New in REC+: Tradebox, Delivery VAT Number, Variations Export and more

Feature Spotlight

• Tradebox integration - stock updates
  We can now accept stock updates directly from Tradebox / Sage to keep stock on the site in sync with the accounts system.
  Available in Admin > Connect > Utilities > Tradebox
  Additional improvements made to the existing Tradebox integration including a new Tradebox Log area in admin and a way to run the updates faster. 
   
• Collecting Delivery VAT Numbers / Identification Numbers
  Some regions may require collection of a VAT number or ID number for delivery (e.g. a "CPF Number" in Brazil). 
  Using this new setting you can collect this info against each order from the buyer during checkout. 
  New Definitions for default text: VAT_NUMBER & VAT_NUMBER_INFO_LINE
  Available in Admin > Add/Edit Region -> "Require Customer VAT Number at Checkout?" & "Display VAT Number as:"
   
• Variations Export
  You can now quickly manage your product & variation codes, stock and costs via this new export.
  Admin > Exports > Product Variations as well as in Imports > Product Variations (step 2).

Ecommerce

• Report on out of stock products
  You can now easily track down stock to replenish with our new report, available in:
  Admin > Reports > Product Stock Report > new "Only show out of stock items" tickbox.
   
• Order Info Reports improved charts for comparison data
  We have improved graphs available here (a pie chart and bar chart) to show reported data and comparisons on the same graph. 
   
• Batch set discontinued & enquiry only
  You can now easily discontinue or mark products as enquiry only via batch product processor.
  Admin > Batch Products Processor > "Mark as Discontinued?" & "Mark as Enquiry Only?"
   
• Email users who haven't bought before
  Email Manager's filters for sending now let you select to send only when a user has signed up but not purchased, allowing you to send them introductory offers. Also useful if you import a new set of cleansed email data from a prospect list or other trusted source.
  Available in Email Manager > Write Email > 5. Who do you want to send to > User filters > New "Only send to users who haven't purchased before?" tickbox available, supports the preview csv download too
   
• Invoice Definition
  We now allow more control over the term "Invoice" on your site, you may choose to rename this to "Paid Order" or "Payment" or "Receipt" to avoid confusion or legal issues with the term "Invoice" (especially if you issue an invoice from your accounting system)
  Definitions -> ORDER_INVOICE (Defaults to Invoice)
   
• New email templates available for order_confirmation.html.twig & order_update.html.twig
  Available in Templates > html/email/templates/order
   
• Coupon Manager now shows the remaining value on each Gift Voucher (GV)
  In Coupon Manager > Gift Vouchers tab, you can now see a total value of all unredeemed GVs plus against each purchased GV line under the Value column the amount that is left to spend.  
  Reminder: you can see all purchases of a specific GV in Product Manager > select GV product > Orders 
   
• Deleting a category now auto deletes all sub categories and sub products of those sub categories 
  This makes the flow for deleting large nested categories of products easier to manage without risk of products still being live but not in visible categories. 
   
• Barclaycard IPN improvements
  We now auto mark orders as payment received if they come from Barclaycard before the IPN response comes in, this allows for faster order processing. 
  The order status will still change to order received once the IPN comes through, and if it doesn't you can check the order inside Barclaycard EPDQ to make sure everything has been paid correctly.  

Enhancements

• We've increased our image upload limit around the system from 256kb to 512kb, allowing you to upload higher quality images. 
  On the front end of your site the thumbnailer should take care of optimising the image size for performance. 
   
• Email Manager improved stats
  The Sent Emails tab in Email Manager now shows additional stats to help you quickly see which emails are performing best.  
  Admin > Email Manager > View Sent Emails > New stats inc % added.
   
• Prospect Manager batch update customer & next actions.
  You can now batch update Next Action Date and Reminder messages in Prospect Manager allowing for sales team to more quickly organise work for the next work session.
  Available in Quote/Prospect Manager > scroll to the foot of the table.
   
• Register page now only shows it's introduction text on the first step. 
  This cleans up the register process for users, making sure that intro text isn't shown again to them on each step of the registration process. 

Security & Maintenance

• Blocking Bad Actors
  Improvements have been made to our blocking of known bad bots crawling the sites and slowing down the site.
   
• New rate limits are now in force on the sites in key areas hit by bots
  This mostly affects product filter, no real customers should be affected by this and those that are will be shown a message explaining they made an unusually large number of requests in a short time. 
  This is another security measure we've added to help protect the speed and stability of the sites by limiting the impact bots can have on these key areas. 
   
• More sites migrating to Cloudflare. 
  Cloudflare offers improvements to the speed, performance and security of your site. It also helps us in the ongoing battle against new bots hitting the server and slowing down your site. 
  
  > Contact us to find out if your site could benefit from Cloudflare - it's free!
  There are no charges for us moving your site to Cloudflare, the improved speed and security are free and the site will continue to work exactly as it does currently.  
   
• Mini Sites are being retired. 
  Mini sites were a feature we offered as a solution to advertising your products on multiple domains and have them feed back to the central site. Google no longer gives much value to this type of advertising and we now offer a smarter alternative with Multi Store where you can have unique sites in different locations such as UK to US sites with your products kept in sync.