The OFBiz documents are generated from a number of Asciidoc files. In general the files are stored on each component in the 'src/docs/asciidoc' directories.
The general main documents include all files from component.

The manuals and guidelines documents are located in docs/asciidoc directories, and REAME.adoc is in root directory.

Help link in the OFBiz user interface, are link to the user-manual generated by buildbot process from Apache OFBiz community. It’s possible to change a property in OFBiz to have link to your own generation.

For details about asciidoc rules used in Apache OFBiz have a look to Documentation Guidelines

Wiki is the second way to contribute to the documentation. Detail on how to Help for providing help content is on the wiki [smile o]

Most of wiki page has been or will be migrated to the asciidoc pages, but, as wiki is more easier to be update (update existing page or create new one) the two system will continue to exist and live.

If you would like to create a new help for a certain screen, you need to do the following:

This section shows list of organizations which store in the system. You be able to edit an information of your orgainzation via click setup then it will go to view profile screen, you will see other tab button including Facility, Product Store, Web Site, First Customer, and First Product where you would like to edit an information.

When you created an information of your orgainzation and also created product. And the last step is click "Set to complete" button.

This section provides a form for create a new an organization(the first step of setup organization) and also setup the "Billing (AP) Address" , "Payment (AR) Address", "General Correspondence Address", any telephone numbers, and email addresses you want for your Company.

Not all the fields on the facility can be updated.
For example Facility Id cannot be updated. If these fields need to be amended then the facility will need to be removed and then re-created.

Not all the fields on the Product Store can be updated.
For example Product Store Id cannot be updated. If these fields need to be amended then the Product Store will need to be removed and then re-created.

After the first customer is created the profile and contact information screen will be displayed

This screen can be a starting point for Order management (view existing, create a new one, …​).

For each Parties listed, there are links to Order management action.

Before taking the order, you might want to update the party’s information: is the address and phone number current, how will they be paying for the order (credit card number current? EFT information correct?), or perhaps review their ordering history (are there an excessive number of returns?). To look at their file, either click on the [Party ID] or the [Details] link.

If the contact from your customer is specifically about a previous order, you can click on the [Orders] link which will take you to a table of all their previous orders.

You are now on profile page.

Next we need to enter some contact details. Find the "Contact Information" section (box)

The address is added - but - there is still some missing setup.

We need to include a purpose (or use) for the address.

The address purpose is be updated.

We now need to add a specific role to this party group to let OFBiz know that is an organization that will have an accounting setup.

The internal organization role will be added to our new Party Group.

Now this is done we can begin the Accounting setup.

Although the process sequence through the tabs discussed below does not correspond with the tab layout within the Catalog Manager, the progression of the steps is intentional.

All of these details are handled within the Catalog Manager.

The main Catalog tab for a product catalog is mostly for establishing the look and feel.

Each catalog can have its own style sheet (CSS), its own logo, and its own content repository (the content path prefix) and templates prefix (where its freemarker templates are located).

The 'Stores' tab shows a list of Stores that this Catalog is currently featured in.

Here you identify which Party is responsible for or assigned to work with the specific Catalog selected.

The Party’s Role is assigned or identified and, if appropriate, a start and/or finish date for the assignment can be specified.

The 'categories' tab shows the different product categories and their roles for this catalog. Specifically:

Auto create keywords will create keywords for all of the products identified with the current Catalog.
The keywords are based on product descriptions and are used for searching for products.

Fast load catalog into cache will load all products and product categories into the cache; this is good for improved application performance.

This very complete screen provides entry for all of the myriad choices available which define the store and establish parameters.

Defines parties with specific roles for this store.

For an employee to be able to take orders using the internal order manager application, he must be defined as a 'Sales Representative' here.

Restrictions are enforced through the Party Manager - SecurityGroupsList which grants rights according to party roles.

Shows a list of active promotions for this store.

Catalogs which are available for the current store and the sequence in which they are to be shown to the user in a navigation menu.

Websites which are related to this store.
This is directly used to link a store to a web application.

Each web application has a configuration file called web.xml, and it is defined to reference a particular web site.
The web site in turn is defined to relate to a product store.

Thus, by setting a store on a web site, it becomes 'live' on that web application.

This page shows the shipping options available to store customers.
A list of shipping options and their pricing is shown.

Click on View for a shipping option shows all the settings for this shipping option.
At this point, this tab can only view shipping options available and can not be used to define them.

his is used to set up payment processing for the store.

The payment processing interfaces are defined as Apache OFBiz services.

Each payment method will have a series of service types available to it, such as for authorizing, capturing, and refunding payment.

This page links the payment types and the services together by their purpose.
Thus, one service would be used for credit card authorizations, another for credit card capture, and so forth

This defines emails which the store would send to customers.

The actual email services are either mounted in the controller, such as the order confirmation email, or from scheduled services, such as back order notifications.

This page defines where the template for the email is located on the file system, the addresses and subject of each email, and a content type (which can be left blank).

This page is for adding surveys to the store.
Surveys can be associated with certain events or with products and categories.

Allows certain keywords to be ascendant at this store for a particular time period.

Identifies the Sales or Market Segments targeted for this Store.

The actual assignment is made under the Marketing tab > Segment sub-tab.
Here under the Product Store you will see a summary table of those assignments along with links to make any additions or changes.

Click partyId into party’s screen already present.
Select the submenu 'Role(s)' to add the role to party

There is Add To Role screenlet, select role 'Image Approver'(on the combobox role type Id) then click 'add' button.

In Frame function, you can merge your image with the frame image (transparent image file e.g. PNG type) together.

The frame image should be larger than selected image.

You can crop any images in this function.

You can rotate images in this function.

f you have an approval process, you will want to check over the details to confirm that the shipping information is complete and accurate, that the billing details are acceptable and that the requested shipping dates (if specified) are within your company’s capabilities.

When all is ok click on the [Approve Order] link in Order View

All informations on order are modified, but depending on order status or packing / shipping started.

Depending on payment method process is not exactly the same.

Status and General Info
Notice the Status History? This tells you when the order was placed, when it was approved and, later, where it is at in the shipping process.

The section labeled 'Created by' will give you the login ID of the person taking or making the order. This is who you need to talk with if there are any problems in the original order. Remember, it could be your customer service rep or it could be the customer herself if the order came in through ecommerce.

Payment Information Section
This section will reflect the type of payment selected by the customer. If Debit or Credit Card, the card number last 4 digits will show; if EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer - electronic checking withdrawal), the bank account number will appear.

Shipment of the order against customer payment by check or money order will appear as shown below. It might be your practice to withhold shipment until payment is received. When it arrives, pull up the order and click on [Receive Payment].

Order Items Section
All the products, whether ordered or being sent as promos, are listed here. Note the many details shown in this section.

Actions Section
[Quick Ship Entire Order] is a powerful link built on a great many assumptions that everything needful to complete the order is in place, including financial arrangements, inventory, manpower to fulfill the order, etc. This powerful action will by-pass many of the normal processing screens, accomplishing most steps behind the scenes. See the topic QuickShip Fulfillment Path for more details

Shipment Information Section
Steps for shipping the order start here.

Remember there are two different uses of the word 'Splitting' and you need to know which meaning is being used. When the phrase 'Splitting Preferences' is used here we mean: Does the customer want a part of his order to be shipped as soon as any portion is available, allowing the delayed balance to follow at a later date? If splitting is not desired, all elements of the order must be gathered together for a unified shipment.

In this order as shown, if you were to click on the link [Allow Split], you would reverse the customer’s original choice to wait for all items in one order. Do NOT select that link unless the customer has informed you of a change in her former preference!

When the next item is considered, 'Ship Group,' we would be looking at a Split Order with part of it going to one destination and the other part to another if there were two Ship Groups indicated. As the order in this example shows only one Ship Group, you can know that all items are destined for the same location.

The [Pack Shipment For Ship Group] button Initiates the preparation of packages for shipping the order under the Facility Manager. This is just one of many screens where this step can be triggered.

There are several approaches to having the products Picked and Packed in the system. One method is to open the Facility Manager, click on the Facilities tab, select your Facility, then click on the Picking tab.
After identifying and submitting orders that need Picking to the floor, you move over to the Packing tab. This one is more individualized; you can see the screen shot below. You must enter the Order number, then enter the Product ID for each item as it is accepted.
A much easier method is right there in the Order Manager. Pull up the Order and look under Shipment Information. See the link labeled Pack Shipment For Ship Group [00001]? Click on that and you will see the second screen below.

The link [New Shipment for Ship Group {00001}] will bring up a working screen in the Facility Manager to allow you to begin the Warehouse Path, discussed below.

QuickShip presumes several things:

Essentially, QuickShip allows OFBiz to bypass all of the procedures for identifying, picking, packing, billing and shipping so that the package is immediately dispatched.

and the screen shows

Under the ' Order #WS10082 Information' section

Under the Payment Information section

Under the Shipment Information section
Splitting Preference no longer presents an opportunity to change the preference; chosen method is displayed.

Shipments affords two links:

[Quick-Refund Entire Order] link could be used to immediately reverse a completed order which had been charged to a Credit Card, an Electronics Fund Transfer (EFT), or a Gift Card. Best used before the items leave the Facility. If already shipped, use the [Create Return] link.

[Create Return] brings up a working screen to begin the complex process of bringing products from the customer back into your facility, reversing charges, etc.

The Quick-Ship Shipment document
Even though the 'Shipment' did not follow a complete course through the Facility Manager and elsewhere, paperwork is still needed to confirm stock deletions and track where products have gone.

You can see the highlighted 'Shipments #' link. Click on that number to see the details as shown immediately below.

View Shipment Details
In so much as shipping methods were specified in the ordering process (UPS Ground), this example is somewhat skewed. If you knew the customer was going to retrieve the products personally, you would so indicate in the original order entry process.

You will notice in the document that inventory adjustments and other issues are all presented. You can bore down into any of the highlighted links or select one of the sub-tabs to bring up further details about the order, the products, the customer, etc.

A final link to follow is the 'Generate Shipment Manifest Report' which produces a PDF form to send with the purchaser or to serve as a hard copy for your internal purposes. An example is given below.

The Sales Order process is not complete until the Shipment is generated. This is begun by clicking on the link [New Shipment for Ship Group #].

The following screen in the Facility Manager is sometimes brought up with the Order Number and little else completed in it.

When you generate the Shipment by clicking on 'New Shipment For Ship Group [00001]' link, your screen might not appear as completed as shown above. Before you enter information in the address fields, for example, try clicking on the [Submit] or [Update] link at the bottom of the screen. The system usually will retrieve these addresses from the Sales Order and from the Party Profile to enter the address ID numbers as you see here.

The Status ID wil generally be updated as you go through the following steps. That Status includes Scheduled, Picked, Packed, etc.

If the Order had a desired delivery date, or if you have a good idea what the shipping dates could or should be, here and now is a good time to complete them. Those dates would be the Ready date, the Ship date and the Receive date. The Latest Cancel Date is the last possible moment the order can be canceled before it is committed to the shipping company.

Destination Facility would seldom be used for retail customers. This would be for wholesale customers or established high-volume Business to Business clients.

Once you click on the [New Order] link, you have begun the order taking process through the Order Manager. The internal, 'behind the scenes' processing of the order is very similar to the Ecommerce order. Unlike the Ecommerce ordering process, the customer will not see all of the screens you have available; only the person taking the order can see all the special offers and the details presented. This is why it is important when taking an order over the phone or completing a transcription from a hard copy or email order, that the processor be alert to special offers or to error messages that might appear.

When a customer first enters the Ecommerce website, they are challenged for a Username and a Password. If they are first time visitors, they are provided an opportunity to create an account. If they have visited before, they are asked for their username and password. All of their entries are automatically logged into the OFBiz databases for your review in OFBiz and for their ordering processes. They never see any part of OFBiz except the Ecommerce interface which includes the content posted from OFBiz to the Ecommerce portion as called up by their preferences.

Start process with screen Order Entry from Order appl on Apache OFBiz demo site and have a look at Create Order Diagrams

On default main screen eCommerce appl from Apache OFBiz demo site there are multiple widgets

Some comments on the process
The process is or should be as intuitive as possible so the customer is not frustrated or confused. Note the many links provided for shopping, searching for products, finding promotions, and so forth. You might want to add a link to a Customer Service bot where on-line help could answer their immediate questions. The final screen even shows a large [Continue Shopping] link, but the [logout] link is rather inconspicuous.

Also not discussed yet are the links to [Requests] and [Quotes]. Mechanisms are in place to let the customer go from the ecommerce screen to check on a Request or to view a Quote using links on the top menu bar.

Final discussion of the Ecommerce Path
What we show here is the generic look and feel of an on-line ordering system. The applications are there for you to make this reflect your image while maintaining the underlying tools. You do not need to use all of the marketing or redundant convenience processes shown, but it is good to practice running through this system as a shopper to understand how the customer will interface with your store. Let your customer be treated as you would like to be when you shop online.

There are referrers, link, totals orders, quantity totals and amount totals. They are grouped by referrer.

There are total Orders, total Items, quantity totals and amount totals. They are grouped by Sales Channel.

There are order, product, promotion and discount. This report is list of All orders.

There are products, prices, stock, sale out quantity and sale out total amount. This report is list of all products, it contains the sales and movements in last 3 months.

This report lists promotions, total orders, percent of total orders, total orders amount, percent of total orders amount and shipping amounts.

This Sales report contains paid and unpaid sales orders.

Net Before Overhead Report is the profit calculation of paid-shipped orders and all the occurred fee excluding the overhead cost. They are grouped by Product Store Id.(Demo data for Net Before Overhead Report have in Product Store Id "B2CStore")

Product Demand Report is the report to show us which product sells good and which product doesn’t sell good or not selling at all in one account as well as for all accounts in last 4 weeks. They are grouped by Product Store Id.(Demo data for Product Demand Report have in Product Store Id "B2CStore")

Most of Request (header) field are present in find form or in the list

In the result list, there is a [reject] button to directly change Request Status to Reject.

Depending on Request type you need, some fields are not necessary, ex: Cust Estimated Milli Seconds, is only useful for Task request to estimate how long this task will last.

A page which presents the Request information in a layout, suitable for printing or analysis.
One sub-domain by screenlet, after creation only information screenlet is populate (and status)

On top of all information, the sub-menu give you access to the edit for each sub-domain (and creation).

Useful to associated multiple parties with a Request.

For each party give a roles to the demand.

Useful to associated multiple product with a Request. For each item it’s possible to give qty and amount and description.

In the Items list, there is a [Add note] for each line to be able to add notes for the Request Item.

Useful to associated files sent by the requestor to give more information about the request.

This diagram show the main entites associated.

A customer requests for the return of the product. The reason for returning the merchandise can be defective goods, incorrect product specification, excess quantity shipped or wrong items shipped. The [CSR] accepts the return request and fills out the return details and creates a return with respect to the sales order.

A user can request the CSR to update the return. The reason can be to add/remove items in previously created sales return or editing the returnable quantity. A CSR opts to put notes on the return related to communication or conclusion drawn on that return.

While viewing an existing order, you can create a return from that order by clicking on the [Create Return] button (actions section).That will take you to the quickreturn screen, from where you identify which item(s) the customers wants to return.

Be clear about the reason and the quantity to be returned. Also be sure that the Return Price does not exceed how much the customer actually paid for the item.
Return Type is important because it is always to your advantage to have the purchase price applied as a credit towards another purchase rather than having to take money out of your business to pay a refund.

When the information is correctly selected and entered, click the link[Return Selected Items] to create the Return.
Next screen show you Return Request creation successful, and you can directly [Accept Return]

That also takes you to the Returns tab, Return Items sub-tab, discussed further below.

Notice you can:

In the status field, You can select multiple values.

If you are not starting from View Order Screen, you can initiate the creation of a new Return from dedicate screen.

First screen is for the header informations

The Return process involves a coordinated effort with Facilities, Accounting, and the Order managers. The tab [Receive Return] is not visible on this screen until the Return has been Accepted. That tab actually takes you into the Facilities Manager for further processing of the Return.

Return ID This is a number assigned by the system when the Return is first requested.

Field Needs Inventory Receive: or Auto-Receive means that the item is already here and that when the Return is Accepted, it will be processed as an Auto Receive rather than through the normal steps in the facility.

Second screen, tabs is for the return Items

It’s not possible to add manually items, you should choose in the drop box Order Id on bottom to load directly Items from an existing order.
After loading items from an order, select the one you want to add them to this return.

For more details on field, look at Quick Return.

After loading items, update Status to accepted under Return Header, you now have a new link button [Receive Return]. When you click on that, you are taken to the Facility Manager > Facilities tab > Receive Return sub-tab.

This is the default tab for the Accounting Manager application. The screen currently shows links that will display more detailed screens related to Agreements, Billing Accounts, Invoices and Payments.

With accounting application mmenu, it’s possible to have a lot of more details

The default screen is for the Invoices tab is 'Find Invoices'. It is used to locate existing invoices that have been created automatically by the system or manually by the user. It can also be used to create a new Sales or Purchase Invoice.

The Invoice Overview screen is used to display the summary of an invoice in a single view. The screen is divided into sections that show various information related to the invoice (eg Roles, Status, Terms, Items, Payments Applied, etc).

The following options are currently available from this screen:

The Invoice Header screen is used to view or update details from the invoice header.

Examples of the type of information that can be changed are Due Date, Description, Currency.

This screen allows the user to create a new Sales or Purchase Invoice.
Sales Invoices are created when a customer buys something from you.
Purchase Invoices are created when you buy something from a supplier.

The Invoice Applications sub menu is where payments that have been made (or received) can be linked or allocated to an invoice.
The phrase 'applying' an amount to an invoice is often used to describe this.

The screen is divided into 3 main areas as follows.

DR 120000 Accounts Receivable / CR 120000 Accounts Receivable - This transaction doesnt really do anything!

It is used to link payments to invoices. It is also used to allocate which part of a payment is allocated or applied to a specific invoice. This is extremely useful if your customers pay multiple invoices with a single payment.

Example:

By default all 'unapplied' payments that have been entered into OFBiz from the customer will be available for selection even if they have not yet been flagged as formally 'Received'. This means that these are payments that have not already been linked to another invoice.

If only part of a payment amount has been linked to an invoice then the remaining amount is left available to be allocated to another invoice.
Also note that a single invoice could be paid by multiple payments being applied to it.

The Invoice Items screen displays the individual invoice line details and allows the user to update or remove an entry. As each invoice line is created it is allocated a specific sequence (or Item Number) which acts as a unique identifier.

he Time Entries screen displays any time logged against the invoice. For example these time entries can be from employee or external supplier timesheets that are tracked within OFBiz. It is used to track any individual work or billable hours against an invoice.

This is used to send a copy of the invoice details to one or more email addresses. The invoice is included as an attachment and the user can add a simple accompanying email message.

The Invoice Roles screen allows parties with specific roles to be associated with and invoice. If the e-commerce or Sales Order entry route has already been used then the invoice generated will already contain the relevant roles from the various parties.

For a Sales Order examples of roles will include Bill From Customer, Bill To Customer, End User Customer,Ship To Customer etc.

The default screen is 'Find Payment' which allows the user to search for and view the details related to a payment transaction. Specific search criteria can be entered as a filter to locate the payment quickly.

Payments can be incoming or outgoing and the demo data contains a list of payment type descriptions that describe the reason for the payment in more detail (eg Customer Deposit, Tax Payment, Commission Payment etc).

This screen is used to locate existing payments that have been created automatically by the system or manually by the user. There are links from this page that can be used to do the following:

This screen is used to create a new payment. Payments can be incoming (eg from a customer) or outgoing (eg to a supplier). Payment types are used to describe what the payments are used for in the system.

Examples of incoming payment types are as follows:

Examples of outgoing payment types are as follows:

The Payments Overview screen displays the summary details of the payment.

On one side it shows information related to the payment transaction header (eg Payment Type, Status, Amount, Effective Date etc) and the other it shows if the payment has been applied (or matched) to an invoice or billing account etc.

The following options are currently available from this screen:

The Payments Applications sub menu is where payments that have been made (or received) can be linked or allocated to an invoice, another payment, a billing account or a tax authority.

In the Sales Order process the accounting transaction generated the following GL Accounting transaction is generated for 'Payment Applied'

The following options are currently available from this screen:

The Header screen displays the header details for the payment transaction and allows all fields to be updated if required.

The following options are currently available from this screen:

This screen allows the user to search for and locate Sales Invoices based on their due date.

The 'Due Date' can be defined as the last possible date that payments can be received for the invoice without triggering late payment penalties.

The 'Invoice Date' can be defined as the date that the invoice was created and this is normally based on when products were shipped or services were provided.

A Sales Invoice may be due to be paid immediately or as in some cases the customer is given a 'grace period' after which the invoice is generated and becomes due.

Examples of this include only generating a customer invoice after a certain amount of time after the dispatch of their order.
(NOTE: There are several ways this can be achieved in OFBiz including the use of agreements and billing accounts).

This screen can be used to locate Sales Invoices as follows:

This screen allows the user to search for and locate Purchase Invoices based on their due date.

The 'Due Date' can be defined as the last possible date that payments can be received for the invoice without triggering any late payment penalties.

The 'Invoice Date' can be defined as the date that the invoice was created and this is normally based on when products were received or services were provided.

A Purchase Invoice may be due to be paid immediately or you may be given a 'grace period' after which the invoice is due.

This screen allows the user to update the payment gateway configuration.

A range of parameters need to be set before the payment gateway will work This includes details of the username and password required for the validation of the external account that will be using the gateway.

This screen lists some of the most common payment gateway configuration types that have been created as part of the seed or demo data.

Press the 'Lookup' button to see a list of existing payment gateway configuration types.

This screen allows the update of an existing payment gateway configuration type.

This is the default screen for the 'Transactions' sub menu.
Press the 'Lookup' button to display details of all transactions that have been authorised, captured or manually entered.

An authorization is a temporary transaction that shows a commitment to take money from an account.

The 'Authorize' process is the first step in allowing a sales transaction payment to be accepted.
In OFBiz a service would be defined to carry out the authorisation process each time for example, a credit card is used. It will perform specific validation tests before the payment can be classes as 'authorised'.

When a payment is authorised it means that it has been validated and that the credit card or bank account has been checked to ensure that it has sufficient funds available to cover the proposed transaction.
A number or code may be issued as evidence of the authorisation.

This includes the following:

This is used to provide verification and approval for the first step of the sales transaction payment process.

An 'Authorize' button is also displayed on Sales Order detail screen if a Credit Card payment was specified for a sales order. This is probably a more natural place for a payment transaction to be authorised.

This screen is used to input or 'capture' a payment against a Sales Order.

Unlike the authorise, this function will actually deduct the amount from eg a credit card and apply the payment to a specific order.

It is likely that the before the payment is 'captured' in this screen, it would have been through an authorisation first.

This screen shows details of an individual gateway transaction.

It displays specific information regarding the order and the payment.

The lower part of the screen shows the gateway response details indicating the time and codes used to process the transaction through the gateway.

The Manual Electronic Transaction screen allows the user to manually input and process payment related transactions.

Options available include the following:

The default screen is for the Billing Account tab is 'Find Billing Account'. It is used to locate existing billing accounts that have been created.

The user has the option to select an existing billing account or create a new one by clicking on the 'New' button.

The 'Account' sub menu is used to enter the basic details required for setting up a new billing account or editing an existing one.

It can be used to create or update the following details for a Billing Account:

This sub menu allows parties with specific roles to be associated with to a Billing Account.

It is used to specify which party should be billed for the billing account.

It can be used as follows:

This sub menu allows terms to be associated with a billing account.

Currently these can be the following:

The Billing Account Find Invoices screen displays by default a list of invoices that have been charged to the billing account.

Any invoice displayed here means that its invoice amount has been deducted from the billing account credit limit. For example: If the Billing Account Credit Limit is $100 and the there are 2 invoices displayed with amounts $10 and $25 then the available credit for the billing account will be $75.

The invoice can be at various statues and there is an option to locate an invoice by status.

It is also used to apply any payments that have been made into the Billing Account to an invoice. A 'Capture' button is displayed next to each invoice displayed that has an amount outstanding.

Example:

This sub menu allows the creation of a payment that is automatically applied to the billing account.

It is used when a payment has been received from a customer that is used to pay off the balance (or part balance) of a billing account.

An example of how this works is similar to a credit card statement where a list of transactions have been incurred over the previous month and one payment is used to settle the outstanding balance.

This sub menu lists the details of any Sales Orders that have been charged to the billing account.

A Sales Order is charged to a billing account by selecting the billing account as the Payment Method.

The default screen is for the Agreements tab is 'Find Agreements'. It is used to locate existing agreements that have been created. The user has the option to

The 'Agreement' sub menu is used to enter the basic details required for setting up a new agreement or editing an existing one.

It can be used to create or update the following details for an Agreement:

This screen is used to display a list of items that have been created for an agreement.

This screen allows specific items to be added to agreement. Currently these are limited to the following:

This screen is used to display any parties that have been linked to this agreement item.

This screen is used to add or update a party linked to an agreement item. This could be useful for storing specific contact names associated with an agreement item.

This screen is used to enter or maintain terms that are specific to an agreement item. The terms available are the same as those found under the 'Agreement Terms' tab and any related terms will be displayed both here and under the 'Agreement Items' tab .

This screen is used to create or update the terms for an agreement item.
For more information about Agreement Term look at Help for Edit Agreement Terms

This screen is used to link a specific product or products to an agreement. This can be useful for restricting a discount or product pricing to a particular product (or range of products) for a specific customer.

This screen is used to link a specific product (or range of products) to an agreement. This can be useful for restricting a discount or product pricing to a product (or range of products) for a particular supplier.

This screen is used to display a list of the geographical locations that are valid for the agreement item.

This screen is used to enter or maintain any promotions that are associated with the Agreement Item. This can be useful if you want to limit where a particular promotion is applied. Promotions are setup in Catalog Manager and can be selected here.

This screen is used to assign a party roles for an agreement.

Agreement Terms are the rules that make up the agreement. Agreements may have a one or more terms.

Examples of agreement terms from a sales and purchase viewpoint include the following:

Agreement terms are configured by linking them to the Invoice Item Type.

This screen is used to link a work effort to the whole agreement or an individual agreement item.

This screen use for uploading any contents that concern the agreement. The screen consists of :

You can also setup each financial account to post to a specific general ledger account for each party. This is done via a specific field during the creation or update of a financial account. This will override the default setting by type.

The FinAccount Type GL Account (Financial Account Type / GL Account Type) is used to specify the default account to be used for a specific type of Financial Account.
This setup will translate to one side of the journal entry only.

This mapping is normally be triggered if something is paid or uses a Financial Account. Using the demo data this mapping is triggered when someone purchases a gift certificate, or pays money into a financial account.

The default screen for Financial Accounts displays a list of any bank accounts that have been created. Details listed include the account the following

This screen is used to locate existing financial accounts that have been created.

It also includes the option to use the 'Advanced Search' button to display additional fields that can be used to locate a specific financial account.

New Financial Accounts can be created using the 'Create New Financial Account' button.

This screen allows the user to create a new financial account or to edit an existing one.

The 'Financial Account' submenu is the first of four submenus used in the creation or update of a Financial Account. On the creation or update of a Financial Account it is the default screen that is displayed.

It can be used for updating the basic details of a Financial account such as:

An authorization is a temporary transaction showing a commitment to take money from a financial account. It is like a 'transaction in progress' where there can be delay between when you buy something and the time it actually appears on your statement.

Authorizations can be time limit specific meaning that they can be controlled by entering a start and end date so that they are only valid for a certain length of time.
They can also be expired.
When an authorization is expired it removes the commitment from the financial account.
The history of expired authorizations are shown on the financial account.

The Financial Account Roles sub menu screen allows you specify a party and link them to a role for a particular financial account.

It can be used to add party roles eg 'Approver' or 'Administrator' for credit limits or updates to the account. If an account belongs to a company then you may want to add a person as a 'Contact' for dealing with the account.

The roles can also be time bound. This means that you can specify a start and end date for the party role.

A transaction is an entry that is shown on the financial account.

Transactions can be one of the following types:

Transactions are used to show entries and the financial history of the financial account. Similar to a bank account or credit card statement the transaction will show details of what was spent or paid into the account.

Some transaction totals have been added to this screen to help as part of the reconciliation processes. Additional details available include number of transactions, transaction totals and status.

By default this screen will display all payment transactions both incoming and outgoing that have not already been associated with a financial account that represents one of the company’s bank accounts.

This screen also gives the option to create new deposit or withdrawal payments.

The user can select a number of incoming deposit payments (eg Customer Payments etc) and group them together into a payment group (i.e AR Batch of Payments) that will create a 'deposit slip'.

If you select a number of incoming payments and dont group them then no payment group is created (and therefore not deposit slip either) but the individual transactions will be created for the 'bank account' financial account.

This screen allows the user to create an incoming payment to a financial account that has been linked to the company bank account.

This screen allows the user to create an outgoing payment to a financial account that has been linked to the company bank account.

This screen is used to locate payment groups and their associated deposit slips that have been created.
Deposit slips are created by grouping transactions together into a Payment Group.
This can be done using the 'Accounting / Payment Group' tab, the 'Financial Account / Deposit Withdraw' tab or the 'Create New Deposit Slip' button.

Currently Deposit Slips are created for AR Batch Payments only.

The deposit slips are available in PDF format and there is an option to cancel the batch that generated the deposit slip if required.

This screen allows the user to create an Payment Group and the transactions associated with the Payment Group will generate a deposit slip.

This screen displays the details of a Payment Group and its transactions. The Deposit Slip for the Payment Group can be printed if required and the Payment Group itself can be updated.

Details that can be updated include the name of the Payment Group itself and the addition, removal or update of transactions.

This screen displays the details of any reconciliations in progress for a financial account.
Only reconciliations that have actual transactions associated with them will be displayed.
If a reconciliation group has no transactions assigned to it then it will not be displayed.

Bank Reconciliation is a regular task where transactions from the company bank statement are matched against transactions that have occurred in the General Ledger. This is done based on a specific date

A specific GL account is normally used to represent the company bank account and any accounting transaction that involves the bank account will automatically record and entry in the GL.

The bank reconciliation process ensures that the GL account and the bank statement reconcile to the same amounts.

Differences can occur between the GL and the bank statement for a variety of valid reasons including the following:

This screen is used to create or update a reconciliation group / bank reconciliation.

The following details can be input or updated for the reconciliation:

This screen gives an overview of a reconciliation group / bank reconciliation.
Note that a reconciliation must have at least one transaction associated with it for this screen to be displayed. It is used as follows:

The screen displays the current reconciliation details plus details of the previous reconciliation if one exists. This ensures the closing balance of the previous reconciliation is the same as the opening balance for the current one.

The default screen displays a list of Tax Authorities that have been setup.

Steps to create the party to be used for the tax authority are as follows:

Only when the tax authority party record is created can you continue.

The 'Edit Tax Authority' sub menu is the first of six sub menus used in the creation or update of a Tax Authority. On the creation or update of a Tax Authority it is the default screen that is displayed.

It can be used for updating the basic details of a Tax Authority such as:

The Tax Authority Categories sub menu screen allows you link a tax authority to a specific catalog or product category.

It can be used to add product categories to a tax authority. This means that all products in this category will be taxed at the rate specified for the tax authority.

An example of this could be separating products into categories for export to different countries. A separate tax authority will be associated with each category so that the specific tax rate for each of them will be applied.

An association is a way of specifying how tax authorities can be linked to each other.

It can be used in the situation where the tax structure is hierarchical (eg city tax, plus county tax plus state tax).

Using associations allows tax rates from multiple authorities to be applied to a particular order at once.

The GL Accounts sub menu screen allows you specify which general ledger account any tax calculated for this tax authority will be posted. This is done at at organisation level so the minimum requirement is that 'Company' is setup.

It is used to consolidate taxes for a specific tax authority into one general ledger account. It can be very useful if you need to track taxes for several tax authorities (eg different states or countries).

This screen allows the setup of tax rates and types. The rates or type can be assigned globally to a store (ie tax will be applied to all products at the same rate) or category (ie limited to products in a specific category).

Other parameters are available to allow the user to limit whether the tax is to be applied to all purchases / sales or only those which are above a certain threshold.

Tax associated with shipping charges or promotions can also be configured here.

This screen list any parties that have been associated with a tax authority and tax rate. To have any tax calculated for Sales Orders or Purchase Orders then an entry must exist for 'Company'.

Entries can also be created, updated or deleted.

This screen is used to create or update details for a Tax Authority Party entry.

If a new entry is being created all fields are available to be entered.

If an existing entry is being updated only limited fields are available to be amended.

The default screen for the Global GL Settings tab is 'List Accounts'.

It is used to view or edit the details of the general ledger accounts in the global template and there are options to print or export the account details.

This screen is split into two areas:

This screen can also be used as follows:

The following list tries to define these.

The chart of accounts for the default organisation is built up by selecting or 'assigning' accounts that you want to use from the global chart of accounts master template.
This means that if you want to create a new account then it needs to be created in the global chart of accounts before it can be assigned to be used.

Costs can also be broken down into “Direct” and “Indirect” costs. Direct costs are costs that are easily identifiable as directly related to what you do to produce and sell to your customers.

Indirect costs are costs that cannot easily be directly linked to what you on sell to your customers. Included in this would be rent, electricity or general administration costs.

Variable costs are those that rise and fall based on the amount product you produce or sell. If you sell or produce a lot of products it will cost more than if you produce a smaller amount.

Fixed costs are ones that remain the same no matter how much is being produced or sold.

Before you can calculate costs you need to define a formula of how to do it and in OFBiz this is called a “Cost Component Calculation”.

OFBiz currently allows you to input to 3 different rates for the same currency using the 'Purpose' field. With this you can specify whether the conversion is to be used internally, externally or leave the field blank. Also the start and end date for a conversion can be specified beforehand.

The default screen shows a list of Party Groups that have the role of 'Internal Organization' associated with them.

If you have installed the demo data then the default company 'Company' as well as departments / business units and regional subsidiaries will be displayed.

For each 'Internal Organization' there is the ability to set the currency, fiscal periods and invoice prefixes.

Accounting Preferences are a set of configuration details that are related to a party. To appear on this screen the party must be setup with the role of 'Internal Organisation'. This means that you can add the internal organisation role to a party and they will be added to this screen and then can be configured.

The master default party is 'Company' but preferences can also be setup for internal departments. The demo data shows some examples of this (eg Marketing, Accounting, Sales, Development etc). Unless overridden then then all other parties appearing on this screen will take their default setup from 'Company'

It is used for setting specifying information related to the accounting setup for a specific organisation or parties that exist within an organisation such as business units, cost centres, departments ,subsidiaries etc.

Information that can be setup include the following:

OFBiz comes with a master template for a very comprehensive chart of accounts. This can be found in 'Global GL Defaults' under the 'Accounting' tab.

A couple of points to note

The chart of accounts for the default organisation (Company) is built up by selecting the accounts that you want to use from the global chart of accounts master template.

This means that if you want to create a new account then you need to create it first in the Global Chart of Accounts and then link (or assign) it to the chart of accounts for Company.

Details of the Chart of Accounts can be exported as a CSV file or PDF using the buttons displayed.

This Chart of Accounts screen is used to define the list of accounts (or chart) that will be actively used by the company. For example the Global chart of accounts may contain 100 different accounts but only 20 need to be used for your specific business. This means you need only to create assignments to the accounts that you actively want to use.

The Chart of Accounts is a mixture of business needs (ie being able to track the information you need for your business) and tax requirements (i.e. legal or government requirements necessary for operating a business). The type of Chart that you setup will be dependent of your business type.

A journal is a detailed accounting transaction that is recorded (or posted) to the General Ledger. It is made up of a debit and a credit component.

The GL Account Defaults screens are are method to setup rules that are used to translate business transactions into accounting transactions. It currently is made up of 12 sub menus that can be used to map various transaction type codes to a specific general ledger account

Accounting transactions are made up of a Debit Entry and a Credit Entry. The GL Account defaults screens help map which accounts are to be used to generate a each part of the transaction. This means that certain mappings will be used to generate the Debit (or DR) entry part of the transaction and others used to generate the Credit (or CR) entry part of the transaction.

The GL Account Type is used to specify the default account that certain transactions (eg Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, etc) are posted to.

An accounting transaction (or journal entry) is made up of two parts - a Debit Entry and a Credit Entry that balance each other. The GL Account Type is used to translate one side of the journal entry.

GL Account Types are stored in Entity GLAccountType which can be viewed via Entity Data Maintenance in the Webtools menu. There are currently 57 different GL Account Types that are part of the OFBiz demo data but only 19 of these are setup as mappings

How the GL Account Type is used is best shown by an example.

A very simple description of an online Sales Order Process could be as follows:

Let’s focus on the first part step of 3 in more detail.

The CR (or Credit) entry for the transaction is created by the GL Acccount Type mapping for 'Accounts Receivable' (which by using the demo data default will go the 120000 Accounts Receivable)

The DR (or Debit) entry for the transaction is created by a different GL Account default, the Payment Method Id / GL Account Id mapping (eg Cash is setup as 112000 Undeposited Receipts)

The Product GL Account is used to specify the default account to be used for a specific Product' and 'Account Type' combination. This setup will translate to one side of the journal entry only.

It is used for tracking product transactions at a more detailed level.

Examples could be as follows:

The Product Category GL Account is used to specify the default account to be used for a specific 'Product Category' and 'Account Type' combination. This setup will translate to one side of the journal entry only.

It is used for tracking product category transactions at a more detailed level.

Examples could be as follows:

The demo data gives an idea of the use of product categories to classify or separate different products streams. If specific accounting or management reporting is required at this level then the General Ledger can be setup to provide this detail.

The FinAccount Type GL Account (Financial Account Type / GL Account Type) is used to specify the default account to be used for a specific type of Financial Account.
This setup will translate to one side of the journal entry only.

This mapping is normally be triggered if something is paid or uses a Financial Account. Using the demo data this mapping is triggered when someone purchases a gift certificate, or pays money into a financial account.