There are often telltale signs that your manufacturing business could become more efficient.
Are your sales reps constantly inquiring about what's in stock? Is your administrative staff spending several hours each day entering items into the accounting system, just to complete one order? Are you running low on popular items, while the slow movers are plentiful on your warehouse shelves? These are just a few signs that you could be operating your manufacturing business more efficiently.
Software can be a valuable tool in helping you integrate your manufacturing processes, so that information is more accessible to all staff, and flows more smoothly.
This in turn can keep your customers and employees happy, and most importantly, can help increase your profitability! Here is how software can help you integrate your processes.
Purchase Orders: Using a purchase order management system can drastically improve your inventory levels.
Use your purchase order system to produce purchase orders, track order status, and receive items into inventory.
This keeps you from having to search for paper documents or items on a spreadsheet, and it also provides an easily accessible location for you to access your whole purchase order system.
Use purchase order reports to show you which items are getting low (based on numbers you set up), so you can get them on order before you run out.
Order Entry: Order entry (otherwise known as 'sales orders') within a software system allows you to enter customer orders into the software, saving sales reps and customer service from having to hand-write orders.
It also allows you to keep items on order (or choose not to) when they aren't completely available to ship.
Other helpful functions are the ability to print packing slips and pick tickets with just a few clicks, rather than the painstaking process of creating them manually.
Assemblies Management: This helpful software tool lets you set up finished items with each part that makes up that item.
When it's time to manufacture items, you pull the finished item out of stock within your software, and the system pulls out all of the necessary components.
It can also manage the costing of each component and the finished good, helping you maintain accurate, profitable numbers.
Multiple Units of Measure: Manufacturers purchase items in one unit of measure, and many of them sell that item in a different unit of measure.
Set up your items with multiple units of measure, letting the system know which units you sell in, and how much each unit costs.
This simplifies the process of selling different units, since you simply choose the unit within your software and it calculates the price and also pulls out just the right amount from your inventory.
Sales Commission Tracking: Set up commission tracking within your software, and make calculations much more efficient and fast.
Because your company may pay sales staff different commission methods depending on the product, be sure that the system you use allows for this flexibility.
Complete Integration: Having your entire system integrated can greatly streamline your processes and the work flow of your employees.
When you integrate the entire system, your margin for error is decreased and information is more accessible to everyone.
Functions to integrate are: order entry, purchase orders, inventory management, accounts payable/receivable, payroll, CRM, and more.