Tag Archives: sales

Industry Insights, Inventory Management software, Product: How-To, Stock Science

Item Naming with SIMMS

Often your customers have a name or number for items that they require for them to do what they do. Equally, your own vendors have an in-house reference for stock pieces that they sell to you.

In both cases, these names and references are often different than the ones you use. SIMMS Inventory Management software takes these into consideration by allowing you to assign aliases — in unlimited amounts — to the items you stock and designate these aliases to specific vendors and/or customers. Therefore, when your order arrives at a vendor, they see not only your names and numbers, but they also can see their own, which leads to greater accuracy from their shipping department. Similarly, your shipments to your customers arrive with invoices and packing slips bearing item references instantly familiar to their receiving departments.

Contact KCSI today to learn more about the use of aliases to contribute to greater accuracy and satisfaction at all steps of your stock management.

Business Recommendations, Company News, Industry Insights, Product News

Accounting with SIMMS 2015

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SIMMS 2015’s Accounting Software solution is the smart solution for organizations looking to replace a stand-alone Accounting program with a comprehensive business management solution with built-in integrated accounting functionality. SIMM

SIMMS’ Accounting is particularly structured for medium- to large-sized mid-market businesses with 10 to 1,000+ personnel. It contains advanced financial management, which serves as the core for the entire suite of applications.

Beyond the solution’s central accounting functionality, SIMMS 2015 also includes advanced budgeting, advanced allocations, multi-currency management, currency trader management, advanced banking, budgeting, fixed asset management and cash management capabilities. It’s all you’ll need for accounting – and more.

• Accounts Payable: Our SIMMS Accounts Payable module provides a comprehensive solution for managing expenditures.

• Accounts Receivable: The SIMMS Accounts Receivable Module tracks receivables, plans cash flow and provides extensive information and reporting features to give you vital business insights to plan for the future.

• Banking: With SIMMS you can edit and add credit card and bank accounts, and easily enter deposits, transfer funds, enter cash, cheque or credit card transactions as well as reconciling cash and credit cards via bank reconciliation.

• Budgets: Maintain and enforce budgets with ease and transfer budget amounts from one account to another.

• Financial Reporting: SIMMS offers virtually unlimited financial reporting capabilities.

• Flexible Chart of Account Structure: Create account structure to fit your business needs using up to 30 characters and 10 segments.

• General Ledger: The SIMMS General Ledger module has many powerful features to help you efficiently manage your accounting.

• Multi-Currency: Process payments and invoices in multiple currencies.

• Sales Commissions: Calculating sales commissions due has never been easier. SIMMS can auto-calculate commissions based on either the AR receivable or the Transactional method.

For more information on how SIMMS 2015 can provide for your accounting needs, click here

Accounting Software, Industry Insights, Inventory Management software, Stock Science

SIMMS 2013’s Accounts Receivables

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With SIMMS 2013, the vast variety of Accounts Receivable details are made easier. Tracking customer credit lines and past conversations means you’re in control of your receivables and your customers know it. SIMMS’ Accounts Receivable module reflects your company’s internal policies and reporting practices because you design all the operating characteristics, including parameter controls, aging periods and transaction codes. Your Accounts Receivable ‘picture’ should represent money in the bank.

SIMMS software supplies quantitative data and versatile reporting to allow the tracking of cash flow and receivables to ultimately provide information needed to make improvements and decisions. SIMMS Accounts Receivable module permits the addition of new clients and their codes in real time, the process of billing and payment receipts in alternate currencies, management of numerous bank accounts and printing of statements and batch invoices.

A comprehensive module, SIMMS’ Accounts Receivable also integrates with the General Ledger and the rest of the SIMMS Software suite of modules, enabling you to easily handle the following:

Batch Invoice Printing
Easily select a batch of customers along with various other options and process batch invoicing as you required.

Cash Receipts Processing
Automatically apply cash receipts against the oldest invoices or against specific invoices. This allows you to post miscellaneous cash receipts directly against General Ledger accounts and process any pre-payments against invoices not yet recorded.

Credit Card Processing for Cash Receipts
Posting of credit card payments can be done with ease in SIMMS with the 3rd party plugin to Synapse Gateway *Synapse account required*

Invoice Entry
Automatically calculate due dates, discount due dates, discount amounts, and commission amounts for invoice entries. Enter unlimited sales codes, miscellaneous charges, and add comment lines for each invoice in an easy-to-use grid-based Entry window.

Invoice History Printing
Print history invoices for customer numbers, invoice numbers and invoice dates. Re-print Accounts Receivable invoices separately or invoices from the drill-down window in Invoice History.

Manual Cheque Entry
Write ‘on-the-fly’ cheques with little effort, enabling the repayment of your customers’ back credits when such requirements arise.

Memos
Memos can be assigned to specific customers. Attachments can be viewed and converted to customer alerts in a snap.

Multiple Credit Cards
Store multiple credit cards per customer, including cardholder name and billing address. Storing this information for each credit card allows you to take advantage of the AVS (Address Verification Service). International Address Capability Customer master files include multiple address lines to handle international numbers, country codes, international postal codes, and a field for expanded telephone numbers.

Payment Processing
SIMMS’ Accounts Receivable module allows you to process payments for customers, enabling them to pay in any currency by cash, cheque, credit card or by applying existing credits on the Easy Payment window.

Statement Printing
Print statements for a billing cycle, either monthly or quarterly, on standard or custom forms for either one customer or multiple customers.

For more information on SIMMS’ Accounts Receivable features, visit www.simmssoftware.com or email sales@kcsi.ca today.

Business Recommendations, Increased Revenue, Industry Insights, Inventory Management software

Point of Sale with SIMMS 2013

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SIMMS 2013’s POS (Point of Sale) process makes cash register automation a new high standard. You can track administration, manage charge account information, customer habits, purchases, administration, and printing included in a simple and seamless integrated solution.

You gain powerful accounting capabilities and expansive inventory control management within a single system.

SIMMS’ featured point of sale software solution that combines data and function to produce more effective asset and cash management. In a familiar Windows format, it is flexible and efficient, providing your retail business with cutting edge technology and instant comprehensive control to help your business grow.

SIMMS 2013 POS is a breeze to setup and empowers you process sales transactions for any retail company. You gain back the time to enhance your customer’s shopping experience and gives you the tools necessary to analyze and increase your sales and improve profitability. SIMMS is an ideal match for both single stores and multiple retail outlets and will automate your company simply and quickly, handling the tasks of daily inventory of your stock and managing your vendors and customers.

If your future emphasizes precision and growth, SIMMS’ POS will lead you there. For more information on POS, visit www.simmssoftware.com or email sales@kcsi.ca today.

Business Recommendations, Increased Revenue, Industry Insights, Inventory Management software, Stock Science

Item Depreciation with SIMMS 2013

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A major requirement for accuracy in your accounting and inventory management is accurate calculation of the depreciation of items. Calculation of depreciation makes it easier for you to rotate stock to full advantage and know which items bring the greatest returns.

This detail of asset management is fully integrated into SIMMS 2013’s Inventory management software to match your needs while concurrently eliminating redundant data entry.


Information available through this module enables you to forecast next year’s depreciation expenses by employing SIMMS Accounting modules, allowing the allocation of the depreciation for groups of assets – or individual assets – to more than one source of funding.

With SIMMS 2013, you can:
 

• Assign depreciation-related fields either individually or globally within the system

• Calculate depreciation annually, quarterly or monthly

• Comply with both GASB (Governmental Accounting Standards Board) 34 and 35 requirements.

• Control access to depreciation data through SIMMS 2013’s built-in User Rights Protection

• Develop custom reports or use built-in reports to acquire the data you require

• Employ both standard and customized depreciation methods

• FIFO By Location warehouse data is automatically updated with each adjustment

• Generate automatic journal entries

• Implement depreciation of assets from the month of receipt

• Review your Depreciation History table, which updates automatically with each transaction

• Seamlessly integrate with the rest of SIMMS 2013’s suite of Modules

A decreasing Depreciation to Fixed Assets ratio may indicate that your company’s purchase plans for new fixed assets has stalled, and may also indicate an increasingly constrained budget or a lack in the priority of gaining new assets. Businesses in industries whose operations need large purchases of assets that will also depreciate rapidly often can record higher amounts of depreciation than companies who either do not purchase many fixed assets, or instead purchase assets that are useable much beyond the time span of their depreciation.

Keeping depreciation in mind is an important edge your company can have on your competition, and SIMMS 2013 can help you master that information. Visit www.simmssoftware.com or email sales@kcsi.ca for more information today.

Business Recommendations, Industry Insights, Inventory Management software, Stock Science

Turnover Ratios of Inventory

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Of the many metrics a business can use, one of the most important performance metrics for measuring how your business efficiently manages the quantity-side of their assets and sales equations on a balance sheet is the Inventory Turnover Ratio (IVR). The Inventory Turnover Ratio is derived by calculating the ratio of Cost of Goods Sold divided by the Average Inventory during the established time period (annum, quarter, season, etc.).

In short, the Inventory Turnover Ratio provides insight on how long capital is trapped in the cycle of being used to purchase finished product (or raw materials) for sale through to its sale. Particular Inventory Turnover Ratios differ from industry to industry.  The higher your Inventory Turnover Ratio, the more likely it is that that company carries an excessive quantity of inventory. Cash that is tied up in stock and assets for a prolonged period is referred to as overstocking. Subsequently, the correlation between the company functioning in a cash-poor condition and an elevated Inventory Turnover Ratio is overwhelmingly high.

Depending on individual markets or circumstances, a company can improve its reporting when other performance metrics are graphed on a y-axis along with the Inventory Turnover Ratio over the period of one year (12 months increments). For instance, graphing one product’s gross product margin can give insight into the relationship between the pace at which that product is processed through the warehouse at selected price points. Graphs of monthly revenues generated by a specific product against the Inventory Turnover Ratio supply additional insight in the potential seasonality of an item and thus improve its buying patterns.

It is crucial that buyers, executives, and inventory managers analyze and review any Inventory Turnover Ratios. One of the most useful ways for reviewing IVRs is tracking the ratios at a SKU level – or item type level – then graph the ratio in monthly increments over a one year block of time. This resultant view will help the company to best understand any internal buying cycles or seasonality. One must always remember that the primary aim is to move stock with more speed and to continue the downward pattern in your Inventory Turnover Ratio.

For more assessment of IVRs, visit www.simmssoftware.com or email sales@kcsi.ca today.

Business Recommendations, Increased Revenue, Industry Insights, Inventory Management software

Sales Ideas After a Holiday

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Here are a dozen useful ideas for what to do once the holiday rush time has passed:

1. Always Have New Products or Services That Debut After The Holiday. Launch a new product or service to avoid a drop off in sales after the holiday. You can also perhaps give away a new product with any purchase made after the holiday.

2. Check Back With Those Who Bought Gifts. After the holiday, email them suggestions on other items to buy next. Request info about the person they bought the gift for, such as birthday details, and plan to automate email promotions that arrive in advance of the birthday.

3. Continue Holiday Marketing After the Holiday. People are still in buying mode in the week after the holiday, especially the gifts or gift money they received for birthdays, prizes or for Christmas. Keep pushing new deals for a month after the main holiday and many will buy from you.

4. Exercise Social Media.  Reward social-only customers with things like discounts for Facebook friends or Twitter followers.

5. Give Thanks to Holiday and Loyal Shoppers. Send customers who purchased during the holiday season thank-you emails that highlight exclusive offers or targeted deals for a particular period.

6. Offer Discount Coupons. Provide deals that give attractive discounts on a future purchases that go into effect two (or four) weeks following their first purchase. Gift cards towards future purchases can benefit your company’s present and future sales. The wisest discounts are 10 to 20 percent off purchases, or a $10 to $20 gift cards.

7. Promote a Post-Holiday Contest. Endorse an online contest where customers send in photos of wild or wacky gifts they received.

8. Remember the Mobile Shoppers. Provide mobile shoppers with very attractive deals and exclusive items that they can’t find elsewhere.

9. Spark Up Your Remarketing.  Advertising to people who have already visited your business is always appreciated and often draws additional purchases when you promote complimentary products.

10. Stretch Out Your Deals for the Post-Holiday Period. Buy one–get one free deals are always successful. You may want to have the second one ‘half off’ instead but if the deal is for items that are not selling well your discount policy helps you to recoup capital. Clearance sales of seasonal fashions or holiday-themed items give you a chance to move products off the shelves. Another tip is to discount such items if they are sold online, which produces increased traffic for mobile buyers, who might buy more when they visit.

11. Think World-Wide. Increase customer involvement all year round, not just at Christmas.

12. Vacuum Up Any Sales From Shopping Cart Leftovers. Contacted shoppers about residual items in their shopping carts – and maybe offer a deal.

 

Business Recommendations, Increased Revenue, Industry Insights, Inventory Management

Trends in Online Purchasing

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Online spending has increased overall, but has experienced its largest upswing on mobile platforms. Shopping-related search queries from mobile devices are up by almost 60% over the preceding year. People these days seem to be shopping constantly— in the airport, on their lunch breaks, while killing time, while waiting in line and with friends on the bus. They comparison shop while in one store by checking prices in another store.

The term “free shipping” surged last year as a search query, which peaked on Cyber Monday. On mobile devices, it peaked on Black Friday, as in-store customers looked around for comparable deals online. Twenty percent of customers surveyed have said that free shipping is a deciding factor on purchases, therefore businesses can use it to their advantage on big in-store shopping days.

One result of the increase in spending online is that traditional big in-store shopping days provide a widening opportunity to gain holiday sales if your business is present on mobile. Last year, shopping-related searches on mobile devices boomed during key in-store days. The three most successful days for mobile queries were Black Friday, Thanksgiving, and the day after Christmas. Whether shoppers are checking inventory, comparing prices, or hunting for coupons, your business should for providing them in a virtual context wherever they are, based on the shoppers’ individual devices and locations.

Business Recommendations, Increased Revenue, Industry Insights, Inventory Management software, Program Modules

SIMMS 2013 Prominent Features

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SIMMS 2013 contains the following features that may be crucial to your business:

  • Advanced Shipping
  • Apparel Item Matrix (color/size/style)
  • Barcode Printing
  • Define Automatic Reorder Points
  • Enhanced Shipping Features
  • Inventory Valuation Features
  • Item Code Aliases
  • Item Images
  • Item Kitting (BOM)
  • Manufacturer Lot and Expiration Date Tracking
  • Multi-Currency Ready
  • Multi-level Categories
  • Multiple Warehouses & Picking Locations
  • Multi-tier Stock Areas
  • Physical Count and Audit Trail for Inventory Adjustments
  • Price Levels or Volume Pricing and Discount Configuration
  • Produce customer and/or product specific price schedules
  • Serial Number Tracking
  • Stock Transfers between Locations
  • Storeroom/Warehouse Management
  • Tax Codes and Schedules
  • Unique Vendor Assigned Costing
  • Unit of Measurement Configuration
  • Wireless or Batch Data-Collecting

For versatility, compatibility and comprehensive control, SIMMS 2013 Inventory Management software is the best you can get.

Visit www.simmssoftware.com for more information today.

Accounting Software, Business Recommendations, Industry Insights, Inventory Management software

Improving Stock Turnover

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Often we wonder how to improve our turnover rates, which are the true mark of inventory management success. Having the stock on hand to easily fill any orders made by customers is the ideal, because inventory is only worthwhile if it is available when it is needed, so that the goal of converting it back into capital as soon — and as often — as possible can be met.

Inventory turnover over a specific period of time is calculated by the following formula.

Inventory turnover = Cost of Goods Sold / Average Inventory

Inventory turnover ratios tell you how many times your inventory has sold through. To calculate, take the total cost of goods sold for the year and then divide this by the average inventory. First, choose a period of time to examine.  The most practical period for small to medium-sized retailers is one year. Average inventory can quickly be calculated by adding your inventory at the beginning of the period to your inventory at the end of the period, then dividing by 2.

With SIMMS 2013 Inventory Management software you can track the items that sell, as well as the ones that do not, and make quick improvements to your bottom line.

There are several good habits you can begin. Awareness of your inventory, its categories and which items move the best is crucial. Refer to your business plan regularly and build in a policy of stopping to think before you buy items in lot quantities; ordering smaller groups is more tedious, but it also protects your capital against over-extension. Promotions and special processes will help you move your over-stocked goods.

Contact KCSI today to learn more about the advantages that SIMMS can bring to your business.