Workbench Release Notes

General Release 4.6.4.2

Scheduled Release - 03 April 2023

Beta Release 4.6.4.1

Scheduled Release - 27 March 2023

New Features

Stock

• Period Average - New Stock Costing Method:
  

  

  • Introduced a 'Period Average' stock costing method that determines the average cost to use for the Item at that Location for the period.

  • This is simpler to validate than the 'Average' stock costing that is dynamically recalculated as each stock receipt is processed which results in a moving average cost during the period.

  • This provides a more stable cost that is simpler to reconcile to all transactions within the period.

  • The Period Average cost for the item at the location is determined at Stock Close Out, and then the value is applied to subsequent stock transactions in the following period.

  • For a new item to a location, the unit cost rate of the initial PO receipt will be used as the period average for that item. Where there is no receipt yet, and negative Stock issues are allowed, the Cost Rate entered on the Location will be used.
    
    How to adopt:

  • This should only be done at stock closeout to ensure a clear point of transition.

  • Immediately prior to your next Stock Close Out, change the 'Stock Cost method' ctrl param to 'Period Average' and then perform the stock close out.

  • This will ensure that the calculated average of the closing period is correctly established as your Period Average for the new period onwards.

• Costing method label:
  The Cost Rate column in the Stock List now indicates the applied costing method.

...

Feature Revisions

Jobs

• Budget:
  On the Job Budget Entry, in 'Activity, Work Centre' mode, the FC Revenue value was not automatically populated from the  Quantity and FC Sell Rate. This has been rectified.

• Job Contract:

  • A ‘Contract Tabs’ setting is now available to configure the visible tabs on the Contract Enquiry at a global and/or person level.

  • Bulk Forecast Generation:
    The existing utility that creates Contract Forecast in bulk, now also caters for the relatively new Forecasting method 'Forecasting by Cost Category': wbUtilityGenerateBulkForescastLines

Purchasing

• Purchase Requisitions:
  A new Control parameter ‘Make PR requester the PO Entered By person’ has been added. Valid values are Yes/No (default Yes).

  When creating a PO from a PR, if the CP is set to Yes, the system populates the PO EnteredByID from the PR requester, otherwise populates with the user who is converting the PR to a PO.

• AP Vouchers:
  An issue has been rectified where an error occurred when attempting to sort by the Comment column on AP Vouchers List.

• AP Invoices:

  • Default GST Type:
    When the Job uses an Activity Group with only one Activity Code, the system was not setting the default GST Type for that activity on the AP Invoice line. This has been rectified.

Stock

• Stock items - null Sell value error:
  After an enhancement done on 4.6.1, for those Sock Items using a Markup % were displaying an error when saving changes to the Stock Item due to the Sell rate being Null rather than a 0. This has been rectified.

Subcontracts

• Work Orders:
  Work Orders with extension columns were causing an invalid error when trying to save the Work Order. This has been rectified.

Plant

• Filters in a Plant Issues Batch:
  New filters have been added on the Plant Issues screen that help a user find the specific transactions matching the filter criteria. This becomes handy in a batch with a large number of Plant issues.
  New filters include: Date, Job, Plant item, Rate Code, Activity, Work Centre
  

  

• Auto Batching Plant Issues from Timesheets:
  A change has been made to the autobatch creation process, so that the batch has the Finco of the Plant items, and not the Finco of the Job to which the plant issue was done.

Timesheets

• This has not been included in this release, and has been moved to the next release 4.6.5.
  Week-Based EBA Profiles with Leave:
  Leave is now considered in the calculation of week-based profiles. Those profiles use the 'Wk' Day value.
  

  

Billing

• Job Invoices - ‘Attach Supplier Invoices' option:
  The 'Attach SUpplier Invoices' option on the Perform button of a Job Invoice will now be available regardless of the charge type of the header Job and it will display an error message if a user tries to use it but there are no AP Invoice lines included in the Job Invoice.
  
  This is handy for example when a header Job has a Clam Schedule Charge type, for which there will be no AP Invoice lines but with sub jobs with Input Based charge type for example, that may have AP Invoice lines included in the Job Invoice.
  

  

Quotes

• At Revenue & Cost Element Cost sheets - Work Centre on BOM lines:
  When inserting BOM Cost lines on a Revenue line, these Cost lines will now have the same Work Centre Code as the Revenue line.

• New option to create one Claim Schedule for all Cost Sheets:
  When creating Claim Schedules from a Quote the default behaviour is to create one SChedule per Cost Sheet.
  In those cases where only one Claim SChedule is needed, there is now the option to manually create an empty Schedule first, and from the Quote select that unapproved Claim Schedule to add all the Cost sheets in one.
  Note: The Cost Sheet lines should not use the same LineCode if included on the same schedule, and lines with duplicate LineCodes will will have a suffix of “_Copy“ added.
  

  

  

Administration

• User setup - Profit Centre Group and Report Groups:
  Profit Centre Groups and Report Groups on the Application Access tab of a User setup can now be saved as expected. The workaround of saving it from the Profit Centre Group screen is not needed anymore.

• The application Log screen has been resized for ease of use.

Integrations

MYOB AccountRight

Enhancements:

• AP Invoice File Attachments: A new tickbox on the MYOB Integration screen called ‘Include AP Attachments’. If this is ticked, then any images or pdfs attached to an AP invoice in Workbench being exported will be uploaded and attached to the invoice on MYOB. Note MYOB only supports attachments for AP Invoices, not AR.

• Import Inactive Companies and update in Workbench: We will now include inactive contacts when importing/syncing from MYOB, so if a Contact is flagged as inactive in MYOB, it will become inactive in Workbench.

• Update Contact details (email, fax, etc): When importing a contact from MYOB, we now update the Billing Contacts' Business Phone, Email, and Fax fields from the corresponding fields from the Contact in MYOB.

Upvise

• Purchase Orders are now compatible with the following scenarios:

1. Project Purchase Orders

2. Job Purchases (Project Jobs, Equipment Jobs, Site Jobs)

3. Equipment Purchase Orders

...

Cost Activity group validation has been introduced on all purchase order types.

• Employee Training record matrix:
  A change was made to link the form to the employee record where the training record is created from the Forms application rather than the contact itself (Contacts application).

• Deprecation of Native Upvise functionality: Generation of Form PDF on submission of the form & saving the Form PDF as a file 
  Deprecation of Native Upvise functionality: Generation of Form PDF on submission of the form & saving the Form PDF as a file 
  As informed before, Upvise has deprecated the function that generates a PDF of a form upon submission in the files application of Upvise on March 31, 2023.

   

  Workbench is dependant on the file existing in upvise to sync from Upvise as an attachment to Service Logs and Daysheets. As a result of the deprecation of this function, Workbench will no longer be able to import the form file into Workbench automatically.

   

  This change only impacts clients who are dependent on these file attachments existing in Workbench.

  • We acknowledge that the most common user scenario is service log invoicing, where these attachments were being used.

  • To address assist clients with the Upvise change, Workbench has implemented a new button on the service log so that you can easily navigate to the Upvise Job (service log) and access any forms needed for invoicing purposes.
    These form PDFs can be manually exported and used wherever needed for invoicing purposes.
    

    

  • The Workbench Integration has not changed, all other available attachments will continue to sync as expected:

    • Expense claim attachments

    • Service log attachments

    • Docket Attachments 

• Hidden Work Centres on PO forms:
  Where the Work centre is hidden on a Purchase Order form in Upvise, we will use the default work centre on the activity in Workbench on the PO line. This allows users to hide the work centre field on PO forms for simpler data capture for Upvise users.