Order and Inventory Management Systerm?

[Korey]

I'm researching order/inventory management systems and was hoping for input from you all. I'm aware of Stone Edge but little else. I was hoping the QBooks/Synchro/MIVA triad would work but Synchro has a major hole and can't fill our needs.

So, other than Stone Edge, has anyone used an order and inventory management system that works well with MIVA and QBooks, or perhaps replaces QBooks. Here's a more specific rundown of our needs:

Inventory Management

• synchronizes both the online store and our QBooks inventory
• integrates with a bar code scanner
• track product lots by date code
• track product returns, damaged goods, mispicks, etc

Pricing

• need to be able to have unique item pricing per customer (QB premier does this but not Pro)

Reporting

• need robust reporting equal to or better than QBooks. We work with a manufacturer to whom we send monthly data feeds (I can be more specific if need be)

MIVA

• Download orders into QBooks to eliminate double entry

Accounting

• Allow us to keep existing customer order history from QBooks (Synchro's fatal flaw!)
• A/R (our A/P is handled out of a separate office)
• Multi-user capable

Thanks for your help!

Korey

[Barney Stone]

Re: Order and Inventory Management Systerm?

As you can tell from the deafening silence, there are not a lot of alternatives. The leaders in the field are (in alphabetical order) Dydacomp (Mail Order Manager or MOM), OrderMotion and Stone Edge (my company). Of the three, we are the only one that participates regularly in forums like this. I don't think that any of them will give you exactly what you are looking for. I can't give you details on the others, but I can tell you how the Stone Edge Order Manager would meet your requirements.

The first thing you have to know is that Quickbooks Pro is limited to 14,500 each for invoices, customers, products, etc. Those are not adequate numbers for even small ecommerce companies, and that is one of the reasons why the Order Manager keeps all of that detailed information in its system, and just sends daily summaries to QB.

Now to your specific requirements:

• Synchronizes both the online store and our QBooks inventory - Syncs with Order Manager inventory, not QB.
• Integrates with a bar code scanner - Yes, for numerous functions.
• Track product lots by date code - No; hope to have that feature available in our Enterprise Version in Q1 or Q2 of 2010.
• Track product returns, damaged goods, mispicks, etc - Yes
• Need to be able to have unique item pricing per customer - For Web orders, the Order Manager accepts whatever was charged on the Web, so that would depend on your shopping cart's capabilities. For manually entered (phone, mail, etc.) orders, you can have up to 10 price levels, and assign customers to price levels. You can also configure individual customers for cost plus or percent off pricing. And you can manually over-ride prices. But we do not store specific prices per customer per product.
• Need robust reporting equal to or better than QBooks. - Yes. Uses Microsoft Access' report generator and allows for custom reports. There is also a third-party reporting system that works with the Order Manager.
• Download orders into QBooks to eliminate double entry - Downloads orders into the Order Manager, not QB. Need for double-entry is eliminated.
• Allow us to keep existing customer order history from QBooks - Yes. However, that will not be tied to the new customer order history in the Order Manager. To do that you would have to import your existing orders from QB into the OM, which is possible but not easy.
• A/R - Yes.
• Multi-user capable - Yes.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Korey]

Re: Order and Inventory Management Systerm?

Thanks Barney.

Although I'm leaning towards your software, I need to be able to present alternatives to my bosses. I appreciate the fact that you mentioned your competitors.

I'm sure I'll be talking with one of your sales reps very soon.

Korey

[Korey]

Re: Order and Inventory Management Systerm?

I just got off the phone with a sales rep for Order Manager and there were a few questions that he wasn't sure about.

1) Pricing levels - Does the pricing level system work similar to MIVA? We use price levels in a non-standard way but I'm able to make it work with MIVA's built in two levels (i.e. cost and retail). I'm hoping Order Manager works similarly.

2) Unit of Measure - Can individual items be assigned a unit of measure (e.g. EA or CS)? Can that be pulled into a report?

3) Reporting - Can reports be exported to excel? (I didn't ask the rep this one)

4) A/R - Can we synchronize our existing customer transaction histories (i.e. invoices and payments) with Order Manager so we can seamlessly track outstanding balances and send statements to customers with unpaid invoices itemized?

That's it for now.

Thanks again Barney!

Korey

[Barney Stone]

Re: Order and Inventory Management Systerm?

I just got off the phone with a sales rep for Order Manager and there were a few questions that he wasn't sure about.

1) Pricing levels - Does the pricing level system work similar to MIVA? We use price levels in a non-standard way but I'm able to make it work with MIVA's built in two levels (i.e. cost and retail). I'm hoping Order Manager works similarly.

I do not know how Miva's price levels work. However, for Web orders, the Order Manager always accepts whatever was charged in the shopping cart. So any prices charged in Miva will be used for those orders. The Order Manager's pricing is only used for manually entered orders, point of sale orders and if you add a line item or revise a SKU in a Web order. You can create up to 10 price levels, and each product can have different regular, sale and quantity pricing for each price level. You can assign customers to price levels, and you can also configure customers for cost plus or percent off pricing.

2) Unit of Measure - Can individual items be assigned a unit of measure (e.g. EA or CS)? Can that be pulled into a report?

We do not have a field for unit of measure, but you could use one of the custom product fields for that purpose, in which case it could also be used in custom reports. However, orders can only be placed in integer (whole number) quantities. Both of those may change next year when we overhaul our inventory management system to add new features that have been requested by our users.

3) Reporting - Can reports be exported to excel? (I didn't ask the rep this one)

Yes, reports can be exported to Excel, but they are pretty ugly. It's often better to use an Access query to collect your data and export that to Excel instead.

4) A/R - Can we synchronize our existing customer transaction histories (i.e. invoices and payments) with Order Manager so we can seamlessly track outstanding balances and send statements to customers with unpaid invoices itemized?

I'm not sure about that. I know we have had users import orders from QB, but I don't know about importing the balances in any form that the Order Manager could make use of. I suspect it would not be practical.

Hope that helps.

[Korey]

Re: Order and Inventory Management Systerm?

• Track product lots by date code - No; hope to have that feature available in our Enterprise Version in Q1 or Q2 of 2010.

Thanks Barney. Any chance you're aware of customers who have implemented a workaround or 3rd party solution for tracking by serial/lot codes?

Or, any chance a 3rd party programmer could implement this feature relatively inexpensively?

I'm being told that this is an important feature in order to meet standards from the American Institute of Baking on inventory tracking.

Thanks for your help!

Korey

[Barney Stone]

Re: Order and Inventory Management Systerm?

Korey -

You can use a barcode scanner at the Order Manager's Pack & Ship screen to scan in serial numbers as items are packed. If each item had a barcode of its lot number, you could use those in place of serial numbers. That would show which lots were shipped to which customer, but it would not help track the lots on the shelf in your warehouse. I don't know if that will solve your problem, but it might be a partial solution.