Editing stock details is about developing a new level on top of defining a product, but proposes the product for resale and sets the parameters for it.
Location: Supply Chain Manager, Edit Stock parameters
Overview
The dialogue offers a number of Q&A that discuss the environment in which a product is to be sold. Business Administrator makes the assumption that large numbers of the product will be resold over a certain lifetime. The answers you provide should be general: they are likely to change through other means during the lifetime of the stock definition.
Some of the Q&A will be assumed from the product definition, such as Supplier Code. Be sure to check any proposed answers.
Some of the questions don’t need to be answered: for example ‘Comment on price’ is only used if you use OutPosts whence they could appear on you website. If you are not using the information for a website then there’s little point in answering the question. Necessary answers, as always, are highlighted in red.
Order parameters
You must provide stock parameters. These are required for three reasons: firstly, it allows Business Administrator to tell you when your stock is running low; secondly, it allows Business Administrator to propose your order levels when you want to order stock, and thirdly, if you use Business Administrators automatic ordering system, then it will want you to state the limits of the order.
Automatic ordering system
In automatically ordering stock, Business Administrator will not necessarily use the figures you propose. Business Administrator will base automatic orders around the sales you make. If you make sales far beyond expectations then Business Administrator will recognise this and try to ensure you have sufficient stock. It recognises that immense damage will be done to your cash flow if you run out of stock. On the other hand, if sales of the product start to wane, then Business Administrator will decrease the order size appropriately.
If sales fail, then Business Administrator will recommend ways on which you can liquidise your stock, and, in extreme circumstances, it may suggest sales at a loss to turn the failed stock into cash. It may even propose that you use the stock as giveaways to at least achieve some marketing.
Stock characteristics
Some products are so identical that they are regarded as being the same product. A smoke tinted glass table might be regarded as being the same thing as a green tinted glass table: these are characteristics, and probably enjoy the same manufacturer or supplier codes. It is, nevertheless, vital that you adequately stocked with both. So Business Administrator uses characteristics to define the differences, and these characteristics survive from point of order to point of sale, and point of order again.
Special stock use
Most products will be sold as they come. But some can be split up and resold, or repacked and sold. This system, in Ways Forward, will ask Business Administrator to allow you to define the packaging environment in the Packaging dialogue. Splitting stock, to Business Administrator, is the same thing as packaging, but in reverse.
Remove from Resale Stock: this command makes the statement that the product is now redundant as stock, and the stock definition should be decommissioned.
New Stock - same Product: this allows you to clone the stock item, and provide new characteristics. In the example above, you might enter details of the smoke glass table, then use this command to clone it to provide details of the green tinted table.