Video Transcript
EZ Process Pro natively manages the ordering process for your company, whether that is adding stock to inventory or ordering items specifically for a customer sale. Ordering begins when you determine that an item needs to be added to inventory, and it ends once the item leaves inventory. In this video we’ll go over what the Ordering Process itself looks like in EZ Process Pro.
WHAT IS THE ORDERING PROCESS?
The ordering process, simply defined, is designed to determine what inventory is needed, communicate those needs to the furniture vendors, check the items into inventory when they arrive at your store, return damaged items to vendors, and pay for the items that were purchased. This can be broken down into 5 phases:
- Track inventory needs
- Create Purchase Order
- Receive Purchase Order
- Manage Inventory
- Pay for Purchase Order
Let’s look at phase 1, tracking inventory needs. When an item is determined to be needed in inventory by the system, the system will add it to the Items for PO page. This page allows your company to review the items by manufacturer, or by different details of the sale the item is needed for such as location or customer name.
There are two ways to automatically mark inventory as needed to be ordered and add them to the Items for PO page. The first has been discussed already, which is the reservation process. When a customer sale meets the criteria for the items to be ordered but the items aren’t available in inventory, the system will add those items to the Items for PO list. This allows your team to go through and add those items to a Purchase Order to a vendor.
The second way to automatically mark items as needing to be ordered is Minimum Stock. Minimum Stock is a setting you can apply per item in the software, which indicates when the item drops below a set amount in the software it will be added to the Items for PO list. For example, if you have minimum stock for the A-100 chair set to 3, as soon as there are only 2 or less of the items combined in available and on order inventory, the SKu will go to the Items for PO list. Minimum stock can be set to be company wide or per location.
Of course, you can also add items to a Purchase Order manually without using the Items for PO list. This is used with the Generate PO for Stock function. In a later video, we will go over all 3 different methods to see how each one adds an item to a Purchase Order.
In Phase 2 of the ordering process, you will create a Purchase Order. Purchase Orders, also called POs, are lists of items that you are ordering from a vendor. They include details like the SKU and different finishes, fabrics, and options, and track how many of each SKU in what style you want. POs also detail which location to deliver the items to. A Purchase Order has a few stages as it moves through the system- Unprinted, Non-Received, and Received.
Unprinted means that items have been added to the list, but the PO has not been printed or sent to the vendor yet. The Unprinted PO can have items added, items removed, and quantities changed up until the point it is sent to the vendor. To send a PO to the vendor, changing it from an Unprinted PO to a Non-Received PO, you will need to choose one of a few options: Print, Email, or PO Direct to Vendor. All 3 options save the Purchase Order in the system as a finalized PO, which can no longer be edited and is counted as a Non-Received PO. The items on the PO are now considered to be On Order, which you can see when you check the inventory in the system.
A Received PO is a PO that has some or all of the items on the Purchase Order checked into inventory. Items can be received 1 of two ways: the Receive all from List page and directly from the Purchase Order itself.
These two methods achieve the same thing in different ways. The Receive All from List page allows you to mix and match items from different vendors, manufacturers, and Purchase Orders. For example, if you have two Purchase Orders, you can check in 1 item from PO 100 and 1 item from PO 200 at the same time. If you choose to check items in directly through a Purchase Order, you can only check in the items from one PO at a time. When checking items in through a Purchase Order, you only have one opportunity to check in the item. If an item is not checked in at that time, it is counted as being on “Back Order to the Vendor” and goes back to the Items for PO page.
When you Receive items through either the Receive all From List page or from the Purchase Order itself, you attach it to a Vendor Invoice. You track the cost of the item, the cost of the freight, and any adjustments that need to be made, such as a 10% discount offered by the vendor. You also choose the terms of payment such as COD or Available Credit. The finances are applied throughout the system, such as on reports that calculate costs like Inventory Movement Report or on the financial reports in the accounting area such as the Accounts Payable report. The bookkeeping or accounting team can then mark the invoices as paid through EZ Process Pro.
At this point, the items have been checked into inventory and completed the Ordering Process. Now that you have items in inventory, you can move items from one location to another, place reservations on items, mark damaged and repaired items, and run reports on inventory to see what is in stock, selling quickly, providing the best profit margins, and more.
SUMMARY
Now that you’ve watched this video, you understand more of what the ordering process looks like in EZ Process Pro and how it relates to the reservation process and inventory. As you continue with videos in this series, you’ll see detailed breakdowns of how to use the different features in the Ordering Process that will allow you to easily follow along in your own system.