Tag Archives: Inventory

What to consider when choosing your first inventory management ERP solution

Which businesses need an inventory management ERP and why?

The way you move products from the production line to the market requires finesse given that today’s consumers are more discriminating and have a greater sense of urgency.

In particular, agility and precision in stock management matter more than ever before in the retail and wholesale distribution industries. Businesses that procure, store, sell and deliver finished goods are a cornerstone of the economy, but competition and consolidation are increasing.

For smaller companies that are growing into mid-market enterprises, streamlining and automating the flow of products to end consumers becomes critical to achieving your goals for continued expansion. That may include adding new product lines, opening extra warehouses interstate or overseas, or bringing more parts of the supply chain in-house.

Whether you sell a variety of products in different industries or have a niche, the inventory management challenges for growing retail and distribution businesses typically include:

Managing information and interactions with customers and suppliers.
Gaining clarity about your capacity to meet demand now and into the future.
Getting accurate data around the amount, location and cost of inventory.
Increasing the speed and efficiency of fulfilment processes.
Managing multiple warehouses, in multiple countries and currencies.

You need to know what’s driving your sales pipeline, what’s happening in the warehouse, and how all of it affects your balance sheet. It’s all connected, but currently being managed separately—which is holding you back.

Rarely will spreadsheets, entry-level software, or a point solution be effective when inventory lies at the heart of your profitability. Instead, you need a comprehensive ERP solution that helps you manage inventory as part of end-to-end business process management.

[FEATURE ARTICLE – 6 ERP readiness signs growing businesses will encounter]

What functionality do you need in your first inventory management ERP?

Keeping track of stock is a means to an end—the end being happy customers. Your new ERP solution should help you to provide an excellent experience, from the time a business or individual orders through to the delivery of their goods and after-sales care.

Your inventory management ERP should include functionality that allows you to:

Capture and use data about customers and vendors to improve sales processes, engagement, and long-term loyalty.
Plan with a clear view of your sales pipeline, shipping lead times, costs and supplier performance.
Automate re-ordering based on system-wide analysis of supply and demand.
Access real-time data on stock amounts and precise locations across multiple warehouses and within each warehouse (bin management).
Track stock by serial number, batch number, or expiration date for improved traceability.
See at a glance how much money is tied up in stock, apply different valuation methods and costing methodologies, and analyse profitability by warehouse, product or location.
Easily see what’s ‘available to promise’ taking into account sales, forecast sales, goods stored across multiple warehouses, on consignment, or in transit.
Analyse data to more accurately forecast minimum and maximum stock levels, and reduce wastage and dead stock.
Increase the precision and efficiency of picking and packing with pick lists, suggested routes and integration with technologies like barcode scanning and IoT.
Seamlessly manage dispatch processes, and support improved logistics or compliance with EDI requirements of large retailers.
Track and manage warranties and coordinate after-sales service.

In addition, in order to future-proof your technology investment it’s essential to choose a leading software solution that is:

Built on cutting-edge infrastructure and available in the cloud.
Intuitive to use and available on mobile devices.
Able to be implemented in stages and easily integrated with complementary technologies.
Made by an innovative, established company committed to ongoing development and support.

[FEATURE ARTICLE – Enabling accurate inventory forecasting through a modern ERP solution]

Ready to start benefitting from a new inventory management ERP?

Introducing an ERP solution into your business is a major change. It’s important to reflect on whether your business is prepared for the time and effort involved in embedding new systems across your whole enterprise. Poor planning can lead to failed ERP implementations.

If you’re ready to benefit from a digital supply chain, pay close attention to how closely a solution aligns with the actual improvements you’re looking to make—both now and in the future.

Remember too that ERP solutions should be configured for your unique workflows, processes, and financial reporting requirements to deliver maximum value.

Businesses new to the world of ERP software can benefit from third-party advice to choose and implement the ideal solution. Look for a reseller or implementation partner with demonstrated experience, an excellent track record of successful ERP projects, and an approach and team that you can trust.

Do you want to talk to an ERP expert about improving inventory management? Feel free to call us on 1300 045 046 or email [email protected] for more info or to schedule a consultation.

Should You Start Thinking Bigger? Discover The 7 ERP Readiness Signals

1. Data File Too Large/Large Number of Concurrent Users

Once the data file of a server-based small business accounting system becomes too large, the operation of the system can slow down considerably or even start crashing. This leads to user frustration as it takes them longer to complete routine tasks and lost productivity if the system needs to reboot. Similarly, once more and more users start accessing a small business accounting package its performance will start to slow leading to user frustration and lost productivity.

ERP systems are underpinned by a scalable database (usually SQL) and do not suffer from these limitations.

2. Large Inventory List/More Complex Inventory Handling Requirements

Once a company’s inventory list has become a certain size it will affect the running speed of small business accounting packages. In addition, companies tend to require more complex inventory handling procedures as their inventory list grows.

ERP systems are able to perform key inventory processes such as barcoding, serial number tracking, batch processing, automatic re-ordering; and cater for inventory sub-items, multiple pricing levels, multiple bins and multiple warehouses; features not available (or only available in a limited capacity) in small business accounting packages.

[FEATURED ARTICLE – How to choose the best ERP solution: A guide for Small to Medium size Business]

3. Disparate Systems/No Single Source of Truth

As companies grow they will tend to add additional software packages (such as CRM systems, Warehouse Management Systems etc) to their business to perform specific tasks. This can lead to what’s known as the “hairball” effect where there are several disparate systems requiring data to be double-entered (into one system and then also into the accounting system) and there being no acknowledged source of data truth.

ERP systems will combine many of the functions performed by disparate systems into an integrated whole-of-business system, eliminating the need to double enter data. The database underpinning the ERP system will also act as a single source of truth.

4. Reporting Done on Spreadsheets

One of the unpleasant side effects having disparate software systems is that it means that customers are quite often forced to resort to collating data on spreadsheets to report on various aspects of their business. Not only is this process time consuming but it is also prone to human error.

ERP systems have a comprehensive list of pre-built reports and also come with report writers which give customers the ability to produce custom reports so that they can report on any aspect of their business.

[FEATURED ARTICLE – Template ERP requirements: Defining your implementation checklist]

5. Multiple Offices

Small business accounting systems have been developed to cater for small businesses – which are usually single office entities. Once a business grows to take on multiple sites, collating data from these sites can be problematic for such systems.

ERP systems have been designed to cater for multiple offices and can consolidate the data from each of these offices for reporting purposes.

6. Dealing with Foreign Currencies/Overseas Suppliers

Foreign currency management tends not to be a feature of small business accounting systems necessitating the use of spreadsheets on the side for data manipulation and then double entry back into the accounting system. Similarly, importing goods from overseas mean that landed costs need to be accounted for which aren’t a standard feature of small business accounting systems.

ERP systems have in-built foreign currency and landed costs functionality.

[NOW READ – ERP Budgeting: How much should I spend on ERP implementation?]

7. Jobbing/Project Management

Any sort of jobbing or project management requirement that necessitates the use of budgets; resource allocation, scheduling and tracking; sub-contracting, progress invoicing or timesheeting will not be able to be catered to by small business accounting systems.

Most ERP systems have job costing or project management modules which can cater to these requirements.

Leverage Technologies has a range of ERP solutions that cater to growing Australian businesses. For further information on any of these solutions please call us on 1300 045 046 or email [email protected] today.

Accurate inventory is not a myth: Enabling accurate inventory forecasting through ERP

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In today’s post, we are going to explore how Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) empowers wholesale distribution and manufacturing businesses with advanced inventory forecasting functionalities to resolve internal conflicts between warehouse, sales and finance.

The debate between your Sales, Finance and Inventory/Logistics Managers may sound something like this:

Logistics Manager; “If sales forecast more accurately and sell to a plan we will be able to hold the right inventory levels…”

Sales Manager; “If purchasing and the warehouse team held the correct stock levels and kept us informed we would be able to sell more…”

Finance Manager; “We need more accurate stock holdings and we must reduce inventory levels to reduce the burden these stock levels place on cash flow…”

These are the three “most seen” competing points of view from most small to medium-sized businesses in the wholesale/distribution and manufacturing sector. The good news is, accurate inventory forecasting is not a myth!

So, how can an ERP solution help you manage these conflicting points of view and forecast inventory demand at any given point in time?

Accurate inventory forecasting is not a myth

ERP solutions give you the functionality to provide faster, better access to information for better decision making. This is particularly true with regards to inventory management for wholesale distribution and manufacturing.

Here is how an ERP solution can help resolve your internal conflict and give you accurate inventory forecasting functionalities.

Planning

The essence of an ERP solution goes well beyond invoicing, customers, financials and suppliers. Planning is at the heart of a good distribution and manufacturing ERP solution.

Planning tools for purchasing and production planning will help balance the supply and demand equation to consider thousands of transactions and recommend a plan. Think of the elements of any plan for a wholesale distribution or manufacturing business:

Lead times;
Economic order quantities;
Container and shipping management;
managing multiple suppliers;
forecasts and min/max stock levels.

It is impossible to manage all of these “moving parts” without the automation that an ERP solution provides.

A good planning solution will map out all relevant components to recommend purchase orders for raw materials and works orders for production planning. A good planning solution balances thousands of transactions to make the right recommendations.

Information

Decision making requires information; timely, relevant information. A good ERP solution provides relevant information such as lead times, current stock levels, historical sales, supplier on-time/in full reporting and expected delivery dates with detailed available to promise.

When your various business departments get access to all the information in real-time from your supply chain, your staff is empowered with the accurate data they need to make informed decisions.

Analytics

As mentioned, data empowers our staff with accurate information to make informed decisions. In today’s world, we have access to “big data” from multiple sources.

Let’s put this data to good use through analytics to help us with decision making. Decision making is about timely, accurate information. A well-implemented ERP analytics toolset will give you the information that you need when you need it to help you with the planning and forecasting.

Forecasting

Tough to get right in any business. Not to worry, ERP gives you access to automated forecasting tools and relevant data for forecasting historical sales, market trends and product updates.

Mobility

We live in a mobile world. All of the functionality that we require from our ERP solution should be available from a mobility device. Once again, the emphasis is on timely, accurate information.

Decision making can’t wait, and neither should you!

Access to information where and when you need it means that mobility remains important.

Conclusion

The debate between sales, warehouse management and finance can be solved by implementing an ERP solution to empower your business with advanced inventory forecasting functionalities.

Implement an ERP solution to provide your business with the information, analytics and planning tools to close the gap between planning, scheduling, sales, inventory management and finance.

At Leverage Technologies, we have been helping Australian businesses choose and implement the right ERP software to grow smart. For more information feel free to call us on 1300 045 046 or email [email protected].