QuickBooks Online Integration and Improved ERP Accounting Systems for Food Processing
We are so excited to announce that Icicle users can activate QuickBooks Online integration, enabling dozens of small and medium sized businesses to maximize their accounting systems with the power of Icicle ERP ’s data. In addition to this major feature release, we have a number of other tools that will make sales and accounting folks happy, as well as general improvements to the Transform interface, Purchasing Suggestions, Production Runs, and more.
QuickBooks Online Integration
When was it released? June 9 2022
What does it do? Every time you receive or dispose of a raw material, or sell and ship a finished product, those activities are financial transactions that your accounting department needs to track. Small and medium sized businesses often use QuickBooks Online as their accounting system, but until now there was no way to connect the data from Icicle to QuickBooks Online.
Our latest exciting feature, which is offered as an add-on to Icicle, is a fully customized API integration that will automatically push transactions to QuickBooks Online whenever they are generated in Icicle. Since QuickBooks Online does not support item-level inventory tracking through their API integrations, we have solved this problem by building the integration at the highest level: Icicle summarizes more granular information into journal entries to manage the changes in inventory value and help the accounting team get the job done easily.
Where did the idea come from? A long-term internal project by the Icicle development team!
Bills and Invoices (with Quickbooks Online Integration)
When was it released? June 9 2022
What does it do? When it came to Purchasing and Sales, previously Icicle only generated purchase and sales orders. With this new feature release, you can now create a bill or invoice based on a purchase order or sales order and add information like taxes and freight, delivering a more comprehensive picture of costs. You can also define taxes and group them together if more than one is applicable.
Bills and invoices are connected with QuickBooks Online integration as well, so you can create or update a bill or invoice directly in Icicle and our system will automatically create a corresponding bill or invoice through QuickBooks online integration. Happily, this feature can also be adapted to integrate with any accounting software.
Where did the idea come from? Another internal idea from our development team!
Sales Order Profitability
When was it released? May 9 2022
What does it do? Icicle users can now see costing information directly from the Sales Order interface, so sales team members can easily access information on costs and margins specific to the company’s relevant production history, capturing more contextual data on deals. That means that sales staff will have accurate data about costs during sales negotiations, extending the usefulness of your data to all departments of the organization.
Where did the idea come from? Thank you to Sunny from Plant Veda for this feature request!
Revamped Label Generator Interface
When was it released? May 28 2022
What does it do? Sometimes an Icicle user requests a feature upgrade that helps us see the whole thing from a different angle (we love these kinds of requests). Icicle’s Transform interface allows you to take any grouping of raw materials and output any precursor or finished product that you want, but you couldn’t previously create a label for that product in Icicle. This feature request prompted us to revisit the Transform interface to make it work seamlessly with Icicle’s Label Generator interface, which could easily fill this gap.
Now, when you click the Transform button in Icicle, you will see a new link that will take the user directly to the Label Generator, where everything will be pre-configured for that transform operation, and generate a scannable barcode for transformed items.
Where did the idea come from? A big thank you to Stephanie from TMRW Foods for pointing out this gap to the Icicle team!
Inherited Packaging from Parent Product
When was it released? June 28 2022
What does it do? Say you have a set of closely related products, like popsicles. They usually have common ingredients and are generally uniform in production (frozen water and sugar on a stick). What is usually different is the flavoring and packaging, but in the end you load them onto a pallet, wrap with shrink wrap, and ship them out. Using Icicle’s advanced Product Inheritance feature, you can add specific varieties to a parent product (generic popsicle product), copying all the standardized information and eliminating redundancies in record keeping and data entry. Previously, you could only do this for ingredients and materials – this new feature extends the ability to packaging as well.
Where did the idea come from? Thanks to Sunny from Plant Veda for prompting us to complete the scope of product inheritances!
One-Click Purchase Order Creation from Purchasing Suggestions
When was it released? June 28 2022
What does it do? Icicle’s popular Purchasing Suggestions feature draws information from sales orders and production planning to suggest what raw materials you should order to meet your targets, and when you should order them. Now you can automatically generate purchase orders with one click directly from the Purchasing Suggestion report (instead of having to navigate to the Purchase Order interface and make it from scratch). Just use Purchasing Suggestions based on suppliers defined in the item’s detail record (which is based on previous data). The result is a Purchase Order customized to your company account, including up-to-date sales orders data, inventory thresholds, and so on.
What happens if you’ve already placed an order for raw materials, but you’re not sure if it’s enough to meet your production targets? We’ve also modified Purchasing Suggestions to show users how much you have of a given item, how much is on order, and if you need more – at a glance. We’ve also added a drilldown ability, so you can see which production runs or sales orders are driving the need for any set of inventory (including the names of specific customers).
Where did the idea come from? Another thank you to Icicle superstar user, Sunny from Plant Veda!
Inventory Review in Sales Order Creation
When was it released? June 15 2022
What does it do? Icicle’s existing Sales Order interface already displayed the stock you have on hand, but sometimes you might have two or more customers requesting the same product. How do you tell how much is available for sale? Icicle now considers inventory that has already been allocated to another customer, preventing you from over-selling product and helping you improve customer relationships without having to navigate from one interface to another.
Where did the idea come from? A big thanks to Sophia from Anita’s Organic Mill for this great idea!
Enhanced Production Run Allocation
When was it released? July 4 2022
What does it do? Icicle’s Inventory interface displays how much inventory you have in stock and how much is allocated for sales orders, but what about dual use products (that is, products that are used as a raw material and/or sold directly to customers without changes)? The system now considers any product allocated to a production run when displaying the allocated inventory amount. In other words, if you have 100 jugs of milk in stock and 50 have already been allocated to customers, but you need 10 of those jugs for re-processing, the system will accurately display that only 40 additional jugs of milk are available for use or purchase.
Where did the idea come from? Another great idea from Sophia from Anita’s Organic Mill, thanks Sophia!
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