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Evo-ERP and DBA Classic >> Suggestions for Updates >> Loaners
http://www.istechforum.com/YaBB.pl?num=1179421354

Message started by GasGiant on 05/17/07 at 10:02:33

Title: Loaners
Post by GasGiant on 05/17/07 at 10:02:33

How about a way to track loaner equipment? We have a bear of a time keeping track of what is out on loan because we cannot track it inside Evo. Let me 'splain...

A hospital calls because there is a problem with their equipment and it is determined that they need to send their product in for repair. We use the S/R module (soon to be RMA module) and give them instructions for returning their items. Cool. However, they might have a surgery tomorrow and need a loaner to get through their cases for the 4 or 5 or 10 days that it will take us to get their stuff received, repaired and shipped. We make a Sales Order for the loaner, whether we are charging or not, and ship it toot sweet.

Now it is just plain gone unless we remember to ask for it back. We have setup and abandoned several methods in turn, including a) not billing the loaner so that it stays open, b) invoicing from special location to which and equal an opposite transaction is posted on return, and c) tracking the loan in the customer record of our CRM. Option a) failed because we were left without a transaction record, option b) requires an auditing step that was let slip for various reasons, and option c), which we are currently using, is hit-or-miss due to its being a manual, external process.

The best solution would be if there were a real Loaner type of order in the RMA module with its own inventory of equipment and reporting for what is due back when.

Title: Re: Loaners
Post by JNAPIER on 05/17/07 at 15:30:00

We face this with the Consignment Inventory we send to some of our customers. Using different locations works to a point, but we can sure do better.

John

Title: Re: Loaners
Post by lmk223a on 05/18/07 at 06:28:38

GasGiant wrote:

How about a way to track loaner equipment?

What if an internal sales order is established for the loaned equipment, including two line items. This first line item is a positive quantity for the piece(s) of loaned equipment shipped to the customer. (this will be deducted from inventory)
The second line item is a negative quantity representing the return of the loaned equipment (adding back to inventory). Could not the "customer due date" be used for the return date of the loaned equipment and the loan be tracked by this date for open sales orders?
Perhaps a unique series of sales order numbers could be assigned for loaned equipment. Then an open sales order report could be printed for that range of numbers assigned to loaned equipment orders.

Title: Re: Loaners
Post by kkmfg on 05/18/07 at 07:01:19

This all gives me an idea:

What if Evo was able to generate automatic, periodic reports on the status of things? The reports would be emailed or printed at a specified periodicity (every day at 4am? Weekly? Monthly?)

One of the biggest problems in accounting and business administration is keeping on top of everything. Directed automatic reports could alert you when customers are late on payments, late returning equipment, when your secretary starts embezzling (well, maybe... some people are good...), or when you are about to run out of a needed part. Sure, you can do some of that now but you have to REMEMBER to run it. That's no good if you are anything like me!

If TAS isn't up to such a job then PHP and a scheduler (cron or windows tasks) certainly are.

Title: Re: Loaners
Post by GasGiant on 05/18/07 at 07:24:59

lmk223a wrote:

That's a very decent idea... having a pile of "back ordered" loaner returns sitting on the billing clerk's desk might not be popular with her, but it could do the trick for keeping track of things. We already have Excel queries for orders due that are looked at by the managers daily, so adding another would not be a big deal. I could even web deliver the report to her based on our loaner location. Hmmm. Should only take a few days to implement, too, since all that is needed is a little training for the order entry people and the billing clerk.

I'll add that to the list of subjects to discuss at the little loaner pow-wow we'll be having on Monday. our loaner problem is out of control because we have two different offices and four field people placing them in the field, poor controls, and even poorer enforcement of our own rules/policies. We will be centralizing all loaners and putting them under the control of the Repair/QC group so that we can reign them in. Would be a good time to implement the two-line method, as well.

Title: Re: Loaners
Post by GasGiant on 05/18/07 at 08:24:59

kkmfg wrote:

There was supposed to be a scheduler program for DBA at one time... this http://www.istechsupport.com/addonut.asp ...but I never found the concept of paying for each report very appetizing.

Writing something in VB or whatever seems a good idea, so long as the programs being run are static. I've written programs that mine text reports, actually converting the data to XML files, which can then be used by a browser directly via XSL/XSLT or parsed any way you please. I'd choose XSLT over PHP because then everything you do with the data is client-side once you've sent the XML file.

Title: Re: Loaners
Post by kkmfg on 05/18/07 at 11:08:17

GasGiant wrote:

XML has it's place but it's way over used and abused. I'd be more in support of direct output of text or HTML for auto generated reports. XML may work but it tends to be a data organization format rather than a display format and I think that most of the time it's more important to VIEW a report than to play with it's data layout. So, if at all possible my vote would be for HTML. And for everything else there's XML and mastercard but only if absolutely necessary.