NumberCruncher News: Issue 4-2013

As a leading provider of inventory and order management software, we are constantly searching for ways to make All Orders more intuitive, efficient and straightforward. Every release comes with new, exciting, high demand features. In this article, we will be highlighting the Bin Move feature.

The Bin Move in the new version has a very friendly user interface. All the options and information needed is conveniently located within one screen. The interface is reminiscent of some online banking features many of us use today. For example, one may want to transfer money between their checking account and savings account. The process is very simple and clear. From a dropdown list of available accounts, you would select checking for the account you want funds debited from and select savings from the dropdown list for the account you wish the funds to be credited to. The account balances are also shown on the transfer screen. Our new Bin Move feature has a comparable feel.

From the Warehouse menu, select New Bin Move. First, you will select your Location and Transfer Date. To the right of the Transfer Date, you will see 2 options: Move one item at a time or Move Entire Bins. Move one item at a time gives you the freedom select the items and quantity you would like to move. Move Entire Bins allows you to move all contents from one bin to another. If you choose to Move one item at a time, select the Bin you wish to move inventory out of (Note: In the dropdown, you will see the total quantity in each bin) and select the Bin you would like to transfer the inventory to under Bin To. Once your to and from Bins are selected, the Item dropdown shows the items and quantities that are available in the Bin specified. If your item has Lot/Ser #, you will see the available lot/ser #s and quantity in that particular Bin. Now that you have selected your Bins and item (or Lot/Ser #, if applicable), you will enter the amount you would like to transfer in the Quantity box and click Add. The item will appear in the list below, including the Item Name, Bin being transferred from, Bin being transferred to, Lot/Ser # and Quantity being transferred. The process for Move Entire Bins is similar. Select the Bin you need to move inventory out of and the Bin you need to move the inventory to and click Add. For this option, you are not able to select individual Items from the dropdown list. You can delete line items from the transfer but cannot edit the quantity.

When you have completed adding all the items you wish to move, Click Create Transfer. This will bring you to the Inventory Adjustment screen. You will notice the Location and Account have been auto-filled. As another safeguard, the box for ‘Only adjust in NumberCruncher’ has been checked. The Quantity for the line item will be 0. For each line item, you can click on Details then Bins to see the quantity being transferred. When you are satisfied with everything click Save and you are finished! You may notice on the Adjustment List, under the In QB column it says Yes. No need to worry, this is normal. The Yes is just telling you the transaction is complete.

As the #1 selling case manufacturer for smart phones, Otterbox required a new solution for tracking orders and inventory with their two new international divisions, Otterbox Hong Kong and Otterbox Ireland. Their Global Senior Accountant, Gregg Davis, whom spent the years leading up to his position at Otterbox in public accounting, was tasked with finding a system to meet complex needs while fitting the budget allocated to the new divisions.

Initially the divisions began working with QuickBooks alone. Before too long the company began to run into limitations with using QuickBooks for managing their inventory. “QBs is not very robust in terms of inventory management.” explained Gregg. “We found several limitations with QuickBooks including the lack of a batch shipment function, custom field limitations, reporting limitations and location management”. That prompted Gregg to begin looking for a way to expand upon the inventory and order management capabilities of the company.

While researching various solutions that would meet their complex requirements, Gregg found that many of them were too costly. “Due to our size, All Orders was the perfect solution, its capabilities are robust yet its cost is very reasonable. There were some solutions that consultants proposed that would have been $250K.” said Gregg. “For our business size and needs it just didn’t make sense but All Orders did.”

“We’re essentially a distribution company, and it handles large quantity of shipments well, as well as allocation of stock to Sales Orders.“ said Gregg. “We have lots of products, and the custom fields really allow us to identify our products easily and especially for reporting purposes. The Batch Shipment function has been the most beneficial to us, prior to that in QuickBooks, it was very manual and we couldn’t have grown to the size we are without it.“

What finally sold Gregg was not only the capability of the All Orders solution but also the NumberCruncher team that supports All Orders. “Excellent, very adaptable and flexible” Said Gregg. “Always willing to help and work around our needs whether it’s a short notice call or a customization to the software.”

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In this section we want to highlight some of the areas of All Orders that you may not have known about.

In this issue we are going to review how to allow All Orders to determine the Reorder Amount once the Reorder Points and the Max Quantities have been set. Remember that the Reorder Points is the level of inventory at which a purchase order should be issued to replenish inventory and avoid out of stock situations.

Reorder Point is defined as lead time demand plus safety stock. In All Orders we used a basic formula by taking the Daily Avg. Usage during a given time period multiplied by the Lead Time multiplied by the Safety Stock %. The Max Qty is the maximum quantity of an item that you should have in stock also referred to as the ‘Order up to Quantity’. In All Orders the Max Quantity is a factor of the Reorder Point using again a percentage. We use percentages to allow the Reorder Point and Max Qty to be a factor of the Lead Time. So if your lead time is 30 days adding a safety stock of 10% adds 3 days of supply to the reorder point. If you add a 20% factor for max quantity it adds another 7 days of stock to the max quantity (33 x 20%). Changing the lead time to 20 days will add 2 days for Reorder Point and 4 days for Max Qty.

Once your new reorder points and max quantities have been calculated use the button below the grid ‘Apply New Item Reorder Points’ and ‘Apply New Max Quantities’ to update the reorder points and max quantity fields to seen in the Inventory Item screen, on the Purchasing tab.

Now you are ready to run the Reorder Analysis. When you launch the Reorder Analysis from the Company, Purchasing or Production menus, your items are, initially, filtered and flagged by the Reorder Point, in Step 2. Click Load Items. All Orders will list those only items of which the sum of Available quantity and On Order is less than the Reorder Point. If you have defined a Max Qty for the item, All Orders will show the suggested order amount in the quantity column. The suggested order amount is the Max Qty minus the sum of Available and On Order.

Let’s give an example: Item A has 1935 Available and 400 On Order Its Reorder Point is 3000 and the Max Qty is 4000. The Reorder Analysis will flag Item A for Reorder Point because the total Available plus On Order, 2335, is lower than the Reorder Point of 3000. Finally, the quantity 2335 is deducted from the Max Qty of 4000 to get the new Reorder Amount of 1665.

You can change the suggested quantity show. When you are ready click “Create Orders” and your purchase orders will automatically be created.

I few weeks ago I was watching the Grammy Awards when Bruno Mars performed his hit song 'Locked Out of Heaven'. This is a catchy little tune with a great beat and it's played ad nauseam on pop stations which I listen to with my kids. For a few days I woke up humming the tune as well as during the day during periods of inactivity. It took a few days to extract the little ditty from my brain. Psychologists call this condition earworms and research has shown that people who worry are more likely to suffer. That makes a lot of sense to me because I am a worrier.

I worry about family, work, the economy and the weather. In fact when I have nothing to worry about, I worry. The brain loves patterns and when I worry it’s invariably the same pattern; a singular thought pops into my brain which raises my anxiety level and forces me to give the thought due attention until I it is resolved, rationalized or disposed of in some fashion. Extracting a thought from your brain can be challenging especially if you are tired, fearful or both. When you are tired or fearful your brain simply does not work properly. Have you ever walked home alone and started to think about what lurks in the shadows until you worked yourself into a frenzied state? When you feel safe thinking returns to normal.

I consider my worrying as a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it forces me to solve problems and a curse because some problems have no answers. I don’t mind earworms because when I’m humming a song I didn’t worry. Thanks Bruno.

NumberCruncher News: Issue 4-2013

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