The fragrance and cosmetics distribution/manufacturing industry has very specific needs dictated by the major actors in the segment. Those commonly accepted practices need to be handled by your business management solution. This non-exhaustive list (and in no particular order) demonstrates the expertise Southeast Computer Solutions acquired throughout its implementation projects during its 33 years of existence. Read on to learn 9 things to consider when implementing your business management software.

Full on EDI or APIs Capabilities

In today’s ever-changing landscape, there is one constant when dealing with the larger retailers and their even larger purchasing power: Exchanging information digitally.

For some this will mean, leveraging API’s to transfer flat files between your organization and the purchasing organization from your clients. Our solutions offer various ways to export information and provide it in the appropriate format so that it can imported in your customer’s systems.

For others, it means adopting a third-party application to deal with any EDI forms. Most organizations will require you to exchange information a specific way using international standards. Our products integrate seamlessly with the most advanced applications to comply with the latest requirements.

If you also decided not to take care of your inventory or plan on externalizing this part of your business, most third-party logistics service providers will require you to send them information using EDI.

Using EDI, business management software users can greatly improve order accuracy and rely on third party logistics providers to handle their inventory. Efficiency is at the core of an EDI implementation.

Fell Off

If like most distributors in the industry, you do not allow back orders, our business management solutions will allow you track effectively your fell offs. Leveraging extensive reporting capabilities of the solutions, you can generate exception reports when some items fell off the orders. These reports can be scheduled so you can receive them whenever you need them.

You can even be alerted by email every time a product or group of products were ordered but not delivered. Some additional rules can be built into those workflow notifications like tolerances on quantities or prices. As long as there is a business rule, these emails can be triggered and manage those exceptions in real time.

This can greatly help you reduce the number of the fell off you have to deal with, thus driving best inventory accuracy and greater customer satisfaction overall.

Allocation Rules Flexibility, Lot/Serial Number Tracking, Warehouse Management

The inventory tracking capabilities coming with our system allows for flexibility in the way you handle reservation of inventory for your orders.

Whether you want to soft or hard allocate your units to your order, Sage business management solutions give you the freedom to choose when to consider those units taken.

If you need to change those allocations later, the system will let you remove those inventory lines from an order and assign them to another. Tying inventory sounds great but you need the flexibility to change allocations quickly when the business need demands it.

On top of maintaining strict inventory rules, our products provide you with the ability to track lot numbers for all your references. You can also dictate how you want to deplete your units using pre-defined and generally accepted rules like FIFO (first in first out), FEFO (First expired first out) or others like LIFO (Last in first out) for example.

If you have to deal with grey market products, our solutions will help you track those items giving you full traceability.

Finally, if you want to have real time inventory picking and receiving, our management systems come with superior warehouse location management capabilities and bar code scanning applications. Knowing your inventory levels at any point and in each location in your warehouse gives you the peace of mind that there won’t be any surprise next time your annual count comes around.

Sales Pricing Rules/Off Retail Discount and Charges

Business management systems give you a lot of flexibility when it comes to pricing rules. Whether you call them tariffs, off invoice discounts, discount on wholesale prices, our system will provide you with the tools to account for those discounts applied to your list prices. Some systems will allow you to account for up to 9 discounts or charges for each line item of your orders.

You can also account for rules with your vendors if you have agreed upon discounts for example.

If you have product pricing by customer or just regular list prices, chances are that our solutions have the answers to your most complicated pricing rules.

Reporting Capability

Business intelligence is the buzz word in today’s business management solution industry. With extensive out of the box templates, those reporting solutions give you the freedom to buy a solution that will already have the main reports you are familiar with. These tools are extremely user friendly and on top of giving you the traditional fell off reports and sales analysis, you will be able with little to no training to build your own reports.

Most systems will also give you the flexibility to maintain user defined categories of products, customers to analyze your information further, thus giving you the tools to manage your activities and react to trends to navigate and outperform your competitors in this very fashion-oriented industry.

With a few clicks you will schedule those reports to be sent to your sales reps on the field or to your managers so they can act upon up to date data. Those reporting applications come with dashboarding capabilities and opening up with your tablet or smartphone is a key feature offered in standard.

Making your business management printout customized is also part of the applications. If you need to add your logo to your sales order or invoices, or if you simply need to show specific pieces of information like the list price and the discount allowed to your customer, the print outs can be designed and modified based on your business rules and according to your industry standards.

To Be Continued.....