Our last article focused on
Pro/Premier. However, features I'm most excited about this year are in Enterprise
Solutions. In fact, a couple have been on my wish list for quite some time, so
I'm happy to finally see them in the software (job costing, customizing expense
columns and price breaks based on quantities).
Customize Columns on Expense
Transactions - If you've been following
me for a while, you know I like to use custom fields. But what has been
frustrating is that you could not pull in a custom field on an expense
transaction, such as a check, bill or credit card transaction. In fact, I
sometimes recommended third party software as a solution for some clients. You
also couldn't pull in a sales rep and for those who pay commissions based on a
net profit, which was important. With Enterprise 14, you can now do both! I can
check this off my wish list - finally!!
New Job Cost Reports - If you have larger projects, these two new reports are
often high on your need to know list.
Committed Costs by Job Report - costs incurred for a job but for which you haven't billed
the customer. Very important and challenging to track for large projects.
Est. Cost comes from your estimate
Act. Cost represents the costs you have already billed the customer
Committed Costs are those amounts that appear on unpaid Purchase Orders for
a job (we were never able to pull this into a job cost report before)
Unpaid wages come from your time sheets that have not yet been pulled
into paychecks (does not include burden of labor/overhead)
Total Cost is the Act. Cost amount plus Committed Costs and Unpaid
Wages
Remaining Cost represents the Est. Cost amount minus the Total Cost amount
This report depends upon you
following the Job Costing flow - Job Estimate to Purchase Orders to Time
Keeping and Progress Billing.
WIP Summary Report - Whether you just need this information at year end or for
percent completion or to help you with over/under billing, this report is a big
timesaver. You can even filter this by Sales Rep or Job Status!
The Earned Revenue column shows the
amount you've earned for the job but haven't billed the customer yet.
Lots of Timesaving Inventory
Features - including Assemblies and Price Breaks!
Easily edit Cost, Price, Markup and
Margin - right in the Inventory Center!
Or in the Add/Edit Multiple List.
Inventory Min and Max replaces
Reorder Point - This gives you flexibility AND the
ability for Enterprise to help suggest a quantity to order!
Enterprise can suggest what you need
to order and how much with Create Auto PO's!
Once Enterprise knows your minimum and maximum quantities, plus what's already
on order, you can easily create a Purchase Order with the quantities suggested
for you!
Automatically build subassemblies - if you deal with assemblies and sub-assemblies (an example
might be a bike with subassemblies for the frame and gears), in the past you've
had to find each assembly, build it, and then you could build the bike. Now you
can do this all in one step - a huge timesaver for many!
Replacing components in assemblies - We've all seen parts change with our cars and appliances,
whether a part is discontinued or you use a different supplier. Now you can
easily replace one part with another! (Actually, that "Where used"
feature can be helpful in many ways.)
Auto Calculate cost field for
assembly - Save time now that you can opt to
have the cost for an assembly automatically be updated.
Simplify your various pricing options
with Intuit's powerful new Advanced Pricing.
I've wanted to see price breaks based on quantity for a long time and now you
can! With Advanced Pricing you can create Quantity Discounts and Price Rules
(which replace the Price Levels) based on multiple criteria. You turn Advanced
Pricing on in the Company Preferences; this is an annual subscription program,
like Advanced Inventory, the Full Service Plan and payroll.
Quantity Discount
With Advanced Pricing turned on, you
can specify price based on quantity purchased and you can have several
discount levels. You access this feature in the New or Edit Item screen. This
is a long-needed feature for wholesalers and retailers. This also applies to
services so if your customers get a price break based on the number of hours or
some other unit, you can do that as well.
Price Rules
There are 2 basic steps:
- Set your conditions - The conditions can apply to Items, Customers, Vendors, Sales Rep. Then based on your selection, you decide if it's a type, specific name or some other criteria. Notice the plus sign so you can have multiple criteria.
- Set your date range, if there are limits. This is great if you have a sale or there are vendor promos.
There's lots of flexibility in the pricing
options - you can even have price overrides and/or exclusions!
Advanced Pricing is $399 per year AND you must have your Full Service Plan
active (amount varies depending on number of licenses).
If job costing or inventory are
important aspects to your business, I would take a hard look at Enterprise this
year. You can start with as little as one license. These new features eliminate
the need for time consuming workarounds.
