provided by Vela Australia will allow us to extend our market reach as well as facilitate future development and innovation that will deliver benefits and complementary new offerings.

We look forward to the ongoing successful growth of the company into the future and the continued strength of our ongoing business relationships with our customers, which are at the heart of what drives our business.

For further information on Vela and Constellation Software Inc, please visit www.velasoftwaregroup.com.au

Yours sincerely,
Steve Williamson
General Manager of Foresiight Software
StockMate version 1.22 major release

StockMate version 1.22 major release

Posted on by Danny Gill
Foresiight,-Our-Services_Product-Feature_Customer-Benefit,-Linkedin,31.07.19

StockMate version 1.22 has been released and some great new features have been added:

  • * Stock codes are now displayed in each of the list views, making it easier to differentiate between similar items rather than relying on just the product description.
  • * We removed the separate decimal entry box for quantities – now the user can instead just type in the decimal place when required.
  • * You can now see full product descriptions (both description lines 1 & 2) right throughout StockMate.
  • * In each of the list views you can now choose what sequence you would like your products to be displayed. Sequence by description, order of items being scanned or by stock code.

Numerous other improvements were released in StockMate v1.20 and v1.21, so be sure to speak to your Support Consultant to learn more if you haven’t already updated to the latest version.

Want more information on StockMate? Please contact us.

Protect Your Computers This Storm Season

Protect Your Computers This Storm Season

Posted on by Danny Gill
UPS protects from power failures

Are your computers protected from the threat of power failures?

We all know that when a bad storm hits it can cause power failures, which means any electrical appliances that are not on backup power will stop working immediately. This can potentially be damaging to your computer equipment, and can even result in data loss.  Added to this is the problem of POS systems going offline, and the ensuing scramble to revert to manual systems.

All of this can cost your business a lot of money in terms of damaged equipment and lost revenue.

Using high quality uninterruptible power supply (UPS) equipment can help protect your Servers & Workstations against damage from unexpected power failures or unclean power. UPS devices provide constant power backup to your system, ensuring that there is no interruption during short power outages and brown-outs. In the case of a complete black-out, the right UPS will allow you sufficient time to shut down safely during longer power outages.

Importantly, a good UPS will also filter out bad power fluctuations, protection your equipment from serious damage.

It really is vital to have your power protection in place before the summer storms begin to hit.  Foresiight can get your systems UPS-protected from as little as $198.

Contact us on 1800 061 670 for advice and pricing on the right UPS equipment for your business.

Automate your online business with Foresiight

Automate your online business with Foresiight

Posted on by Steve Williamson
Trading online? ProfiitPlus offers an automated eCommerce interface with major eCommerce platforms.

You’ve built up your business, you have a strong brand, a good reputation and you sell great products.  Now you need another sales channel to take advantage of all that hard work and spread the word beyond your physical location.  eCommerce is the answer.

Grow your business with an online presence

Online sales are becoming an integral part of many traditional bricks and mortar businesses, but often this brings with it the burden of manually maintaining stock information and sales transactions across multiple systems.  An online sales channel should increase your revenue and customer base, not your work load!

ProfiitPlus (and Alchemii) business management software can be linked directly to your online store with our purpose-built eCommerce Interface module.  Automatically publish stock updates to your website including descriptions, pricing and inventory levels.  Once a customer makes a purchase online, a Web Order is automatically created in your ProfiitPlus system, ready for your staff to pack and send.  No more double handling of data – keep your inventory always up to date. And keep your customer sales history all in one place, no matter where they transacted – online or in store.

The eCommerce Interface add-on module has been built to integrate with two popular eCommerce Systems, Magento and Neto, giving you the freedom to choose the platform that best suits your business’ needs.

Magento is a mature eCommerce platform, used by a huge number of online businesses both in Australia and throughout the world. Magento Community Edition is open-source, meaning Web designers can implement the core system and then extend its functionality by writing custom modifications or adding plugins.  A marketplace is available with an enormous number of plugins and extensions, providing popular functionality such as Payment Gateways and Shipping Extensions.  Many integrations are also available for more specific features such as email marketing and social media.

The possibilities are endless with Magento, but this can come at a cost – the work involved to design and deploy a heavily customised Magento eCommerce system can be significant, so most Web Developers will tend to charge a little more than you might spend on some other more basic platforms.  Still, this is a great solution for established businesses looking to build upon an online sales platform that allows maximum flexibility, and is based on proven and widely-supported technology.

A commercial (non-open source) version of Magento is also available for businesses with even more advanced eCommerce requirements, typically larger groups and enterprises.

Neto differs significantly from many other platforms in that it is provided entirely as a Software-as-a-Service solution, meaning the eCommerce software environment is hosted on Neto’s own servers.  As a business using Neto, you pay a regular monthly subscription fee for the use of the software as well as the hosting and maintenance services.

The SaaS nature of the Neto product means that the time to get up and running can be very short indeed.  A sample site can be setup and launched in less than an hour, after completing just a few simple forms with some details about your business.

A number of modestly priced site templates are available “off the shelf”, providing a quick and easy way to apply some colour and an impressive look and feel to your site.  Of course, a polished and professional site will require some help from a specialist web designer.

The Neto Marketplace provides a host of optional add-on features such as payment gateways, marketing, analytics and shipping integrations.  Another key Neto feature is the eBay integration, allowing you to manage your eBay listings and Orders all from within the Neto ecosystem.  Both eBay Orders and Neto Orders flow in to ProfiitPlus via the eCommerce Interface module, combining with your traditional in-store and phone order sales to give you true multi-channel sales capability.

Whilst the Neto system is perhaps not quite as flexible as some others, it has more than enough features out of the box to suit most retail and wholesale businesses, and the list of core features and add-ons is growing constantly.  Another bonus is that you are dealing with an Australian business, developed and supported right here in Brisbane (just like Foresiight).  For these reasons and more, Neto has rapidly become one of the most popular eCommerce platform choices for Australian businesses.

Whatever your business requirements, wholesale (B2B) or retail (B2C) – there is a solution to suit. Talk to your Foresiight Support Consultant today if you would like to know more about how to get the most out of your online presence.

Contact Us today for more information!

Links:

https://magento.com/

https://marketplace.magento.com/

https://www.neto.com.au/

https://www.neto.com.au/addons

Annual Support – What it really means to you

Annual Support – What it really means to you

Posted on by Steve Williamson
didyouknow

Do you know the benefits of maintaining your ProfiitPlus or Alchemii Support Agreement?

ProfiitPlus, Alchemii, StockMate, and JobMate together make up a comprehensive Business Management System – this really is a huge software suite with a lot of modules, add-on’s, and customisable features – designed to suit a wide variety of industries.  Understanding how to get the best out of this system, and using it to drive your business ahead, is something that takes time.

With your Software Support Agreement, you have a group of locally based experts waiting to assist you with your questions.  Whether it’s simply not knowing where to perform a task, looking for some advice on reporting, or changing configuration settings – most of your support questions can be answered either immediately or within a short period of time.

As you would be aware, not every computer or application runs smoothly 100% of the time.  With wired and wireless networks, a wide range of Server and workstation Operating Systems and storage devices as well as as a mixture of LAN, WAN and VPN connections, something, somewhere is bound to go wrong at some point in time.  But when it does, we are here to help you get back up and running as quickly as possible.

As a registered Support customer, you are also entitled to priority Support Services and discounted rates on training sessions and Technical Services.  Support customers also have access to our online Support Centre, with a large assortment of User Guides, Release Notes, and other useful documentation.  If you are not already making use of our Support Centre, you’re missing out!  Please contact us immediately to request access.

In addition to the support services you receive as part of your annual support fee, you are also entitled to a minimum of two upgrades per support year, installed for you by our team during business hours free of charge.

Our regular software release cycle means that a large number of new features, enhancement requests and bug fixes are released each month.  So how can you stay on top of these new features and ensure your system is not left behind?  Regularly catch up on the Release Notes in your Support Centre (http://www.ppsupport.com.au) and if something grabs your attention, just drop us a support ticket to book your upgrade!  In coming months we will also be extending our emails to include regular release notifications and feature highlights.

Thanks for being a valued Foresiight customer, and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Windows 7 & Server 2008/R2 End of Life in 2020

Windows 7 & Server 2008/R2 End of Life in 2020

Posted on by Danny Gill
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Microsoft Windows 7 & Server 2008/r2 will stop releasing security updates on the 14th January 2020.

What does this mean? Well Microsoft will stop releasing security updates. The products keep working, but you are now exposed to a whole world of security vulnerabilities.

As with Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows XP, there is a fair bit of panic and uncertainty surrounding this change. Industries seem to be particularly affected, as they prefer to cling onto stable operating system platforms for much longer than the general public.

Here are a few handy links in regards to end of life for Microsoft Windows 7 & server 2008/r2.

https://www.techradar.com/au/how-to/how-to-prepare-for-windows-7-end-of-life

https://community.connection.com/windows-sql-server-2008-2008-r2-end-life-coming-soon-now/

Did You Know? Browse Email Log

Did You Know? Browse Email Log

Posted on by Danny Gill

ProfiitPlus Tip of the Month

Would you like to check if your emails are being sent out of ProfiitPlus successfully? Well did you know you can do this in the system.

We have a Browse email log and correspondence feature in the ProfiitPlus System.

You can view the email log by going to the following:

ADMINISTRATION | SYSTEM | COMMUNICATIONS SETUP | BROWSE EMAIL LOG

In Browse Email Log you see what emails have been sent or undelivered. Under status your emails will either show a green S (sent) or a yellow U (undelivered).

 

You can also re-send an email from Browse Email Log, plus there is the option to purge old email log entries

all email log entries.

You can view the email log for a particular customer by going to the correspondence tab:

Go to CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP | CUSTOMERS

In your customers box you will see a correspondence tab near the top right corner.

This will show you the email log for an individual customer.

 

Server Maintenance Promotion

Server Maintenance Promotion

Posted on by Steve Williamson
servermaint

Foresiight Server maintenance

Many businesses invest in their server’s initial setup and then neglect to perform ongoing server maintenance to ensure that their business data and hardware are performing optimally.  As with any piece of equipment, regular servicing and maintenance are required, however many businesses don’t have the technical staff available to undertake complex reviews of their system’s security and performance.

Foresiight’s team of IT professionals are highly skilled and experienced in all aspects of IT including server maintenance.  Each of our technicians are highly knowledgable in ensuring optimal server performance for running ProfiitPlus, allowing you to not only have a server that performs at its optimal speed, but they will also be able to assist you in ensuring your ProfiitPlus system will continue to perform as efficiently as possible.

Our Direct Debit arrangement provides you with an affordable monthly payment option and we will waive the annual fee on all new server maintenance agreements.

Weekly Server Maintenance Checks include:

  • Checking backup results
  • Reviewing virus activity and performing antivirus software updates
  • User security checks
  • Review hardware error logs
  • Review software / operating system error logs
  • Installation of operating system patches and updates
  • Monitoring disk space and performance
  • Checking that all users, groups, computer names, domain controllers are still current and being used
Foresiight Server maintenance plans start from as little as $120 per month!
Call us on 07 3356 2772 now to ensure your business is protected
Review Your Backup – It’s not a “Set & Forget” Process

Review Your Backup – It’s not a “Set & Forget” Process

Posted on by Steve Williamson

backup

Have you checked your backups lately?

It is important to remember to review your backup regularly.  Backups are not a set-and-forget solution and they need to be continually monitored and tested to ensure that your data is being backed up correctly.  Assuming your backup is being successfully completed can lead to disaster when you least expect it.

One of the many reasons you may need to review your backup is if your system has recently been changed from “Desktop” database mode to “Client-Server” database mode.  If you are not doing a full backup and are backing up only your ProfiitPlus data folders then there is a likelihood that your data may inadvertently be missed from your daily backup.

When using “Client-Server” mode there is a high likelihood that the physical disk location of your data has also changed.  It is vital that you ensure, therefore, that the correct folders are included in your daily backup.  Whilst a daily backup need only consist of your data files, a regular backup of your entire ProfiitPlus folder will ensure your system can be restored quickly and easily, with minimal downtime.  Remember to take a backup offsite or invest in a remote backup service.

Some popular backup applications include:

If you aren’t sure, give Foresiight a call today – we are always happy to offer advice on backup solutions.

Did You Know? Shelf Talkers

Did You Know? Shelf Talkers

Posted on by Steve Williamson

ProfiitPlus Tip of the Month

So now you’re all over the Advanced Promotions and standard promotions and everything is on sale.  So you can write signs to show things are discounted, sitting down all night with your paper and a marker, or you can print professional quality shelf talkers directly from ProfiitPlus!

Creating your talker

In Administration – go to Stock | Manage Promotions | Shelf Talker Display/Designer to view existing talkers and add new designs.  Note that it is recommended that you start from a template if you have one installed already.  Creating designs from scratch will require some skill in document designer.  Shelf talker preformatted designs are available from $220 inc GST.  To add a talker, click the Add button and give the talker style a unique code – you can just use sequential numbers or you can use other naming conventions, eg. size – A4, C6, etc.  Click OK and enter a description for the Shelf Talker and click the Designer button.  The wizard will be shown where you can choose the default printer for the design, select the printer and click Next.  On the next screen you will see a large number of template sizes for Avery media.  You can select one of these paper sizes or click (user-defined) at the top of the list and click Next.  If you selected User Defined, you will need to enter the page, column, margin, etc. settings:

Shelf Talker Designer - Specify Media Size

Get out your trusty ruler and measure your media, or determine your preferred size for the document.  If you are using an A4 sheet, you can halve or quarter this and enter the number across and down in the “Number” settings.  Click “Next” and note how many shelf talkers are to print per page.  Your label editing screen will show a box with “Double-Click here to fill the label with data” – you can double click on this box and delete the sample line.  Click the New Paragraph button – if you simply want to type text you can type the text in double quotes, or go to the “Text” tab and enter your text, press Line Feed to create a new line.  When your text looks how you want it, simply click the insert button to format it for the designer.  Click OK to go back to the previous screen and format your paragraph or add another.

Shelf Talker Design

 

Add another paragraph and in the Variables/Fields box, expand “Variables” to see a list of all ProfiitPlus fields available in the Design.  You will find a large number of fields, including stock and shelf information, standard and promotional pricing, start and finish dates and all of the complexities included in the Advanced Promotion Setup.  Simply double click any of these fields/variables to add them to the design.  You can add Text first by going to the text tab, then add a variable at the end of it.  Click OK to return to the paragraph properties screen.  You can now select the lines individually to apply custom formatting to each of the lines or change the justification/layout.

Shelf Talker Fields

On the right hand column you will see the properties of each field.  You can go through each of these and change font colours, sizes, justification, frames and more.  You can wrap text so it doesn’t get truncated at the end of each line, or set appearance conditions and conditional formatting, which is recommended only for advanced users.  Set your formatting as required for each line added to the paragraph.  Once complete you can click and drag the edges of the text box to resize it, hold and drag to move it, etc.  You can add images by clicking the “Picture” button and dragging your mouse to indicate the size and placement of the image.  Browse for the file and click Ok.

Shelf Talker

Happy with your designer?  Click save to save the layout and close the designer if you’re happy.  You can now specify the shelf talker code in the individual promotions and/or promo lines on your sale.  Not happy?  You can continue to make changes to the design or contact Foresiight to discuss a custom shelf talker to suit your store layout/business.