The switches tab has many controls covering several areas of functionality. The page is grouped into sections based on the area of functionality, listed below.
The settings below are the defaults that are set when a new company is created. Some switches are only available to Professional or Enterprise systems. An asterisk (*) indicates a feature only available to Professional and Enterprise systems.
Switches:
PoPi: This drop-down sets the default view for purchase costs on the financial (dashboard) tab of jobs and phases. Total actual cost, total actual purchase cost and actual GP will all be affected by this setting. There are three choices - PO cost, PO/PI cost, PI cost. PO cost adds up the PO cost from all purchase orders. PO/PI cost uses PO cost, unless a PO is final supplier invoiced, at which point the total of PIs allocated to the PO is used. PI cost ignores PO cost and only adds up supplier invoices (part and final). You can cycle through these three options on a job or phase to see the differences by selecting from the drop-down at the very bottom of the financial (dashboard) tab.
Phases use job field: These five options determine if the job level information is used on all phases for the job for contact, handler, order number, status and project. If you wish to set a separate status on each phase of a job, for example, you would untick Header status only. Note that header project only is available to Foundation and Enterprise systems only (*)
(*) Hide projects / hide campaigns: Projects and campaigns are used to group jobs together for organisational purposes, and for quoting, invoicing and reporting.
Display time fields: This allows setting and display of start / due time as well as date for jobs and phase, and stages if they are used.
Quoting:
The first control, quote levels allowed, is a drop down that lets you choose where quotes can be created. The default is phase only, which means that quotes cannot be created at job level. Quotes can be viewed and amended at job level, and this setting ensures that the job quoted value is always equal to the sum of associated phase quotes.
Job only quoting may occasionally be useful if you are certain that you will never require a phase breakdown of a quote on any job - if this is not always true you should leave the setting at phase only.
Hide % discount. By default this option is ticked and the value shown on a quote line is the discounted amount, unticking this option shows the full price and discount amount in line on the quote page, along with the discounted amount.
(*) Quote options: This feature allows you to mark quote lines as optional. Once enabled a quote line can be marked as standard, optional or picked. Special layouts are required to support this feature, you can read more about it in the quote options article.
Allow quote fee: Ticking this option reveals a new field that allows you to enter default wording to use for any additional fee that you wish to add to your quotes as a % of the total quote. Once ticked you will see a quote fee field that allows you to enter a % value. A line for this amount will be created when you type in the % value, against the default wording entered here.
Purchasing:
Estimate must be locked before POs raised: Estimate locking is an optional feature that allows an authorised person to set their initials against an estimate, preventing unauthorised users from amending the estimate. This feature additionally prevents a purchase estimate from being converted to a real PO unless the associated job phase estimate is marked as locked by an authorised user.
PO approval: You can choose to require no approval (off), approval of purchase orders only, or approval of both purchase orders and requisitions. This allows you to set users to be approvers, and to assign approval value levels. For more information on PO approval please refer to the article here.
Bypass approval for direct expenses: As description, switching this on removes the need for approval of direct expenses. Note that the ability to create direct expenses is controlled on a user by user basis.
PO cost limits per user: A simpler approach to PO approval that allows you to set a value limit on users that prevents them creating a real purchase order for more than that value. Purchase estimates of any value can be created, but can only be converted to real POs if they have a value below the user's cost limit.
PO estimate default = picked: Sets the default for the picked flag on new purchase estimates. Purchase estimates which are not picked are not included in the job phase estimate total. This is typically used as part of a tendering process where several identical purchase estimates are created in Synergist and sent to potential suppliers. Once all prices have been recieved from suppliers and entered into the appropriate estimate, the successful tender estimate is marked as picked.
Received option for POs / PO lines: Switching this on activates a checkbox on purchase orders / purchase order lines that allows you to mark an order / line as goods/services received. A new filter control for received / not received is also activated in relevant lists and reports.
Order:
Lines:
No actual PO amends allowed if ticked off: This setting prevents any changes to a purchase order once it is ticked off against a sales invoice, including draft invoices. Estimated values can be changed if required, actual purchase values can not be changed.
(*) Tender deadline days ahead: If using the tendering process in Synergist this value dates purchase estimates the specified number of days into the future relative to the associated purchase tender.
Invoice authorisation: This option allows you to set users to be purchase invoice authorisers. Until such time as a purchase invoice is authorised it cannot be posted.
Only allow PO final invoice manually if cost = zero. There is an option to manually mark purchase orders as final invoice received without entering a purchase invoice into Synergist. This bypasses the export to accounts function so is generally regarded as undesirable as you will have a cost in Synergist with no corresponding cost in your accounts system. By only allowing this to be done on zero value purchase orders you remove the chance of this imbalance occurring inadvertently. Cancelling POs is a better way to deal with this purchase orders that are no longer required or which will never have a purchase invoice matched against them.
PO company: This option should only be used after discussion with your project manager or support. It allows purchase orders raised in one company to be allocated against purchase invoices raised in another.
Descriptions / Comments:
These options determine what, if any, text is created automatically when a new job is created, and when a new phase is added to a job.
Job desc defaults to global desc / Job comments defaults to global notes: Global description and global notes are static text that can be entered into the defaults tab in company settings:
Estimating:
Resources tied to default charge code: It is normal to set a default charge code for any staff resource that is used for entering timesheets. This option prevents any user from changing the charge code used for timesheets entry away from their default.
Charge code is resource skills restricted: This is an enhancement of the above "tied to default" setting that allows you to create a matrix of charge codes that may be used by a staff resource. Useful if you have a lot of charge codes, but timesheet submitters only need to select from a subset of those, depending on their skill set.
Protect unallocated estimate units: An unallocated estimate is a time estimate that has not been assigned to a specific staff resource. When a timesheet is posted to a phase, if there is an unallocated estimate for the same charge code as the timesheet, the estimate line is allocated to the staff resource posting the timesheets. If a second timesheet is posted by a different staff resource, using the same charge code, a new estimate line is created with zero estimated units. This option changes this default behaviour such that the first timesheet will also create a new estimate line with zero estimated units. In this way the unallocated estimate line is "protected" from being allocated to a staff resource.
Prevent charge rate change: This prevents the charge rate on an estimate line from being manually entered after the estimate is created.
Time charge rate of zero is non-chargeable: Certain reports split time into chargeable and non-chargeable based on certain criteria (internal client, in house phase status, investment flag set to true). This option allows a fourth criterion to be used for counting time as non-chargeable - charge rate of zero.
Departmental revenue analysis: An advanced feature whereby charge codes, materials and suppliers to be allocated to cost centres / departments. This then allows phases to represent job deliverables and removes the need to use them for departmental cost splits. More information on the feature can be read in this article. Please refer to support@synergist.co.uk before atcivating this option.
Allow phases to be optional: A feature that allows phases to be optional. Values on optional phases are not included in dashboards, list totals, reports, quotes or estimates. Read more about this feature in this article.
Expenses / timesheets:
Direct expenses always invoice received: This option set the invoiced received flag to true on a direct expense as soon as it is saved. Use this with care as it means that you will not be able to amend a direct expense once it has been saved.
Expense approval system: Enables the feature allowing users to enter expenses via the expense sheets interface in the browser client / mobile app.
Hide investment: Hides the investment checkbox from new timesheets and expenses. This is not normally a submitter decision, if a timesheet or expense needs to be counted as investment that is handled later in the financial process.
Disable supply type description copying on expense entry: Self explanatory
Sales invoicing:
Enable draft approval: This enables the features requiring draft sales invoices to go through the ready for approval and draft approved statuses before they can be made real. Users can be assigned separate permissions to make drafts ready for approval, approved, and made real. Similar permissions are also separately available for credit notes and write offs. Read more about the draft sales invoice approval process in the article here.
Allow ready for approval warnings: If using draft invoice approval warnings will be displayed at the point of makign a draft ready for approval if certain conditions are met that will prevent the draft from being made real. This allows the user making the draft ready for approval to correct these issues before the draft reaches the stage of being made real. Unlike making the draft real the ready for approval action is not blocked.
Auto tickoff: Tickoff is the mechanism whereby costs (timesheets, materials, purchase orders, expenses) are linked to sales. Normally any cost not ticked off is automatically ticked off against the next sales invoice. All costs must be ticked off on a job before the job can be closed.
Auto tickoff on writeoffs: A separate control for the tickoff behaviour on write offs.
Extra analysis/ref field: Not a browser feature.
Net to invoice calculated from tickoff: On the financial (dashboard) tab of jobs and phases there is a net to invoice figure. This will be used for new invoices based on job or phase description as the amount to invoice by default. Normally this is calculated from whole job values based on either the quoted price or the total actual recommended charge out:
Net to invoice = Quoted price or total actual rec charge - total invoiced
This option changes the calculation for net to invoice based on the total actual recommended charge out of any unticked costs minus total invoiced. Note that total recommended charge out of unticked costs is not displayed anywhere on the financial (dashboard) tab.
Do not transfer invoice order no back to job or phase: If a sales order number is entered on a job or phase and subsequently a sales invoice is raised on that job or phase, the order number is copied to the new sales invoice. If no order is present you can enter one into the sales invoice itself. This option determines whether or not the order number is caopied back to the associated job / phase.
Enable levies: Allows the setup of ASBOF / BASBOF levies in file maintenance for use when billing certain types of supplied goods and services used in the advertising industry. For more information on setting up and using this feature please read the article here.
Invoice allocations & BP recognised in currency: Simplifies invoice creation in foreign currencies by allowing you to enter the billed / recognised amounts in the invoice currency. This feature also allows recognised amounts on billing plans to be entered in currency, which will be automatically used when creating an invoice / RR based on billing plans.
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