Foreign Exchange Sales

Discussion of features and enhancements to the Jiwa product.

Foreign Exchange Sales

Postby Mike.Sheen » Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:08 pm

As some of you may know, once 06.05.10 is out, the next release planned is a major release incorporating foreign exchange sales.

The following outlines what changes were are incorporating into this release in relation to foreign exchange sales. Other changes will also be included (such as a migration of the main "Jiwa.exe" to .NET), but this thread is solely for the changes relating to foreign exhange.

We intend to implement foreign exchange initally in a manner that does not encompass everything we want with foreign exchange, but rather an interim solution that meets the needs of those with pressing issues due to the lack of foreign exchange capabilities in the foreign exchange area.

Our planned changes are :

1. FX Enable debtor maintenance form (done, but not enabled)

2. FX Enable sales orders entry. This entails FX rates attached to the order, inherited from the debtor and FX rates table.

New columns to be added to lines : FX Sell Price, FX Line Total and FX Discount Amount

New columns to be added to header : Currency ID and currency rate

3. FX Enable Cash Book (half done, but not enabled) - to be added is the posting of gain/loss entries to the GL upon allocation.

4. FX Enable quoting (as with sales orders - FX rates attached to the order, inherited from the debtor and FX rates table)

5. FX Enable Inventory maintenance - FX prices in a simplistic form to be attached to products (new tab showing similar to debtor class pricing, but with a currency column).

6. Reports - Debtor statement, Debtor As-At and Invoice reports to display FX values.

Obviously, this is not a totally complete solution, but we think a good interim solution we can lock in fairly readily without disrupting the product development cycle greatly.

To insulate the sales order changes from the existing customer base, and to hopefully change the direction of the sales order cycle, I'm toying with the following idea...

Introducing a new (additional) sales order cycle that operates along-side the existing sales order system. This new order cycle will consist of 3 forms :

1. Order Entry
2. Dispatch / Picking
3. Invoicing

Only the new system will be FX Enabled. This system will also address some of the short-comings of the existing system, particularly those involving picking and part-invoicing or invoicing for many orders.

The new sales order cycle will be simplistic at first - and keep in mind we're trying to solve three problems here - introducing FX Sales, not burdening existing customers with radical changes to their existing sales orders, and attacking the problems with picking and invoicing.

So... post your suggestions here!
Mike Sheen
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Jiwa Financials

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Re: Foreign Exchange Sales

Postby Mike.Sheen » Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:28 pm

Ok, so time for a little update as to where we are.

06.05.11 has appeared on the radar like an unwanted pregnancy... It seems we'll be doing one, but not because we want to.

There a couple of small bugs, affecting a minority (thus far just sales order exports) which need to be addressed.

This doesn't really affect the game plan we had already - we suspected 06.05.10 would have perhaps an issue or two preventing a 6 month hiatus - so maybe it will be a month or two longer.

As far as the next "major" release after 06.05.10 goes (I'm calling it version 7, this may change...), I'm still knee deep in the research phase.

Thus far integrating a .NET parent application with VB6 child apps is proving really challenging. Some basic proof of concept stuff is now having to finally stand up and prove itself in the real world - and it's not all beer and skittles (damn fairy tales never come true).

Not to worry - we're rather stubborn here when it comes to dev problems and thus far have a pretty good strike rate when it comes to overcoming the obstacles presented.

Once those problems are ironed out, I'm onto FX Sales 100% and the rest of the team are onto bug-fixing and migration of existing code to Jiwa 7.0.0

Stay tuned for a Eureka moment any time now!
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Jiwa Financials

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Re: Foreign Exchange Sales

Postby Mike.Sheen » Fri Apr 18, 2008 7:53 pm

After much pfaffing about, we've concluded that the ambition of COM (ActiveX / VB6) forms interacting with .NET ones isn't going to happen.

Instead, we're moving the entire product to .NET.

There's a lot of work behind this, and it will take some time. However, a lot can be phased in gradually.

For instance, 06.05.11 has the business logic component of debtor maintenance ported to .NET. The form still uses the .NET object as though it were the old COM object, but it's actually .NET.

We'll continue to do this with the business logic, converting business logic module by module, within the current 06.xx.xx versions.

Being developed concurrently is a new, all .NET application, which we will be able to use these converted business logic components.

Hopefully within a few weeks I'll be able to show some screenshots.

This doesn't really affect the FX Sales feature - I'll convert the sales order business logic to .NET and shoe-horn in FX capability, and then just modify the existing form to use it.
Mike Sheen
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Jiwa Financials

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Re: Foreign Exchange Sales

Postby nathan.mcdonald » Fri Apr 25, 2008 9:10 pm

Hi Mike, Any timeline on FX Sales then. An approximate time ? Thanks
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Re: Foreign Exchange Sales

Postby Mike.Sheen » Sun Apr 27, 2008 8:29 pm

nathan.mcdonald wrote:Hi Mike, Any timeline on FX Sales then. An approximate time ? Thanks


Uhh... no estimates at this stage. I'm weary of providing estimates or comments on un-released software - it's usually always used to beat us over the head with later on.

Me preference is to say nothing until "it's done", but in a business world that doesn't alway sit will, so my personal response is "no comment" - the official business response is "any time now" :)

Mike
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Re: Foreign Exchange Sales

Postby jiwameister » Wed Apr 30, 2008 10:56 pm

As Kevin Rudd would say :

I think that before we can substantially commit to an understanding of the final outcomes - we need to make certain that all stakeholders are in agreeance on the substantive impact of a major release that proposes to implement international relations via a foreign trade of currency. We propose that consideration be given to a final release date, and that a full enquiry be undertaken to provide universal acceptance of such.

What does it really mean Mike?? will The .NETasizing of Jiwa slow down this release - is the FX release in the way you suggested in the first post on this thread still going to be like that (ie not fully implemented - but at least something?) - and are there any other commitments or pre-requisites that will be tied to this next release and therefore affect timelines?
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Re: Foreign Exchange Sales

Postby Mike.Sheen » Thu May 01, 2008 10:58 am

jiwameister wrote:What does it really mean Mike?? will The .NETasizing of Jiwa slow down this release - is the FX release in the way you suggested in the first post on this thread still going to be like that (ie not fully implemented - but at least something?) - and are there any other commitments or pre-requisites that will be tied to this next release and therefore affect timelines?


Dunno yet. I'm just keeping you guys in the loop as to what we're exploring.

We can convert the sales order business logic to .NET and still make it COM visible / callable (we did this in 06.05.11 with the debtors maintenance business logic), so we could still use the FX .NET sales orders logic in the existing COM product, without delaying the release too much.

In any event, FX Sales / Debtors is a lot of work and we'll break a lot of stuff in the process. Exactly which way we end up tackling it is still undecided.

Besides, much of the .NET stuff is being done on weekends and evenings - thus not affecting the "normal" development goings-on like FX sales. Last time I checked I didn't need to account for my personal time to the channel :D .
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