Purchase Orders – Inventory & Stock Control

It amazes me to see how many people don’t count stock upon delivery. Or worse don’t enforce the task is carried out by whichever staff member is receiving in the delivery. Numerous customers, I have talked to have admitted to not counting stock upon delivery because they were too busy , weren’t available etc.. Well the reality is mistakes do happen, wrong quantities, and items can get delivered. The importance of taking control of stock is vital for the success of any business.
If you get the wrong items in a delivery, they may not be what your target market are looking for so you end up with the stock 1) taking up space and 2) if its perishable going out of date, both causing you revenue loss.  It’s a matter of habit and getting into the right habits.
I have to say Microsoft’s RMS Store operation does an exceptional job of handling stock. You simply set up your suppliers, and the items for the suppliers initially. It is then a simple task of creating the purchase order which can be emailed, printed (which you can then fax), exported to excel, or word. A neat feature is the flexibility of creating your purchase order whether it according to suppliers (which warns you if you choose and item that is not set up for the supplier but will allow you to add it anyway after asking are you sure?), categories, departments or a blank purchase order plus many more options. If you want further info on the options post back with your query. When a delivery is received there is the option do a quick scan or update the items manually by filling in the correct quantity for each item delivered. If the order is all counted and matches the P.O. quantities you can simply click the receive all button and the stock quantities for the items are updated on the system automatically.
As you probably already know the quantities delivered do not always match and a delivery can be split, this is no problem in RMS, only the items delivered are updated with the new quantities and the items not delivered will be highlighted until they are delivered or you delete the purchase order.