Immediate access to job costing and job billings allow you to maximize your estimates and improve your gross margins. All steps of the process, from invoices back through purchase orders and work orders, are available with SIMMS’ Job Costing Module. As you enter current details, your estimates become more realistic, job costs can be adjusted, and all data can be assessed by the software’s robust analytics. In addition, you can track materiel, manpower and service charges through a vibrant accounting process to guarantee that you are making the most of your labor force and have stock on hand to get the job done. From the versatility of managing your markups on the fly to spotting problem areas in your processes, SIMMS’ Job Costing Module helps keep both your bottom line and customers very comfortable indeed.
Costing Out Jobs: Making the Most of Your Information
August 17th, 2010KCSI STRIDES AHEAD WITH DISTRIBUTORSHIP
August 16th, 2010INVOTEC Appointed as SIMMS Distributor
KCSI is excited to announce the formation of a new SIMMS Software Distributorship in Australia with INVOTEC PTY Ltd. INVOTEC is looking forward to expanding its offering to support the worlds Inventory Control/Accounting software needs. This opportunity has long been an objective of the company and INVOTEC is committed to delivering quality services to customers following the vote of confidence shown by the KCSI in granting INVOTEC this SIMMS distribution license.
INVOTEC is a SIMMS support endorsed company with a software support management system covering all the requirements of the standard, with a dedicated department ensuring the management, monitoring and improvement of customer support and services. INVOTEC has been working toward this eventful day reviewing the overseas market and setting up strategies to deliver quality services to SIMMS users.
INVOTEC has set-up a new company infrastructure which will include support and training services delivered by qualified experts, many of which have been trained by KCSI, the trainers at KCSI have years of experience working with the inventory management/accounting software needs of many different industries for both military, government organizations and private companies. INVOTEC will not only deliver SIMMS software to international customers but will also provide support services from its network of SIMMS support and training staff. Invotec services will include, SIMMS Software Sales, training courses and SIMMS help desk support will be available via phone, email and dedicated customer help desk system log-ins to the 24/7 Invotec internet help desk facility, SIMMS installation and optimisation services will also be offered.
SIMMS Software customization requirements will still be completed by KCSI however Invotec will be handling the flow of information to and from the end user, in order to assure quick and accurate deliverables.
KCSI has a excellent reputation for customer service and project delivery. This approach to customers will continue with support from its network of resellers and distributors around the world, strategically located to provide a quick and personal response to customers.
INVOTEC recognizes the inherent value of the iconic SIMMS brand to its business and has set up a company structure to deliver the required services with many experts in the field trained by the KCSI team.
My Repair Truck: An Inventory Management Example
August 13th, 2010[Here's another question submitted by someone looking for inventory advice]
I have an old truck I use for keeping stock that is for refilling my other service vehicles. It sort of is like a tender ship we used to have when I was in the Navy. It even carries fan belts and other stuff to repair the service trucks. How can I keep straight what I doled out to each service truck?
In this case, I would first suggest that you set your vehicles up as locations in your inventory system. They are, after all, physical areas in which you keep materials that you want to track, so despite the fact that the vehicles are also equipment stock that you might maintain in your inventory model (with schedules tracked for warranties, oil changes, insurance renewals and the like) the trucks all represent locations in which you keep inventory items.
If it were me, I’d go into SIMMS [my own chosen inventory management system] and create the following location numbers and names:
TT1, TT1-IH1, TT1-BIN1, TT1BIN2, TT1BIN3…and as many more as I need. The letters TT refer to Tender Truck (my name for the old truck described above). The IH refers to In- House (the container/section of the tender truck that holds the fanbelts and other such items that repair the service vehicles). The BINs are the assorted bins that hold the replenishing stock that the tender truck “doles out”. Anything after the TT1- in the lebel would be for a sub-location (stock area) of the Tender Truck.
Next, I would create the same breakdown for the service vehicles: one location for each service truck (ST1, for example) and then one each for its own particular inventory subdivisions (SHF1 could be Shelf One, RK2 could be Rack Two, and so forth).
Based on this, you would quickly see the pattern of transactions develop, such as inventory transfers like the following:
Transfer 0f 50 widgets from TT1-BIN1 to ST3-SHF1, thus giving the first shelf in Service Truck Three a refill of widgets, and decreasing the widget stock of Bin One on the Tender Truck by the same quantity. Both drivers could keep track of all such transfers and you would know where things are. In the case of repairs, this is where you use the in-house (IH) location. Your transfer of goods would be from TT1-IH1 to ST3, for example, to allot a new set of wiper blades to Service Vehicle 3. And if the fan belt was needed to repair the Tender Truck itself, then the fan belt would be transferred from TT1-IH1 to TT1. Run a stock report of any of the vehicles and you can see how much stock has moved in and out, such as when Service Truck Three invoiced out 20 widgets to the South Power Plant during its afternoon service rounds.
Managing the inventory this way allows for your system to be maintained and at all points in time you know where the stock items are: they are received into your warehouse, transferred to your Tender Truck, then transferred to your Service Trucks and sold from there to clients or customers or to projects that your Service Trucks maintain. Vehicle maintenance is easy to plan for, to list and to assess.
I hope this style of management helps others who have similar concerns about details and accuracy in a similar system model.
Tracking Inbound Receipts: Increase Your Customer Service
August 11th, 2010Inventory management is very often helped by adding the capability—or utilizing the ability of many freight carriers—to track inbound receipts. UPS and FedEx already provide this tracking service to their clients. Many a fulfillment operation has been improved by such tracking and further inbound improvement systems can be instituted locally at the level of the vendor, who can become involved in sending ASNs when purchase order contents have been shipped. This tends to really help smaller businesses, especially in terms of their DC planning.
Contact KCSI today to learn more about how SIMMS Inventory management software can help your business keep on top of your inbound goods.
Can You Get Your Accounting Data Where It Needs To Go?
August 9th, 2010Can your accounting data be exported as a PDF so that the Sales Department can view it?
Do you manage your accounting and inventory in separate programs?
Can the information you have in one be pulled into the other?
If the answers to any of these questions is no, then check out SIMMS Inventory Management software’s Export to Accounting Module, and contact KCSI today for more information.
Why Does Everybody Call It a Widget?
August 6th, 2010The term ‘widget’ has a colorful history, and not just one that refers to the great unseen and unnamed inventory item.
First used in the early 1930 to refer to a small manufactured mechanical gadget, it was in common use for sixty years before it was used to describe two very different things by the early 1990s. Around that time, a widget became any any visual symbol on a computer screen that caused a particular operation to occur, such as accessory applications on both Apple and PC graphic user interfaces (like the back arrow at the top of an Internet browser) or in more recent years, the tiny Twitter and Facebook icons embedded in webpages. They are more accurately known as icons or toolbar buttons.
An old example of a widget...otherwise known as radio (or option) buttons.
At roughly the same time, certain bottles or cans of beer—particularly in cans of Guinness™ stout—a widget became the name for the 3 centimetre plastic ball that, once the can was opened, would release nitrogen into the beer and cause the distinctive ‘head’ when the contents were poured into a glass. Drinking a pint or two of this nectar in my lifetime, I also happen to have a friend who works for the company back in Ireland, and he has heard references in-house to the “nitroball”. So here, yet again, we find something called a widget that also has another, more accurate name.
Yet another usage of ‘widget’ is as a name for this thing:
However, this wonder of intentionally meddled perspective is more accurately known as a poiuyt.
No matter what its usage, either as a historically hypothetical inventory item, or some other unquantifiable thing, the term ‘widget’, after I have told people the history listed above, evokes from them one constant question:
“If all these things have actual other names, what is a widget, and what does it look like?”
My answer has always been instant and, oddly enough, it has satisfied every person to whom I ever gave the answer.
A widget looks like this:
No, there’s not a missing image there. We often see this object on web pages that, for whatever reason, have withheld content (usually images) from showing on the screen. It represents a missing thing…an object we might never ever see. To me, that is the very nature of the term “widget”, and because there are lots of other red Xs we could describe for people, I’ve always used ‘widget’ as the name for the above icon—unlike in all the other instances where the term ‘widget’ is used, the above object has no other name. Perhaps now we can all now relax and enjoy these beautiful widgets when we see them. And to top it all off, we now know what those typical inventory widgets look like: white cubes with a red X on each of their sides.
And face it—it’s as good an image as any.
What is an RMA?
August 4th, 2010One reader sent in the question in the title so I thought I would respond for all of you.
Often in sales, a customer will purchase some item from you and then for some reason they will need to return it to you. Perhaps they have a broken item, need a replacement, or they want a substitution or a credit, or maybe just they have changed their mind about a purchase just made. All these would become causes for—and process steps in—your company’s Returned Merchandise Authorization (RMA) procedure.
Some items, once having been received, can be processed back to the shelves for resale immediately. In the case of substitutions, the item’s original sale is reversed for a credit that is then applied toward the substitute item. In the case of a repair, however, the first step requires a CC (known as a coverage consideration). Do you return the item to the vendor from which you received it and receive a credit or a replacement piece automatically? Is there a warranty for the item, and if so, does the warranty rest with the manufacturer, the vendor you received it from or is the warranty from your company? Further, does your company have the ability to repair items in-house, and if so, how much time does it take and how much manpower and labor expense is allotted?
All these considerations—including the rare cases where distant customers inform you of a broken item by phone and request you send a replacement item before they have sent the broken piece back to you—are not complicated but they are detailed, and you need a comprehensive software package to help you master all the variables that might occur when a customer returns an item to you.
Contact KCSI today to find out more about how the RMA process can be managed accurately and easily with the right software for your needs.
SIMMS version 7.3.5 Released
August 3rd, 2010SIMMS Inventory Management Software version 7.3.5 has been released, according to KCSI CEO Sheldon Kornyk. New features and enhanced modules are included in this newest version, and advocates and users of this quality business software are tipped to get their upgrade today.
Contact KCSI today if you have any questions about the newest version of SIMMS.
How Do I Get More Info on the Sales Tags of My Jackets?
July 29th, 2010[This question was submitted by a desperate clothier a while back]
A great many businesses selling apparel want more data on their product tags, whether they sell shoes, t-shirts or in this case, jackets. The modern science of barcoding usually solves this challenge for them by printing off SKU numbers, which allow for multiple bits of information to be combined within the SKU.
For example, MAJAN is a possible section of a SKU number that provides two characters for the manufacturer’s name (MA for Marshall), two characters for the product (JA for jacket) and one character for material (N for nylon). In addition to NRF (National Retail Foundation) codes, manufacturer’s lot information can appear on the tag (such as 01-BK-L, which represents style 1, color black and size large) and many such barcode labels (tags) can be formatted to contain almost any information the seller requires.
One example produced for the person who asked the question is as follows:
In it, the customer wanted the item price, size and color information, SKU info and the item description, and that’s precisely what she got, in the layout style she needed. SIMMS Inventory Management software uses Crystal Reports to edit the content and design of the barcodes to fit dozens of industry-standard barcode tags, and customization can go beyond the established list to suit any company’s size and layout needs.
Contact KCSI today to learn more about how the details you want on your price tags can be added with speed and ease if you use SIMMS as your barcoding/price tagging solution.
Stock Transfers—Your Saving Grace During Rush Time
July 28th, 2010A customer calls with a need for a package of exactly twenty units of a certain product. However, your local storeroom only has fifteen. Using SIMMS Inventory Management software, the concern is quickly forgotten with a quick glance at SIMMS’ Quick Stock Window, which shows you all your stock in all your locations, both local and distant. You confirm the delivery with the customer then process an Item Transfer. Location B across town has the other five and you transfer them to your branch, and upon arrival, the entire shipment is out the door to the customer, as requested.
Here you go...
SIMMS’ Item Transfers are made from a simple Transfer window that allows movement of single items (or groups of items) simply and easily. The transfer confirmation process allows for complete up-to-the-minute accuracy when the receiving department logs into SIMMS the moment the goods physically arrive. Transfers can contain many items, all of which can be targeted specifically, such as Item 1 going to Shelf A, Item Two going to Bin B and Item 3 going to Room C.
Thus, while other companies are scrambling to both get orders placed with their vendors and then scheduling the delivery date(s) with their customers, you’ve already got the order on its way to the customer. Let your competitors be rushed and frustrated. With SIMMS Item Transfer feature, you can keep your cool and provide precise and timely service to your customers.
Contact KCSI today to learn more about how SIMMS can help your business succeed while you can devote more time to growing it instead of wasting time trying to run it.