TRACS Enterprise Release 2.0

 

We are pleased to announce the release of TRACS Enterprise version 2.0. Below is a list of the new features and enhancements since the release of 1.7.2. 

 

New Features
 

Epicor Catalog

o    Overview

·         Industry catalog also formally known as the Activant Catalog

·         Contains both Mitchell Estimating Labor and Industry Catalog part lookups in one place

·         Allows for the creation of non-vehicle specific Parts and Labor canned jobs with the new TRACS PROJob Item type
 

o    Mitchell Labor Lookup

·         Search by Labor Categories and Groups, or by Labor Description

·         Results are the same a ProDemand so it allows you to get your parts and labor at the same time

·         Easily transferred back to a Work Order
 

o    Industry Catalog Part Lookup

·         Search by Category and Group or by Part Description

·         All Vendors marked "Show in Epicor Catalog" are looked up at once.

·         Your pricing and part store availability is check in real-time to the actual part stores

·         Part search results are sortable by Part Description (default) or by Part Manufacturer

·         Part search results are filtered to only show available parts by default, but unchecking “Only Show Available” will show all 

·         Part search results shows your local TRACS inventory matches first

 

o    Allows you to update prices or transmit a Purchase Orders to any Vendor compatible with the AConneX or Epicor Parts Network gateways

·         This means you no longer have to manually call in, fax, or email Purchase Orders, just press the Transmit button on a PO

·         You can accurately update your Work Order cost and list by pressing Purchase, Update on a Work Order



PROTire

o    Allows you to find and quote out-the-door prices of tires package in quantities 1-6
 

o    Tire searches are a Tire specific QBE

·   Search by Tire Size, Part Number, Description, Manufacturer, or Vendor

·   Searches will match any combination of the search fields like the Item QBE

o    The Tire results grid has advanced abilities

·   Groupable by dragging a column header to the group line above.

§  Multiple columns can be grouped at the same time

§  You can delete any grouping field by clicking its "x" icon

·   Filterable

§  Click on the icon that looks like a filter or funnel to see the options available to filter by

·         There are easy to select filtering options

·         There are advanced conditions and combinations can be created

·         Press Clear to return to unfiltered

·   Sortable by column
 

o    Shows the location, Qty Available, Qty On Hand, Qty On Order, Work In Progress, and Tire price
 

o    On the far right of the results grid we have the Package Price of the tires for quantities 1 - 6

·   Packages

§  Note: We recommend that all Tires are constructed as a package with sub-items

§  Each tire could have an installation Labor and the Labor could have additional sub-item parts like valve stems

§  Each tire could have a disposal fee charge added

·   The Pkg Price is the total out-the-door price!

§  Each item has been run through the indicated pricing profile at the top of the results grid

§  Each item has been taxed according to the Tax Class at the top of the results grid.

§  When placed solely on a Work Order, the indicated Pkg Price will be the total of the Work Order Invoice
 

o    Enables on the fly customization of package price quotes (multiple pricing levels)

·   Create multiple pricing profiles to achieve different Tire pricing levels

§  Note: We now allow a pricing profile rule to based off of Cost or List, plus or minus a dollar amount, in addition to plus or minus a percentage amount

·   Select the pricing profile for the pricing level you need and all the package prices will change to reflect the new package price

·   Select the appropriate Tax Class for the customer being quoted to give the actual out the door price

·   When Tires are transferred to the Work Order, the selected Pricing Profile and Tax Class will also be transferred to the Work Order

 

New Job Item Type

o    Overview

·         The Job item type behaves differently than other types

§  The Job item does nothing on its own except show the sum prices of all its sub-items

§  The Job's price will be the sum of all its Sub-Items

§  Jobs show a total of its sub-item types on a line below the Job on the Work Order

·         If set to be a fixed price Job, then the prices of the sub-items are adjusted to make them total to the fixed price

§  If the fixed Job price is lower than the actual costs, the Labors are prices are lowered

§  If the fixed Job price is higher than the actual costs, the Part are raised.

Normal Jobs

o    A collection of normal TRACS Sub-Items

·         Their main purpose is to print differently than a Labor or Part with sub-items

§  Shows the total job as a line item with a price

§  Shows the sub-items indented underneath it with option to not show sub-item prices

PROJob

o    Available in conjunction with the Epicor Catalog and allows the creation of very powerful non-vehicle specific canned Jobs

o    How to setup

·         Create a new Job

·         Search for Epicor part and labor descriptions to be run when the Job is added to the Work Order

·         You can add more descriptions and create a bigger Job than you need because you can select or deselect descriptions when applying to a Work Order

o    PROJobs are saved Epicor Catalog lookups by description

·         When applying to a Work Order, you select the descriptions you want to search on

·         You will be stepped through each description search

·         You can add normal Sub-Items to PROJobs as well, just like a normal Job



Print Shop Logo on Work Order

o    Found in the Shop Info setting, then the Logo tab

o    Supports images of the following types; jpg, jepg, png, bmp, gif, tif, tiff, and ico

o    Allows the setting of the width of the logo image on the Work Order print out to get the best fit and look



Quick Quote

o    Quick Quote allows you to easily go through “what if” scenarios with the customer

·         Shows all Sub-Estimates for the Vehicle

§  Expand the Sub-Estimates to see their items

·         Shows all Recommended Services for the Vehicle

§  This means that you no longer need to create a Recommended Service note reminder for Sub-Estimates

o    Allows the selection of any combination of Sub-Estimates or Recommended Services

o    Allows the items to be marked as performed when used so they won’t show in future Quick Quotes for the vehicle



Work Order Item Price Reconcile

o    The WO Cost Reconcile window will notify you when someone, anywhere in the shop, receives a Work Order's PO and the received Cost and List have changed

·         If the Work Order is currently open somewhere the reconcile pop-up will open on that workstation

·         If the Work Order is not open, the reconcile pop-up will open the next time the Work Order is opened

·         If you cancel the reconcile window, you can open it again by pressing the PO Reconcile button on the WO rail

o    Using the Reconcile pop-up window

·         When the Cost and or List changes on a Received PO, the Cost and List on the Work Order will update.

§  You are not given an option to choose this it just happens since we have to accurately reflect what the parts cost.

·         You choose whether to allow the WO line items price to change

§  This can be done on a line item by line item basis or allowing or disallowing all by choose the Select All option at the bottom



Work Order Profitability Charts

o    Found under the Work Order Worksheet, Profitability Tab

o    We now allow you to set a total Work Order GP% target as well as GP% targets for each Item type. Found in Work Order settings

o    A graph for an Item type will only show if that Item type is on the Work Order, of course Jobs and Notes will not appear


Manager’s Dashboard

o    Currently access through the Activities, Mangers Dashboard menu

o    Time Bar

·         Allows the quick selection of any date range

§  Change size of horizontal (bottom) scrollbar to adjust time scale from days, weeks, months, and years

§  Drag your mouse across the top to quickly select a date range

·         Center graph shows you where the requested data is located through time

 

o    The dashboard allows access to information important to shop managers with reports available in four different tabs

·         Uninvoiced Work Orders

§  Shows you all the Work Orders that where Uninvoiced in the selected time period

§  You can expand each Work Order to see each time it has been Uninvoiced

·         You can see who approved the uninvoicing, the reason, when it was Uninvoiced, and how the Work Order totals changed

·         Voided Work Orders

§  Shows you all the list of the Work Orders that where Voided in the selected time period

§  You can see the Original and Void Work Order numbers and dates, the Service Writer, Workstation and reason for the void

·         Overridden Work Orders

§  Shows you all the Work Orders that had any item cost, list, or prices overridden as well as the employee that overrode the prices

§  By expanding the Work Order, you can see each item that was changed and what was changed

·         Cancelled Work Order

§  Shows you all of the Work Orders that where canceled in the selected time period

§  For each Canceled Work Order you can see who the Service Writer was that worked with the Estimate

§  Estimates that have expired and Canceled by the system will show the Workstation as “Canceled as Expired by the TDS”

·         Authorized Log Entries

§  Shows you all times that an employee has performed an action that we note or requires a mangers permission

·         Each row shows you the Employee who authorizes the action, what action was taken, when it was perform, and details of what was done

·         Examples are, unlocking a document lock, Change All (Customers, Vehicles, Items), Un-Invoice,  Change Owner, Change Vehicle, etc.

§  The report can be filtered by Action and/or by Employee


Full Email System

o    Accessed through the Activities, Email menu

o    Email Templates

·         Ability to create many templates and assign one as the default

·         Choose other templates at time of e-mail

·         Templates allow the insertion of just about any of the objects data into the e-mail itself

·         The Template Type selects which fields are available to insert into the email text

o    Except for Work Order emails, all other e-mailings are put in the TRACS Email Outbox

·         You gather all your e-mails for review and verification of who you are sending them too

·         One ready to send, you press the send button to send them all at once.

·         All E-mails successfully sent are moved to the Send folder for record keeping

·         You have a record of the e-mails you've sent in the Sent Box for record keeping and review

·         Work Orders are sent instantly and go directly the Sent Box

o    Email can attach document as PDF attachment

o    Email can convert document to in-line HTML!

·         The emailed document, like the Work Order, looks exactly like the original printable document

·         View in the user e-mail app, no need for Adobe Reader or other PDF viewer

o    Email ability is one most document windows and reports



New 2.0 Reports

o    New Enterprise Reports section

·         Multi-location reports that run for all shops and have an enterprise total/summary at the end

·         New Reports

§  Sales by Location by Shop Summary Report

§  Sales Analysis by Shop Summary Report

§  Sales by Tax Class by Shop Report

§  Sales Register Summary by Shop Report

o    Accounts Receivable Reports

·         Customer Transaction Summary Report

o    Item & Inventory Report

·         Top Item Sales Report

·         Stocked Item Report

o    New List Reports section

·         Ad Source List Report

·         Service Code List Report

·         Pricing Profile List Report

·         Vendor List Report

·         Pricing Matrix List Report

·         Employee List Report

o    Purchasing Reports

·         Open PO List

·         New PO List

·         Inventory On Order

·         WIP Locator Report

·         Vendor Received PO List

o    Sales Reports

·         Daily Sales Detail Reports

§  Run any of the 6 new reports at once for the date range selected

§  New Reports (similar to Back Office Daily Reports)

·         Daily Summary Report

·         Sales Detail Report

·         Payments Detail Report

·         Purchase Order Detail Report

·         Other Charge Detail Report

·         Adjustment Details Report

·         Sales by Customer Zip Code Report

o    New Work Order Reports section

·         Warranty / Comeback Report

·         Completed Work Order Report

·         Open Repair Order Report

·         Open Estimate Report



Customer Find Export

o    Exports found Customers into CSV format

·         First Name, Last Name, Company Name

·         Home Address 1, Home Address 2

·         City, State, Zip

·         Primary Phone

·         Primary Email

o    Will ask to open Excel if found on system



TRACS Workstation/Client Installer

o    Once installed in 2.0, future TRACS Client updates will automatically be performed, even by Window Standard Users

o    No longer requires Admin permissions to update the TRACS Clients

 

 

Enhancements
 

Uninvoice remembers original Invoice date when re-Invoicing

o    When re-invoicing a prompt will ask you if you want the original Invoice Date or today

o    This will overcome a the issue with Un-invoicing where if the problem that prompted un-invoicing was not discovered on the same day, the invoice date would be changed when re-invoiced, possibly causing issues in external accounting packages


New Work Order List

o    Allows List or Tile views!

·         The List view is currently the default and shows the grid same as the old version

·         The new Tile view shows everything at once, removing the need to scroll to the right to see all the columns

§  Still sortable by column headers

o    Allows searching by additional columns

·         Invoice Date

§  Can be used to show only Invoices for a certain day

§  This will allow you to open those Work Orders and return back to the same Work Order List

·         Date Created

·         Tech Name

·         Fleet Number

o    Replaces the vertical scroll bar with Up and Down arrows to allow moving one page at a time



New Document Locking

o    Currently only works for Work Orders (which are the most common locked document)

o    Notifies you if the desired document is in use on another workstation

·         It tells you which employee and which workstation the document is located

·         It asks you if you want to save and close the remote document and open it on your workstation

o    Shows you all the TRACS Clients currently connected to the TDS!

o    Currently can still just delete a lock if necessary



Backup Enhancements

o    Setting up is found in the new Enterprise setting

o    Allows multiple backup paths to be set at the same time

·         Backups will be sent to each backup path at the time indicated

o    We recommend that at least one of the paths be a cloud drive like Window 10's built in One Drive or Google Drive

o    Backups are now verified before each backup

·         Notification is sent to all workstations if there is a database check issue

o    Backups are now compressed into Zip format to take up much less space

o    The number of backups is now controlled and will not fill up the backup drive

·         Set the number of backups you would like to keep; the default is 7

·         Once the number to keep is reached, the oldest will be deleted and a new one written in its place

o    Any errors or message will show on all clients.

o    New Backup Log Window

·         Allows you to see a record of all backups and backup attempts for all backup paths

·         Shows both backup successes and failures

§  Backup failures will show the recorded reason for the failure

·         Accessible through the File | Backup | View Backup Log menu



Payment Window Improvements

o    Payment prompts for correctness before saving

·         This hopefully allows user to ensure they have picked the correct payment type before performing the action

o    Records employee taking payment and shows on AR History


Locations are now used

o    Both Item and Vehicle Locations are recorded and used in other areas

o    Item location is used in PROTire


Settings

o    Pricing Profile Rules

·         You can now create a Pricing Profile Rule that will add or subtract a fixed dollar amount from the item Cost or List

o    New Security Permissions

·         Control whether Employees are allowed to access the Work Order Details Tab

·         Control whether Employees are allowed to change the Work Order Tax Class

o    New State List

·         Allows editing or adding your own entries in the State drop-down lists



Made Purchase Orders editable in Open status

o    Transmitting no longer makes them uneditable

Approvals show details of reason for changes and what was changed between approvals


Item History will let you double click and open the historical WO
 

 

Have questions or need assistance?

Contact TRACS Support – 800-742-3578