The goal of inventory management is to provide a high level of service to your customers while maintaining the lowest possible investment in inventory, basically, maximizing your inventory investment.

Computerized inventory control gives you automated record keeping providing up-to-the-minute stock balances, pricing and availability, current open order and open purchase order information, sales trends and purchase history, slow movers, hot movers, and cash hogs. And the information is simply a byproduct of your daily entries of purchase order and invoice transactions.

GENESYS provides a sophisticated tool for retrieving inventory information so that you can respond to customer service needs. This tool is the Inventory Insight program. It is designed to give a comprehensive picture of the status of any inventory item on the video display screen.

Several screen of information may be viewed including "master" information, with prices and stock balances, current customer orders and purchase orders, a "Card-X" history of all transactions for the item including a feature to isolate issues to a selected customer or receipts from a selected vendor, and for purchasing, vendor-specific information about multiple vendors for each item. Other screens display detail sales analysis by customer, detail purchase analysis by vendor, and the bill of materials (if applicable).

The main tool for evaluating your inventory investment is the Inventory Valuation Report which you may print whenever desired. The report shows the current value of each inventory item, then computes a turns ratio--the value of sales for the past twelve months divided by the average inventory value. How you are turning your inventory is an indication of how well your inventory dollars are contributing to the bottom line.

But turns do not begin to tell the whole story about inventory. Even when turns are high, your stock levels may be too low and sales are lost. And with stock levels too low, your purchasing costs are increased due to increased clerical time and loss of quantity discounts. The traditional clerical costs of purchasing have been diminished with the use of a computer. Simply by having your purchasing requirements at your fingertips allows you to be leaner with stock levels. You don't need to buy the larger safety stock as in the past, when sales trends and stock balances weren't readily available.

The system can keep an eye on your inventory levels for you. To accomplish this, you need to establish a minimum stock level (reorder point). Then, you can request a printout at any time of those items that have fallen below their minimum stock level. And this includes orders in the house that haven't been shipped yet, and outstanding purchase orders. If you print the Stock Status Report or the Purchasing Proposal each day, in vendor sequence, your purchasing agent can place orders each day to assure that out-of-stock situations are minimized.

The Inventory Commitment Report prints the information that is listed on the Orders screen in the Inventory Insight program. You can use this to follow up on items that just arrived from your supplier. For any requested item, it will list the open customer orders for the item. This gets the paperwork flowing fast.

Similarly, the Backlog Report gives you an indication of how well you've covered your future commitments. You may enter six different dates at the beginning of the report and the system will show you how many units or dollars on customer orders are due to be delivered by each date. Directly below, it shows either units or dollars of promised deliveries from your vendors. When printed on a regular basis, this provides both an indication of your order backlog, and how well you have planned or how well you had better plan the purchase of merchandise to fulfill the backlog.

When non-stocked items are sold the Sales Order Entry operator will use a miscellaneous item number. This allows the operator to override the description, price, and cost information. Additionally, she may enter the actual item number as requested by the customer. This number will then appear on all customer documents and on internal records.

At the end of the month a new Non-Stock Analysis Report will list all non-stock items shipped during the month, sorted in actual item number sequence. This report helps you evaluate product lines that you are currently not carrying.

The Slow-Movement Report will analyze the inventory and report those items with a "turns ratio" below your specified minimum. These slow movers are tying up dollars. The report then references the detail sales analysis file and lists any customers that have purchased the item in the last year. Use the report to contact these customers in an effort to free up inventory dollars.

The Card-X Report is the same information as the Card-X Screen in Inventory Insight, only in report form. This history of all incoming and outgoing transactions for each item allows you to isolate what contributes to the item’s current balance on hand and average cost.

The Purchase History Report and Purchase Detail Report are also helpful tools in determining the nature of a particular item.

Whenever the report option "SPECIFY Warehouse code" is included, the report can have two output formats. If you specify one warehouse code, then the report prints only results of that warehouse, and it prints in great detail. If, however, you leave this field blank, the report prints figures for ALL warehouses and the format changes from a detail output to a spreadsheet summary showing totals for each warehouse across the page.

This feature is only valuable if you have more than one warehouse set up in the computer. The report option is pre-set to warehouse code "1" in all cases. If you do have more than one warehouse, try printing, say, the Stock Status Report, changing the report option to blank out the Warehouse code.

As you process invoices and receipt of purchase orders, historical information about each inventory item is captured for later analysis. GENESYS reports both Sales analysis and Purchasing analysis.

There are three ways to look at this data. First, and simplest, is the 13 month history of activity--both sales and purchases--in units and in dollars. The history reports may be printed in sequence by item number, product class, primary vendor, or generic description, with subtotals by group on the latter three. This means you can print just subtotals if you select the "summary" option when printing the report. As you can see, there is a wide variety of options when printing the history, and you will soon get a feeling for the most suitable method of printing and using the report.

The second method of analysis is the rank report--a look at you top producers in units, dollars, or gross profit dollars, over the current month or year-to-date. You can select to rank items within their product class. Also shown on the report is the activity over the same period last year, with the item's relative ranking for last year. You'll want to concentrate your efforts managing the top 20% of your inventory which normally contributes 80% of your total sales volume.

Finally, the third method to look at inventory is using the detail analysis reports. This shows activity for the current month, year to date, and total last year for each item. But, in addition, it can list this information for each customer that has purchased the item, or each vendor that has supplied the item. So when a particular group of items needs your attention, you can get a detailed look at inventory activity, both sales and purchases.

The inventory master file which you will help create on the computer, contains the basic and fairly constant information about each item--things such as the item number, description, product class, unit of measure, minimum and maximum stock levels, primary vendor, vendor's cost, list price, and an average unit cost. This inventory master information is essential to automating your paperwork because it ties into the order and purchase order programs. For example, when a customer places an order, you may need to enter only the item number to identify the merchandise, and the quantity. The system is designed to do the rest--type out the description, assign a unit price and up-to-date average unit cost, even indicate that the on hand balance has fallen below the reorder level.

The master file information is equally important to automating the purchasing processes. You may go so far as to create vendor-specific information about each item. That is, if you might purchase the item from any of six vendors, you can indicate the vendor number, vendor's item number, vendor's description, and last quoted cost for all six vendors. Then, when placing a purchase order to one of the vendors, the information about this item is pulled automatically based upon the vendor-item records.

GENESYS contains a sophisticated, flexible pricing method that lets you create intricate pricing structures.

The center of this method is a Price file that contains price records, each of which will consist of as many as nine prices or price levels and may contain a corresponding eight quantity breaks.

When you add an item to an order, the Sales Order Entry program will try to retrieve price records using up to eight price retrieval methods. The price is determined from the last of the records found. The inventory master record contains the list price which is used when no price records are found.

You may choose one of four price calculating methods for each Price record. Standard lets you maintain actual prices for each of up to nine price levels. List minus will calculate prices based on a percentage off the list price. Average cost plus will calculate base on a percentage above the average cost. Vendor cost plus does the same based on the vendor cost.

Inventory price retrieval refers to a set of prices tied directly to the item number. When the item number is added to an order, the item number is used to retrieve the price record wherein the nine prices or percentages are contained.

With Inventory pricing, each item has a price record with possibly nine price levels. Then, each customer is encoded with a price level or price category code relating to one of the nine prices in the inventory file. For example, you may have (1) list price level, (2) dealer price level, and (3) wholesales price level. If a customer is a dealer and has price category 2, the system retrieves the second price from every inventory record that the customer orders. Of course, when you are entering orders, any price assigned by the system may be changed (overridden) when necessary.

Optionally with Inventory pricing, you may include as many as eight quantity breaks with nine prices. No customer categories are in effect. Instead, the price record is retrieved when an item is added to an order and when the quantity ordered is entered, the price can be determined.

You may select to set up specific prices for item numbers ordered by one customer. This is called customer contract pricing. When you enter an order from the customer, the system looks for the item in the price file and gets the contracted price. If the specific item is not among the contracted items, then it is priced based on one of the other methods, or based on the list price.

Another customer contract pricing scheme is to price classes of merchandise for specific customers. You can use the product class or the commodity code for setting up such price records. When you enter an order from the customer and add an item, the Sales Order Entry program looks at the product class or commodity code of the item and looks in the price file to retrieve the price. If the product class or commodity code are not among the contract price records for the customer, the price is based on another price method, or on the list price. Usually with this method prices are computed by percentages.

With contract code pricing you categorize your customers by classes and give each class a contract code. As with customer contract pricing, you may use individual item numbers, product class codes, or commodity codes for the second part of the price record. As you enter an order, the system uses the customer's contract code and either the inventory item number, product class code, or commodity code to get the price record. Then a net price is computed using either list minus or cost plus methods. Again, if the price record cannot be found, the price is based on another price method, or on the list price.

One final price retrieval method is the specials pricing. This mirrors the standard price retrieval method, but these prices are only in effect over a "clearance" time period. When the specials price records are later removed, prices revert to the normal pricing retrieval methods.

You may use any combination of the pricing and price retrieval methods in your system. Some items can be standard customer category, others standard quantity break, while some customers have specific items on a contract, and other customer groups (contract code) have prices based on the category of merchandise they buy (product class or commodity code).

GENESYS provides a choice of costing each item using either a standard or moving average method. Custom modifications have been done in special cases to handle actual cost and LIFO cost methods. Most common and straightforward is the moving average method.

The average cost for each item is recalculated each time a receipt of merchandise is posted to the system. The value (quantity on hand times average cost) prior to the receipt is added to the value of the new merchandise, then divided by the new total on hand. Average cost is recalculated when you make an inventory adjustment, also.

The average unit cost for each item sold is pulled from the inventory records when they are shipped. This cost is extended and represents the total cost of that line item. The aggregate of the line item costs is the total cost for the invoice. All sales analysis detail and historical files store this cost and use it when computing and reporting gross profit and profit percent. The validity of these gross profit figures depends on accuracy of the unit cost.

In most cases, the typical distributor will sell non-stocked items--items normally not purchased, stocked, sold or managed--in an effort to fully serve his customer base. Naturally, if an operator tried to enter an order for such an item, she would find that no record exists for that item number. Of course, a new inventory record could be set up each time this occurs.

We recommend that a number of "miscellaneous" inventory records be established for handling these instances. Create one such record for each product class represented in your inventory file. You can set a "non-stock" indicator for each of these records which causes the Sales Order Entry program to function slightly differently. It recognizes the miscellaneous item number, then asks for additional information about the item--true item number, description, price, and cost--and stores the information just for this order. When the item is invoiced, the historical sales information is stored in the miscellaneous item record, within the correct product class group. Therefore, all sales, including sales of non-stocked merchandise, will be included on your sales analysis reports.

A set of programs has been devised to automatically compute the Minimum and Maximum Stock Levels in the inventory file. The system attempts to forecast future demand, then use the forecast to calculate the optimal minimum (reorder point) and maximum (reorder quantity). The goal is to achieve the highest degree of customer service (in-stock situations) while minimizing the dollars sitting on the shelf.

It is critical to carefully manage the key 20% of your items that theoretically (and practically) generate 80% of your revenue. These should be marked as "A" items in your ABC categorizing scheme. Computing and monitoring the minimum and maximum stock levels should be done by ABC category.

Next month's demand is forecasted using an average of the last 6 months of actual demand (orders), or it may simply be calculated as the average of sales (shipments) over the past 3 months. This option is set as a system flag when the computer is first installed.

Lead time is the number of business days normally required to receive the item from the supplier. The field may be manually loaded using the Inventory Maintenance program, or the value can be automatically updated based on actual purchase transactions using the Min/Max Lead Time Update.

Based on the demand and the lead time, the system can determine the reorder point, when to place an order so that stock is replenished before the demand will cause an out-of-stock situation and lost sales (an opportunity cost).

Since demand and lead times are unpredictable, you may desire to include safety stock into your inventory model. This additional stock gives greater assurance that out-of-stock situations will not occur. But there is an associated cost of carrying the additional inventory.

You may also choose to consider a negative safety stock. That is, you will allow a certain probability of out-of-stock situations hoping to lessen your inventory investment but retaining reasonable order fulfillment levels.

Thus, the system arrives at a minimum stock level for each item, defined as the reorder point plus safety stock.

The economic order quantity is a theoretical number that would be ordered each time your stock level fell at or below the minimum stock level. It is based on optimizing the two major costs of inventory that are inversely proportional, carrying costs and ordering costs.

Why is this number considered theoretical? Ordering costs include many obscure factors that make the determination of an accurate figure impossible. These include freight costs, quantity breaks, freight charge breaks, clerical costs, computer costs, overhead, and burden. And consider trying to estimate these for all the "A" category items that you stock.

The Min/Max Report includes the calculated EOQ, but uses a simpler method for determining the quantity to order. It is simply based on the forecasted demand. How much is appropriate to order? A two-week supply? One-month supply, two-months, even six-months for some "C" items?

But the EOQ theory is important to note. You may recognize that carrying a higher quantity of merchandise means fewer out-of-stock situations. But carrying costs then are excessive, tying up dollars in inventory, warehouse space and overhead.

So why not carry little if any stock and purchase only when your customer orders? Obviously, customer service is minimal since they would have to wait for two lead times to get their products. Also, consider the number of purchase orders that would be placed, the clerical efforts and warehouse traffic, the additional freight charges, and the opportunity costs of lost sales.

Hence, the goal is to optimize, find the middle ground.

The Min/Max programs prepare the Min/Max Report, a worksheet showing inventory items and the figures used to compute the minimum and maximum stock levels. Use the worksheet to check the items and mark any adjustments you would make to these numbers based on your knowledge of the current status of the marketplace. Use the Min/Max Entry program to type in these adjustments. Finally, an update moves the worksheet numbers into the inventory records and the minimum and maximum are in effect.

When you run the Purchasing Proposal Report, the system uses the minimum and maximum to propose purchase orders. You can use the Automatic Purchase Order Entry program to carry this forward the final step, to actually create purchase orders based on the computer's use of the min/max.

You should run the Min/Max system immediately following a Month End Update, since it is at this time that the future demand has been forecasted.

Also, you may want to run the Purchasing Proposal on a daily basis. If you allow several days between such runs, then the lead times are stretched further. That is, an item may fall below the minimum stock level on Monday, but the Purchasing Proposal isn't run until Friday. You've added four days to the theoretical lead time for this item.

One task facing every distributor is the physical count of inventory. This count is required to update your book inventory value. Since GENESYS keeps perpetual records of your on hand quantities for each item, and since average unit costs are computed each time inventory is received, your book (computer) inventory should be quite accurate. However, book and physical do differ for various reasons: erroneous posting, pilferage, failure to post all transactions, even incorrect counting during the physical.

At least at the end of each fiscal year, you must correct your book inventory. GENESYS includes a set of programs to help with updating the book (computer) records. It prints a Physical Book, a list of all stocked items in the inventory file, sorted by warehouse and bin location. The pages of the Physical Book may be easily used by counters to mark their physical counts because it lists items in the same sequence as they occur on the shelves.

After all items are counted, use the Physical Inventory Entry program which displays each item on the screen, again in warehouse and bin location sequence, and you can input the physical count for each item. You can enter the unit average cost as well, which helps, especially when you first start up the system.

Finally, print the Physical Inventory Journal, a report showing the deviation between book and physical counts and the dollar value represented. The journal highlights items that you may want to recount. When you are satisfied with the physical journal, you can update your book records automatically from the journal. You then adjust your inventory asset account using the General Journal.

The Stock Status Report lists the current status of your inventory balances, quantities on hand, committed to customer orders, incoming on purchase orders. Included is recent sales activity and minimum and maximum stock levels so that it may be used as a worksheet for reordering stock, or for resetting minimum stock levels (reorder points).

The "below minimum" option lets you print only those items with available quantities less than the assigned minimum stock level. Available is calculated as:

AVAILABLE = QTY ON HAND - COMMITTED - ON B.O. + ON P.O

Sequence refers to the order in which the items will appear on the report. Items will always list in order of their assigned Item Number, but additionally may be grouped and printed by Product Class, Generic Description, or Primary Vendor Number. There is no additional sort time needed to produce the report in any of the four available sequences.

Select a sequence:

I Item number sequence
P Product class code sequence
G Generic description sequence
V Vendor number sequence

This entry determines the first item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to start at the beginning of the file, or enter a number to start at a specific point in the file.

Base your input on the sequence selected above. Enter the first Item number, Product class code, Generic description, or primary Vendor number.

This entry determines the last item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to finish at the end of the file. Enter a number to finish at a specific point in the file. Again, base your entry on the sequence selected.

Leave this field blank to include items with any Material Code in their master record.

Or, you may choose to include only items with a specific Material Code (FG, RM, NS). If so, enter the desired material code.

You may want to print only those items whose quantity available has fallen below the minimum stock level. Type "Y" to include only such items, or "N" to include any item.

The report lists only items that have not been sold since this date. To include all items, enter a date in the future, such as next year. When typing the date, use an MMDDYY (month, day, year) format.

To print the report for one warehouse only, enter the desired warehouse code. To print the report for all warehouses, leave this field blank.

Review the report options and if all selections are correct, press (RETURN) to start the report.

The Valuation Report shows the current value of your inventory. It provides a summary of each item's activity (receipts, issues and adjustments). It also gives a turns ratio--cost of sales divided by the average inventory value--for each item.

This is an essential month-end report. It is needed to reconcile your Inventory asset account in the general ledger. It also can point out areas of inventory that are not turning to the degree you had desired.

Sequence refers to the order in which the items will appear on the report. Items will always list in order of their assigned Item Number, but additionally may be grouped and printed by Product Class, Generic Description, or Primary Vendor Number. There is no additional sort time needed to produce the report in any of the four available sequences.

Select a sequence:

I Item number sequence
P Product class code sequence
G Generic description sequence
V Vendor number sequence

This entry determines the first item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to start at the beginning of the file, or enter a number to start at a specific point in the file.

Base your input on the sequence selected above. Enter the first Item number, Product class code, Generic description, or primary Vendor number.

This entry determines the last item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to finish at the end of the file. Enter a number to finish at a specific point in the file. Again, base your entry on the sequence selected.

Leave this field blank to include items with any Material Code in their master record.

Or, you may choose to include only items with a specific Material Code (FG, RM, NS). If so, enter the desired material code.

To print the report for one warehouse only, enter the desired warehouse code. To print the report for all warehouses, leave this field blank.

Review the report options and if all selections are correct, press (RETURN) to start the report.

This list of active inventory items lets you review your current commitments to customers and from vendors. It also calculates how each order affects your stock levels. You might consider it a Detail Stock Status report.

The program prints each inventory item that currently appears on an open purchase order, sales order, or work-order. In addition, it lists the order number, order date, customer or vendor, and quantity of each order. The orders list in sequence by the expected transaction date, that is, the date the item is promised delivery from the vendor, or promised shipment to the customer.

Use the report to closely evaluate the commitments of an item. If a shipment of backordered merchandise arrives, review the report for customer backorders that may now be shipped.

Perhaps you take orders months in advance of shipment. This report gives you a better date perspective on these types of commitments.

At times you may need to "steal" merchandise allotted to one customer in order to ship to another customer. This will show you which customers you might steal from.

The information on this report is available on the Orders screen of Inventory Insight.

Sequence refers to the order in which the items will appear on the report. Items will always list in order of their assigned Item Number, but additionally may be grouped and printed by Product Class, Generic Description, or Primary Vendor Number. There is no additional sort time needed to produce the report in any of the four available sequences.

Select a sequence:

I Item number sequence
P Product class code sequence
G Generic description sequence
V Vendor number sequence

This entry determines the first item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to start at the beginning of the file, or enter a number to start at a specific point in the file.

Base your input on the sequence selected above. Enter the first Item number, Product class code, Generic description, or primary Vendor number.

This entry determines the last item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to finish at the end of the file. Enter a number to finish at a specific point in the file. Again, base your entry on the sequence selected.

You may choose to print all items or only selected items.

Type "S" and you can individually enter one or more item numbers to print. The program will ask for the desired item number(s) after the program has been started.

Type "A" to list all active items, those with open sales orders, open purchase orders, or open workorders.

Leave this field blank to include items with any Material Code in their master record.

Or, you may choose to include only items with a specific Material Code (FG, RM, NS). If so, enter the desired material code.

You may want to print only those items whose quantity available has fallen below the minimum stock level. Type "Y" to include only such items, or "N" to include any item.

To print the report for one warehouse only, enter the desired warehouse code. To print the report for all warehouses, leave this field blank.

Review the report options and if all selections are correct, press (RETURN) to start the report.

This prompt appears if you select the SINGLE mode.

Enter an item number to print, or press (END) when you are done.

The Backlog Report lists items that are currently active, on customer orders, purchase orders, or workorders. It prints either units or dollar value and spreads this information over several upcoming days or weeks based on the due dates of the orders. This provides management with estimates of order backlog and future cash flows. Also, it gives an instant picture of how well your current inventory and incoming purchase receipts can fulfill your commitments to customers.

Sequence refers to the order in which the items will appear on the report. Items will always list in order of their assigned Item Number, but additionally may be grouped and printed by Product Class, Generic Description, or Primary Vendor Number. There is no additional sort time needed to produce the report in any of the four available sequences.

Select a sequence:

I Item number sequence
P Product class code sequence
G Generic description sequence
V Vendor number sequence

This entry determines the first item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to start at the beginning of the file, or enter a number to start at a specific point in the file.

Base your input on the sequence selected above. Enter the first Item number, Product class code, Generic description, or primary Vendor number.

This entry determines the last item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to finish at the end of the file. Enter a number to finish at a specific point in the file. Again, base your entry on the sequence selected.

You may choose to print the dollar value of the merchandise based on the net price for outgoing stock and the vendor cost for incoming stock.

Or you may choose to print the number of units outgoing and incoming.

The report has six columns which allow you to spread the upcoming inventory activity into days or weeks or months. Each column will be headed with a date and the figures printed in a column indicate the outgoing and incoming merchandise due on or before that date, but after the date in the preceding column. The program determines the appropriate column based on the Date Wanted on customer orders and the Promised Delivery Date on purchase orders.

Enter the date you want to appear in the first of the six columns. The dates in the remaining columns will be calculated based on the Interval (number of days) to be input next.

Use an MMDDYY (month, day, year) format.

The six column heading dates are based on the date entered for the first column and the interval, the number of days between each date. Thus an entry of "1" (day) would spread the future inventory activity over a six day period, "7" would spread over a six week period, "30" would yield a six month spread.

To print the report for one warehouse only, enter the desired warehouse code. To print the report for all warehouses, leave this field blank.

Review the report options and if all selections are correct, press (RETURN) to start the report.

Opportunity costs are to be considered when managing inventory. What volume of business is lost because you are out of stock on some items, or do not stock others? You need to know when and how much to reorder to minimize out-of-stock situations, particularly on key product lines.

The Purchasing Proposal Report is the main tool for keeping a watchful eye on your inventory levels and placing orders to replenish stock in a timely manner.

The program scans the inventory file in primary vendor number sequence. It computes the quantity available:

AVAILABLE = QTY ON HAND - COMMITTED - ON B.O. + ON P.O.

It prints those items whose available quantity has fallen below the minimum stock level (reorder point). It proposes a quantity to order based on the maximum stock level.

The report includes a list of the last three times you purchased the item, from whom, the quantity and landed cost. It shows recent sales activity and the current demand.

You may optionally print the secondary vendors that you have set up for each item. With this information your purchasing agent can see alternative sources for the item, including the vendor's quoted costs.

Leave this entry blank to start printing at the beginning of the inventory file, or enter a number to start with a specific vendor.

This entry determines the last item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to finish at the end of the inventory file. Enter a number to finish with a specific vendor.

You may include all secondary vendors established for an item. A line prints for each such vendor and includes the vendor's last quoted costs including quantity breaks.

Type "Y" to include secondary vendors, or "N" to leave them off the report.

To print the report for one warehouse only, enter the desired warehouse code. To print the report for all warehouses, leave this field blank.

Review the report options and if all selections are correct, press (RETURN) to start the report.

The turns ratio of an inventory item or class indicates your ability to match inventory investment with actual demand and to effectively use inventory dollars to generate revenue. The turns ratio tells how many dollars of sales have been generated from each dollar currently invested in inventory. Items with low turns indicates that the demand for the item has not warranted the investment to carry the item. This is, of course, more crucial for higher value items.

This report is designed to identify these "cash hog" items and to give you a method of turning the merchandise to release dollars for reinvestment into better selling product lines.

The program scans the inventory, calculates the turns ratio, and prints those items that fall below a value entered by the operator at the time the report is started. Then the program references the detail sales analysis file and locates all customers that have purchased the item in the past year. This may give you a tool for locating a "home" for your slow-movers.

If you desire to print all items for the purpose of reviewing the turns ratio of each item, this information is available on the Valuation Report.

Sequence refers to the order in which the items will appear on the report. Items will always list in order of their assigned Item Number, but additionally may be grouped and printed by Product Class, Generic Description, or Primary Vendor Number. There is no additional sort time needed to produce the report in any of the four available sequences.

Select a sequence:

I Item number sequence
P Product class code sequence
G Generic description sequence
V Vendor number sequence

This entry determines the first item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to start at the beginning of the file, or enter a number to start at a specific point in the file.

Base your input on the sequence selected above. Enter the first Item number, Product class code, Generic description, or primary Vendor number.

This entry determines the last item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to finish at the end of the file. Enter a number to finish at a specific point in the file. Again, base your entry on the sequence selected.

Use this field to isolate and print only the exceptionally slow moving items.

The turns ratio is calculated as:

SALES DOLLARS / AVERAGE INVENTORY VALUE where

AVERAGE INVENTORY VALUE is a running average of the past 13 months end-of-month value.

The program will evaluate the turns ratio for each item and print only those that fall below the figure you enter here. You might consider an entry of "0.20" as a starting point.

Leave this field blank to include items with any Material Code in their master record.

Or, you may choose to include only items with a specific Material Code (FG, RM, NS). If so, enter the desired material code.

To print the report for one warehouse only, enter the desired warehouse code. To print the report for all warehouses, leave this field blank.

Review the report options and if all selections are correct, press (RETURN) to start the report.

Most distribution firms sell merchandise that they do not actively stock. Thus, GENESYS provides a method for entering sales orders and purchase orders for such items.

You should create such non-stock item records for each product class in your inventory (e.g. "MISC01", "MISC10", etc.) so that sales analysis by product class may be captured. The material code field in the inventory record is the key to entering non-stock items during Sales Order Entry and Purchase Order Entry. Set the material code to "NS".

During Sales Order Entry the program detects the "NS" code and the operator may input another item number (the actual item number) that will appear on the pickslip and invoice documents.

A new report at month end will scan through the orders shipped during the current month, extract the non-stock items, and print a report of non-stock item sales sorted in actual item number sequence. It also scans the purchase orders received during the current month and lists non-stock items received.

Management should evaluate the items listed to determine if some items should be stocked in the future. The report shows the number of times the item was invoiced, the quantity, and gross margin.

By listing the P/O receipts, you can use the report to reconcile the non-stock sales to make sure that non-stock items received are actually shipped.

This report prints in actual item number sequence only.

This entry determines the first item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to start at the beginning of the file, or enter the first item number to be printed.

This entry determines the last item to be included on the report. Leave this entry blank to finish at the end of the file, or enter the last number to be printed.

Specify the degree of detail information to print.

Type "D" for a detailed report, printing a line for each invoice or receiver line containing a non-stock item.

Type "S" for a summary report, printing only one line per non-stock item number, an accumulation of all the invoice lines and receiver lines for that item.

When you distribute this report, you might not want to disclose your profit margins.

You may choose to print the gross profit percent for each item on the report.

Review the report options and if all selections are correct, press (RETURN) to start the report.

You may print a list of transactions for one or more items. This serves as an audit trail of inventory activity, a "Card-X" file. It lists purchase receipts, issues, and adjustments, including the date, transaction number, customer or vendor, quantity, cost and price, and a running balance of on hand and value.

The report spaces to the top of a page for each new item. Since this can be a long report, you should generally list selected items only.