Friday, November 30, 2012

Sometimes you have to pick and choose...



When it comes to deciding who gets inventory sometimes you need to pick and choose 

Nothing to do with your friends, this is just about business right?  when you have limited availability on inventory sometimes you need the flexibility to review your open orders and decide who get's what. A simple FIFO model for allocating products or setting priority levels by customer might just not cut it. 

With the new MDS Manual Allocation System making these decisions just got a lot easier, just point, click, and ship. 

Decide on an order by order or customer by customer basis, you can drill down by customer or product and allocate partially or completely. By giving the tools and visibility into the allocation process you can allow the standard business rules you have in place but allow you to override on as as needed basis. Once again allowing you to maintain the best possible customer service by using technology to help you manage your business more effectively.




For more information on TSH or MDS call The Systems House, Inc. at 1-800- MDS-5556. Or send a message to sales@tshinc.com
Click here and tell us how we can help you with your business solutions.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Renting Retail Space for your warehouse? - Here is a quick way to capitalize on your investment


With the MDS-POS module you can integrate your storefront, inventory, receivables and pricing rules into a single system.



Don't let  your retail space go to waste.. 

For many distributors you already have a retail space in the front of your warehouse, or you have moved to a new space because of the lower rents now available in the retail market. 

Many companies use a separate POS (point of sale system) to handle the store traffic and treat is as a separate system.  

Using the same familiar entry screens, customers numbers and product numbers you employees can log in to a pc based cash register to scan and sell items from your store. Integrated credit card processing and barcode scanning let you quickly and easily help your existing customers get the items they need just by walking in. And the best part is because it's an integrated system any custom pricing rules and all sales history is available at the time of entry. 








For more information on TSH or MDS call The Systems House, Inc. at 1-800- MDS-5556. Or send a message to sales@tshinc.com
Click here and tell us how we can help you with your business solutions.

Friday, November 16, 2012

How to handle a hog?



Don't let one customer ruin your service levels  

Ok so this post has nothing to do with livestock but the idea is fairly simple, as a distributor your customers expect a level of service from you. For example they expect that when they call for those standard items they need every week,  you will never be out of stock. So you use your inventory management modules and configure usage patterns and do your ABC analysis, but then you have a customer who completely wipes you out of an everyday item. 

This just causes headaches on your purchasing side and while sales might be happy initially in the long term it may just cause you to over order on your next purchasing cycle , mostly because it's a one time buy and not a new trend.

So how do you handle these inventory hogs?

The MDS System allows for a no wipe out flag. This will limit the amount of inventory any one sales order or customer is able to order. At the point of entry the operator is warned and advised of the percentage the company has made as business rulle. In our example below, no one order or customer can wipe out more then 75% of the total inventory we have on hand for an item. By advising your customers you can get the extra goods but not all of if right now you are able to maintain the optimum inventory levels and can ship a partial amount to the customer while back ordering the rest allowing your purchasing department to source the additional quantity without effecting fill rates and service levels.





For more information on TSH or MDS call The Systems House, Inc. at 1-800- MDS-5556. Or send a message to sales@tshinc.com
Click here and tell us how we can help you with your business solutions.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Fees, surcharges and other fun stuff...



The reality of doing business includes fee's and surcharges, MDS help's you manage them



A simple bill of lading from and overseas shipper may include as many as a dozen fee's and surcharges, Keeping track of the different fee's associated with shipments and in turn tracking those fees so you can assign them to customers if need be is a vital part of the supply chain.

The MDS system now incorporates a Customer/Vendor Specific Table to capture these costs, allow you to choose which ones are automatically applied and which customer's or vendors are eligible for the different costs..

Want to add a fuel surcharge - but don't know how? - Its as simple as clicking on the drop down and adding it to the table.



Options allow for a default amount for the company, customer specific amounts operator overrides and a specific G/L account code to associate with the Fee.




For more information on TSH or MDS call The Systems House, Inc. at 1-800- MDS-5556. Or send a message to sales@tshinc.com
Click here and tell us how we can help you with your business solutions.