Q1- 2025 System Five Enhancements

Summary of Areas Changed

• B-Type Invoices
• Accounts Payable
• System Responsiveness
• Payments

In Q1 our Development team completed  over 20 fixes and enhancements.

Unshipped Items on B-Type Invoice

What’s changed?

Windward System Five now includes a powerful new filter in the List Open Workorders report that allows users to isolate B-Type invoices with unshipped items. Previously, while the report could list B-Type invoices, it lacked the ability to distinguish between fully shipped and partially shipped orders—making it difficult for businesses to track pending deliveries.

With this enhancement, users can now enable a new option to display only B-Type invoices that still have items to be shipped. Even better, the report’s subtotals and totals now reflect only the value of the unshipped lines, rather than the full invoice amount, offering a clearer financial view of outstanding commitments.

Why it matters?

B-Type invoices are used to manage orders where not all items have been shipped or delivered at the time of invoicing. This is common in industries like furniture, appliances, or wholesale distribution, where partial shipments are routine. For example, you may have invoiced a customer for a partial order due to stock availability. Without a way to filter for unshipped items, fulfillment teams risk overlooking pending deliveries, leading to delays and customer dissatisfaction.

With this new reporting option, businesses can proactively identify which B-Type invoices still require action, prioritize shipments, and improve operational efficiency. It’s a simple but impactful change that helps your team stay on top of their order pipeline and deliver better service.

Improved Responsiveness & Bug Fixes

We’ve introduced a new feature in System Five to address a common issue some users have experienced: “black ghost windows” appearing in the taskbar during heavy operations. These ghost windows were caused by System Five being too busy to respond to Windows events.

 What’s New?

A new setting called Application Response Level has been added to the Setup Wizard (Miscellaneous section). This feature helps System Five stay responsive during intensive database operations by checking for Windows events at regular intervals.

You can now choose from the following response levels:

⚠️ Note: This feature does not improve SQL operation speed and may not affect reports that already handle Windows events efficiently.

 Who Benefits?

This enhancement is especially helpful for users who:

• Run large reports
• Create sales with many items
• Process payments through integrated systems
• Operate on large datasets

Smarter Handling of Foreign Accounts Payable

We’ve made several improvements to how System Five manages Foreign Accounts Payable (A/P), especially for suppliers who issue bills in both local and foreign currencies.

✅ What’s New?

• Consistent Posting Behavior
  When editing a bill that was originally posted to Foreign A/P, it will continue to post to Foreign A/P—even if the supplier’s Foreign A/P setting has changed. This ensures consistency and prevents accidental misclassification. 

• Supervisor Control for Supplier Settings
  Changing a supplier’s Foreign A/P setting now requires a Supervisor Override, and the system will display a warning when this change is made. This adds a layer of protection against unintended changes. 

• Faster Bill Editing for Busy Suppliers
  Editing a bill for suppliers with many transactions used to be slow because the system recalculated the supplier’s balance in real time. This process now runs in a background thread, making the interface more responsive.

• Enhanced A/P Integrity Checks
  Two new options have been added:

  1. Do not report Foreign A/P errors – lets users exclude these from integrity reports if they’re not relevant.
  2. Set Bill Foreign Flag – allows supervisors to manually correct the Foreign A/P status of a bill based on its original posting.

• Improved Error Detection
  The A/P integrity check tool now detects more types of errors and provides clearer details to help users resolve them.

• Department Error Fix
  A bug that caused errors when editing a cheque using “Edit Single Transaction” has been resolved. 

Who Benefits?

These updates are especially helpful for businesses that:

• Work with international suppliers
• Manage multi-currency transactions
• Need tighter control over financial settings and audit trails

Updated PIN Pad Reset Options

We’ve added new flexibility to how System Five handles PIN Pad resets during invoice processing. This update improves performance and ensures compliance with EMV standards, especially for devices like the Verifone P400, which can take 2–3 seconds to respond.

You now have three options for how the system sends the PIN Pad reset command:

🧑‍💻 Deployment Context

• Cloud or Remote Desktop: The reset is sent to the Remote POS Device Manager, but the system doesn’t wait for a response.
• On-Premises: The reset check runs in a background thread, improving speed without blocking the user interface.

🔐 EMV Compliance

After a payment is made, a mandatory reset command is sent to ensure the customer’s card is removed from the PIN Pad. This check always waits for a response, as required by EMV standards. If the card is still inserted:

• The PIN Pad will beep continuously
• You cannot close the payment dialog until the card is removed

Smarter Handling of GUID Data

In version 7.0.0.1572, System Five introduces an important optimization to improve performance and reduce unnecessary data storage.

What Changed?

The system settings that control when data is written to the GUIDTOIDENTITY table have been reviewed and updated. Previously, this table could grow excessively large—even when the data wasn’t needed—leading to slower operations.

Now, System Five will:

• Avoid writing unnecessary data to the GUIDTOIDENTITY table.
• Reduce file size, helping prevent performance bottlenecks.
• Speed up operations involving tables that use GUID values. 

Why It Matters

This change is especially beneficial for users working with large datasets or performing frequent transactions. By streamlining how GUID data is handled, the system becomes more efficient without sacrificing functionality.

Take a look at all of the fixes and enhancements visit our Release Notes Page at

windwardsoftware.com/release-notes

Did you Know? Windward Software offers Custom Programming Services.

Customer-led development for Windward System Five focuses on creating solutions that directly address the specific business challenges faced by users. By actively involving customers in the development process, Windward Software ensures that its features and enhancements are tailored to real-world needs. This approach not only enhances the system’s functionality but also fosters a collaborative relationship with clients, driving innovation and delivering practical, effective tools for business problem-solving.

If you'd like a customization for your business please consider

Requesting A Product Enhancement

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Customers are required to be on an active Windward Maintenance Contract or a Windward System Five on Cloud subscriber to install or receive product updates.  The Windward Maintenance Contract is a standard annual business expense for all Windward System Five users.  Windward Software is in business to support your business, and this plan allows us to bring value to you when you need us most.

The video below shows some of the resources available to Windward Clients.

Find out more on the Windward Maintenance Contract site.