Release 9.4

9.4 Post Release Features

Whilst most features of a release are completed as part of our normal R&D cycle in the development phase, we also add new features through the “life” of a release via patches from time to time. The reasons for this are varied, but it mostly comes down to a decision that the feature is significantly beneficial to the majority of the users on that release. This page contains a summary of the features added to this version of OA as patches, along with links to more detail on the feature where required.

Released 28th January 2018

‘On Sale’ in E-commerce – improvements have been made to the e-commerce portals to show a visual indicator of items on sale.

New fields for emails from E-commerce – you are now able to insert Customer Name and Customer Order Number into automatic email sent to your rep when an e-commerce order is entered.

‘On Sale’ items in E-commerce – can now include a dynamic index build of items that are ‘on sale’ for the E-commerce catalogue.

Dynamic Rep Customer List – when using the mobile Rep CRM portal, the list of customers for the sales rep is now built dynamically.

Item comments in E-commerce – when entering an order via any of the e-commerce portals, you can now enter ‘text’ notes against the products for the customer/user to add in any additional information/queries per item they have.

Released 6th August 2017

Please note: this will be the last patch update and release for the 9.4 version. All future patching will be for the 9.5 version, unless some critical patch is required for 9.4

Cash on Delivery – changes to COD credit rules to provide an option to have only on outstanding order at a time.

Generic upload tool – you can now configure this tool to upload Custom Data.

New E-commerce Data Upload  – a new upload tool has been created that allows you to upload e-commerce Product Master data such as web description etc.

New Barcode Upload – a new upload tool has been created that allows you to upload barcodes to the Product Master

Fast input access to non-inventory product – the Sales Order Entry Fast Input mode has been changed to include a button that gives you quick access to entry of a non-inventory product. Plus you can now enter notes for the non-inventory product with all the other details

Shipment Receipt Report – linked the Shipment Report to the Shipment Receipt function for easy access

E-commerce User Management – added option to either delete or disable an e-commerce user that has been inactive for a specified period of time


Released 5th April 2017

Default Note Category – a default notes category has been added to User Details. This is picked up when a user is adding a new Note to save them having to select a category. Particularly useful for Reps adding notes via their smartphones.

Specified Despatch – the order quantity has been added to the summary item information in Specified Despatch function to allow a quick visual comparison.

Order Confirmation Reprints – this has been updated to include the Electronic Document Delivery feature with a manual override option to assist with re-sending to clients when required.


Released 4th December 2016

Bank Reconciliation – for the upload of bank statements, new transaction types have been added so that interest and bank charges can be recognised from the bank file and loaded to bank reconciliation. Additional minor enhancements to the general user interface of the reconciliation function have also been completed.

Launch report via email – added the ability to look up an email address of other Users on the system when sending reports. This complements the existing Customer, Supplier or General Contacts look-ups.

Branch prefix – included the option to allocate a Document Prefix by branch as an alternative to setting Document Prefix per User.

Order Class Category – added a new Order Class category so the system can distinguish orders entered by Sales Reps in the field using the new mobile CRM application.

Document Delivery for Orders or Quotes – Sales Orders or Quotes entered via the E-Commerce or CRM applications will now send an Order Confirmation or Formal Quote via Electronic Document Delivery as per the contact’s settings on the Customer.


Released 21st August 2016
Replenishment Report – enhancements to Replenishment Report to enable better output to excel or csv formats.

Product Search – when searching for a product using ‘keywords’, the product extra description is now included as part of the information searched.

Ageing Method – added an alternative ageing method to month end ageing called ‘Invoice Date Ageing’. With this new method, figures in age periods are calculated based on the invoice date and the customer terms ageing days.

Sales Order ‘Delete’ warning – when deleting a Sales Order (or a line item on a sales order) that is linked to a Manufacturing Work Order, the user is now given a warning message to warn them if a relationship exists so the Work Order can be managed separately.

Product Inventory Upload – a new tool to upload Product Inventory details.

Product Index Upload – a new tool to upload Product Index details onto the Product Master.

Replacement Cost Upload – a new tool to upload Product Replacement Costs.

Standard Cost Upload – this tool now lets you use an * to indicate the data uploaded is for all Sizes of the Product.

Point of Sale Special Orders – added an option to allow users to keep Special Orders open even when fully paid so the invoice can be delayed until a later time thus allowing full payment of Special Orders in advance of good pickup/delivery.

Point of Sale Cash Sales – added in a ‘Cash Sale Name’ input to the ‘Details’ section that allows customer name to be recorded on a docket without the need to create a new customer. Also adjusted the POS docket format to include this ‘Cash Sale Name’ along with some re-formatting of the address.


Released 15th May, 2016
Notes Categories Type – added a type to Notes Categories. This allows note categories to be grouped under ‘roles’. e.g. debt collection, supplier, asset and general ledger notes can be grouped under a ‘Finance’ type. Although not used anywhere yet, having a fixed system defined type (as opposed to a user defined type) paves the way for future development where we can select certain note types for display in specific applications.
Email Validation – added an End of Day check and report for mal-formed email addresses which may have crept into the database from take-on data or uploads.
Inventory Reports – added new report filters on inventory reports and separated size and colour for Excel style report exporting.
Bank Transfers – enhanced the Bank Reconciliation reporting so it now shows the payee for bank transfers (where possible). This change included improvements to tracking held/sent amounts for bank transfers.
Upload Orders – added two new tools to allow the upload of Customer Sales Orders and Stock Transfer Orders from a external ‘spread sheet’ type data file


Released 3rd April 2016
Primary Bin Update – added option to update primary bin entered in Inventory Master against all size and colour combinations for the product at the same location. This is useful for systems with Size and Colour switched on for Product Format and products of the same size or colour are stored in the same bin location.
Point of Sale– added a new option to point of sale that causes a sign out of the till after each transaction.
Product Master– added a new option to enter replenishment details per inventory location when setting up new products. This saves you from the separate exercise of updating replenishment details via Inventory Master.
Replenishment Update Tool – added options to update lead times, bin and replenishment quantities. Also added more filters for selection.
Product Upload – added a new tool to upload Products, Prices and Inventory data from a single spread sheet.
Stock take Upload – added a new tool to upload stock take data. This tool takes data from a spread sheet and initiates a new stock take and gets you to the count entered stage. Simply do reporting and finalise to update stock.
Purchase Orders– removed restriction on number of characters allowed for purchase order notes.
Contract Price Upload– added ability to enter ‘*’ for all sizes when uploading contract prices.
Invoice Upload– added a new tool to upload sales and transfer invoices.
Sample Sales– added a new option to configure the way zero value sales should be handled i.e. default to sample or not.
New Customers from sales – added new user options to disallow a user to create new customers on the fly in Sales Order Entry or Point Of Sale Orders.
New “Payments Entered” report – this report allows you to print all the payments entered on a particular day including manual payments, payments from a payment processing run and standing payments.
New Bank Transfer audit display – this display allows you to review changes to bank transfer details via the Bank Transfer maintain and export function.


Released, 13th December 2015
User GL Reports – added Alternate Categories to the General Ledger User reports function which enables users to write GL reports and control both row and column positioning of your financial data.
Jobbing Displays – added a new set of displays to enable viewing of ‘Jobbing’ specification details.
Point of Sale Reports – added new reports in Point of Sale for reporting on Special Orders.
Secure PDF option – added a new option to generate all PDF files marked as secure. This means that the files you send can’t be edited, highlighted or annotated with comments.
Shipment Default – changes have been made to the Receipt and Cost Shipment function to default the supplier code when entering invoices against a shipment.
Custom Data – added a new multi-check box input format for use on custom data entry forms. Also added the ability to set the height and width of multi-line text input plus rules for restricting character input using the “validation” code. Custom data also now includes a ‘where used’ search option so you can see what custom data sets are used for Customers, or Suppliers, or Products etc.
New Inventory Display – a new display has been added to Inventory Displays – Warehouse Location Summary. This display shows a list of all locations under a warehouse for a specified product and warehouse and the quantities on hand, to be receipted and to be issued at each location plus warehouse totals.


Released 6th September, 2015
User GL Reports – a beta version of the new General Ledger User formatted reports function has been released for trial use. Whilst we still have some changes and enhancements to make to this new feature we feel it is at a point where it can be released for client use.
For more information on this powerful new function please read the detailed help post here.
User Sales Reports – added an automatic Table of Contents to all User Sales reports.
Cost & Prices – Added a feature that provides the user with the option to copy Replacement Cost, Standard Prices and/or Special Prices to ALL Sizes of a Product when product size modelling is in use.
Contract Prices – Similar to the “Cost & Prices” enhancement above, there is now an option to copy Contract Price changes to ALL Sizes of a Product when product size modelling is in use.
Parent Work Orders – this new feature provides a method of linking sub-assembly Work Orders to their parent Work Orders. A simple way to create a relationship between two or more Work Orders. Once linked, this allows you to see which Work Order a sub-assembly is being made for and the status of the related orders.
Royalty Contract Displays – Added a series of new displays for viewing Royalty Contract information.
Non-Inventory Product Defaults – added replenishment fields and user permission to non-inventory Product defaults.
EOD Work Orders – improvements made so that work orders created during an EOD can be selectively printed even if another EOD has already been run.


Released 19th July, 2015
Buyer Email – Added email address field for purchasing buyer. This is currently for information only, but paves the way for future development in regards to emailing buyers with purchasing information.
Cash Receipts – Improvements have been made to the Cash Receipts function. It now lets you continue processing a receipt even after another user has entered new invoices on the customers ledger. The changes are designed to minimise the times when a payment cannot be processed due to other users activity.
Product Shelf Life – Added a number of days a product is ‘viable’ for. This field is on the product master file and also on the inventory file, as shelf life may change according to the stock location because of the specific environment it’s stored in e.g. warmer/colder climates, different refrigeration etc. A new report showing inventory by ‘use-by date’ has also been added. This report is items with ‘Tracking’ turned on e.g. Batch Tracking, Dual Tracking.


Released 15th March, 2015
EOD Cost Recalculation Report – This report can now be configured to send to a different destination to the EOD reports via the Special Forms Queue facility.
Re-calc Invoice Due Dates – We have added a new function to re-calculate AP invoice due dates for a selected range of invoices (for cases where the supplier master terms may have been updated).


Released 30th November, 2014
Upload Tool – For those times when you have a long list of items that need updating with new data and it is easier to prepare a spread sheet and upload to the OA database. For example, you might decide to start classifying products using the Product Material field. You can prepare a list of product codes and material codes on a spread sheet and upload the details to the Product Master file instead of entering a material against each product individually. This sort of upload does not suit ALL data fields in Online Advantage, and there is a small configuration task to be done before an upload can be done. Contact Support to discuss your upload needs.
Fax via Email – We are now offering an alternative method of faxing to ActiveFax. You can subscribe to a Fax via Email service and we can configure Online Advantage to send your fax details to the email service address provided. Contact Support to discuss.
Configurable EDD Email Details – For those sending out documents such as Quotes, Order Confirmations, Invoices, Credits, Statements, Purchase Orders or Remittances via email, you can now configure the text appearing in the email. The following fields are configurable:

  • Email From Address – you can enter a generic email address as the from address instead of having the email come from your own address e.g. ‘accounts@your-company.com.au’
  • Email Subject
  • Email Body
  • Email attachment

You can enter your email wording in the Standard Stationery Messages option in the System Manager menu.


Released 19th October, 2014
GL reports Summary – A wonderful new option has been added to the GL Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss reports that allows you to summarise the selected reports at a category level. This means you can get a quick snapshot of the business at the highest level at any time without the need to read individual account movements and balances.


Released 6th August, 2014
New User Access settings for Scheduled Reports – Since the Process Scheduler is a multi-purpose tool – used to schedule End of Day (EOD), End of Week (EOW) and End of Month (EOM) plus manage (or schedule) other reports, we’ve added an additional access level for the Process Scheduler per user. The following settings are now available in the User Details function:

  • EOD – may schedule an end of day and see all other scheduled reports for all users
  • ALL – may not schedule end of day but can see all other scheduled reports for all users
  • OWN – may not schedule end of day but can see all of their own scheduled reports
  • NONE – have NO access to the process scheduler AND may NOT schedule reports

Released 20th July, 2014
General Ledger Account entry – We have added a keyboard shortcut for auto allocations when performing general ledger account posting input. You can now enter “account ” and the auto allocation check boxes will be ticked for you. You can also enter “account branch ” or “account division” to nominate that you want the system to allocate the posting across either the divisions only, or branches only.
New Contacts Reports – There are 2 new Contacts reports now available – one for Supplier Contacts and one for Customer Contacts. Both these reports are very useful if you want to extract contact details, postal addresses or email addresses for any sort of mass mailing activity.
Contacts Display – We have added direct access to the Contact function from the Contacts Display menu anywhere a contact appears in the system via the “green-arrow” drill-down facility.
Country Option – A new option in “Company Name and Address” setting to allow users to switch on the display of the full country name at the end of local addresses i.e. addresses in the default country.
Sales Order Entry Options – Whilst not really an enhancement as such, we’re adding a note here about the Sales Order procedure entry point as the behaviour may be slightly different after patch updates depending on your user setup. We noticed the “Sales Order Entry – New Order Options” option which is in User Details wasn’t working as documented so we have corrected that. With this option ticked, you will have the choice of converting a quote, committing a draft, or building a transfer order from replenishment details when you start the Sales Order Entry form. With this option un-ticked, you will only have options to create a Sale, Transfer, Quote or Draft type Sales Order. So, if you don’t want all users to be able to convert quotes, commit drafts or build transfers from replenishment, you should un-tick this option in their User Details.


Released 15th June, 2014
Contacts Maintenance – We’ve created new procedures for both supplier and customer contact maintenance. These new forms contain only the contact information that is entered against a supplier or customer. We’ve also added the ability to sequence the contacts in any order you like via the use of up/down arrows. By having this information available on a separate form, user’s who shouldn’t be able to change account information like credit limits or banking details can still access and maintain contacts information. These new forms are published on the respective “Setup” menus for the AP/AR modules.
Purchase Order Entry Options– Whilst not really an enhancement as such, we’re adding a note here about the Purchase Order procedure entry point as the behaviour may be slightly different after patch updates depending on your user setup. We noticed the “Purchase New Order Options” option which is in User Details wasn’t working as documented so we have made changes to get it working. With this option ticked, you will have the choice of creating a purchase order, or building a purchase order from replenishment details when you start the Purchase Order Entry form. With this option un-ticked, you will go straight to Purchase Order entry and not see the two initial options at all. So, if you never create purchase orders from replenishment – un-tick the option – it will be a bit of a shortcut for you, or un-tick the option for those users who shouldn’t have access to creating replenishment based purchase orders.
Product Details for E-commerce– We’ve added a cut-down version of Product Details that only contains product information relevant to e-commerce. This is to allow the user’s responsible for maintaining product web details to focus on just those details for the product which should help to make the process more efficient.
Extended rep code– We’ve extended the code for Sales Reps from 3 characters to 5 characters because this is something we are frequently asked about.
New Plan Forecast displays– We’ve added a new ‘Plan Forecast Details’ and ‘Plan Forecast History’ display to the Supply Chain Management module.


Released 13th April, 2014
General Journal Uploads – auto allocate journal number- In GL journal uploads, you can now enter ‘N’ for the journal number in the spread sheet and the journal will be allocated the next available number when uploaded.
Customer location default – E-commerce – orders created via B2B or B2C will now use the new customer location default (see Feb new features) as the issue location where present. If not held on a customer, the issuing location will still default from the first location specified for B2B, or via the location specified for the customer’s branch code.
Fill Back Orders from Transit Receipts– this is a new function that allows you to process back orders based on transfers receipted from another warehouse location.
Print Product Labels from Purchase Order– this is a new function that prints product labels for all the products on a nominated purchase order.
Product Label Size Options– we’ve added the ability to choose between labels of varying size when printing product labels. This does require some set up. Contact support@onlineadvantage.com.au for more details.
New Supply Chain Management reports– we’ve added 4 new reports to the Supply Chain Management module; Plan Forecast ABC report, Plan Forecast Line Demand report, Plan Forecast New Stock Levels report and Plan Forecast History report.


Released 16th February, 2014
Master File Audit Displays – New displays have been added which enable you to check the most recent changes to data on the Customer Master, Supplier Master and Product Master details in an ‘activity style’ format.
Customer location default – a new field for Issuing Location has been added to the Customer Master details. This location is used as the default issue location when creating sales orders for the customer. If not used, the Sales Order Issue Location will still default from the entering user’s default location.
Create New Prices– some changes have been made to the Create New Prices function to make it clearer what the effect of the selections will be on the prices at each price level.


Released 24-11-13
Bad Debts Write-off – Foreign currency has been added to the Bad Debts Write-off function.


Released 27-10-13
Weekly Sales Reports – We’ve extended User Formatted Reports to now enable you to do weekly reporting on sales as well as monthly. There is some set up involved, so contact support@onlineadvantage.com.au to find out more. We will need to know the date the first week of your year fell on. e.g. 1 January, 2013 was a Tuesday.
Cancelling Customer Refunds – If you find you have to cancel a Customer Refund payment, we’ve changed it to create a journal in the debtor’s (customer’s) ledger so you don’t have to. You simply need to offset the refund and cancellation on the debtors account.
List User Access Report – We’ve created a new report to show all the procedures a user has access to. This report is best viewed via the ‘Cube Viewer’.
Contract Price Upload – We’ve added a new routine to upload contract prices from a spread sheet. You will find a description of the function and the details required for the spread sheet here.
Job Costing Display – We’ve added a new display for Job Costing – “Invoice History”. This display shows you all invoices and credits already transacted on a job, the amount outstanding on each and the last payment date. Plus it shows any pending invoices and credits.


Released 15-09-13
Default Posting Method – When entering posting details for a transaction, previously the posting method would always default to General Ledger. Now you can select the default posting method per transaction. For example, if the majority of your Manual Stock Issues are posted to a work order, then you can set up ‘work orders’ as the default posting method for this function. To set the default for a procedure, use the “Valid Chart of Account” maintenance which is found in the General Ledger > Setup menu.


Released 18-08-13
Invoice/Credit Reprints– added the Electronic Document Delivery (EDD) facility to the reprinting of Customer Invoices and Credit Notes. Now users can decide if they want to send the customer contacts a copy of the documents directly using the details already set on the customers account or override the EDD function and print/email/fax manually using the Report Launcher.
Add-On Product Pricing– changes to the Product Cost & Pricing function now allow users to set prices for “Add-On” style products as required. This was never an option before but now you can set “standard” prices for your add-on products, like freight charges, so that the Order Management system, specifically Sales Order Entry, will pick-up the default pricing and allow users to use or adjust it as required.


Released 14-07-13
Shipment invoices– added ‘invoice description’ to enter some detail about invoices entered in a shipment receipt.
New Back Order report – Back Order Items with Stock by Issuing Location by Product.
Sales History in e-commerce – added a sales history look up function to B2B so e-commerce users can enter new orders based on their previous purchases as described HERE. This requires some minor set up, please contact support@unipix.com.au if you would like to implement this facility.
User Registration in e-commerce – added a User Registration function to the e-commerce menu options. The e-commerce user enters their email and account code and submits the information, then receives an email with their login details. This requires some minor set up, please contact support@unipix.com.au if you would like to implement this facility.
New purchase docket reprints – added reprint functions for Shipment Receipt Dockets, Purchase Receipt Dockets and Shipping Advice Dockets.


Released 09-06-13
Surcharges in e-commerce – added a surcharges list for service/add-on charges. More details HERE.
Expanded note boxes in displays – where multi-line text data appears in displays, we have added the ability to expand the text box to allow more of the text to be seen before scrolling.


Released 05-05-13
Retain Master File Audit details – we are now keeping the Master File Audit details for longer so our support desk is better able to assist when requests on who changed data are received.
Minor accounts added to Chart of Accounts – added new fields for minor accounts to Chart of Accounts. These are used in Job Costing displays.


Released 03-03-13
Sales orders based on previous weeks sales – added a new option in Sales Order Entry to build a sales order based on the customers previous sales history – according to a specified number of weeks. A default number of weeks can be set up in system options in the ‘sales orders’ section. More details can be found HERE.
Enhancements distributed as patches – added new tools for patching to identify patches that are really enhancements and changed patch distribution procedures to include update of help documentation so users can be advised of new features as they happen rather than wait for next OA release release notes.


Released 20-01-13
Report debugging – added a new tool for debugging reports (for Technical users)
Basic messages in EDD emails – for documents sent via email we have added some basic text to appear in the email body. The default text is: “Please find your document attached”. (The word document will be substituted for ‘invoice’, ‘statement’, ‘remittance’ etc. as appropriate). Please contact support@onlineadvantage.com.au if you would like the standard message changed to suit your needs.


Released 14-10-12
Email quick links – added quick links to email yourself in report launcher
E-commerce Customer Order Number – added an option for mandatory customer order number in e-commerce


Released 16-09-12
Additional Carrier Details – new fields have been added to carriers for email address and consignment note format. This information will allow us to develop future changes such as emailing manifest details to carriers and producing labels with a different format per carrier.
Tracking per inventory location – we have added the ability to switch serial/batch tracking on per inventory location.


Released 27-08-12
Base a sales order on a previous invoice – changes have been made in sales order entry that allow you to base a new sales order on a picking docket or on a previous invoice.


Released 19-08-12
User reports – 3 new reports have been added to list user details: List Users; List Users By Classification; List E-commerce Users


Released 07-08-12
Old/New Price option – a new system option has been added to turn on/off the prompt in despatch to ask for new/old price when quantity changes.


Released 22-07-12
Customer Master Price Setup Report – a new report has been added to show pricing details for customers.
BPAY References – BPAY Biller code has been added to the company details. BPAY Customer Reference has been added to the customer master details. The BPAY details (and logo) can be printed on Invoice and Statement documents for those offering the BPAY payment option.
Deleted Sales Order audit – Details of deleted sales orders are now kept and a report of deleted orders is printed during EOD.
Weekly Debtors Statements – a new option has been added to the Process Scheduler to allow debtors statements to be run weekly.
Windows print spooler form – a new menu option that can be used to review the status of Windows printers and allow cancellation of jobs in the Windows print spooler.


Released 24-06-12
Group Discount Pricing Levels – a new level has been added to the sales pricing structure which allows discounts to be entered per product group for a discount ‘list’. The discount list is attached to a customer. This change also includes a new form for entering customer prices (a subset of the customer master form).


Released 17-06-12
Credit Note number same as order docket number – a new system option added to make credit note number equal the sales order docket number.


Released 20-05-12
EOD Pooler Audit reports – 2 new reports added to the EOD function to print an audit trail of reports launched during the day. Both reports are emailed to system administrator users.
Security Access to Picking and Invoicing via Sales Order Entry – new flags have been added to user details to allow/dis-allow access to printing picking dockets and invoices at the end of sales order entry as required for individual users.

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