xTuple's Collective Brainpower Blog

If you're like us, you're probably getting more and more accustomed to sending and receiving money online. Credit cards, as much as we hate paying those merchant fees, are a necessary cost of doing business for most companies. If you're working internationally, then the venerable interbank wires - and all their costs - are probably a big part of your life as well. Most compellingly, there are...

If you've been working with (or evaluating) xTuple ERP for any length of time at all, you already know about our embedded report writer OpenRPT --and the ways it can be used to customize standard reports. Changes might range from adding the company logo to modifying query logic to suit your business needs. In either case, you perform your edits and then save the file back to the database with...

Tax credits for attending xTuple training? It happens. Several customers have mentioned that they have received either a tax credit or a partial refund from their state for continuing education, and xTuple ERP Training classes may qualify. (For more information, please check with your local tax advisor.)

The next upcoming class is our popular 3-day Power User class - which covers the...

Get ready for tax time with pre-printed Checks and 1099s.

Visit www.xtupleforms.com to order all of your tax forms, envelopes and pre-printed checks and other important ERP-related office supplies, such as Pre-printed 1099s for printing vendor 1099 forms directly from xTuple ERP and Personalized Checks personalized with your company's logo and information, pre-printed for use with...

One of the most frequent topics I see related to PostgreSQL in forums and on support lines is being able to establish simple remote connections to the database server. While all the elements are well documented, I haven’t always seen good explainers related to how these elements related to one another nor systematic walkthroughs related to troubleshooting problems with PostgreSQL connectivity...

Has this happened to you? You're called in to sandbox the newest version of xTuple for a customer. "Piece of cake" you think to yourself, "I'll buzz in and buzz out, 30 minutes tops".

"ERROR: syntax error at or near "(" at character 578"

Arrrrgh! We'll you try again, maybe even open up the update package and poke around looking for a syntax erorr. "I know this worked on my laptop when...

UPDATE: This information is now outdated and is no longer supported. Please visit xTuple Forums for up-to-date discussion.

I want to talk briefly about my experiences integrating and using Pentaho Business Intelligence tools over an xTuple ERP system. This was relatively easy to set up and is now providing comprehensive reports from xTuple and other systems. I know xTuple...

With the advent of xTuple's new extension architecture , it's easier than ever for software developers to write custom add-ons to the core PostBooks product. This also means system administrators may now find themselves managing multiple applications in addition to their xTuple ERP--each having a slightly different version number than the next. To help everyone keep track of which version goes...

Many of you whom I have met personally know that I am an instrument rated pilot. As a pilot I use checklists before during and after every flight. They are a very important part of aviation for many reasons. Checklists promote safety by ensuring that critical tasks are completed. They also ensure that these tasks are done in sequence and that they are performed at the right time. For example,...

How many of you out there have a Twitter account? Do you find it useful? Annoying? Trivial? Informative?

I've been on the fence, like many others. I've had a Twitter account for over a year. But as soon as I started following various users, I was appalled by the avalanche of blather that poured into my Twitter feed. I walked away from the whole phenomenon for a while, convinced that...

It's important to understand the advantages and drawbacks of using consulting firms to advise and assist your business.

First, the drawbacks: Some would say that consulting companies tend to run up their hours, and milk their customers for every last penny - that they cloak their deliverables in buzz-speak and gobbledygook, and live in terror of their clients discovering that they're...

We're looking forward to another great Intro to xTuple ERP community training class next week. It'll be held at our Norfolk, Virginia home office, and as usual, we'll have a great mix of partners and customers from a variety of industries. If you're looking for a high-impact way to get up to speed quickly on xTuple ERP (PostBooks, Standard, or Manufacturing Edition), then this is the class for...

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is a significant factor in choosing an Enterprise Resource Planning solution. But it's another one of those TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms) that not everyone seems to completely understand.

So what do I mean by TCO? It's the sum of all the costs associated with implementing a major software application. You should factor in not only the cost of the software...

Just a quick note to let everyone know about a patch release for all three Editions of xTuple ERP - version 3.3.1, available now. We aren't updating the installers, so if you're currently running 3.3.0, we highly recommend you upgrade. This release fixes a handful of obscure, but potentially unpleasant bugs.

All users can download the updated 3.3.1 client here .

Commercial...

It's true, the more people we have looking out for bugs, the better the software will be. We're so pleased with the support we've gotten in our Beta testing community. Thanks, everyone, for helping us make xTuple ERP a quality product!

Right now we're in between releases. This is the little pocket of time when the QA team gets to focus its attention on how to make the next testing...

Nagios, Splunk, SNMP are various monitoring tools that can alert you to the status of connectivity to your SQL server. While I would like to employ these tools to monitor our network, I find that I really just want a tool to tell me 'Hey! Go check the server! It ain't working because of x,y,z...'. Checkpg.sh is such a tool.

checkpg.sh is a simple shell script that can notify an admin...

Just wanted to announce we recently updated the language files in the Translation Portal . This means all translators are now working on the most current code for xTuple ERP 3.3.0. Of course, 3.3.0 adds much for international users to be interested in. I'm talking especially about our expanded support for VAT and international taxes . So far the response to the tax improvements has been very...

When you provide solutions for small businesses, you get an interesting perspective on the overall economy. Small businesses in the United States are a primary driver of jobs and commerce, and provide good insight as to where the economy is heading. That's one of the best parts of this business — and of course, those growing companies are natural prospective users of xTuple software.

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Join us in Norfolk, VA on October 5th for the xTuple Power User Class and empower yourself to customize xTuple ERP to meet your specific needs. This in-depth, hands-on workshop covers the tricks of customizing xTuple to meet your specific company requirements, plus a variety of other administrator functionality detailed here: http://www.xtuple.com/training202

Ever thought about...

Cycle counting is a topic that normally comes up during or shortly after the “up-and-running” phase of an implementation is complete. It is a technique that is easily implemented but almost always incorrectly. Why? Because the philosophy most firms adopt for cycle counting is often contrary to its intended purpose, so, even with flawless execution they get poor results.

What is the...