Quick Reference
From PlantX.net
This Quick Reference will give you a brief overview of all concepts used in PlantX.net. See the individual reference pages to learn more about specific topics.
Contents |
Customers
Like other systems, PlantX.net maintains a list of customers. Add your customers and their pertinent details to the customer list. Explore the numerous settings that tailor each customer account and the way they are handled throughout the system.
See the Customer Reference.
Materials
Material is short for Plant Material. This is a list of the type of plants you sell. Think of material as the botanical and common names of the plants you sell. Plant names form the basis of everything you do in PlantX.net. Material information is kept separate from the cataloged inventory in that the catalog is just adding sizes or other attributes. For more information, see the Material Reference.
Start by entering some plant material in the material library. Take advantage of the PlantX.net library of plant names to accelerate your data entry. If you don't find the botanical/common name amongst the over 7,000 names, choose one that is close and modify it to fit your needs.
Inventory
Maintain your catalog of plants from the inventory view. Use the plant materials entered in your material library and add any number of plant attributes such as height, width and container size to describe the plants you grow and sell. There are five tabs that define over 50 plant attributes you can use to describe plants.
Catalog
With over 50 attributes there are plenty of ways to describe the plants in your catalog. It soon becomes a question of how many do you use? Most find the minimal approach works. At first, only select the bare number of attributes, like sizes or container type to build your catalog. You can always come back later and elaborate on the plants. We recommend that if you intend on participating in PlantX.net membership catalogs that you consider including enough attributes that a buyer can make a distinction between your product and your competitors.
Supplies
Create supplies for each cataloged item to record the amount of inventory on hand. From the Supplies/Orders tab create new supplies and indicate how many plants you have available. While entering supplies it is required to select a crop and a location.
Crops
Crops are created to group supplies into like periods. With PlantX.net you can have any number of crops. Typically, there will be a different crop each year. If you grow annuals or other periodic plants, create a crop for each to group plants within a short period. Some growers will have a different crop for each week or month during the Spring growing period. Another way to think of crops is grouping all of the plants that are ready for sale at the same time.
See Crop Reference for details.
Locations
If it is required that you know there whereabouts of your plant supplies, create named locations to track your plants. If you don't use locations, PlantX.net creates a generic location call "Fields" to record your inventory. Most growers will give names to the various growing fields or greenhouses and use the PlantX.net feature for better inventory control.
See Location Reference for details.
Orders
Orders is short for sales orders and is used to enter customer orders. You should have your materials and inventory ready to begin entering orders. It is also helpful to have the supplies entered and ready for allocations, but it is not required to start entering orders.
Enter the typical billing and shipping details and settings associated with the order as a whole. Pay close attention to the order status option. The order status allows you to promote an order through the stages of processing, from "New" to "Confirmed" to "Shipped" and eventually "Archived" or "Canceled."
Order Item Entry
When it comes time to enter the order line items, use the entry tab for faster data entry. The entry tab gives you the list of all plants in the catalog in a single list. Select the desired plant and press the add button. Enter the quantity, price and discount. Repeat until all plants are added. While entering an order be sure to enter the number of plants they ordered and not the number of plants you can give them, you will do that next.
Order Acknowledgment
Having entered the order, and perhaps not ready to allocate supplies, you may choose to print an order acknowledgment for the customer. The order acknowledgment shows the customer the completed order with the amounts they ordered. Send the acknowledgment to the customer to show them you received their order.
Order Allocation
Allocation is the next step in the order process and is quickly done using the order's allocation tab. Many times with lower stock levels, customers will not get all of the plants they ordered. Use the allocation tab to indicate the number of plants the customer will be receiving. Select the order item, highlight the supply and press the add allocation button to allocate plants from the selected supply. If you have not yet added supplies to the inventory, the allocation tab provides a convenient 'Add Supply' option.
Order Confirmation
Once your allocation is complete, you can now print an order confirmation. Like the order acknowledgment, the confirmation details the number of plants ordered by the customer, but the confirmation also shows the number of plants you allocated the customer. This report reminds the customer how many plants they ordered and tells them how many you are able to commit to selling.
Load Manager
With your order allocations complete, you now organize the order into loads. The order may only require a single load to deliver the entire order, if so there is no need to manage loads. If the order requires partial shipments, use the load manager to group allocated supplies into loads. From the load manager tab select one or more allocations that form a single load and use the change load feature to create the load. Allocations can also be split between two different loads by selecting the allocation and using the "Split Load" option. Each load can be invoiced separately which allows you to create master orders and ship plants on customer demand.
Accounting
Most of the accounting is managed through the customer list. Each customer keeps a list of accounting documents which are invoices, cash receipts, credit memos and debit memos. There are two views, one is the document tab and the other is the ledger view. The document tab lists all documents for an account in reverse date order. The ledger view is more like a statement of account, listing only outstanding invoices and debit memos with unapplied payments and credit memos. New documents can be added from either the document tab or the ledger tab.
Invoices
Most invoices are created directly from orders or loads from orders. If necessary, manual invoices can be created for miscellaneous charges on account. The invoice header has two tabs, the main tab is for basic document details such as date, description and terms. The contact tab is used to set the billing and shipping contact details. The invoice has three detail tabs for transactions, history and reports.
The transactions tab lists the debit and credit transactions that make up the detail of the invoice. The history tab records key events that impact the invoice. The reports tab lists any reports that have been printed for this invoice.
Cash Receipts
Use the add payments button to enter cash received for an account. Enter the date, description, amount and notes and PlantX.net will generate the required debit and credits needed for the cash receipt.
Credit and Debit Memos
Use either the add credit memo or add debit memo buttons to create credit and debit memos respectively. Once the memo document is created, you can add any number of debit or credit transactions to reflect the desire change in account balance. The total debit/credit amount that is placed on the account is automatically created.
Clearing Balances
You can match payment amounts to invoices by using the clear balance function of the ledger tab. Select the invoice and while holding the control key, select the payments that apply to the invoice. If the invoice and payment balance to zero, the clear balance button activates. By pressing the clear button, the invoice and payment will be rolled up into a cleared balance. Cleared balance do not show on the customer's statement since the invoice is paid in full.
If you would like to see what invoices or payments were involved in the cleared balance, double-click the line item to show the balance detail. From the balance detail, you can double-click any of the documents and view or print them as before. Cleared balances can be removed by selecting a cleared balance and selecting the clear balance button.
Balance Forward
Although clearing balances reduces the amount of detail shown on the statement, the list of clear balances can become rather long. Optionally, you can clear cleared balances by selecting several balances and applying the clear balance option. But, it is preferable to use the balance forward option. When you select all documents and clear balances from the beginning of the list to any point in the list, the balance forward button will activate. Unlike clearing balances, the balance does not have to equal zero in order to function. The balance forward option will roll up forward any balance amount. And like the clear balance option, balance forwards can also be inspected with a double-click or highlighted and deleted using the delete balance option.
Trucking
If you use the load manager to define loads, you can use the trucking feature to form trucks and shipping manifests. Use the truck view to create trucks that represent trucks that need to be dispatched. The unassigned loads tab will list all loads that have not been assigned to a truck. Select the unassigned load, select the truck to which it belongs and then use the assign truck feature to place the load on the truck. Once the loads are on the truck, organize the stops to form the route.
Reporting
All reports in PlantX.net print as PDF documents. As PDF documents, the report can be viewed before it is printed. Because the report is a PDF, it can also be e-mailed or saved to disk. Some reports, such as order confirmations or invoices, are actually stored within PlantX.net and can be recalled and printed, saved or e-mailed at any time. Although PlantX.net primarily uses PDF to print reports, currently only a select few reports are stored for later recall, but as we progress, all reports will be recorded.
Since reports or documents can be printed time and time again, it is often left to you to decide which documents should be kept for permanent record. Reports are not kept by default. You must explicitly tell PlantX.net to keep a report by place a check in the 'keep report' option. More important reports, namely order or accounting documents are important to keep, so when they print, a reminder will prompt you to ask if the printed document should be kept.
