Overview
Accounting Seed is pleased to announce the Hibiscus Fall 2019 release. This article presents a summary of the new features and enhancements available in the Hibiscus release. Click here to download the comprehensive Hibiscus Release Notes, which includes steps for Configuration changes, where necessary.
Please test all new features and enhancements in your sandbox environment. Follow the links below to learn more about each update. For more information on best practices with testing sandboxes, refer to Sandboxes: Staging Environments for Customizing and Testing and Considerations for Creating Sandboxes with Accounting Seed Data.
Schedule
Our Hibiscus release has been deployed to all sandbox environments based upon the Release Schedule. To benefit from Hibiscus in your production environment sooner, please contact Support by creating a case in our Customer Support Community to request the installation link.
New Features
Field Service Lightning Integration
Create Billing from Work Order
Users will be able to create and post Billings directly from the standard Work Order in Salesforce. This integration will carry over applicable information from the Work Order and Work Order Lines to the actual Billing and Billing Lines, respectively.
Create Sales Order from Work Order
Users will be able to create Sales Orders directly from standard Work Order in Salesforce. This integration will carry over applicable information from the Work Order and Work Order Lines to the Sales Order and Sales Order Lines, respectively.
Orders and Inventory (Average Cost)
Accounting Seed has implemented a weighted-average cost methodology for all new implementations of its Orders & Inventory module, replacing the standard unit cost methodology supported in our earlier releases. The Weighted-Average Cost system is automatically enabled for fresh installs of the Hibiscus release. For more details about the new Weighted-Average Cost methodology, refer to: Inventory Valuation - Weighted-Average Cost.
Purchase Prices (Weighted-Average Cost system only)
Purchase Price is only enabled for Weighted-Average Cost users. A default Purchase Price can be set up to be vendor specific or non-vendor specific. Once a default Purchase Price is set up, the Purchase Order Line Unit Price defaults to this price based upon the selected vendor.
Allocate and Build Manufactured Products (Weighted-Average Cost system only)
Build and Allocate Manufacture Products is a new feature in the Lightning Experience, which is designed to allocate and build manufactured products for Weighted-Average Cost users. The new build process will not enforce a limit to the quantity of products built. In addition, the new build process provides the ability for users to build manufactured products where the underlying child product parts can also be manufactured products (multi-level Bill of Materials).
Enhancements
Orders and Inventory Enhancements (existing Standard Unit Cost users)
The Product Costing checkbox on Accounting Settings has been removed. All existing users with Orders and Inventory will automatically have the read only field Inventory Valuation Method set to Standard Cost (same functionality as when Product Costing was enabled). Conversely, users without Orders and Inventory installed will have no costing transactions; equivalent functionality of Product Costing being unchecked.
The label name for Inventory Balance has been changed to “Inventory Quantity Available.”
A ‘Purchase Order Status’ field has been added to the Create Payable from Purchase Order screen so that users can set the status of their Purchase Orders, as per their business process.
Purchase Order Required Fields
The Purchase Order Type and Status fields are now required fields.
Purchase Order System Business Rules
- As a safeguard, the Ledger and Unit Cost can no longer be changed on a Purchase Order Inventory Movement. To make changes, delete the Purchase Order Inventory Movement, then Receive with the corrected information.
- The ability to Receive a Purchase Order with a negative unit cost is no longer an available option.
The field label name on Purchase Order Unit Cost has been changed to Unit Price.
Purchase Order Multi-Currency supported
Purchase Orders have been implemented for Multi-Currency users. For Multi-Currency users the Initial Receive Date, Currency Conversion Rate and Ledger Amount fields have been added to the Purchase Order header. The Currency Conversion Rate is determined by the Initial Receive Date on the Purchase Order. A Payable created from the Purchase Order inherits this Currency Conversion Rate. For multi-currency users, the Purchase Order must first be received in order to use the Create Payable from Purchase Order process.
Prior to the upgrade, existing users of our Orders & Inventory Management package who have also enabled Multi-Currency will need to verify the following:
- You have no partially received Purchase Orders
- You have no partially received Purchase Orders with a Payable created
- You have no fully received Purchase Orders without a Payable created.
A ‘Sales Order Status’ field has been added to the Create Billing from Sales Order screen so that users can set the status of their Sales Orders, as per their business process.
- The Status field on the Sales Order is now a required field.
- If Project is entered on the Sales Order Line, then the Project Task is now a required field.
- The Build limit of 100 on a Manufacturing Order for non-serialized products has been removed. The Build limit of 100 remains in place for serialized products.
- A Manufactured product can have up to 25 parts.
As a safeguard, when Inventory Movements are deleted, they are now automatically emptied from the Recycle Bin. This prevents the ability to un-delete them.
Additional Enhancements
Customer Statements PDF Format Assignment
The PDF Format field has been added to both the Outstanding and the Activity Statements tabs. This will default to the same PDF value on the Customer Account, and if not populated there, the value will be inherited from the user's active ledger.
Customer Statements Multi-Currency Supported
The Currency pick list has been added to both the Outstanding and the Activity Statements. The value defaults to the Account Currency value on the Customer Account. If not populated on the Account, it will be inherited from the user's active ledger.
Customer Statements Formatting
- Negative number and amount formatting has been added to PDF formats to show them in parentheses.
- Cash Receipt adjustments applied are now shown on the Activity Statement and tagged with the Type 'adjustment.'
- Column headers on the Activity Statement have been renamed from:
- ‘Activity’ to ‘Type’;
- ‘Balance’ to ‘Running Balance’;
- ‘Billed Amount’ & ‘Paid Amount’ Columns combined and renamed ‘Amount’;
- ‘Balance’ at the bottom of the table and in the header renamed to ‘Statement Total.’
GL Account Current Balance
The new GL Account Current Balance component is a Lightning web component that shows the balance on a Balance Sheet or Profit & Loss GL Account as of the current accounting period. Cash Flow Categories are not supported. For our multi-currency users, this will show the balance in the active Ledger's currency. The new component also takes into account amounts from archived periods.
Note: This component can only be used in Lightning mode.
Safeguards have been put in place to prevent incorrect posting to GL Accounts on Accounting Settings from the Billing Line, Recurring Billing Line, Payable Line and Recurring Payable Line. Exceptions are Billing Line and Recurring Billing Line can post to the Default Revenue GL Account set in Accounting Settings and Payable Line can post to the Vouchers Payable GL Account set in Accounting Settings.
Void Cash Disbursements
When voiding a Cash Disbursement, the AP Disbursement record created when the Payable was paid (and Cash Disbursement created) is deleted.
Cash Disbursement and Cash Receipt Product
The Product field has now been added to the Cash Disbursement and Cash Receipt so users can tag a product, if necessary. When added, the product value will be shown on the Cash Disbursement’s or Cash Receipt’s transactions posted to the General Ledger, respectively.
Time Cards Enabled for Lightning Experience
Time Cards have now been implemented for Lightning Experience. However, due to a known Salesforce bug we were unable to deploy upgrades made with Lightning Web Components to these features in our Hibiscus Release. All existing functionality continues to be supported in the Classic UI. However, users will need to make some configuration changes in order to continue using these features in the legacy Time Card Classic UI. In order to do so, please follow the steps below. If you are using Time Cards and are using the Lightning UI, please refer to our Set Up Time Cards in Salesforce Lightning article. If you are using Time Cards and are using the Classic UI, please refer to our Set Up Time Cards in Salesforce Classic article.
The Billable and Overtime checkboxes and the Time Card Variables on the Time Card Line object are now controlled by permissions.
Expense Reports Enabled for Lightning Experience
Expense Reports have now been implemented for Lightning Experience. However, due to a known Salesforce bug, we were unable to deploy upgrades made with Lightning Web Components to these features in our Hibiscus Release. All existing functionality continues to be supported in the Classic UI. Users will need to make some configuration changes in order to continue using these features in the legacy Expense Report Classic UI. If you are using Expense Reports and are using the Lightning UI, please refer to our Set Up Expense Reports in Salesforce Lightning article. If you are using Expense Reports and are using the Classic UI, please refer to our Set Up Expense Reports in Salesforce Classic article.
Expense Report Multi-Currency Supported
Expense Reports have been implemented for Multi-Currency users. Billings and Payables created will inherit the Currency from the created Expense report.
- Billings and Payables are aggregated on the Currency dimension.
- The Currency Conversion Rate on the Billing or Payable created from an Expense Report is driven by the date on the intermediate Create Billing or Create Payable screen.
Expense Report Line Permissions
The Billable and Employee Reimburse checkboxes on the Expense Report Line are now controlled by permissions.
Opportunity Closed/Won Requirement Removed
A user should now be able to create a Billing, Recurring Billing or Sales Order at any Opportunity stage; the Closed/Won requirement has been removed.
Software Corrections
Time Cards
The Time Card Line comment hover has been corrected and now functions as expected.
Opportunities
References to the Total Price field on the Opportunity have been removed from our queries. Users should no longer experience errors related to access for this field.
Financial Reports
Balance Sheet report - An issue with the Total rows not rendering correctly when Balance Sheet GL Accounts had their Sub type 2 value set to None has been addressed.
Recurring Payables
Payee Reference on Recurring Account Payable has been reverted to the earlier format and the unique ID has been removed.