Knowing what to order and when is critical for any wholesaler.
Order too much and you tie up money in working capital, run the risk of product not selling or becoming obsolete., not to mention needing more warehouse space to store it.
Order too little and you run the risk of running out of inventory and disappointing or losing customers.
Get the data you need to know what to buy and when
BI4Cloud Business Intelligence makes it easy to know what is selling fast and where product levels are running low, it can even alert you to items you need to reorder.
When re-ordering inventory products, you need to take into account a number of different drivers:
Inventory On Hand = Currently in the warehouse
Purchase Orders = Outstanding Purchase Orders (PO)
Customer Orders = Oustanding Sales Orders (SO)
Available = On Hand + on PO - Customer Sales Orders
Then compare this to:
Past Sales History - This may be weekly, monthly or by season and will vary by product type
Minimum Levels - Predefined minimum quantities for products replenished regularly
Cover - Number of weeks of sales you can "cover" based on the current On Hand Qty
Future Forecasts - Consider future promotions
Having a clear understanding of all of these drivers will enable you to identify if you have any issues. Some of the common issues with inventory reorders we see are caused by:
- reordering fixed quantities regardless of actual sales history
- stockouts resulting in extra freight to re-stock immediately
- ordering from suppliers too often and incurring extra freight costs
BI4Cloud helps you to actively monitor inventory levels relative to actual sales performance
1. Low Inventory Cover Alert - How many weeks of sales can you "Cover"?
1. Low Inventory Cover Alert
Don't waste time wading through loads of detail to find items about to run out. Setup a Bi4Cloud exception report to find any items where you do not have enough on hand to "Cover" a set number of weeks sales.
Using the Enterprise Version you can even schedule it to automatically send you an email Alert whenever there are impending stockouts!
Run the report Inventory Cover
- Filter to setup a Numeric Filter - e.g. Cover Base 8 <15%
- Change the Sales Date Range e.g. to Last Week or Last Month
- Save the Report and Schedule it to email off weekly or monthly
BI4Cloud Business Intelligence makes it easy to understand your margins on inventory sales and then investigate what has caused any issues (number indicates the minute marker on the video if you wish to skip ahead):
- Low Margin Alerts - 0:57
- Margin by Customer, Customer Group, Distribution channel, Location - 3:00
- Margin by Item, Item Groups, Brands, Supplier - 6:30
- Margins By Salesperson including discounts - 8:55
- Margins over time - by day, week, month, quarter and year - 13:15
When selling inventory products, the sale of each item will have an associated Cost of Good Sold (COGS), Gross Profit and Margin.
BI4Cloud will help you to maintain strong margins and deal with issues as soon as they arise.
