Gidday, Here is an update of what the development team has been up to !!
Abel version 5.2.1.13 was released in December and customers are now enjoying the benefits. This release includes enhancements suggested by our customers as well as improvements identified by the Abel team. Though this is one of our minor releases, it includes some handy features we thought you would like to know about:
Manufacturing & Production
Bill of Material (BOM) functionality has been extended to make it more flexible and maintainable throughout the manufacturing process. Manufacturing processes now have a specific BOM which is carried throughout the process, handles multiple levels of options and gives full visibility top to bottom of the exploded BOM.
Selecting and building an ‘alternate’ process during manufacturing becomes easier with our enhanced BOM capability because multiple BOMs can be stored against Inventory Items and used as alternates to vary the manufacturing process. You can select any applicable BOM on the Inventory Item (or any BOM elsewhere within Abel) and then customize it for your particular process.
Options within manufacturing have been extended to include Multiple Options and Multiple Levels of Options within a manufacturing process. There are a number of ways to view and satisfy Options, plus the ability to bring more lines on to a BOM (and subsequent manufacturing steps) through Options. Working with multiple options is easier as lower level options are filtered according to your selected higher level options.
These features will be very useful for Options management, for customizing BOMs for particular manufactures or for re-routing workflow e.g. for load balancing.
Internationalization
Indirect Tax for Italy
This release fully supports variable rate Indirect Tax handling for Italy.
Abel’s coverage of indirect tax (GST, VAT, Sales Tax etc.) now extends throughout Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.
Official Document Numbering
This functionality implements legal requirements for Official Document Numbering in Italy. Numbers must be consecutive with no gaps, chronological by posting date and re-start each calendar year.
Usability
This release includes a number of usability improvements :
- Pricing
You can now update GST exclusive customer pricing and supplier pricing direct from functions such as supplier delivery, customer dispatch etc. via the new SuppPrice and CustPrice buttons on most document screens. This makes maintenance faster when introducing new Inventory Items and also quicker to make pricing updates for existing items. This requires configuration, please contact your Abel installer if you wish to use this feature. - Improved Bin Selection
There is a new screen for selection of available bins on customer dispatches, supplier deliveries and other functions where stock bins are selected. By default, stock branch bins selection only shows bins where stock for this item is currently located. Click ‘Show All’ to invoke the new screen for selecting from all bins in the branch. This is useful for new items being put away for the first time or for expanding your bin storage of an existing item. - Configurable Previous / Next buttons
The behavior of the Previous and Next buttons on Client related screens can now be changed in your user preferences. You can switch between the default behavior – (documents for all Clients in apply date order) and the new behavior (documents for the current Client in apply date order). - Report Screens
As part of Abel’s initiative to continually improve its user interface, Report screens have been re-designed to provide a more intuitive look and feel. The print, email and export options are presented on separate tabs. The file and pathname for export are now able to be set as a default at user level.
Other New Features
- Attached Files
There are some changes to the way files are attached and stored. Attached files can now be either ‘linked to’ or stored, checked in and out and also have additional options for security. - Work in Progress (WIP) total on Jobs
Jobs screen variations 1 and 2 have a new option to display WIP in total 1 or total 2 at the bottom of the screen. This gives greater visibility over the progress of the job. This requires configuration, please contact your Abel installer if you wish to use this feature.
And those are just a few, refer to your release notes for details on all the enhancements. Meanwhile, there is plenty to do and we are busy working towards our next release later in the year.
By the way, keep an eye on the blog for my series of articles on Abel’s features. The first one – out now – is about Material Requirements Planning (MRP).
Until next time, Rik