Welcome to an overview of some of the new features and improvements you can expect to see in the EMDECS October 2021 update. We’re excited to announce 3 new major features, including 2 brand-new modules and a handful of other smaller, but not insignificant additions to the system.  

FIFO Part Costing:

We’ve introduced a whole new Part Costing method to the EMDECS system. FIFO, or First in First Out is an important accounting methodology that we’ve implemented to provide a more accurate evaluation of what is on your shelves. For companies operating at a larger scale, this can mean a world of difference.

The beauty of this new system is that everything works in the background automatically, so very little of your day-to-day user experience will alter. Let’s take a look at the screens where you will notice some changes:

Over on the Parts Master screen, you’ll notice a new FIFO On-Hands tab where you can view the receiving date, quantity, and cost for each unit.

On the Inventory Audit Screen another new tab has been created where you can find the correlating incoming and outgoing data for any given part.

And lastly, we’ve updated our Reporting section to ensure the Stock On-Hand Value report will reflect the new FIFO system.

If you’re interested in switching to FIFO Part Costing, please reach out to our BrightOrder Customer Experience team.

Tire Module:

Tires are one of the biggest expenses that heavy-duty vehicle owners and maintenance operators have to manage on a regular basis. Introducing the EMDECS Tire Screen. This is where companies can capture and analyze the complete life cycle of their tires.

You’ll find two new tabs to help you set up your Tires in the system and see their history once the data has been collected. Each tire is tracked by an individual serial number that gets allocated a unique Type, Condition Status and Cost by your organization. These unique statuses are outlined by you, the user, to ensure every relevant detail like tread, weather type and so on are all included to give you the best analytics on which tires are outperforming the rest.

Oh, and to best analyze the data, we’ve included a new Tire Costs Report that can be exported and referenced against various reading types. Start taking advantage of the tire screen today to find out which tires are keeping your trucks on the road longer.

Dispatch Manager:

We’ve created a new Dispatch Manager to maintain yet another facet of your business, in one centralized system. This new screen is an easy way to prepare, dispatch and invoice your own, or externally owned units.

Over on the To Be Invoiced tab, you can quickly bulk invoice all completed work. Ensure your clients have been set up for automatic emails on the Customer Manager screen and let the system take care of sending out all the invoices for you automatically.

This new entry screen is a great way to ensure all your dispatch business and corresponding invoices are managed in one place. If you are interested in trying out this new screen, reach out to the BrightOrder Customer Experience team to have it implemented on your system.

In Addition to these major new features, our dedicated development team has implemented a number of smaller, but very practical updates and additions to the system. We’re confident you’ll find that these will improve overall user experience and make routine tasks simpler and more efficient. 

Bulk Emails for Outstanding Invoices:

For those managing finances, we’ve implemented a new tool to bulk email reminders to customers with outstanding invoices. Simply navigate to the Things to Do column on the AR Manager screen where you can then select as few or as many clients to remind them what they owe. 

If the select button is disabled for any customers, make sure they are set up for automatic emailing on the Customer Manager screen and get the system to do all the work for you. 

Additional Readings Data:

To help your organization determine even better PM Schedules, we’ve introduced a readings field to the Driver Portal. When Drivers or Technicians partake in Circle Checks on the mobile app or use the corresponding Driver Defect screen through a browser, they can now input readings. Providing this data more frequently allows you to better gauge when preventative maintenance needs to occur. 

Technician Self-Assessment:

At the start of the technician sign-in process, we’ve included a new optional self-assessment pop-up. To help ensure your technicians are following all safety protocols – whether they’re related to shop practices or pandemic practices – establish a checklist for technicians to read through and agree to before they can clock onto a job. We’re here to help ensure safety is always top of mind. 

iOS and Updated Tutorials:

A few final notes, you may have already noticed, but we’ve gone and revamped our embedded tutorial videos. New and improved tutorial videos are available across a variety of screens in the system to help new or existing users become EMDECS experts with minimal time and effort. 

And finally, if you’re an iPhone or iPad user the EMDECS mobile app is now available for iOS via the App store, making access to the system even more accessible for technicians and drivers!

These are just a few of the ways EMDECS is helping to save you more time and increase your operation’s efficiency, at every level.

For a full list of all updates, bug fixes and more please take a look at our release notes on the EMDECS Knowledge Base: 

https://help.emdecs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/emdecs-system-update-q4-2021-5-10-2021