Recent Software Developments

Listed below are a number of the key enhancements that have been added to axis diplomat and axis payroll.

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Showing 73 enhancements covering:

Kernel (Core) Software

Numeric Range Filters

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

Monitor tab filters that relate to fields holding general numeric values (for example, Order Value on Sales Order monitor tabs) now allow the use of Numeric Range filters:

These filters can be configured to identify values that sit above, below or match certain values by specifying Equal To, Not Equal To, Less Than, Less Than or Equal To, Greater Than or Greater Than or Equal To:

The ability to specify two numbers, linked with AND or OR, means that you can configure filters for numeric ranges of items that fit within a particular range, for example: Order Value is Greater Than £50.00 AND Less Than £100.00.

The OR operator makes it possible to create a monitor looking for outlying situations, such as orders that fall outside of expected parameters, for example: Order Value is Less Than £20.00 OR Greater Than £9999.99.

Default Refresh on Monitors

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

Not all monitor tabs require frequent automatic refreshes. For example, a fixed-date tab (such as an Absolute Date filtered list for the first quarter of the previous year) can be refreshed manually when needed, rather than, for example, every five minutes, to help reduce the load on a multi-user system.

To optimise performance, the default refresh interval for new monitor tabs is now set to 0 minutes, encouraging users to be mindful when setting the refresh rate.

If the automatic refresh rate needs adjusting, this can be done via the Tab Options button: In the Amendable Properties section, simply modify the 'Refresh Interval (Minutes)' setting as required.

If you wish to manually refresh a monitor, you can either click the refresh button in the bottom left corner or hit F5 (the same function key used to refresh a web page in common web browsers).

Hiding Sensitive Contact Information

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

Customer and Supplier contact list views have been enhanced as part of a broader initiative to protect Personal Identifiable Information (PII). Telephone and mobile numbers, along with email addresses, are replaced by icons in order to help prevent personal information from being captured by malware or by taking of unauthorised screen grabs/images.

Context menu (right-click) options to email or call (for those with the axis diplomat Telephony Interface) a contact remain unchanged and details can be copied to the clipboard to, for example, paste into an email program:

Users with permission to export data from axis diplomat scrolling data lists are still able to do so and these exports will continue to include contact phone numbers and email addresses.

Hovering over the email address or telephone icons, also reveals the information in a tooltip:

Logs Monitor

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

In any business-critical system, the ability to quickly diagnose processing issues is essential. The Log Monitor has been added to the Kernel Supervisor Functions to provide quick and convenient access to view the available system logs.

Users are presented with a list of available logs, which may vary depending on the system's configuration. An icon will indicate whether a log file exists for each entry. Additional details such as the Program Name and Detail Level of each log are also provided.

Via right-click (Context Menu) options, users can open the folder location of the log file or modify the detail level of a specific log for more in-depth diagnostics.

It’s important to note that diagnostic logging does carry a performance overhead, so it should be used cautiously. For any adjustments to logging levels, it is recommended to consult the axis diplomat Customer Services team to ensure proper configuration without negatively impacting system performance.

Update to Embedded Web Viewer

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

There are a number of situations where axis diplomat uses embedded web browser technology to view web pages or HTML content - for example, when viewing or editing stock notes.

The embedded control has been updated to use Microsoft's viewer based on their Edge web browser.

This update provides a smoother user experience with enhanced security whilst ensuring that the latest web content continues to be handled correctly when viewed within axis diplomat functions.

Digital Signing of Software Updates

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

Each individual function within the axis diplomat software is now digitally signed to ensure its authenticity. This not only helps prevent malware going unnoticed should it try to attach itself to your application but also ensures that security software does not object to software updates, particularly the installation of individual patches.

Uninstall axis diplomat includes SQL Server Database

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

When uninstalling axis diplomat (typically following migration to a new server), the uninstall process now not only includes the axis diplomat software and core data but now also removes the associated Microsoft SQL Server database.

This helps in securing data by eliminating an opportunity for human error in leaving a database on a redundant server.

Copy Cell Contents from Scrolling Data Lists

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

Within any scrolling data list in axis diplomat, it is now possible to copy the contents of a single cell (a column and row intersection) as plain text to the clipboard. To use, simply right-click on the required content; copy to clipboard is always the last option in the context menu:

This time-saving development has many uses, for example, copying document references into emails or spreadsheets, financial amounts from Sales Business Intelligence into a management report document - in fact, any situation where a single piece of information is needed rather than the entire list.

Remove Aged Document Attachments

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

The Supervisor Function 'Maintain Data Retention Settings' has been extended to include a new tab for 'Attachments' which allows you to specify the retention period (in days) for attachments on various types of document held in the system, including Quotations, Sales Orders, Purchase Orders, and, for systems with the Despatch and Delivery Management module, Deliveries.

You can specify a different retention period for each type of document, ranging from 30 to 65,000 days.

Attachments that fall beyond the retention period can be removed automatically as part of a scheduled cleanup, configured using the function 'Scheduled Processing Settings'. Alternatively, they can be removed manually using the 'Delete Attachments' button within the Maintain Data Retention Settings function.

Ensuring that your system does not retain attachments longer than is necessary not only improves system efficiency (with smaller, quicker backups, for example) but can help maintain compliance with data protection legislation (e.g. the UK Data Protection Act and the EU GDPR) by not holding personal data when it is no longer required.

User Defined Date & Time Formats in Scrolling Data Lists

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

Users are now able to customise the formats of dates and time shown in scrolling data lists. This enhancement allows the user to configure the format of ‘date’, ‘date and time’ and ‘time’ columns.

An individual user can choose their own date and/or time format for a specific column in a specific scrolling data list, for all columns of that type in a specific scrolling data list or for all scrolling data lists.

The configuration is done by simply right-clicking on the column heading within the scrolling data list and selecting 'Formatting':

The format can then be chosen separately for this column, for this list and for all lists:

When sorting by a reformatted date or time column, the sort will still be in chronological or reverse chronological order, irrespective of the format chosen.

One particular situation where this is useful is when changing the format to include the day of the week. Knowing, for example, that a particular date is a Friday can be particularly helpful in understanding why something that should have happened on the following day didn't happen for three days because it spanned a weekend.

Maintain Background Printing Defaults

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 02/09/2024

A new supervisor function, Maintain Background Printing Defaults, is now available to define which printers are used for printing from axis diplomat scheduled background tasks. For example, if documents such as Picking Notes are printed automatically at scheduled intervals rather than manually by a user.

The function must be run on the axis diplomat server, ensuring that only printers accessible to the server are offered for selection. These defaults will be applied for all users but it is only necessary to set defaults for those labels and documents that will be printed from background processes.

Verification of Microsoft Graph API Credentials

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 06/08/2024

Microsoft Graph is the preferred technology for sending emails, both from axis diplomat and axis vMerchant. It is an authenticated mechanism for applications to talk directly to your Microsoft 365 account to securely send emails. One of the benefits of using the Microsoft Graph API to send emails is that, because of the strong authentication, delivery success levels are higher because emails are less likely to be treated as spam by the recipient system.

The function for configuring the Microsoft Graph API Parameters now includes a 'Test' button which will attempt to communicate with the Microsoft 365 account using the supplied credentials. If this is successful, the Display Name and Secret valid from and to dates are filled in, confirming that the credentials are valid. Note that no test email is sent - the test simply confirms that the Application ID, Secret key and Tenant ID are valid.

UK Postcode Format Validation

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 14/06/2024

There are many 3rd party services such as Delivery Service Providers (DSPs) that axis diplomat communicate with which require correctly formatted address information.

To help prevent situations where, for example, couriers are unable to consign a delivery due to an incorrect postcode, UK postcode format validation is now included as standard.

Postcode Format Validation is now provided within following functionality:

Please note that this validates the address format only, it does not verify that an actual postcode exists. An additional axis diplomat Postcode Address Retrieval module is available which uses a 3rd party service to search and retrieve addresses from postcodes.

Document Designer Element Currency Code (ISO)

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 15/05/2024

Alongside the existing currency symbol and description document elements, Document Designer now adds a new element, Currency Code (ISO), which equates to, for example, GBP, USD or EUR. This offers several benefits:

For more information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217

Nominal Ledger & General Accounts

Disabling Department and Cost Centre Codes

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

It is now possible to mark individual Department Codes and Cost Centres as Disabled within the functions ‘Maintain Department Descriptions’ or ‘Maintain Cost Centre Descriptions’.

This will prevent these codes being reused for new assignments but allows for historical analysis.

Transaction Auditing Enhancements

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

Financial auditing of customer, supplier and nominal transactions has been enhanced with the addition of the posted date and time to the Posted column in Transaction History tabs for customer and supplier account enquiries and to the Transactions tab for nominal account enquiries.

The posted date and time have also been added to Customer Transaction History, Supplier Transaction History and Nominal Transactions type monitor tabs.

Upon upgrading to axis diplomat 2024, existing customer, supplier and nominal transactions for the current financial year will be updated to show the posted date and time.

These enhancements facilitate reconciliation by posted date and time for batch postings to control accounts such as the Debtors and Creditors nominal control accounts. This is particularly useful when reconciling sales and purchase transactions to nominal ledger postings when they been entered as a batch or have not posted in real time due to the ledgers being in a split period situation, resulting in those transactions posting to the Nominal Ledger as a single batch upon completion of the previous period Nominal Ledger Period End.

This information may also be exported from the monitor tabs in CSV or Microsoft Excel format for use by external auditors in third party accounts preparation and auditing software tools.

Improved Nominal Account Enquiry Loading

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 17/06/2024

The functions Nominal Account Enquiry, Nominal Account Maintenance and Cash Account Enquiry have all been modified to replace the 'Include history' checkbox on the 'Transactions' tab with an 'Include transactions' drop-down with options for 'Current Year', 'Current and Last Year' and 'All Transactions'.

Furthermore, the preferred response to this prompt can be saved using the 'Save current tab responses' option.

The functions have also been modified to only read transactions once the tab is selected and then only read the applicable transactions. This makes the function much faster to load and makes it easier to find the desired transactions.

Integrated Stock Ledger Support for 3rd Party Stock

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Integrated Stock Ledger module

Release Date: 13/05/2024

Implementation of the optional Integrated Stock Ledger module has not, until now, been an option for those axis diplomat systems holding supplier consignment stock or other stock owned by third parties. This has been due to the inclusion in the Nominal Ledger of the values of stock movements related to all stock locations and, whilst third party owned stock could be recorded in the system at a zero cost, it is more desirable to record a value for this stock in the Stock Ledger for insurance and reporting purposes and to exclude these values from the financial valuations for the company.

The implementation of the Integrated Stock Ledger module for systems with third party owned stock is now possible with the ability to flag specific stock locations as holding third party owned stock. Once set, this flag indicates that the value of stock and any stock movement transactions at this location are not to be included in the accounting records as the stock is not to be considered a financial asset of the company. Upon transfer of this stock into a company owned stock location, the transferred stock cost value is then held in the Stock Control nominal asset account with a balancing transaction in the Goods Received not Invoiced nominal liability account.

Additional selection criteria has also been added to Stock Valuation reports to allow these locations to be excluded.

For more information:

https://www.axisfirst.co.uk/documentation/Integrated-Stock-Ledger/articles/19560

Sales Ledger, CRM & Sales Order Processing

Automatically Increase Customer Accounts File

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

A new overnight scheduled processing option has been added to automatically increase the size of the customer accounts file if required. The resizing of the customer accounts file is triggered when the number of free records drops below 5% of the total file size OR to less than the number of customer records created in the preceding six months, extending the file by the greater of these.

The customer accounts file is one of the few files on the system that have needed to be manually increased in size, a single user operation that is inconvenient to run during normal hours. This development means that, in normal use, this maintenance task is no longer a concern.

Anonymise Sales Ledger Accounts

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

This new function provides facilities to anonymise and close a sales ledger (customer or prospect) account which has been dormant for greater than a specified number of days. It is designed to provide an easy to use tool to assist in meeting the requirements of data protection legislation such as the UK's Data Protection Act and the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The function can be run either:

The default dormancy period after which a sales ledger account will be anonymised and closed is configurable either system wide or separately for each customer group. By assigning different retention periods to different customer groups you may, for example, anonymise retail accounts originating from your own web site after one period of inactivity, retail accounts originating from a third party marketplace such as Amazon after a different period of inactivity and not anonymise trade accounts.

This function can be run as an automated scheduled task so that once your data retention period parameters have been defined and the task scheduled, adherence to your policy should not require further manual intervention although the function should still be run interactively from time to time if logging is enabled in order to archive/clear the log.

An audit trail event is created against the sales ledger account as it is anonymised.

If anonymisation logging is enabled, a log file detailing each account which has been anonymised is created or appended to.

Sales Invoice & Credit Note Enquiry

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

Sales Invoice and Credit Note Enquiries have been extended to include two additional tabs; Notes and Allocation Details.

The Notes tab allows the entry of notes against the transaction when in Edit mode. Supplementing existing Credit Control tools, this is particularly useful for recording information relating to a disputed transaction or extended details as to why a credit note has been issued.

A Notes column has also been added to the Statement and Transaction History tabs of Customer Enquiry and to the Customer Transaction History type monitor tab.

The Allocation Details tab displays any allocation history for the transaction, assisting the accounts team in dealing with a customer's payment queries:

Customer Contacts Monitor

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

A new monitor tab type allows you to view, manage, and organize customer contacts within a single list. A right-click (context) menu allows drilldown to the customer’s account to modify settings or add any information that the monitor has highlighted as missing.

The monitor can be filtered to show only certain types of contacts as well as limiting the range of customer accounts included.

This monitor, for example, is filtered to show only those contacts that are the account main contact but do not have eBusiness Authority. This would be useful when rolling out a new trade website, for instance, to identify those customers to migrate to using the website.

For users of the eProcurement module, additional columns include, for example, spending limits and requisition limits.

Date-Specific Customer Price List Monitor

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above and the Date Specific Prices and Discounts module

Release Date: 08/10/2024

For those using the Date Specific Prices and Discounts module, Customer Price List monitor tabs can now show information as at a specific date in the future.

This is particularly useful in conjunction with the recent modifications to allow the recording of future costs since it provides oversight of the expected changes to margins and so protecting profitability.

The functionality is controlled via a Tab Option, which then enables the additional columns of information.

Direct Debit with SmarterPay Cloud

Available to purchase for all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

The axis diplomat Direct Debits module works in conjunction with the Sales Ledger and, optionally, the Service Contract Management module to allow collection of sales and service contract invoice payments by Direct Debit.

The software is designed to interface with SmarterPay Cloud from SmarterPay Limited however limited functionality can also be used to provide payment files to some other BACS solutions that utilise "Standard 18" format payment files.

It is assumed that an active Direct Debit originator agreement with a sponsoring bank is in place together with with a BACS user number which must be configured in both SmarterPay and in axis diplomat.

The axis diplomat Direct Debit module is capable of managing AUDDIS when used in conjunction with the SmarterPay software package. If using another BACS software solution then AUDDIS messages must be processed manually using that package.

Direct debit processing supports automated background operation to:

The axis diplomat "Direct Debit Processing” function is used to initiate collections. Each set of payments collected are given a submission number which is stamped on the payments.

For more information:

https://www.axisfirst.co.uk/documentation/Direct-Debits-SmarterPay-interface/articles/19311

https://smarterpay.com/

Credit Control Monitor Enhancements

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

The Credit Control Monitor now features two additional columns to provide further account information: Credit Terms and Maximum Credit Period.

The Credit Terms column presents the customer's credit terms in plain language, combining the credit terms and days from the customer record. It is populated with combinations such as:

The Maximum Credit Period column comes from the equivalent field from the customer record.

Account Type Column on Customer Enquiry Branches Tab

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

The Customer Enquiry function's ‘Branches’ tab has been extended to include an additional column for the Account Type, showing whether each branch is ‘Live’ or ‘Closed’:

Validation of Quotation Delivery Dates

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 09/09/2024

A number of changes have been made to quotation maintenance to help ensure that planned delivery dates remain valid when quotation dates are changed:

User Preferences for Showing Specifications in Order Maintenance

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 04/09/2024

When entering or amending sales documents, each operator can now decide for themselves whether the Item Details' Description column should include the product specification as well as the main description.

The setting is accessed by clicking on the Options button:

This setting can be accessed from all types of sales document, including invoices, credit notes, orders, quotations and, for those with the appropriate additional modules, workshop jobs and service contracts.

Sales Order Enquiry Transaction History Tab

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 29/07/2024

The Sales Order Enquiry function now includes an additional tab for the Transaction History, which lists the invoices (and credit notes if they exist) generated from the Sales Order.

This makes it easier to handle invoice enquiries, particularly where orders have been part-shipped in a number of instalments. In addition to providing a drilldown to the individual invoices, it is also possible to see the allocation of payments against those invoices, further helping to handle queries from customers and saving time.

Customer Mailing Labels (Bartender Format)

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Bartender Bar Code Labels module

Release Date: 22/07/2024

Those using the link to the third party label printing solution, Bartender from Seagull Scientific, are now able to print customer mailing labels in addition to stock labels.

This provides a completely customisable label printing solution, allowing users to choose which customer fields are printed on the labels and to match the template to the desired label size.

The Customer Mailing Labels (Bartender Format) function allows you to print labels for a range of customers at once, by ranges of customer group, order source code and account type, for example:

Note: Only the Bartender Automation Edition or higher provide an API for use by other software applications such as axis diplomat.

For more information:

https://www.seagullscientific.com/software/

Close Quotations by Order Source Code

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 14/06/2024

The Supervisor Function 'Close Quotations' has been extended to provide an additional selection criterion by Order Source code(s).

The function allows all quotations prior to a specific date, or prior to a specific quotation number, to be closed. This additional selection criterion now also allows the selection of quotations to be closed to be further filtered to just those for a specific order source code, or a range of order source codes.

This makes it much easier to close a block of quotations when, for example, a sales agent leaves or changes their area of responsibility.

Disable Address Postcode Validation on Quotations

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 05/06/2024

When entering a new sales opportunity as a quotation, you may not yet have the full billing or delivery address details. There is now a new system parameter to disable postcode validation for the addresses on quotation documents.

Please note that when a quotation is converted to a sales order, a valid postcode is then required.

Additional Customers Monitor Filter and Column

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Customer Price Feed Delivery module

Release Date: 28/05/2024

For those using the Customer Price Feed Delivery module to provide daily price and/or stock level files to customers, information on the type of feed configured for a customer is now available as an additional column on Customer monitor tabs.

Furthermore, these monitors can be filtered to only show customers with particular feed types, for example, just those customers with FTP, SFTP and HTTP-based feeds.

For more information:

https://www.axisfirst.co.uk/software/axisdiplomat/modules/Customer-Price-Feeds/21931

Suppress GOA Reference and Date from Documents

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Goods on Account module

Release Date: 16/05/2024

A new system parameter has been added to allow suppression of the header information that is normally filed as description lines on invoices generated for Goods on Account bookings.

These headers, of the format "Goods DD-MM-YY Ref: XXXXXX", are normally filed as additional invoice lines and so cannot be suppressed by changes to the document template.

This will be of particular interest to those who do not produce Goods on Account Delivery Notes since their customers will then not have the Goods on Account Booking Reference and suppressing the header information from invoices can reduce confusion.

Point of Sale Invoicing and Insufficient Stock

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Stock Transaction Traceability module

Release Date: 19/04/2024

Point of Sales Invoice Entry now has improved capabilities for handling the sale of items for which there is insufficient system stock at the current location or where the serial number of a traceable item does not exist at the current location.

Stock discrepancies do happen from time to time, for example, due to human error when someone puts sample stock back on a shelf without updating the system. It is important that a Point of Sale system is able to cope with these scenarios since clearly the stock does physically exist.

For non-traceable items, the “missing” stock is automatically adjusted (received) prior to being issued on the invoice. A new system parameter allows a reason code to be defined for these adjustments, allowing them to be identified and the related discrepancies dealt with at a later point.

If the item is configured for serial number traceability and the item is in stock but at a different location, the item is transferred to the correct location before being issued.

Purchase Ledger & Purchase Order Processing

Supplier Contacts Monitor

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

As with the Customer Contacts monitor tab type added for the Sales Ledger, a new Supplier Contacts monitor tab type provides an overview list of the contacts on supplier accounts.

Filtering is provided for both supplier contact and supplier account properties so, for example, when using the Multi-Currency module, a monitor tab could be added that lists all of the main default contacts on just the US Dollar ledger.

Supplier Payment Authorisation

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

Supporting the financial processes of many businesses, axis diplomat Purchase Ledger has been extended to provide an optional authorisation stage in the suppliers transaction entry and payment run process:

Controlled by a new purchase ledger parameter, this functionality provides an additional level of supplier transaction payment authorisation, above approval status, by adding a new 'Authorised' value field on purchase invoices.

The 'Authorised' value on a purchase invoice also allows part payment of invoices and is amendable in transaction booking, Prepare Payment Run and Payment Run functions. Additional columns and filtering for the authorised amount are also activated in Document Designer Remittance Advice prints, the Supplier ‘Transactions’ tab and Supplier Transaction History monitor tabs.

Read/write access to this field is controlled by user and group security permissions, allowing configuration of who is able to authorise the amount to be paid when running a supplier payment run in axis diplomat.

The new attachment viewing pane and transaction notes tab, combined with the authorised value on transactions, allow for ease of entry, enquiry, amendment and authorisation of supplier transactions for payment, wherever the user might be working.

Purchase Invoice and Credit Note Enquiry

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

Purchase Invoice and Credit Note enquiry functions have been extended to include two additional tabs; Notes and Allocation Details.

The Notes tab allows the entry of notes against the transaction both when booking a new transaction and when in Edit mode on an existing invoice or credit note.

A Notes column has also been added to the Transactions and Transaction History tabs of Supplier Enquiry and to the Supplier Transaction History type monitor tab.

When enquiring on an existing transaction, the new Allocation Details tab displays any allocation history for the transaction, assisting the accounts team in dealing with supplier payment queries:

Purchase Invoice/Credit Note Attachment Pane

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

With the increasing use of email and electronic data interchange (EDI) for the delivery of documents, very few purchase invoices and credit notes received are paper-based. Those which do arrive by paper are often scanned and added as attachments to the document in axis diplomat.

Enhancements for paperless purchase ledger processes in axis diplomat 2024 have significantly streamlined purchase invoice and credit note booking including extensions to the previous attachments functionality for purchase invoices and credit notes.

To increase the efficiency of booking these transactions, users are now able to add attachments on the initial tab in Purchase Invoice/Credit Note Booking before entering any document details and a 'Show Pane' button has been added, providing the ability to view the attachment in a pane whilst booking the transaction into the system. This pane remains visible throughout the booking and analysis stages, avoiding the need to either use two screens or print documents to enter them.

This pane is also available in the Purchase Invoice/Credit Note Enquiry functions.

Electronic storage of purchase invoices and credit notes in axis diplomat brings many benefits:

Purchase Delivery Enhancements

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above and the Purchase Delivery Advice module

Release Date: 08/10/2024

The Purchase Order Processing module has been enhanced with Delivery slot Windows.

Further to the introduction of purchase order delivery times and windows, the Purchase Delivery Advice module has further enhancements to allow you to track the key stages in the inbound delivery process, including the date goods are dispatched by the supplier (estimated and then actual) and the date they are expected to arrive (estimated and then expected) at your location. The process allows for the new delivery windows and captures the actual delivery dates including newly available fields.

Supplier delivery references (Delivery Advice References) are recorded against an internal delivery record, with a unique internal number allocated by the system. This allows for manually recording key metrics for further analysis including:

These improvements provide greater visibility and control over your purchase deliveries, ensuring a more detailed and efficient tracking process as well as enhanced monitoring of supplier performance.

Purchase Order Expected Delivery Dates

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

New fields have been added to Purchase Orders to help appraise your suppliers' performance by allowing you to compare the requested dates (requested by you as the customer) and the expected dates (as defined by the supplier).

Existing fields have been renamed from ‘Due Date’ to ‘Expected Due Date’ and for Purchase lines ‘Earliest Item Due Date’ to ‘Earliest Item Expected’.

The POP parameter prompt ‘Enable delivery time(s)’ makes it possible to record the time when a delivery is due and can be refined further by specifying a window of time using the prompt ‘Enable order delivery window’ (including setting default time slot, usually goods in receipt hours).

Once these parameters are set, the new fields are available in the following functions:

• Purchase Order Maintenance
• Import Purchase Orders
• Reschedule Purchase Orders
• ‘Purchase Order’ monitor tabs
• ‘Purchase Order Items’ monitor tabs

More detailed analysis is available to those using the Purchase Delivery Advice module.

Purchase Order Update Options

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

The 'Order Items' tab of the Enter/Amend Purchase Order functions has been extended to include a new ‘Options’ button to set the default actions for updating current cost and supplier price list entries when adding new items to the order.

This makes the job of overriding the system's default behaviour easier.

When first opened, this new dialog will show the current setting and allow it to be changed for this order only.

This can be useful, for example, if you normally update cost and/or supplier price list entries but, on this occasion, you do not want to because you have been offered preferential pricing by a supplier for this one order only. Previously, you would need to make the change on each individual line of the order.

Exclude Price Feed Variance in Price Feed Report

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Supplier Price Feed Foundation module

Release Date: 06/09/2024

Using a new Purchase Ledger Parameter, it is possible to adjust the Price Feed Report to exclude the Price Variance section, reducing the file size considerably. This change is ideal for systems importing multiple price feeds regularly throughout the day.

To change the behaviour, adjust the setting for ‘Report pricing anomalies’. Select ‘Compare with standard costs’ or ‘Compare with current costs’ if you wish to report supplier price list records that differ from the selection by more than the variance defined on the product group record (excluding those that are not resaleable or superseded). Alternatively select ‘Do not report anomalies'.

Delete Purchase Delivery

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Purchase Delivery Advice module

Release Date: 27/08/2024

A new function has been added to allow deletion of a Purchase Delivery record provided that no receipts or dispatches (using online order processing) have been made.

You can select the delivery record to be deleted by specifying either the supplier's delivery reference or the internal delivery reference allocated when the record was created.

Alternatively, you can search through all relevant delivery records for a given supplier:

Once you have selected the delivery to be deleted, you are presented with the full details of the delivery before confirming deletion:

Import Supplier Default Category

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 03/06/2024

The function Import Supplier Records has been extended to allow importing of the supplier's default category.

This is the supplier category used by both supplier price feeds and Office Products product file imports when automatically creating new supplier price lists. It is also the default used when manually adding new supplier price list entries.

Automatic Allocations Include/Exclude Unapproved

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above

Release Date: 29/05/2024

When using the 'Auto Allocation' option for supplier payments, the system is now able to either include or exclude unapproved transactions.

This operation is controlled by new setting in Purchase Ledger Parameters:

Price Feed Information added to Suppliers Monitor

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Supplier Price Feed Foundation module

Release Date: 28/05/2024

For those using Supplier Price Feeds, an additional column has been added to Supplier monitor tabs to indicate the type of price feed configured for each supplier.

Please note that the column is not enabled by default and so, to see the column, right-click on the headings of the monitor tab and enable the column named Price Feed:

Stock Ledger, Bill of Materials & MRP

Stock Locations Monitor

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

The filter options for Stock Items monitor tabs now includes an additional section for Location Stock Detail filtering.

This filter tab allow you to limit the items listed on the monitor to those defined at particular locations and, optionally, with quantities within certain ranges.

The example above shows a Stock Items monitor tab filtered to show only those items with stock on hand in the Bulk location.

Date-Specific Stock Monitor

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

When used in conjunction with the Date Specific Prices and Discounts module, Stock Items monitor tabs are now able to show additional information as at a specific future date.

The functionality is controlled via a Tab Option, which then enables the following additional columns of information:

New Calculate New Rolled Up Cost Function

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above and the Bill of Materials module

Release Date: 08/10/2024

The Calculate New Rolled Up Cost function has been rewritten to generate an interactive scrolling data list rather than a legacy-style printed report.

The new style function can still be used to print a report (or generate a PDF) by using the right-click, Print Preview option but can also be easily searched, filtered, sorted or exported to a spreadsheet as required.

Date-Specific Costs

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above and the Date Specific Prices and Discounts module

Release Date: 08/10/2024

For those already using the Date-Specific Prices and Discounts module to hold future selling prices, the system can now also hold details of future costs.

The cost is updated by clicking the icon alongside the cost field:

As well as specifying a start date and time, you may optionally provide an end date as well, for situations where the price change is temporary. This, for example, allows you to hold details of future promotions offered by suppliers.

Note that only the Standard Cost can have future-dated values as it would not be logical to do so for Current Cost. The Current Cost field can also be updated as part of the day-to-day operation of the system and it would be unclear whether a price change superseded an imminent future cost that was already held in the system.

This development is particularly useful for those with suppliers who give advanced notice of price changes and want to ensure that future price changes are allowed for when determining their own pricing.

Future Rolled-Up Costs

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above and the Bill of Materials module

Release Date: 08/10/2024

For those using the Date-Specific Prices and Discounts module to hold future cost prices, the system can now calculate the rolled-up cost of Bill of Materials Assemblies as at a given point in the future.

When selecting Standard Cost as the cost to process (date-specific costs are not applicable to Current Cost), you have the option to specify a particular point in time. The component costs in effect at the time are used for the calculation and the rolled-up cost record that is created for the assembly has that date as its start date.

This is ideal for situations where you receive advance notification of price changes from suppliers and you want to see what effect this will have on your assembly costs and, ultimately, your margins.

Support for Additional Image Formats

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

You are now able to add images in a wider variety of formats to stock records. In addition to the formats already supported (GIF, JPG, BMP and PNG), you can now add images in SVG and WEBP formats.

For those with axis vMerchant websites, these formats are also supported for eBusiness Group images and for banners and can be used on your website.

Please note that image resizing is not supported for these formats. SVG files can be vector-based graphics and so are then intrinsically scaleable whilst WEBP can contain multiple image sizes within the one file.

Retail Price VAT Status

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above

Release Date: 08/10/2024

There are some gross prices that cannot be represented as a VAT exclusive price; for example, £9.99 when the VAT rate is 20%. £8.32 plus 20% VAT gives £9.98 whilst £8.33 plus 20% VAT gives £10.00.

For this reason, it may be preferable to specify retail prices as VAT inclusive (gross) prices and trade prices as VAT exclusive (net) prices.

These settings can now be viewed using a Stock Items monitor tab, where additional columns have been added to provide more information on the VAT status of each item.

Automatic Allocation of Batch References

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Auto Allocate Traceability Numbers module

Release Date: 17/05/2024

The Auto Allocate Traceability Numbers module has been extended to allow automatic allocation of Batch References as well as Serial Numbers when receiving goods from works.

The automatically created Batch Reference is a combination of the Works Order Reference and a sequential receipt number.

For example, with a Works Order 5678, manufactured in four batches, the four receipts would be assigned the Batch References 56783/001, 56783/002, 56783/003 and 56783/004.

The behaviour is controlled by the same MRP system parameter that enables the automatic allocation of serial numbers:

Warehouse Management

DHL Consignment Paperwork

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the DHL DSP Interface module

Release Date: 19/07/2024

DHL consignments to destinations that do not support paperless trade will now print the following physical documents as the final step in the process for release at the end of Sales Order Picking, or release from Pack and Despatch:

Multi-User Sales Order Picking Prompt Suppression

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Warehouse Handheld Sales Order Picking module

Release Date: 10/07/2024

When using the Handheld Pick Sales Orders function, it is now possible to suppress the prompt "Do you wish to assist with orders currently being picked?".

The prompt is issued when the order selected for picking is already being picked by another user. The user may still proceed to assist with a pick by manually selecting orders which show their status as ‘Being picked'.

Auto Feed Sales Order Picking by Despatch Value

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Warehouse Handheld Sales Order Picking module

Release Date: 17/05/2024

A new enhancement to the auto feed picking mechanism allows you to streamline your order fulfilment process by ensuring that the highest value orders are processed first.

Orders can now be prioritised by the total value of items available for dispatch, ensuring that high-value orders receive attention first.

This operates seamlessly within the existing order priority framework. For example, high priority orders will be sorted and picked by dispatch value, followed by normal and low priority orders, each in descending order of dispatch value.

This new option is enabled via a system parameter:

Unconsign Delivery

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Despatch & Delivery Management module

Release Date: 26/04/2024

A new supervisor function has been added to allow the consigned status of a Delivery to be reset to 'Awaiting Consignment' and, where supported, cancel the consignment with the Delivery Service Provider.

Please note that the ability to cancel a consignment with the Delivery Service Provider is dependent on the functionality provided by their interface and its implementation within axis diplomat.

Once a Delivery has been unconsigned, an audit trail event is created. If the DSP interface supports cancellation, a second audit trail event is created to show that, not only was the delivery status reset, but that the DSP has confirmed that a cancellation has been accepted.

The delivery may be reconsigned with either the same delivery option or changed to an alternative by amending its Delivery Method.

The ability to unconsign a delivery is restricted via User and Group Maintenance:

In addition to running Unconsign Delivery from the menu, the same function can be run via the right-click context menu from a Deliveries monitor tab:

GS1-128 Bar Code Support

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above with Warehouse Management

Release Date: 26/04/2024

Stock searches can now handle GS1-128 format bar codes in the search term. The actual reference is extracted from the GS1-128 barcode and the Match Type indicates that this is how the match was identified:

The functionality can be toggled on and off if required using the bar code button:

Manually Control DSP Despatch Date

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the Delivery Service Provider Interfaces Foundation module

Release Date: 04/04/2024

The ability to control a delivery's despatch date via a manually specified date has been added.

This allows the user to determine when to switch from consigning deliveries that are to be despatched (i.e. collected by the Delivery Service Provider) today and, instead, start consigning deliveries to be despatched on the next working day.

This can be controlled via an additional prompt on the DSP's supplier account or via the Delivery Service Provider Enquiry.

eBusiness

eBusiness Customers without Permission to Buy

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above and the axis vMerchant module

Release Date: 08/10/2024

It is now possible to flag customer account contacts as eBusiness but without the ability to place orders.

This is ideal if, for example, you have clients using your website for account management purposes but they do not want all of their staff ordering from you.

This method of operation is supported by axis vMerchant Express. When a contact logs in who cannot buy online, they continue to see your product catalogue but the "Buy" button is replaced with an "Enquire" button.

You are also able to flag eBusiness Groups as not applicable (or only applicable) to logged-in users who cannot buy. You can use this method to suppress some or all of your product catalogue from such users.

Amazon VAT Calculation Services & Business

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above and the Amazon Seller Central Interface module

Release Date: 08/10/2024

The axis diplomat Amazon Seller Central Interface module has been enhanced to support Amazon's VAT Calculation Service.

This service allows Amazon to automatically generate VAT invoices on your behalf and make them available to customers without anyone having to request them directly. This also allows Amazon Business to show VAT exclusive pricing to business customers looking at your products.

Real Time Order Updates

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above and the axis vMerchant module

Release Date: 08/10/2024

With the release of axis diplomat 2024, those customers with axis vMerchant Express websites can now show order status information to customers in near-realtime.

Not only can this now include quantity shipped and outstanding (back order) quantities but, for those with the appropriate axis diplomat modules, information on deliveries (where, for example, deliveries contain items from multiple orders), shipping containers and links to courier's tracking websites.

This is enabled very easily, by simply ticking the appropriate option with the Maintain eBusiness Sites function:

How frequently the data is updated is determined by the Amend Scheduled Processing Settings function:

In the screenshot above, for example, within 5 minutes of an order being consigned, its status will be updated on the website and the customer will be able to track their delivery.

eBusiness Search Dictionary

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above and the axis vMerchant module

Release Date: 08/10/2024

The eBusiness Search Dictionary, previously available as an additional option for systems linked to axis vMerchant Express websites, is now provided as standard.

It is designed to enable a list of search terms and preferred results to be maintained and published. Matching searches are then offered as "recommended results" ahead of normal category and/or product lists.

This can help visitors to your site find what they are looking for by guiding them to specific pages, categories or products.

Each entry consists of the search term (the word or phrase that the user types into the search box of the website), the display text (for the website to display in the search results) and the URL (the address of the web page that they are directed to in the search results).

For added convenience in setup, a Search Dictionary can also be imported from a CSV file.

Once published to the website, the results appear as highlighted options, in both predictive search results (as you type) and on full search results pages:

As always with axis vMerchant Express, you can change the terminology to suit your purposes, so Search Dictionary results can be described as Popular Searches, Recommended Results, Top Searches or any other term that aptly describes the search terms you have focused on with the dictionary.

Default for Allow Different Delivery Address on Web Orders

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above and the eProcurement module

Release Date: 26/09/2024

For those using the eProcurement module in conjunction with an axis vMerchant website, a tickbox on customer accounts determines whether the customer in question is able to specify a different delivery address at the checkout.

Under normal circumstances, this defaults to not ticked when setting up new customer accounts - i.e. the default behaviour is for customers to be unable to specify a different delivery address.

A new system parameter allows you to indicate that the default setting should be ticked (customers can specify a different delivery address).

This default only affects the creation of new customer accounts but the setting of existing accounts can be changed 'en masse' using the function Customer Record Block Amendment.

Service Contract Management

Additional Controls on Contract Termination

Available to all customers with axis diplomat 2024 or above with Service Contract Management

Release Date: 08/10/2024

A number of enhancements have been made to the Service Contract Management module which, collectively, provide greater control and better information on a contracts term.

Service Contract Types now have the following additional fields:

Stock items that are also contract items now also have additional fields:

Contracts flagged with "End of Month Following" can only be terminated on the last day of the month following the notice period.

If an item is flagged as "Apply Minimum Term" and has been invoiced, changes such as deletion or quantity adjustment are restricted.

For items flagged with "Apply Fixed Term," termination dates must align with the specified contract term.

In each case, specific users can be configured with permissions to override these restrictions.

When entering or amending a Service Contract, the Item Details tab now includes an addition column showing the earliest termination date:

Document Designer now also includes additional document elements for the Notice Period (Days) and Earliest Termination Date as well as a document line element for the line item-specific Notice Period

By controlling and displaying contract dates and restrictions, these updates collectively help to ensure compliance with contract terms and streamline the management process.

Validation of Contract Request Dates

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above with Service Contract Management

Release Date: 30/07/2024

The Request for Service Contract maintenance function has been modified to add further validation on a request's next due date.

When amending the date, the function will now offer to update any line item with a date prior to the contract's overall date to that date (any line items with a date later then the contract date are not amended unless the user selects this).

Service Contract Enquiry Transaction History Tab

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above with Service Contract Management

Release Date: 29/07/2024

It is now easier to manage billing enquiries on Service Contracts with the addition of a Transaction History tab to Service Contract Enquiry.

The Transaction History tab also provides a quick and simple view of how the contract value has changed over time; in the illustration above, for example, we can see that the net monthly contract value has steadily increased from £300 per month to £360.

Filter Service Contract Monitors by Automatic Price Changes

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above with Service Contract Management

Release Date: 25/04/2024

It is now possible to filter Service Contract monitor tabs by the automated price change status of each contract.

This means, for example, it is now possible to produce a monitor listing only those contracts that do not update their pricing automatically. This would be particularly useful when manually reviewing those contracts.

Workshop Job Management

Workshop Jobs and Back-to-Back Process Monitors

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis diplomat 2022 or above with Workshop Job Management

Release Date: 19/04/2024

Back-to-back order information has been added to the Workshop Job and Workshop Job Item as well as Purchase Order and Purchase Order Items monitor tabs. This enhancement is designed to provide greater visibility of linked purchasing activities.

These additions will be particularly useful to those who arrange Workshop Job specific parts for the servicing and maintenance on customers' equipment. From a Workshop Job or Workshop Job Items monitor, a user can view the purchase order number or even use a context menu (right-click) to view the Purchase Order in full. From a Purchase Order Monitor or Purchase Order Items Monitor, a Sales Order column displays the Workshop Job.

Users may track from Purchase Request to Goods Received. Purchase Invoicing may also be traced through Purchase Invoice Booking where Invoices booked against purchase orders, thus providing cost sheet details for the Workshop if required.

axis payroll

Automated Emails with Paperless Payroll

Available to all customers with axis payroll 2024 or above and the eDoc Deposit Interface module

Release Date: 08/10/2024

eDoc Deposit is an online document portal which axis payroll can use for the delivery of electronic payslips and payroll documents. This optional module has been extended to allow sending of an email when documents have been uploaded from either 'Deliver Payslip Attachments' or 'Deliver P60 Attachments'.

The automated email can include a number of substitutions to personalise each individual email:

An example email template could read:

Dear {Title} {Initials} {Surname}

Your latest Payslip has been uploaded to your employee document portal account.
{Employer Name}

An Employee Details record holds both an email (personal) and a work email address. The Payment Details tab allows you to select which email address should be used and also allows a test email to be sent.

Additional Word Template Fields

Available to Software Assurance customers with axis payroll 2022 or above

Release Date: 26/04/2024

Microsoft Word document templates (.dotx) can be created for use within axis payroll.

In addition to the standard facilities provided by Microsoft Word, it is also possible to include in these templates axis payroll-specific substitutions that are replaced with the actual data from the employee's record when creating documents from the template.

The list of available substitutions has now been extended to include the following:

For more information:

https://www.axisfirst.co.uk/documentation/Creating-Templates-for-Employee-Document-Attachments/articles/18856

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