Tag Archives: vendor

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

Contact Management with SIMMS

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From amongst the many tools available in SIMMS 2013’s Contact Management suite, you can:

Assign a Default General Ledger account to a contact

Assign Location Codes to contacts

Assign Payment Terms in addition to early payment discounts and late payment interest rates

Configure Contacts – unlimited in number (as required) for each customer, manufacturer or vendor that you have

Currency Manager [requires Multi-Currency module] – Our optional SIMMS Multi-Currency module delivers powerful and comprehensive Multi currency accounting functions. Sophisticated currency management and seamless transactions in any number of currencies provide you with a global competitive edge

Customer Tracking – Contact Information and history is a high priority with SIMMS Inventory Software. Keep track of a contact’s name, address and phone number, e-mail address, web addresses, tax codes, price schedules, contact names, comments, locations, default currency, sales and purchase history, and other bits of important information in the contact file.

Customer Transaction drill down – Review and drill down to the details of your customer transactions right from your contact detail window this includes invoices, sales orders and quotes associated with the selected customer, you can also process payments for your customer invoices right from your customer detail window

Dedicate one of your Sales/Purchasing Agents to a customer

Define Credit Limits for each spearate customer

Define your own Unique Contact Types (e.g. vendor, distributor, wholesaler, etc.

Set Price Levels – Assign up to 12 unique price levels to each item, and then assign a price level to each customer

Tax Codes and Schedules – If you’re selling into different States or Counties, you may have to collect the taxes and pass them onto the correct authorities. SIMMS will let you setup a series of tax codes and schedules for each area and then let you attach a customer or invoice to that area so that you can charge the correct sales tax rate

User-Defined fields – Available for your unique requirements, including 4 text fields, 2 combo box fields and 2 date fields

Vendor Transaction drill down – Review and drill down to the details of your Vendor transactions right from your contact detail window this includes purchase orders and receipts of goods associated with the selected vendor, you can also process payments for your receipts of goods right from your vendor detail window

SIMMS 2013’s versatile contact management features provide you with masterful control and immediate access to all the tools you need to keep your contacts at your fingertips. Visit www.simmssoftware.com or email sales@kcsi.ca today to learn more.

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

Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI)

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Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI) is the process where a supplier manages the inventory levels and purchases of the materials he supplies. This process can be very low tech, such as an office supplies supplier or maintenance supplies supplier coming into your facility once per week to visually check stock levels and place a re-supply order, or high tech, such as an electronic component supplier having remote access to your inventory management and MRP system and producing and automatically shipping to meet your production schedule. Vendor-managed inventory can enables the vendor to better manage his inventory through higher visibility to the supply chain and lower the internal expenses associated with your planning and procuring of materials. Vendor-managed inventory may be owned by the customer or the vendor (consignment inventory).

VMI can succeed if detailed concentration is made in the following areas:

-Information Sharing – If the supplier and customer can agree to share information vital to restocking in a timely manner, then the odds of a synchronized system will dramatically improve. Proprietary information would not have to be shared between the supplier and customer, but enough information to maintain a steady flow of goods is necessary. The customer should be willing to share production schedules and/or forecasts to provide some visibility for the supplier.

-    Planned Expectations – There needs to be thorough discussion about how the system will benefit both partners in the long term or one of the parties, especially suppliers, who can be victims to disappointment with some of the short-term results. If these items are not addressed the program will likely end soon with neither partner gaining any of the advantages expected from the enterprise. The goal is precise and permanent communication between the supplier and customer. When the two parties work together, and both commit to the plans, the y can be assured that the planning function, for both sides, will begin to smooth over time.

-  Open Communications – When you proceed with the ‘partnership’ of starting a VMI program, both parties need to discuss their goals and decide how they need to proceed in order to realize them. Once underway, the VMI partners need to acknowledge that there are going to be some hiccups and backfires. These need to be analyzed in order to aid in planning and improvement for a growing system that is fluid enough to prevent recurrences of the backfires while remaining open and nimble to incorporate new technologies and ideas.

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

Stock Item Aliases in SIMMS 2012

It is common that your customers have names or numbers that are unique for stock pieces that they require for them to do what they do. Similarly, your own vendors have an in-house reference for items that they sell to you. In both cases, these names and references are often different than the ones you use.

SIMMS 2012 Inventory management softwaremakes room for all of these by allowing you to assign aliases to the pieces you stock and stipulate that these aliases “belong” to specific vendors and/or customers. Thus 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.

In a likewise fashion, your shipments to your customers arrive with invoices and packing slips bearing item references instantly familiar to their receiving departments.

For more information about “aliases” and their use, visit www.simmssoftware.com or email sales@kcsi.ca. Aliases can contribute to greater accuracy and satisfaction at all steps of your stock management and can be a useful tool for your use today.

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

Managing Vendor Costs with SIMMS 2012

SIMMS 2012 Inventory Management software contains a robust feature-to coordinate the details of vendor costing. You can composite numerous items you order from a single vendor onto one purchase order, which speeds up and contains within a single order so that your ordering speed and coordination in your purchasing process. Item aliases enable you to accurately select items while including their vendor details, thereby assuring that your required items are smoothly listed for those vendors. You can quickly access your vendor records and make edits to the items both efficiently and accurately.

When your item costs increase or when items are replaced by new pieces, your older items and their costs can be altered or replaced in only a few mouse clicks. Lists or catalogues of your new items are easily produced in various forms, thus allowing your sales personnel to deal with the current stock that you are selling at the moment. Combining this seamless link between your stock data and any marketing or accounting policies you have in place, the process of removing or adding stock items inside your system gives you precise accounting data and stock counting control so that at any moment you can easily check on how your items are selling (or not) at any given second. Vendor costing is a useful and practical tool in the efforts to retain your advantage over your competitors.

Concurrently, you may receive identical items from numerous vendors during your attempts to acquire the best inventory for the best price in the shortest period of time. SIMMS 2012 allows you to set each item’s various aliases that the respective vendors can recognize and understand. You can also set prices that are specific to each different vendor, letting you or your inventory personnel to choose which item, vendor and price that you want to receive in a time period no longer than a phone call or an email exchange. Checking if items are in stock and possess the most appealing costs for you at any moment.

For more information about SIMMS 2012, visit www.simmssoftware.com or email sales@kcsi.ca today.

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

Letting SIMMS 2012 Help Your Business

SIMMS 2012 Inventory Management software provides you with an endless supply of important analytical data to apply towards policy changes and improvements in your business. A wide selection of reports, fully customizable, and program screens that make your life easier are only two of the advantages you gain. Adjusting prices, changing manufacturers or vendors, deciding on package sales of select stock items — all should be easy steps, and with SIMMS, they are easy. Accounting standards, or personalized adjustments, may be desired at any moment. A few mouse licks later in SIMMS, your changes have been applied.

Tracking of holding costs, item turnover, expiration horizons for stock, best sellers, depreciation rates, most common pieces for repair, assembly overhead, manufacturer lot history — all these details need to be coordinated and kept up-to-date. Warehousemen, department heads, managers, bookkeepers and sales staff all need complete and comprehensive data to optimize the chances the company will be putting its best commercial foot forward.

In software other than SIMMS, information is compiled from a database, selecting data and wringing them through old world formulas. SIMMS 2012, however, uses its built-in customizable reports to pull exactly the information you are requesting. Your best habit of thinking differently can provide you the best data, and only you truly know your industry and your business; therefore, your software should be awaiting your needs. SIMMS does.

Learn more about SIMMS at www.simmssoftware.com or email sales@kcsi.ca today.

 

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

Challenges in Implementing VMI

Vendor Managed Inventory can be made to work, but the problem is not just one of logistics. VMI often encounters resistance from the sales force and distributors. At issue are roles and skills, trust, and power shifts. Some of the sales force concerns are:

1) Many sales personnel worry about whether the system will work well, and their concern is high specifically about whether the system will be able to avoid technical breakdowns.

2) They dread the loss of control that they possessed before.

3) Worries about the elimination of a large sector of the existing sales force

4) Worries that the company’s market share will drop due to less assets (inventory) on shelves before new stock from new vendors can fill them again

5) The loss of influence in sales that the sales personnel have due to possible discontinuation or lowering of incentive-based sales.

All concerns over VMI can be resolved and adapted providing that your company does not have too rigid a template applied, and thus allows for the benefits and performance upon which sales personnel thrive.

Business Recommendations, Industry Insights, Inventory Management software

Concerns Over Vendor-Managed Inventory

For Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI) systems to succeed, concerns of both your sales force and your distributors need to be resolved. What follows is a list of the principal ways that any issues can be addressed:

  • Employ a complete working model of your proposed VMI model in an off-line instance before actually putting one in place at your company;
  • Use someone as a broker for the initial meetings you have with distributors, members of your sales team and vendors. Take their objective advice to heart and make sure the decisions address concerns of yours and those in your supply chain;
  • Institute your sales team as marketers for the VMI model and initiate bonuses for them for each new client they bring in;
  • Implement a start-up program with vendor-owned warehouses to prove that your system works, and then do the same later with a distributor-owned warehouse, once the distributor’s questions and concerns have been shown to be minor;
  • Make the process palatable to manufacturers by including their promotions in your establishment/transition period.

Your VMI can only succeed insofar as your supply chain contributes to a mutual benefit of your business and theirs. As a growing number of businesses gravitate to the VMI model, more information on how it works the best becomes available.

Accounting Software, Business Recommendations, Product: How-To

SIMMS 2012 and Your Vendors

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SIMMS 2012 Inventory Management software provides an unbroken link between its stock information and its standardized accounting features to provide you with the accurate data you require. From addition to subtraction of stock pieces, exact item count recording and management, complete financial data, and costing controls, you can do it all with SIMMS.

In regard to Vendor Costing, companies usually receive identical items from several different vendors based upon the best cost and convenient availability. In the SIMMS program, each item can be assigned vendor-specific aliases (names or numbers) and unique costs can be maintained for each vendor. This gives you the option to choose any vendor you want at any time.

As items are replaced by newer or different pieces from the vendor, and costs rise or fall accordingly, you can alter descriptions and monetary values easily, and lists of the new items can be produced in various report forms so your sales department can keep up with the pieces your company now offers.

You can also batch together multiple items from a single vendor onto one purchase order to streamline your SIMMS experience into one session that is both quick and easy, with the aliases helping the smooth and exact selection of items with their vendor-specific details. Thus, you’re always assured that items you need are clearly listed for your suppliers.

SIMMS 2012’s Vendor Costing features are yet another way to keep you doing more business in a more optimized method than your competitors. Your customers will thank you.

Learn more by clicking here.

Accounting Software, Business Recommendations, Product News

Accounts Payable in SIMMS 2012

With SIMMS 2012 Inventory Management Software you can quickly edit documents at any time before interaction with the General Ledger. Adding notes on individual suppliers, accessing all documents associated with transactions, and reporting on all transactions to date are done easily and directly on-screen. Checks are issuable from a single screen, and their approval can occur on-screen before actually printing them.

Accounts Payable is is of primary importance to every business and its details should not exist without being visible and controllable. As the accounting strength of SIMMS continues to grow as new versions appear, numerous features will be added to give you the advantage you need to process all all your financial needs.

  • Process payments and vendor discounts
  • Manage expenses
  • Track cash requirements
  • Examine aging payables

Meeting commitments in a timely fashion does not need to challenge cash flow requirements. Obligations to your vendors, currency trading and accurate recording of your transactions are all immediate in the Accounts Payable module of SIMMS 2012 Inventory Management System.

Learn more about how it can help you today here.

Inventory Management, Product News

What is a “Request for Quote (RFQ)”?

SIMMS’ Request for Quote (RFQ) allows users to create a paperless RFQ, based on an existing requisition, which can then be sent to vendors. In addition, a portal allows for suppliers to login and post requests fro quotes to your company. This smooth exchange of information leads to quick processing and/or editing of requisitions, which can subsequently be imported directly into purchase orders once the best prices have been decided.

Suppliers’ performance statistics from previous RFQs can be easily tracked, pick lists of relevant suppliers can be generated based upon cross-referenced criteria. The prices and terms of an order can be easily determined and adjusted. Suppliers’ responses on lead times and prices are recorded and easily analyzed. Inputs of services and goods can be manually entered or selected from item files, and remote requests or existing orders can be used to generate the RFQs.

The RFQ module serves as a formal invitation sent to one or more suppliers for the availability and costs of services or goods. RFQ is an important strategic sourcing feature, which can automatically produce a purchase request for each chosen supplier, and SIMMS’ Request for Quote (RFQ) module is yet one other tool that makes SIMMS Inventory Management Software the best choice on the market.