Sage MAS 90 & MAS 200 ERP Software News & Tips
Stay on Top of Your Stock with Inventory Management Module

Do you still keep track of your products on a spreadsheet? Do you know which are your best selling or most profitable products or services? How do you ensure that a top-selling product is always available when a customer calls? The Sage MAS 90 ERP Inventory Management module can increase efficiency as well as track important historical information to help you make more informed business decisions. Let’s take a closer look.

Know Exactly What’s Available
When a customer calls, it’s essential to quickly determine the availability and pricing of an item. By using the Inventory Management module along with the Sales Order module, your customer service staff will have the information they need at their fingertips.

The wealth of information about each product begins with quantities available. Not only can your team see at the touch of a button what is on hand, but they also can see what is already committed to other customers, and what is on purchase order from suppliers. Because the system tracks lead time from your vendors, they can even estimate when back-ordered items will come in.

It is even possible to check on a customer’s previous purchases of an item. When viewing an item’s sales history, you can see all the invoices on which the item was sold, then select an invoice and drill down into the details of quantities purchased and price paid.

Flexible Pricing Options
With the Inventory Management module, each product can have its own detailed price schedule that is readily accessible during order entry. You can offer discounts based on quantity breaks, and even offer special contract pricing to individual customers or groups. To maintain profitability, you can tie your prices directly to costs by calculating prices as a markup of the cost of the item. Several costing methods can be used to value items, including standard, average, FIFO, LIFO, and lot/serial.

If it is customary for your sales representatives to negotiate prices on every sale, a powerful option allows you to display the gross profit percentage on the order entry screen. In this way your representatives can see how much negotiation room they have. You can also set promotional pricing with expiration dates, so you can coordinate your inventory system tightly with your marketing campaigns.

Precise Commission Tracking
Each item can have a different method of calculating commissions. Commissions can be based on a percentage of price, percentage of cost, or percentage of gross profit plus a base commission amount, and commissions can be split between a salesperson and a sales manager. Payment of commissions can be based on invoiced amounts or only paid once an invoice is paid. Commission information can be automatically generated and sent to the Accounts Payable or Payroll modules for automated check generation.

Never Run Out
With the Inventory Management module, you can set a reorder point for each item or product line. The system can then automatically generate purchase orders in the Purchase Order module for items needed. You can calculate the appropriate reorder quantity as well, based on values you set for economic order quantity, maximum stock quantity, or reorder point. When integrated with the Business Alerts module, the system can generate an e-mail notification when stock quantities fall below specified amounts. You may not need to go this far with every product you sell - but just consider the value of never running out of your top-selling items.

To help you get the best price and service level on products you purchase, whether raw materials or goods for resale, the module tracks an unlimited number of vendors per item (when integrated with the Purchase Order module). The history for each vendor shows the lead time, the last purchase price, and available quantity price discounts.

Manage Stock Efficiently
The Inventory Management module is an excellent tool for managing your inventory assets. You can maintain multiple physical or virtual warehouses, track the quantities and costs of items in each, and track the transfer of goods between warehouses. You can perform a physical count without interrupting the ordering and shipping processes. You can print physical count worksheets, and the system even produces a variance report that provides data highlighting differences between the current physical count and the count shown in the system.

To facilitate tracking and shipping of goods, you can print inventory labels with bar codes to be scanned during shipping. You can set up sales kits for simplified processing of items that are normally priced and sold together. Alias item numbers allow you to use one part number for tracking items internally and different part numbers for customer orders and vendor purchases.

The system supports warranty tracking as well. A warranty expiration date is optionally calculated based on shipment or invoice date, and can be printed on invoices and packing slips. Warranty history is maintained and automatically recalled when items are returned using the Return Merchandise Authorization module.

E-Commerce Made Easy
Web commerce can be very profitable, but the process of managing part numbers, images, and promotional prices on your Web site can be challenging. When you integrate the Inventory Management module with the Sage MAS 90 E-Business Manager module, the E-Business Manager module draws images, prices, and stock information directly from the Inventory Management module.

Reporting And Analysis
Because a detailed transaction history is retained indefinitely, information is readily available for you to make informed decisions about the products you sell. The Inventory Turnover Report and Sales Analysis are just two of dozens of reports the system produces to help manage your inventory effectively.

When integrated with the other Sage MAS 90 modules, including the Sales Order, Purchase Order, E-Business Manager, and Business Alerts modules, the Inventory Management module can help you increase the efficiency of your business processes.

Contact Integrated Computer Systems Support for more information about the Inventory Management module.