News

Office Brands Data Integration for Readysell 7 Customers

As has been previously announced, Readysell and Office Brands have been working together over the last few months to improve the data integration capabilities of Readysell with the Office Brands product database.

We are now pleased to announce the culmination of some of those efforts will progressively become available to our Readysell 7 customers. The benefits of the new integration include:

  • Faster deployment of catalogue data updates
  • More frequent updates weekly of data
  • Weekly update of full product database to the Readysell price book

This has been achieved by automating the flow of data directly from the Office Brands product database into Readysell 7 member systems.

The new feature will be rolled out to all Readysell 7 Office Brands member systems. On a weekly basis your Readysell instance will fetch product updates from Office Brands, then:

  • If Office Brands has published a new catalogue, this will appear as an outstanding catalogue in your system, waiting to be loaded as you would normally
  • If Office Brands has updated data on a previously published catalogue, this will appear on an outstanding “catalogue-UPDATE” in your system, waiting to be loaded as you would normally
  • If Office Brands creates or updates any product, the equivalent product will be created or updated in your Readysell price book
  • You can review the result of the weekly update by going to your catalogue list in the price changes module

Office Brands Data in Readysell 7

  • New catalogues are listed under their catalogue code.
  • Updates have the same catalogue code with the word “-UPDATE” added to the end of the catalogue code.
  • The date last modified on each catalogue shows when the catalogue was last updated from Office Brands
  • The date loaded shows when you last loaded the catalogue.
  • If the date last modified is greater than the date loaded this would indicate additional updates and should be reloaded. The catalogue will show in the outstanding catalogues list.
  • The Office Brands One-X data updates the price book Readysell have added additional functionality to load a catalogue that selectively update cost and sell prices for existing products found on your product file. It will include all the updates in all the other catalogues.

Starting this week, Readysell will provide a weekly email update to let you know of any new or updated catalogues. If you are not receiving this update or would like to be removed from notifications, please email support@readysell.com.au

We look forward to hearing your feedback on this new feature and hope that it goes a long way to improving the quality, timeliness and overall usefulness of your product data in Readysell.

Office Brands Data Integration Improvements

Readysell and Office Brands have been working together over the last few months to improve the data integration capabilities of Readysell with the Office Brands product database. We are now pleased to announce the culmination of those efforts is available to our Readysell 8 customers. The benefits of the new integration include:

  • Faster deployment of catalogue data updates
  • More frequent updates of data
  • Nightly update of full product database to the Readysell price book
  • Optional direct update of data to member product files

This has been achieved by automating the flow of data directly from the Office Brands product database into Readysell 8 member systems.

The new feature has already been activated in all Readysell 8 Office Brands member systems. On a nightly basis your Readysell instance will fetch product updates from Office Brands, then:

  1. If Office Brands has published a new catalogue, this will appear as an outstanding catalogue in your system, waiting to be loaded as you would normally
  2. If Office Brands has updated data on a previously published catalogue, this will appear on an outstanding “catalogue update” in your system, waiting to be loaded as you would normally
  3. Whenever Office Brands creates or updates any product, the equivalent product will be created or updated in your Readysell price book (you can then use a price book run to update your product file)

You can review the result of the nightly update by going to “Product Import Rules” under “Administration” in your Readysell instance.

Product Import Rules Screenshot

Readysell will provide a weekly email update to let you know of any new or updated catalogues – you should already have started receiving this. If you are not receiving this update or would like to be removed from notifications, please email support@readysell.com.au

Also available is the option to have Readysell automatically update your product file based on the criteria of your choosing (e.g. products from certain catalogues only, or products that meet a certain data quality threshold). If you are interested in the automatic update feature, please open a ticket with Readysell Support to discuss your requirements and develop an implementation plan.

Readysell 7 customers will gain access to some of the benefits outlined above in the coming weeks. We will provide an update once this has been rolled out.

We look forward to hearing your feedback on this new feature and hope that it goes a long way to improving the quality, timeliness and overall usefulness of your product data in Readysell.

Updated OneX Database from Office Brands is now available

We have now sent out the December monthly update to the Office Brands price book. The price book data has been automatically updated in your system.

If you have not yet started using the Office Brands price book feature, here is a quick recap.

Office Brands has just over 25,000 products available in their Data Portal. Many of these products are not available in the Catalogues distributed to you via Readysell, such products are referred to by Office Brands as Class A, B and C products. To date there has been no way to make use of such products in Readysell without manually creating them – this involves members looking up the details for the products on the Data Portal and then re-keying those details into Readysell.

Readysell have now imported ALL PRODUCTS from the Office Brands Data Portal database into my Readysell Price Book module. Incorporating the following fields (with the possibility of expanding this in future).

  • EZ Code
  • Description
  • SupplierAbbrev
  • SupplierPartNo
  • MOQ
  • Cost
  • SellUnit
  • Barcode

To use make use of the Office Brands Data Portal data:

  1. Go to the browse products window in the products module.
  2. Click on the insert button.
  3. When you enter a product code for a new product the system
    1. entering the EZ Code (from looking it up on the portal) or
    2. by entering the supplier part no. or
    3. scanning in a barcode, now checks the database to see if information about the product is on any catalogue or on the Office Brands Data Portal database. If the product is found in the Price Book you have the option to copy it to the product file effortlessly.

The system tries to match the new product code you enter against the Office Brands Data Portal and other catalogue data based on any of the following criteria:

  • EZ Code
  • Barcode
  • Supplier Product Code

The creation and merging of SKUs that may already exist on our product file under a supplier part no or (non EZ Code) will need to be manually managed and merged.

Merry Christmas from Readysell

Another year is quickly drawing to a close. The management and staff at Readysell would like to once again send thanks and gratitude to their valuable customers and partners. We would all like to wish you a very merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year.

The Readysell Team

The Readysell office will be closed this year from Monday the 23rd of December, 2013. Business will resume on Monday the 6th of January, 2013. Members of our support team will be available during this period for critical support issues only. If you run into any minor issues over the break, we recommend this handy Tech Support Cheat Sheet from xkcd.

Tech Support Cheat Sheet

Thank you to all of our customers for your ongoing business, thoughtful feedback and continued support.

Best Wishes,
The Readysell Team

Partnership with Office Brands for BI Integration

Office Brands BIOver the last few months Office Brands has been preparing and enhancing its Business Intelligence (BI) platform. Office Brands has been collecting data from participating members via weekly sales data feeds from Readysell and other ERP systems.

If you are a participating member, you should already have access to the AnalytiX member dashboards. These are divided into three major categories:

Member Benchmarking

The dashboard provides you with insights into your performance against the overall group performance. Dashboards in this area range from sales performance growth, Sales Trends, GP Trends, Average Order Value and Web Sales, compared to the Members of the group who are participating in the program as an aggregate. The dashboards also show your Top Product categories in terms of sales rank to the group Top Product categories.

Comparative Performance

Compare your business’ key trends in sales, GP, products and categories to prior periods.

Merchandise Dashboard

Provides a snapshot of your business sales data at any given point of time.

Readysell and Office Brands are now partnering to provide even more member benefit through the supply of customer and sales representative data. This additional data feed is opt-in, and if you are interested in learning more about the benefits, please get in touch with the Readysell team or the Office Brands BI Analyst, Ahmed Saeed.

If you are not already participating in the BI platform, we urge you to explore the benefits and consider joining. The Office Brands Intranet contains various resources explaining what is available and you can always get in touch with Readysell or Office Brands should you have any questions or concerns.

Office Academy

In conjunction with the launch of the Office Academy and the Office Academy Website on Monday, 3 June 2013, Readysell have, with the assistance of Chris Brown from Office Brands, produced a specialised reporting function to support members participating in the Office Academy Reward and Recognition program.

We have created a document with information about how to use the report in Readysell. You can find the document “Office Academy” at http://www.readysell.com.au/files/Office%20Brands/

Using the Office Brands Loyalty Program in Readysell

Office Brands have recently introduced a new loyalty point program called “Star Rewards”. Readysell has worked with Office Brands to provide various integration points for this new program, including:

  • The ability to load point values against products via catalogue loads
  • The ability to accumulate points against customers in Readysell
  • The ability to redeem rewards in Readysell
  • The ability to report point balances back to customers via WebX integration

We have created a document with information about how to use the loyalty point integration in Readysell. You can find the document “Using the Office Brands Loyalty Program in Readysell” at http://www.readysell.com.au/files/Office%20Brands/

Setting up handling fees or fuel levy

Readysell provides a method to automatically populate invoices with a surcharge product. This product will be automatically populated onto all invoices, except those for specifically excluded customers.

A number of customers have recently been asking for this functionality to be set up in their system. As such, we have created a document with a simple step-by-step guide to this. You can find the document “Handling Fee or Fuel Levy Setup” at http://www.readysell.com.au/files/Readysell%20Version%207/Sales%20and%20Service/

End of Year Procedure

Below is a brief point-form summary of what needs to be done in respect to the End of Financial Year.

IMPORTANT: Please make sure that a End Of Financial Year Backup is done and Removed from your Current Backup set and KEPT

SITES THAT ARE NOT RUNNING READYSELL GENERAL LEDGER

Please follow steps below:

  1. Set up a folder on the main drive on the server and call it something like ‘EOYJune2011’ and archive all relevant reports into there.
  2. If you are doing a stock take please ensure that you have printed and archived a stock on hand report BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER THE STOCKTAKES.
  3. Ensure that you have printed and archived The Stocktake Variance reports
  4. Ensure all data for the last day in June is completed and dated and entered correctly into Readysell.
  5. At end of Trade on the 30/6/2011 Run a Stock On Hand Report, Print it as well as ARCHIVE it into a safe folder on your hard drive.
  6. Print out whatever other relevant reports that you may require in respect to sales, stock on hand, etc.
  7. You may not run your debtors or creditors end of month as yet as you are probably waiting to download your bank statement early the next morning as you will have direct deposits and electronic transfers and miscellaneous transactions dated up to 30/6/2011.
  8. If this is the case, then the next step would be at end of trade on the 30/6/2011 please ensure that a number of BACKUPS are done.
  9. Firstly the normal backup then another backup and keep it off site as well as label it.
  10. If you require the data to be backed up into a separate database as well please contact Readysell.
  11. Early the next morning on the 1/7/2011 no transactions in sales or purchasing should be backdated into June 2011.
  12. Unless of course if your company policy for Suppliers is different and you allow the first week of the next month for supplier invoicing.
  13. Bear in mind if you are receipting supplier invoices re stock on hand, the stock on hand figures on the stock on hand report that was run 30/6/2011 will not change due to the back dating.
  14. Down load your bank statement and enter all deposits and payments and misc entries that have not yet been entered into Readysell for June and date them the DATE (JUNE) as per your statement.
  15. These can be backdated as you have not yet run your Debtors Trial Balance or Statements.
  16. Allocate the payments then run through your normal End of Debtors process.
  17. Remember to archive debtors trial balance and debtors statements and transaction listing.
  18. Make sure you do you last Bank Reconciliation dating it month ending 30/6/2011.
  19. Please ensure with Bank Reconciliations that you do not present any forward dated transactions into the end of financial year bank reconciliation.
  20. Print out your both Bank Reconciliation Reports and attached them to the bank statement.
  21. Any customer payments that are received on the 1st July 2011 can be entered but please DO NOT ALLOCATE THEM until the trial balance and statements have been run for JUNE 2011.
  22. As for suppliers if you do not cut off exactly on the 30th June 2011, then please ensure you DO NOT RUN A CHEQUE RUN for July until you have finalised June and run and archived your Supplier Trial Balance. If you do need to pay suppliers in July, then don’t do a cheque run whereby allocation is automatic, enter the payments as manual SUPPAY and date them July BUT DO NOT ALLOCATE THEM IF YOU HAVE NOT CLOSED OFF SUPPLIERS FOR JUNE.

SITE THAT ARE RUNNING CASHBOOK AND GENERAL LEDGER

The below steps are summarised for those who are experienced with Readysell 7 general ledger. For a comprehensive procedure, please see the “Version 7 General Ledger Guide” which is available in the Downloads section of the Readysell web site.

Please follow steps below:

  1. If you are doing a stock take please ensure that you have printed and archived a stock on hand report BEFORE AND AFTER THE STOCKTAKES.
  2. Also ensure that you have printed and archived the Stocktake Variance reports.
  3. Ensure that all data is entered and dated correctly for the last day in June is completed in Readysell.
  4. Ensure that all transactions that physical reduce or increase stock like stock adjustments, stocktakes, sales, purchasing, credit requests, stock transfers are entered prior to Running Your End of Year Stock on Hand Report.
  5. At end of Trade on the 30/6/2011 Run a Stock On Hand Report, Print it as well as ARCHIVE it into a safe folder on your hard drive.
  6. Print out whatever other relevant reports that you may require in respect to sales reports, stock on hand, etc.
  7. You may not run your debtors or creditors end of month as yet as you need to download your bank statement early the next morning as you will have direct deposits and electronic transfers and miscellaneous transactions dated up to 30/6/2011.
  8. If this is the case, then the next step would be, at end of trade on the 30/6/2011 ensure that a number of BACKUPS are done.
  9. Firstly the normal backup then another backup and keep it off site as well as label it.
  10. If you require the data to be backed up into a separate database as well please contact Readysell.
  11. The next morning on the 1/7/2011 no transactions in sales or purchasing should be backdated into June 2011.
  12. Unless of course if your company policy for Suppliers is different and you allow the first week of the next month for invoicing.
  13. Bear in mind if you are receipting supplier invoices and stock on hand, the stock on hand figures from the stock on hand report that was run 30/6/2011 will not change due to the back dating.
  14. Down load your bank statement and enter all deposits and payments and misc entries that have not yet been entered into Readysell for June and date them the DATE (JUNE) as they are on your statement.
  15. These can be backdated as you have not yet run your Debtors Trial Balance or Statements.
  16. Allocate the payments then run through your normal End of Debtors process.
  17. Remember to archive debtors trial balance and debtors statements.
  18. Make sure that the last Bankrec for Each Bank Account is dated and extracted to 30/6/2011.
  19. Please ensure with Bank Reconciliations that you DO NOT PRESENT/TAG any forward dated transactions into the end of financial year bank reconciliation.
  20. Print out your both Bank Reconciliation Reports and attached them to the final bank statement for that financial year.
  21. Any customer payments that are received on the 1st July 2011 can be entered but please DO NOT ALLOCATE THEM until the trial balance and statements have been run for JUNE 2011.
  22. As for suppliers if you do not cut off exactly on the 30th June 2011, then please ensure you DO NOT RUN A CHEQUE RUN for July until you have finalised June and run and archived your Supplier Trial Balance. You can enter manual Supplier Payments and date them July BUT DO NOT ALLOCATE THEM IF YOU HAVE NOT CLOSED OFF SUPPLIERS FOR JUNE.
  23. The General Ledger is an overnight process which runs as part of the End of Day Backup. So that means that all data entered into Readysell on the 30/6/2011 will update the General Ledger and Generate Journals sometime after trade and ready for reviewing the next morning.
  24. Check the General Ledger the next morning and Print off a Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet and General Ledger Trial Balance.
  25. Ensure you archive these as well.
  26. The general ledger does not have to be closed off at the end of June. It can be left open for Manual Journal Entries or Miscellaneous Debits and Credits into Customers or Suppliers that have no physical affect on Stock on Hand only Miscellaneous Expenses.
  27. Ensure that you have run your General Ledger Postings Report and compared it to your source modules of Sales, Customers, Suppliers and Cash Book (General Ledger Balancing Act).
  28. Ensure that at the beginning of the next month you have closed your financial Period to prevent Back Dating.
  29. Once you are ready to close off the financial year, you will need to rerun your 3 general ledger financial reports, send them off to your account to be reconciled.
  30. Usually your account will provide you with a reconciling journal for that financial Period.
  31. That journal needs to then be entered into Readysell in the right Period.
  32. Then you need to contact Readysell so that you can run and clear that financial year (P&L Appropriation Process).

Office Brands Price Book Updated

We have now sent out our first monthly update to the Office Brands price book. The price book data has been automatically updated in your system.

If you have not yet started using the Office Brands price book feature, here is a quick recap.

Office Brands has over 21,000 products available in their Data Portal. Many of these products are not available in the Catalogues distributed to you via Readysell, such products are referred to by Office Brands as Class A, B and C products. To date there has been no way to make use of such products in Readysell without manually creating them – this involves members looking up the details for the products on the Data Portal and then re-keying those details into Readysell.

Readysell have now imported ALL PRODUCTS from the Office Brands Data Portal database into my Readysell Price Book module. Incorporating the following fields (with the possibility of expanding this in future).

  • EZ Code
  • Description
  • SupplierAbbrev
  • SupplierPartNo
  • MOQ
  • Cost
  • SellUnit
  • Barcode

To use make use of the Office Brands Data Portal data:

  1. Go to the browse products window in the products module.
  2. Click on the insert button.
  3. When you enter a product code for a new product the system
    1. entering the EZ Code (from looking it up on the portal) or
    2. by entering the supplier part no. or
    3. scanning in a barcode, now checks the database to see if information about the product is on any catalogue or on the Office Brands Data Portal database. If the product is found in the Price Book you have the option to copy it to the product file effortlessly.

The system tries to match the new product code you enter against the Office Brands Data Portal and other catalogue data based on any of the following criteria:

  • EZ Code
  • Barcode
  • Supplier Product Code

The creation and merging of SKUs that may already exist on our product file under a supplier part no or (non EZ Code) will need to be manually managed and merged.

Nothfork Product Range from Pelikan Artline

Northfork ProductsAmongst the products available in the price book is the new range of Nothfork cleaning products available from Pelikan Artline. This new range includes products for

  • Food Service Hygiene
  • Washroom
  • Air Fresheners, Sanitisers & Deodorisers
  • Facilities & Housekeeping
  • Hand & Personal Care
  • Industry & Transport
  • Laundry Fabric Washing
  • Sustainable Land Leaning Solutions

Northfork Flyer
If you would like to learn more about the product range, please contact Pelikan Artline.