How to Manage Serial Nos. in ERPNext?

Serial nos. are the unique code assigned to each items. With serial nos. item detail and its location is tracked. Serial nos. is generally tagged for item which requires after sales services on it. Hence, businesses mention serial nos. in invoice based on which items delivery and warranty status is updated. In case of after sales service, company refers to serial no. to check invoice and purchase detail of that particular unit of an item.

Note: ERPNext doesn't have functionality to generated barcode for serial nos. Hence you will need to use third party application to manage generate barcode for serial nos.

Let's consider an example of company in sales of desktop and laptop computer. As there is warranty and after sales services provided on items they assign serial nos. on each unit they purchase or assemble.

Status of serial nos.

1. In store - Available for delivery / material issue. Updated when submit GRN or enter serial no. manually.
2. Delivered - Delivered to customer.  Updated when submit serial no.
3. Purchase return -  These are the serial nos. which are returned back to customer.
4. Not in use - Are the units which were define purchase receipt but then canceled due to some reasons. These are the serial nos. which becomes active if tagged in purchase receipt or material receipt again.

How to make item a serialized item?

Its defined in item master. In Item >> Inventory detail >> Has Serial no., selecting "yes" will make it serialized item.

How serial nos. get assigned to each unit of a item?


Serial nos. are assigned as soon as company acquires that item. The transaction made while receiving items are purchase receipt a.k.a GRN (in trading) and backflush (in production).


Let's consider a scenario when company places an order for 10 units of serial nos. and making a receipt for the same. When making purchase receipt, user will need to define serial nos. for serialized item based on receipt qty. If 10 qty of PC received, then user will enter / scan 10 serial nos. in serial no. column of that item.

Based on the serial nos. of items mentioned in purchase receipt, on submission system will created a unique serial no. record for each unit of an item. Also status for serial no. is set as as "in store" which will also reflect in stock level report.

Inventory of serialized item is tightly integrated with qty of serial nos. in warehouse. In stock level report for item in particular warehouse will be qty of serial nos. with status as "in store". So, if item A has 5 qty in warehouse X. It means that there are 5 serial no. for that item with status "In Store".

There are multiple possible actions which can be taken over serial no. in store. It can be delivered or issues for production (as raw-material).

Delivery Note:
When making delivery note of serialized item you will need to mention serial nos. equivalent to items quantity. On submitting delivery note serial nos. status will change to "Delivered". Also, based on days of warranty mentioned in item master, system will calculate exact warranty expiry dates starting from delivery date.

There could also occur a scenario where sales bom is created for an item. And one of the child item is serialized. In that case, in delivery note, sales bom item will be in main item table but that itself is not serialized item. And child item will be listed in packing details table. You will need to provide child items serial no. in packing details serial no. column.

Material issue:
In case of material issue you will need to provide serial nos. which will be consumed while manufacturing of finished good.

Account Payable & Receivable Reports

The accounts payable report provides detail of the money owed by the business in due format. The total amount owed per supplier  per invoice is provided. Also, you can set aging in report like amount to be paid in next 0-30 days, 30-60 days etc.

The accounts receivable report gives you a detailed listing of the balance due over customer per invoice. This helps company follow customer for pending payment against specific invoices.

To check these report in erpnext, go to:

Account >> Report >> Account payable / receivable reports

What are filters for?

Using date and accounts filter you can filter invoice made between specified time for particular customer / supplier.

-- For more queries, write us on support@erpnext.com --

How to Manage Production Order?

Production order is confirmation for production to start moving resources and process raw materials to get finished good.

To create new production order, go to:

Production >> Production Order

Let's check submitted production order which will help us understand the feeding data in and next steps after raising production order.

1. Its an item which will be produced.

2. For this production order, selected bill of material will be considered. Items listed in selected bom will reduce once production completes.

3. FG warehouse: Its a finished good warehouse where finished good when produced completely will be transferred.

4. WIP warehouse: Its a warehouse where production will take place. You will need to create your shop floor as WIP warehouse. All your raw-material will be brought into WIP warehouse only.

5. Consider SA (sub-assembly) item: This field has two options, yes / no.

If select yes, you will need to transfer sub-assembly as one unit of item. You should be selecting yes only if you separately maintain stock of sub-assembly.

Select No if you don't maintain the stock of sub-assembly. If no select, in material transfer, it will pull child item mentioned in bom of sub-assembly.

Once production order is submitted, you will find next steps button which starts with material transfer.

Transfer material: 

This transaction actually takes place in stock entry, where all the raw-material will be pulled from selected BOM. 

Target warehouse will be WIP warehouse selected in production order. User will select source warehouse based on the actual stock level for that raw material item.

After selecting all the information, system will reduce stock level from source warehouse and increase the same in WIP warehouse selected.

Status of production order will change to "in process" once raw material is transferred into WIP warehouse.

Backflush:

Backflush is done when in actual, you have ready finished good to be transferred from shop floor to finished good warehouse. At this stage, your raw material will be considered as consumed.

How to Create Item Groups?

Masters like item group, customer group, territory, sales person are in tree structure.

To create new item group, go to:

Module >> Stock >> Item group

To create new item group click on "New item group".

When click on new item group, it will ask for item group name and parent under which you want to create this item group.

Parent: Parent is the group under item group tree, under which "test item group" will be located.

What is the meaning of has child node?

Has child node field has two options, Yes or No. 

If "yes" selected for item group, it will be added as folder under item group. Item group with child no - yes will be able in parent field while creating item code.

If "no" selected for item group, it will be created as ledger and will be available for selection in item master.

You will be able to select item groups while entering item master which are marked, has child node - No.

Same way, you can define your customer groups, territories and sales person masters.

In-case of query, drop us a line on support@erpnext.com

Recurring Sales Invoice

Recurring sales invoice is a tool which will re-generate selected invoice automatically and e-mail to selected recipients.

This feature will work for company who raises invoice of same amount to customer in predefined span of time. This scenario is observed followed in business which sell items on lease or loan.

How to enable recurring invoice?

To enable recurring invoice feature in your account, go to:

Setup  >> System >> Feature Setup

How to make invoice recurring?

Once recurring invoice is enabled in feature setup, you will find separate tab of recurring invoice in submitted sales invoices.

Invoice will become recurring once "convert to recurring invoice" field is checked. On checking stated field, few more field will be made visible when user can set property based on which selected invoice will be created in system.

Repeat on day on month:
Considering above screenshot, selected invoice will be re-generated in system on 12th of every month till "convert to recurring invoice" is unchecked or end date arrives.

End date:
Date on which recurring invoice generation will stop.

Notification e-mail address:
E-mail notification of auto-generated invoice will be sent to  email id's mentioned in notification address field. Customer contact selected above will be pulled automatically in notification field.

E-mail Digest

E-mail digest is a tool to receive auto-generated e-mail report for transactions done in your account.

How to configure e-mail digest?

Enable e-mail digest:

You do all the e-mail digest configuration but if enable is not checked, e-mail wont be triggered to people selected.

Select company, set frequency for auto-generated report and select recipients:

You can set e-mail digest for each company separately.

Email digest can be set for daily, weekly and monthly. System will trigger email report to recipients selected from list.

What is e-mailed to recipients?

E-mail digest will be generated for the items which are checked from list of items.

Sample report:

Customize Form View

Let us understand the ERPNext architecture before we venture to learn form customization tool.

ERPNext is built over WNframework. In this framework, each form is created as a table in the backend. Each table has field and properties are assigned to each field.

Like Sales order is a table, in which sales order fields are defined in rows as "Sales order series" and "customer name". Each of these field has properties like "label", "mandatory", "print hide" etc.

Sales order table:

	Field label	Mandatory	Print Hide	In Filter
Sales order Series	Series	(Check box)	(Check box)	(Check box)
Customer Name	Customer	(Check box)	(Check box)	(Check box)

To store more details of sales order like item detail, we have separate table called "sales order item" table. Likewise, taxes are the separate table in sales order. So, for sales order form, sales order table becomes parent and sales order item, taxes and sales person becomes child table.

Please find below the table structure of each form type.

Transaction	Table	Table Name
Quotation	Quotation	Quotation
	Quotation item table	Quotation Item
Sales Order	Sales order	Sales Order
	Sales order item table	Sales Order Item
Delivery Note	Delivery note	Delivery Note
	Delivery note item table	Delivery Note Item
Sales Invoice	sales invoice	Sales Invoice
	Sales invoice item table	Sales Invoice Item
	Sales invoice tax table	Sales Taxes and Charges
Purchase Order	Purchase order	Purchase Order
	Purchase order item table	Purchase Order Item
Purchase Receipt	Purchase receipt	Purchase Receipt
	Purchase receipt item table	Purchase Receipt Item
Purchase Invoice	Purchase invoice	Purchase Invoice
	Purchase invoice item table	Purchase Invoice Item
	Purchase invoice tax table	Purchase Taxes and Charges
Journal Voucher	Journal voucher	Journal Voucher
	Journal voucher item table	Journal Voucher Detail

With this, lets dive into the form customization tool. "Customize form view" is the tool which allows us to select a table and modify fields property as per your requirement.
You can find customize form view by going to:
Modules --> Setup --> Customize form view

Lets' say I want to make item code field mandatory in sales invoice - item table. What will I select in form type?

1. Form type - RV detail (refer to above table for clarification)
2. Selecting form will pull columns of invoice item table (as row here)
3. To make item code mandatory, select check req. for item code and update.
You will need to do clear cache (from tools --> clear cache) and browser refresh to see the effect in the form.

Please refer to table below to learn about field property.

Field property	Purpose	Field Type
Allow on submit	Lets user update value in field even after submission.	Check box
Default	Value defined in default will be pulled on new record creation	Text box
Description	Gives field description for user understanding	Text box
Hidden	Will hide field in form	Check box
In Filter	Will add this field in report	Check box
Label	Label is the name defined for field which appears in form	Text box
Options	Make field drop down selecting	Text box
Print hide	Will hide this field in print	Check box
Reqd (Required)	Will make that field mandatory	Check box

How to Interact With Cutomers Using Support Ticket?

Support ticket helps you automated tracking customer issues which are received in email. If support ticket configured, it will pull mail received on particular email id and create a support ticket in erpnext account.

Each support ticket is assigned a unique no. which is also sent to customer in auto-reply to his query. This helps customer too in following up with you by indicating support ticket no.

Support ticket can be:

1. Allocated to support personnel
2. Replied via system itself and track complete email communication over a ticket.
3. Tracked by status. Tickets which are pending for response is set as "Open". Tickets which are replied is set as "Waiting for Customer". Tickets which are closed is set as "Closed".

Who can access support ticket?
User will need role of "Support team" for accessing support ticket.

Please follow the steps mentioned below to configure support ticket.

In email setting, you will find two options:

1. Out-going mail setting
2. Support ticket mail setting

Once this setting is done correctly, email received on id mentioned here will be pulled into system and there will be support ticket created with unique id and status as open till support executive replies to it.

Status is also assigned as a tag to ticket. You can filer ticket based on status, allocate to support people. Then support staff can filter support ticket allocated to them.

How ERPNext Help in Decision Making?

ERPNext is a application which not only facilities creation and retrieval of transactions, but it also provide a tool (a report) which lets management pull data from transactions and try different permutation and combination in report for analysis purpose.

Selling >> Trend Analyzer

Using trend analyzer, one can run report on different transactions like sales order, delivery note, invoices, purchase order and GRN.

These transactions contain masters like customers, suppliers, items, territories. Trend analyzer allows you do run report on transactions based on masters and time period.

As mentioned above, trend analyzer report pull data from transactions like:

• Quotation
• Sales order
• Delivery note
• Sales invoice
• Purchase order
• Purchase Receipt (GRN)
• Purchase invoice

Report can be ran based on masters:

• Customer 
• Customer group
• Supplier
• Supplier type
• Item
• Item group
• Project
• Territory

Below is the sample report ran for delivery note, based on item:

With the above data, you can do an analysis, which item was delivered the most in specific time period (which can be  month, quarter, half year or year).

Likewise, considering all the permutation and combination, one can run upto 500+ reports from the trend analyzer alone.

How to Create a Salary Voucher in ERPNext ?

There are two ways for creating salary slip.

1. Create salary slip for all the employees at once. To learn more about it, click here
2. Create salary slip individually for all the employees.

To create salary slip for employees one by one, follow the steps mentioned below:

1. Open salary slip:

2. Select employee in salary slip. There are three tabs in salary slip:

• Basic info
• Earning and deduction
• Totals

As soon as you select salary slip, info (like earning and deduction details, name, designation, department) will be pulled from employees salary structure.

Also days attended in selected month will be calculated based on leave transactions made (and not on based of attendance record made) for that employee in that particular month.

Salary Slip

Earning and deduction detail:

As mentioned above, earning detail pulls data from salary detail where employees earning and deduction heads are mentioned. But while making salary slip, earning and deduction heads need to be defined based on:

1. LWP (leaves without payment taken by employee in a month)

2. Over time

3. Allowance (which are on actual) etc..

That's why, their is an add of column called modified amount where amount which employee is entitled to is entered.

Checking LWP will affect amount (and give you modified amount) based on leave application made for LWP for that employee is a month. User can add amount for heads like overtime or allowance manually in earning and deduction head.

3. Total:

Add arrear amount and leave encashment if any. Save and submit.

Feature Setup

Feature setup lets system manager select feature based on its companies operation. Like if company is not into import and export, then unchecking that will hide fields related to import / export feature. This will make ERPNext account more suitable to your business needs.

How to go to feature setup?

There are four sections in feature setup:

1. Material
2. Selling
3. Production
4. Miscellaneous 

Material modules feature setup:

1. Item Serial No.
   Checking item serial no. will make serial no. field visible in item master. Also stock ledger entries will happen based serial no. entered in sales and purchase transactions.
   
2. Item Batch No.
   It will make batch no. field visible in item master. And it will also keep a check of whether you are entering batch no. or not while sales and purchases.
   
   
3. Brands
   This will let you maintain brand master and select brand for each item. It will also enable brand wise items sales / purchase report. Unchecking brands will simple hide option of brands from setup and item master.
   
   
4. Item Advance
   It will let you maintain item codes (item name) given by your customer. It will help you pull your items in sales transactions based on customers item code mentioned in purchase order. If you don't want to track your customers item code, then uncheck Item advance.
   
   
5. Sales BOM
   Sales BOM is a form where you can list main item which you deal in and other accessories which are supplied with that main item. Consider cell phones, handset is main item while charger, ear phone, CD makes a complete package. If you are not dealing in such product, uncheck.
   
   
6. Item Group
   Is feature which enable user to define categories of item he is dealing in. These categories will be selected for each of the item. It will also give item group wise sales and purchase report. Suggested!

Selling module feature setup:

1. ERPNext also handle transactions when you are dealing you foreigner customer / supplier.
   checking export / import feature allows user to select currency other than his default. If you are not dealing with party outside your home country, you can uncheck it.
   
2. Discount
   Checking for this feature will enable discount offering feature in your sales cycle (sales order, delivery note, sales invoice). If you are not offering discount to your customer, then please uncheck it. Suggested!
   
   
3. Projects
   Its for the company which needs to track project wise sales and purchases.
   
   
4. Sales Extra
   This will activate sales partners / sales person master, allow there selection in sales transactions and also generate a report (sales partner wise commission, sales person wise target variance report, sales person wise sales booked) based on transactions they are tagged in.

Production module feature setup:

1. Manufacturing
   Check only if you are into manufacturing business. This will let you define bill of material for items, manage sub-contracting and raise production orders.
   
   
2. Quality
   Quality feature lets you define inspection parameter for each of the item which will be used for sampling on receipt, delivery or production of item.
   
   
3. Point of sales
   Only for the company into retail business. To learn more about point for sales feature, click here.

Miscellaneous:

1. Page Break
   It will add column in item table of sales and purchase transactions. As name suggest on checking page break after any item will push rest of the detail on new page for printing. Suggested!
   
   
2. More Info
   More info gives you information about transaction creator and modifier with date and time. Suggested!

How to Generate Salary Slips in ERPNext ?

There are two possible ways to making salary slip for empoyees:

1. Indiviual salary slip from employees salary structure
2. Salary manager

Since salary structure of all the employees are pulled from salary structure which remains standard over a period, ERPNext offer feature to generate salary slip in bulk, based on

1. Company
2. Employees 
3. Department
4. Branch
5. Designation
6. Employment type
7. Grade

Following are the steps to be followed for creating salary slip from salary manager:

1. Go to HR --> Tools --> Salary Manager

Select Company and other parameters based on which you want to generate salary slip:

Create salary slip:
Create salary slip will effect into drafting of salary slip (in editable form). Draft form will allow you to edit salary slip (to add overtime or reduce deduction etc..)

Submit salary slip:
It will submit all the salary slips created.

Make JV (accounting entry):

Will take you to general voucher for accounts entry posting.

User Access Management in ERPNext

Settings option user section allows system manger set restriction over access of their users based on IP address, office hours and password change.

You could always restrict your user based on there job profile. To clean about user management, please clear here. To learn about customizing roles and permission for each masters and transactions, click here.

With this new upgrade, system manager will be able to restrict users access based on:

1. IP address
2. Login time: Before and after
3. Password change

To do these setting for user in your account, please go to:
Modules --> Setup --> Manage users

To see security setting option, click on any of the user and then click on "Security setting" button:

Clicking on setting button will effect into opening of small window with four fields:

1. IP address:
   Defining IP address will restrict access of user to machine with specific ID. To be able to restrict user on this parameter, you will need to purchase static IP from your ISP (internet service provider).
   What is static IP: Static IP addressing is for one customer on one IP address. Generally ISP give dynamic IP address from poll of IP addresses to their customer and change it later. Buying static IP is little costly than dynamic IP.
2. After loginIf your office hours begin at 10 in morning, then define after login time as 10 then. Do not mention as 10 a.m. or 10:30 etc. Time format should be 24 Hours!
3. Before loginLikewise before login hour would be 19 if you close at 7 p.m. in evening. Time format, 24 hours!
4. Password
   Only system administrator will be able to change password of any user. This will be mostly used when one of the user leaves company who access through commonly used id or for any other security reason.

How to Create Custom Fields in ERPNext?

You can create custom fields in any transaction and make them available in print formats and reports.

To create a custom field go to Setup-->System-->Custom Field

Click the "New Custom Field" button.

Enter the details as shown below

Click on the Save button. A unique number will be generated for the custom field. On saving the new field will be added in all the new transactions of the corresponding document. Please refresh the system once before creating a new transaction.

For more information and free trial visit http://www.erpnext.com

How to Create Salary Structure in ERPNext?

Salary structure will be created for each employee in the company. Salary structure is where employee's earnings and deductions are defined.

To create new salary structure, go to:
HR --> Salary structure --> New Salary structure.
Click on "New salary structure"

Step 1: Select an employee from employee master for whom you want to create the salary structure.

Step 2: Mark status of an salary structure as "Yes" or "No".
If marked Yes - System will consider that salary structure for processing salary slip of an employee
If marked No - System wont consider that salary structure for processing salary slip.

Also mention yearly package offered to employee in CTC (cost to company).

Step 3:

Earning and Deduction:

All the earning and deduction heads created in your account will be pulled in salary structure.

1. Keep only required earning and deduction head required for that employee.

2. Mention amount in front of each earning and deduction type.

    Note: No need to mention income tax and leave deduction if creating IT checklist for the employee.

3. LWP = Leave without pay

    Only earning head for whom "Depend on LWP" is marked will be affected when employee takes "leave
    without pay".

Net Pay = total earning - total deduction

Save the Salary Structure.

Now you can create a Salary Slip and IT Checklist against this Salary Structure.

For more details, please visit www.erpnext.com