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The ERPNext Newsletter ? December 2020

This month we have updates like the putaway feature for warehouses, some more localizations, leave policy assignments, blogs on CRM for lead management, and generating more leads but also maintaining customer relationships once you’ve closed the deal. 


But before all that, if you haven’t heard already, something really nice happened to us.


We got funded!

“Accepting the first round of funding after 12 years must be a record of some sort.”

— Rushabh Mehta, Founder, Frappe and ERPNext


Around 2008, Frappe technologies was born out of a zealous attempt to create user-friendly ERPs that don’t break the bank. 12 years later, Zerodha has invested 10cr in Frappe reassuring and showing their support for open source.


Over time ERPNext grew and is now a decent ERP platform with many features. ERPNext and Frappe Framework have been open source from the start, GitHub saw our code first in 2011. This funding comes as a happy turn of events for Frappe and ERPNext where we look forward to a bright future and more features.


Read our founder’s thoughts in Frappe + Zerodha.

Also check out the blog by Zerodha’s CTO, Kailash here.


ERPNext updates

Let’s see the ERPNext updates for this month.

  1. Putaway is a common warehouse management strategy where large numbers are involved. Inventory comes in, you either hold it in a temporary location and put it away to permanent storage or directly putaway. The upcoming v13 beta will have ‘Putaway Rule’ using which you can create putaways against Stock Entries and Purchase Receipts. By setting a target warehouse, priority, and capacity, you can set rules to putaway stock by simply ticking a box in transactions. This comes with a report called ‘Warehouse Capacity Summary’ which shows stock capacities of warehouses. 


  1. We’re extending ERPNext’s easy customizations to the Navbar with Navbar settings. Yes, that’s right you can add, remove, and change options including the logo you see at the top. Access your favorite options in just two clicks.


  1. Bringing you some more localizations this month, we have UAE VAT 201 form which is a standard form to be filled by UAE VAT payers. This feature in ERPNext allows you to generate invoices compliant with the UAE VAT system. It also has supporting fields that are required and you can print the report with all the data.


  1. Leave policy assignment, brings batch allocation of leaves where you can automatically allocate leaves to employees based on Leave Period, Joining Date, or by manually setting date intervals. Once granted, the employee can apply the different types of leaves automatically allocated to him/her. You can also assign leaves to employees in bulk.


Blogs

This month we bring you blogs on topics around customer relationship management (CRM). 

  1. Without lead management, you have lots of incoming leads and frustrated salespeople who scatter their focus in too many conversations. Scanning the leads with proper processes and people enables your sales team to close more deals. But what are the things that go into lead management? Read all about it in The ultimate guide to lead management in CRM. Everything you need to know from qualification to starting the sale.


  1. But what if you’re hardly getting any leads? Oops. For many small businesses, marketing seems confusing because there are so many ways to approach it. You eventually get frustrated and just run a bunch of ads. Well, let’s see what ways a small business can take in Marketing for small businesses: A practical intro guide to starting your lead flow (it’s not just ads).


  1. Let’s say you have a decent lead flow and are closing sales, great! While maintaining relationships with customers starts with sales it certainly doesn’t end with it. Good service, proper communications, and solving the customer’s problems are common practice nowadays. Your business should also be competitive by Creating and maintaining meaningful customer relationships in digital times.


Videos

ERPNext gives you amazing options for customizing and configuring print formats and letterheads. At times the options may look like too much or it’s difficult to know how to start. If you feel like that or just want to brush up on your print configurations, watch Print settings and configuration in ERPNext.


What’s up at Frappe

In these not so happy months, it was a happier month for Frappe feat. Zerodha. We also volunteered to help the Internet Freedom Foundation to set up their payments among other things.


Frappe at Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF)

As an open-source company, sentiments like freedom and openness are close to our hearts. So when IFF needed some help on the tech side, we volunteered to build their payment system. Read all about how it went down in Frappe and ERPNext at IFF. 


Frappe cloud

There are now $300 and $400 plans on popular demand. Offsite backups will not be available on the $10 plan, it’s now limited to the $25 plan and above. No need to worry since this will not affect local backups. Indian customers will now get GST invoices on billing for Frappe Cloud usage. If you don’t want automatic billing anymore, you can purchase credits and use them instead. 


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Cheers,

Prasad from Frappe.

erpnext.com