Major Flaws and bugs- Reported but not fixed- 4 YEARS running!

[Brent Hauver]

If you are Retail business owner or support person and you use RMS, then
please read and comment on the following in RMS... Regarding Flaws, Bugs,
etc.

Does any one on this forum use work orders to do special orders for
customers? I do- It works great except for ONE VERY MAJOR flaw.

Lets say I have a customer who wants to order something that I do not have
in stock or do not carry in my store, but what I can order in from my
vendor. So I create a Work Order and order for lets say 12 different
special order Items (products) that I do not normally carry in my store.

So the next time I do a purchase order with this certain vendor I order in
12 new special order items based on my work order- Very nice up to this
point- My customer loves this-

The problem occurs when I my vendors back order me on some of the special
order items. Like in this case, lets say that only 6 of the 12 items come
in. So my customer comes in, we go to the work order and do partial pick
up. it allows us to choose the items that came in from the vendor. Now the
logical way to handle this would be to ring up the items that came in, print
out a receipt for them and then delete them off of the work order- this
would leave the work order with 6 items.

But no, RMS holds onto the items that were already ordered, paid for and
delivered and so you start getting this unyieldy receipt that is confusing
for the customer.

And to compound the problem, I have some customers who want to do a running
work order- They will come in and keep adding to the work order. so after
a while as you add new orders on you have a really unwieldy ugly mess.

Now I have talked to the support folks over at MS and they all agree that
this is an ugly way of doing things- they have others complain about it- In
fact for 4 years I have been posting fixes to MS and it seems to be ignored.

Anyone out there use Shipping? It took me 3 years to get them to put a
shipping button in, but I can not use it because I have not been able to get
it to print out on a receipt. So After having my mail order customers
calling and asking why I charged them 6 to 10 bucks un-accounted money over
their total, I went back to creating an Item called shipping and then it
shows up on the receipt (although it screws up my books).

The question is what does it take to get MS to look at real problems and get
them fixed?

Anyone need to import or export data from RMS? Ever wish we had some robust
supported easy to use Vendor Data import utilities- How important is that?
Versus supporting Euro Dollars?????????? How many customers are dealing
with Euro Dollars? How many of us are Begging for an import utility that
can import electronic CSV format data from our vendors so we can update our
database Seamlessly on the fly? You know something that can update all the
fields and records and pricing etc-??

How about Forecasting? Have you ever wanted to know who with a click of a
button what are the average monthly sales for a given product? Heck they
have the data, I do know because I do my own forecasting to set my min/Max-
It would be easy to-do?

How about the ability to export a Purchase order into CSV format (with
selectable fields) so I could electronically send it to my vendors computer
system and make an order?

Hey the list goes on- and I send these into MS and it goes into a black
whole?

When is the last time MS sent a Team of their programmers, support people,
Marketing managers to a Retail store to see what the REAL needs are and what
the trends are?

Any comments would be appreciated? Any problems You are dealing with?
Anyone from MS reading this? If so could you take this to the powers that
be and see if we could get some fixes and updates?

I just paid for the Maintaince program- and I would like to see some value
for my money. I did upload SP2, but the latest Hotfix after that had a bug
and did not work... Anyone have problems with the latest Hotfix not working?
Support is working on it...

 

[root]

Brent,

We use work orders for labor. We use backorders for special orders and
while the process could be more a bit better we have found it beneficial to
have the items that have been picked up still on the final receipt for the
transaction history aspect.

We have been using RMS for over 3 years and there has always been a shipping
button. We have had no problem getting it to print on the receipt. Have
you checked the code in the XML receipt you are using?

I do agree that is has taken a very long time to get things fixed. This
coule be in part due to the transfer of ownership, who knows. I have gotten
tired of calling support over QR's so I just quit. By the time this version
is fully 100%, there will most likely be a 2.0.

Import/Export would be nice, forecasting would be nice. As for the export
to CVS format, I think the XML format is the future, and better, why go
back. It is only a matter of time before it is adopted by all of our
vendors. It can be difficult to wait it out though.

I have no problems at all with installing any hotfixes of SP's.

Don't get me started on the value of the maintenance program..... Word is,
if it hasn't already happened, the same version fixes and SP's will not
require a maintenance program.... Finally.

My most recent headaches are:
1-The export to HTML does not work properly (due to the <extendlastrow>
tag).
2-When you refresh the Vouchers-Detailed report it changes the transaction
number colum to currency.
3-Label Wizard, check matrix item, When you select a matrix item detail for
printing, if you use a label format that contains matrix detail fields they
will not populate.

Nice enhancements for the future:
1- Close OPOS scanner connection when Tender Window is open to prevent
accidental scan.
2- Add serial numbers as a barcode field in the Label Designer
3- Enable MSR when asked to enter voucher serial number on sale and
redemption (voucher Tender Type) for IBM POS Systems
4- Change Taskpad into a "to do list" and make it always visible in a frame
on the left.

 

[Brent Hauver]

Root,

Any idea when 2.0 is going to ship?

When I did my latest hotfix it died with an error saying that the version
was not correct... And when We checked we a the right version...

Any idea when the next mini upgrade will be? Rumors of that..

Good lists- Hey on the work order, it would be nice to be able to have the
option to delete paid for items- As a Small business retail shop, part of
my business plan has to really tighten up my inventory and really stream
line it. At the same time, I want the ability to have slick special order
for my customers of - Items not on my shelf- this has really made me a hero
with my customers- they are impressed that I can special order items in
quickly and efficiently- thus I have a small high moving inventory, with the
ability to get anything. The work order allows us to do this. The problem
is again when I have customers who are constantly getting specialty items-
some of them being back ordered. Thus I get a running work order that gets
really unyielding- It just creates more work which is hard for an
efficiency nut like me.

I use XML with one of my vendors via Order Dog- it is great!!! But
unfiw/Mountain people (largest dist of natural food on the planet) will
accept nothing but CSV. I beg I scream - and like most big monolithic they
ignore me.

Talking about OPOS scanning, The scanning and keying at the POS is primitive
and cludgy. I would like to see more power in that area.

Regarding Labels, I port everything to my Label program and then print it
out with my label printer.

Tell me more about exporting to HTML- what are you exporting? PO's? Do
you download those to scanners for scanning and receiving product?

I do not use vouchers- What do you do with Vouchers?

I would like to start getting a customer card I would scan in and track
their sales and then give them volume discounts etc. Do you know if this is
possible?

Again- being the Inventory fanatic that I am, I need to have my prices
updated at all times. How do you update the fields in the Supplier list
data? New pricing? New order number? Update mass MPQ numbers? How about
doing an update of taxable items? Again a robust inventory update
utility...

I do not use Taskpad...

The biggest headache is keeping my inventory updated with the Vendors
constantly changing database- every day, week, month products get dropped,
added, prices change, order number change, mpq numbers change, etc etc
updates, deletes, modifications- One of my vendors has 50,000 items! How
do you stay up with that? And if you do not what happens? If you costs go
up and your retail stays the same- margins go small and you could be out of
business.

Forcasting - HUGE! It would be easy to do- I do it already using excel, but
it would be nice to just press and button and update individual min/max or
global/vendor min max...

I hope MS is looking at this?

Brent Hauver
www.sagehealthstore.com

 

[root]

Brent,

As for version 2.0, I have no idea. The only literature I have seen said
fall 05, but I would not count on it.(keep in mind that I am a retailer and
not a partner).

I had a similar error with a hotifx, when the hotfix asked for the source CD
I accidentially put in an older RMS CD instead of the version 1.2 cd that
was used for installation. When I put the correct CD in the drive it
worked.

I haven't a clue as to the dates of any upgrades.

I can see your point on the ability to delete paid for items off the
backorder.

Of all the suppliers we work with, nobody accepts CVS or XML. One of our
large suppliers will be accepting XML in 2005, finally! I use the export to
HTML for the PO's and e-mail them in if I am in a hurry. We do plan on
using this for receiving inventory this Spring.

Vouchers are the tender type used for Gift Certificates. We use plastic
Gift Cards with a mag stripe on it and with an IBM POS system the OPOS
connection for the mag stripe card reader is not opened, so we can not swipe
them.

We actually were approached by a MS team to be in our store for a day to see
how we use the system, but my boss refused.

As for the customer cards, that would be possible, I'm pretty sure you would
need a custom add-in to fully implement the volume discount aspect.

I enter and update all aspects of pricing manually. Of all the products our
suppliers manufacture, there is only a fraction of thoes items we actually
care to stock, so it really is not a huge concern to us. I do wish the
existing matrix system was enhanced a little bit to make adding new items to
existing matricies easier though. It seems having an import/export system
is a huge concern to many users.

I do not use takspad either, that is the problem. The currect taskpad is a
waste of time. It can easily be turned into something useful though, like
an actual taskpad. Something with a to do list, unfinished PO's, stuff like
that.

One thing I can say is this system has helped us get a hold of our stores
inventory and that is HUGE. We are ready for more....

 

[Rob]

There is a full page receipt format on the reports library that only shows
new items or picked up items on it. Check it out...

 

[Richard]

Hi Brent,
I completely agree with the need for some mechanism to keep the RMS item db
syncd with vendor dbs. We have ~10,000 items we manage manually and it is a
constant chore as vendors update their pricing.

How about EDC for PO exchange.
We create POs on RMS, print them out, fax them to a vendor who then
re-inputs them.

How about native support for generic merchant processors rather than a
select few like CitiBank & Wells Fargo . Since we use IDC as our merchant
processor we have to use PCCharge as an intermediate interface. This has
added complexity which would be nice to shed.

We use MSRP to develop special pricing and the Pricing Wizard does not
support the MSRP field in its calculations. How can you mark down from MSRP (
a standard retail sale thing to do) for special sales. What were they
thinking. Doing this from SQL seems to be the only apparent way.

I like the idea of turning the Taskpad into something useful. Its current
form is a distraction and is useless after the first week of use.
Customizable by user would be nice. Using it for reminders would be useful.

We use Quickbooks to manage our accounting and working through its
integration with RMS was a non-trivail ordeal. The docs are confusing and
poor. Needing improvement is the posting of closed POs to Q.B. Currently,
this must be done via your closed batches. It needs a separate button for
posting. It currently looks like an afterthought.

I have been working at starting a web store and this fuctionality is one of
the features I purchased RMS for. The marketing info said it was enabled (
whatever that means I now ask myself). Well, the best I can see now, is that
means you get an outside VAR involved to help you sort it out. I feel this
should be a very definable feature and the path to its implementation should
be documented.

Documentation. Does anybody else feel it might be improved?

DBS management tools would be nice too. Using the Administrator and SQL text
queries and commands are archaic. What about a gui interface for the db and
functionality to fully query and modify items as needed.

It seems MS is in variable degrees of contact w/ our Support Partners. It
would be rewarding to have access to MS directly, say through a customer
conference where features, problems, enhancements and the products future is
disussed and presented.

I agree with you, there is a disconnect between what we are doing down here
in the trenches of the retail business and what the developers think we need.
Making product suggestions is definetly like dropping your ides into a black
hole. They need a score card we can all see and vote on the merit of new
features. I suspect they are listening to big money. How did Citibank become
the first merchant processor supported natively otherwise?

Richard