Has anyone else found the purchasing system to be incredibly cumbersome? If so, what have you done to make it simpler. I am testing it now and seem to hit one road block after another. How do you actually sell this to operations staff?
Can you define what are the main point that you are complaining? We need to know how is setup your implementation. For example if you are using advanced warehouse feature than purchasing required several steps.
Run Planning
Confirm hundreds of required purchase lines, group into vendor specific order.
Print all orders in one go
Receive in as the goods come in.
Match invoice to receipt.
Difficult to simplify that.
Pretty simple really. Why is it cumbersome for you?
I would also like to know where and how you find the process difficult.
Is it very different to the the current system?
Bear in meind that it is reltively easy to make changes to the Forms and Reports to simplify the process and that is all part of the dialogue with the users…
I can remember when I was about 17, my dad giving me the keys to his car to take it for a drive on his office parking lot, and I had no clue how to start driving. I sat there, tried all different things, and could not make sense of it at all. As the silly teenager that I was then, I started cursing about what a bad design it was, and how can anybody ever get into one of these stupid machines, why isn’t there just an on/off button. Then my dad got in the car and explained how it all works. Turns out that driving is pretty easy once you know how to do it.
You seem to be trying to get this all to work without any instruction, and when it gives you trouble you complain how bad the design is. Instead of complaining about the software, maybe you should consider that it might be you that needs some instruction. Try to get someone to sit down with and explain how to set up your system. Try to explain exactly WHAT your roadblocks are, and we can help you take the next step. The sales and purchasing systems are actually quite good, and customers are generally very happy about how it works. Once you have the vendors, G/L accounts, posting groups, all those things, set up, it is really quite elegant.
I wish I could say that the issues I am facing with the PO system were because I have been attempting to get it to work without instruction. Perhaps the instruction that I am receiving is insufficient - perhaps the setup that was done half a world away is the problem. I do not know the answer to either question. I do know that each time I am attempting to test the Purchasing Module in the test database, I run into error messages. First I was unable to enter a quantity. That took a week to resolve and was told it had something to do with the name “Cronus”. Now I cannot receive an item or test the purchase order approval process. To say that it has been frustrating would be an understatement. There are expectations that this product be up and running in 14 days - how is my question?
I can see that the purchasing module would work well for a manufacturing entity. Our business is quite different from that - a point that was not taken into account when the decision to purchase the software was initially made. We have ten different entities, in a variety of countries, and will be ordering chemicals and spare parts from a parent company. The value of those goods is not known until approximately 60 days later at point of shipping and will remain on the parents books until it is shipped. The parent cannot start the process of ordering the items on our behalf without a purchase order number. I cannot generate a PO in Nav 5.0 without a value attached to the items I need to later track in the inventory module and so I go round and round. I am also going to have to add additional costs like freight (which is significant) to each of the inventory items. In other instances, a purchase order may be generated for capital equipment that may or may not get approved. Having anyone set up the fixed asset in advance in the Capital Asset area also seems unrealistic.
Again, these are complexities specific to our business that I have not yet even touched upon. To be fair to the product, I have attempted to follow the simple lab examples in the manual to make sure I was not missing a step and making things more complicated than necessary. Still no success.
OK, we should try to fo through it step by step. We should try to go before we try to run.
Please try to:
Create a new Purchase Order by pressing F3 in the order form and then press the Enter key.
Now you should have a PO number.
Enter the vendor number of the parent company and press enter.
Now you should have the correct vendor and address in header.
Go to the lines and set the “Type” field to “Item”. Enter the number of the item you want to purchase and press Enter. Go to the Quantity field and enter the quantity.
So far so good. All these steps can be performed easily in your database.
Now you have the PO with a number and a quantity at the items.
Please tell us what the next steps should be to continue!
We will need much more detail to be able to help you. Just complaining about the software is not going to get you anywhere, and for some of us to just give you random suggestions isn’t going to do the trick either. I’m not trying to trivialize the issues that you are having, I am sure they are plenty, and you’re obviously not getting the support that you need. Try to be fair though, and I hope you realize that we can’t help you unless we know the actual errors that you are getting. Are you getting any help from a NAV partner?
That doesn’t tell us anything about what is going on. You have to be more specific about the actual error. Tell us exactly where you are, what you are trying to do, what your steps are, what you are expecting, and what is actually happening. Be specific in the error message. You can actually copy and paste the message in here, and most of the time someone in here will know exactly what you need to do to fix it.
Taking a week just to be able to enter quantities, and stil not knowing why… is that because of the process in the software or because you don’t have proper support? Using a Cronus license in an actual production database has nothing to do with the software capabilities.
Again you give us no detail whatsoever about the errors or the circumstances. We can’t possibly help you without those details. Surely you are not expecting to get a comprehensive list of setup instructions from this forum… that is what your partner should be helping you with.
With NAV out of the box, without any customizations, then yes it is possible to get up and running with it in 2 weeks, but that is assuming that there are no customizations, no report modifications, all data is easily accessible, you have a team of very experienced consultants and developers on site, and everything runs smoothly. I’d say it is a very rare exception though that companies go live on NAV in just 2 weeks, I’d even say that hardly ever happens, and frankly if that is in the marketing material nowadays that would be misleading to say the least.
There is usually an extensive vetting process to evaluate the implementation, before the software is purchased. Out of such a vetting process it would have been known way in advance what kind of effort would go into implementing NAV. I can assure you that there are many customers on heavily modified NAV implementations, with international, inter company, process manufacturing, distribution, scenarios, and they are very happy with their system. Most of those companies though, went through significant custom development to get to go-live, and many of them had to get some 3rd party product merged into their system.
This is nothing to do with the name “Cronus” perhaps you were running the demo license, but you can still enter quantities. You really need to understand the answer to understand the issue.
As Daniel states - what message are you receiving when you try to receive the goods, is it a ledger issue, posting group, warehouse, location etc etc
The majority of the multiple implementations I have been involved in are standard distribution companies, where in my opinion it fits better than manufacturing.
You do not have to have a value on the goods. If you want to capture goods receipt value you would need a cost at receipt, but ultimately you will have the cost at the point of purchase invoice, which is key. So you can load the purchase on the parent without knowing the cost, it really does not matter. You should not be going round and round as you say.
NAV knows these as item charges, ask your partner about these, they uplift the cost of the item.
This is not my area, but you can create an FA line without a code, but with a quantity and value, so you do not have to create the FA in advance.
I’m reading these posts and thinking about your situation.
You need to work more closely with the NAV partner. Or is there a problem with them? If there is find another partner with experience of NAV who can sit down with you and your users and pay them to help you identfiy the requirements and discuss and plan how to make NAV work for you. The you can make a successful implementation.
Purchasing workd well in both distribution and manufacturing operations in the corporation where I am working. It needs time and expereince to make a success.
Good luck.
“- perhaps the setup that was done half a world away is the problem.”
This statement implies to me the reseller is on the other side of the world, perhpas chosen for the head office, or on cose, but it is not local, therefore solutions and help are difficult to obtain on short notice, perhaps the business is not a priority, for the partner or the head office, but this is obviously causing many of the issues.