Functional User Manual

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Revision as of 17:58, 14 May 2007 by Oberiko (Talk) (Introduction: B --> b)

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Introduction

This Functional Manual is different from the Reference Manual in that it is in narrative form and suited for business people rather than Techies. This manual is thus highly important for success while using ADempiere. Jorg Janke himself said that ERP is 90% subject matter and 10% coding. Knowing the correct way a process is done is what knowing an ERP is all about. Here we paint the processes in simple language and give links to further technicals under the hood (such as name of java class or process behind them) of the Reference Manual.

Who Should Read Me?

  • Newbies to ERP who want to quickly dive into the thick of things
  • Business Users who want to learn how to use ADempiere
  • Technical People needing to understand the context of the application

Pre-Requisites

  • Patience and Discipline
  • Run AVA at least and do some exploring to give yourself a feel of the appplication.

Help Me!

If after reading this you still find yourself at a loss, then it is clear you did not have the pre-requisites. Nevertheless we still allow you to scream your head off <here>.

Deployment Checklist

Setting up an ERP system can be quite the undertaking. Here is a basic outling of the order in which you should do things.

  • Play with ADempiere. The AVA is a very useful tool for experimenting with it. Even though it looks complicated, after learning the "Why" of how it is set up, you understand the "How" to do things very quickly.
  • Install ADempiere.
  • Go through the initial client setup
  • Start using the request system if it applies to your company. It is probably the easiest part of ADempiere to use and it will help you get a feel for how it works and how everything relates.

Login - The Beginning

There are two modes or user interfaces (UI) that you can use to login into ADempiere.

The Web-based UI allows you to login into Webstore, Request (CRM), besides the usual standard application. The notes here are about the Windows-based Java client that logins into the standard application.

  • from your desktop, look for and double-click the ADempiere icon
  • from your explorer, look for and run <drive>:/Adempiere/lib/Adempiere.exe
  • from your explorer, look for and run <drive>:/Adempiere/RUN_Adempiere.bat

When you login from the first dialog window, you choose the role you will enter the system.

  • SystemAdmin - To do Administration and Application Dictionary (AD) stuff
  • ClientAdmin - To run the application. There is a sample client called GardenWorld. So you can select GardenAdmin

When Do You Use System Administrator

  • Creating new Clients for the business
  • Creating or editing the structure of the application
  • Menus, Windows for the look and feel
  • Tables and Fields for the Database structure
  • Processes and Printformats

When Do You Use Client Administrator

  • To manage the other users of the system
    • Create their login accounts, roles and specific configs
    • Security Management of what certain users Access level right up the Window or Field or Process
  • Operate the application as a user
    • Approve requests or confirmations from lesser users under the Workflow
    • Post to accounts if lesser users are not authorized to do it

System Administrator

Here we walk you through from login and usage of each item on the SystemAdmin Menu.

Application Dictionary (AD)

You can find the sub-items on SystemAdmin menu for you to handle the AD. The important ones are

  • Menu
  • Window Tab & Field
  • Table and Column

Report & Process You can go through the others when you are more advanced:

  • Reference
  • Validation Rules
  • Form

Initial Client Setup

When setting up your client, there are a few things that you must keep in mind. You must have a COA (Chart of Accounts) written. You can do that by using your favorite csv editor (I used OpenOffice.org.) You should probably start by opening one of the files located in /Adepmiere_Home/data/import/ (I used the file named Accounting_US.csv .) That file contains a perfectly usable COA. You can modify that file to suite the needs of your company.

There are a few things to keep in mind when making the COA file.

  • You must keep every account that has a value in the Default_Account column.
  • You can only have one of every Default_Account.
  • Every account must have an identifier that is unique.

When making your COA, keep in mind a few things:

  • It needs to scale. Have a hierarchy and make it straight forward. Numbering one through to the end probably isn't the best thing to do, you can't put anything in between.
  • Spend time on it, it is easier to resolve problems before you import than to try and resolve them later on.

If you have a hard time editing the COA csv-file by hand, feel free to use Daniel Norin's Adempiere Account editor which he developed specifically for the purpose of making it easier to create your own COA-file without having to be a human csv-parser.

After you have finished your csv file, you are ready to import it into your new client. (You don't remove the GardenWorld Client, you just add your own.) You get to the initial client setup screen by logging in as System and selecting the System Administrator Role. After you have done that, you go to Menu -> System Admin -> Client Rules -> Initial Client Setup. In that window, you fill in the appropriate information (you can leave the check boxes as they are) and you select your COA file to import. This will only import the default accounts. It usually takes a few minutes (be patient). When this is done, you are ready to log in as your user that you just created. If it seems to hang, make sure that you have your COA file formatted correctly and that you don't have any duplicate accounts. I found that after trying to force enough poorly syntaxed COA file into my database, that I had to restart my database/app server.

For details about Initial Client Setup, take a look here.

Basic Concepts

Using the ADempiere Client.

Business partner setup

The business partner setup is in Menu -> Partner Relations -> Business Partner Rules -> Business Partner Setup

By following the steps in the business partner setup you'll enter some basic data needed for the system.

Note, when you login and do this setup, if you want to reuse the information that you enter here in other organizations under the same client, make sure to select the organization "*" at login. That will make all settings you create common for all organizations under this client.

Business Partner Group

Use business partner groups to group business partners into logical groups. These groups can then have standardized:

  • Price list
  • Dunning schema
  • Accounts

Greeting

Payment term

Invoice schedule

Withholding

Dunning

Revenue recognition

Import business partner

Business partner

Customizing ADempiere

  • Adding fields to an existing window

Sales Processes

  • Raising a quotation or proposal
  • Recording orders
  • Sending the goods or performing the services
  • Invoicing the customer
  • Using the Integrated Point Of Sales terminal.

Purchase Processes

  • Raising a purchase requisition from a catalogue
  • Issuing a purchase order
  • Receieving goods and services
  • Receiving supplier invoices.

Inventory Processes

Paying Suppliers & Collecting Debts

Accounting Processes

  • Period and year end
  • Financial and managament accounting
  • Charts of accounts
  • VAT/TAX/IVA
  • Reporting for other regulatory bodies


Performance Measurement allows you to:

  • define a series of measures
  • record your performance against those measures
  • set targets for your measures
  • track your performance versus the targets

Migration from other business systems

Such as:


Data that needs updating from time to time

Exchange Rates

Payroll

United Kingdom

  • HMRC Tax Rates (PAYE) and National Insurance (NI)

Depreciation Rates

  • HMRC Tax Depreciation Rates