Workbench Release Notes

Upcoming Functionality & News

Workbench API Licence

The use of the Workbench API will now require a licence. An API User licence will enable you to access all the Workbench functionality available through our API.

Contract Progress Claim Process - upcoming changes you need to know 

We will be making changes to improve the Claiming process on Contract Claims, and users will soon be able to:

1. Capture Claimed Values.

2. Capture Certified Values.
   

Available from August 2024 as a beta feature.

New Features

GST-registered clients/suppliers

We have improved the way Companies (suppliers & clients) are flagged as GST registered in Workbench (Use GST flag) when syncing from the Financial Systems.

1- On creation of new companies (synced from the financial system using its API), the Use GST flag on the company will be set to true only if the template company has it set to true. 

2- On update of the company, the GST flag will not be updated. 

3- The template company flag is now displayed on the financial Integration screen in Workbench, so that the user who is setting up the integration for the first time, or every time the user performs a manual import to bring new companies, can clearly see the rule for the Use GST flag (probably ticked meaning ALL imported companies will be flagged as Use GST). 

4- New Use GST flag on Company lists and filters, so users have a quick way to verify and search.

5- Job Template’s option for Use GST is now only Client. The Template option is not available for selection anymore.

Benefits:

• there won't be any issues with surprises in Job Invoices/ContractClaims/SubcontractClaims with NO GST.

• users will know the rules for the Use GST flag and it won't cause so much confusion. 

Disadvantage:

• if there are any companies that are not GST registered, the user must manually go and untick the flag on Company maintenance.
  

Previous logic was:

• New companies, the Use GST flag on the company would be set to true only if the template company has it set to true, and the GST Number was populated in the financial system. However, this was only set on create (i.e. the first time this company is synced or created from the financial system; updates to the financial company thereafter would not update this field in Workbench).

Feature Revisions

UX enhancement

• Navigation tweaks that will make you happy!

  • Budget:
    When closing the Budget screen, the user will automatically navigate back to the Budget list, rather than the main Contact tab.

  • Contract Claims:

    • When opening a Contract Claim from the Claims tab, you can now navigate back to the Claims tab using the bread crumb menu at the top (instead of going back to the Contract Summary tab).

    • Job Sales Invoice page title/breadcrumb has been relabeled to Contract Claim.
      

      

  • We removed the To Invoice List button on Job Invoices, to be consistent with the navigation on the rest of the application, and encourage the correct use of breadcrum menus. So now when opening a Claim from the Contract, you will always go back to the Claims list, rather than going back to Job Invoice lists by mistake.

Contracts - Project Trust Accounts

A few enhancements to the recently released functionality:

• On PTA transfer screen:

  • Records are sorted by Transfer Date desc

  • Reference column was made narrower and renamed to Bank Reference, as this is specifically to store any reference from the bank transfer transaction. The Comments column is to be used for any other relevant details.

  • The Details column has been renamed to Comments to match the Ledger screen.

• Contract - Trust Accounts tab:

  • A clarifying note has been added to say: ”All values are GST Inclusive & Local Currency.”

  • Added an Export to Excel option for PTA and RTA Ledgers.

  • Changed Balance column name to Running Balance.

Purchasing

• Purchase Requisitions

  • GST and GST type can now be enabled on Purchase Requisition lines via Grid Management, hidden by default. This is to keep consistency with Purchase Orders, for those who have GST enabled for POs.
    

    

  • Internal Comments from a Purchase Requisition can now flow to a Purchase Order’s new field Internal Comments.
    

• AP Vouchers

  • Fixed functionality for control parameter ‘Catalogue Line Matching on AP Invoices’:
    If set to Yes, this CP extracts the Catalogue Item Code from the beginning part of Voucher Line Details. If matched, the CatalogueLineId on the AP Invoice line. is populated. A change has been made to limit the matched catalogue line to be from a supplier catalogue.

Subcontracts

• Approved Subcontract Retention in Retention Reporting:
  The Retention balance used across the application includes any subcontract claim, but there are cases where clients are creating a full retention release and leaving it unapproved, ready to be used in the future (even 1 year ahead).
  
  A new column has been to display the Approved Retention Balance, in addition to the existing Retention Balance value on the Retention Reporting tab on Retention Management:

  • a balance of approved retentions different to $0, as opposed to a retention balance different to $0 (including ALL existing subcontract claims regardless of their status)
    

    

    
    

    

Plant

• Plant Group- default Meter:

  • A new field has been added to Plant Groups, to specify the default Meter.

  • When saving a plant item a warning will be displayed if the Plant Group Default Meter is not the same as Plant’s Default Meter.

  • And when creating a new Meter reading on the Plant item, the default Meter Code will default from the Plant Group default meter if the Plant doesn’t have one.

  • Upvise Valid is used to verify if the meter code is a valid one in Upvise.

    

Timesheets

• Buyer Created Invoice (BCI) to include Allowances:
  We have made a change on the BCI process so all transactions entered in a Timesheet, including Allowances, are included in the AP invoice created.

Quotes

Enhancements:

• Quote Selling value in the Main tab is now locked when there are Costs Sheets. It will reflect the Selling Value of all Cost sheets. This is to avoid having a user approve a value in the Main tab that does not match the sum of the Selling value of the Cost Sheets. If there are no Cost Sheets, then this field can be edited.

Service Log

• Improvements to the invoicing process have been made for Service Logs with a Quoted charge type:

  • The default invoice value will come from the Log’s Expected Value, if no value is specified in it, it will come from the Job’s Job Value (in Job maintenance).

  • The Billing statuses:

    • Part Billed: when there are invoices and the $ value is less than the quoted Job’s Value (value in Job Maintenance).

    • Billed: invoice/s same or greater than the quoted Job’s Value (value in Job Maintenance).

• Service Log - Drag n Drop email editing Client:
  Changes have been made so the Client and Job can be changed after a log has been created from an email using the drag-and-drop functionality.

Reporting

• User Signatures on contract claim and subcontract claim reports are now displaying again. This was an issue for AWS-hosted clients.

Minor enhancements:

• AR invoice - email template:
  The 'Report - JobInvoice' email template now has $InvoiceValue token formatted with thousand(s) commas & a new token $InvoiceValueOnly with no currency code.
  

• Timesheets - Log and job code:
  When selecting a Logno first in a timesheet line, this will auto-populate the Job Code with the Job from the Service Log

  

• People Scheduler - sorting by name:
  The default sorting order for the employees in the People Scheduler is now by first name. It was previously sorted by EmployeeID which was not very useful.
  

  

Integration

Financial integration via API - import inactive status for companies

• To avoid users selecting inactive suppliers or clients, we have enhanced the integration with the financial systems (via API), so that when a company is made inactive (or archived) in the financial system, this change also syncs to Workbench, and the Company is flagged as Inactive.

MYOB Advanced

• PO number on exported AP invoices:
  When exporting an AP Invoice, the AP invoice comments will have the PO number on the first AP Invoice line. If there are multiple different PO numbers on the different AP invoice lines, then to avoid confusion the PO number will not be populated in the AP Invoice comment when exporting to MYOB.

Xero

• Improved error messages:
  The error message when a Payroll export fails has been appended at the beginning with the list of employees that errored to export, but this was preventing the user from seeing the full error message from Xero explaining what the issue in the export was. The list of names has now been removed so the user can read the full error message, understand the issue and try to solve it.
  

Upvise

Timesheet on last day of the payroll week going into the following week

In some cases, with night shifts on the lastd ay of the payroll week specially, the timesheet synced to Workbench was created in the wrong week. This has been rectified.

Fixes & Technical changes

Things we are busy working on...

💻 New series of webinars started in July. Visit our new Events page on our website for our August Webinar.

🗓️ Contract Claims: record claimed and certified values on each Claim (like in Subcontract Claims). New approval process on Contract Claims to resemble the certification process.

🔎 Custom Views on List screens, and exploring the ability to add extension columns to these views. This will expand your reporting ability on the List screens.

Audit for configuration changes.

⌛ Month End Process: controlled and easy to follow.

📈 Analysis graphs on Sales Invoices.

🔨 Interval- Based Equipment Maintenance in Upvise (e.g. 250-hour increments- 250, 500, 750, 1000 repeat)