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.

How to Use Tax Inclusive Rate Functionality in ERPNext?

Tax inclusive rate functionality allows user to enter tax inclusive rate  items rate table.

As per the standard, user has to enter items rate before tax in pricelist which is fetched in items ref rate.

But for company into retail business, users only know tax inclusive rate of an item. They can use this feature which will back calculate tax and ref rate for them.

To back calculate taxes from tax inclusive rate, you will need to:

1. Mention taxes applicable on item level.
2. Tax inclusive rate in rate / basic rate column on item level.
3. Mention all the possible tax ledgers in tax table and check mark "include in print rate".

P.S.:

When need to calculate discount:

When need to offer discount to customer, mention tax inclusive rate in ref rate instead of basic rate.

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

Configuring ERPNext Account

An application is said to be configured completely when you can start making business transactions like orders, invoices, stock transactions etc.

Let us understand the different types of forms which exist in ERPNext:

1. Masters:
    Masters are sets of records which are created once and used in transactions.
    Example: Customer, Supplier, Item, Customer Group, Supplier Type, Territory etc.
    Once the required masters are set, you can proceed with transactions.

2. Transactions:
    Business transactions are the records created based on an event.
    Example:
    Sales order is made when a customer confirms an order.
    Delivery note is made when goods are delivered to a customer.

3. Reports:
    Reports give you an interface to see multiple records of Transactions / Masters on the same screen

    and allow you to export these records in CSV format.

Getting Started:

When you login into your account for the first time, you will be asked to enter the name, abbreviation, fiscal start date and default currency of one of your companies. This creates the first company for your account.

Note: The abbreviation you enter will be appended to various master records, so that it becomes visibly obvious, which master record belongs to which company.

With company creation, your account creation will also be complete. To be able to start with transactions, you can setup your customer, suppliers, items, tax / bank ledgers.

Customer:

To add a new customer, go to:

Selling >> Customer >> Add new customer

OR

Setup >> System >> Import data. Select customer from the list to download template for importing customer master. Learn more about data import functionality here.

Customer categorization: If you want to create customer groups, go to:
Setup >> Selling >> Customer group

If you don't maintain customer group, continue with "default customer group" which be preset in your account.

Accounting ledger of customer:
Customer ledger will be created in chart of accounts (account receivable) as soon as you add or import them.

Supplier:

To add a new supplier, go to:

Buying >> Supplier >> Add new supplier

Or

Setup >> System >> Import data, Select Supplier from the list to download template for importing supplier master.

Supplier Types: If you want to create supplier types, go to:
Setup >> Buying >> Supplier Types

If you don't have supplier type, continue with "default supplier type" which will be preset in your account.

Accounting ledger of supplier:
Supplier ledger will be created in chart of accounts (account payable) as soon as you add or import them.

Item:

To add new item, go to:

Stock >> Item

Or

Setup >> System >> Import data, select item from the list to download template for importing item master. Learn more about import data functionality here.

Customer categorization: If you want to create item groups, go to:

Setup >> Stock >> Item group

If you don't maintain item group, continue with "Default" which will be auto-created.

To import opening stock for items, go to: Stock >> Stock reconciliation. To learn more, click here.

Accounting ledger:

To create new accounting ledger, go to:

Setup >>  Accounts >> Chart of account

1. Click on group under which you want to create ledger.
2. After clicking on folder (group), under which you want to create ledger, a button called
    "Add a child account" will appear below action items (on right side).
3. Enter account name
4. Select group or a ledger. If "group" selected, then it will become folder and you will be able to
    add child ledgers under it. If "Ledger" selected, then only you will be able to select it in
    transactions.

For getting started, you will need to create few accounting ledgers manually for bank, cash and tax accounts. To learn more on creating ledger in chart of account, click here.

To learn updating an opening balance for accounting ledger, click here.

Note: Ledger for customer and supplier will be added in the receivables and payables respectively. You need not add ledger for customer and supplier manually.

Warehouse:

To create new warehouse, go to:

Setup >> Stock >> Warehouse

Once above discussed masters is set, you will be good to go live with transactions like making quotations, orders and invoices.

For any product related help, please drop us a line at 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 to over-write records?

All the master which are imported from import data wizard can be over-written also. Lets consider a situation to understand how over-writing works.

I need to change the Default Warehouse for few items.

1. Download template for importing item master for import data wizard.
2. Check "Download with data" .
3. Keep only 3 columns. ID, Item code (primary field) and Default Reserved Warehouse in spreadsheet.
   Note: ID is only required when over-writing data. ID will be same as Item Code.

4.  Put data and then save file in .csv format
5.  In import data wizard, check field: Over-write records with same name?
6.  Browse file the import

Multi Currency in ERPNext

Multi currency functionality allows user to maintain price list and making transaction in multiple currency.

A user can define default currency for each company in ERPNext application. For example, you could have 3 companies in your single ERPNext account with different default currency.

Multi-currency transactions possible in transactions:
1. Selling : Quotation, sales order
2. Purchase: Purchase order
3. Stock: delivery note, purchase receipt
4, Accounts: Sales invoice, purchase invoice, journal voucher

When you are making transaction for Test company then INR will be fetched as default with conversion factor as 1.

If i want to make an invoice in currency other than my default currency, then i will select that currency and define conversion rate between select and my default currency.

After selecting currency and mentioning conversion rate, one can select items and put ref rate for respective items.

In items table below you will find columns with duplicate labels like:
Ref rate (for rate in def. currency)
Ref rate* (for rate other then def. currency)

Basic rate (basic rate in def. currency)
Basic rate* (basic rate in other currency selected)

Amount (amount in def. currency)
Amount* (amount in other currency selected)
















Note: No columns of other currency will be editable except basic rate* where user can put discounted amount and discount rate will be calculated automatically.

After saving invoice that's how your transaction will look like:























All ledger posting will be done in default currencies. For example, if you have a bank account of currency USD, even if you do invoicing in INR or any other currency but payment entry would be done  in default currency only. Bank ledger will show balance in USD which is default currency for that company.

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 an Employee Master in ERPNext ?

To create an employee master, follow steps as shown below

The Basic Information will capture the name of the employee, status (Active /  Left), date of joining etc. Select the relevant Holiday List applicable to the Employee. If this Employee is taking leaves and a date mentioned in the holiday list falls in that period, that date would not be deducted from his leave balance.


The Employee codes can be generated by either Naming Series followed by a system generated number or Employee Number.This setting can be done from Setup --> System --> Global Defaults --> HR.

The tab for Job Profile will capture the branch, designation and department of the Employee. These details will be fetched from their respective masters.

Salary related information will also be covered like the mode of salary payment which can be Bank, Cash or Cheque. If Bank, then mention the Bank Name and the Bank Account number of the employee.

The Contact Details will have the phone number, email and address details of the employee.

The Personal Details will capture family background, health and passport details.

The Educational Qualification tab will capture the details qualifications acquired by the employee, the university and percentage of marks obtained.

The Career History will capture details of work experience in previous companies as well as the current company.

The Exit tab will be filled when the employee is leaving.

You can attach the Employee's resume (CV) or Photo in the Attachments tab.

Now save the Employee.

For more details, please visit www.erpnext.com