The Inventory Control Settings window is where you set all of parameters used when using Inventory Control.

Vendor

Use this drop-down menu to select which vendor you want to use Inventory Control for. Min/Max, Promo, and Negatives will only be generated for this code.

Min/Max Formula

Min/Max Formula section of the Settings window is very important to both Min/Max and Computer Assisted Ordering. This is where you specify how you want Substruct Utilities to determine when items need reordering.

The Min/Max formula is comprised of three sections: supply level, past sales history, and future sales history. Each of these drop-down menus play an important role in configuring Min/Max to work efficiently.

• Supply Level
  This is the amount of time in days or weeks that want to keep on hand. For example: if you sell 3 wrenches every week, and you set this value to “3 Weeks” (3 x 3 = 9), the system will reorder the item every time there are less that 9 in the store.
• Past Sales History
  This is the amount of time in days or weeks that the system will look back to determine how often you sell this item. Lets say you sell 2 wrenches this week, 4 last week, none the week before last, and 8 the week before that. If you set your “Past Sale History” value to 3 weeks and your week supply is set to “3 Weeks”, the min would be 6 ([2 + 4 + 0] / 3 = 2 per week x 3 weeks = 6). But let’s say you look back 4 weeks in history. The formula would be [2 + 4 + 0 + 6] / 4 = 3 per week x 3 weeks = 9).
• Future Sales History
  When you set this value to anything more that “0 Days” the system will look back one year ago and use sales history from the upcoming weeks. This is great for figuring mins out for seasonal items! Lets looks at another example: Let’s say that the date is 7/15/05. If you have the formula set to look back 2 weeks and forward 4 weeks the system will look for all items sold between 7/1/05 and 7/15/05, and then combine that with 7/16/04 through 8/13/04. Let’s say you should 4 last week, 2 two weeks ago, and then 2, 4, 5, and then 7 for 7/16/04 through 8/13/04. The formula for a one week minimum would be [4 + 2 + 2 + 4 + 5 + 7] / 6 weeks = 4. Multiply that by your week supply and you get the min!

  As you can see, if we had just looked back two weeks, we would have a min of only 3, but based on last year at this time, we should really have min of 4!

  Note: Keep in mind that this feature will only work if you have sale history for over a year. Set the “Future” value to “0 Days” to disable the feature.

Min/Max Rounding

In the event that the Min/Max formula above generates a fraction, which can happen very frequently, it must be rounded. You can’t exactly order 4.56 hammers! This area is where you set how the system will round. There is also a check box for rounding fractions less that one up to one. This is useful when you have the system set to round down when there is a fraction, but you don’t want to round slow moving items to zero.

With this view you can view all items in any given Promotional code. You can then adjust mins, default mins, and discontinued codes accordingly.

Generating a Promo List

To fill the view with items from a Promo code, select the desired Promo code from the drop down menu at the bottom of the window and then press the Generate button in the bottom left hand corner of the window. The list will be filled with every item from the selected Promo code. You can then use the view to discontinue items or raise mins and default mins so that the items are ordered when you generate you next order.

The Delete Button

If at any time you wish to clear the view of data, press the Delete button located in the bottom left hand corner of the window.

The Print

The Print button allows you to print out a report of the current view, sorted by any field.

The Update Button

After you have made any changes you wish to make, you must press the Update button. This button will update the Min, Def Min, and Dis fields into Cougar Moutain.

Hide Discontinued Items Checkbox

If at any time you want to hide all items that have a discontinued code from the current view, just check this check box.

The Fields of the Promo View

 

• Stock
  The stock number of the current item.
• Description
  The description of the item.
• OM
  The order multiply. This is the “Unit Package” from Cougar Mountain.
• OH
  The current on-hand quantity.
• Min
  The minimum on-hand value. When using computer assisted ordering, the item will be reordered when the on-hand is lower that the min. This number is auto-generated by Inventory Control. If changed, the new Min will be updated into Cougar Mountain. Note: Any Mins that you update into Cougar Mountain will get overwritten the next time you use Inventory Control to generate Mins. If you want to permanently change the Min, use Default Min.
• Def Min
  The default minimum on-hand value. This value is the lowest possible value that the Min value will be adjusted to when using Inventory Control to automatically adjust Mins. This value is set by the user in the Inventory module of Cougar Mountain. If changed, the new Default Min will be updated into Cougar Mountain.
• Class
  The 3-digit Ace merchandise class. In Cougar Mountain, this field is called Product Type.
• Inter
  The UPC code for the item.
• Alt
  An alternate stock number for the product. The field is usually the manufacture’s stock number.
• Price
  The current retail price of the item in Cougar Mountain.
• Promo
  The sale retail price of the item on the current Promo code.
• Dis
  The discontinued code. This field will be blank unless the item is discontinued., in which case a discontinued code will appear.
• The Delete Button
  To delete a record from the view, simply click the “X” button to the left of the record you wish to delete.

Paul Linn, manager of Zettler Ace Hardware in Columbus, OH, came up with these tips for using Substruct Utilities for Inventory Control and Computer Assisted ordering.

Why should I bother keeping accurate on-hands? And why use Computer Assisted Ordering?

• According to Ace Hardware Corp., stores that use Computer Assisted Ordering have larger sales increases with less inventory on hand. Plus, Computer Assisted Ordering is more productive: an Ace order takes less than 2 hours to complete.
• If you have more than one store, accurate on hands make stock balancing between different locations possible; increasing turnover for each location along with being able to take advantage of pallet purchases for multiple stores. At minimum you can check stock at other stores using the computer and an Internet connection.
• When your on hands are accurate, year-end inventory is just a matter of printing reports and counting bulk goods.

So how do I keep my on hands accurate?

• If everything that enters or leaves your store goes through the computer system, your inventory will be fairly accurate.
• Point of Sale - Cashier accuracy in Point of Sale is vital. More inventory errors happen at the register than anywhere else. If the product has a UPC code, scan it. Train your cashiers to use the “Create Special Order…” feature for items that are not in the system, and make sure they scan every item. Try to avoid using the quantity field; scan each item like they do at the grocery store. (How many times have you seen a cashier ring up four 60 watt light bulbs when there was actually two 60’s and two 100’s, but the packages look the same.)
• Run your Substruct Non-Inventory and “Create Special Order…” reports daily and follow up with your cashiers.
• Receiving - Don’t forget to receive dropship (3rd party) orders and interstore transfers using Cougar Mountain’s “Adjust Stock Quantities”. Everything that enters the store should be received, not just Ace orders.
• Policy A, defective, and store use goods should all be processed through POS using the tendered key.
• Shrinkage happens! Follow the 80/20 rule - 80% of your inventory problems come from 20% of your SKU’s. If you can control the 20%, the other 80% will take care of itself.
  • Check for out-of-stocks weekly - After you have receivied your weekly order and updated it into Cougar Mountain, check all empty Ace peg hooks using the Cycle Counts module. Then have a detail oriented employee print out and go through the exceptions report. Keep in mind that the chances are if the computer says you have something in stock, it probably has more than 1 peg hook or it is stocked in the wrong spot.
  • Stocking - Have your stockers write down SKUs and counts of any overstocked items that they stock, then adjust your inventory using Cycle Counts after the invoice has been updated into Cougar Mountain. Remember: If the peghook is full and you’re receiving more, chances are the on hand is incorrect.
  • Be very careful when using Cycle Counts. Having an inaccurate person taking inventory is just as bad as having an inaccurate cashier.
  • Cycle counts - do on a systematic basis; 1/12th of the store - once a month, 1/52th once a week, etc. When you are counting, scan UPC codes, not bin tags. Also make sure all items have the same UPC code for that peg hook or shelf spot.

This view is designed to help you monitor and deal with items that have an on hand quantity that is less than zero.

Generating a Negatives List

To fill the view with items that are negative, press the Negative button in the bottom left hand corner of the window. The list will be filled with every item that has an on hand value less that zero.

The Delete Button

If at any time you wish to clear the view of data, press the Delete button located in the bottom left hand corner of the window.

The Print

The Print button allows you to print out a report of the current view, sorted by any field. It is very useful for printing out your negatives and then walking the sales floor and checking the counts of the items on the report.

The Update Button

After you have typed the correct count into the “Count” field, you must press the Update button. This button will update the Min, Def Min, and Dis fields into Cougar Moutain AND it will create a batch that needs to be posted in order to reset the onhand counts. 

Hide Discontinued Items Checkbox

If at any time you want to hide all items that have a discontinued code from the current view, just check this check box.

The Fields of the Negatives View

 

• Stock
  The stock number of the current item.
• Description
  The description of the item.
• OM
  The order multiply. This is the “Unit Package” from Cougar Mountain.
• OH
  The current on-hand quantity.
• Min
  The minimum on-hand value. When using computer assisted ordering, the item will be reordered when the on-hand is lower that the min. This number is auto-generated by Inventory Control. If changed, the new Min will be updated into Cougar Mountain.Note: Any Mins that you update into Cougar Mountain will get overwritten the next time you use Inventory Control to generate Mins. If you want to permanently change the Min, use Default Min.
• Def Min
  The default minimum on-hand value. This value is the lowest possible value that the Min value will be adjusted to when using Inventory Control to automatically adjust Mins. This value is set by the user in the Inventory module of Cougar Mountain. If changed, the new Default Min will be updated into Cougar Mountain.
• Class
  The 3-digit Ace merchandise class. In Cougar Mountain, this field is called Product Type.
• Inter
  The UPC code for the item.
• Alt
  An alternate stock number for the product. The field is usually the manufacture’s stock number.
• Price
  The current retail price of the item in Cougar Mountain.
• Count
  The count of the item. When updating a section into Cougar Mountain, this number will overwrite the On-Hand field.
• Dis
  The discontinued code. This field will be blank unless the item is discontinued., in which case a discontinued code will appear.
• The Delete Button
  To delete a record from the view, simply click the “X” button to the left of the record you wish to delete.

The Min/Max view of Inventory Control is the brains behind Computer Assisted Ordering. You can use it to generate a “Minimum On Hand” based on sales history. Using a date range that you decide in the Inventory Control Settings, Min/Max will look into you past sales history and generate the number need on-hand for the given range of days. Search for Min/Max settings for more info on the specifics of this formula.

Generating Minimums and Maximums

When you click the Generate button, Substruct utilities will recalculate a minimum for every item in your store based on the setting you set in Inventory Control Settings. If and item has a Default Minimum, then the min that Min/Max generates will NEVER be lower than the Default. The list will then be filled with every item (from the vendor you specified in the settings) with a Min in your Database.

The Delete Button

If at any time you wish to clear the view of data, press the Delete button located in the bottom left hand corner of the window.

The Print

The Print button allows you to print out a report of the current view, sorted by any field. It is very useful for printing out your negatives and then walking the sales floor and checking the counts of the items on the report.

The Update Button

After you have generated and adjusted you Mins and Default Mins,you must press the Update button. This button will update the Min, Def Min, and Dis fields into Cougar Moutain. When you update your Min/Max’s, any item not on the list (with the same vendor code) will have it’s min set to zero.

Hide Discontinued Items Checkbox

If at any time you want to hide all items that have a discontinued code from the current view, just check this check box.

The Fields of the Min/Max View

• Stock
  The stock number of the current item.
• Description
  The description of the item.
• OM
  The order multiply. This is the “Unit Package” from Cougar Mountain.
• OH
  The current on-hand quantity.
• Min
  The minimum on-hand value. When using computer assisted ordering, the item will be reordered when the on-hand is lower that the min. This number is auto-generated by Inventory Control. If changed, the new Min will be updated into Cougar Mountain.Note: Any Mins that you update into Cougar Mountain will get overwritten the next time you use Inventory Control to generate Mins. If you want to permanently change the Min, use Default Min or Manual Min.
• Def Min
  The default minimum on-hand value. This value is the lowest possible value that the Min value will be adjusted to when using Inventory Control to automatically adjust Mins. This value is set by the user in the Inventory module of Cougar Mountain. If changed, the new Default Min will be updated into Cougar Mountain.
• Class
  The 3-digit Ace merchandise class. In Cougar Mountain, this field is called Product Type.
• Inter
  The UPC code for the item.
• Alt
  An alternate stock number for the product. The field is usually the manufacture’s stock number.
• Price
  The current retail price of the item in Cougar Mountain.
• Cost
  The dealer cost of the item.
• Dis
  The discontinued code. This field will be blank unless the item is discontinued., in which case a discontinued code will appear.
• The Delete Button
  To delete a record from the view, simply click the “X” button to the left of the record you wish to delete.

The “Discontinued” filed is a field added to Cougar Mountain for monitoring which items in your database you do not want to reorder. When you use Ordering to generate a computer assisted order, it will ignore any item with a Discontinued Code. This field shows up in many different reports and modules throughout Substruct Utilities, and is very useful for catching items that you don’t want reordered. Discontinued Codes are useful for preventing seasonal and special order items from reordering, as well as items that are actually discontinued. Below is a list of some of the discontinued codes in the system by default. You can add your own discontinued codes if you wish; just don’t delete any of these codes as some are vital to certain parts of the program.

• DA - Discontinued by Ace
  These items have been discontinued by Ace and are no longer carried in the warehouse. This code gets automatically applied to items when you update your Hotsheets into Cougar Mountain. Search for Hotsheets for more info.
• DD - Discontinued by the Discovery Planner
  These items were discontinued by the Discovery Planner program. Search for Discovery Planner for more info.
• DU - Discontinued by User
  These items have be discontinued by the user. Use this code to manually discontinue an item. This is useful for discontinuing old items and items from other vendors.
• SE - Seasonal
  This is a temporary code used to prevent seasonal items like grass seed and snow shovels from reordering at the end of their respective seasons. At the beginning and end of each season you should pay close attention to seasonal items with/without this code.
• SO - Special Order
  This code is for when you special order a product for a customer, but you don’t want to reorder that item on a regular basis.
• MM- Manual Min
  This is a special code that will no discontinue an item, but will instead prevent Inventory Control from ever changing the min, regardless of sales rising and falling. This is similar to the Default Min column which makes sure there is always a certain amount is in stock, but will grow with sales.

The Merchandise Class Maintenance Tool is designed to track down Ace items that are missing their Merchandise Class number - you cannot use Computer Assisted Ordering to order items without a merchandise class numbers!

To use the tool, follow the steps below.

• Click Generate to fill the list with your invalid items.
• Input the correct merchandise class number into the Class field.
• Click Update to update the changes into Cougar Moutain.

Computer Assisted Ordering will now be able to order the updated items!

Inventory Control

The Inventory Control Module is an integral tool for managing your store’s inventory. Monitoring stock items that hand negative quantities on hand, adjusting minimums and maximums, and generating inventory related reports are just a few of its main functions. It is the brain behind Computer Assisted Ordering.

The Three Views of Inventory Control

Inventory Control has three main views, each accessible by one of the three buttons located at the top of the Inventory Control window. They are Negatives, Promo, and Min/Max. Click one of the links below for more info.

• Negatives
  This view is designed to help you monitor and deal with items that have an quantity on hand less than zero.
• Promo
  With this view you can view all items in a given Promotional Pricing code (from the Inventory module of Cougar Mountain). You can then adjust mins, default mins, and discontinued codes accordingly.
• Min/Max
  The Min/Max view of Inventory Control is the brains behind Computer Assisted Ordering. You can use it to generate a “Minimum On Hand” based on sales history, as well as place items in “discontinued” status, preventing the computer from automatically reorder them.

Inventory Control Reports

Inventory Control has five different reports you can run to monitor different aspects of you inventory: Understock, Overstock, Shrinkage, Discontinued Items, and Uncounted Items.

Inventory Control Settings

The settings window of Inventory Control is where you configure settings such as the Min/Max formula. 

About Discontinued Items

The “Discontinued” filed is a field added to Cougar Mountain for monitoring which items in your database you do not want to reorder.