Interface and Feature Update

Hello Everyone, 

In a week from today (21st May) Unleashed is publishing a major update to the User Interface. It is not just limited to a new look - it will also include a range of new features that will change the way you use Unleashed. 

Improved navigation, Search, Grid Functions, Exports and Reports are just some of the area’s that result in a more intuitive design and user experience. 

To make sure you are ready for the release feel free to sign up to one of our update webinars HERE however help will be available for each page when it goes live on the 21st.

 

At a glance you can expect to see these new features:

Dashboard:

This is the most visual change in the system.  The new Dashboard puts the power of the data captured in Unleashed in an easy to read and analyze comparative format.  Choose Month to date, Quarter to date or Year to date comparative periods. See below for the improvements:

Activity:

This is one of the great new features of the new release.  There are two ways you can make more money.  Increase prices or sell more.  This metric enables you to track how many invoices you are creating for a particular period, and how many items (on average) you have on any invoice.  We don’t currently show the average invoice value – but it will be coming!

Stock:

No inventory system would be complete without a stock metric.  Here we quite simply want to show you how much inventory you have on hand.  Compared with prior periods, and also show you how much stock has been purchased for the period.

KPI's:

This is one of the great little features we have added to Unleashed.  I know all the accountants, financial advisors and CFO’s would love this little KPI as it relates directly to the company’s working capital.  That is Day’s inventory and Days to sell.

• Days inventory is quite simply telling you how many days (on average) you have of stock on hand. 
• Days to sell goes one step further and tells you how long it will take you (on average) to sell all your stock. 

Revenue & Margin:

Being able to track revenue over time, and compare directly with the Margin is an important tool to get an overall health check on the business. The margin report does exactly that.  Giving you the ability to track your revenue and compare it to margin from within the same report

Open Transactions:

The current Unleashed system lists you the open transactions allowing easy access to them.  We have included them on our front dashboard for now, so you can continue to easily identify and navigate to your open transactions.

 

Unleashed Ribbon:

As you scroll down the page you will notice the Ribbon at the top stays with you on the page.  On the ribbon we have populated it with important information and the common actions you might like to make on the page.  Now, no matter where you are, you can see what you are doing in the system and save, export and complete transactions without needing to scroll around.  From the dashboard, we have also included a new setup screen in the top right hand corner (expect improvements on this in the future!)

 

Navigation:

The New Mega-Menu has all of Unleashed’s functions available from only one click in the menu.  You can easily navigate to anywhere in the system from any page.  On the right hand side we list the ‘most recent items’ for each module.  This is a great feature that allows you to easily navigate back to the transaction or master-file that you were previously working on.

 

Hyperlinks: 

We have introduced hyperlinks on labels and grids throughout the system.  This great feature incorporates some great workflow enabling you to click a label and open a new tab and instantly navigate to that area.  A good example of this is entering a purchase order line.  If you are on the line but have found that the product you wish to purchase does not exist in the system yet, you can click on the ‘Products’ hyperlink and go straight to the product entry and enter the product.  Pressing F5 back on the purchase order will bring the newly created product into your searchable products.

Using the hyperlinks within the grid is even better still.  Now you can click any hyperlinked value and be taken to the appropriate report and see exactly the information you are looking for.  A great example is clicking the ‘allocated’ field from within a Stock on Hand enquiry, you will see all the transactions that have the product allocated to it.  Almost every field within the grids that have associated reports and more information can now be navigated to from within the grid.  TIP:  If you use your mouse to ‘Right Click’ within a grid, and choose to open in a new tab, you won’t navigate away from your report and preserve the report filter and settings you had previously set.

 

Dates on Invoices in Xero

We have added the ability to choose what date you want to be sent with each transaction to Xero. Under Settings you will now be able to set what date is used on invoices and stock journal transactions. You now have the choice of the Completed Date or the Order Date - previously it just defaulted to the Completed Date. 

 

Search:

Unleashed now has a global search in the header.  You can find anything in the system from this search, and the search results tell you what module or transaction the result corresponds too.  This is great for quick and easy navigation to the exact place you need to be, starting with the end result in mind.  As an example, if you are on the phone to a customer and you need to start adding an invoice for them, you can start by using the global search to find the customer and quickly start adding an invoice, all without leaving your current task or activity.

Product searches have changed significantly in the new unleashed system.  If you are entering a product on a line, the incremental search works on both code and description concurrently – no more toggling between the two!  -  additionally, if you still need a better search you can click on the magnifying glass and search on other fields as well, including:  Supplier code, Barcode, or Supplier Part number! The results of the search also show you your stock on hand figures for the items so you can be sure you are selecting the most appropriate product.

 

New Grids:

Without a doubt, the new grids are a superb improvement in the system.  As well as looking great, they are much more functional too.  You can sort each field, but you can also move columns around too.  This is the first step in a much larger update to the grids which will enable you to completely customize the grid by showing and hiding any column and have the system REMEMBER your settings too!  All the grids export to PDF, XLS, XLSX and CSV perfectly too.

If you need to modify information within the data entry grids (like in adding invoice, purchase order, stock receipting etc…) you can do so by clicking on the editable area once and the field is highlighted ready for you to start editing straight away.  Enter your new value and press enter.  Editing fields has never been so quick and easy. 

 

General Layout Changes:

It’s probably one of the more obvious changes in Unleashed, that the layouts of the pages are different.  From a design perspective, they are much more user friendly as we have included as much information above the fold in the page as possible.  To accomplish this, all our data entry screens now use a 3 across layout for header information.  All the comments are now located in an area underneath the entry grids and allow for much more space to enter sundry text.

The most common action you can take on the page is now located in the top right hand corner.  Studies suggest that is the most likely place your eyes will look on the page, so therefore it is the most logical place to put the most commonly used actions for the task that you are completing.  These buttons are usually represented in Green too.

 

Improved Exports:

All the grids can now export in PDF, CSV, XLS and XLSX format and the formatting of the information is perfect. 

 

New Reports:

Transaction Reports within the modules:

Each module now has a transaction report on each of the masterfiles.  So you can now see a list of all transactions associated with a selected Customer, Supplier, Product or Production Item. 

Reorder Report:

The reorder report now has an automated feature where you can select a supplier, a product, or just all products and automatically create a purchase order for your selection.  This feature is based on Mins & Max’s set for your stock masterfiles.

Demand Based Re-order Report:

The same report can act as a demand based reorder report if you leave your mins and max’s blank on the products.  What will happen is as you allocate stock items, whether it is on a sales, production or warehouse transfer then your allocated stock quantity will increase.  To fulfill this demand the system you can create a purchase order automatically by selecting the product and pressing ‘reorder’ and a purchase order will get created with a total number of units automatically selected to fulfill demand.

Stock Revaluation Report:

This is a feature available if you are on Unleashed PRO or Unleashed Enterprise.  It is a CSV system that lets you revalue your stock.  This is a very good feature if you need to change the cost price of any or all of your stock.  Beware that there is an associated financial impact in changing your stock values, so a corresponding double entry journal will get created in Xero if you are connected to Xero.

Stock Movement Report:

This great little report will let you see all the stock movements grouped by month.  The report allows you to filter on any item, period, supplier or warehouse to gauge all your stock movements for your selected criteria.

Product Allocations Report:

You are most likely going to navigate to this report by drilling down on allocations within other reports.  However, if you want to navigate to it, you’ll find it under Inventory | Reports.  This report allows you to see all the transactions that have products allocated to them, and is filterable by product or warehouse too.  This report is a good report to run prior to running a purchase reorder report to gauge the statuses of your allocated stock.

Price List Enquiry:

This report lets you see all the prices and costs for all or any selected product in a nice easy to read grid. 

 

What does the future hold?

The future is even more exciting…  We have a blueprint that our 7 Strong Development team are working on right now.  The next release will build on the new UI and put even more intuitive easy to use features.  One such feature I will tell you about now is a document designer.  An HTML Drag and Drop designer to create your own Invoices, Packing slips and other documents in. 

The next release will be on the 1^st August.  Before then, we know you will enjoy the new system.  We have had such positive feedback from every one of our Beta users that we know you will have a great experience and save loads of time with the intuitive workflows built into the design.  Thank you again for your support, we love our customers so much and we want you to love working in Unleashed just as much as we do. 

 

 

-The Unleashed Team