Common questions about cloud ERP

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• Integrations and Customisations for Dear, Xero, Shopify

  Customisations and Integrations for Cin7 Core (Cin7 Core (Dear)) and Omni, Xero, Shopify, Starshipit, Zoho, Salesforc, 3PLs... About Integrations and Cloud apps Large business systems are built from modules. For instance, traditionally you had a GL module, an AR module and a Sales module. Accounting has worked like this since the days of fountain pens: it calls these modules "ledgers", so if you are familiar with the "debtors ledger" and the "stock ledger" you already understand the concept.  Business systems before the cloud bundled many modules under one "integrated" solution because there was no agreed standard to connect modules from different providers. Sometimes business systems had to be connected anyway, and it was a very expensive process, requiring custom coding and a lot of software to keep everything working. So traditional ERPs all individually reinvented their own GL ledger, not because they found some exciting new way to do double-entry book-keeping, but because it...

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• Order Promise Date calculator for Cin7 Core and Omni

  Promise Date Calculator Specification   The GrowthPath promise date calculator supports Cin7 Core and Cin7 Omni   The Promise Data calculator provides reliable shipment dates for complex supply chains with high value items and long delivery times, such as Furniture. It avoids the starvation problem, where an older order waiting for a small number of missing products is never shipped because newer orders cannibalise existing stock, so that when the missing products arrive, the order is out of stock on other products.  So it can be used to see which orders should be picked today, without starving older orders. It provides a link between POs and orders. It helps reduce cancellations by quickly providing realistic delivery dates with minutes of an order being placed. For Cin7 Core, it understands BOMs and therefore works with auto-assembly or kit items. A calculation update typically takes one to two minutes, and it is usually scheduled to run hourly. How does it work? Step 1: Calculate a...

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• Cin7 Core (Dear) 3PL Integration

  Cin7 Core (Dear) 3PL Integration The GrowthPath 3PL integration is a modular integration supporting custom logic and sophisticated optional modules.    Positioning The GrowthPath 3PL is a semi-customised three PL approach allowing customer-specific logic built on a range of optional modules (reuse of existing customer requirements). These can be adapted and customised as required.A solution like this takes longer to deploy and is more expensive. However, it allows you to add customer value by differentiating your fulfilment flow, and it allows you to introduce advanced efficiencies.   Advanced Modules Described below in more detail Order Header Rewriting (Location Change, Carrier/Service Level Change) Bundles BOM Expansion Auto Pick incl auto Backorder Pick Partial Fulfilment Auto Invoicing Order Splitting/Rerouting based on rules POs/inbound stock Returns/RMAs Business Scalability Supports multiple 3PLs  High transaction volumes File Exchange Options Flat File exchange via FTP/SFTP XML...

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• GrowthPath Application Server

  GrowthPath Advanced Dear Integration Technology The GrowthPath Application Server is a dedicated server with software developed to allow GrowthPath's advanced integrations. For specific information about "dedicated", see below. The Application Server is a stack of software which makes it fast and easy for GrowthPath to solve complicated integration problems. The elements of the stack are A robust, battle-tested cache of Dear's data, including the ability to bring together all your deployments of Dear, even in multiple currencies A library of Dear automation code for ordering, shipping and production steps, which is also battle-tested. With this code, we can develop highly advanced automations and integrations A library of connectors to a growing range of cloud software: Zoho Analytics, Zoho CRM, Capsule, Shopify, Starshipit, Xero,... These include advanced data syncs. We have a library for advanced, custom 3PL integrations which can split orders amount different 3PLs for optimal...

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• GrowthPath Cloud ERP Implementation

  Cloud software is simple. Implementations should be too. Since 2013, a 100% success rate (client still using the system three years after going live).   We reduce risks By being vendor neutral, and using our Go/No-Go milestone, we eliminate the wrong-system risk. We focus on pragmatically getting ready to go live. There are always surprises after going live. We build that in to the project plan, an approach born of our experience on both sides of ERP implementations. Advanced Data Conversion With deep expertise, automation, API scripts and a lot of business feel, we treat your valuable historical data very seriously. Data conversion done wrong is huge business risk. We build self-sufficiency Our fixed price implementations finish with a Handover milestone, not with a Go Live milestone. We guide implementations with a strong focus on knowledge transfer.  This is your new system. Your key users need to explore it and learn it, which is why we guide the implementation, rather than manage...

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• DEAR for CFOs: Notes on Xero Accounting integration with Dear Inventory

  The latest version of this document is here: DEAR for CFOs: Notes on Xero Accounting integration with Dear Inventory   DEAR for CFOs: Notes on Xero Accounting integration with Dear Inventory This is a GrowthPath knowledge-base article. You may share this link as you wish. This document is for CFO, controllers, bookkeepers and accountants who want to know how Xero works with Dear.  Essential things to review Do you want to use the powerful feature Tracking Categories for profit-centre accounting in Xero? See Tracking Categories Do you need to add some accounts? See Required Accounts Are you using account codes in Xero? They are needed for Dear. Any account in Xero without an account code will not be visible in Dear.  High-level overview Dear acts like a traditional ERP. A traditional ERP is financially split into subledgers, such as Sales, Inventory, which post to the GL. The difference is that instead of posting to the GL, Dear ‘posts’ to Xero via the integration..  Dear is the owner of...

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• Dear Inventory: Advanced Pricing Module

  Easier access to Dear Inventory advanced pricing Dear Inventory has a powerful advanced pricing module in addition to the standard ten price lists and customer-level discounts. It also has an interim layer of customer price lists per SKU. Dear's pricing is complicated and has too many choices, but it is powerful. King of all of these is what I call the Advanced Pricing Module, which Dear calls the Deals and Discounts module. For a long time, I had to make this note:  "Not many clients use the advanced features because it's hard to understand and hard to set up; for example, the second step requires a CSV upload in many cases." Dear added a graphical front end to advanced pricing, making it easier to use, but this was still clunky for more than a few rules, since there was no bulk update feature.  But in October 2021, Dear has added good API end points allowing powerful automation and updates for this module. Below, I discuss how these rules are created in the backend. API supports...

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• Cloud inventory management review Dear Inventory, Unleashed, Cin7

  Cloud-based Inventory Management: Review of Unleashed, Dear Inventory, Cin7 Detailed review by a CPA & supply chain expert for small and medium sized businesses needing a cloud-based inventory management solution. GrowthPath has migrated clients to cloud ERP systems in Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, the UK, PNG and around Australia. Over the years, and before founding GrowthPath, we have worked with ERPs since the 1990s. Tim Richardson started his career as a developer and then implementation consultant with QAD ERP, and has several SAP R/3 implementation experiences. He then moved into finance roles around Asia and Europe with Philips. GrowthPath was founded in 2011 to help small and medium businesses unlock the incredible power of cloud inventory management, accounting, CRMs and analytics. At the moment, we recommend Dear Inventory for most clients needing a supply chain solution. We see the competitive pool also including Unleashed and Trade Gecko, but at this stage Dear is our...

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• Comparison of Cloud ERP API Coverage

  Cloud ERP API Comparison DEAR Systems, Cin7, Unleashed   Why does the API matter? The API does two things it allows information to be extracted for better reporting It enables automation, by creating documents and actions. This means that you can automate gaps and workarounds, and add more advanced functionality. Examples of workflows and API support Case: Automate the creation of products from another source, such as an online store or a product master database  DEARCin7Unleashed   Yes No Yes Case: Add a product configurator front end, and send custom BOMs to manufacturing module  DEARCin7Unleashed   Yes No No Dear allows creations of assembly orders and therefore one-off BOMs, and it allows them to be stepped through the process of authorising, allocation stock and completion.  DEARCin7Unleashed   Yes No No Case: For near real-time interfacing, have the integrated app respond to events as they happen in the ERP (such as order received from online channel   DEARCin7Unleashed   Yes No No Dear has...

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• Dear Starshipit Advanced High Performance Integration

  GrowthPath  Dear-Starshipit Integration   Starshipit is an excellent cloud-based transport manager, for dispatching, manifesting and interacting with couriers and other transporters. We have clients who are very happy with the product, and with the support. GrowthPath rates Starshipit very highly. The out of the box Dear integration has some deficiencies. It doesn't work with advanced orders (multiple fulfilments) and it struggles with high-volume sites (> 400 orders a day). This performance problem is not a problem with Starshipit or Dear, just a problem with the integration. GrowthPath has a much more sophisticated approach to Dear integrations, with logic and techniques that provide a much more powerful and higher performance integration. GrowthPath will build custom-logic into the integration. Some examples of this are below. Our development is in-house.   Overview of the GrowthPath Starshipit Integration Completely replaces the existing Starshipit Dear integration. Can map Dear...

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• GrowthPath Dear Systems to Zoho CRM Integration

  Dear Systems (Dear Inventory) to Zoho CRM Integration   GrowthPath has a connector between Dear and Zoho CRM which runs off our GrowthPath Application Server. Full Documentation This is an advanced connector which has logic and mappings that go well beyond the capabilities of Zapier-style connectors. It is robust, handles very high transaction volumes and uses the advanced caching, server monitoring and other performance features of the GrowthPath Application Server.   Highlights The sync currently does a Dear to Zoho CRM push of Dear Customer to Zoho CRM Accounts and Dear Contacts to Zoho CRM Contacts. All Contacts belong to a Customer on the Dear side, and are therefore assigned to that Zoho Account. If you have custom fields in your Zoho Accounts, Contacts or Deals, we can write logic to populate them based on Dear contents and business rules. You can control which stages of the Dear lifecycle get mapped to which of your Zoho pipeline stages, and for each of these stages you can...

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• Cloud Accounting and ERP Security Risks

  p { style="font-size: 14.6667px; font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;" } Business risks of cloud software Cloud software has security risks, data-lock-out risks and connectivity risks. These risks can be avoided, and cloud software eliminates other major IT risks. Overall, moving to cloud apps such as Xero probably increases overall security and lowers data risk if sensible policies are in place. Before moving to cloud accounting such as Xero, or to a cloud ERP system, it's worth reviewing these risks.

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• Cloud Based Accounting Review and Recommendations: Xero, Saasu, MYOB, QuickBooks

  A CPA's review, comparison and recommendation of Xero, Saasu, MYOB AccounrtRightand QuickBooks Online. Pros and cons of moving to cloud-based accounting. How it fits with cloud-based inventory management. In a hurry? This short article covers the key initial questions: Top questions about migrating to Cloud Inventory Management Quick pros and cons of cloud-based accounting Moving to cloud accounting may not be right for your business. The pros and cons roughly speaking look like this: Con: You will lose core functionality if you come from a 'big' ERP like Dynamics or Sage ERP (but are you using this functionality?) Con: Data security risks change: some risks are much lower, but there are new risks Con: If you cancel your subscription, you need to export and import your data somewhere else Pro: Cloud software is easier to use; more people will use it properly, new employees get up to speed faster Pro: Cloud software is easier to own: no server, no updates Pro: Cloud software is where all...

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• Extracting data from MYOB with ODBC SQL

  A tutorial about accessing data from MYOB Premier using SQL.This technique opens up much better insights, interactive reporting and feeding data into dashboard tools, as well as making data migration into a new system much easier. You can also automate or partially automate intercompany reconciliations, and detailed cashflow analysis. 

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• MYOB AccountRight Premier / Classic and ATO Single Touch Payroll

  On July 1, 2018, the ATO requires all Australian businesses with more than 20 employees to use Single Touch Payroll. The census date is actually in April 2018. Users of MYOB Account Right Premier face an interesting problem. They are using software which doesn't really get feature updates because MYOB is encouraging subscribers to move to Account Right Live, a monthly-subscription product. This product was called Account Right Live for a few years. MYOB now calls it AccountRight, and calls the legacy product AccountRight Classic. Account Right (Live) is not available as an upgrade for legacy MYOB users, because the new product does not have quite all the features of the existing product (although this may change). There may be other reasons it does not appeal: it requires a Windows computer. It can store data in the "cloud", but it's is often too slow and larger businesses are most likely going to revert to local data, which means you basically have your old MYOB, with all the funny...

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• Xero limitations: very large transaction volumes & test results

  Xero Transaction Limits: Nov 2018 test results There are questions about how well Xero performs under "higher loads". Our first concern was for medium-sized wholesalers. Xero talks about limits as low as 1000 'transactions' a month. Our testing shows that Xero performs well at much higher transaction volumes. The first test results are based on 3 years of 2500 transaction rows per month (and then matching payments uploaded via a bank CSV). The second test run was much larger. Note that after some discussions with Xero and based on our own experience, we (GrowthPath) believe that businesses can interpret the 'limit' of 1000 invoices a month as advisory. This limit does not form part of the terms of service. In Jan 2017 Xero published some small changes to the API limit, and these limits, which are enforced, allow a much, much higher load than Xero's advisory limits. Hence, stress testing is relevant because you will reach the practical limits of Xero before you exceed API limits....

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• MYOB crashing and too slow? Don't immediately replace it.

  Is MYOB crashing? Too slow? It may be time to upgrade. First there are some fixes worth trying which can reduce crashes & lock-outs, and improve MYOB speed and performance.  Please note: this is an old article, which is fine technically... traditional desktop MYOB is old software. However, ATO rules are changing, such as Single Touch Payroll, and legacy desktop MYOB in 2019 is definitely and finally reaching the end of its long life. If you are still on legacy MYOB (Account Right Premier v19) you now need an exit plan. If you have no inventory requirements, or very basic requirements, Xero is the best upgrade option. Quick Books Online is a candidate too. MYOB's own 'cloud' version is a candidate, although we don't think it is very good one. We have a comprehensive review of cloud accounting. If you are looking for a much bigger improvement to your inventory and supply chain management, you may be ready for Cloud ERP. We have probably the best online review of SME cloud inventory...

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• Choosing and implementing a new accounting or ERP system

  Advice & recommendations on selecting and implementing a new accounting or ERP system, cloud or otherwise. Including strategies for going live, and when to to live. What are the main steps in the project? What testing is needed? When you should you go live?

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• Dear Inventory B2B Portal overview

  Dear Inventory has a fundamental B2B portal which is in its second release. Bottom line: it's easy to setup (a couple of hours at most to get up and running), it's free and it automates basic order enquiries and order entry. You control exactly which customers can use it.

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• Allocations in Dear Inventory

  Allocation Logic in Dear Inventory, explained Dear Inventory has two order flows, Standard and Advanced. They both let you prioritise stock with soft and hard allocations if you use manual picking. The Advanced module has another option: authorised orders with no allocation at all. In this article, we see the differences between soft and hard allocations, and how to override soft allocations to prioritise which customers get scarce stock. You can swap a Standard order to Advanced. An order created in the standard process can move to the Advanced process via the Convert button. See the picture below.

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• Per site cost valuations in Dear Inventory

  Some tips on getting per-location costing in Dear Inventory for more accurate margins. Dear Inventory is a cloud-based inventory system which is currently GrowthPath's default recommendation for general purpose cloud ERP systems.  Dear has a well-thought approach to stock valuation. From the beginning Dear was designed to give users the chance of activate batch and serial number tracking for receipts, and Dear decided to fully support this with FIFO product costing per batch or serial. In fact, Dear users FIFO costing as its costing method for standard stock as well; the common choice is weighted average. FIFO and weighted average are the same over time.  Like its competitors, such as Unleashed, Trade Gecko and Cin7, Dear allows multiple locations, but it does not keep costs per location.  Imagine that you are receiving stock into an Australian warehouse and a New Zealand warehouse from a Chinese supplier. You may have the same FOB price, but different landed costs. Dear handles landed...

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• Cloud ERP FAQ

  Common questions about cloud ERP Cloud ERP (Dear Inventory, Unleashed, CIN-7, Trade Gecko, Stitch...) has huge advantages: fast to deploy, easy to learn and with much better reporting and insights that traditional ERP software. Above all, these packages integrate so easily with CRMs, accounting, online stores, third-party fulfilment, shippers. The business model is different: you pay per month, you no longer host the data. Here we quickly cover the main questions, advantages and disadvantages of cloud ERP for SMEs. We have a much more in-depth review of common cloud ERP solutions here: A review of cloud ERP for Australian SMEs

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• IT used by GrowthPath

  Here is the IT in use at GrowthPath. Accounting Since our foundation, GrowthPath has used cloud accounting. Initially we used MYOB Essentials, then Saasu, and as of 2016 we are on Xero.  CRM and Project Management We use Pipedrive. Pipedrive is an excellent CRM for deal-based businesses. We have become big fans of Trello. Quotes are prepared with Nifty Quoter. Email & Cloud Apps, Client OS We use Google Apps/Google Drive. Desktop OS is a mix: OS X preferred, Chrome OS and Windows get some use. Mobile devices are now mostly Android. Web services, Analytics We have servers, and client servers, hosted with AWS and Digital Ocean. We use Ubuntu as the platform of choice. We use namecheap for SSL certificates, and a variety of registrars for domain names. Analytics is 100% Google.  Content Management GrowthPath uses Joomla, self-hosted, although we have good Wordpress skills. Traffic Generation GrowthPath does not currently use any paid traffic generation techniques. Our SEO is good and...

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• Advanced use of information for SMEs

  Applying relevant information to make better decisions is a very important outcome of a medium-term IT plan. Cloud solutions are really good at enabling this, even if the first phase focuses more on the operational foundations. There are many options available for cost-effective business intelligence solutions in the cloud. Amazon, for example, has developed a rich layer which has stimulated many offers: Google for “Amazon Redshift marketplace”.   Advanced reporting, or business intelligence, has three components. It has a reporting or data visualisation front end (graphs, dashboards, reports etc). It has a data store and analytical logic layer, which imports data from different sources and allows us to group and relate the data to support the visualisation layer. Business Intelligence products always include these two layers. Many of the cheaper cloud solutions, such as Zoho Reports, effectively stop with these two layers.   The third layer is very important. Technically it is know as...

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• A hidden gem: Neto/Saasu Integration

  A hidden gem: Neto/Saasu Integration Neto is an excellent hosted online store. It handles wholesale and retail very well (simultaneously), and has the best-on-the-market integration with Australian shippers, anywhere. Better than Unleashed, Dear Inventory, Shopify ... On top of that, Neto looks after multiple price lists, variations, multiple stock locations,has a decent template engine, a fast backend, good ebay integration. It does backorders like MYOB, which is actually much more suited for smaller wholesalers than the current approach of Dear and Unleashed. A startup from Queensland with Telstra as a significant shareholder. It's not perfect: It doesn't do multi-currency, its reporting is average. And it has no purchasing module. It doesn't do supplier invoices, receipts and costing. For this, is expects you to integrate it with something else. A Neto / Saasu integration offers a lot for the money.

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• Making sense of the numbers

  It's great to have a well used accounting system quietly gathering thousands of data points about your business. Your bank transactions. Your invoice detail lines. Your purchases. Your stock movements. Your postage and electricity costs. The location of your customers. Their history with you. And so on.  But how to turn it into profitable insights?

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• MYOB: Renovate, Extend or Replace?

  Businesses outgrow MYOB. But this doesn't require an immediate replacement.

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