Who would have thought that an island tour of Antigua would be full of wisdom about Visual ERP? But there was so much that we gleaned from our trip that we just had to share.
SHAWN WISDOM #1
We were picked up at our resort and within a minute, our driver, Shawn stated “Words are easy to maneuver but numbers don’t lie.” Wow, I thought, how profound. Just think of all the numbers in Visual. They are telling a story. There are so many numbers:
- Gross
Profit sorted by lots of different options:
- Order
- Customer ID or Name
- Part ID
- Product Codes
- Commodity Codes
- Backlog
showing all your open orders. Again, you have the same sort options as above
plus:
- Territory
- Sales Rep
- Due Date
- Inventory
and Work in Process Balances. Again, sorted by:
- Product Code
- GL Account
- Warehouse (if you are FIFO by part location)
Gosh my head is swimming with all the numbers. Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Cash, Sales, Expenses, Profit. Wow, there are so many. And they don’t lie. The facts are the facts.
SHAWN WISDOM #2
Our tour of the island continued. If you have ever been to a Caribbean island, you may have noticed some rather fast driving. This is where Shawn tossed out another gem. “If you’re late, you already are”. He then explained, there is no reason to rush like a crazy person and then get into a wreck. Again, got me thinking about Visual. (I know, you’re not supposed to think about work when on vacation but I do love Visual so I can’t help myself.)
Firstly, what Shawn was saying was “you shouldn’t be late”. Of course, in Visual ERP, there are lots of things you can do to avoid being late.
- You can run the scheduler to make sure you have enough capacity to meet demand and if you don’t then take actions accordingly.
- The Material Planning Window and reports are full of information. I like the Material Planning report with the option “Parts with Shortages” only. Sure helps you focus.
- You can run the Shipping Delivery report for the upcoming shipments. Lots of options on how to run. I love the Status showing: “In Stock”, “Expected”, or the dreaded “No Supply”.
SHAWN WISDOM #3
If you do in fact have a problem with your numbers in Visual ERP or you are going to be late, Shawn has the right attitude. He states these things are “Figure-outable”. When he is presented with a difficult situation, he thinks = “How can I fix it? Who do I know?” I am sure you do the same in your work environment.
At this point on our tour, I was starting to relax. I was supporting the island economy by trying a beer from a local micro-brewery. I have to admit, thoughts of Visual were not even entering my mind. But Shawn didn’t stop with his wisdom, so I just have to share a couple more tidbits.
- When asked how old the building was, he stated “It’s been there since I’ve known myself”. How cute is that.
- After observing workers at the dockyard, he stated how serious they get when things need fixing. “You can’t sail knowing things are broken.” Okay, I have to admit I did think about Visual at this point. I get obsessed when numbers are not coming out as expected in Visual. Good news, is there is always an answer. Once fixed, it is smooth sailing.
Shawn left us with one more piece of wisdom “As an adult, you realize the importance of powering down for a couple of minutes”. Well, I have definitely had more than a couple of minutes of “powering down” and it feels great. But, it is now time to get back to “Helping others love Visual as much as we do!”.
