See also: Frequently Asked Questions for this module.
The Point-of-Sale system is designed to control all areas of activity within Parts, Service, and Bodyshop environments. It monitors all aspects of Work-in-Progress (WIP) and records all sales transactions for parts and labour.
There is also a full, customer back-order system that controls all orders for parts, all the way through from time of request, to ordering on your supplier, to eventually clearing your customer back-order when the goods are received.
The system enables the printing of various documents such as:
Credit Notes (Goods Returned to Stock or Invoice Reversal to be Recharged)
All the details relating to a Point-of-Sale transaction are stored in various data files, and may be accessed by a unique reference known as a Work-in-Progress number. This is abbreviated throughout this help system, and is referred to as a WIP number.
All transactions made within Point-of-Sale are also stored in transaction log files. These files may be interrogated for reporting purposes at any time, using either the Report Generator or the Ad-Hoc Enquiry facility.
All transactions for Parts and Service, made within the Point-of-Sale system, update the relevant data files immediately. These data files hold a wealth of information to enable you to report on all areas of profitability and efficiency, and monitor all values of Work-in-Progress.
Due to the amount of information stored about each transaction made in the Point-of-Sale system, it is important that you carry out general house-keeping on a regular basis. This is mainly in the area of Customer orders and Service Work-in-Progress. All the major file cleansing is carried out automatically at day end, and this now includes the archiving of transaction files.
The Point-of-Sale system is fully integrated to the other modules of the Autoline system, and the inter-activity between modules enables you to carry out a great number of varied tasks from within the Point-of-Sale system.
The other modules integrated with Point-of-Sale are as follows:
Manufacturer Systems
The Point-of-Sale module is capable of accessing and updating data from any of these modules, and, when transactions take place, information from all these modules is stored in transaction files. This makes the reporting capabilities of the Point-of-Sale module very powerful.
The design and structure of the Point-of-Sale system undertakes many requirements for diverse businesses and franchises and therefore revolves around parameter- and priority settings. The advantages are:
Primarily, it enables you, as a user, to define how the Point-of-Sale system should work within your company.
Secondly, it enables you to have a system that works to your business needs but still uses the same software. This makes it easier to support and upgrade.
The Point-of-Sale system has all the facilities required to improve the efficiency and profitability of your business. However, it is essential that initial planning and training take place prior to installation. Management should also be aware of any changes to procedures or staff functions.
The following preparation should take place prior to live operation:
Gain a general understanding of how the Point-of-Sale system works.
Plan as to how the system best suits your business, identifying new procedures and job functions.
Define system parameters, POS parameters and control settings that personalise the system to your working environment.
Carry out general practice and in-house training on the Test company provided.
Taking these measures at an early stage helps to ensure that the system works for you and not against you.
As mentioned, almost all of the activities within Point-of-Sale are controlled through a consolidated transaction called a Work-in Progress (WIP) record to which a number is allocated. For each WIP, data is entered into the Point-of-Sale form. Before you begin, it is important to understand this form because it is instrumental in handling all types of request from any given customer.
The POINT OF SALE Menu is displayed when you select the Point of sale option from the Autoline Master Menu. From the POINT OF SALE menu, you can set up, and access, the Point-of-Sale system.
Access permissions, called priorities, determine whether a particular menu option is displayed. Each menu option is assigned a priority when the program is installed. Your administrator assigns each user a priority. Any menu option whose priority is higher than your own is omitted from the menu. If you think you need access to a menu option described in this help but it does not appear in the actual menu, check with your administrator.
Point-of-Sale: Enables the Parts and Service Departments to issue parts and/or labour to a job. When you access Point-of-Sale, you are required to enter your Operator ID code.
Daemon monitor: Enables high-priority users to start, or stop, the Parts and Clocking daemons, and monitor their status throughout the day, if required
Print job cards: Enables you to print job cards for vehicles due in on a specific date
Batch invoices/credits: Enables you to produce a batch of invoices or credit notes
Contract pricing: Enables you to create and maintain contract prices
Confirm picking notes: This option is only displayed if the selected company is set up as warehouse in the Depots and Branches file. It is particularly useful in situations where a central warehouse is linked to several Point-of-Sale (POS) companies, and orders are raised for parts on the central warehouse stock. The option enables you to enter the exact quantities of parts picked from the warehouse, automatically decards parts from stock, and produces advice notes all together. When the quantities are confirmed, the system checks to see whether parts were ordered electronically via dealer imports and, if so, produces files from which an advice note file can be populated and exported from the Autoline system ready for transmission to the dealer.
Batch print documents: This option is only displayed if the selected company is set up as warehouse in the Depots and Branches file. It is particularly useful in situations where a central warehouse is linked to several Point-of-Sale (POS) companies, and orders are raised for parts on the central warehouse stock. It enables you to print picking notes or advice notes for selected WIPs, and clear back-orders. Back-orders can be cleared at the same time that picking notes are printed, or you have the option to allocate back-orders only.
Parts delivery control: Displays, or maintains, order record details created automatically within the Parts Delivery Control file SO.pctrl when you produce picking slips from within Point-of-Sale. One document is produced for each bin zone associated with the parts ordered.
Parts sales analysis: Enables you to analyse parts sales by customer and product discount code, compare budgets to actual values, and analyse the top 20 customers and/or products
Receive depot transfer: Enables you to recieve and transfer stock at WIP level.
Customer orders: This option is only displayed if the selected company is set up as warehouse in the Depots and Branches file. The option is related to Inter-System Ordering (ISO), where a central warehouse is linked to several POS companies that place dealer orders on the warehouse. The order may be a direct sales request on the warehouse for parts, or a purchase order that the warehouse submits to the manufacturer on the dealer's behalf. It enables the central warehouse to upload and convert dealer orders, and export advice notes from the system ready for transmission to the dealer.
Seasonal Equipment Manager: Enables the maintenance of customer's seasonal equipment / winter stock, such as tyres, hard top or other items that are stored and linked to either a CRM customer or vehicle or a combination of customer and vehicle.
Reports & enquiries: The facilities of the Report Generator sub-system are common to all Revision 8 Autoline programs. These facilities enable you to create your own reports from any combination of the fields on your records, and formulate enquiries using field and verb references.
Miscellaneous options: Enables you to perform routine maintenance functions. Many of these options will only concern the Systems Supervisor.
System maintenance: Enables you to carry out system management. Many of these options are only available to high-priority users and will only be used by the System Manager or other authorised person with appropriate access priority.
