Back to Back Ordering – Customer Projects Showcase #2

The second solution in this series was for a customer who specialises in motors in the conveyor industry.

Our customer wanted to reduce the amount of time spent processing orders. Their purchase orders were more or less a copy of their sales orders. So, typed in by hand, entry was work duplicated. So we designed and developed a Back-To-Back Ordering application.

The customers’ requirements:

1)    Be able to select 1 or more sales orders from list of incomplete orders

2)    Ask which supplier to use – select one supplier at a time for a ‘group’ of sales orders

3)    A Yes/No box asks whether to generate purchase orders from selected sales orders. The purchase order lines use the cost price entered into the sales order lines

4)    Then the program generates 1 purchase order for 1 sales order only

The body lines of the sales order are copied to the new purchase order. The purchase order address is the delivery address from the sales order (the customers).

HOW DOES IT WORK?

It is a single application powered by TASflex – the runtime version of the TASBooks SDK. TASflex fetches the sales order data and creates the purchase order. The main form has 3 menus – FileSettings and ExitSettings provides default date filters and order filters. It has an option to limit the Supplier list to a specific supplier group. Useful when you have a large number of suppliers!

Using the application is simple. Once setup, click the List Sales Orders button and essential information is displayed. Select the order(s) to process and click Create PO’s. Finally select the supplier to use from the drop-down list. The purchase orders are created then a log file displays the numbers used.

WHO ELSE MIGHT USE IT?

Any company who drop ships products to customers.

Further development paths? 1 purchase order for many sales orders for example. Or we could limit B2B processing to specific customers/products. Perhaps, it could run on a scheduled basis and process orders itself…

Follow us for the next in the series!

Main Application Form

Sales Dashboard – Customer Projects Showcase #1

Infoplex offers off the shelf add-on software for TASBooks. For stock/order processing requirements – MultiTAS. For programmatic access to the TASBooks database – TASLink for developers, TASflex for their clients. For automated data import/export  from an eCommerce website – eTAS.

However, we do a lot of bespoke development work. So, this is the beginning of a short series of blog posts showcasing some of these projects.

The first solution in this series was developed a couple of years ago, for a customer who specialise in the supply of safety signs and equipment for the road transport and logistics industry.

Our customer wanted to show key sales data in a Dashboard format on a large flat screen TV wall-mounted in their office. Their sales guys/gals would then know at a glance how the day was going. The data to be displayed was:

  • Today’s sales with a target figure below
  • This month’s sales with a target figure below
  • Invoiced Sales for the month
  • Number of calls made today together with a target figure

HOW DOES THE DASHBOARD WORK?

There are two components. One pulls sales information out of TASBooks every 5 minutes into an Access database. A simple Dashboard application retrieves the data from Access and displays it. The customer provided the design so it is exactly as they wanted it. TASflex – the runtime version of the TASBooks SDK – is used to fetch the sales information. Target and call information are added via simple Access forms. Reaching the daily target auto-plays a celebratory tune (à la Ryanair though marginally less cheesy) – a nice, whimsical touch in what is a high pressure environment.

WHO ELSE MIGHT USE IT?

Any company who wants to share key sales data via a Dashboard with their sales team. So most, if not all companies!

It could be expanded too – for instance show the salesperson with most sales that day/month, show the single biggest sale, average sale and so on. This Dashboard (or something similar customised for you or something completely different) could be on the wall of your sales office within a few weeks. For more information on this project please get in touch with our sales team.