Total Scalable Warehouse Management System (TWM)

For produce companies, accurate inventory control by custom software development is MUCH MORE CRITICAL than for other inventory concerns, because produce companies handle very expensive, very perishable, fast-moving inventory. As we have all heard, “…anything that CAN happen, often does”. 

Good inventory decisions can save a company huge amounts of money and poor inventory decisions can cost the company equally huge amounts of money. Produce companies often try to cut costs when it comes to paying for an Inventory Product Manager. Someone from the warehouse might be GREAT for that job, but not if they do not have the organizational, management, computer and scalable skills that are needed. The Product Manager obviously needs to REALLY understand the products the company sells equally as well as the sharpest salespeople in the company. Salespeople should be able to go to that person to get answers about product quality. As much care should be taken in the selection of the software company and the Inventory Product Manager as for the General Manager, the CFO, or the Sales Manager. This Product Manager should be as sharp as the CFO and/or the sharpest salespeople. A really sharp Inventory Product Manager can make more money for the company than anyone else in the company, seriously! Few produce companies realize how much poor inventory control decisions cost them because their warehouse management systems do not capture needed information. Produce companies should expect to pay their Product Manager a salary similar to their top salespeople. If a really sharp Product Manager can prevent inventory problems in a good warehouse system with scalability, each problem they prevent can pay their salary for months, or more. Their salary will not cost the company if they are good at their job. The opposite is true. If the Product Manager is good at his/her job, then the company can make a good deal of profit. Many produce companies who think they have “Produce Automation Software”, do all of their inventory tracking manually because the inventory information they need is not input into their systems until well after the product has been shipped. In many cases, all the information they need is NEVER AVAILABLE. What kind of automation is that?  This is where Produce Magic Software, a custom software development company, can help you with our Total Warehouse Management system.

Inventory Control Often Makes Or Breaks Produce Companies. Inventory control is the number one problem for many produce companies. Inventory control problems and tracking problems can be extremely expensive for produce companies. In many cases, losses incurred by inventory problems take ALL of their profit. Much of that could be prevented if inventory was controlled accurately. Produce Magic Software does that for you automatically and seamlessly. 

Produce Magic Software brings Inventory Lots into the system through Purchase Orders. A separate Purchase Order is created for each shipment from your growers/suppliers. Each line item on an incoming Purchase Order has an Inventory Lot automatically assigned to it. Purchase Orders are normally input as soon as the information is known and before arrival (or through EDI), so the product on those incoming Inventory Lots can be allocated to Sales Orders before the Purchase Order arrives. Site and Warehouse/Department combinations can be set up to require Inventory Lot tracking or not require Inventory Lot tracking. Some produce companies will want to track Inventory Lots in some Warehouse/Departments, and not in others. When Inventory Lot tracking is required for a Site and Warehouse/Department combination, each Sales Order line item that is shipped from YOUR inventory must contain the Inventory Lot number that supplies that product. When multiple Inventory Lots or outside (Customer Fill) purchases are used to supply the same line item, the line item can be split ANY number of times. You could clean up your warehouse and ship thirty different inventory lots to supply one line item, and THE CUSTOMERS ONLY SEE THE TOTAL ORDERED AND THE TOTAL SHIPPED. We track all of the detail in-house for your grower accounting and profit and loss information, but the customer sees only the summary total for each line item. Product for any line item or split line item can also be purchased from outside vendors, right in the sales order line. We call that ‘Customer Fill’. All you have to do is change the department on that line or split line to a code such as CF, then enter the Vendor code and product cost. That automatically creates a payable for that line or split line.  These are a few examples of our scalable resources from our custom software development over our 33 years in business.

 Color Coded Displays For Sales And Purchases Show Potential Problems. 

Produce Magic Software provides NUMEROUS Color-Coded Sales Order and Purchase Order Sales line items for late arriving Purchase Orders, and let you change those allocated Inventory Lots to Inventory Lots that are ‘on hand’ now or will arrive before the sales order needs to ship. Our software company also provides excellent programs to display ALL sales lines that have not shipped yet for a particular product that is in short supply, and let you re-allocate the available product between the orders that are not shipped yet. There are also sales order summary screens that show orders that are ready to ship and orders that are waiting on product coming in on Purchase Orders. Those screens show when the last product for the sales order is scheduled to arrive. As planned Purchase Order Arrival times are changed, the last time for product arrival is updated (and color-coded accordingly) in all of the sales orders that have not shipped yet. As everything else in Produce Magic Software, all data is in real-time. 

Each Sales Order and Purchase Order has a main Department / Warehouse assigned to it. Each line item also has a Department / Warehouse assigned to it, which is normally the same as the main Department / Warehouse in the order header, but it can be different. Reports can be printed by Department / Warehouse to separate different types of transactions and to allow separate accounting. Each Site (Company) and Department / Warehouse combination can track inventory to a separate Inventory Site (Product Site), or it can be set to not track Inventory at all. Departments and Warehouses are used interchangeably and are the level of tracking below the Site (Company). Some companies call that level ‘Warehouses’ and others call that level ‘Departments’. Inventory can be separated very easily into different Departments / Warehouses. Inventory Lots can only be selected for a line item if the Inventory is in the Inventory Site used by the Department / Warehouse on that line item. This allows separating sales reports based on the Department / Warehouse in each line item. One Sales Order or Purchase Order could contain any number of Departments / Warehouses. Each Site (Company) and Department / Warehouse combination can have a different General Ledger Account Number for each of the 40 Cost Types. For most purposes, using different Departments / Warehouses will separate sales and purchases the way companies need for tracking and accounting purposes. Memos can also be used to separate sales and purchases into groups. Memos are normally used to separate sales and purchases for one Truck, one Ship, one Contract, etc. In essence, Memos create mini-Departments / Warehouses. If it is desired to group the sales and purchases for one Truck, one Ship, one Contract, etc., a separate Department / Warehouse could be assigned to that one Truck, Ship or Contract, but that would be too much work for one time things like those. Departments / Warehouses are for major divisions. 

 Any Number of Comments Can be Added To Purchases, Sales and Memos. Default comments can be created for each Vendor – Received From combination and for each Customer – Ship To combination and can be included automatically in Purchase Orders and Sales Orders.These comments could contain directions for the truck driver. If comments regarding directions or special instructions can prevent phone calls from truck drivers, they should certainly be set up as default comments so they will be included each time for that Vendor or Customer location.