Price Sticker problems

[rjmeyer]

Hi Ronald,

I have v14.054 in the network version.

I'm not sure if it's this version, or is happening because I've changed some prices, but the stickers have often been coming out with the old prices instead.

I've noticed that if I go into a product change the price, and print the sticker - it will virtually always be the old price.  Usually, if I exit the product (and save that price, I guess), I can print a sticker with the correct price when I go back into that product.

But I just also had the circumstance where I changed the retail price, exited the product, went back into the product and printed a price sticker - and they still printed the old retail price.  (finally, when I exited and re-entered a second time, they printed correctly).

This has also happened with a PO this week.  For the products on this PO, I have the fields for "Markup %" filled in, with the expectation that the retail price will change with the cost changing.  On this PO, some of the costs were higher than they had been, and I thought it would flow through that Markup % and change the retail prices.  It did not.  So we had to go through all the items to determine which ones were supposed to have different prices and which ones not.

I never had this problem in previous versions, but, then again, I didn't use the "Markup %" in previous versions (and never tried to change retail price by changing the cost in the PO).

I have learned to check the price stickers more closely, but I don't think it's quite the way it's supposed to work. 

[ronaldrwl]

Importing a product list or using a PO will not automatically change the price.  Nothing will automatically change the price.  That seems to dangerous.  We did just add a new option which will recalculate the price using the cost and markup%.  This works in the Product Control window.  Send support an email and we'll send you an update (~14.105).

Products are saved to a file but are also buffered in RAM for speed.  I haven't experienced a problem like this.  The product file status is tested for updates and reloaded as needed.  I think just opening the Product Control window forces a reload.  Is this a problem you can reproduce all the time?  I wonder if you exit the Product Control and re-enter if the prices are updated?

[rjmeyer]

I can understand how an automatic price change from a new cost in a PO could take someone by surprise, and even be undesirable.  But it seemed that the function of "Markup %" was to do exactly that - which is part of why I was reluctant to start using it.  In fact, I still don't use it for many products for that reason - the price changes with the Cost or %, but cannot be manually over-ridden.  So it seems strange to be able to change one of those factors somewhere and NOT have the price change.

Even though such a price change is not automatic when receiving a PO, though, they WILL change later if you happen to go into one of those Product files for something else.  I go into the Product files fairly frequently to tweek settings like vendors, order levels, etc., and having the price change while my focus is on something else seems potentially worse than having it happen when receiving a PO.

I use a PO for entering virtually everything to inventory now, since it provides such a clear record and makes it incredibly easy to generate stickers for items.  Something I find myself often wishing for while creating a PO is the ability to EDIT an existing product - for a number of reasons, but primarily to adjust price as I see the cost changing.  Since I can see the current cost when I'm choosing the product, it seems that it would be ideal to edit the product from within the PO (e.g., the price) - or even toggle back and forth between the PO and the Product file.  Such changes could be addressed right then rather than have to make a note of it to change later.  Admittedly, I have no idea how deep the programming would have to go to address it, but I think it would be extremely helpful (so, 1,001 requests for this year! )

As far as the price stickers matching the price - no, I can't reproduce it all the time.  I have made sure to close out the Product file, then go back in.  I'll try closing the Product Control window as well.

Thanks for the help, Ronald!

[ronaldrwl]

The cost will be updated from the PO.  Create a new PO and make any needed cost changes.  When the PO is received the cost will be updated.  Now you can get the update which will allow you to update the Prices that have a Markup%.

[rjmeyer]

Though I haven't done the update yet, I thought I'd mention something I just figured out that's pertinent to my above statement.

Apparently I CAN do a product edit from inside the PO!  Rather than left-clicking to add the item to the PO, I can right-click - and the "edit product" window comes up! 

It looks like I'm able to change the price in the product file right there, and see that the retail price is changed.  Then, once the PO is saved and I move on to receive the PO, the newly updated prices come through just fine on the stickers.

There just keeps being great little surprises all over in this program!