Inventory Management :
Inventory Management is the management of an organization’s material stock so that there is enough stock available always without having too few or too many. It is important and necessary to track the existing inventory within an organization.
Drawbacks of managing Inventory manually:
- Requires manual updating of records.
- An error in a formula or forgetting to update the spreadsheet can cause inventory quantities to be incorrect.
- No tracking or control of inventory that can increase theft and risk of loss.
Benefits of Cflow’s Inventory Management Solution:
Inventory Management solution in Cflow helps to manage your warehouse space, manage inventory, keep track of the movement of goods within the storage location. A group of workflows and lookups that are relevant to inventory management is organized into a Solution.
When you initiate a request in Cflow, all the information related to inventory can be entered in the form. This request is routed to the appropriate department heads for approval.
Lookups can be configured to auto-populate the most common details in a form, based on any other field as a reference value. For instance, whenever an Indent request is initiated in Cflow it has an auto-generated indent number. This is a reference purchase order number. You can enter this reference number in a form to auto-populate the product details associated with this reference number.
Supplier Lookup holds the repository with the supplier name, supplier code and communication address. This can be used to auto-populate the field values associated with the supplier. Similarly, the following lookups -company, product and product prefix holds the repository of necessary details. You can use these details to auto-populate in the form.
An outlook of the inventory management process solution in Cflow is described below:
Indent request:
When an internal department requires some materials for their processes, they submit an indent request to the Purchase Department. After reviewing the indent submitted by the particular department, Purchase Department will send a request for quotations to single or multiple vendors with adequate information such as material required, quantity, schedule, etc. Request for quotation is sent to multiple vendors, their quotations will be compared based on different factors such as price, estimated delivery time with the help of Comparative Statements. On verifying the comparative statement, Purchasing Department selects a particular vendor and purchase order is placed.
Purchases :
Purchased material is added to the inventory and purchase entry is made to update the inventory records. Purchase entry includes the Purchase Order No, Supplier details, product details and invoice details for the procured materials. When you enter the reference purchase order number all the product details are auto-populated in a form from indent request workflow based on lookup configuration. Payment is made to the vendor upon approval of the Stores Manager and the purchased item is added to the inventory.
Purchase return :
Once the materials are received, they need to be examined to confirm their quality. Excessive purchase returns can hinder the profitability of your business. Hence they should be closely monitored. There may be number of reasons for purchase returns, you may have initially acquired an excessive quantity, acquired the wrong goods or acquired goods is inadequate in some way.
Goods Return note explains why the items are rejected and returned to the vendor. In this case, procured items are reduced from stores inventory.
Issue Request :
An issue request is to keep track of the consumption of materials received and the distribution of materials to various departments. The purpose is to authorize the storekeeper to release the goods which have been requisitioned and to update the inventory records.
Issue returns:
An employee will return the goods that belong to her when she leaves the company or the goods issued to them are found to be defective. Goods returned from the employee are added back to stores inventory.
Inventory Alterations:
Inventory adjustments are corrections of inventory or stock records to bring them into an agreement with the findings of the actual physical inventory.
Inventory adjustments increases or decreases made in inventory to account for theft, loss, breakages, and errors in the amount or number of items received.
Scrap conversion:
Scrap conversion is done when materials are found defective. Waste materials in an organization such as old laptops, broken furniture, etc., that either has no economic value or only the value of its basic material content recoverable through recycling. On a periodic basis, you need to monitor scrap and earn conversion costs.
