• Contact names on the suplier or customer page are now ordered alphbetically.
• Purchase Orders on the job page can now be ordered by either PO number or Supplier.
• JAQ can now send notification emails to employees. This can be used instead or, or with, the JAQ messaging system. Please contact me to implement on your server.
• Purchase Orders can now be locked until approved. If set up, this will stop an employee printing a PO or creating a PDF, until it has been approved by their supervisor. Of course it wont stop an employee phoning the PO through.

• If you change the labour Charge rates, or Extra's rates, and edit a time sheet saved beforehand, JAQ will alert you that the rates have changed and if you edit and save the time sheets, the time sheet will adopt the new rates.
• Sub jobs can be started/stopped from the job card page, if you are a manager, or the person the job is assigned to.
• "Notes" section has been upgraded. A note can be associated with any job, quote, supplier and customer. Notes can be dated, and set up as a reminder.
• Changes to the Calendar, to work with "Notes".
• When entering your time sheets, you can now manually type in a job and sub job number, instead of searching for them in the job list popup. The page will tell you if you have entered a invalid number.
• Some changes to the JAQ setup page.
• Added "Can Re-open Jobs" option to the Employee page to limit who can reopen a closed job.
• Improvements to the Employee "Certificates, Licences and Inductions" pages, including a new "Type" option, eg :Vehicles Licences; Inductions; etc.

• JAQ can record when an employee goes off site and returns. Employees click a button when they go off site, and JAQ will ask them what time they expect to be back, and if there is a reason to leave the site. When they return, the employee clicks another button and JAQ records the time they returned. When an employee is off site, JAQ will display "Off Site" on the "Who's Here" and "Evacuation" lists. JAQ also displays employee off site data on their time sheets.
• Added "Expired Pending Quotes" page, under the Q menu icon. It displays all quotes that are still pending, and are 2 weeks past their due date. This page will let you convert these quotes to Lost in bulk, so you dont need to open each quote and flag it as lost individually. Currently only managers can access this page.
• Extra Items can now be costed. If an employee adds a Extra to his time sheets, and that Extra has a cost and charge price, then it will be displayed on the job card as a Extra Cost/Charge and added to the jobs costs.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and happy new year for 2015.

• Looking into ways JAQ can send emails. Would be used if you wanted to send a purchase or quote PDF directly from JAQ. There are some issues that need to be resolved, and may not work with all sites.
• A system where employees can go off site, while remaining on duty. JAQ will know the employee is still on shift, but no on site. Used to track employees coming and going and for the fire evacuation list.
• MYOB and QuickBooks exporters are under development.

• The style of Links within JAQ is been changed to a more accepted style of blue text with a underline. This is replacing the little magnify glass seen on many pages. The magnify glass will be reserved for popup windows, or where you need to select an item from a list.
• Added "Extra" items to time sheets. Extra's are items the employee can tick or add, in addition to their hours to jobs, for example, travel, or book hours to equipment. The extra's are be displayed on the job card and time sheet reports, its then up to the admin staff to action them if needed.
• JAQ exporting of purchases to a MYOB file improvements.
• Simple bar code based system to book stock to a job. Employee only needs to scans their ID card, the job sheet and the stock item label, enter a quantity, and thats it.
• Added Using ( Date Created, Date Closed and Delivery Date ) to the job list page date range filter.
• Improved security for sites where remote access to JAQ is needed. When enabled, JAQ requires each remote device to have a security cookie set up, and strong passwords. If you use JAQ remotely, have a open internet connection or WiFi, this is highly recommended. More info.
• Removed Despatch Dockets. Delivery dockets can now be simplified and printed, so replace Despatch Dockets. The advantage is Delivery Dockets are tracked, where the Depatch Dockets were not.
• Added Shipping Dockets, a variation on the Delivery Docket, but you can select any supplier or customer as the destination, and add new line items instead of usine job line items.
• Added 0.25 ( 15 minute ) and 0.75 ( 45 minute ) increments to timesheets. By default this is not enabled.
• Improvements to the Document Register search.
• Timesheets now automatically select the employees default charge code when a new line is added.
• Added Job Number column and a Order By function to Delivery List page

Alert from US-Cert about the latest ransom-ware and how to protect yourself. I know of businesses that have been affected by this sort of attack, but fortunately they had up to date, off line, backups and were able to get their businesses back up very quickly.

https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA14-295A

The US-Cert ( or The Department of Homeland Security's United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team ) web site is very informative and you can subscribe to receive email notifications of new computer vulnerabilities as they become known.

• Subjobs can now be imported from Excel. Handy if you have a spreadsheet containing the steps/parts of a larger job, and want to create sub jobs in JAQ to match.
• Fixed bugs in Accounts for Period, where it wouldn't display the list of jobs/purchases when asked.
• Clock in and clock out times can be rounded down to 15 minute intervals. Previously only 1 hour and 30 minute intervals were available.
• Ability to edit the default header and footer on the Quote PDF's. You can also remove the +GST and inc GST dialoges under the line items. Set up in JAQ Setup page
• Added MYOB exporter for purchases. This creates a file of JAQ closed purchases, which can be imported into MYOB, saving double entry. Over the next few updates JAQ will also be able to export jobs, card files and employee timesheets, in both MYOB and Quickbooks formats.
• You can now customise which columns are displayed on the Quote List page, just like the Jobs List page. Click on the little spanner icon in the Filter frame.
• Employee can clock in and out using their ID card and barcode scanner. The employee wont need to click on their name and enter a password. Option set in JAQ Setup.

• Fixed bug in Equipment Register, meter readings section. The Equipment Register will see some improvements in the next few updates.
• Fixed bug where JAQ would allow the same code to be used for suppliers and customers. To keep JAQ semi-compatible with MYOB or Quickbooks, this is not allowed.
• PDF's now format the business logo better for logo's that are nearly as tall as they are wide.
• Sub Jobs can now display much more detail on Hours, Stock and Purchases booked to them. Sub Jobs are handy for tracking costs and hours to parts of a larger job.
• Job List now displays a progess bar comparing hours estimated to hours booked. Gives a quick visual indication if a job is approaching or exceeding the estimated hours.
• Added "Job Hours for Period" report. Displays total hours booked for period. Option to chose specific employees.

• Added ability to filter purchase orders by job. This is so you can display all purchases from one particular supplier for a particular job.
• Added lost folder check.
  If JAQ cant find the Quote/Job folder, it will let you know and help find it for you. Folders go missing when someone accidentially drags them into another folder.
• Fixed a bug where the Job List Excel export didn't include the estimated hours.
• Added Auto Login, under Employee / My Preferences.
  When ticked, the user is automatically logged in on that PC, so they dont need to go through the Clock in page, or enter a password.
• Added "Active" option to customer and supplier contacts page.
  If a contact has left the business, untick the "Active" checkbox so others know they are no longer a contact for that business. You will still be able to search for old quotes/jobs using the contact name.
• Added "Kits". Kits are grouped items ( labour, stock, etc ), and can be added to Quotes and Jobs as a single line item. Kits save time if you often provide the same service, for example, a Kit to replace a clutch may include a collection of stock parts, purchased parts and labour. These can be grouped together under one name, a "Kit", and added to any quote/job as one line item. If needed, JAQ can break the kit up, and let you adjust the price of each part separately.
• Improvements to adding/viewing jobs numbers when when editing/viewing/approving timesheets.
• Improvements to viewing customer details on a job card and quote page.

• Added Evacuation List. Prints page of employees who have logged in in the last 15 hours and not logged out. For fire evacutaion, etc. Please use with caution, Evacuation List and actual employes present may differ.
• Added Job Type to search options on Invoices for Period report. Lets you display a invoice report for any job type.
• Changed line graphs on Quote List, and Customer details page to a bar graphs. More compatible with older web browsers.
• Added "Approved Timesheets" functionality. If enabled...
  • Timesheets need to be approved by a supervisor.
  • An employee can be set to "Auto Approve", meaning their time sheets are approved automatically.
  • Once approved, and employee without Auto Approve can NOT edit their time sheets.
  • A job with any unapproved hours will display a warning.
  • Added "Un-Approved Hours" report, to aid in approving hours.
  • Approving hours is pretty straight foward, a single tick will approved the employee hours on duty, and hours booked to jobs

Merry Christmas!

Wishing all my clients a Merry Christmas and happy new year for 2014.

• Added History button to top menu. Displays the last 20 Quotes, Jobs and Purchase orders you looked at.
• Added Account Number to Purchases. Displays your account number, as entered on the suppliers details page, on any purchase pages to that supplier, including the PDF page.
• Fixed bug where GPM on Quote edit page was not calculated correctly.

A note about the GPM% figure used in JAQ. Its calculated like this....

GPM% = 100 / InvoicePrice * (InvoicePrice -CostPrice )

where...

InvoicePrice = the price quoted or invoiced for the job.
CostPrice = the total booked stock, purchases and hours cost price.

Remember the GPM% figure is only as good as the information entered, please use it as a guide only.

• Added Account and Type summary to quote page, similar to the Job page.
• Added a 3rd PDF option to Quotes, grouped list with line items, no prices. Just another option to preset the PDF in a customer friendly way.
• Added Stock Orders. Same as Purchase Orders, but only used for ordering items into stock. When stock arives, the stock quantity in JAQ will be adjusted. This wont happen for purchase orders.
• Added "Purchased Items" to the line item options on Quotes and Jobs. Select "Purchased Items" if you need to purchase an item in for that line item. In a future update this will tie in with purchase orders, but for now its just a way to flag a line item as something that will need to be pourchsed in.
• Added "Group Title" to the line item category options on Quotes and Jobs. This makes the line a Title for the group, and will be treated as such on PDF's.
• Added "Notes" to the line item category options on Quotes and Jobs. Used to add a note/comment/whatever line into the list.
• Added a "green" helper column to the Edit Purchase page line items. By entering a units sell price into the helper column, JAQ will calculate the markup required and put his value into the Markup field. Used as a way to work backwards, calculate the markup when all you have is the buy price and sell price,
• Quote Notes are now copied to Job Notes when a Quote is converted to a Job.
• Found bug with the Purchase/Quote/Job lists not correctly display results for a selected supplier/customer. If you selected a customer like "MIT", the results would include customers like "MITRE10". Fixed.

Purchase Orders V Stock Orders

The next update of JAQ will separate purchases into two types, Purchase Orders and Stock Orders. A Purchase Order is used to buy in goods for a job, and will be costed against the job. A Stock Order is used to buy in goods for stock, which can later be booked out to a job as consumables. When a Stock Order arives, the quantities in the stock register will be updated. This does not happen for Purchase Orders.

Do you know of another business that could use JAQ?

If so, put them in contact with me and if they become a JAQ client, you will save $10 per week off your JAQ licence. Thats $520 per year per referal, for as long as they continue to use JAQ.

All you need to do is make the initial contact, put in the good word, and hand them a brochure or point them to the web site. If you need any brochures, please let me know and I'll mail some out to you.

http://www.jaqsoftware.com

Lots of small changes that will mostly go un-noticed. As usual, I wont update anyone's particular JAQ version unless there is a distinct need.

• ViewJobCard page now loads much faster.
• Various changes to the stock section to improve stock quantity tracking.
• Changes to the time sheets section to improve tracking of employees that go home without clocking off.
• And lots of other small changes to make it easier to add planned features to JAQ in the future.

Also added a database utilities page to let managers download a copy of the JAQ database, and perform a occasional Compact and Repair on the database, which may give a sligh speed improvement.

New features

• Added "Quick Job". Basically a quick way to add a job card into JAQ. Only need to enter basic information, most details will be remembered for the next Quick Job, and other details are added automatically. Handy for adding cash jobs. Under trial.
• Modified many of the employee drop down lists to include ex-employees. Used when editing old records.

Fixed

• bug where some employees were unintentionally clocked out after completing their time sheets.

New features

• Added Courier and Courier Account to despatch dockets. A new blank field has been added to the despatch dockets where you can enter the courier name. If the customer has a prefered courier set up in their details, JAQ will populate the despatch docket courier field with the courier name. If the customer has a prefered courier account number, JAQ will display the account number on the despatch docket.
• Replaced multible print buttons on the Job page with a single button.
• Added print subjob lists function.
• Added Order Raised date to purchase order PDF. Order Raised is the datestamp, the date the order was entered into JAQ

Fixed

• bug where jobs with lots of purchase orders were crashing.
• bug where ex-employees were not displayed when looking at old jobs. Please notify us if you see any ex-employees appearing on lists that they should not be.

New features

• Added ability to book hours to quotes. Hours booked to quotes are shown on timesheets and quote details page.
• Added Job Card WIP ( Work In Progress ), under the Job menu for employees with admin access.
• Added Business Type field to Suppliers, and you can use this as a filter on the supplier list page.

Under Development.

Customise. You can now customise some list type pages to include/exclude columns. Look for the spanner icon. Currently used on the job list page, will add to the quotes and purchase lists in the future.

Bugs

The targets widget has some display issues.

New features

• Added search functions to Quote List page. You can now search in quote title, description, line items and contact details, similar to the way you could on the Job List page.
• Added the Job Type to the printed job card. The Job Type will be displayed in bold at the top right of the printer page.
• Added Job Type to the Jobs List page filter section, and you can reorder the job list by job type by clicking on the Job Type column header.
• Added Job Type to the Quotes page, Quote List.