Warehousing Archives - SQLWorks

Getting Started with Dispatch Planner

Dispatch Planner


Managing outbound goods often requires an overarching view of business operations ‘as-a-whole’ – looking across all sales accounts, orders and products. We’ve given users the power to do this via SQLWorks Dispatch Planner.

Dispatch Planner gives order managers and warehouse teams a comprehensive dashboard to maximise visibility and control over orders. Dispatch Planner is accessible within the Stock Ledger, and (by default) loads a comprehensive list of all outstanding customer sales Orders with key information about each order.

dispatch planner

Double clicking on an order allows a drill-down to the exact order, meaning shopfloor teams don’t need to access individual customer sales accounts to understand workloads and even check line-level detail.

Simple ‘traffic-light’ statuses indicate whether the required stock quantity is available for each order to be shipped in full. By selecting an order, dispatch managers can also view the same information for each order line of the order – with the same status indication based on free stock availability. Orders will only be considered ready to ship in full once every line on that order is available to ship.

When ready to ship, dispatches can be sent to dispatch and invoiced (and emailed automatically to the customer) in one smooth workflow, removing the outstanding order from the Dispatch Planner list.

dispatch planner

High volume companies may lengthen or shorten the time horizon of the viewed orders, or filter by warehouse. Where goods are not ‘Ready to Ship’, SQLWorks will make the user aware of why an order is delayed – for example, showing Purchasing Delays.

For companies that use Delivery/Dispatch Notes prior to invoice, the Dispatch Planner will also allow the generation of new delivery notes from here, list any valid delivery note numbers for each order for cross-referencing, and require the user to select an existing delivery note before invoicing a previous dispatch.

Dispatch Planner shows the real power of SQLWorks: as the ability to cross-reference stock control and ordering globally across the business allows you to manage operations quickly, efficiently, and with confidence.

 

You can find more detail about how to use Dispatch Planner here

Introduction to Stock Audit and Stock Taking

Stock Audit allows businesses to perform a comprehensive stock take, record variances, verify the results, report on valuation, and automatically adjust stock levels for accuracy.

Stock takes can be initiated, or continued, by clicking on ’Stock Audit’ under ‘Products’ in the Main SQLWorks Navigation Bar (1). To begin a new stock take simply click ‘Create New’ or load an unfinished stocktake via ‘Load Existing’. Each stock take is warehouse specific, and can be given a reference ID.

Users must choose whether the final results will ’Save Quantity’ (adjust the actual quantity to a fixed number established from the stock check) or ’Save Variance’ (adjust the actual quantity according to a variance from the theoretical quantity, incorporating quantity changes which may have taken place during the stock take.)

stock audit type

Clicking ‘Print Sheets’ generates a series of stock take forms, listing the stock items and locations under review, which can be printed and assigned to stock counters for counting. Printed stock take sheets include a notes field for stock counters to record additional information, but do not list the theoretical quantity, so as not to prejudice the accuracy of the stock take.

stock audit sheets

Once stock counters have returned their stock take sheets, stock controllers can enter counted values in the ‘Count’ column next to each item by entering the name of the counter in the ‘Counted By’ dropdown (2) at the top of the window. The ‘Variance’ Column automatically calculates the variance, and a note of the counter’s name is recorded in the ‘Count By’ column (3)

If required, stock controllers can print “check sheets” in order to have questionable variances verified by a second counter, and enter a revised quantity in the same field by using the ‘Checked By’ dropdown at the top of the window (2). The ‘Variance’ Column automatically calculates the variance, and a note of the checker’s name is recorded in the ‘Check By’ column (3). When printing check sheets you may enter a single product code or a csv of codes, each product including its current values for all bin locations are printed on their own page.

To review the records, clicking the ‘Print Variance’ button at the top of the window produces a report on the results of the stock take, grouping the variances on each item across all monitored locations, and calculating a monetary value for the overall positive or negative variance.

By clicking ‘Finish’, the results of either the ’Save Quantity’ or ’Save Variance’ stock take are applied to the SQLWorks Stock Ledger to bring the stock levels back into alignment with the stock take.*

 

For additional information on stock control, contact our team today.

 

 

*If the ‘Free Qty’ tickbox is ticked at the top of the theory column, the theoretical values for the stock audit are shown excluding any allocated quantity. SQLWorks will not accept a variance which adjusts the quantity of an item below the quantity of that item which is already Allocated to Sales Orders, and will instead adjust the Actual quantity as close to the recorded variance as allowed numerically.

stock free

Fact Sheet: Stock Quantities

SQLWorks calculates a number of different stock quantities for measuring how much stock you have.

These allow you to measure how much of each stock item are at different stages of your stock control process, and can be found displayed in the Stock Ledger for each stock item as follows. Scroll down for more information about each.

Stock Quantities


Actual

‘What I own now’

  • Actual Stock is the quantity of an item you currently own within your warehouse(s.)

 

Actual 


Pending

‘What I own which is temporarily unavailable’

  • Pending Stock is the quantity of an item you currently own which is not to hand – for example Stock you own which is in ‘Transit’ internally, or stock currently waiting in ‘Make’ Bins for manufacturing.*

*The exact nature of Pending stock may vary between individual SQLWorks companies, and may represent stock dispatched but not processed, if this setting is applied – please contact your account manager to clarify.

Pending


Allocated

‘What’s been sold to a specific customer’

  • Allocated Stock is the quantity of an item you currently own which has been reserved to fulfil a specific customer’s order.

Allocated


Free

‘What’s really in hand’

  • Free Stock is your Actual Stock minus any stock currently Pending or Allocated. This count typically represents the amount of stock you own that’s on hand, and does not include anything currently in transit, or already allocated to fulfil specific sales orders.

Available


SOP

‘What’s been ordered’

  • SOP stock is the quantity of a stock item which is wanted by your customers (currently outstanding on your sales orders.) This includes any Allocated stock already reserved to fulfil specific sales orders.

SQLWorks can be configured to exclude Forward Orders from this number.

SOP


Available

‘What would I have left’

Available stock is your Actual Stock minus your SOP. This count represents the maximum quantity of a stock item you own which could still be sold if all your sales orders were fulfilled.

Free


WoP

‘What’s needed for parts / to be made from parts’

  • WoP Stock is the quantity of an item currently listed on outstanding works orders – to be made from other stock items, or used to make other stock items.

WOP


POP

‘What’s on order’

  • POP stock is the quantity of an item currently listed on outstanding purchase orders. This is stock you are expecting to be delivered by suppliers.

SQLWorks can be configured to exclude Forward Orders from this number.

POP 


Potential

‘What I could have’

  • Potential Stock is all your potential stock added together. This count represents the maximum amount of stock you would have if you fulfilled all outstanding customer orders, received all outstanding purchase orders and build all outstanding works orders.
  • If you are using SQLWorks MRP, the Potential stock is the quantity that will be compared to your re-order level for each stock item (within your chosen time horizon) to inform whether additional stock needs to be purchased or manufactured.

Potential


Stock Quantities Overall:

 

Stock Quantities

 

For help and advice on SQLWorks’ Stock Control capabilities, please contact our team today.

 

Fact Sheet: Consignments & Consignment Stock

Consignments –

If you sell consignment stock through the premises of another company, SQLWorks can help you keep track of your consignments.

Stock locations can be managed in a number of ways, but the easiest way to hold your stock at another location is to create a new warehouse to represent this, named after the customer who holds this stock as a consignment.

To add a consignments warehouse, open ‘Products’ from the main nabvbar (1), open your Warehouse Map (2) and click the ‘New’ button on the top left to add a new warehouse to your list of warehouses. Name this warehouse after the consignment location, or the name of the consignment customer.

When creating the new warehouse, remember to check the correct radio button on the right hand side before saving, tagging the new consignment warehouse as ‘consignment wh’ or ‘retail store.’

You can treat this warehouse like any other – moving stock to or from the premises of your seller, raising customer orders and invoices against that company, and performing stock valuations.

If your consignment is large, you can also divide it into multiple ‘Bin’ locations, as you might for one of your own warehouses, and assign stock to the correct bins accordingly.

consignments

You can choose to change a customers’ default order type to ‘IWT’ (Inter-warehouse transfer) or CONS (Consignment) under the ‘Print and Orders’ Tab in a customers’ Sales Ledger account.

This function allows you to specify your (actually their) new consignment stock warehouse under “Warehouse to” for stock, to be moved into by default. In the case of IWT and Consignment stock, this order will then be removed to prevent invoicing a consignment stock re-seller or similar for the consignment before sale.

At all times SQLWorks treats consignment stock exactly as what it is: your stock, temporarily stored with someone else.

 

For help with stock control and warehousing: contact the SQLWorks team today.