Take the Guesswork Out of Purchasing!

The key to excellent purchasing is to provide great inventory service and get the most value for the money you invest in inventory. Your customers and employees want inventory to be available when they need it. But if you’re not careful you can eat up all your profit in inventory carrying costs. SouthWare®’s Purchasing helps you find the right balance for your inventory.

Purchasing integrates with SouthWare’s Inventory/Sales Series to help you achieve your inventory goals. You get the help you need to set and maintain target stock levels, to analyze usage trends, and to check vendor performance. Whether you’re maintaining a well-stocked inventory or ordering for just-in-time delivery, Purchasing has the tools to help you. In the Inventory/Sales Series you can also get Inventory Control, Point of Sale, Order Entry, Assemblies, and UPS/Shipping options.

With Purchasing, you can:

• Have all the work of creating suggested POs done for you
• Use your judgement more efficiently by focusing only on any needed adjustments to suggested purchases
• Trust that your purchasing decisions are based on assumptions that are continually updated for recent trends
• Create just-in-time POs from your sales orders
• Make special adjustments to the purchasing controls for any stock item
• Identify seasonal sales items and adjust suggested purchases for seasonal needs
• Recognize normal and abnormal usage patterns for your inventory
• Order the most profitable quantity levels based on EOQ or other quantity discount calculations
• Take into account line buying and other special vendor requirements
• Know which vendors are giving you the best performance on each item

Key Features of Purchasing

Purchasing Controls Per Item
• Primary and alternate vendors
• Suggested order quantity based on EOQ, movement class, quantity discounts, prior usage, min/max
• Order point and Line point
• Safety stock - fixed or based on usage
• Normal usage history per period
• Option to “freeze” order controls for items
• Info about Out of Stock situations
• Seasonal indicator and movement class
• Periodic update of order controls
• Optional vendor catalog info

Automatic Purchasing Features
• Generates POs for stock based on current item status and order controls
• Generates POs from special sales order situations such as drop ship, special purchase, or non-stock items
• Option to edit generated POs before turning them into real POs
• Cost considers current vendor catalog and any quantity discounts
• Optional price checking to make sure you’re buying from the best vendor
• Processing controlled per buyer or location

Purchase Order Entry Features
• Regular or Drop Shipment POs
• Open, Blanket, or Quote handling
• Combine multiple addresses on one PO
• Ship dates and unlimited text instructions
• Reference items purchased for stock, service order, sales order, return, or job
• Freight/tax estimates
• Option to purchase non-stock items
• Notes and optional Extended Data

Related Information Per Vendor
• Extensive general purchasing terms/history
• Vendor part #s, lead times, u/m, costs

Inquiry and Reporting Features
• PO header and line item inquiry
• Replenishment, Expedite, Exceptions, Review Cycle, Scheduled Receivings, Vendor Performance, and other reports

Purchasing can help you answer such questions as:

• Which items do we need to purchase today?
• What’s the best quantity for us to buy considering our carrying costs and our recent usage of this item?
• We need 2,000 of this item next week. Which vendor should we use?
• Which other items should we add to this PO to get up to the vendor minimum?
• Which items do we need to purchase for special sales order situations?
• We just stocked out of this item. When do we expect to receive some more?
• Are there any POs that we need to expedite because of problem situations?
• Which items have had unusual usage patterns lately?
• Which POs are due to be received this week and how much will they cost?
• Which vendors have the best recent performance?
• What are the other part numbers we use for this item?