Before this feature was added, Control only allowed for a user to sell a specific product which could be made up of any combination of parts. Control allowed for the user to sell individual parts such as materials (rolls of vinyl, sheets of coroplast, etc.) to their clients without having a product that pulls in those parts.

If you are a business that carries a few thousand parts that you wish to sell to your customer base then you have three main options:

1. Utilize a single product with a parts grid that allows you to manually add each material one by one. This has the downside of using the same income account for all parts selected on a single line item.

2. Create a single product and part for each item you sell in your catalog. This allows you to define a unique income account for every part that you sell however does add thousands of products making it difficult to find your desired product.

3. Create a series of products organized by type and by income account. Utilize a selection list that links to specific part categories so that you can select the part the customer requested. This has the benefit of allowing less products, more specific income recognition; however, does present a challenge with searching for parts since search only supports products.

For this specific business case, the Control user chose #3 above and needs the ability to have their estimators take orders directly over the phone and find items quickly to speed order entry. A typical phone order follows this path:

Yes, thank you for calling… how can I help you today?

Yes, I would like to order (3) of SKU Z45U-B, (5) 18 x 24” Coro 10mm blanks, (1) box of ½” brass grommets.

In this simple example the estimator needs to be able to locate the product that contains each of the parts requested by the customer. In the first request, the estimator would need the ability to search by SKU, in the second by Part Name, and in the third by Part Description.

The Control user will have the ability to click a “Search by Part” button during line item entry for Orders, Estimates, and Service Tickets. Upon clicking the “Search by Part” button a popup window will appear allowing the Control user to perform a wildcard search by Part Name, Part Description, or Part SKU.

A list of parts will display in a drop-down list displaying the Name and SKU. A user may then click on the part they want or arrow down to select it. Once selected, the mouse immediately focuses on a Quantity field which defaults to 1. Upon clicking Add or pressing Enter a line item is added to the order in the background and your mouse focus is returned to the search box so they user may add another part.

In the background when the line item is added, Control will auto-select the part by name based on the Resell Variable set on the part the Control user selected. This will allow the part to consume based on the consumption formulas and other settings specified on the product and/or part.

If there is no resell product or variable specified on the part then the system's default Resell product will be used and the part will be added to the parts grid of that line item. The addition of any other parts for the same order will add the part to the parts grid of the same line item.

Sample Use Case

If you're interested in using this feature, you'll need to enable it first.

  1. Click Setup > System Setup > Parts
  2. Edit the Parts options
  3. Select one of the bottom 3 options under the Resell Parts section.
  4. When you select the “Resell all parts” or the “Resell only material parts” options, you'll be able to specify a Default Resell Product.
    1. Select the Custom Fabricated Sign product for now. You can always come back and change this later.

  1. Step 1
  2. Step 2

Contributor: Cyrious Software

Date: 09/01/2016

Version: Control 5.5

You could leave a comment if you were logged in.