Inventory: know what you have, where it is and what it costs
Convergence ERP Inventory keeps the number of units, their value and their place in step with every sale, purchase and production run. Nobody retypes a quantity: a receipt adds stock, a shipment takes it away, and the books record the cost each time.
What you get
- On hand, reserved and available, with a stock policy
- Average cost and cost of goods sold in the books
- Lots, expiry dates and serial numbers, traced both ways
- Locations, put-away and pick lists
- Multi-level bills of materials and shop orders
- Reorder lists, stock counts and adjustments
On hand, reserved and available
Every product shows what is on hand, what is reserved by confirmed orders and what is left to promise. You choose the policy for the company when stock is short: take the order and backorder it, sell freely, or block an order that goes past the stock, even when two orders go for the last units at the same moment. Adjustments and stock counts correct the numbers, and a reorder list tells you what is below its minimum and how much to buy.
Cost that follows the goods
Stock is valued at its average cost. When goods are received, the value goes up; when a shipment leaves, the cost of goods sold goes to the books at that same average cost. A receipt can be in the books the day the goods arrive, before the vendor's bill, and the bill then clears it; a difference in price becomes a variance you can read in a report instead of disappearing.
Lots, expiry dates and serial numbers
Goods can be received by lot with an expiry date, and shipped first-expired-first-out. Expired lots are kept out of what you can sell. Serial numbers are received and shipped one by one. For any lot or serial number, you can trace it back to the vendor it came from and forward to the customers who got it, which is the question a recall asks.
Warehouse locations
Define a tree of locations: building, aisle, shelf. Goods received wait to be put away, and the put-away list suggests where. Shipping picks where the stock actually is, a pick list groups the picks by location across several shipments, and you can move stock between locations and count each location on its own.
Bills of materials and production
A product can be made from other products, to any number of levels. A bill of materials has revisions, refuses loops, shows what each product is used in, and rolls up the cost from its parts. A shop order takes the materials out of stock, adds the labour, and puts the finished goods in, with the work in progress visible in the books until it is done.
Questions
Can the system stop me from selling stock I do not have?
Yes. Set the stock policy to block: an order cannot then be confirmed past the available stock, nor enlarged afterwards, and two orders cannot both take the last units. The other choices are to backorder what is short or to sell freely.
How is stock valued?
At average cost. Receipts raise the value, shipments take it out at the current average, and the cost of goods sold is posted to the books with each shipment.
Can I follow a lot after it has been sold?
Yes. A lot or a serial number can be traced back to its vendor and forward to every customer who received it.
Do I have to use locations?
No. Locations are a setting. Without them, stock is simply counted by product; with them, receipts, picks, moves and counts are by location.
Can I make products from other products?
Yes, with bills of materials on several levels. Making them goes through a shop order that uses the parts, records labour and adds the finished goods to stock.
The other modules
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