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Inventory is live!

The Inventory beta concluded on August 16th with the release of Inventory version 1.0! The SSDT recently presented an overview of the inventory application to ITC fiscal support staff which was recorded for reference purposes.   The session went into detail on the options available in the application as well as covering pre-extract and post-import steps and user documentation.  For your convenience, I have provided a short demo of the application in order to give you a sneak peek of the quick and fluid styling of the new system.  

There are some differences in the installation and configuration of the inventory application when compared to USXS-R.  We have provided an 'Installation and Migration Guide' to ITCs stepping them through the processes necessary to install, configure and migrate classic EIS data as well as creating empty databases for those districts who do not plan to migrate from EIS and would like to start new in the Inventory application.  We ask that you give your ITCs time to schedule their districts inventory migrations.  There is a lot of planning involved along with performing test imports to ensure your Classic data has migrated successfully. 

We also want to give a special thanks to the Inventory User Focus group.  Their insight and feedback proved to be invaluable as we worked through the development process.  Inventory will continue to be actively developed with several exciting features scheduled already.  As always, we look forward to and appreciate feedback from our users! 

PO Repair

Picture this: You’re preparing for your next USAS-R check run and once all your invoices have been entered, you find out that one of the purchase orders that was invoiced is made out to the wrong vendor. You have multiple invoices for that purchase order included in the outstanding Payables grid so changing them now would be a pain if you have to delete the invoices, update the Purchase Order, and then re-enter them. This is a situation where the PO Repair option would come in handy!

The PO Repair option allows you to update a purchase order date, vendor, and/or item account codes even after it has been invoiced. This tool will also update any invoices that have been issued against the purchase order. The Repair option can be found by viewing the purchase order and clicking on the   icon.

There are some ground rules that must be followed to use the repair option: 

• The purchase order and/or purchase order item must not have any payments (disbursements) posted against it. If there are checks already, the transactions linking to those payments must be kept intact! As long as the Payable has not been posted yet, the repair can be used so that is a great point for double checking. The SSDT Outstanding Invoices by Vendor Name report can be used to review transactions in the Payables grid before posting.
• The Repair option adheres to existing posting period rules. For example, if repairing a PO that is dated in a previous posting period that posting period must be opened first to make changes. This is needed in Redesign since previous posting period reports can be regenerated on the fly. If you are changing a purchase order line item from one account to another, this ensures those encumbrances can be reflected appropriately on those account reports.

Once you open up the Repair option, the pop window contains three separate tabs for making updates. Make sure to Update using one tab at a time. 

Account

To change the account code on one or more purchase order line items, start by selecting the account that should be changed in the "From Account" drop down. This will populate the grid below with any line items on the purchase order that contain that account code and have not been paid on. Select one, multiple, or all line items to be changed. The "To Account drop down can be used to select the account that these items should be changed to.

Click to apply.

Vendor

The Vendor tab can be used to change the vendor for the purchase order. This is the option that would help in the situation described at the beginning of this section. Simply choose a new vendor from the drop down and click Update! Since this option applies for all items on the purchase order it will only be available if there have been no payments against the PO and it cannot be used to change a purchase order to a Multi-Vendor PO.

Date

The Date tab can be used to change the date on the header of the purchase order. Simply enter a new date to be used and click Update! Again, this option applies to the entire PO so it will only be available if no disbursements have been created for the transaction. The posting periods associated with the original purchase order date and the new purchase order date must be open.

Change Results

Along with making changes to multiple transactions quick and easy, one of the best things about this feature is the Change Results view and report after you make the update! Once you proceed with changes as described for the different tabs, you will get a pop up window within the software that will show you a grid of all the transactions that were updated for this change. This way, if there are changes to multiple PO Items and/or Invoices there will be a record of all of the updates in one spot. The window gives a summary of how many records were updated, the timestamp for the change, and the option to print a report of the results to keep for your records.

For more information on the PO Repair option, visit the Repair Purchase Order section in the SSDT Wiki.