How to Simplify Fleet Management process using ERP System

fleet management

Fleet managers face many critical issues; the major challenges are vehicles/Fleets, Cost and Contract Management.

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In this article Here, we will discuss these challenges and how to overcome them using ERP Software

In an ERP system, there is a module called Fleet Management which helps to manage fleets and transportation departments effectively. With the help of this module you can easily track vehicle+ contracts, their fuels intake, servicing history, odometer tracking etc.

Some of the benefits offered by Fleet Management Module in ERP are as below:

Vehicle Management:

This Feature allows you to register the vehicles/fleets into the system such as vehicle Registration number, Supplier information, Contract Type, Driver associated with the vehicle and other information. It contains almost all the car manufacturing details at one place. You can easily edit, remove and process in a  single click.

fLEET_MANAGEMENT

Cost Management:

Cost management becomes easy with this feature.  It allows you to calculate and track the actual cost incurred on a particular vehicle. It also helps you to track services that were consumed by the vehicle, overall fuel consumption and odometer tracking.

fleet_cost_management

As Shown in above image: each vehicle is tracked with its exact date and kilometer reading.

For each and every trip that fleet covers, you can make an entry in ERP System, about how much fuel has been consumed and what is total kilometer covered. This way you can easy maintain the records and make better decision about controlling and managing fuel consumption

Contract Management:

This feature is helpful in managing the contracts of the vehicles which are been hired. Some of the key benefits of this feature are:

  1. Type of contracts can be defined e.g. Leased or Owned.
  2. Duration of the contract i.e. period from starting date to end date
  3. Frequency of the contract e.g. Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly.

Overall the Fleet Management Module helps you to

  • Improve record keeping,
  • Improve Employee Efficiency,
  • Reducing Fuel Consumption,
  • Tracks your vehicle location at a given time Manages vehicle’s Lifecycle

If you are looking for an ERP system for Fleet Management Services, you can simply email us on sales@bistasolutions.com or contact us on USA :  +1 (858) 401 2332  / Other Regions : +91 89760 98984

Manage Your Project Effectively: Introducing Reporting Dashboards

In a professional company, there are many projects that need to be managed. It’s a project manager responsibility to understand how each project is performing. In today’s busy scenario it’s important for the project manager to get detailed status reports pertaining to all aspects of the project without investing too much time.

A project manager needs to view the status of his work such as check how many projects has been assigned to him, how much work has been completed and is pending etc. The challenge is to have all this information handy and available at a fingertip.

From this purpose, grew the concept of Dashboard, a simple graphical representation of diverse data which can provide on underlying facts and information. Just as a car’s dashboard gives all relevant and up-to-date information, such as speedometer about the speed of the vehicle, water temperate gauges the amount of gas in the tank and temperature of the engine.

Bista has developed Customized Dashboards which helped customer with easy and amazing reporting structure of Project Management.

The dashboard definitely provides decision makers with the input necessary to drive the business.

We came up with idea of creating the dashboards showing the necessary details pictorially & in the form of tables. The resulting dashboard that shows all the things are:

screen

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The Number of projects & tasks for the user are shown the table as:

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Also the lists of tasks assigned to a user are shown as:

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Showing the current week’s hours of a user categorized as billable hours, non-billable hours & process improvement hours would look good graphically. A pie chart shows all the worked hours. Hovering over the chart show the hours in numbers.

Clicking on the ‘Bar Graph’ shows the bar graph for the hours.
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Clicking on the ‘Line Chart’ shows the Line chart for the hours

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Clicking on ‘Export Data’ will export the details into an excel file:

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Thus it helps organization’s key performance indicators to enable instantaneous & informed decisions to be made at a glance.

If you are looking for similar feature, simply email us on sales@bistasolutions.com
For Any Urgent Sales Enquiry Please Contact: US –  +1 (858) 401 2332 / Other Regions- +91 89760 98984

How To Create multiple websites with single administration panel in magento

Magneto

Can you imagine making multiple websites with single administration panel?
Yes, it is possible.

Magento provides the flexibility to setup and manage multiple e-commerce websites from a common administration panel, so that administrators can easily generate reports, get payments and do shipping configurations of their web shops using single administration panel.

Let us first  understand how to create two  websites in magento.

  1. Login to your administration panel and move to “Manage Stores” menu present inside System >configuration.
  2. There is already a default website called as the main website.
  3. Enter the below fields – Description of each field is given. Below are the fields required to enter and description of each field.
    1. Name * (Mandatory): This is the name of the Website which will display across the orders to all customers.
    2. Code * (Mandatory): This is a unique code of the website which is used to uniquely identify the website. It should be unique for each of the websites.
    3. Sort Order (Non -Mandatory): Defines the order in which these websites will be listed.
    4. Default Store: Every website displays content related to a web store. This field is a drop down which lists all the web stores created. Hence we need to create a web store to assign it to our website. Process to create a web store is listed below.

Now, Let’s see the process of creating Web Store:

  1. Inside Manage Store, there is a button to create a store which starts the process to create a store.
  2. Enter the below fields, description of each is mentioned.
    1. Website * (Mandatory): Select the website you want to associate the store to.
    2. Name *: Provide a name for the store.
    3. Root Category *: List of Root categories created in Catalog->Manage Categories.

So now we have 2 different websites. We can add more store views to each of the websites.

If you are looking for Magento development and customization or Magento Integration with ERP, you can email us on sales@bistasolutions.com

How Loyalty Program Runs in Odoo POS Module.

What is Loyalty Program:

A loyalty program offered by company to customers who frequently make purchases.
After Customer get registered their personal information with the company and they are given a unique identifier, such as a numerical ID or membership card, and use that identifier when making a purchase.

Going forward in this article we will see how to handle Loyalty Program by offering Rewards Card in Odoo.

We have integrated Rewards Program and Store Credit Concept in the POS Module.

Following section describes that.

Rewards Program:

Rewards Points Rules:
Each Company has some rules for Earned and Redeemed Points calculation. Following screenshot shows how to configure those rules in the system

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From the above screenshot following is the significance of each field configuration:

Points : how much points you will get for each purchase based on the monetary value and  purchase total.

Monetary Value : Minimum POS order total amount to earn the specified points.

Threshold Points : Minimum Points which allows the customer to redeem it in the next purchases.

Threshold Monetary Value : Amount you can pay for purchases using rewards points.

Reward Journal :  Accounting Journal Configuration which will track all the transactions paid by Rewards.

We are storing all the information about whether customer is eligible for the rewards program or not, earned and redeemed points in the customer profile which look as follows:

Earned and Redeemed points are getting calculated during POS Transactions only if “Activate My Rewards” Configuration in the customer profile is checked.

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 Following screenshot shows how customer can redeemed their earned points during POS transactions.

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While doing payment processing for POS transactions above window will be visible which shows Total Points as Total Earned Points, Points Balance as Subtraction of Earned and Redeemed points and Points Value as how much amount they can pay by using reward points based on the rules configured in the system.

Store Credit Concept:

Store credit comes into picture when customer asks for the returning of product i.e for refunding of amount that time company may denies to give them money in the Cash or to deposit money in the Credit Card, but they can store that amount so that customer can use that same amount during the next purchases.

Store Credit Configuration:

Following screenshot shows the configuration of the Store Credit:

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Store Credit Journal :  Accounting Journal Configuration which will track all the transactions paid  by Store Credit.

We are storing all the information about Store credit amount stored and used in the Customer Profile which looks as follows:

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Following screenshot shows how the customer can use stored store credit amount during purchases:

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Are you looking for similar customization? To know more send your inquiry on sales@bistasolutions.com

Contact Sales Team :

USA:  +1 (858) 401 2332 / Other Regions – +91 89760 98984

5 Benefits of Warehouse Management Systems for Businesses

Inventory Management in NetSuite

A warehouse management system (WMS) is a software application that supports the day-to-day operations in a warehouse. WMS programs enable centralized management of tasks such as tracking inventory levels and stock locations. It is the core module offered in ERP Solutions.

Let us discuss some common challenges in warehousing and how we can overcome them using our ERP Software.

  1. Maintain Inventory Accuracy:

Inventory is one of the most important assets of an organization. Inaccuracy occurs when recorded inventory does not match physical inventory. Without an automated system, companies often don’t know what they have in stock, causing inaccuracies. Inadequate visibility can lead to excess/obsolete inventory build-up or unexpected shortages.

How ERP Software will help you to maintain accurate inventory:

ERP enables you with automated WMS which helps you to generate accurate stock report and to check which stock is limited. You can compare it with what’s been selling well and get it restocked in time. It this way you can have a great inventory management system.

  1. Easily Locate Inventory:

If you do not know where your inventory is located, you may put your company at risk. Lack of inventory oversight can lead to numerous inefficiencies within the warehouse, which may potentially slow down your operations and increase cost. For example, if pickers do not know the location of the products, they will take more time to locate the products, resulting in a slow loading process and delayed shipment.

How will ERP Software help you to Track products?

ERP Software employs barcode technology under warehouse module. When a barcode scanner reads the barcode of the particular product the information is directly sent to the central computer system for tracking.
For example, a purchase order may contain a list of products to be picked for packing and shipping. The ERP Software serves a variety of functions in this case.

• It can help a worker locate the products on the order list in the warehouse,
• It can encode shipping information like tracking numbers and delivery addresses
• It can remove these purchased products from the inventory tally to keep an accurate count of in-stock products.

  1. Eliminate Redundant Processes:

Redundant warehouse processes are detrimental to the success of your warehouse. Redundant processes are not only a waste of time, but they are also damaging to your employee’s productivity. Reevaluate your current warehouse processes and streamline workflows to boost productivity rates and optimize efficiency.

How will ERP Software help to do this?

The warehouse module of ERP Software helps you to eliminate any redundant or unnecessary processes, and train your warehouse workers on any new processes or proceed

  1. Make Picking Processes More Efficient:

Every minute that is spent on finding each inventoried product can add up over the day, therefore having a major impact on operating costs. When inventory location is not organized and easily available, pickers will take longer to find items that need to be shipped. This can ultimately lead to a backup in labour.

How will ERP Software simplify picking process?

The warehouse module in ERP Software helps you to smoothly manage picking process. It helps you to find out the relevant products easily and improve your delivery services as well as the employee’s working efficiency.

  1. Better Space utilization:

Your warehouse layout matters. If you are not fully optimizing your storage systems, pallets and rack patterns, you are inviting in wasted space and warehouse inefficiencies. Inefficient warehouse layouts also cause unnecessary labour and affect productivity rates. For example, if you store high-selling inventory in the back of your warehouse, your employees will waste time driving back and forth to retrieve items. It would be more beneficial to move high-selling inventory to the front of your warehouse for quick and easy picking.

How will ERP Software help you to utilize space?

Warehouse module under ERP Software helps to improve space utilization in the warehouse. The system tells an operator where to put an item and attempts to maximize the utilization of each slot by selecting a storage location that best fits the product.

For any enquiry about ERP Solutions, contact us on sales@bistasolutions.com

 

 

Odoo Implementation for Health Care eCommerce Company

Case study

Client Profile

“Tools for Healing” a US based company, provides information to health seekers about various healing tools and techniques. They also sell medical, healthcare products on their E-commerce website.

What were the challenges Tools for Healing was facing?

Tools for Healing managed their ecommerce operations with  Solution (It allows you to create your own ecommerce store) but they were facing challenges in terms of manual product entry into the system which was time consuming, duplication of entries, delay in order shipment and warehouse management.

Why did they approach Bista Solutions?

To avoid above challenges, Tools for Healing approached Bista solutions.
Bista Solutions helped Tools for Healing with Magento website development and integrated it with Odoo. Bista Solutions has also helped them with entire customization of Odoo catering  to their business needs.

• Automated entry of order into the Odoo system
• Processed orders from warehouse management to dispatch
• Send projects to the Quality Control
• Payment getaway integration ( authroize.net ) and Strong Accounting
• Shipping integration with Odoo Implementation
• Notifying the customer about the shipment

What was the Impact on Business after Project Implementation?

The customization, Integration and development by Bista Solutions empowered “Tools for healing” to manage the eCommerce operations very smoothly and efficiently

What Tools for Healing talking about Bista Solutions?

“AWESOME JOB EVERYONE!!!!

Everything is in place, we’ve already got a couple orders, and the order flow has worked like a charm, front to back, for online orders. At this point there is no reason to think we’ll have issues with phone orders.
Can’t really ask for anything more than that. And thanks for your non-stop help with everything else as well. We’ve enjoyed working with Bista Solutions, and have been awesome.
Said by Jonathan Bouldin, the Director, Tools for Healing”

Can Bista do it for you?
Off course, Bista Solutions provides wide range of Business Applications to the leading enterprise companies. For any enquiries or any assistance, Click here or email us on sales@bistasolutions.com

How to print Label in Odoo Open Source ERP using Thermal Printer.

For Manufacturing Industry, it becomes important to generate serial numbers for manufactured goods and products.

After Manufacturing finish products, to begin with the delivery process we need to apply labels/serial numbers for each product.

Now, let us understand how we can print serial/labels in Odoo using thermal printer.

Initially, we need to connect Odoo server with printer server so that we can easily send the formatted data into Thermal printer.

Process Begins

1- After generating Labels for Finished Products, Click on Print Label which will redirect to an open wizard

When you click on ‘Print label’it will redirect to an open wizard which will ask to select thermal printer as shown below.

The Order list

Below is the syntax which you need to create for socket connection with the printer.

s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)

then we need to connect with printer.Syntax is-

s.connect((printername, RAW_PORT))

Label printing

Once the printer is connected you can send request for label print.

3-In the 3rd Step theOdoo will send printing request to connected printer for labels printing. (If printer is connected to server then it will print all labels as requested)

socket.send(print output)

“Printout” is formatted data that will accept by thermal printer.

Each printer has own formatted data so make sure you are send correct data to printer.
Thermal printer

For more information regarding this module, kindly contact us at sales@bistasolutions.com

How to Implement FIFO in Odoo OpenERP

Odoo OpenERP Inventory management module is especially designed for managing industrial products. Today let us understand how to manage Inventories in FMCG and Pharma Industry where we have an Expiry Date on each and every product.

In Odoo we can easily track the Inventories based on its expiry date using Odoo OpenERP Out-of-the-box module as FIFO.

This module indicates that whatever comes in first goes out first.

Let us see the Step by Step process of FIFO Module:

1. Firstly we need to make sure that whatever products we are receiving at the same time with same expiry date needs to be kept at one box or one place called as LOT. For this whenever we receive an Incoming Shipment the system assigns a particular Lot Name for each product received with their quantity. Doing this we have list of all the lots and their order in which they have arrived.

Inventory-Management-Software

Fig 1 : shows how a lot is assigned to a particular Incoming Shipment

2. Now the major step, though we have lots in sequence but we need to make sure that while creating Sale Order we are selecting the lot which has arrived first. If we miss this than we will not be able to achieve the complete FIFO rules and products may go out of Expiry.

For this reason OpenERP has a function called as Default Lot Selection where the lots while creating Sale Order will be automatically selected as per FIFO. Truly speaking this is a cumbersome task for user to select the right lot but now the system will be doing this for us.

Odoo-Inventory-Management

Fig 2 : shows that as we add a product in sale order and enter the quantity the system by default selects a Lot as per the FIFO.

The best part of this module is that we can also override the FIFO so if we want to select any other lot here we can simply delete this and select another one.

For implementing Odoo inventory management you can simply contact us on sales@bistasolutions.com

An Error Occurred While Handling json requests python

You might face this issue while exporting records from Odoo in a CSV.

ERROR: An error occurred while handling a json request
TypeError(‘Expected bytes’)

Don’t Panic. Here is a simple solution.

Solution:

You might be facing this because of the werkzeug version (0.9.4) which is not that stable and might cause the above problem.

To overcome this try downgrading the version to (0.8.3), you can use the following command pip install werkzeug==0.8.3.

OR

Else download the file from:

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Werkzeug/0.8.3 and install it.

Thank you!

For more assistance or for an Odoo consultation, message us using our enquiry form.

Bista Solutions becomes partner with Jaspersoft

Bista-partner with jaspersoft

Bista Solutions Inc. has partnered with Jaspersoft, a leading BI solution to provide BI, Reporting Dashboards, Data warehousing, Ireport, Talend (ETL), R analytics, Mondrian OLAP analysis and other modules.

Bista Solutions has expertise and have delivered BI solutions for various verticals such as retail, eCommerce, HealthCare, Telecom and Manufacturing.

Mr. Pradip Kulkarni, Chairman of Bista Solutions said, Jaspersoft tie-up is very great achievement for Bista solutions. Our technical domain expertise and Jaspersoft Platform together will help enterprise companies to get better insights in their business.

About Bista Solutions,

Bista Solutions is the first ISO 9001 and HIPPA Compliant certified Partner of Jaspersoft, We are also Gold Partners for Odoo (Open source ERP) in USA and silver partner for Canada and India region. We also provide Cloud ERP, Business Process management, Big data, and other industry specific Business Solutions

About Jaspersoft,

Jaspersoft is a leading Open source Business intelligence solutions, with more than 8 million downloads worldwide and more than 10,000 commercial customers in 96 countries.Organizations want timely, well-informed decision-making, in operational settings and in the corner office—no matter what their mix of platforms, applications, or infrastructure environments. Jaspersoft’s modular, scalable, standards-based solution architecture provides the flexibility needed to easily deploy in any environment. Jaspersoft offers Business Intelligence Tools that can span your enterprise.