Main Application

Open

When you open the application for the first time, this main screen looks like the above.

The navigation and filter options sit on top of each other on the right-hand side of the screen, these are quick searches and are used to access data quickly as well as being used within forms to provide results for entries into the form.

Open

• The Navigation and Filter Options panel sits on top of each other in the application. Select the Tab button of the panel you require. 

• On the Navigation Panel, simply click on the category that you want to look at and the panel will switch to the Filter Options Panel. It will show you all the options that are currently available to filter for in your chosen category in a list.

• In the Filter Options Panel example below, you can see the options for Billing Documents.

• Some of the fields will require you to type in values to filter by. If you don't have the full value, you can search for any matching value starting with the information you entered and then adding an asterix * to the end. For example If you wanted all addresses within the Postcode area of ‘NR' you would type into the Postcode field 'NR*’.
  
  

• Click the Search button once you have completed your filter options. If only one record is found, the application will automatically open up the screen for that record.

• If multiple records are found (see below).

• On the top left of the Results Panel, you will see the title showing you which item you are currently viewing.

• You will also see the Results Panel and the Navigation Panel when you search for existing information to fill in data within a form you are working on. If you are using this panel to select the data for a window you are working on, double-clicking on a row will bring up a window containing more detailed information.

• Top Right of the results panel at the bottom, you will see the Pin icon. When clicked (pinned) the Results Panel will remain in place even when not in use. When clicked again (unpinned), the Results Panel will auto-hide. (When hidden, click the bottom right tabs to view previous searches).

  • To close the results then just click the 'X' located in the top right of the results.

• You can have many concurrent Results Panels options showing previous searches. Click on the tab at the bottom right to check on previous searches.

Vision Invoicing is basically a big data store of information that is used to then generate invoices, which are then printed and/or emailed to customers and then an export file is generated for Sage.

There are several invoice categories stored in the invoicing database, data is either extracted from the other Vision applications or it is pushed to Vision invoicing from them.

Stock Storage

The Vision Warehousing Invoicing routine runs at a specified time (in the early hours of the morning usually)  which extracts any stock information which is required for invoicing and pushes it to the Invoicing database.

Stock Storage charge profiles are based on charging patterns of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual. 

All charging is carried out on the basis of per "period" or part thereof e.g Charge for the week the stock arrives, or charge for the day the day the stock arrives.
This is a standard methodology of invoicing in the United Kingdom and warehouses quote their customers generally in "a week or part thereof"

Each evening, pro-rata period charges for all charging patterns are extracted, this builds up the charges waiting for the customer to run the invoicing. .(So this is generally at the point the stock lands, so the landed stock quantity).

Then the other standard period charges are extracted weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually as required.  

As both the pro-rata and the standard charges accumulate, this is visible in the 'Outstanding Invoice Report' and can be used as a checking function that data has been brought into Vision Invoicing. These form the basis of the invoice.

Within Vision Warehousing stock table we record the last date the record was pulled into the Vision Invoicing table so that we can always check a record if we need to troubleshoot.

As the pull of this information to invoicing is time-critical, a further check routine runs after the main process which checks everything has been pushed to the invoicing system; if this has failed then the Vision support team is emailed informing them of the problem, as this issue needs to be resolved to utilize the previous evening backup, it is therefore time-critical.  

If you set a stock record in Warehousing as "FREE RENT" then this will load each time as FREE into invoicing, you need to change the setting in Stock Maintenance in Warehousing to remove the "FREE".

Goods Inwards

The Vision Warehousing Invoicing routine runs daily at a specified time which extracts and pulls all "READY" stock inwards movements made the previous day.

A record is only considered as "READY" when the status is marked as "COMPLETE"

Once it imports the record into Vision Invoicing, it is then marked in Vision Warehousing as exported.
Each time the routine runs only "READY" items marked as "not exported" will be included in the import.

Sundry charges for goods inwards are also dealt with in the same fashion, as such you can continue to add sundry charges forever and the next time the routine runs we extract the new charge push this to the invoice database, and mark the charge as extracted within Vision Warehousing.

Good Outwards

A Vision Invoicing routine runs each day and retrieves ungrouped data from Vision Warehousing; the "Original Data".  It stores this in Vision Invoicing and then consolidates that data which users then later raise invoices from.

Original Data - The data we then group / consolidate is:

• Orders information (for order, bottles ordered, cases ordered, pallets ordered, order line, and document charges).

• Stock movement information (for bottle picking, case picking, and pallet picking charges).

This is the only invoicing routine to build the charges within Vision Invoicing itself, it was designed because it looks in several databases to take information for orders processed, orders picked, types of orders, order lines, picked a line,s, etc, and uses this collated data to build the consolidated charges. This final consolidated data is grouped into daily summaries, for example, no of orders for a given day, no of order lines, no of bottles picked. The reason for this data being consolidated or grouped is that there is little point in us duplicating ungrouped or unconsolidated data when it's never used and we are only looking for the total quantity of items, such as the number of orders in one day etc. We, therefore extract the information for a single customer / site for a given day and we then store this in the database for invoicing at a later time, so for each type of goods out we count the items for the category and store the count value.

The consolidated data can be checked using the exceptions report on Vision Invoicing which looks at the trends of information extracted, and should information ever be missing this can easily be recreated as the Vision warehousing information base is maintained for a lengthy time.

Stock Charges

These generally refer to condition charges which are carried out and stored on the Vision Warehousing system. When a request is made we log the request and upon completion of the request we mark the request as completed.

Each day a routine is run from Vision Warehousing which pulls the uninvoiced condition report records to the Vision Invoicing system, at this point we update a flag on Vision Warehousing marking the record as output to Vision Invoicing. 

In the event of the routine not picking up any entries the next time it is run it will pick up all entries which have not been picked up already.

Transport Charges

Transport charges come from Vision Distribution and the standard system operates that the record is pushed from Vision Distribution to Vision invoicing on a daily basis, we find all records which are marked as status D (this is confirmed delivered) and each record is output to Vision Invoicing, once this is the output we then mark the distribution record as status "I" (Invoiced) we also mark the record as "Extracted for Invoicing" as True (meaning extracted).

Any distribution records marked as status "X" are canceled however there can be a flag on the record stating "TO BE CHARGED" and these entries are also exported, and we mark the "Extracted for Invoicing" flag as True.