Stock control - managing the main investment a business has.

The latest update from Microsoft may affect your Chreos and, therefore, impact on your business.

If you have any computers using XP of Server 2003 versions of Windows (or earlier) then you need to pay close attention to the below message.

Microsoft has recently released a major update to Windows 10.  As part of the update Windows is now much stricter with what data can be shared across a network, the effect of this is that Windows 10 machines may no longer be able to talk to database servers running on OLD Windows versions.

Windows XP
If you run ChreosServer on Windows XP (which Microsoft dropped support for on April 8 2014)  you will not be able to access the Chreos database after upgrading your Windows 10 machines.  There may be a work around for this but we are not aware of it and recommend people move ChreosServer to a newer machine ASAP.  

Technically, such communications happen through the Windows Server Message Block (SMB) protocol.  Microsoft has now blocked them from happening over SMB 1.  Both machines have to be using SMB 2 or SMB 3 but these two are not available for Windows XP.

Windows Server 2003
If you run ChreosServer on Windows Server 2003 or older (out of support since July 14 2015)  you will not be able to access the Chreos database after upgrading your Windows 10 machines.  It may be possible to get Chreos working by installing the SMB 2 (or newer) protocol.

Holiday Support Arrangements

The Chreos office, including the support desk, is closed from 12 noon on Friday 22 December 2017 and reopens at 9am on 8 January 2018.  All support requests received via this website during this time will be addressed during the week of 8 January 2017.

Any urgent requests received via the support website during this time will be looked on 29 December, and 5 January.

The Support website is  support.chreos.com  which is best accessed from 'Help' in ChreosClient.

Urgent requests are chargeable at double your standard rate in 30 minute blocks. Please make sure you are authorized to incur this cost.

Those who have used urgent support in the recent past have been forewarned of these changes.

This morning we received the following unsolicited feedback from a client who has recently started using an Android App that we built specifically for them for picking products for orders in their very large wholesale warehouse.

On Friday, the person using the app was the oldest staff member who is completely computer illiterate.

He likes the app and he finds it helps his concentration and speed.  His eye sight is also not the best but he gave it a thumbs up.

The aim of the App was to achieve faster picking times by having it navigate pickers around the shelves, and allowing instant checking of what was being picked by confirmation scans of product and stock bin.  Having warehouse staff who are struggling with working their way through computer processes that they control, finding it easy to walk the floor, being led by the App on the device in their hand is a significant bonus.

It probably fits in to the same situation where lots of people find it much easier to do a job that can be complex by just being told what to do.  If you leave too much to their own initiate they struggle to navigate through the options but give them support that helps them do the job quickly and accurately, with reduced stress levels and they remain valued members of the team.

It also means you can have new staff working productively really quickly.  And the staff sill get the work satisfaction from completing tasks correctly and contributing to the overall output of the team.

For 30 years I have been analysing work flows and designing systems to enable businesses to increase their efficiency, especially in times of growth.  Our business management software, Chreos,  focuses on the processes related to the productive side of businesses - the stock & client management, orders, invoices, counter sales, and a multitude of other things, while keeping the P&L and Balance Sheet up to date.  We enable people to do their work more efficiently and accurately.

We are pleased to announce the release of our first app built for Android devices.

“We have had a popular stock take app for Apple devices for several years. Now we also have it for Samsung phones with a scanner cradle, extending the benefits of this quick method of stock taking to a much broader range of users” said Rob Martin, senior software engineer at Wild Software, the home of Chreos.

Users are able to start a stock take in Chreos and then have one or several people, each with a phone, systematically scanning every item in the shop or warehouse. Stock takes done this way are really quick and accurate.

For many businesses, stock takes are seem as a highly unpleasant task that has to be done at the end of the financial year. It is grudge work, often dirty, and may mean having to close the business for one or more days. With Chreos, the task is much easier, and doing it with portable devices talking to Chreos via wifi means that one person can work around a section of shelving in a fraction of the time it would have taken 2 working together with pen and paper.

Because of the ease of use we are now seeing businesses also doing partial stock takes to check areas of concern throughout the year.

The devices are constantly talking to Chreos via wifi so there is no data stored on the device. Everything is being written directly into Chreos. There is no download process, and no need to panic if the battery goes flat. The data in Chreos is as up to date as the last scan.

You can also get a full audit trail of the order they were scanned in and report on how the count differs from what you thought you had in stock.

For more information please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Use  Chreos business solutions to operate and manage your business and generate better profits.

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