T-JACS 2019 Year in Review
We've had a remarkable year with many enhancements to T-Jacs. An interesting statistic is that 2019 saw 2,020 changed files. There were 67,140 lines of code inserted and 39,454 lines deleted, with a net gain of 27,686 lines of code. We started the year with a hotfix on Release 4.09 and ended it with Release 4.31. We also boosted the overall speed of the application with some system upgrades. Of the many features added, there are a few we'd like to highlight.
Job Orders had a good share of attention this year. For one, we renamed it from Job Scopes, making the purpose a little clearer. We also added the ability to attach Materials, Expenses, and Estimated Labor. A big time saver when filling out timesheets is letting employees add the order description to their time description with the click of a button. Orders and tasks also got some organizational abilities such as duration, progress, and dependencies.
Job Order Styles were created to organize the job order templates to create reusable order structures, including materials, expenses, and estimated labor.
Using job orders, we created a Work Order Report with the ability to add approval signatures. The Job Labor Report was changed to allow grouping by job orders or by cost centers.
The job summary reports now include estimate numbers from the job and from the job order labor estimates.
We added employee attachments for HR documents, as well as a new HR Admin role. Note taking was improved with tracking by date, being able to mark them as confidential, and expiring them.
Filtering is new this year. On many lists, especially job materials and expenses, you can filter by item code and title, by vendor, by job order, and by invoice.
A low stock report was created so that you are notified via My Actions when inventory levels drop below your specified threshold for each bin.
Implementing preferred rates started with defining rate styles. With this change, customers can be classified according to the rates you need to charge them for materials, expenses, and labor. Labor hour types were enhanced to allow customization. Instead of just regular, overtime, and double time, you can add things like hazzard pay. From there, we implemented custom markups for each style and expanded the markup to calculate based on percentages or fixed amounts. Essentially, each item in the catalog has a separate customer rate for each margin style.
Expense and material catalogs gained an import and export ability using the CSV format.
Searching vendor purchase orders using packing slip, invoice, or PO numbers was added to the global search feature.
While not technically done in 2019, we'll sneak in the bulk add feature as an accomplishment this year. The bulk add form allows quicker entry of job materials and expenses, while simultaneously reconciling from inventory.
Our primary goal for early 2020 is the ability to produce simple invoices. Progress towards this goal has been advanced through work done on the job order subsystem and changes allowing custom chargeout rates. Other goals include improvements to inventory reports and adding global job order scheduling. We are always looking for your input on how the software has met your needs and what needs are still outstanding.
On behalf of Total Job Asset Control Services Ltd, we thank you for your continued support. We’ve made great progress this year and we are confident that 2020 will be even better.
