What’s new in iVend Retail 5.6

After so many months of wait, iVend Retail 5.6 has finally arrived. The release is scheduled for 7th August 2012. While few of our partners and certified consultants are already using the beta release, some of the cool features are listed below for everyone to get a glimpse on the latest innovations. A video is also created. Have a look.

iVend Stand-Alone 

iVend Stand-Alone runs independently without the need for an ERP at the backend. Retailers can now manage their entire retail operations just with iVend Retail Suite without having to implement an ERP.

User Training Mode

User Training Mode has been introduced in iVend to make iVend more users friendly. A new user can work in the training environment and learn to use the functionalities of iVend Retail better. The production environment however, remains unaffected by user activities in the training environment.

Discount Group Setup

Earlier in Ivend, Discount was defined for a single Discount field. With Ivend 5.6, Discount Group setup has been introduced where Discount field has been categorized into four types of Discount Group.

  • Manual Discount Group
  • System Discount Group
  • Coupon Discount Group
  • Promotion Discount Group

Depending on the grouping done, the user can determine the relationship of a particular group with the next Discount Group.

Custom Transaction Info Grid

Custom Transaction information can now be set individually for different store(s) using Custom Transaction Info Grid option in management console. This would enable users to setup the different button panel for individual stores.

Coupons

iVend Coupons are vouchers entitling the holder to a discount off a particular product(s). It is a promotional tool that can be used to get discounts while purchasing goods or services. Generally coupons are classified into Manufacturer and Store issued coupons, however in iVend treatment for both of these coupon types remains same and depends on the coupon setup.

Promotion – Bonus Buys

iVend Promotion engine are used to handle complex promotion scenarios using Buy and Get conditions as means to define the prerequisites set by the customer. Some of the promotions that can be setup are

  1. Buy X and get X free
  2. Buy X and get Y free
  3. Buy X and get discount on any item from Product Group Y
  4. Buy N quantity from Product Group X and get discount on any item of Product Group Y
  5. Buy N quantity from Product Group X of worth R and get discount on any item of Product Group Y
  6. Buy any 5 Quantity and get X percent discounts.
  7. Get X discount percent on the entire sale if Bill values exceeds N amount.
  8. Get Gift Certificate /Coupon/Loyalty points if you buy item/item group X worth R.

Tax Condition Setup

Using Tax Condition setup, a user can setup different Tax Conditions based on different parameters like Customer/Customer Group, Product/Product Group/Product Class, Warehouse/Store Group and Shipping Conditions etc.

 Store Group

Store group provides the flexibility of grouping the multiple stores based on their pricing, taxation and inventory needs.

  • Pricing Store Group: Price list can be attached to a pricing store group and therefore all the stores falling under this group would have a same price list applicable.
  • Taxation Store Group: Stores can be group based on their Taxation and then this store group can be used to setup different Tax Condition within iVend.
  • Inventory Store Group: Different warehouses can be clubbed together using an Inventory store group. Store would only be able to see the inventory or do inventory transactions with the stores/warehouses which are in his inventory store group or the stores/warehouses which are not part of any inventory store group.

Import/Export Data

Import /Export of Data templates can be done in iVend using Import/Export data option. Forty two templates are available for import/export in iVend. The default location for these templates is Ivend Retail Installation folderàManagement ConsoleàImport Templates. 

Print Profile Enhancements

The user can specify report printing option(s) (xml report, crystal report, printer selection on runtime) using Print Profile option.

Business Date Validation

On enabling this, the user would not be allowed to login in iVend POS if the system date and the business date are not same.

Force Clock Out at EOD

If a user does not clock out from Point Of Sale, on commencement of the End of Day process, the user is force clocked out.

Display Loyalty Details under Customer Information Panel

At Point of Sale, Loyalty details for the selected customer is available under Customer Information Panel. Loyalty details include Loyalty Points, Loyalty slab etc.

Sale Order Cancellation

Cancellation of Sale Order at Point Of Sale can be done using Cancel option introduced in iVend 5.6. Previously Sale Order was cancelled using Sale Edit option.

Changes in the serial scanning on GRPO

While doing a GRPO, instead of manually entering the serial number(s) for the products, the serial number(s) can be directly scanned by the user.

Fulfillment Address Integration with SAP Business One documents

The address captured on fulfillment in iVend will be populated in delivery address of corresponding document of SAP Business One. Since in iVend user can attach multiple fulfillment(s) on same document, therefore only first fulfillment address will be integrated with SAP Business One.

 

 

iVend Retail 5.4.7 Released

This release of iVend Retail has many new enhancements and features. The database mirroring ability will now help retailers to create fail-safe deployments thereby reducing business loss during server crashes or IT disasters. Latin America countries can now use iVend with SAP Business One localized for below mentioned countries. Read below for many more enhancements.

License Management

This release incorporates a new Licensing System that allows license activation over the Internet. It is mandatory that you first request for an activation key before performing the upgrade to this release. Please email to licenses [at] citixsys.com for activation key request.

Fiscal Printer Integration for Panama

iVend is integrated to Bematech MP400 TH FI printer to support the printing of fiscal documents. Printing the fiscal documents is government mandate in Panama.

Club de Mercancia Integration (Panama)

iVend is integrated to Club de Mercancia application developed by our partner in Panama to cater to needs of local retail scenario.

Localization Support Extended

The following locations for SAP Business One customers are supported as an experimental beta in this release

  1. Chile
  2. Costa Rica
  3. Guatemala
  4. Mexico
  5. Panama
  6. China
  7. Germany

Support for Database Mirroring

With this release, iVend extends support for database mirroring. Database mirroring provides a fallback server in case the primary server is unavailable due to system crashes. Configuring this feature will enable the iVend system to automatically switch from primary database server to the secondary mirrored server without disrupting operations.

Please refer to install guide for configuration details.

Till Management Enhancement

Till management at the POS has been enhanced with this release of iVend. This release allows the team members to logon to the POS terminal without selecting the till for operations provided one of the team members have already selected a till in a previous login. iVend Retail Release Notes

Discount Management

Discount management has been enhanced with this release. A new setting has been provided on the product card to block the additional sale discount for the item if the line discount has already been applied.

Plutus Integration

Plutus payment processor integration for India has been incorporated in this release.

Transaction Search

An additional setting has been provided in retail profile for pre-populating the current business date in transaction search screen at POS.

Hardware Initialization

A button has been provided in user menu to display the list of hardware which has been successfully initialized at the POS.

Receipt Enhancement

Based on the print profile, the users can now print cash in and cash out receipt from POS.

Extended Language Support

Apart from English, iVend application is now also available in the following languages:

  1. French
  2. Latin American Spanish
  3. Italian
  4. Greek
  5. German

Language preferences for the users can be set from the iVend Management Console. After login in the system user would see the iVend GUI in the user preferred language. If the user language is not setup then English would be used as a default language.

Bugs Fixed

Bug ID: 9707

Bug Description: The iVend POS crashed when clicking on Open Till button while assigning the till to cash drawer.

Bug ID: 9804

Bug Description: The user is not able to issue the store credits if the store credit is setup as user defined.

Bug ID: 9805

Bug Description: The UDF integration was giving error if more than one UDF of SAP B1 was integrated with iVend.

Bug ID: 9806

Bug Description: The purchase order edited in SAP B1 on integrating with iVend was throwing an error.

Bug ID: 9771

Bug Description: When upsells are marked for auto add to transaction, then the system was not calculating the discounts properly on the upsell item.

Bug ID: 9772

Bug Description: The users are able to specify the inactive sales person while doing a transaction at POS.

Bug ID: 9773

Bug Description: Bug fix for restricting the addition of line to AP Invoice, if the AP invoice is copied from PO generated from iVend. This was creating an issue in SAP B1.

Bug ID: 9773

Bug Description: User is able to remove the till assigned to another user at the POS.