Sales Types in Build 301 onwards

Background

RentalDesk NX (Build 301) introduces a new way of handling Sales Types in the Stock Trail. Until the release of this build, RentalDesk NX maintained two entries ('Sales To Date' & 'Purchases To Date' in the Stock Trail for each Sales Type. Each time a sales line on an equipment list or subhire was added or edited (e.g. Qty change or items returned), RentalDesk NX would update either of these two entries by increasing or decreasing the running total accordingly and the Stocklevel for the Sales Type was updated to reflect the sum of all entries in the audit trail.

Whilst fine in principle, this approach did not help users understand just how the figures in the 'Sales To Date' & 'Purchases To Date' were reached, and should there be any discrepancy between what stock RentalDesk NX said is available and what  stock users believed should be available, there was no easy way to check the data to discover how any discrepancy could occur.

Another potential area of confusion for users is that RentalDesk NX subtracts sales stock from the official Stocklevel figure immediately that a Sales Type is added to a Provisional or Confirmed equipment list, even if though that equipment list will in most cases be starting some time in the future. Whilst this a sound strategy to prevent the double-selling of stock, it has the effect that the official Stocklevel in RentalDesk NX will very rarely match the actual stocklevels in the Warehouse right now.

What does the Build 301 upgrade do?

1. Data massage.
   
   i) First, all entries in the Stock Trail that refer to 'Sales To Date' & 'Purchases To Date' are deleted.
   
   ii) Then the entire sales history data is processed and entries are created in the stock trail for each type so that each stock movement can now be reviewed. A link to the originating equipment/subhire list is also added to the Stock Trail data so that the Eq Reference is visible in the Stock Trail form. These new Stock Trail entries are marked as 'Sales (Build 301 Upgrade)' or 'Purchases (Build 301 Upgrade)' to indicate how they originated.
   
   iii) Totals are then calculated to give the correct stocklevels. If a difference is encountered between the newly calculated and the old stock level figure an entry is made in the Stock Trail to compensate for the difference - this will be shown as 'Build 301 Upgrade offset'. In all probability there will be no or few such entries after the upgrade, but if there are any then they will indicate potential problems with the automated sales stock management caused by a couple of bugs that have now been fixed.

   If you want to check which equipment Types have Stock Trail entries shown as 'Build 301 Upgrade offset' then carry out the following steps (this is not mandatory):

   a) Download the RentalDesk NX SQL Engine and extract it to a suitable place on a machine with RentalDesk installed.
   b)  Run the RentalDesk NX SQL Engine, paste the following code into the main memo box and click RUN QUERY:
   	select T.DescriptionA, A.Quantity from audit A Inner Join Types T on T.idx = A.xType where A.Rectype = 6 order by T.DescriptionA

   This will display all the Sales Types with a discrepancy issue and you can examine each one in turn to decide whether or not you wish to delete* the 'Build 301 Upgrade Offset' entry (thus changing the Stocklevel) or leave things as they are. However, before taking any decision you may want to consider the next point.
   
   * - only entries marked 'Build 301 Upgrade Offset' can now be deleted from the Stock Trail. This is to prevent users accidently removing automatically managed entries.

2. Data Display
   
   In the Equipment Book, Sales Types now have two Stocklevel entries: 'Stocklevel (Allocated)' & 'Stocklevel (Warehouse)'.
   
   'Stocklevel (Allocated)' represents the same data that used to be represented the 'Stocklevel' field, i.e. the figure that RentalDesk NX says is currently available for allocating to Equipment Lists. In other words this is the net figure based upon ALL the deductions that RentalDesk NX makes when Sales Types are booked/adjusted/dispatched/returned to Equipment Lists.
   
   'Stocklevel (Warehouse)' is the 'Stocklevel (Allocated)' figure plus all the Sales Stock booked out on future equipment lists and in theory, this should be the amount of stock on your Warehouse shelves. This is calculated figure and is not available as a data field to be simply displayed on reports; however, it is possible to make a report calculate the figure for you (not a trivial task!)

The Lifecycle of Automated Stock Trail Entries for Sales Types

Action	Effect	Stock Trail Qty value
New Sales Type on an Equipment List (not Subhire)	If the Status of the list is greater than Quote then a new entry in Stock Trail created, linked to the Equipment List line. Stocklevels recalculated.	-(Qty Booked - Qty Back)
Promote Eqlist from Quote	A new entry in Stock Trail created, linked to the Equipment List line. Stocklevels recalculated.	-(Qty Booked - Qty Back)
Delete Sales Type from an Eqlist (where permitted)	Matching Stock Trail entry is also deleted. Stocklevels recalculated.	none
Demote Eqlist to Quote	Matching Stock Trail entry is deleted. Stocklevels recalculated.	none
Adjust Quantity Booked on Eqlist	Matching Stock Trail entry is edited. Stocklevels recalculated.	-(Qty Booked - Qty Back)
Dispatch Sales Types (Eqlist)	Matching Stock Trail entry is edited. Stocklevels recalculated.	-(Qty Booked - Qty Back)
Return Sales Types(Eqlist)	Matching Stock Trail entry is edited. Stocklevels recalculated.	-(Qty Booked - Qty Back)
Receive Sales Types (Subhire)	Matching Stock Trail entry is edited. Stocklevels recalculated.	+(Qty In - Qty Returned)
Send Back Sales Types (Subhire)	Matching Stock Trail entry is edited. Stocklevels recalculated.	+(Qty In - Qty Returned)
Managed Losses in Eqlist	A new entry in Stock Trail created, linked to the Equipment List line. Stocklevels recalculated.	-(Qty Out - Qty Back)

Advanced Option for RentalDesk NX Administrators

In the Configuration Book, Equipment Settings, Stock Trail, there is now an option "Rebuild Sales Audit Trail (Advanced)". Selecting this will effectively re-do everything the the upgrade to build 301 does. In theory it should never be necessary to use this facility, but the Sales Audit Trail become misaligned in any way, due to a bug in RentalDesk or due to user error, running this process will completely clean up the Sales Stock Trail and rebuild it based upon the actual sales stock movements in equipments lists.