Say that you have an existing Purchase Order in the system when a new Sales Order arrives from a customer. How do you go about booking items from the open PO to the newly created SO? The answer is simple. From the open Purchase Order, enter Edit mode. Select the line or lines you wish to assign to the new SO. Click on the Options button and select Assign Line to SO. The system will automatically allocate the Purchase Order line(s) to the new Sales Order. Using this method, there is no need to create any new documents or include unnecessary extra steps!

Pentagon has recently included a new Alert flag in the customer record. Instead of formally placing the customer/vendor on hold, a user may now check the Alert flag in the customer record and include a note regarding why this was done. Perhaps the customer is behind on payments or is nearing their shipment limit, now the alert message will appear whenever a new document (Quote, SO, Invoice, etc.) is created for that customer. This is also a useful tool for any message you might wish to appear to the user, providing an opportunity to alert users regarding any special service, procedure or note you need them to see.

When creating purchase orders for a customer it isn’t always necessary to go through the usual bidding process with your vendors. Sometimes it is much simpler to use a recommended and reliable vendor whom you know, and more importantly, whom your system knows. When creating a PO from a sales order, you may automatically create one using a recommended vendor. These vendors are noted in Pentagon as reliable for having the part as well as for delivery and performance. To use this feature, simply click the Options button in your SO and select, “Auto PO by Recommended Vendor.” A window will open allowing you to select from the recommended vendors and even gives you a snapshot of your history and stock levels.

Have you ever needed to know the average cost to your company for inventory items by line type? What is the average cost to repair the part? The average cost of an exchange? A quick and easy feature of Pentagon will give you that information in one click. From your inventory parts record, enter the “Costs” tab. Under the header “Cost” there is a green button marked “Average Cost by Line Type”. Clicking this button will open a window listing the average cost for each line type including min/max values and number of lines. This feature is perfect for pinpointing budget figures.

A general tip for more efficient system use is a relatively new feature, which can be found at the bottom right of any search window. Upon opening your Inventory, Quotes, Customer, PO, etc. list you will notice a small green button featuring a Microsoft Excel icon. Clicking this button will allow you to export and save whatever information is contained in that search window to an Excel file. If your search window is listing 50 results, those 50 will be represented in the excel spreadsheet. This saves you the time of having to select, format, and run a report to obtain the same information.
All with one click!

Pentagon can be set up to send you internal email notifications when certain events occur within your system. These alerts can let you know many things such as when a fax fails or when a Work Order closes. The notification emails can also inform you of outgoing shipments and of changes made to Purchase Orders. To set up this valuable feature, simply select “My Settings” from the “My Pentagon” menu along the top of the screen. Select the notifications you desire from the menu by checking the boxes. When an event occurs you can expect a helpful reminder from Pentagon!

Sometimes your vendors, for whatever reason, decide to ship you a little more than you asked for. This can create a problem when you are trying to account for these extra items in Pentagon. There is a simple solution that will eliminate these issues. Open the Vendor’s file and click the Edit button to enter Edit Mode. Click the Defaults tab. Under the “Shipping” section, enter a percentage into the “Over Ship by:” field. Click OK to save. Pentagon will now allow you to receive more pieces than had been previously arranged for on the receiver. This is done per vendor and should be reserved for vendors with whom you have a solid working relationship.

At certain times it is necessary to create a new part number for a part that has returned from being repaired or has been modified in some other way. Pentagon makes this very simple by using the Replicate Part function. Located in the Options Menu of the Partnumber master file, simply select option J “Replicate Part”. A window will open where you can modify the part number, description, and NSN/ATA numbers. Click OK and you will see a notice that the replication has been completed successfully. This option will copy all of the part credentials including the memos and XRef notes. This will save you the time of creating an entirely new part record from scratch.

Every customer and vendor may prefer to receive their documents from you in a different way. There is a simple way to account for this in Pentagon without having to check your notes or open the customer record. In the Customer or Vendor record under the Defaults tab you may determine the preferred method for document submittal, Hard Copy (Printer), Fax, or Email. If selecting Email you may also choose the format; PDF attachment, embedded, or TIFF. Once that preference has been set, each time you go to send a document to that customer or vendor, you only need to click the Default button under the printing options and the document will automatically be sent to the customer via their preferred method!

Pentagon knows how important efficiency and productivity is to our customers, especially at repair stations where time is money. To ensure you get to spend the most time working, Pentagon is now offering a new module, Quick Receiver, which will automatically create the Receiver, Sales Order and Work Order from one screen. This is of great benefit to companies that do a high volume of repair/overhaul and would like to save some time on data entry and document creation. Simply enter the customer, the WO type, PO number, and the Part Number and click, “Create Doc” and the system takes care of the rest.
This module will be a huge time saver for those companies that create all three documents (receiver, sales order and work order) upon receipt of a customer unit to be repaired. That’s less time spent entering data into Pentagon and more time spent repairing parts, which increases turnover and profitability. With a fast and simple implementation, you could have Quick Receiver reducing your paperwork load the same day as purchase.

The Phone Order module is a single screen that provides full visibility of all sales processes for any given customer or vendor. This module let’s you simultaneously view histories of quotes, sales, RFQs, and purchases all in one place. It also incorporates stock and warehouse information so you will know precisely what you have and where you have it. The Phone Order even enables cross-referenced parts and capabilities listings to be seen in the same screen. With the Phone Order module you are able to track all part sales activities including work orders, offers, exchanges, electronic catalogues, repairs, kits, processes and rejections from one simple to use and convenient location.
If you do a high volume of sales and would like to expedite the process, look no further than the Phone Order module.

Inventory lies at the heart of the Pentagon system and we provide you with some excellent methods for controlling it. One of the most fundamental options for inventory tracking are the three classes of Tracing you can apply to a part. The tracing types allow you to track all parts and serial numbers by warehouse location and provide high visibility of specific parts system wide. The first option is Tracing Only which allows parts to be received to an individual location in any quantity. The second option is Serialized Multi which allows you to receive any number of serialized parts to a single warehouse location. The final option is Serialized Unique which creates a warehouse location for each individual serial number. With these tracing options in place, you will have thorough control over the parts that lie in your inventory and will be able to specify, down to the serial number, which parts you wish to utilize in your operations

The Report Scheduler enables our customers to create reports and designate them to run automatically at a given time. Now users will always have the information they need to keep their business moving without having to manually configure and run a report.
Create reports once, “set it and forget it”, and then receive new reports with the latest data at the designated interval. Schedule reports to run every few seconds, once a week, monthly, or any timeframe in between. Even specify certain days of the week or a particular calendar date. You will always have the latest information available and will not have to think about which report you need. All of the reporting information is up to the second, coming live from your Pentagon database.

The Drag and Drop Feature enables the quick attachment of Microsoft Outlook email files to many documents within the Pentagon system in build 9.0.3.14 and later. Users may simply drag an email from Outlook and drop it in the document within Pentagon. Files may be renamed at the time they are saved and will stay as part of the permanent record of the document to which it is attached.