Retail/Distribution
Management
The Retail/Distribution Management System is a
broad-based, fully integrated Business Management and Planning System
designed for the multiple requirements of the wholesale or retail
distribution industry (including carpeting and other roll stock, and
serial number and lot control). The purpose of this comprehensive and
easy-to-use software is to increase "productivity" and
"profitability" through effective management control. This system is
part of the Universal Business Solution by IBS.
Functional Characteristics
e-Business Web Module
Warehouse
Management Module - Supporting Wireless Devices
Inquiries
- On hand, Customer Orders and Vendor Orders by Item
within store
- Open Orders
- Order Activity
- Historical orders
- Detail Sales
- Summarized Sales
- Inventory Status
- Inventory History
- Historical sales and transfers - current and past 12
months
Reporting
- Various Master lists (Product, Item, etc.)
- Daily activity reports (Sales, Receipts, P.O.'s)
- Daily Written Sales Reports
- Inventory Balance Register
- Orders and Layaways by Customer, Salesman or Product
- Detail sales Reports
- Gross Profit Analysis (Most profitable product)
- Salesman Reports - sales, profit and commission
In order to provide a complete business system, the
Retail/Distribution Management System includes the IBS Integrated
Financial System with:
- Accounts Receivable
- Accounts Payable
- General Ledger
- Payroll (available as an optional module - also
fully integrated)
The entire integrated Retail/Distribution Management
System is Year 2000 Ready. All dates within the system are 8 digits which
allow effective Query processing in addition to standard application
processing.
The entire business system is based on IBM's relational
database system (DB2-UDB) running on the IBM ^ iSeries, the most widely
accepted midrange system in the marketplace today. The IBS business
system components provide access to intelligent workstations (PCs) as
well as single function workstations and Thin Clients and support many
varieties of PC-class as well as midrange, high speed printers. The
database provides shared access to the information while ensuring
complete integrity of the data. The system provides for true
multi-user access while allowing complete "auditability" across
all components.
The system has been designed for ease of use,
being menu-driven with consistent menu structures across all of the
Universal Business Solution by IBS integrated applications. Windowing
has been implemented for ease of use in the extensive searches
and drill-down capabilities which are available.
The Retail/Distribution Management application is
flexible, easy to use and easy to tailor for both
wholesale and retail organizations. Because of its table-driven
structure, the Universal Business Solution by IBS applications lend
themselves to custom tailoring to meet each organization's unique coding
structure and terminology requirements. This means that the IBS systems
can be tailored to your business, rather than forcing you to modify your
business to fit the system.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Retail/Distribution Management is an automated Business
System developed for the wholesale or retail distribution industry to
provide effective management control for single or multi-unit firms. This
comprehensive and easy-to-use software consists of ten major subsystems:
- Order Processing
- Invoicing
- Inventory Management
- Purchasing
- Special Order/Accounts Payable Reconciliation
- Sales Analysis
- Special Orders and Inventory Purchasing
- Physical Inventory/Cycle Counting
- B-B and B-C e-Business Module (Optional)
- Wireless Warehouse Management (Optional)
In addition, Retail/Distribution Management includes
our fully integrated Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and
General Ledger systems. The system offers extensive tracking and
reporting functions to permit management inquiries and/or printed
reports of the current status of your operations. The following
information outlines some of the key features of Retail/Distribution
Management.
Order Entry/Invoicing
- On-line, interactive entry and update of an order
- Immediate inventory reflection of all customer order
activity
- Planning information for inventory replenishment
based on existing commitments. Orders may be entered when written and
finalized at any time before invoicing.
- Convenient, automatic Unit of Measure conversion
- Sales allowed from the inventory of another store
within a multi-store firm
- Use Tax
- Automatic Sales Tax computation
- Allows taxable and non-taxable line items within the
same order
- Warehouse "picked"/warehouse release ("jobbed")
tracking of inventory
- On demand invoicing and update of history files
- Pre-Billing document and Invoice produced
Inventory Management
- Ability to track inventory by serial number or lot
- Ability to track roll stock by roll
- Future requirements by item for orders and
allocations
- Historical inventory movement by store and item
- Automatic Unit of Measure conversion
- "On-order" values by item
- Roll stock inventory tracking
- Additional inventory tracking to control shrinkage,
miscuts, damaged goods and remnants
- Special handling of remnants with
variable widths within an item
- Availability, by size, of an individual
roll within store and item
Vendor Order and Customer Order information is carried
through the system along with current inventory levels. The inquiry
screens display the actual inventory on hand by ID# (Serial #, Lot #,
Roll #, etc.), any reserve requirements against the ID#, and any
outstanding Purchase Orders for an item. This type of on-line
processing makes management information immediately available. Costs
are associated with each ID# (if inventoried at that level) and are
applied based on the ID# designated. Average costs are used for items not
inventoried at the ID# level. Pricing Structure
The pricing structure of Retail/Distribution Management
is extremely comprehensive and flexible. It was designed to
support the requirements of both the retailer and wholesale distributor.
The pricing structure available within Retail/Distribution Management is
as follows:
Customer Price Classes and Item Price Classes
are available for automatic pricing.
In addition to the selling
price as contained in the Item and Product Masters, the following
combinations of pricing can be assigned:
- Customer and Item
- Customer and Item Price Class
- Customer Price Class and Item
- Customer Price Class and Item Price Class
Within each of those specific pricing assignments,
either a unique price can be established or a discount percent (against a
standard price in the Item Master) for a given item. For each
combination, 5 tiered pricing is supported (eg. 5 unique prices or
percentage discounts can be assigned based on 5 quantity break points).
This powerful, flexible, yet optional pricing
should provide all of the pricing flexibility that any retailer,
wholesaler or combination retail/wholesale firm requires.
Sales Analysis
Sales analysis data flows automatically from
the order entry (invoicing) process. No rekeying of data is required.
Sales analysis data is captured at the lowest level of detail (ie. ID#,
Roll#, Lot#, etc.). It is also captured at an invoice/division/class
salesman level for commission processing. Many inquiries and reports
are available.
- Profitability
Gross profit analysis reports are available
summarizing the quantity sold, sales dollars, sales cost, and profit
for the current month and year-to-date. The inventory level is included
on these reports.
- Reports Available
Salesman reports are produced comparing sales and
gross profit for the current month and year-to-date, with corresponding
periods from the prior year.
Detailed sales information may be printed for a
specified time period by salesman. Monthly supporting detail may be
printed for use in evaluating or researching identified problem areas.
This report includes all invoice line items for the month. Also
included are job reports by Division, Class, Salesman, Item and
Product.
Purchase Orders
- Permits entry and update of inventory items and/or
special order items
- Immediate reflection upon "on-order"
inventory values for allocations and planning. Displays in detail on
item status inquiries.
- Maintained by vendor purchase order within each
store
- Receipt processing relieves open purchase orders and
generates data for use in A/P reconciliation
- Will allow processing of system suggested PO's for
special order items
Inquiries
- Item Inquires
- Item Status inquiry
- Theoretical Balance inquiry
- Item History inquiry
- Order/Invoice Inquiries
- Open order inquiry
- Order activity inquiry
- Historical order inquiry
- Sales History Inquiries
- Detail sales inquiry
- by item
- by customer
- job
- Item Movement history (summary)
- Item Sales history (summary)
Notes An extensive Notes capability
exists which allows the user to record and/or review freeform notes
which can be associated with:
- A Customer
- An Item
- A Vendor
- A Quote
- An Order
- A Line Item within an Order
- A Purchase Order
- A Line Item within a Purchase Order
Search/Lookup Capability Most table
entries as well as Items, Vendors, Customers and many other data elements
have a windowed search available so that the user does not need
"hard copy" lists to find specific numbers or codes, the system will
assist. User Help Text In addition to the system supplied
help text, many screens allow the user to add their own "help text"
to provide ongoing helps that are stated in the user's own words.
Optional IBS Web Module The optional, integrated IBS Web Module
allows you to readily establish a business to business or
business to consumer site on your ^ iSeries where customers can
order product directly from you on the Internet. This module is
tightly integrated with the Retail/Distribution Management System to
the extent that when your customer completes their order, the order
resides in your open order file just as though one of your people had
keyed it at a workstation.
Upon completion of the Customer Order, an e-Mail is
automatically sent to the customer with the Order Acknowledgment
attached and copies could be sent to anyone within your organization
alerting them to the fact that a new order was just received. This module
not only allows you to instantly become an e-business (as a
portion of your overall business model), but it provides significant
flexibility and added service to your customer set. Additionally, it
dramatically improves your overall productivity of processing
and handling orders.
Through the use of the IBS Web Module, your customers
can search for and select items using the following techniques: by
category, by item number, by keywords, and by "favorites".
"Favorites" provides your customer the ability to
automatically capture frequently ordered items and store them in a
special folder for later reference and retrieval. This allows for very
fast Internet ordering for those items that are ordered on an ongoing
or repetitive basis.
An added benefit of the IBS Web Module is that it comes
with an e-Mail component. This component can be used as a stand alone
iSeries e-Mail system as well as in conjunction with the IBS Web Ordering
Module. The IBS i-Series 400 e-Mail System is a very powerful tool
as a standalone system and is included as a part of the IBS Web Module.
Summary
Retail/Distribution Management uses a multi-level
inventory reporting structure (mill, quality, color, width and Roll# or
brand, product, stock# and ID#). Sales may be reflected against a
specific ID#, and each ID# carries unique costing information. For items
inventoried at the ID# level (ID#, serial#, lot#, roll#, etc.) all
inventory transactions are associated with the ID#.
The Unit of Measure Conversion Routine performs a key
role in Retail/Distribution Management. Each item is assigned three
compatible unit-of-measure codes. The Inventory Unit of Measure
represents the base unit for inventory quantities, the Sales Unit of
measure represents the base unit for costing and pricing, while the
Purchasing Unit of Measure is used for satisfying the vendor's
requirements. Any valid and compatible unit-of-measure may be used for
all data entry and update transactions.
Examples of compatible unit-of-measure codes are:
Most reports will be printed with inventory values
reported in a Unit of Measure that you select. The unit of measure can be
easily varied depending on the purpose of the report.
Retail/Distribution Management Justification
Each environment is unique. No two businesses view the
world in the same manner or make decisions based on identical criteria.
Therefore, the justification for an automated system such as
Retail/Distribution Management will differ for each organization
evaluating it.
The following pages identify general areas of
justification and some of the features and functions of
Retail/Distribution Management that impact those areas. You must evaluate
the actual dollar benefit to your business based on your particular
environment.
We are confident that the Retail/Distribution
Management application will provide you with significant enough tangible
and intangible benefits to fully justify itself in a very short period of
time.
Areas of Justification
Administrative Support:
State Sales Tax:
- By state, by tax code (3)
- Use tax calculated and included in merchandise
costing for Gross Profit purposes, reported for state tax purposes
INCREASED ACCURACY
- Reporting by date range automatically provides for
your tax reporting needs
INCREASED ACCURACY, INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY
Detail Retail Reports with selection:
- When a situation requires review, many detail
reports are available to support the review. In these cases, the
ability to use report selection to limit the volume of data to a
selected segment is, or can be, invaluable.
INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY, IMPROVED CRITICAL
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION
- QUERY
When a situation requires information unique to
itself, the data captured within the system is available to the user
using the IBM QUERY Utility. Retail/Distribution Management files and
data elements are described as part of IBM's Relational Data Base,
making Retail/Distribution Management data "QUERY-ready".
IMPROVED FLEXIBILITY, IMPROVED MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION
Selective Purging
- Data is purged under user control
Result: YOU define the volume of data to be
retained online for analysis
purposes, dependent on
your requirements.
YOU also designate the storage media of the
purged data (if it is to be saved).
IMPROVED SYSTEM UTILIZATION - LOWER COST
Gross Profit/ID# Costing:
Automatic correction of inventory and/or sales costs
for items tracked by ID# (Serial#, Lot#, Roll#, etc.) entered in error.
1. As by-product of manual ID# correction
2. As by-product of Purchase Order/Accounts Payable
validation and approval
INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY, LOWER COST, ACCURATE
COMMISSIONS
Inventory:
- Unique ID# vs. Standard Items
- Full history of activity against each item/ID#
- Age control of serial numbers, lots and rolls
- Status inquiries
- History inquiries
- Unity of Measure conversion
- Modules are extremely easy to learn and use
- Table driven
- Fully Integrated System
- End of month valuation is transaction driven and
allows daily inventory to be processed without interruption.
- Outstanding purchase orders and/or customer orders
are included in reports and inquiries to aid in inventory status
analysis and control.
INCREASED FLEXIBILITY, ACCURACY, CONTROL
Order Processing:
- Single-step or staged processing (to fit your
environment)
- Easy, straight forward entry
- Many override capabilities
- Order changes (for correction, addition, deletion)
are fully audited
- Customer deposit handling is interfaced with
Accounts Receivable for customer deposit accounting (liability). Also
included for order printing.
- Complete order history
- Many revealing inquiries
INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY, ACCURACY, UNPARALLELED
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Physical Inventory:
Cycle count for full store capability
INCREASED FLEXIBILITY
Coordination required, but daily operations can be
continued as normal, during validation and processing of inventory,
including updating of computer records.
INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY, CUSTOMER SERVICE
Purchase Order/Accounts Payable Interface (PO/AP):
Provides validation of inventory receipt prior to
paying for merchandise
ELIMINATES ERRONEOUS PAYMENTS
Reduces multiple entry of same data
INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY, ACCURACY
Provides verification of merchandise cost vs.
Accounts Payable expense
ELIMINATES ERRONEOUS PAYMENT/ERRONEOUS GROSS PROFIT
Provides for report of unbilled inventory
PROVIDES ACCURATE INVENTORY
Automatically correct sales and inventory cost
figures ( at ID# level only)
INCREASED ACCURACY ON GROSS PROFITS & COMMISSIONS
"Table-Driven":
- You define codes and their description to match YOUR
NEEDS and YOUR TERMINOLOGY
THE SYSTEM IS TAILORED TO YOUR NEEDS WHICH
MAKES IT EASY TO UNDERSTAND AND USE.
THE SYSTEM WILL GROW WITH YOU
THE SYSTEM WILL CHANGE WITH YOU
YOU CAN CLASSIFY DATA IN MEANINGFUL WAYS, BASED
ON YOUR INTERPRETATION, NOT OURS
- Many "system changes" are accomplished via table
changes made by you, the USER, rather than costly program changes made
by someone else.
REDUCED COSTS
- Codes (as used by tables) ensure consistent entry of
values. This consistency provides for data retrieval which is more
reliable and meaningful.
IMPROVED INFORMATION, ANALYSIS
Sales Analysis:
- Profitability reports by product
- Numerous versions of sales/history reports by
item, customer, salesman, division, etc.
INCREASED INFORMATION/KNOWLEDGE, BETTER DECISION
MAKING
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