IBS Advanced Distribution Management System

The IBS Advanced Distribution Management System is a comprehensive system consisting of the following components:

• Order Processing
• Order Release
• Shipping
• Invoicing
• Quoting
• Purchase Order Processing
• Vendor & Manufacturing Receipts
• Inventory Control
• Physical Inventory Processing
• Extensive Sales Analysis

In order to provide a complete business system, the IBS Advanced 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 Distribution 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 running on the IBM AS/400, the most widely accepted midrange system in the marketplace today. The IBS business system components provide access to intelligent workstations (PCs) as well as non-intelligent workstations 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 IBS integrated applications. Windowing has been implemented for ease of use in the extensive searches which are available.

The IBS Advanced Distribution Management System is flexible, easy to use and easy to tailor for both wholesale and retail organizations. Because of its table-driven structure, the 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.

Order Processing

Order processing can be accomplished in several ways. Counter sales can be handled (point of sale processing). Telephone orders can be processed on-line and salesman handwritten or faxed orders can be entered at any convenient time

Order Release

Partial or complete orders can be released, shipped and invoiced. When an order line item is released, the inventory for that line item is automatically updated, immediately reflecting the status of that item as in-transit. Backorder handling is provided for line items that are not shipped on the initial order.

Pricing

The IBS Advanced Distribution Management System provides for extremely flexible pricing alternatives. A, B, C, D pricing is available with time-framed price breaks as well as quantity breaks. This flexibility is provided for the following combinations:

• Customer - Item Class
• Customer - Item
• Customer Class - Item
• Customer Class - Item Class

Date sensitive price updates are supported. When price changes are anticipated, you don't have to wait until the date that they are effective to update your price tables. Because of the date-sensitivity of the IBS pricing scheme, price changes can be entered in advance and automatically be used upon the effective date of the new prices.

Warehouse Control

Control is provided at the warehouse level, not only for item counts, but for pricing and unique vendor preferences. This provides for the greatest flexibility in terms of managing each warehouse independently as well as the company as a whole.

Both purchasing and sales/inventory unit of measures are supported. The IBS Advanced Distribution Management System provides an automatic conversion from one unit of measure to the other, simplifying processing of inventory items.

Customer quotes are supported through the quoting module. Quotes can be developed for customers and immediately converted into orders upon the customer's acceptance. Quotes can be printed for submission to a customer or can automatically be faxed from the AS/400 with the appropriate fax hardware and software installed. Quotes can also function as "standing orders". Once a quote is developed in the system it can be used over and over again to generate an actual customer order without re-keying of the line item information. Once the quote is converted to an order, the line items on the order can be updated, as desired.

Customer Deposit Processing

Customer deposits, against an order, are automatically interfaced to the IBS Accounts Receivable System. The deposit will be tracked with the order throughout the order's life. In addition, the customer deposit information will be automatically interfaced from Accounts Receivable to the IBS General Ledger System and will be handled as "unearned income" (customer deposits) within General Ledger. When the order associated with the customer deposit is invoiced, automatic adjusting entries will be processed through Accounts Receivable and General Ledger appropriately reflecting the new status of the deposit as an actual payment against the invoice.

Invoicing

An invoice edit and prelist is produced to allow for review before the final invoicing is run. This prelist includes all orders which are available for invoicing based on their picked and shipped status. Once the edit has been approved, invoices are produced and all relevant files are updated. A reprint option is provided to reprint any invoices which have been lost or inadvertently destroyed.

All invoicing is automatically interfaced to the IBS Accounts Receivable System. Payments, adjustments and manual invoices are entered directly into Accounts Receivable. All Accounts Receivable transactions are subsequently interfaced to

General Ledger for final edit and posting. Customer Master information is updated to accurately reflect the current status of the customer's account.

Inquiries

Several order, inventory, item and transaction inquiries are available. These inquiries provide a vehicle to allow instant access to the most critical information in support of customer orders and inventory status. Because of the nature of the on-line update for order and inventory processing, the inquiries will provide up-to-the-minute information for customer support and management decision making.

The IBS Advanced Distribution Management System provides a complete physical inventory subsystem. This subsystem allows for business as usual during processing of complete physical inventory or cycle counting. This is accomplished through freezing of selected data for the physical inventory process with an automatic re-syncronization of all inventory values following the final physical inventory updates. This technique allows for the least impact on the ongoing business while providing a very controlled environment for actual physical inventory to be taken.

The Purchase Order - Accounts Payable interface provides for validation of inventory receipts prior to paying for the merchandise through the Accounts Payable function. This reduces multiple entry of the same information and avoids erroneous payments for merchandise not yet received. This function also provides for the validation that the invoice amount, from the vendor, is equal to the purchase order amount as specified on your purchase order to the vendor.

General Ledger Coordination

Since the ultimate measure of a company's success is its financial bottom line, each of the IBS applications provides for an automatic interface to the General Ledger function. General Ledger batches are automatically created and are then edited and posted without duplicate entry of any information. This provides for a high level of productivity of the administrative staff and eliminates many potential errors that can be introduced through re-keying of information. You can quickly and accurately assess your company’s financial status from the up-to-date General Ledger subsystem of the Integrated Financial System.

The Order Entry/Invoicing component of the IBS Advanced Distribution Management System is a comprehensive, on-line, interactive system providing standard OE-I features and functions as well as many specialized capabilities.

Functional Characteristics

• Multiple Company Support
• On-line Order Entry Processing
• On-line Order Entry Maintenance
• Ability to produce shipping documents (Pick tickets, Pick lists, etc.)
• Invoice generation
• Automatic Interface to Accounts Receivable
• Historical Transaction File
• Quote Entry and Maintenance
• Direct Faxing of Quotes and Order Acknowledgments

• On-Order by Customer
• On-Order by Item, Due Date

Order Entry Features

• Multiple Due Date support
• Customer Purchase-order support
• Time-framed control of "in-house" order quantities by item

Pricing Features

• List Pricing
• Special Pricing for Items, Customers
• Special Pricing for Classes, Item Classes
• A, B, C, D Pricing
• Other Special Pricing
• Operator Overrides

Representative Reports

• On-Order report by due date within item
• On-Order report by Customer PO within Customer
• On-Order Change report
• Order Acknowledgment
• Today's shipment report
• Picking Ticket
• Pick List
• Invoices
• Invoice Register
• Stock Status
• Extensive Sales Analysis
• Invoice Prelist
• Bill of Lading
• Order Requirements Report
• Stock Shortage Report

The Inventory Control component of the IBS Advanced Distribution Management System is designed to handle inventory processing related to identification of items, tracking of on-hand quantities and YTD usage.

• Multiple Company Support
• Online Entry and Edit
• Item Master Maintenance
• Application Password Control
• Warehouse/Location Processing
• Location Move Processing
• Physical Inventory/Cycle Count
• Vendor & Production Receipt Processing
• Inventory Usage
• Inventory Adjustments
• Average or Standard Costing
• Vendor Purchase Orders
• Ability to Directly Fax Vendor PO
• Vendor (or Customer) Item # Maintained

• Item Master Inquiry
• Item Location/Master Inquiry (displaying qty/location/item)
• Inventory Requirements Inquiry
• Inventory History
• On-order
• Vendor PO

• Various Master Lists
• Transaction Registers
• Stock Status (3 levels of summary available)
• Item Status Reports (3 levels of summary available)
• Inventory Valuation
• Inventory by Location Report
• Inventory Movement Report (from detail transactions)
• Detail Receipts/Production Register
• Detail Adjustment Register
• Retail Sales/Usage Register
• On-order Status

Location values can be defaulted for each item, reducing required keying. Up to 5 user codes (defined by item) are carried in the history transaction which can be used for specialized reporting. Detail history transactions can be kept on the system as needs dictate. The history file is purged upon user request. Inventory adjustments are coded as to adjustment reason (user defined) for auditing.

The IBS General Ledger/Financial Management System was designed for use at the executive, accountant and clerical levels. This easy-to-learn, easy-to-use system offers comprehensive financial control.

• Multiple Company Support
• Extensive Security
• User designed chart of accounts
• User specified report formats
• Support for recurring journal entries
• Reversing journal entries supported
• User defined %’s available on reports
• Powerful, flexible Budget Module included
• Allocation processing
• Multiple years’ history available
• Multiple years’ budget available
• Flexible fiscal year start month/number of periods
• Terminology used to match your environment

• Inquiry into G/L Master
• Inquiry into G/L Posted Transactions
• Inquiry into Budget Master
• Comparative Inquiries - Actual/Budget, Actual/Actual, Budget/Budget

• Batch Edits
• G/L Posting Report
• General Ledger
• Financial Statements
• Budget Reports
• Budget Comparisons
• Fiscal Year Comparatives
• Trial Balance
• Transaction detail listings
• Various lists

• This system functions as if custom designed for each user. Select standard reports, or customize your own reports, on a one-time or recurring basis.
• The account number can be from 1 to 19 positions, with 1 to 8 logical subdivisions, determined by the user.
• Temporary or permanent reports can be generated interactively by the user, with the versatile report writer provided. Non-data processing personnel can design, implement and control their own reports, without having to wait until the request can be scheduled.
• Extensive editing, back-up facilities and multilevel security are standard features. These combined with the ease-of-use offer you a highly adaptable system. The result? More control over your financial environment.

The IBS General Ledger System has been designed to incorporate interactive data entry and retrieval with batch editing and updating, in order to provide an easy-to-use, well-audited General Ledger System.

Various standard batch and interactive general ledger functions are performed, such as:

• General Ledger Master Maintenance
• Budget Master Maintenance
• Chart of Accounts Listing
• Trial Balance
• Journal Report
• Income Statement(s)
• Balance Sheet(s)
• Historical Retrieval
• Other

Various additional interactive data entry/maintenance/retrieval functions are available, such as:

• Interactive entry/maintenance of journal entries prior to posting
• Interactive retrieval and display of general ledger balance displaying each period and its summarized activity
• Interactive retrieval and display of non-purged detail transactions
• User defined Income Statement
• User defined Balance Sheet

Additional features found in the IBS General Ledger System include:

• Next Year Processing

The system will provide the ability to replicate the current set of general ledger accounts into the next year without any reentry. Processing can be accomplished in the new year while the old year is in the process of being closed.

• Interfacing from Outside Systems

General Ledger handles all posting of the General Ledger files. An interface file is provided to allow a simple structure for sending transactions to the General Ledger System from any other application.

• Auto Journal

This feature is useful for processing journal entries that are repeated monthly, quarterly or even annually. Auto Journal entries are allowed to be made in their complete status that includes the appropriate general ledger account(s), dollar amount(s) and descriptions or in an incomplete status, which allows some portion of the transactions to be missing.

The purpose of the Auto Journal, in both its complete and incomplete status, is to provide an easy way of making repeated journal entries that are otherwise so easy to forget. Using the Auto Journal will allow your to trigger the appropriate month-end accruals and offsets as necessary for complete processing and reporting within the general ledger system.

Auto Journal transactions are replicated into the standard Journal Entry file for further updating, editing and posting. Complete journal entries will be ready to post with the first edit. Incomplete journal entries will require manual update.

• User-defined Income Statement and Balance Sheet

This feature allows the user to produce those reports in a format appropriate to their business. Other than standard accounting rules, the printing is based on the user’s requirements, not on the general ledger numbers assigned.

• Alternate Reports

Alternate Balance Sheet and Income Statement reports are available as part of the User-defined reports.

• Reports

Reports can be prepared based on requested dates, rather than based on the month you are currently processing. The ability exists to run a series of reports (with or without selection) for:

• A prior period
• A prior range of periods
• The current period prior to close
• The current period as of close
• Allocation Processing

Allocation Processing allows the user to distribute the value of a single account to a series of accounts based on an entred percentage or a calculated percentage computed by the system (using a series of accounts).

• Budget

A powerful, integrated Budget Module is included with the IBS General Ledger System. Budgets can be developed for each Income and Expense account by utilizing one or more of several system support techniques:

1. Spreading an annual figure evenly over the periods
2. Automatically spreading an annual figure ‘unevenly’ (based on 4 4 5 week quarters)
3. Basing the period budget figures on a percentage of:
   1. Any other year’s budget (past or future)
   2. Any other year’s actual
   3. This year’s original budget
4. ‘Manually’ keying each period’s figures

• Budget/Actual Inquiry

The Budget/Actual Inquiry allows access to Budget/Actual Comparative information by account in the following combinations:

1. Actual of one year to Budget of same year
2. Actual of one year to Actual of another year
3. Budget of one year to Budget of another year
4. Actual of one year to Budget of another year

Accounts Payable

The IBS Accounts Payable System is designed to handle both open payables and cash disbursements. This sophisticated system allows the user to enter, monitor, and pay Accounts Payable transactions.

Special Features: Automatic General Ledger Allocation Capability

Purchase Order Reconciliation

Features Include

• Multiple Company Support
• Multiple Bank Support
• Easy Check Reconcilliation and Balancing
• Multiple Account Invoice Distribution
• Auto General Ledger Entry for Voids/Reversals
• Partial Pay Support
• Customizable General Ledger Account Numbers
• Due Date Calculations
• User-defined Standard Discounts
• Automatic Cash Discount Calculation and Tracking
• "One Time Vendor" Entries
• Vouchering Support
• On-line Entry and Edit
• Batch Control on Entry
• System Security
• Prepaid Invoice Support
• Automatic Remittance Advice
• Multiple Payment Schedule
• Multiple Bank Accounts
• Extensive Payment Selection Criteria

  Inquiries

• Current Payable Activity
• Historical Payable Activity
• Cross Company Payable Activity
• Check Activity
• Vendor Master File
• Distribution Activity

  Reporting

  Easy to learn and use, this system offers the following reports:

• Master Lists (Vendor, G/L, etc.)
• Cash Requirements Listing
• Automatic Remittance Advice (for check stub overflow)
• Aged Open Payables
• Accounts Payable Checks
• Check Register
• Cash Disbursements Journal
• Federal 1099’s (Misc. and Interest)

  Additional Features

• Vendor Masters can be maintained unique to company or without regard to company (for non-1099 vendors).
• Ability to override standard General Ledger numbers (A/P, Cash, Discount) by Invoice.
• The system will automatically interface to the IBS General Ledger System. Extensive editing is provided to insure balanced activity for Accounts Payable and General Ledger purposes.

  Accounts Receivable

  The IBS Accounts Receivable System is a comprehensive, on-line, interactive system providing all basic A/R functions as well as many additional specialized capabilities.

  Functional Characteristics

• Multiple Company Support
• Balance Forward and/or Open Item method(s) (Selected by Customer)
• User-defined Aging Periods (available by company)
• Immediate aging at time of posting
• Customer/Invoice/Transaction (Current & Historical) Inquiry
• Pre-posting editing and batch controls
• Interest processing (can be selected by customer)
• Statement Processing
• Aged Trial Balance (Alpha or Numeric sequence, various levels of summary)
• Efficient keying through use of coded entries and default values
• Inquiries and listing available by customer number or alphabetically
• Processing for: invoices, debit memos, credit memos, payments, discounts, adjustments

  Specialized Functions

• On-line invoice entry/update with "sales journal" and "tax journal" entries
• On-line entry with Customer alpha search and Open Invoice status display
• "Pay All" command available on payment screen
• Adjustment entry provides adjustment reason and General Ledger offset account entry
• Non-Accounts Receivable miscellaneous cash entries supported
• General Ledger interface of A/R information and miscellaneous cash
• General Ledger entries provided to IBS General Ledger in detail or summary based on General Ledger account
• Sales and Tax reports
• Alternate-cycle statements available (weekly rather than monthly)
• Future due date processing
• Dunning letter processing
• Complete customer transaction history maintained
• Sales/Cost of Sale capture, update and reporting
• Allows controlled "reuse" of customer numbers for one-time customers
• Unearned Income (Customer Deposit) processing

  This system can be interfaced to an automated billing system or can be implemented as a stand-alone system. The system is automatically interfaced with IBS General Ledger, IBS Advanced Distribution Management System and the Retail/Distribution Management System.

  The IBS Accounts Receivable System can provide the information necessary to properly manage your receivables and therefore can help improve your overall productivity and profitability.