What’s New in Acumatica ERP 6.1

Acumatica ERP 6.1 includes all of the enhancements and fixes released in Acumatica 6.0 in addition to enhancements in workflow, security and analytics.  Below are some of the most recent highlights.  To see the full listing of enhancements, download the release notes from the Acumatica Portal. The most impressive addition is the Microsoft Power BI integration enhancements (listed last). For customers on the long term release cycle, Acumatica ERP 6.1 represents the next step in their upgrade path from Acumatica ERP 5.3.

Features Included but Not in Release Notes

• Dashboard Drill Down on all objects including Charts
• Universal Search on the Mobile Client
• Smart Capture for the Mobile Client
• Improved Responsiveness for Long Running Processes

Release Notes Features

Approval of Expense Receipts

Acumatica ERP now provides the functionality that you can use to set up the process of approving expense receipts submitted by employees in addition to the existing approvals for Expense Claims. Once approved, expense receipts can be claimed if approval is required for the receipts based on the conditions specified in the approval map. Rejected receipts can be put on hold for a user to adjust and re-submit them.

The following new statuses of expense receipts have been introduced in the scope of this feature:

• On Hold: The receipt is new and has not been submitted for approval yet.
• Open: The receipt is ready to be claimed after it has been approved (if approval is required for the receipt) or after it has been submitted for further processing (if approval is not required).
• Pending Approval: The receipt is pending approval.
• Rejected: The receipt has been rejected.

Enhanced Recognition of Pending VAT

The Recognition of Pending VAT feature is specifically geared towards countries where there are legal requirements that VAT should be recognized, accrued, and included in the tax report only when payment is received for the taxed goods or services. To satisfy these requirements, in Acumatica ERP, the “On Payment” VAT recognition method has been implemented. With this method, a user can recognize tax amounts on the date of payment application. Also, Acumatica ERP now provides users with the ability to recognize tax amounts fully or partially, depending on whether the payment completely or partially covers the amount of the document. If a document is paid partially, the amount of tax is recognized proportionally to the amount paid.

The new VAT Recognition Method box has been added to the Tax Agency Settings tab of the Vendors (AP303000) form. In this box, a user can specify the “On Payments” recognition method to be used for the selected tax agency. Users can reconcile the list of documents having unrecognized VAT amounts with the balances of the Pending Tax Payable and Pending Tax Claimable accounts in the General Ledger module by using the new VAT Pending Recognition (TX631000) report.

Changing the Customer in a Sales Order

To extend the ways you work with sales orders and simplify the creation of sales orders by using template orders, we have implemented the ability to change the customer ID in an existing sales order. You can change the customer ID even if the lines were already populated on the Document Details tab of the Sales Orders (SO301000) form for the existing order. Now you can start to create a sales order by copying and pasting another sales order, which you use as a template, and then changing the customer ID specified in the sales order to another one.

With the new feature, a user can create an order with a temporary customer ID (one that does not correspond to a real customer), allocate goods in inventory for the order, and then change the temporary customer ID to the real one once the prospect is ready to buy. Also, a user can create a quote, copy the quote to an order, and then change the customer ID in the copied order to the needed one.

Deriving the Shipper from the Warehouse

If your company is configured as one branch that uses multiple warehouses without multi-branch support, you may want the shipper address from the particular warehouse to be used in documents. Previously, the shipper address of the branch was always used. To support these requirements, on the Carriers (CS207700) form, the SHIPPER FROM parameter has been added for the UPS and FEDEX carriers.

The parameter has the following values:

• Company Branch (default; corresponds to the system behavior of previous Acumatica ERP versions): The system uses the shipper contact information of the branch.
• Warehouse: The system uses the shipper contact information of the warehouse.

Partial Receipt of Two-Step Transfers

Acumatica ERP now provides the ability to receive partial quantity of stock items in transfers. It is now possible to create partial receipts of stock items that have already been shipped from the source warehouse but have not yet received at the destination warehouse. You can create partial transfer receipts for the inventory transfers on the Receipts (IN301000) form, and partial receipts for transfer orders on the Purchase Receipts (PO302000) form. The Receipt Qty. column on the Document Details tab of the Purchase Receipts form and the Quantity column on the Transaction Details tab of the Receipts (IN301000) form are now editable, so that you can correct the quantity for the lines for which the items are received partially.

The informational columns Received Qty. and In-Transit Qty. have been added to the Transaction Details tab of the Transfers (IN304000) form and to the Document Details tab of the Shipments (SO302000) form for shipments of the Transfer type. The Received Qty. column shows the total quantity specified in the receipts that are linked to the current document line. The In-Transit Qty. column shows the quantity of items that are in-transit.

Enhanced Access Rights Management

The management of access rights has been enhanced in Acumatica ERP 6.1. The list of users can be managed more easily during user type configuration, and setup of access rights inheritance between system objects and their children is more convenient with new system functions. For more information about access rights in Acumatica ERP.

The following enhancements have been introduced in Acumatica ERP 6.1:

• The Apply to Users button has been added to the Allowed Roles tab of the User Types (EP202500) form, as shown in the following screenshot. When you click this button, the system applies the default roles to all users of the selected user type.
• The Users tab has been added to the User Types form, as shown in the following screenshot. This tab displays the list of users that are assigned to the selected user type.
• The Applies to Children check box has been added to the Access Rights by Role (SM201025) and Access Rights by Screen (SM201020) forms; see the following screenshot, which displays the Access Rights by Screen form. On the Access Rights by Screen form, this check box indicates (if selected) that the access rights level for the role specified to the selected system object is the same for all nested objects (children) within the object. On the Access Rights by Screen form, this check box indicates (if selected) that the access rights level to the system object specified for the selected role is the same for all nested objects (children) within the object.
• Tooltips have been added for nodes on the Access Rights by Role, Access Rights by Screen, and Access Rights by User (SM201055) forms that may contain the following information:
  • For a suite or module: The page ID
  • For a form: The form ID and the name of the business logic controller (as shown in the following screenshot)
  • For all other nodes (for example, form elements): No information (that is, no tooltip is displayed)

EULA Acceptance Process

In Acumatica ERP 6.1, customers who use a pre-configured system or a system as a service must read and accept the end-user license agreement (EULA). The first user who signs in to Acumatica ERP or an Acumatica Framework application after installation has to accept the end-user license agreement (EULA) while changing the default password. (Previously, Acumatica ERP and Acumatica Framework displayed the EULA and suggested that the user accept it only during installation of the product and during license application. That is, only the person who installed the product and applied the license had to accept the terms of the EULA).

Power BI Integration Enhancements

In Acumatica ERP 6.1, it is possible to build a Microsoft Power BI tile in a dashboard and embed a Power BI report on a separate page. With this integration, users of Acumatica ERP will have at hand the information that they need for their work. For more information, see Managing Integration with External Applications.

In Acumatica ERP, the following types of integration with Power BI are supported:

• Power BI: This type is intended for reports created in Power BI. These reports are kept in a user’s personal workspace. Acumatica ERP works with these reports on behalf of this user and uses the OAuth 2.0 protocol for integration. For this integration type, access tokens should be refreshed periodically.
• Power BI Embedded: With this type, the Microsoft Power BI Embedded tool is used for the integration of Power BI reports. Either of these types can be used for adding Power BI reports in Acumatica ERP.