Mini CaseDelivering Business Value with IT at Hefty Hardw.docx

Mini Case
Delivering Business Value with
IT at Hefty Hardware2
“IT is a pain in the neck,” groused Cheryl
O’Shea, VP of retail marketing, as she
slipped into a seat at the table in the Hefty Hardware executive
dining room, next to
her colleagues. “It’s all technical mumbo-jumbo when they talk
to you and I still don’t
know if they have any idea about what we’re trying to
accomplish with our Savvy Store
program. I keep explaining that we have to improve the
customer experience and that
we need IT’s help to do this, but they keep talking about
infrastructure and bandwidth
and technical architecture, which is all their internal stuff and
doesn’t relate to what
we’re trying to do at all! They have so many processes and
reviews that I’m not sure
we’ll ever get this project off the ground unless we go outside
the company.”
“You’ve got that right,” agreed Glen Vogel, the
COO. “I really like my IT account
manager, Jenny Henderson. She sits in on all our strategy
meetings and seems to really
understand our business, but that’s about as far as it goes. By
the time we get a project
going, my staff are all complaining that the IT people don’t
even know some of our
basic business functions, like how our warehouses operate. It

takes so long to deliver
any sort of technology to the field, and when it doesn’t work the
way we want it to, they
just shrug and tell us to add it to the list for the next release!
Are we really getting value
for all of the millions that we pour into IT?”
“Well, I don’t think it’s as bad as you both seem to believe,”
added Michelle
Wright, the CFO. “My EA singsthe praises of
the help desk and the new ERP system
we put in last year. We can now close the books at month-end in
24 hours. Before that,
it took days. And I’ve seen the benchmarking reports on our
computer operations. We
are in the top quartile for reliability and cost-effectiveness for
all our hardware and
systems. I don’t think we could get IT any cheaper outside the
company.”
“You are talking ‘apples and oranges’ here,” said Glen. “On one
hand, you’re
saying that we’re getting good, cheap, reliable computer
operations and value for the
money we’re spending here. On the other hand, we don’t feel IT
is contributing to
creating new business value for Hefty. They’re really two
different things.”
“Yes, they are,” agreed Cheryl. “I’d even agree with you that
they do a pretty
good job of keeping our systems functioning and preventing
viruses and things. At
least we’ve never lost any data like some of our competitors.
But I don’t see how they’re
contributing to executing our business strategy. And surely in

this day and age with
increased competition, new technologies coming out all over the
place, and so many
changes in our economy, we should be able to get them to help
us be more flexible, not
less, and deliver new products and services to our customers
quickly!”
2 Smith, H. A., and J. D. McKeen. “Delivering
Business Value with IT at Hefty Hardware.”
#1-L10-1-001,
Queen’s School of Business, May 2010. Reproduced by
permission of Queen’s University, School of Business,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
98
M06_MCKE0260_03_GE_C06.indd 98 12/3/14 8:38 PM
Delivering Business Value with IT at Hefty
Hardware 99
The conversation moved on then, but Glen was thoughtful as he
walked back to
his office after lunch. Truthfully, he only ever thought about IT
when it affected him and
his area. Like his other colleagues, he found most of his
communication with the depart-
ment, Jenny excepted, to be unintelligible, so he delegated it to
his subordinates, unless
it absolutely couldn’t be avoided. But Cheryl was right. IT was
becoming increasingly
important to how the company did its business. Although
Hefty’s success was built on

its excellent supply chain logistics and the assortment of
products in its stores, IT played
a huge role in this. And to implement Hefty’s new Savvy Store
strategy, IT would be
critical for ensuring that the products were there when a
customer wanted them and
that every store associate had the proper information to answer
customers’ questions.
In Europe, he knew from his travels, IT
was front and center in most cutting-
edge retail stores. It provided extensive self-service to improve
checkout; multichannel
access to information inside stores to enable customers to
browse an extended product
base and better support sales associates assisting customers; and
multimedia to engage
customers with extended product knowledge. Part of Hefty’s
new Savvy Store business
strategy was to copy some of these initiatives, hoping to become
the first retailer in
North America to completely integrate multimedia and digital
information into each of
its 1,000 stores. They’d spent months at the executive
committee meetings working out
this new strategic thrust—using information and multimedia to
improve the customer
experience in a variety of ways and to make it consistent in
each of their stores. Now,
they had to figure out exactly how to execute it, and IT was a
key player. The question
in Glen’s mind now was how could the business and IT work
together to deliver on this
vision, when IT was essentially operating in its own technical
world, which bore very
little relationship to the world of business?

Entering his office, with its panoramic view of
the downtowncore, Glen had an
idea. “Hefty’s stores operate in a different world than we do at
our head office. Wouldn’t
it be great to take some of our best IT folks out on the road so
they could see what it’s
really like in the field? What seems like a good idea here at
corporate doesn’t always
work out there, and we need to balance our corporate needs with
those of our store
operations.” He remembered going to one of Hefty’s smaller
stores in Moose River and
seeing how its managers had circumvented the company’s
stringent security protocols
by writing their passwords on Post-it notes stuck to the store’s
only computer terminal.
So, on his next trip to the field he decided he would take Jenny,
along with Cheryl
and the Marketing IT Relationship Manager, Paul Gutierez, and
maybe even invite the
CIO, Farzad Mohammed, and a couple of the IT architects. “It
would be good for them
to see what’s actually happening in the stores,” he reasoned.
“Maybe once they do, it
will help them understand what we’re trying to accomplish.”
A few days later, Glen’s e-mailed invitation had Farzad in a
quandary. “He wants
to take me and some of my top people—including you—on the
road two weeks from
now,” he complained to his chief architect, Sergei Grozny.
“Maybe I could spare Jenny
to go, since she’s Glen’s main contact, but we’re up to our
wazoos in alligators trying to

put together our strategic IT architecture so we can support
their Savvy Stores initiative
and half a dozen more ‘top priority’ projects. We’re supposed to
present our IT strategy
to the steering committee in three weeks!”
“And I need Paul to work with the architecture team over the
next couple of
weeks to review our plans and then to work with the master data
team to help them
outline their information strategy,” said Sergei. “If we don’t
have the infrastructure and
M06_MCKE0260_03_GE_C06.indd 99 12/3/14 8:38 PM
100 Section I • Delivering Value with IT
integrated information in place there aren’t going to be any
‘Savvy Stores’! You can’t
send Paul and my core architects off on some boondoggle for a
whole week! They’ve all
seen a Hefty store. It’s not like they’re going to see anything
different.”
“You’re right,” agreed Farzad. “Glen’s just going to have to
understand that I can’t
send five of our top people into the field right now. Maybe in
six months after we’ve
finished this planning and budget cycle. We’ve got too much
work to do now. I’ll send
Jenny and maybe that new intern, Joyce Li, who we’re thinking
of hiring. She could use
some exposure to the business, and she’s not working on
anything critical. I’ll e-mail

Jenny and get her to set it up with Glen. She’s so great with
these business guys. I don’t
know how she does it, but she seems to really get them onside.”
Three hours later, Jenny Henderson arrived back from a
refreshing noontime
workout to find Farzad’s request in her priority
in-box. “Oh #*!#*@!” she swore. She
had a more finely nuanced understanding of the politics
involved in this situation, and
she was standing on a land mine for sure. Her business contacts
had all known about
the invitation, and she knew it was more than a simple request.
However, Farzad, hav-
ing been with the company for only eighteen months, might not
recognize the olive
branch that it represented, nor the problems that it would cause
if he turned down the
trip or if he sent a very junior staff member in his place. “I have
to speak with him about
this before I do anything,” she concluded, reaching for her
jacket.
But just as she swiveled around to go see Farzad, Paul Gutierez
appeared in her
doorway, looking furious. “Got a moment?” he asked and, not
waiting for her answer,
plunked himself down in her visitor’s chair. Jenny could almost
see the steam coming
out of his ears, and his face was beet red. Paul was a great
colleague, so mentally put-
ting the “pause” button on her own problems, Jenny replied,
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Well, I just got back from the new technology meeting between
marketing and

our R&Dguys, and it was just terrible!” he
moaned. I’ve been trying to get Cheryl and
her group to consider doing some experimentation with cell
phone promotions—you
know, using that new Japanese bar coding system. There are a
million things you can
do with mobile these days. So, she asked me to set up a
demonstration of the technol-
ogy and to have the R&Dguys explain what it might
do. At first, everyone was really
excited. They’d read about these things in magazines and
wanted to know more. But
our guys kept droning on about 3G and 4G technology and
different types of connec-
tivity and security and how the data move around and how we
have to model and
architect everything so it all fits together. They had the business
guys so confused we
never actually got talking about how the technology might be
used for marketing and
whether it was a good business idea. After about half an hour,
everyone just tuned out.
I tried to bring it back to the applications we could develop if
we just invested a little
in the mobile connectivity infrastructure, but by then we were
dead in the water. They
wouldn’t fund the project because they couldn’t see why
customers would want to use
mobile in our stores when we had perfectly good cash registers
and in-store kiosks!”
“I despair!” he said dramatically. “And you know what’s going
to happen don’t
you? In a year or so, when everyone else has got mobile apps,
they’re going to want
us to do something for them yesterday, and we’re going to have

to throw some sort of
stopgap technology in place to deal with it, and everyone’s
going to be complaining
that IT isn’t helping the business with what it needs!”
Jenny was sympathetic. “Been there, done that, and got the T-
shirt,” she laughed
wryly. “These tech guys are so brilliant, but they can’t ever
seem to connect what they
M06_MCKE0260_03_GE_C06.indd 100 12/3/14 8:38 PM
Delivering Business Value with IT at Hefty
Hardware 101
know to what the business thinks it needs. Sometimes, they’re
too farsighted and need
to just paint the next couple of steps of what could be done, not
the ‘flying around in
jetpacks vision.’ And sometimes I think they truly don’t
understand why the business
can’t see how these bits and bytes they’re talking about
translate into something that it
can use to make money.” She looked at her watch, and Paul got
the hint. He stood up.
“Thanks for letting me vent,” he said. “You’re a good listener.”
“I hope Farzad is,” she thought grimly as she headed down the
hall. “Or he’s
going to be out of here by Thanksgiving.” It was a sad truth that
CIOs seemed to turn
over every two years or so at Hefty. It
was almost predictable. A new CEO would
come

in, and the next thing you knew the CIO would be history. Or
the user satisfaction rate
would plummet, or there would be a major application crash, or
the executives would
complain about how much IT cost, or there would be an
expensive new system failure.
Whatever it was, IT would always get blamed, and the CIO
would be gone. “We have
some world-class people in IT,” she thought, “but everywhere
we go in the business, we
get a bad rap. And it’s not always our fault.”
She remembered the recent CIM project to produce a single
customer database for
all of Hefty’s divisions: hardware, clothing, sporting goods, and
credit. It had seemed
to be a straightforward project with lots of ROI, but the
infighting between the client
divisions had dragged the project (and the costs) out. No one
could agree about whose
version of the truth they should use, and the divisions had
assigned their most junior
people to it and insisted on numerous exceptions, workarounds,
and enhancements, all
of which had rendered the original business case useless. On top
of that, the company
had undergone a major restructuring in the middle of it, and a
lot of the major play-
ers had changed. “It would be a lot easier for us in IT if the
business would get its act
together about what it wants from IT,” she thought. But just as
quickly, she recognized
that this was probably an unrealistic goal. A more practical one
would be to find ways
for business and IT to work collaboratively at all levels. “We
each hold pieces of the

future picture of the business,” she mused. “We need to figure
out a better way to put
them together than simply trying to force them to fit.”
Knocking on Farzad’s door, she peeked into the window beside
it. He seemed
lost in thought but smiled when he saw her. “Jenny!” he
exclaimed. “I was just think-
ing about you and the e-mail I sent you. Have you done
anything about it yet?” When
she shook her head, he gave a sigh of relief. “I was just
rethinking my decision about
this trip, and I’d like your advice.” Jenny gave her own mental
sigh and stepped into
the office. “I think we have a problem with the business and we
need to fix it—fast,”
she said. “I’ve got some ideas, and what to do about the trip is
just part of them. Can
we talk?” Farzad nodded encouragingly and invited her to sit
down. “I agree with you,
and I’d like to hear what you have to say. We need to do things
differently around here,
and I think with your help we can. What did you have in mind?”
Discussion Questions
1. Overall, how effective is the partnership between IT and the
business at Hefty
Hardware? Identify the shortcomings of both IT and the
business.
2. Create a plan for how IT and the business can work
collaboratively to deliver the
Savvy Store program successfully.
M06_MCKE0260_03_GE_C06.indd 101 12/3/14 8:38 PM

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS - 4/29/2017
BA 302: Microsoft Dynamics NAV
ERP Exercise/Walkthrough
v3.2
Michael Curry, Byron Marshall, VT Raja, René Reitsma, Kirk
Wydner
Whether you enter the workforce as a sales manager, financial
ac-
countant or office admin, chances are that you will be working
with
some type of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. The
pur-
pose of this exercise/walkthrough is to familiarize you with a
typical
(although simplified) business process as it is commonly
executed
with the help of one of the leading ERP systems in the market
today
– Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
This exercise will walk you through the six steps of a typical
sales
process:
1) Creating a customer order
2) Backordering an out-of-stock item
3) Receiving the backordered item
4) Shipping the customer the ordered items and invoicing the
cus-
tomer

5) Receiving payment from the customer
6) Making a payment to the vendor from whom we backordered.
The point of this exercise is that you should realize that in a
real
company this process would be
executed by different people working in different departments.
They
all will interact with the ERP; i.e., they all retrieve information
from
the ERP and store new information in it, as the sales process
pro-
gresses. In this exercise you take on the role of each of these
people,
giving you a sense of how the sales order is processed both by
the
company and by the ERP.
Note: Throughout this exercise you must occasionally remember
several numbers to refer back to in later sections. Please have
paper
and pen ready to write these numbers down or have a place on
your
computer open to store these numbers.
Another note: You do not have to complete the entire exercise
in a
single sitting. You can come back to it at a later time and
continue
where you left off.
Final note: The system keeps track of the progress you make
and
your BA302 instructor can ask the system for a report on your
prog-
ress. To receive ‘pass’ credit for this exercise, you must

complete it.
ERP Walkthrough (v 3.2)
SECTION 1_Signing in
SECTION 2_Creating a Sales Order (Sales Dept.)
TASK 1_Creating a New Customer
TASK 2_Completing the Sales Order
SECTION 3_Backordering Items (Purchasing Dept.)
SECTION 4_Receiving the PO Items (Receiving or
Warehousing Dept.)
SECTION 5_Ship to and Invoice the Customer (Sales &
Shipping Dept.)
TASK 1_Verify That the Items are in Stock
TASK 2_Complete the Sales Order
TASK 3_Invoicing the Customer
SECTION 6_Recieve Payment from the Customer (Accounting
Dept.)
TASK 1_ Find the Sales Invoice Number and Total
TASK 2_ Create a Receipt for the Cash you Received from the

Customer
SECTION 7_Paying the Vendor (Accounting Dept.)
TASK 1_Checking Vendor Information
TASK 2_Make Payment to the Vendor
TASK 3_Verifying the Vendor Payment
3
4
6
9
11
14
15
15
16
16
17
17
18

22
22
23
27
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dynamics NAV is made up of many tools, each of which has
its own rules and expected inputs. As such, you may encounter
one or more error messages while you go through this exercise.
Luckily, most can be resolved easily. Below are a few of the
most
common error messages and what to do to resolve them.
COMMON PROBLEMS
This error means there is a line missing one or more values, as
in the image below where the top line is entirely blank.
2Section 1 – Signing In ERP Walkthrough (v 3.2)
CONNECTION TO SERVER SUSPENDED
This error results from a dropped connection between your
computer and the server. To resolve this error, simply click the
Resume button and allow the page to refresh. Once the page
has refreshed, navigate back to the page where you were work-

ing previously. All work is saved automatically so little work
should be lost, if any.
If this error pops up continually, close the browser and open it
up again or try a different browser.
MUST HAVE A VALUE
To resolve this error, simply remove the blank line, as in the
image below, or fill in the missing values.
CANNOT FIND INVOICE
This error is most often the result of a step being skipped in
Section 3 or 4. The invoice that you should be seeing in this
step
(Section 7 - Task 2 - Step 14) is generated when you post the
Purchase Order you created for the backordered items in Section
3. If you did not create a purchase order, if you created the
purchase order for the wrong vendor, or if you did not post the
purchase order, there will not be an invoice for you at this step.
To fix this error, go back and repeat the steps in Sections 3 and
4. This time, enter: INV-your_ONID_login-SECOND for
the Vendor Invoice No. so that you do not create a conflicting
invoice record. After doing so, return to where you left off in
Section 7 - Task 2.
1. Open a web browser, preferably Google Chrome, and point
it to:

http://dynamics.bus.oregonstate.edu
2. If you are logged into a machine with your ONID login, you
should be signed in automatically. In case you are presented
with
a login window, your user name will be “ONID” followed by
your ONID login; i.e., ONIDyour_ONID_login.
3. Once signed in (this can take a few seconds), you will be pre-
sented with the following screen:
SECTION 1_Signing In
This is your HOME screen, also referred to as the ‘dashboard.’
The HOME screen provides you with statistics and figures that
are relevant to your job, such as Open Sales Orders. The HOME
screen also has links to frequently accessed customers and
items.
On the left-hand side of the HOME screen are links to the ap-
plications that are frequently used as part of your job. There are
additional applications that we will be using during this
exercise
which are not found on the left-hand menu.
3Section 1 – Signing In
ERP Walkthrough (v 3.2)Section 2 – Creating a Sales Order
(Sales Dept.) 4
SECTION 2_Creating a Sales Order (Sales Dept.)

The first task in this exercise is the creation of a sales order.
This
occurs when a customer places an order for an item and you
must
initiate the order. For that to take place, the system must know
about
the customer and about the item(s) being ordered. We start with
the
situation of dealing with a new customer; i.e.,
a customer not yet registered in the ERP.
1. Click on the Sales Orders heading in the navigation column
on
the left-hand side of the screen. You should see a screen like the
one below. This screen contains a list of all the Sales Orders
which
are currently open.
2. We start the new order by clicking the +new link next to the
Sales Orders heading. You will see a screen like the one below:
3. To set the Sales Order number click on the ‘...’ button next
to the first text box labeled No. On the No. Series List that
comes
up, click on the S-ORD-1 option. This automatically populates
an order number for this order that fits a designated number
con-
vention. (Note that the date specified for this order is a date in
the future, not today’s date.)

NOTE: Write this order number down so that you can return
to it in case the system times out.
Section 2 – Creating a Sales Order (Sales Dept.) 5
ERP Walkthrough (v 3.2)Section 2 – Creating New Customer 6
1. Since this order is coming from a new customer, we must
first
create that new customer. We will use you (your ONID login) as
the new customer. Click the ‘...’ button next to the second text
box labeled Sell-to Customer No. Then click on the +new link
in
the bottom-left corner of the window that pops up. You will see
the window below.
SECTION 2_Task 1: Creating a New Customer
ERP Walkthrough (v 3.2)7
2. On the Select - Customer Card window that comes up, click
on the ‘...’ button next to the first text box labeled No.
3. On the window that comes up, click on the CUST option. Just
as with the Sales Order Number, this automatically populates a
Customer Number that fits a designated number convention.
NOTE: Write this Customer Number down. You will use it

again later.
4. Enter the following information in the corresponding text
fields:
a. Name: your_ONID_login (!!!PLEASE!!!! We need your
ONID
login here; not your student_OSU ID number; not your whole
@oregonstate.edu email address. Make sure that you type your
ONID login correctly, as it represents the new customer we are
creating and we will need it again later)
b. State / ZIP Code: OR
c. Country/Region Code: US
5. Click on the blue Invoicing section and it will expand. Enter
a choice for the three Posting Groups that are marked with a red
asterisk (*). For each, click on the ‘...’ button to the right of its
corresponding text field.
a. Gen. Bus. Posting Group: select NATIONAL
b. Tax Bus. Posting Group: select NATIONAL
c. Customer Posting Group: select DOMESTIC
NOTE: National and Domestic are just two different terms for
designating that this customer is located in the United States.
Section 2 – Creating New Customer

6. Click on the Payments heading to expand it then click on the
‘...’ button next to Payments Terms Code and select the option
for
14 DAYS.
7. Click the OK button in the bottom-right corner of the Cus-
tomer Card. The Sell-to Customer Name and Sell-to State fields
should now be automatically populated as well as the Posting
Date, Order Date and Document Date. They will be a date in the
future, not today’s date.
Section 2 – Creating New Customer
ERP Walkthrough (v 3.2)Section 2 – Completing Sales Order 9
SECTION 2_Task 2: Completing the Sales Order
Now that we have created the new customer, we are ready to
complete the sales order.
1. Under the Lines section, click on the top cell in the Type col-
umn and select Item.
2. In the top cell in the No. column, type your ONID login and
you should see an item named ‘ITM-your_ONID_login’. Click
on that item to add it to your order (NOTE: although under
normal circumstances, different users of the ERP all see the
same
set of common items to sell, our exercise requires that all
students

participating in this exercise see a unique pool of company re-
sources. Hence, we have named items to sell using your
(unique)
ONID login).
NOTE: If you do not see an item with your ONID login listed,
contact your instructor.
3. We will try to order 10 units, only to find out that we are
short
on stock. We will nevertheless still register the sale.
Enter a quantity of 10 and then press the Enter key. A
notification
pops up informing you that there is not enough stock in your in-
ventory to cover this line in the Sales Order. Click the Yes
button
to indicate that you still want to register this sale.
4. You will see the Total Incl. Tax (USD) field update after
enter-
ing the quantity.
5. Exit out of the Sales Order screen by clicking anywhere in
the
greyed-out space on the left-hand side of the screen, as in the
highlighted area of the image to the right. The Sales Order will
be automatically saved when you do this.
6. You should now see your Sales Order in the list of orders. If
you do not, refresh/reload your browser window.

Section 2 – Completing Sales Order
SECTION 3_ BACKORDERING ITEMS (PURCHASING
DEPT.)
Now that we have created the Sales Order for our customer, we
need to create a Purchase Order (or PO) with a vendor who sup-
plies us with the out-of-stock items that the customer ordered so
that we can fulfill the customer’s order.
1. Click on the search icon (the magnifying glass) in the up-
per-right corner of the screen.
2. Type in ‘purchase order’ and select the top result.
3. We will create a new purchase order.
Click on the +new link at the top to create a new PO.
Section 3 – Backordering Items 11
ERP Walkthrough (v 3.2)12Section 3 – Backordering Items
4. Next, we must specify the vendor from whom we will order.
In the Buy-from Vendor No. field, type the vendor’s ID code:

50000. You should see the company name Service Electronics
Ltd.
5. Click on the blue 50000 link next to its name to add it to the
Purchase Order.
6. Next, we must create a unique number for the vendor to use
when invoicing us.
In the Vendor Invoice No. field, assign an invoice number for
the
order using the following format:
INV-your_ONID_login-YYYYMMDD.
For example, if today’s date is May 4th, 2021, you would enter
INV-your_ONID_login-20210504.
NOTE: Write this invoice number down. You will use it again
later to pay the vendor.
7. Once we have created a Vendor Invoice Number, we can
enter
the details for the item we want to restock. Do the following for
the top row in the Lines section:
a. Under Type, select Item.
b. Under No., enter the item number: ITM-your_ONID_login.
This is telling the vendor which item we are ordering.
c. Under Quantity, enter the same number of items you listed on
the Sales Order (10).

8. Verify all the information you entered (vendor, item, quanti-
ty). It should look like the image above.
9. To finalize the purchase order, click on the ACTIONS tab
and
then click the Release button. You will see the Status field
change
from Open to Released. At this point, if this were a real
company,
you would email the Purchase Order to the vendor
(alternatively,
the ERP may do this automatically). For this exercise, however,
we assume that these actions have been taken by the time we
reach the next step.
NOTE: Keep this Purchase Order window pane open. We will
use it in the next section.
NOTE: Although what we just did -backordering the exact num-
ber of items which we were short- is not unusual, it it likely to
be rather inefficient and it also does not make customers hap-
py. A more realistic scenario would be that the ERP will notify
Purchasing when stocks are running low so that we can restock
before running out. Another way of accomplishing this is to let
the vendor monitor our stocks through our ERP and initiate
restocking when needed. This last method is used by Walmart.
What Walmart does in addition is that it does not take actual
ownership of the items -and hence does not pay for them!- until
they are sold to the customer, making Walmart essentially into a
very large consignment store.1
1 Mayer-Schönberger, V., Cukier, K. (2013) Big Data. John
Murray Publishers, UK.
Section 3 – Backordering Items

SECTION 4 – RECEIVING THE PO ITEMS
(RECEIVING OR WAREHOUSING DEPT.)
Now imagine that you are working as a warehouse (aka ‘receiv-
ing’) associate and that the backordered items have arrived at
the
warehouse. To update this information in the ERP you would
perform the following steps:
1. Assuming that you still have the Purchase Order on your
screen, click on the HOME tab at the top of the window and
then click on the Post button, highlighted in the image below.
2. Select ‘Receive and Invoice’ then click OK. Your PO has
now
been posted (registered) to the ERP.
Exit out of the Purchase Order by clicking in the greyish area
on
the left-hand side of the screen. This will take you back to the
Sales Orders list.
Section 4 – Receiving the PO Itmes 14

SECTION 5 – SHIP TO AND INVOICE THE CUSTOMER
(SALES & SHIPPING DEPT.)
SECTION 5_TASK 1: VERIFY THAT THE
ITEMS ARE IN STOCK
Now that we have received the backordered items, we can ship
them and invoice the customer.
1. Find the order number you wrote down earlier. You will see
it in the No. column next to your ONID login in the Sell-to
Customer Name column, as in the image below. Once you have
found your order number, click on it.
2. Click on the HOME tab and then click on the Order Promis-
ing button in the Prepare section at the top of the screen.
a. Scroll to the right and verify that the Unavailable Quantity
value is now 0.
b. Nice! We have the backordered items in stock. We can now
ship to the customer.
Section 5 – Ship to and Invoice the Customer 15
SECTION 5_TASK 2: COMPLETE THE SALES ORDER
SECTION 5_TASK 3: INVOICING THE CUSTOMER

Now that we have verified that the items are available, we can
complete the Sales Order. We will ship the items and invoice
our
customer.
1. Return to your Sales Order if you clicked out of it.
2. We will finalize the Sales Order and release the items for
ship-
ping. Click on the ACTIONS tab and then click on the Release
button. This changes the Status field to RELEASED. This.
Although companies may choose to separate shipping and in-
voicing, in this exercise we will ship the items to the customer
and send an invoice at the same time.
1. Assuming that you have not exited out of the Sales Order,
click on the HOME tab and then click on Post… in the Posting
section. (Note: if this were a real customer, we might click on
Post and Email… instead. This action would email the invoice
to
the customer using the email address on file in the system).
2. When the information window pops up, click on Ship and
Invoice.
Section 5 – Ship to and Invoice the Customer 16
NOTE: If you get an error message stating that the "Description
must have a value...", that means there is a line with one or
more
empty fields. To fix this, refer to the "Must Have a Value"
section
on the "Common Problems" page (pg. 2) of this document.

Section 6 – RECEIVE CUSTOMER PAYMENT
SECTION 6 – RECEIVE PAYMENT FROM THE CUSTOMER
(ACCOUNTING DEPT.)
SECTION 6_TASK 1: FIND THE SALES
INVOICE NUMBER AND TOTAL
Congratulations on making it so far! By completing the steps
above, you now have some insight into the work that goes on in
the back office when a customer places an order with a company
and how an ERP facilitates and coordinates this process. Now
come the fun part -getting paid- and the not-so-fun part -paying
your vendor. In this section, we will receive payment from the
customer.
1. Click on the Search button in the top-right corner of the win-
dow.
2. Search for ‘posted sales invoices’ in the search bar and click
on
the top entry returned.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the list and look for your ONID
login.
NOTE: Write down the sales invoice number (from the No.
column) and the invoice total (from the Amount Including Tax
column). We will use these numbers in the next step where we
document cash received from the customer.

17
SECTION 6_TASK 2: CREATE A RECEIPT FOR THE CASH
YOU
RECEIVED FROM THE CUSTOMER
Now that we have the sales invoice number and invoice total,
we
can create a receipt. For this example, we will assume that the
customer has paid us with cash in full.
1. Click in the greyed out area on the left-hand side of the
screen
to exit out of Posted Sales Invoices screen.
2. Let’s register the receipt of cash:
Find the Cash Receipt Journals link on the left-hand side of the
screen and then find your ONID in the list and click on it. Here
we will register a receipt of cash. If we wanted to register a
bank
payment, we would click on BANK instead. (NOTE: The GIRO
entry refers to bank-account-to-bank-account transfers made by
the payer. This is mostly a European payment system).
3. Click on the top cell in the Posting Date column. A system-
gen-
erated date in the future will be automatically populated for
you.
Section 6 – RECEIVE CUSTOMER PAYMENT 18

4. If the top cell in the Document Type column does not say
Pay-
ment, click on it and select. This indicates that we are
document-
ing a payment that we received.
5. If the top cell in the Document No. column already has a
value
(like ‘G02009’), then just leave it as that. If it is empty, type:
‘R-your_ONID_login-YYYYMMDD’. For example, if today’s
date is May 4th 2021, you would enter: ‘R-your_ONID_log-
in-20210504’.
6. In the Account Type column, select Customer.
7. Remember that way back in Section 2 you wrote down the
Customer Number for the new customer you created? We’re
finally going to use it! In the Account No. column, type in the
Customer Number and then press the Tab key on your keyboard.
The number should start with a ‘C’ followed by five digits; e.g.,
‘C00030’. You should also see your ONID login appear in the
Description column as in the image below.
8. Under the Bal. Account Type, set it to G/L Account if it was
not
already set. ‘G/L’ stands for ‘general ledger,’ meaning that this
is
a general transaction.

9. To indicate that this is a cash transaction, click on the empty
cell in the Bal. Account No. column and then click on the ‘…’
button. Click on the blue link next to the option for Cash.
10. To indicate that this cash payment was connected to an in-
voice, click on the empty cell in the Applies-to Doc. Type
column
and select Invoice.
11. Click on the empty cell in the Applies-to Doc. No. column
12. Find the Sales Invoice Number you wrote down earlier
(under
Document No.). You should see the invoice listed on this
screen.
Verify that the figure in the Remaining Amount column matches
the Invoice Total you wrote down earlier.
13. Now, click once on the number in the Document No. column
that corresponds to the Sales Invoice Number you wrote down
earlier. You should see the Amount to Apply, Applied Amount,
and
Balance fields all update to match the Invoice Total.
14. Click the OK button.
15. Finally, we will post this cash receipts to the system.
Click on the first of the cells in the line you created, as in the

image below, and then click on the HOME tab. Find and click
on the Post button in the Posting section.
Section 6 – RECEIVE CUSTOMER PAYMENT
You should see the following message. Click on Yes.
If you entered everything correctly, you should see this
message.
21
SECTION 7 – PAYING THE VENDOR (ACCOUNTING
DEPT.)
TASK 1: CHECKING VENDOR INFORMATION
1. Click on the greyed-out area on the left-hand side of the
screen
to exit out of the Cash Receipts Journal.
2. Click on the Search button in the top-right corner of the
screen and search for ‘Vendors’. Click on the top option.

3. Scroll down until you find the vendor named Service
Electron-
ics Ltd. Click on the vendor’s name (not its number!!!) and you
will see the Vendor Statistics window on the right-hand side of
the screen update.
NOTE: Write down the values for the Vendor No. and Total
($). The latter indicates our total outstanding debt to this ven-
dor.
Section 7 – Paying the Vendor 22
SECTION 7_TASK 2: MAKE PAYMENT TO THE VENDOR
1. Click on the greyed-out area on the left-hand side of the
screen
to exit out of the Vendors screen.
2. Click on the Search button and type in Payment Journals.
Click on the THIRD(!!) option, as shown in the image below.
3. Find the journal that contains your ONID login and then
click on it.
4. To indicate that we will make a payment, click
on the top cell in the Document Type column and
select Payment.

Section 7 – Paying the Vendor
5. Under the Document No. column, enter: ‘your_ONID_log-
in-YYYYMMDD’. For example: ‘your_ONID_login-20210504’.
6. Under the Account Type column, select Vendor. This
indicates
that this payment is going to a vendor.
7. Under Account No., enter the vendor number (50000).
8. Under Recipient Bank Account, select PAR. This is a
fictitious
bank created by the system named Park House Banking Group
that our fictitious vendor uses.
9. Under Payment Method Code, select BANK. This indicates
that
this payment will come from our company’s bank account.
10. Scroll over to the right using the scrollbar at the bottom of
the window to reveal additional columns.
11. To indicates that we’re paying from a bank account, under
the Bal. Account Type column, select Bank Account.
12. To select the bank account, under the Bal. Account No. col-
umn, select WWB-Operations.

13. To indicate that this payment is associated with a vendor
invoice, under the Applies-to Doc. Type column, select Invoice.
14. Click on the top cell under the Applies-to Doc. No. column
and then click on the ‘…’ button. This will bring up a list of the
invoices our company has with this vendor.
24
15. Go back through your notes and find the vendor invoice
number you created in Section 3. It should look like this:
INV-your_ONID_login -YYYYMMDD. Once you find your
invoice number, locate it on this screen under the External
Document No. column. Click on the invoice number and you
should see the following fields update at the bottom of the
screen:
Amount to Apply, Applied Amount, and Available Amount.
16. Click on the OK button and you’ll return to the Payment
Journal screen.
17. Finally, we’ll post the payment to the system:
Click on the HOME tab and then click on the Post button in the
Posting section.
NOTE: If you do not see your invoice listed here, that indicates
that there was a step skipped in either Section 3 or 4. To fix
this,

go back and repeat the steps in Sections 3 and 4. This time,
enter:
INV-your_ONID_login-SECOND for the Vendor Invoice No.
so that you do not create a conflicting invoice record.
For more details, refer to the "Cannot Find Invoice" section on
the "Common Problems" page (pg. 2) of this document.
You will see the following notification:
Click on Yes. You should now see the notification below:
1. Click on the Search button and type in Vendors. Click on the
top entry.
2. Scroll down and find the vendor named Service Electronics
Ltd.
Click on the vendor name and the values in the Vendor
Statistics
pane should update. Compare the new value for Total ($) to
what
you previously wrote down. You should see that they have both

diminished. The difference between their previous and current
value will be determined by your payment and orders placed and
payments made by other BA302 students also working on this
exercise.
3. Now, click on the blue number next to the vendor name
(should be 50000).
4. Click on the Navigate tab and then click on the Ledger
Entries
button in the History section.
5. Look for an entry that has Payment in the Document Type
col-
umn and has the payment number you created previously in the
Document No. column. The payment number should be in the
format: your_ONID_login-YYYYMMDD.
6. If you see that entry, you have verified that the payment was
made and you are done.
SECTION 7_TASK 3: VERIFYING THE VENDOR PAYMENT
Congratulations! You completed the exercise. Now you have
seen
an example of how a sales order makes its way through the var-
ious functions of a company and how an ERP integrates these
functions from an information flow point of view.

FINAL NOTE: You may have realized that we have skipped a
few steps in this process. For instance, we never actually
received
and stored or shipped items in and from our warehouse. In real-
ity, these steps would have to be carried out and their associated
information; e.g., which warehouse holds which items, would be
stored in the ERP. Similarly, in this exercise we only modeled a
(simple) sales process. If we would be manufacturing the items
we sold, we would have a whole manufacturing side to this, in-
volving materials ordering, storage, production line setup, etc.
We hope that you see how things will get complex quickly and
how ERP-like systems help coordinating and streamlining this
complex information landscape.
28

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