Essent® Software Enhancements for 2015
Accounting
Electronic Payment: ACH
United States Suppliers can now be paid electronically via the ACH (Automated Clearing House) Network. Bills are processed as other bills but with an ACH payment method. The Essent Business Management System generates files formatted in the NACHA (the National Automated Clearing House Association) standard, which are transmitted to the merchant bank account to transfer funds to the Supplier bank account. Q3
Electronic Payment: Level III Payment Card Processing
The Essent Business Management System can now generate Level III Payment Card processing data, passing the line item data required for corporate, government, and industrial buyers requesting Level III PCI Compliance. Q3
Multi-language Documents
The Essent Business Management System user interface can be localized for different countries. Now, multi-language documents are upgraded. The user can now print on-demand-language reports or reports based on end customer language settings regardless of the language set for the user interface. For example, this allows a user in French to generate an invoice in English. The documents are for sales orders, quotes, payment receipts, statements, invoices, purchase orders, past-due notices, delivery confirmation, and packing lists Q1. A number of enhancements were also made for French language specifically within the Accounting module and other modules, and individual users can now select their own individual language setting Q2.
Invoice Integration
The ANSI X12 EDI 810 Invoice document now can be generated through Essent EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) and transmitted via File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Q3
Volume by Rep
It’s easier to track volume by sales representative. New reports provide sales volume by sales rep as well as invoice registers subtotaled by sales rep. Q2
Branch Invoicing
Branches can be examined in greater detail. New invoices, whether they are standard, proforma, cost center, or consolidated, can be filtered by branch. Q2
Administrator and Customer Service
Payment Card Contact
Payment Card contacts kept on file can now be identified as a Sold-To, Bill-To, or Ship-To contact. Q1
Fulfillment
Fulfillment Hold Icon
The system has a number of holds and locks to control processing. An icon has been added to make it clearer when an order is on fulfillment hold and enhancements were also made to the fulfillment module user interface. Q1
Barcoded Work Orders
Barcode-supported Fulfillment has been expanded with barcodes added to work order reports, and quick-scan functionality added to the Work Order Manager. Q2
Inventory
Lot Expiration
The system has the ability to produce Outputs – customer purchases that are shipped and consigned to a company warehouse instead of the buyer. Lot tracking is enhanced with Lot-Tracked Outputs. If an Output is produced from a lot-tracked material, the Output will now create a Lot with the Expiration Date set to the earliest Expiration Date for all of the materials. Q1
Improved Box Labels
The Inventory Module now generates a wider variety of information for box labels. The receipt label can include order-specific data, product-specific data, or data specific to a sales order or linked purchase order. Unit and carton labels can be printed separately, and Barcode Blaster-style printing is supported. Q3
Costing Precision
Job and Order costing is more precise. A new setting allows the standard cost of services and charges to be included in the cost of the finished good when producing product outputs. Q3
Marketing
Promotions by Contact List
The system has the capability to define flexible promotions and restrict promotions to certain groups, classes, or individual customers. Now in addition to the customer, the engine has been enhanced to the granularity of the contact level. Specific customer contacts now can be used as criteria for whether or not someone receives a promotional offer. Q2
Maximum Discounts
Promotions can now specify a maximum discount amount. When discounts exceed that amount, the discounts will be reduced to that amount. For example, a 10% discount can now be capped at $10.00 Q3
Add-on Promotions
The Essent Promotions Engine supports a new type of discount. Additional Discounts can now be triggered by adding items to a cart. This facilitates quantity-based promotions such as BOGO (Buy One Get One) free or price breaks for certain quantities. The Promotions Engine continues to support percentage and fixed-amount discounts regardless of quantity. Q3
SEO
Rich Snippets for Blog Posts
SEO is enhanced with Rich Snippets for blog posts. Rich Snippets refer to markup that adheres to Schema.org specifications. Rich Snippets allow products, videos, product review text, product review ratings, and other information to be displayed in SERP (Search Engine Results Page) returns. Q2
Website Design
Revision Control
Revision Control has been added to SiteBuilder™. Designers may now create a new revision of a page and work on it without disrupting the live version of the page currently in use on the site. Designers can additionally revert to previous revisions, preview revisions, and make notes on revisions. Q3
Mobile Optimization
SiteBuilder Pro users have a new way to optimize for mobile. Designers can create a mobile-targeted revision of a page to be served on mobile devices with a mobile-friendly URL. The mobile revision uses the same widgets, business rules, and content as the canonical version of the page without disrupting the canonical version of the page and while preserving the SEO value of both versions. Q3
Ecommerce
Google Shopping Feed
SiteBuilder works with Google Shopping. SiteBuilder automatically generate Product Review Feeds for integration with Google Shopping. Q1
Google Analytics Support
SiteBuilder Advanced Ecommerce Sites now natively support Google Analytics, including ecommerce tracking. Q3