Department Setup Simplified

In order to create certain transactions (e.g. Vendor Orders and Master Orders, Customer Orders and Commissary Orders, Inventory Adjustments, Transfers, and Data Entry in Net-Chef Physical Inventory), users must have access to products via associations with Company/Location Departments.

For restaurant companies, where departments are generally not needed, the “Use Single Company Department” and “Default Company Department” preferences can be used to configure the application so that it automatically creates the relationships required to make products available for locations and application users.

Department Setup - Process Overview

In the Company Departments screen, a corporate user creates a single company department.
In the General Preferences screen, the user checks the Use Single Company Department box. This will populate the “Default Company Department” drop-down with this department and disable the field so it cannot be edited.

When new records are created, the following will occur:

Each time a company product or recipe is created, it will automatically be linked to this department.
Each time an application user is created, the user will automatically be linked to this department for each location to which the record is linked.
Each time a customer record is created for a catering customer, it will automatically be linked to this department.

Note: For company products and application users, if the "Audit" preference is selected, audit records will be created.

Turning off “Use Single Company Department”

If the “Use Single Company Department” preference is deselected, the following will occur:

Menu options for “Company Departments” and “Location Departments” will be added to the Setup | Corporate menu, to allow a corporate user to create departments manually.
A “Departments” tab will be added to the Company Product Details screen, the Recipe Details screen, and the Application Users screen to allow a corporate user to manually associate departments with each of these entities.

“Default Company Department” without “Use Single Company Department”

These preferences can only be used together in an environment where only a single company department has been defined. They should NOT be used together if more than one department is required, or if it is common to keep new products virtually inactive by not linking them to departments until the product is ready for ordering.

A “Default Company Department” can be selected even if “Use Single Company Department” is not checked (i.e. more than one company department exists). If so, the associations noted above will also be created for all existing company products and application users. This will not affect any associations that products or users may have with existing departments.