Hood Canal

Dear Clients,

Last month’s newsline, Focus Time on taking a hard look at your business at the critical two-thirds point of the year, generated a lot of calls and questions. Thanks for the positive feedback!

In several of those conversations I described a business review process we do at NexLAN every year or two which we call “Hood Canal.” I’ll explain…

Once upon a time, a little boy named Billy would spend much of summer vacation at his grandparent’s cottage on the banks of the Hood Canal near Seattle—doing what little boys do, throwing sticks and rocks in the river and generally having a good time.

As Billy got older, the house on Hood Canal passed from his grandparents to his parents and then to him—by which time he was CEO of a little company called Microsoft. Bill would still spend a couple weeks every summer at Hood Canal, the first week relaxing and reading books and the second week with all the top lieutenants of Microsoft analyzing the business. At first with a classic SWOT analysis and later with a more rigorous Porter’s Five Forces paradigm, this was a key factor of establishing Microsoft’s market dominance from the late 80s to the early 2000s—and it still holds today.

We/NexLAN can’t spend an entire week at a summer cottage, but every year or two we spend a Saturday morning with all hands on deck to review our business from top to bottom. I often start with a financial overview so everybody knows where we’ve been, where we’re at, and where we’d like to get. Very eye opening for the members of the staff who aren’t usually privy to the business financials.

From there, we do our own version of SWOT/Five-Forces—which benefits GREATLY from the numerous viewpoints and personalities. As I often say, “I’m a pretty smart guy, but not smarter than a dozen people put together!” <grin>

Finally, the floor is open for topics in general to make the operation run smoother for our customers and employees (emphasis on the former).

There’s a little bit of prep-time required, but for the cost of a few hours and a couple dozen doughnuts, the insights have been invaluable at improving our operation.

Something you could easily replicate!

Regards,

Kevin E. Stroud
kestrou@nexlan.com
NexLAN, LLC
https://nexlan.com

AccountMate: Can Your Company Pass This Critical Test of Your System Backups?

Imagine this situation: It’s Monday next week. Some of your company’s software, including your AccountMate system, is suddenly inaccessible due to a ransomware attack. The attacker might or might not restore your system to normal if you send them a huge sum of Bitcoin.

Could you ignore the ransom demand and successfully restore your AccountMate system and its current data on a new server? How do you know?

We’re not writing fiction here—this situation has happened to NexLAN clients, unfortunately. The cost of being down for days or weeks is enormous and can (it actually has…) put companies out of business, if they cannot recover their system promptly. If you can’t take new sales orders, or order new inventory, or fulfill sales orders, or invoice customers, or run payroll… it’s an absolute nightmare.

We implore you to test your recovery process periodically, and soon.

Part 1: How to test your company’s ransomware readiness

At your next regular IT meeting, either your CEO shows up or your VP of IT steps in to run the meeting. They announce that you’re pushing the regular meeting agenda to the next meeting.

Instead, today’s meeting is now a Ransomware Readiness Exercise. It’s a drill to discuss and test your recovery plan and identify any gaps to fill.

Discuss:

➤ Impact. A hypothetical situation where some of your company’s systems, including AccountMate, have just been ransomwared. Discuss the risks and real costs to the company if these systems remain down.

➤ Recovery plan. Do we have a documented recovery plan? Can we pull it up and look at it right now? When was the last time the plan was updated or rehearsed?

In our recovery plan, who’s responsible for containment, communication, recovery, and post-attack learnings? Could you reach those people right now? What if Joe’s on vacation right now? What if it’s 11:00am on a Sunday – is NexLAN available to walk us through some things on the AccountMate side and answer questions? [Hint: Yes.]

➤ Backups. Where are our AccountMate backups stored? Do we know if the backups are up-to-date—can we verify those logs right now? Do it. Do we know if the backups are good, and not corrupt—when was the most recent test-restore to a staging area to verify the integrity of the automated backup files to restore our entire system?

Suppose this was a natural disaster, like a wildfire instead of ransomware—are our backups stored off site or in the cloud? Or did they just burn to the ground in the fire? How can we verify right here, right now, that the most current backups (from yesterday) are available off site? Is the person currently in charge of restoring backups trained, and comfortable with the process and the responsibility?

➤ Debrief. Note any process improvements, gaps, and training or resource requests that have come to light in this discussion. Assign action items to address these for the next meeting.

See Part 2 in the next article below!

AccountMate: How NexLAN Can Help You Keep Your AccountMate System Running

Here’s Part 2 of your company’s Ransomware Readiness Exercise

While NexLAN isn’t your IT department and it’s your responsibility to restore your AccountMate system, we CAN help:

1. Make sure you have NexLAN’s team’s phone numbers for emergency after-hours support. Email us if you need that list.

2. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Read NexLAN’s comprehensive Backup Guidelines for AccountMate Files to see what to back up, how often, and where—along with some other ways to minimize risk. Also, see this article published by AccountMate, Technical Note: Data Backup Strategies. Contact NexLAN with questions anytime:  support@nexlan.com

3. While AccountMate runs really great on local hardware  “on premise,” and many clients LOVE that capability—when you’re running locally it does put more of the burden on your team to manage backups, security, and infrastructure. If you’ve been considering moving your existing AccountMate system to the cloud to enable work-from-home user access and to reduce the IT workload and the security risk, see our article on V2 Cloud and reach out to us with your questions.

4. An incentive: If we’ve inspired you to lead a Ransomware Readiness Exercise with your team and afterward you tell us how it went, and what you learned—we’ll ship you (not your entire team…) live lobsters for supper as your reward. Don’t be shy; reach out.

Acumatica: How to Disassemble Kits

You may be using Acumatica’s built-in Kit functionality to group or package your items for sale into kits and sub-kits. But sometimes you may need to disassemble some pre-assembled kits to restock the individual kit components.

Why disassemble a kit?

• You might sell the components of your kits on their own and you’re running low on one item and you want to disassemble a kit to restock an individual component. 
• Perhaps a kit you just pulled to ship to a customer has a component that is damaged but you can reuse the other kit components.
• Maybe the newest years’ model of a component has come out, and you need to replace last year’s model with the latest model in all the kits you have already assembled.

When you disassemble a kit, the kit is removed from your inventory and the components of the kit are placed back in inventory for you. 

Note: It’s possible that not all components of your kit are able to be restocked or reused after disassembly. For example, for the non-stock components used to assemble the kit like the labor cost of your employees, there’s no adjustment to inventory needed during kit disassembly. For stock components such as Nyloc nut fasteners used during kit assembly that are one time use and cannot be restocked, you can specify a disassembly coefficient during the initial Kit Specification to define the percent of the stock item that is able to be restocked and reused.

Steps for kit disassembly

The kit disassembly process in Acumatica is straightforward and uses the same screen used to assemble kits:

1. Navigate to the Kit Assembly screen, click the plus sign to create a new Kit Assembly.
2. On the new Kit Assembly, change the Type to Disassemble and enter the Inventory ID of the kit to disassemble. 
3. Enter the Quantity of kits to disassemble and Reason Code if that is something you track.
4. In the grid below of stock items, you can change the defaulted Quantity that will be returned to inventory in the event that an item has been damaged and will not be restocked, or you can allow the Disassembly Coefficient you have set for each component to determine the restock rules for items such as plastic fasteners which are not ever reused.
5. After removing the hold and releasing the disassembly transaction, you can click Review Batch to see the GL batch created by the kit disassembly.

Kitting helps not only order fulfilment, but also inventory tracking in your system. When it’s necessary to disassemble a kit in Acumatica, you can do so with ease. Give it a try to assemble and disassemble kits in your test company, and if you have any questions, reach out to NexLAN.

Acumatica: Recommended Webinars to Watch

1. Multi-Channel Sales Integrations with Amazon, Shopify & BigCommerce—Oct. 21, 12:00 – 1:00pm CT

It’s called the Acumatica Retail Edition, but it’s not limited to retail channels! If you sell your products, or want to start selling them, on ecommerce sites Amazon, Shopify B2B, or BigCommerce, this webinar will give you an overview of how Acumatica’s powerful connectors make it easy for you to update your ecommerce store from Acumatica, and receive orders into your Acumatica system from your ecommerce store.

You can cut down data silos, eliminate communication barriers with your direct customers, and transform your sales processes.

See how to:

• Enable seamless selling across storefronts and marketplaces, including Amazon, BigCommerce, and Shopify.
• Get actionable insights for business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), and direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales models.
• Learn the benefits of a unified commerce platform that can help you reach new markets to grow your business.

Register now for this Multi-Channel Sales Integrations webinar (scroll to mid-page for this webinar) to take the first step toward making your business future-ready.

You’ll also receive a link to the recording after the event, in case you can’t attend the live event. 

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2. Acumatica 2025 R2 Virtual Launch Event—On Demand Recording

Didn’t catch the live virtual launch a week ago to get an overview of what’s coming in the new 2025 R2 version? The recording is now available for the main event plus the industry edition breakouts.

Highlights of the 400 enhancements include:

✅ AI-First Innovation: See how AI Studio and intelligent tools are revolutionizing workflows, automating processes, and delivering actionable insights.

✅ Modern User Experience: Experience a fully customizable, responsive interface that adapts to your team’s needs.

✅ Industry-Specific Enhancements: Dive into tailored solutions for Distribution, Construction, Manufacturing, Retail, and Professional Services.

✅ Customer-Driven Innovation: Learn how your feedback shapes every release, ensuring that Acumatica evolves with your business.

Watch now: Acumatica 2025 R2: The Future of ERP is Here!

AccountMate Tech Note: The Consolidation Process in the Consolidated Ledger Module

Merging several companies’ financial statements into a consolidated format is a requirement that many businesses have today. Large corporate enterprises as well as smaller companies may find they need to merge financial statements from multiple facets of their business. 

AccountMate’s Consolidated Ledger module provides the tools necessary to accomplish this goal. Article #1185: Understanding the Consolidation Process in the Consolidated Ledger Module discusses the consolidation process and the results of performing consolidation, undoing previous consolidation, and fiscal year-end closing.

AccountMate Tech Note: Inventory Adjustment and Variance GL Accounts

When there are transactions that involve inventory cost adjustments and variances, AccountMate requires you to assign the GL Account IDs to which these transactions will be posted. 

Article #1112: Understanding the Inventory Adjustment and Variance GL Accounts covers the functions in which AccountMate uses GL Account IDs to post the inventory adjustment and variance transactions. It also tackles how AccountMate calculates the inventory adjustment and variance amounts.

Acumatica Technical Tips

My Universal Search is Not Finding the Text That I Search.

Q: When I am using the Universal Search it is not finding the text I am looking for, or sometimes it errors out entirely. How can I fix this?

A: You need to run the Rebuild Full-Text Entity Indexing that powers the Universal Search. Please follow these steps:

Note:  Please do this outside of business hours as rebuilding the Indexes uses a lot of resources

1. Go to System Management > System Maintenance > Rebuild Full-Text Entity Index.
2. Click Process All to rebuild the Full-Text Search.
3. This will open the Processing pop-up showing the status, when it is finished click Close.
4. Now go to System Management > System Maintenance > Apply Updates.
5. At the top of the screen click Restart Application.
6. Log back into your Acumatica and verify that you are now seeing everything in the Universal Search.

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How Do I Reverse a Landed Cost?

Q: How can I reverse the Landed Cost incurred by a purchase?

A: You can reverse the Landed Cost incurred with these steps:

1. To identify the current financial impact of the original landed cost transaction, go to the Account Details form and run the form for the period and inventory account, and review the Debit Amount created from the original purchase.
2. Create a new Landed Cost transaction for the vendor and add a landed cost in the grid below that mirrors the original landed cost but with a negative amount.
3. On the Details tab, click Add PO Receipt and add the purchase receipt from the previously processed Landed Cost.
4. Release the negative Landed Cost document. The system will create a reversal inventory adjustment and post transactions to appropriate accounts on the Journal Transactions form. You can also view the GL batch on the Account Details form.
5. In the Payables workspace, create a New Bill for the vendor and change the Type to Debit Adjustment.
6. In the Details grid below, in the header, click ADD LC.
7. In the Add LC pop-up, check the box for the landed document you created and click ADD & CLOSE to add it to the debit adjustment.
8. Release the Debit Adjustment.
9. Apply the Debit Adjustment to the original Bill from your vendor.

After performing all the steps, the system reverses the original landed cost document.

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How Do I Remove Remaining Material From a Completed Production Order?

Q:  I have allocated 100 units of material for a production order but I only used 85 units and the production is complete. How can I remove the remaining material allocation on the completed production orders?

A: To remove the remaining materials allocated, in the completed production order click the three dots to open the More Menu, then click Set Materials Status to Completed.

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How Do I Update A Sales Order Linked To a Drop-Ship Purchase Order?

Q: How can I update the quantity of an item on a sales order that is linked to a drop-ship purchase order without breaking the link between the Sales Order and the Purchase Order?

A: Here’s how:

1. Go to Purchases > Transactions > Purchase Orders and select the purchase order that is linked to the sales order.
2. Click the three dots to open the More Menu and click Hold to place the purchase order on hold, change the quantity of the item, and at the end of that line item clear the SO Linked checkbox, and click Save. You will still see the appropriate sales order number is present despite having cleared the SO Linked check box.
3. Go to Sales Order > Transactions > Sales Orders and open the Sales Order you need to update. On the line item that you are updating, clear the PO Linked checkbox and then change the quantity for the line item to match the quantity you just updated on the purchase order. Save your changes. Notice that the appropriate purchase order number is still present despite the clearing of the PO Linked checkbox.
4. After saving the Sales order so that both quantities are identical, on the sales order, check the PO Linked checkbox and click Save again.
5. Go back to the Purchase Order form and click Save. This will automatically check the SO Linked box for your line item.

AccountMate Technical Tips

Why Can I Not Add or Delete a Kit?

Versions: AM11 for SQL and Express (and higher versions)

Modules: KT, IC

Q: I have a prebuilt kit item for which I want to amend the kit formula; however, the Add and Delete buttons in the Kit Formula Maintenance function are disabled. Why?

A: You cannot amend a kit formula in the Kit Formula Maintenance function if the kit item has open orders (Booked Qty) or on-hand quantity; thus, the Add and Delete buttons are disabled.

If there is a Booked Qty, you can either ship the order or cancel the sales order to zero out the booked quantity.

If there are On-Hand quantities, disassemble the kit so there is no on-hand quantity.

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Why Is The Status Field Disabled On The Employee Maintenance Screen?

Versions: AM13.2 for SQL and Express (and higher versions)

Module: PR

Q: I have a terminated employee whom I recently rehired; however, the Employee Maintenance ► Info ► Status field is disabled. How can I change the employee’s status from Terminated to Active?

A: The Employee Maintenance ► Info ► Status field is disabled if the termination code selected in the Term. Code field is either Bad SSN or Fixed (no rehire). Changing the termination code will enable the Status field.

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Can I Amend a Fully Paid AP Invoice?

Versions: AM11 for SQL and Express (and higher versions)

Module: AP

Q: Can I amend a fully paid AP invoice?

A: Yes, you can amend a fully paid AP invoice as long as the invoice is not yet moved to history and you do not change the invoice amount to an amount that is lower than the paid amount.

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Why Are My Bank Accounts Not Showing in Pay Code Maintenance?

Versions: AM11 for SQL and Express (and higher versions)

Modules: AR, AP

Q: We have several bank records set up in AccountMate; however, not all banks are displayed in the Bank # Search window in Pay Code Maintenance. Why?

A: The bank records that were not displayed in the Bank # Search window in Pay Code Maintenance may be inactive or are not set to be used in the Accounts Payable or Sales Order/Accounts Receivable module.

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