Breaking changes and important information for customers

Sybiz Vision and Sybiz Visipay 22 include some significant advances in technology to keep up with the ever-changing software environment as well as our new mobile solutions. If you are planning on upgrading to Sybiz 22, there are some important technology and behaviour changes you need to be aware of.

As always, we recommend you utilise the expertise of your Sybiz Business Partner to ensure any platforms, customisations and add-ons are ready for action prior to upgrading.

See the Sybiz Vision and Sybiz Visipay What’s New pages for more information about the new features and exciting enhancements in this release.

Sybiz Vision

Bank Feeds

Bank Feeds are sure to be one of the most eagerly anticipated functional additions to Sybiz Vision. To offset the cost of bank feeds we are increasing the base license cost from January 2022 by a nominal amount; a small price increase will also be applied to each block of 5 companies. Those customers on the new business pack will not incur the price rise at this time.

This will provide our customers in Australia and New Zealand access to the new bank feeds functionality at a fair use level. In the event of excessive use of the service, users will be notified and given the option to modify their use or incur additional charges.

Change to group references behaviour in Cashbook

The group reference field is no longer a required field for deposits. Instead, a warning will be presented. (CR160529600). If bank feeds are in use then the group reference should be used for both deposits and payments in the event that the bank shows a single line for a batch of deposits and a single line for a batch of payments.

Flexible posting options

It is now possible to configure the system to use a matching approach for general ledger automatic postings for jobs and service, rather than periodic. If the additional accounts are not configured there will be no change to postings. If the additional accounts are configured correctly then cost of sales will not be recognised until the sale occurs. In other words, nothing happens at the profit and loss level until the sale occurs.

Multiple approval groups for Purchase Requisitions

Sybiz Vision users are now able to be added to multiple approval groups for Purchase Requisitions, creating more comprehensive control over purchasing processes. Once configured, this enhancement will allow users to pick which approval process they want to use for different types of purchases.

Users are now able to select the appropriate approval group from a drop-down menu when creating a Purchase Requisition. If a user is only allocated to one approval group as in other versions of Sybiz Vision, the setting will default to that group as per the previous behaviour.

The ability to select an approval group will also be included in the Vision Purchase mobile application. As this will be a mandatory field in purchase requisition creation, the application will be able to dynamically recognise what version of Vision a customer is using. Therefore, there will be no need to delay updating devices to the latest version of the Purchase app if the customer has not yet upgraded to Sybiz 22. (CR180236688)

Changes to Product Search display

The Product Search now displays inactive products by default. (CR210746547)

Improvements to Assembly functionality

Based on customer feedback we are making improvements to assembly functionality to provide greater flexibility. A review of current ‘manufacture on delivery’ assembly configurations may be necessary.

From Sybiz Vision 22.00, there may be some unexpected outcomes for customers when an assembly is returned via sales returns if it is flagged for ‘manufacture on delivery’ but not ‘explodable on return to stock’. Currently this combination will still break down any assembly based on its recipe. Customers in this instance may find themselves with stock levels that no longer reflect their expectations as to which components and/or sub-assemblies have been returned to stock.

Rather than just focus on what’s changing, it is a good idea to consider carefully four of the flags against assemblies to assist with the overall context of the change:

Manufacture on delivery (behaviour remaining as is):
Determines whether a product can be manufactured on delivery. Due to the complexity of multi-level assemblies Sybiz recommends this setting is only utilised for single-level assemblies or ‘kits.’

Manufacture on demand (behaviour remaining as is):
This only comes into play if flagged on a sub-assembly (it can be set on a top-level assembly but has no consequence unless and until that assembly later becomes a sub-assembly). Sub-assemblies will be manufactured if components are in stock, in the event that completed sub-assemblies are not in stock. If an assembly has a sub-assembly that is not flagged ‘manufacture on demand’, and that sub-assembly is not in stock, the manufacturing process cannot proceed until the shortfall is remedied.

Explodable on return to stock (behaviour changing when unchecked for ‘manufacture on delivery’ assemblies):
Evaluates from the highest level down whether (sub-)components are explodable when an assembly is returned and will break down accordingly. If a returned top-level assembly is not marked as ‘explodable on return to stock’ it will be returned as a finished good, regardless of settings on sub-components. The current behaviour of ‘explodable on return to stock’ with respect to items that are set to ‘manufacture on delivery’ is that whether checked or unchecked everything is treated as explodable on return. This is because ‘manufacture on delivery’ has always been intended to represent individual items that are grouped together at time of sale. If you would like this behaviour to continue then you must ensure the relevant ‘manufacture on delivery’ assemblies are set to ‘explodable on return to stock’.

Returnable (behaviour remaining as is):
This flag can be found under the assembly against each component or sub-assembly (as a component). This is essentially an override to prevent an item being returned to stock, even in the event the related items being returned are explodable. This flag will continue to operate in the same way with respect to the return of all assemblies, including assemblies marked ‘manufacture on delivery’.

Sybiz recommends discussing this with your Business Partner when deciding how to set up and flag assemblies and sub-assemblies in Sybiz Vision to ensure the expected outcomes are achieved when ‘manufacture on delivery’ items are returned.

Sybiz Visipay

Sybiz Visipay 22.20 & 2022/23 financial year

It is necessary to upgrade to Sybiz Visipay 22.20 prior to finalising the 2021/22 financial year if employing working holiday makers. If using the new allowance categories of Tasks, Tools & Qualficiations an upgrade to Sybiz Visipay 22.20 is also essential. Employers using SybizSuper for superannuation contributions must upgrade to Sybiz Visipay 22.20 prior to making their first contributions of the 2022/23 financial year.

Superannuation breaking change

Although slated to be discontinued in the near future the option to apply a $450 minimum monthly earning threshold before paying superannuation has been extended to apply to all employees (via staff types), irrespective of their nature of employment. Previously, Sybiz Visipay was only applying it to casuals.

This may have consequences in the following scenarios:
Where a value exists in the staff type and the staff type is not casual the calculation of superannuation will behave the same way as a casual staff type. For example, a part time employee who earns less than $450 in their first pay of the month will not attract super if their staff type has the $450 amount in place. In the case of negative pay for an employee with a $450 threshold applied, no superannuation will be calculated. Reversals and Corrections should be used, rather than negative pays.

Staff types that have this value set to zero will have behaviour that is consistent with previous versions.

ESS and Web Service combined

Sybiz Visipay’s Employee Self Service and Web Service modules have been merged into one combined module in Sybiz 22. This change simplifies configuration, implementations and upgrades going forward.

Customers who already use the Web Service to power the ESS app will need to change the URL used in the mobile application for each user to move to the new Web Service. The ESS mobile app has been designed to handle the current Web Service and the new combined Web Service so there will be some time for existing users to migrate across before the old Web Service is discontinued however we still recommend upgrading as soon as possible.

Quarterly superannuation threshold checkbox option

If employee staff types are set to allocate super on a fixed basis, the 'Quarterly Superannuation Threshold Applies' checkbox should not be ticked or super could calculate incorrectly. The figure represented in the 'amount' field for staff types paid on a fixed basis has also changed from a per period amount to a per annum amount. (CR190540838)

General information

The following changes affect both Sybiz Vision and Sybiz Visipay.

Changes to settings menu

Company Detail maintenance options have now been separated from email and other common setting options in the main file menus in Sybiz Vision and Visipay (now labelled Company and Settings respectively).

This menu separation will provide a deeper level of permission options to separate users from being able to access and edit company level email, skin and language options and change company specific information such as banking details. Role and user permissions may need to be updated for some customers. (CR190942075)

Changes to the install process

A new single instance installer will impact the install process in Sybiz 22 for both Vision and Visipay.

The Sybiz Vision/Visipay Setup install prompt has been removed so users need to exercise caution when installing on sites that already have Sybiz installed and/or have more than one instance of Sybiz installed. The new default behaviour will uninstall the previous version of Sybiz and replace it with the new download.

Microsoft.NET Framework upgrade

Version 22.00 of Sybiz Vision and Sybiz Visipay utilises Microsoft.NET Framework version 4.8 and therefore some custom add-ons may require updating.
As part of this important infrastructure improvement, some older operating systems will no longer be supported. These include:

- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 SP2
- Microsoft Windows Vista
- Microsoft Windows 8

A full list of supported operating systems and additional information is available from the Microsoft website. This update will not affect Microsoft SQL Server but may impact servers running Web API or Sybiz Visipay Employee Self Service (ESS).

Some custom add-ons may require updating prior to upgrading to Sybiz 22. Some older supported operating systems may also be required to download .NET updates prior to installation of Sybiz 22. Any customers on a Microsoft.NET Framework prior to version 4.8 will also not be able to web update easily due to restarts being required. We recommend having Microsoft.NET Framework version 4.8 installed and ready prior to upgrading to Sybiz version 22.00.

Microsoft have also announced that their .NET Framework versions 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1 will reach end of support on 26 April 2022.

Operating system compatibility

Certain older operating systems (Microsoft Windows XP, some versions of Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Server 2003) and Microsoft SQL Server (2008/2008R2) are not compatible with Sybiz 22.00.

Microsoft Windows 11 is supported for Sybiz 22 with compatibility extending to some other later versions of Sybiz solutions. Sybiz legacy (Classic) products however, will not be supported on this platform with development for them having ended in December 2020 and support ending in December 2021.

Microsoft SQL Server updates

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 remains the minimum requirement for Sybiz 22 however performance improvements in later versions are becoming harder to ignore. In Sybiz 23, the minimum version required will be 2017. We recommend upgrading to the latest version available at the time of upgrade, rather than to the minimum supported version, for not only greater longevity but also better performance capabilities.

Basic Authentication being deprecated for Microsoft Office 365

Microsoft have begun to move towards Multi-Factor Authentication for Office 365, deprecating the currently available Basic Authentication. Sybiz users have been able to utilise this additional security within their solutions since version 20.10.

Although Microsoft are still planning to disable Basic Authentication entirely, at this stage only affected protocols that are not currently being used will be disabled. In addition to this, some extra protocols have been added to the deprecation list.