Tip #1 - Tighten Inventory Controls
With Panasoft's "Inventory Module", you will have processing speed and control of which you have only dreamed. Here is how:
Even before they sell anything, your people could view on-line, inventory availability for any of your stocking or selling locations. When something is sold, the system automatically "allocates" that inventory. When the shipment is confirmed, the on-hand quantity is automatically adjusted.
Inter-location transfers, returns and damaged goods are easily processed and carefully tracked. Information about item numbers, units of measure, costs, pricing, cross search references and much more is all instantly available on-line. So it is easy for you and your people to know what you've got, and where it is at all times.
Receiving
You should be able to receive inventory at any location for any location. That will help keep your accounting straight and save you a fortune in shipping, labor and inventory holding costs.
Back order and special order reports will make it easy to match inventory receipts to open orders so you can cut down on losses when customers get tired of waiting and cancel their orders. Flexible Bin Location Tracking helps you find your inventory and move it around so you can maintain the most efficient layout of your shipping department throughout the year.
Automatic Shipping Procedures
Once an order is cleared for shipment the Panasoft System kicks into high gear. Picking tickets are printed according to the order in which your warehouse is laid out. That way it's even easy for new warehouse personnel to make one trip and pick the order completely.
Customer shipping address labels are printed along with bar codes so that once an order is packed, it is put on an electronic scale, and may then be scanned by a bar code laser gun. Now the system "knows" who the shipment is for, where it is going and how much it weighs. Confirmation is done by exception, so the shipping clerk can easily note if any items need to be back-ordered.
Next, the system calculates the freight charges from the built-in shipping rate tables, and then prints the manifests and shippers labels. With this system, everything stays organized and controlled, even when your sales volume really gets heavy. One Panasoft customer reported more than a 600% increase in daily orders shipped! This happened less than three month after installing the system, without any increase in staff.
Cyclical Inventories
Cyclical inventory capability allows you to easily take more frequent, but smaller inventories. You could take them a soften as you with, even daily. This feature enables you to spot areas where shrinkage is an issue, before it becomes a gigantic problem.
Adjustments
Inventory adjustments are a snap, so you will easily be able to keep your system information in line with reality.
Foreign Currency Capability
Volatile foreign money markets can turn import purchasing into a roller coaster thrill ride. You might shy away from such a ride because of the extra work involved in constantly re-evaluating your inventory.
Panasoft's Retail/Distribution System will allow you to enter a new exchange rate for foreign currency and automatically update the replacement cost for a range of items and vendors. Normally, you would enter the new rate in the Standard Cost field, but you can also use an available memo field in the inventory master file so you can perform a "what if" analysis as well.
Integrated Warehouse Operations System
If you do a lot of shipping from your warehouse, you should know that Panasoft has developed a series of integrated modules that form a truly exciting automated warehouse operations system.
Say that you have taken an order and accepted VISA as payment. Let's see how the system can handle processing for you. To begin, the "credit verification" module comes into play so only orders that have payment verified will be released. Next, the "Warehouse Shipment Confirmation" module will print a packing slip with a bar-coded peel-off label attached. The packing slips are printed in batches by shipper so that you can organize your work for the day.
The picking order follows the bin order in your warehouse so your people will be able to pick the shipment in the most efficient order possible. After the order has been picked, confirmation is made with a swipe of the bar-code reading wand. Back-ordered items are noted on an exception basis so the whole order doesn't have to be re-keyed.
Next, the entire shipment is weighed. The system will keep track of the number of boxes in the shipment. If the "freight calculation" module is present, the system will look at the weight of the shipment, the destination and the shipper's own freight tables to calculate the freight charge.
The freight charge will be added to the invoice, or it can be kept separately in the system if you do not want to charge freight to a customer. If extra shipping labels are needed, they can automatically be printed at this time. Shipment tracing can be done with the "Customer Service" module.
Wouldn't you like to have your warehouse operations run this efficiently?
Automatic Freight Calculation
Imagine weighing a shipment on an electronic scale and your system automatically looking up the address it is being shipped to, then calculating the freight charges directly from the shippers own transport rate tables.
That's what Panasoft's "Freight Cost" calculation module will do for you. What a tremendous savings in time and money, plus you will consistently get more accurate freight charges!
Packaged Items and Kit Lists
Many Panasoft Retail/Distribution System users have found real value in using our Packaged Items and Kit List modules.
A Kit List is sometimes referred to as a Bill of Materials. Kit List capability enables you to stock parts that you will assemble into finished inventory items. You will be able to track the parts inventory as well as the labor that is require to assemble the finished inventory item. Panasoft's Kit List enables users to track light assembly operations and integrate that information with their regular inventory and purchasing activity.
Packaged Items functions somewhat like the Kit List. The difference is that where the Kit List tracks parts up through assembly of a pre-assembled inventory item, Packaged Items tracks inventory items assembled at the time of sale of a "package". For example: A home center retailer may want to sell spa packages. To do this, he would set up a sales package of a hot tub, heater, pump, filter, pipe, fittings and a couple of wine glasses, and sell all of these individual inventory items as a single packaged item, at a special price without having to pre-assemble them.
By using the packaged item pricing concept, many retailers have discovered that they can not only increase sales because of the attractiveness and desirability of the package itself, but they can also increase their overall margins because they are lumping high margin/low selling items together with low margin/high selling items, and all of the components are deleted from inventory automatically.
You can imagine how difficult it would be to track these sales and inventory levels for each component of packages like the one above without Packaged Items. That's why few retailers and distributors try it without a system like Panasoft's.
Inventory Control Profit Questions
- Do all of my decision making employees have access to complete, accurate, up-to-date inventory information?
- What is the cost of additional inventory that we purchase per year that we already have in stock and could have transferred more economically if we had only known where it was?
- What is the value of the margin points we lost from guessing wrong at prices during quickly negotiated sales?
- What is the value of damaged or incorrectly shipped inventory that must be returned for credit?
- What is the value of all inventory that turns less than ten times per year?
- Are we getting our inventory "just in time" or does it sit around longer than necessary?
- How often are we out of stock, and how much is that costing us?
- Do we transfer inventory between locations quickly, and without losing track of it?
- Can we change the layout of our warehouse to make it more efficient without losing track of our inventory?
- Could we save time and freight costs by taking more drop shipments?
- Can we control our inventory if we allow drop shipments?
- How big is our shrinkage problem?
- How much are we losing on incorrectly calculated freight?
- Are we getting orders out fast enough to keep our customers happy?
