Today there is no easy way to print individual packing sheets AND it’s not possible to print multiple invoices for multiple orders at once. That takes time to the hub manager for editing some packing report which is just one table, multiple times if multiple packers are packing, with a risk of error. Also it takes time to print invoices one by one, and hubs are supposed to give/send an invoice when a purchase is made, so it’s pretty time consuming.
The fact is that today the invoice is used by lots of hubs as a “double use case” document: they print it, use it to prepare the basket, and then put it in the basket so the customer gets their invoice.
Who does it impact and what is the impact
Mary / Shannon who are organizing packing and do the invoicing, this is pretty time consuming as they use invoices as packing sheets and have to print them one by one.
What is the benefit in focusing on this
Time efficiency for food enterprise managers, who are the ones we want to focus on serving.
Potential solutions that will solve this problem
1- We generate a new report that creates a PDF to print?
Cons: sound strange in term of UX… it’s much more logical to do actions on orders on the order menu. Also reports are not well developped so not sure it take less time, and for a worse value added.
2- We can from bulk order management select multiple orders at once (add a multi-selector checkbox that you can thick after having applied fiters) and have a first bulk action to “print invoices for selected orders” (later on we can add more actions like “send invoices by email for selected orders” or “mark selected orders as collected”…). That would for instance open one merged PDF with all invoices in it that the hub manager can then print. Pros: but quicker to implement if we want just bulk invoice printing and bulk actions will be needed for other things so better value/effort rate probably. We need anyway for other needs to implement bulk actions on orders, so the value added by this solution is higher.
3- We set up some real and proper packing sheet on one side, and implement some nice bulk action to mark order as collected that attach the invoice to the customer account without Mary having to do anything Cons: it’s muuuuuch more job, and we don’t know yet what we want as a packing sheet, needs invesigtation. Also to make invoicing quicker we will anyway need bulk actions on orders, whether it be to marke orders as collected to trigger automatic invoices to be sent to customer, or print invoices in bulk
Value x ease analysis and selection of our feature candidate
So it seems that the value x ease matrix here is that bulk invoice printing is our feature candidate.
T-shirt size of the selected feature candidate
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Metrics to measure if need is well satisfied after feature has been implemented
Mary can print “invoices packing sheets” for her OC in less than 10 min.
Epic and/or project board where you can follow implementation
I just want to note here that printing (bulk or individual) invoices as they are now does not enable quicker packing. This is because the OFN current invoice does NOT have the supplier’s name on it. In order for Mary or Shannon to pack orders, they MUST know whose products to put into the order, because it is very likely that they have the same product/variant from multiple suppliers. Invoices do not suit the purpose of packing - so even with bulk printing of them, Mary & Shannon will still have to go into the backend reports and do a pack by customer report. This has all the needed information - but she has to fiddle with a CSV to make it printable, so she can give copies to the people doing the packing (Mary and Shannon do not have printers at their hubs - and indeed often do not even have internet access at their hubs). Isn’t another possible solution to integrate with something that interfaces with this existing report and turn it into a printable report (@CLFC has done this for us as a temporary solution - can’t we do something OFN-wide?) (Sorry I don’t understand the tech - but it seems like we are iceboxing a need for which we have an existing solution (the report) that just needs tweaking.) What am I missing?
I think that’s an important note @tschumilas - @MyriamBoure@danielle - what would be the process for agreeing to add Supplier names to invoices as part of this work?
We would be in essentially the same situation @tschumilas is describing. Currently we DO use our invoices (from OFS) as on-site packing lists. They show who each product was purchased from. If that information could be included in the OFN invoices for hubs, it would solve one problem fairly easily for multiple sites, not just ours.
@Rachel is the product owner for the bulk printing feature to solve this problem @Kirsten so it’s about making sure she’s across this and can work with @Matt-Yorkley to determine the size of this extra bit and how it might be included (or not, if it’s a bigger thing). I’m pretty sure she’s across this requirement and looking into it, but pinging her on here so she sees it.
4 issues open : 1 already merged, 1 in code review, 1 in dev and 1 in dev ready.
I’m not comfortable adding something to the scope of a feature that is already in development, especially as we decided not to change anything on how invoices look like. To be more precise, BIP is not here only to help packing become more easy, but also because some users are putting together the invoice with products before delivery. People are already printing invoices, but they do it one by one, so the idea is to be able to do it in bulk.
I do agree that it is a pity we did not have this feedback before, but that is also why we try to change the process to make it more inclusive
So I would like to propose to release the feature as it was designed first, and then prioritize the change of the invoice. What do you think process masters ? @danielle@MyriamBoure
Agree with your suggestion, let’s do it step by step, when it is release we can open an icebox on this unmet need which might be pretty small and decide to prioritize quickly if we judge it’s big value for not much work. It’s not going in contradiction of the current implementation, it’s more like an addon so let’s keep on with the plan.
I understand - and agree that we should finish this icebox issue that is in development. It feels a bit ironic to me that in doing so, we are ‘enabling quicker packing and invoicing’ for invoices that do not meet legal requirements though. So its like - we’ll be able to do the ilegal faster Its also really strange to me that a legal requirement for something is more stringent in Canada than in France - unbelievable - it seems like you have all sorts of legal requirements on invoicing and sales in France - strange that being able to clearly identify the product being bought is not one of them. Seriously - I’m good with the plan of finishing what we are working on and iceboxing the issue of making our invoices legally acceptable later.
I think there might be some confusing @tschumilas that we’ll need to discuss together. When you say you need the name of the product for each product on the invoice, does it mean that in the case you have in mind, it’s the producer selling directly, so the invoice is kind of a “sum of invoices” for each producer selling directly their products? Because to identify clearly a product a SKU coudl be enough, so why do you need explicitly the name of the supplier of a product on the hub’s invoice? I’m reading beyond your voice that you need a specific type of invoice for hubs who don’t buy and sell but just facilitate direct sale from producer. We have the same need in France, that’s why I ask I had opened this wishlist some time ago in France. It’s pretty complex as linked to some new type of enterprise who are not “hubs” neither “producers” but “sales facilitators”, and other logics are different. If you want to comment on this here is the thread Generating a compilation of one invoice per producer
It is not to do with facilitating a sale - we don’t have such a thing happening at all. Hubs buy in inventory from suppliers and re-sell it generally.
If a producer is selling directly - there is no confusion to the buyer. As long as the invoice gives the product name, amount, price (e.g. carrots - 5 lbs, $8.00), and tax (if applicable) and any other shipping/delivery/service charges… its OK. The supplier’s name would be presumably on the invoice (e.g. Garden Party farm, and my contact, and address, and business number…)
BUT I"m talking about re-selling through a hub, or buying club or something like that. In this case - an invoice needs to identify the products sold in a way that the buyer knows what they are buying. So to just say 'carrots - 5 lbs - $8.00) is not enough. It needs to say who supplied the carrots to the hub (e.g. Garden Party) since other suppliers (e.g. Kingwood Farms) also supply the same packaged carrots at the same price. It is the way a re-seller tells the consumer that they have ‘honoured’ their wishes and given them the exact product they ordered. A sku could work - but really none of our hubs use skus. Only big retail and re-sellers use skus here. So in the absence of skus, we need the supplier’s name.
(And this is why we cannot use invoices for packing also - although I recognize that we hope to solve the packing problems with a different solution from invoices. But this is why I say that the issue described above is not actually correct - being able to print invoices quicker/easier does NOTHING to help with packing in Canada hubs. It is not a packing solution.)
Ok I got it, let’s finish this need then and let’s see how it goes with “packing support tool / delivery note” and if you want to open another wishlist then icebox about the unmet need and potential solution is evolving invoice template you can do it and it can be treated separatly then.
fine to open another wishlist for this. Just noting (for myself as much as anyone else) that I suspect not having the Producer on the invoice was accident rather than design. I cannot see or recall any reason why we didn’t just do it the same as the order confirmation email which DOES display the producer e.g.
I will start a wishlist and see if anyone actually disagrees / has a problem with adding the producer info to the invoice as this seems extremely useful then as packing sheet for many people, especially once they can be printed in bulk
I see the producers now show on the invoices - which is AWESOME!!! But I am still only able to generate a PDF invoice by going into individual orders and selecting print invoice from the drop-down. If I select orders, even just a single order, from the orders screen and click the PRINT INVOICES button, the modal just pops up and spins endlessly. IE: I clicked the button some minutes ago, searched Slack, searched GitHub, and then searched here for a bulk printing thread (because I knew I had seen one somewhere) … and it’s still just spinning.
Oh - wait - just got a new message while I’ve been typing: “Failed to create Bulk Invoice.”
The idea of bulk invoices sounds amazing. I know a lot of friends with international businesses that could use them to avoid being late on providing invoices as many clients seem to complain about it way too much lately.
welcome here @Ernaina. FYI - this issue is marked ‘done’. It is now a feature of the platform. You can download and then print (or save…) invoices in bulk.
Its also really strange to me that a legal requirement for something is more stringent in Canada than in France - unbelievable - it seems like you have all sorts of legal requirements on invoicing and sales in France - strange that being able to clearly identify the product being bought is not one of them. 
Seriously - I’m good with the plan of finishing what we are working on and iceboxing the issue of making our invoices legally acceptable later.
