Inventory Control
The Inventory Control module consists of six major functional areas.
- Order Processing
- Purchase Orders
- Receiving and Stocking
- Promotion Control
- Physical Inventory
- Inventory Reporting
Why Choose Retail Automation
Computerized Inventory Control is not nearly as complicated as brain surgery or rocket science. It can however, have its own challenges. One of those is how to get started.
Retail Automation takes the lead in designing and laying out your inventory based off of your specific goals, your wholesaler vendor and your other secondary vendors.
“Unlimited”
ABS (or the Automated Business System) was first developed as an Inventory Management system. From managing alternate sku’s, to alternate units of measure, to Vendors, Retail Automation’s favorite word is ‘Unlimited’.
Unlimited alternate SKU’s allow a store to track based off of a primary Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) while maintaining all the alternates that are associated with the item. Those numbers can include limitless UPC’s, vendor numbers, manufacturing numbers or ‘homemade’ SKUs generated by the store.
For example, a standard ½” PVC elbow plumbing fitting under a store created SKU (eg. 12PVCEL) can have the primary vendors number, UPC, Secondary Vendor(s) numbers and their unique UPC’s.
That same methodology allows product to be managed without separation or segmentation, whether it is by Alternate Units of Measure (think by Pound, Bag, Pallet, etc) or different vendors.
Order Processing
As you use your system in the day to day course of doing business, item history concerning sales activity is being collected and saved.
When enough time has passed for the history to be useful, it can be used along with other factors to suggest what items and how much of those items should be ordered to support future sales. An item must be one year old before the history is useful for suggesting order quantities.
The clock starts when the item is first sold. This allows you to establish new items in your computer and bring in initial stock before the sales history (which would be zero if you have none to sell) is used to suggest an order quantity.
It is important that you understand that your computer never orders an item. It makes suggestions for ordering items.
Those suggestions can be reviewed and analyzed to be sure they are correct for the needs of the business.
They can, through this function, be placed on a Purchase Order.
The significance of these comments is that while your computer helps you in determining what items and how much of those items should be ordered, you must maintain control of what is ordered and when.
Your computer is only a tool to assist you in running your business.
Ordering/Receiving and Catalog Maintenance
Retail Automation offers EDI communication with all major wholesalers, including ACE, True Value, Do It Best, Orgill, House Hasson Hardware, Wallace Hardware and others. This interface allows easy maintenance of the vendor catalog, the update of those changes to the inventory file and streamlined ordering and receiving from those vendors.
Easy Installation & Set Up
Made For Your Business
Physical Inventory
Physical Inventory deals with the actual counting of on hand quantities. Typically, physical counting of items in a real time perpetual inventory system is not a good thing. Cycle counting on small groups of items can be used to verify the accuracy of onhand quantities.
If inaccurate on hand quantities are found on a routine basis then the perpetual inventory system is not working or being worked properly. Physical Inventory processing allows you to perform both routine cycle counting and an annual physical inventory. After the initial entry of on hand counts and assuming the accurate entry of receipts and stocking
counts, the counting of item quantities for the purpose of validating on hand figures is not necessary.
Promotions –
Many wholesalers provide promotion data for download and use in your system. ABS maintains the promotional data from order codes, to start and end dates, to special costs and retails, with reporting available throughout the event.
Inventory Reporting
Get the information you need to gain insight on store performance, inventory levels, over and under stocked items, profit margins and more. These reports are quickly available in ‘canned’ reports or make your own customized reports with an expansive export of your item data.