As more and more companies march towards in-store and online sales integration, it has become clear that there's more than just shipping costs digging into profits.

Why You Should Update Your Inventory Process

Modernizing your inventory management process could be just the change your business needs to stay successful. 

There can be no doubt that as a whole, retail operations have become vastly more complicated within just the past decade. As more and more businesses and companies look to reconcile in-person (in-store) transactions with online sales, the importance of managing that business with an efficient inventory management tool becomes all the more apparent. Poor or inadequate inventory management can open the door to production and order delays, unhappy customers and unexpected expenditures, so it is not difficult to understand the importance of getting it “right”.

The problem seems to stem from the slow adoption of processes and technologies that have been proven to save time and money for businesses in all sectors. For example, according to a recent study 43% of small businesses operating in the United States do not track their inventory or do so through a manual process. In the same study, it was also discovered that 55% of those same small businesses don’t currently track their assets or do so manually. This has resulted in overstocks, out-of-stocks and returns costing the U.S economy more than $1.75 trillion dollars in lost revenue annually, a number that has been steadily increasing. In fact, if you sell a product within the U.S., on average it is costing you $1.43 in inventory costs for every dollar made in sales.

To the business planner looking to forecast costs and sales, numbers like these must seem especially egregious. With nearly $14 billion in industrial assets changing hands and an increase of 15% in eCommerce over the same period last year, many companies may find themselves wondering why their gross margins may not be experiencing the same growth. For some, increasing the number of skus to meet long-tail customer demands has been the solution, but a much more efficient solution is to integrate better processes that remove contributing factors like human error from the equation.

This may be changing, however. As more and more companies look to shore up holes in their budgets, more and more are looking towards taming their inventory as one of the more rewarding opportunities. According to a study by Motorola, 66% of warehouse IT and operations decision makers plan to expand technology investments by 2018, citing automation efficiency and worker productivity as the driving forces behind those decisions.

The benefits of improving tracking and inventory management are numerous, but there are some considerations for businesses still on the fence as to whether to embrace digital solutions (such as All Orders by NumberCruncher) or not. One key consideration that may not be so obvious is that whether you like it or not, customer satisfaction is absolutely an external factor that can affect your ability to forecast inventory or production. Agitating your hard-won customers with low or out of stock items will almost certainly lead your customers to question if their patronage is worth the hassle to get the product and just as a recall can damage a business’ reputation, failure to recognize the value and importance of managing your inventory is a nightmare waiting to happen.

Additionally, for businesses that operate with regulatory or government oversight, proper inventory management can not only improve efficiencies within your business, it can also help to keep your customers safe. In a study by the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers observed that the use of barcode tracking led to a reduction of administrative errors by 41.4% at an academic medical center. In other industries, this might translate into an avoided recall or unexpected costly expenditures so there are other benefits a company can expect to receive by integrating and updating their inventory processes.

If your company is one of the estimated 69% of small to medium-sized businesses expecting revenue growth this fiscal year, it certainly seems worth investing the time and resources to implement an efficient inventory control strategy.

Give your company accurate insights into stock and inventory conditions and see a positive impact on your business’ profitability. Connect with one of our industry inventory specialists today for a free demo or to start your free trial of All Orders from NumberCruncher.

In this week's blog, we look at some popular ways of managing the risk of recall to your business.

Can Your Business Avoid Total Recall?

This week, United Pet Group was forced to recall five different brands of popular rawhide dog chews when it was discovered that several lots contained a quaternary ammonium compound mixture used in some of it's facilities as a processing aid. The recall, which affected five different brands including the very popular Digest-eeze, has been traced back to the company’s Edwardsville, Illinois distribution facility where it was packaged and sent to a wide range of retail locations including many popular online retailers.

What happened to United Pet Group isn't, unfortunately, that uncommon an occurrence. For just the first half of 2017 alone, there have been 78 official product recalls issued by the Food and Drug Administration for reasons ranging from Listeria contamination to undeclared ingredients. Seven of those were this week alone and affected not only pet products like Digest-eeze and Loving Pets (Salmonella), but also retailers like consumer-favorite Trader Joe's (Listeria). When one looks at the affect even a small recall can have on a business and brand, it quickly becomes obvious that having processes and protocols in place can be a company’s blessing should the unthinkable become a reality.

Obviously, the best policy would be to avoid a recall altogether, but when dealing with complex manufacturing or production processes across multiple facilities and/or countries, the task of managing the individual parts can certainly become challenging. It’s too early to see the impact this recall will have upon its brand, but it does provide a chance to look at ways your business can minimize the risk of a recall. Let’s take a look at a few.

It cannot be overstated enough: although often tedious, this is by far the most important method of protecting your company from this kind of embarrassment. Having accurate knowledge of where your materials are, what condition they are in, and when materials are going to be in transit is one of the most essential contributors to maximizing efficiency and being proactive about introducing (and maintaining) processes. It can be a godsend for established businesses that have frequent interactions with multiple customers, manufacturers and suppliers or companies looking at releasing new products.

When looking at establishing procedures or standards for your company, it can often be helpful to model them to support or utilize industry code standards. One valuable resource for this is the American National Standard Institute which can provide comprehensive information about the standards within a variety of industries.

Organization also affords companies traceability of their products and when dealing with complex systems of crates, bins, lots and pallets. For some industries, such as food and beverage, traceability is not only important for internal business but also a matter of compliance with laws like the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. Having lot traceability, MSDS maintenance, and easily accessible HACCP documentation is one of the simplest methods for staying compliant and can make the process of ensuring quality across the brand easier.

When introducing new products or making changes to existing ones, it is not uncommon to receive components that do not conform to your specifications. Having the ability to trace components to their origin allows you the capacity to address quality control issues early on or to identify suppliers that produce inconsistent materials for your business. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this by leveraging software and experience, but one of the simplest is to establish and cultivate relationships with your suppliers.

Very few products today can be created from components manufactured in-house, so the use of third party suppliers is a well-established tradition in nearly every industry. Just as you would (likely) not buy a car sight-unseen, it is important to have a good understanding and relationship with your suppliers.

Although we are talking about recalls, the cultivation of these relationships have multiple benefits that reach beyond just ensuring your materials are of a suitable quality. For example, a company that produces food may want to ensure that their ingredients come from clean processing facilities or that the supplier meets kosher or organic guidelines in their production.

Even with all the planning and standardization, no system can really be considered complete until it has been tested. It is obvious that no company wants to issue a recall, but how can you know if all the work you put into place to protect your business from it works? You test it.

Many companies find great benefit in running mock recalls once or twice a year to target specific aspects of their production and distribution cycle. On the Quality Assurance & Food Safety website, Brian Honigbaum dives deeper into the how’s and why’s a company would want to run a mock recall, but the primary reason is to find holes in whatever system you have established for your company. Speed and the goal to locate 100% of a product regardless of production or distribution stage is an activity that affords a company the chance to refine processes and make improvements to its system. This will in turn ensure that high standards are not only adhered to, but maintained and refined across the landscape of your business.

The resilience of your customer base should the worst happen is dependent in very large part upon that consumer’s faith that your products are safe, that you take every available opportunity to ensure that all laws and regulations are followed, that your company is fully in control and being proactive by taking immediate action against specific lots and batches getting to the consumer.

A Software Solution

All Orders™ by NumberCruncher helps make avoiding recalls easier and managing them more efficient with a full suite of tools and features. Lot Number Tracking ensures that no batches can be created and no stock moved into or out of inventory without the correct data entered. This system of locks and gates means whether your company is consuming raw materials or ingredients with lot numbers, or even producing new batches with new expiration dates and lot assignments you will always be able to maintain full visibility of all the components of your production.

Receive lot numbers into stock, create Work Orders to deplete existing raw material numbers and move them into newly manufactured WIP or Finished Good Lot numbers. Transfers allow lot numbers to be moved around the warehouse and Ship Docs enable users to pick and choose which ones are sent to the customer and which will be invoiced to QuickBooks. Once tracking is configured, no user will be able to circumvent it always ensuring data integrity.

In the unfortunate event that a recall is needed, various tools are in place to take advantage of all existing tracking data that has been entered as lot numbers in All Orders™. The Lot Number Find Screen allows users to enter any series of lot numbers and generate a list of every document it appears on in an easy to filter Inventory Movement Detail Report that can provide logistical information such as a breakdown of precisely where each affected lot number was used.

Various Receiving, Ship Doc and Work Orders Log Reports have even more detailed breakdowns specific to each type of movement to help pin down as many details as possible for the lot numbers in questions. Production reports help find raw materials that went into the productions batch/lot numbers in the event that contaminated inferior raw material went into various batches or lots and lists all related production batches your company may need to have recalled.

Each of these reports is easily exportable to Excel, Access, CSV and PDF formats. Database experts love our SQL Server back end database for building any type of customer queries, connected Excel sheets, and custom business intelligence dashboard reporting. When combined or used in concert, these tools give users the capabilities they need to efficiently address the recall with precision and efficiency.

Contact us today for your 30 day free trial or to schedule a demo with one of our industry experts to see how All Orders™ can help you.

RELEASE NOTES 

All Orders 6.2.16

DOWNLOAD 64bit 32bit

What's New

Starting with release 6.2.16, All Orders has added features that will enable users to easily export/import and edit bulk information within the software.

This is was one of the most requested features from our users and was voted on at the "Creative Feature Session" at this year's CRUNCHTREAT.

In addition we have enhanced our tools for update BOMs in bulk, added multi line custom fields and more. Read on for the details!  

Export/Import

You will notice on various lists and entity editing screens throughout the system a new Excel Export button. Some of the more popular ares it is available in include the item, customer, vendor and price level lists. This button can be used to export the data you need into the same format as our standard Excel import templates. By doing this we eliminate the need for exporting data from reports and then copying and pasting into our standard import template. Now you can export, make the changes you need and then import all without having to copy and paste a thing!

Bulk Updating BOMs

We've added a new and enhanced screen that will allow users to bulk edit bill of materials (BOMs). Simply go to the Production menu and click on the Bulk Update BOMs button.From here users can easily add new components in bulk, remove components in bulk or replace existing components in bulk. Select the components and the assemblies and click Process to quickly and efficiently get all your BOMs in order!

Multi Line Custom Fields

Ever wanted to add a new custom field to have notes, comments, or store any other type of data that needs to have multiple lines? Now you can! When managing custom fields and adding or modifying a Text type of field a Lines box will appear where a number of lines can be entered for how many lines should be visible for that custom field. Once a number larger than 1 is entered it automatically turns the custom field into a multi line that can store as many lines as needed and the number entered will be how many lines are immediately visible on the custom field entry screen before the user needs to scroll down.

Customer/Vendor Notes

Now users can view notes and comments for customers and/or vendors while saving order documents.

Edit Custom Fields on read only Ship Docs

Now users can create and edit custom fields on shipping documents even after the document has been marked as shipped or invoiced which would have rendered the fields as read only in the past.

Additional Features

• Importing sales order from QB picks up custom fields as well.
• Setting for showing customer/vendor notes when saving order documents.
• Cost fields on the BOM screen made wider.
• Download button on the attachments screen for downloading web based attachments locally.
• New setting to leave inactive items off new order being created by duplicating existing orders.

Hey Crunchers, hope everyone had a successful October and is ready for the Holiday season! So our readers know, our blogs until the end of the year will be more condensed, as we finish development on our newest product, Order Time.

Although we are focused on finishing & releasing Order Time, one thing we are committed too is not letting our support or development on All Orders slip. This is evident by our upcoming release of All Orders version 6.2.7. The newest release adds 15 new features & fixes some common issues (i.e. Duplicate item error when trying to reconcile QuickBooks to All Orders.) Please visit our known issues section of our support page to view the full list of Added & Fixed Features of 6.2.7.

One new feature area I would like to highlight briefly has to do with Packages. With All Orders, you can now create Packages & Boxes and can specify what items go into each Package/Box. In order to use this new feature, you need to manually turn it on by going to Preferences --> Shipping --> Company Preferences --> Package. After turning the preference on, you now have the ability to:

• Create (either Automatically or Manually generated) & Print UCC's (Uniform Commercial Codes)
• After inserting Items on your Ship Doc, you can click on the Package Button & Create Packages for Shipment
• You can create Default Weight Properties for Package Types & Create Tracking Numbers
• Once the Packages are created, you can create & view a Package Manifest that shows the breakdown of quantities
• Integrate your shipping with FedEx & UPS

Just a quick reminder that TODAY is the final day to get discounted registration for the Numbercruncher Client Retreat! Use code NC17 to save at checkout until 11:59pm TONIGHT (10/31)! The Client Retreat will be held February 6th through 9th in Dania Beach, Florida and will cover topics on All Orders, All Orders Web, All Orders Mobile, Integration Options, Business Cycles, Inventory Primer, Reports & More! The Retreat is the perfect opportunity to learn everything you ever wanted to know about current & future Numbercruncher products, as well as, the perfect opportunity to escape the harsh winters of up north!

The end of the year is fast approaching, make sure your All Orders software is setup and working properly before the holiday rush hits! Don't hesitate in contacting us, if you have any questions or need to setup training

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another weekly edition of the NumberCruncher blog! As our weekly readers know, our trainer/support tech, Tom, has been writing our weekly blogs for the past few months. But as summer starts to ramp up and Tom's calendar starts to fill with training appointments, I've been asked to take over. My name is Josh Goldberg, and i'm the marketing supervisor here at NumberCruncher. For the fans and loyal readers of our blog posts, please don't panic! Our blog's will continue to include support answers and how to's, for our product's including All Orders. But it will also include other exciting technology news and new features will be popping up all the time, so make sure you subscribe and follow the NumberCruncher blog, because you never know what will appear! As always, if you are struggling or have any questions about All Order's software, please visit our support page or give us a call at 866-278-6243 so that we can set you and your company up for a training session Today! 

Today's blog post will focus on our product line. Kind of a reintroduction of who we are and what we offer. Before we can dive into our award winning products, we need to start with who we are. NumberCruncher, Inc is a leading provider of inventory and order management software for the QuickBooks community. Founded in 1999, NumberCruncher was the first developer to invest in QuickBooks software development kit from Intuit. Our mission has always been to provide innovative, scalable and cost effective inventory management solutions that solve real world business issues, resulting in total customer satisfaction, increased profitability and competitive advantage. Thousands of manufacturers and wholesale distributors rely on NumberCruncher solutions to manage their everyday business activities across the globe. From inventory control to production management to order processing and fulfillment, these solutions are unmatched in the marketplace, setting the standard for QuickBooks inventory add-ons for the manufacturing and wholesale distribution markets. 

Our flagship product All Orders, is inventory software that bridges the gap between business accounting and business success. All Orders is a comprehensive inventory and order management software application that helps you make better business decisions in purchasing, shipping and receiving, order entry, production and inventory control. All Orders gives the business owner, manager and accountant the tools to be successful faster, easier and more efficiently. The best part about All Orders is the fact the application can be used as a stand-alone inventory software, or users can fully integrate it with QuickBooks, so you never have to enter the same data twice. Besides the integration with QuickBooks, All Orders also supports integration with 3D Cart, Magento, Sales Force, UPS, FedEx & USPS; just to name a few. If you are already an All Orders user, please make sure you have upgraded your software to the latest version 6.2.3, which was released in March. To verify your currently version, please go to Help --> About. The new update was for general maintenance purposes and includes all previous updates and addresses known issues.

After the success of All Orders, NumberCruncher got back to the drawing board and realized that in today's society, there's a growing trend of business owners who are constantly on the go and spend very little time, in their main offices. These owners were the inspiration behind our products All Orders Mobile & All Orders Web. 

All Orders Mobile extends your company's inventory management by bringing it into your warehouse and allows you to take full advantage of the barcode label printing feature within All Orders. The goal of All Orders Mobile is to make your warehouse operations more efficient. After All Orders Mobile is installed on your Windows based device, it connects wirelessly to your All Orders database and download sales orders to be picked, purchase orders to be received and counted. Once a sales order is picked, the picking information will be uploaded in real time back to the All Orders database and automatically creates a Ship Doc. Similarly, once a purchase order is received through All Orders Mobile, the information will be uploaded to All Orders and a receiver will automatically be created. Finally, All Orders Mobile will update your count in All Orders with the new quantities. 

All Orders Web is an e-commerce website that shares a database with your All Orders program. All items, customers, vendors, purchase orders, quotes and orders that are created within All Orders will be instantly available within All Orders Web portal and vice versa. One of the unique features of All Orders Web, is the ability to give role based access to your staff, sales reps, customers and vendors. The role based access feature, will significantly improve customer engagement and quality of service by allowing your customers to view stock availability, create quotes & orders, as well as, check on order statuses. Another beneficial feature of All Orders Web to businesses, is the fact the program is written using ASP.NET, so all the web forms are customizable. You are not only able to customize the look and feel, but you are also able to customize the "business rules" that are specific to your industry. 

Finally, our newest product, ReorderPoint.com, might be the one to impact the industry the most. ReorderPoint.com is a purchasing tool that offers a systematic approach to forecasting inventory needs. ReorderPoint.com is a cloud-based application that integrates with All Orders and QuickBooks. The way it works is, during the initial setup, ReorderPoint.com, will import up to 3 years of historical data from your QuickBooks/All Orders files including sales figures, purchases and component usage. The program then uses statistical methods to determine lead times, trends, seasonality and special orders. Based on the type of trends we identify we apply a model (i.e. a mathematical equation to calculate lead time demand). We then use the lead time demand to calculate the reorder point. The program also regularly imports your current inventory status including on hand, on purchase orders and back order quantities. ReorderPoint.com then compares the inventory status to the reorder point and sends alerts when the status is below of nearing the reorder point. Additionally, ReorderPoint.com provides lists, reports and graphs you can use to analyze your usage and make more informed purchasing decisions. 

Being involved in the software industry means your work is never finished. The minute you take a day off, everything switches up on you. We at NumberCruncher are always participating in new training exercises and growing our knowledge of QuickBooks & technology in general. Woodard is a company that empowers small business advisors through cutting-edge training, networking, coaching & resources. Next week Woodard is hosting their annual Scaling New Heights conference. This year's conference will run May 22nd through May 25th and be located at the Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas. If you will be attending Scaling New Heights, please make sure you stop by the NumberCruncher table at booth #96 and tell our CEO, Ian Benoliel that Josh sent you!

Welcome back! Hope everyone had a great week! I know some of you guy's that live up north are getting hammered with some pretty intense snow. I feel your pain, I was born and raised is South New Jersey so I know how a snow storm's can destroy a mood. I guess since you guy's will be snowed in all weekend, you might want some good reading material. Well, recently in the past 2 weeks, All Orders has been featured on http://www.intuitiveaccountant.com. They have written a great article about the All Orders program that I would love for you guy's to check out.

That isn't all, All Orders is now on appcenter.intuit.com. Click the link to see an over view of the All Orders program and how it works with Quickbooks. Take a look at our pricing, as you can see we offer training hours based off how many user's. We also include unlimited technical support and software upgrades. To find out more about our program please visit us, NumberCruncher.

Well that is all for today's blog. Make sure you check out those links so you can read up on all our key features! Next week, I will be back talking about some of our smaller features within the All Orders software. Get ready to learn about Lot/Serial #'s on Next weeks Blog! Everyone, if you are getting hit with snowy weather, please be safe out there!. Till Next week! Farewell!

It is no surprise that if you know what your inventory is; when it is coming in and where it is going; you will be better able to serve your customers. Last week, we talked about our Sales Orders module and the ability to connect to purchase orders and automatically fill linked sales orders. Now, let’s think about the capability to track the minutiae of production. There are items to order and receive. There are orders to pack and ship. There are parts that break and need to be replaced and what if an entire batch needs to be recalled? Those are a lot of moving parts to track (pun intended).

Lot and Serial number tracking is available for items that have been purchased, received, used in production and shipped to customers.This function also allows for tracking “items within items.” This makes it easy to find the exact component within a finished product. You also have the functionality to assign serial numbers to items on work orders and shipments to customers. Any serial number with All Orders is easily tracked from warehouse to customer. And if you are looking for all the transactions in which a particular serial number is involved, the All Orders “Find” function is particularly valuable. With the functions of All Orders, you can track the transactional and locational history of anything with an attached serial number.

Wait. You’re saying that you have inventory in multiple warehouses or you want to know how the inventory is moving to a contractor or just track it from your warehouse to a vendor? Don’t you worry, locations are specified on each packing slip and work order that is generated. Paired with the tracking feature for serial and lot numbers, you will always know exactly which warehouse is holding your supplies and shipments. If you want to get even more specific, you can use All Orders’ bin feature. This allows you to label specific storage locations such as shelves, rooms, area, or virtual location for easy retrieval and organization. Much like our serial and lot number tracking of items within items, we have this same feature for storing inventory at a location within a location. Do you outsource any production? All Orders can track that too.

Remember when we talked about generating lot and serial numbers? Well, if you prefer your serial numbers to be in barcode form, All Orders can do that for you. Now, when a shipment comes in or goes out, a simple scan will update your system and keep you on top of the locations and destinations of all products. This is handy for shipping and receiving, since our system allows items to be scanned into the system and updated on the receiving list. It’s a quick way to reduce human error. But if you prefer to enter numbers by hand, and run the risk of a costly input error, that is also an option, just use the listed numbers from the receiving form. But IDK, do you.

All Orders  by NumberCruncher provides solutions for your inventory and order management needs. For more information or to request a free trial, visit our website.