An industrial hardware supplier required an inventory management, sales accounting and custom format invoice printing system.
1. Discussion
2. Requirement
3. Development
1. Challenge
The major complexity involved the variety of products they sold, as some finished products comprised of a combination of multiple SKUs. Based upon this we created an inventory management software with an integrated sales module. Another challenge arose, as some products were purchased in different units of measurement, such as purchased per kilogram and sold in terms of the number of units. This made it difficult to maintain inventory and process sales and purchase orders. Additionally, invoice printing posed another challenge, as our clients required two formats, cash and credit invoices. Invoices were printed on pre-formatted paper, thus we devised a method to print transaction details on each format.
2. Our Solution
We met with the client, and observed their business, daily transactions and the variety of hardware they supplied. After we analyzed the data, we created an application to record purchase orders, sales orders and to print invoices. We mapped all the individual SKUs, and integrated a module to create combinations of SKUs. To overcome the varying units of measurement, we included a field to help the system identify, the unit of measurement of a single SKU, and combination SKU. We used Crystal Reports to structure the pre-formatted invoice printing, and we input coordinates to accurately map every field for the two invoice formats.
3. Results
The software helped the client monitor available stock levels, optimize inventory management, and thus reduce overheads of unnecessary storage and stock take costs. Sales reports allowed management to analyze sales trends, and streamline purchase orders. Additionally, accounts data was easily accessible, in terms of turnover, number of sales, and purchases. Automation of the process allowed faster sales order fulfilments, as accurate stock levels were easily accessible and human error was minimized.