Software for Sophisticated Inventory Management and Distribution Methods

The SouthWare Excellence Series is an integrated financial and management information software for sales and service companies.  It is well suited for wholesale and distribution environments, as well as light manufacturing and assembly, service and rental departments and AIA job costing environments.

SouthWare produces a comprehensive line of modules for your inventory-related operations. It is easily scalable for small to large systems. Your business won’t outgrow the software. You choose the modules that fit your needs today and easily incorporate additional modules as your company grows or your needs change.

Our sophisticated Inventory Control includes tracking numbers (serial, lot, etc.), various costing methods, multi-location flexibility, and many related capabilities to help you manage inventory levels and information. Purchasing features help you buy what you need, when you need it, and at the right price.

With SouthWare, you can track the assembly of items from inventory, returns to vendors, and returns from customers. Sales options include Point of Sale, Order Entry (and related shipping processes) and Rentals. Plus, powerful management tools ensure that you always know where you stand in reaching your goals for profitability and service.

Inventory Modules:

Inventory Control	Point of Sale
Order Entry	Purchasing
Return Authorization	Assembly Work Orders
Rental Department	Warehouse Tracking
Item Group Matrix

With SouthWare, front office and back-office operations become one interconnected business, providing multi-faceted conduits for information and decision making. With an inventory / distribution system this efficient, you will reduce inventory costs, increase revenue, and elevate customer satisfaction. 

The customizable family suite of business management software also includes: Financial Management, Service Management, System Administration Tools, eCommerce / eBusiness, and Business Management. 

The SouthWare Excellence Series is a comprehensive product with an impressive feature set that incorporates over 25 years of development and refinement. SouthWare’s development philosophy seeks to continuously enhance the mature product with recent technology.

 

 

Inventory Modules:

Inventory Control – Software For Your Back Office

When you have a large inventory you must manage it well if you want a successful business. SouthWare’s Inventory Control gives you up-to-the-minute detailed information on each item in your inventory. You’ll know exactly how much inventory comes in, how much is on-hand now, and where it goes.

• Get the up-to-the-minute quantity status for any item in your inventory.

• Know the value of your current inventory.

• Know the details of each time you’ve received inventory.

• Keep separate records for each inventory location you use.

• Easily verify your spot check counts against your inventory records.

• Produce shelf labels for your stock items.

• Access a perpetual ledger of all quantities in and out for each stock item.

• Track selected stock items by serial number, lot number, size, color, or other tracking breakdown.

• Adjust your inventory records for breakage, spoilage, or other defective quantities.

• Move quantities between inventory locations as needed.

• Keep extensive supporting information about each inventory item.

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Point of Sale - Customizable Integrated Software

For simple sales situations, you want to process the sale fast so the customer can be on his way. If the customer has questions you want instant access to the answers. For more complex sales situations you want to handle returns, discounts, delivery, split payments, and other needs quickly and accurately.

SouthWare’s Point of Sale integrates with SouthWare’s Inventory/Sales Series to give you a complete inventory sales and management system. With Point of Sale you get the power of an order entry system with the speed and convenience you need in a point of sale station. And you can customize the entry features and integrate hardware options to create the system that’s right for your business.

• Get your customers’ purchases checked out quickly.

• Combine returns and new sales on the same invoice.

• Capture as much or as little information about each customer as you wish.

• Make your people more efficient with hardware options such as electronic cash drawers and bar code readers.

• Easily handle special situations such as layaways, requests for delivery, and special orders.

• Instantly know the availability and location of any stock item.

• Remind your operators to suggest related add on items.

• Monitor your sales throughout the day.

• Tightly control receipts by tracking your cash, check, and credit card payments and reconciling them per operator.

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Order Processing - Fully Integrated Software

When your customers call in with an order, you want to be able to record the order accurately and then deliver it right the first time. This means you need a system that helps your staff be efficient, accurate, knowledgeable, and timely.

SouthWare’s Order Entry integrates with SouthWare’s Inventory/Sales Series to give you a complete order processing and inventory management system. With Order Entry you’ll be confident that you’re getting orders recorded accurately and courteously, shipping them right the first time, and getting them invoiced promptly.

• Get your customers’ orders recorded in less time.

• Immediately answer your customers’ questions about pricing, availability, order status, etc.

• Instantly access past sales orders for a customer and even duplicate one.

• Keep accurate records of returns, billing adjustments, no charge shipments, and other special situations.

• Sell what the customer needs even if you have to special order it or ship it from another location.

• Know exactly how and where the customer wants an order shipped, and even have an order drop-shipped from your vendor.

• Make sure a customer’s credit status gets checked before and after you record an order.

• Automatically handle complex situations involving special pricing, commission structures, or sales tax rates.

• Produce picking tickets and shipping labels to help you get the right items shipped to the right address at the requested time.

• Provide order acknowledgement forms to your customers to make sure the order is right before you ship it.

• Create sales quotations and then turn them into orders when the customer agrees to buy.

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Purchasing Software - Improves Inventory Control

The key to excellent purchasing is to provide great inventory service and get the most value for the money you invest in inventory. Your customers and employees want inventory to be available when they need it. But if you’re not careful you can eat up all your profit in inventory carrying costs.

SouthWare’s Purchasing integrates with SouthWare’s Inventory/Sales Series to help you achieve your inventory goals. You get the help you need to set and maintain target stock levels, analyze usage trends, and check vendor performance. Whether you’re maintaining a well-stocked inventory or ordering for just-in-time delivery, Purchasing has the tools to help you.

• Have all the work of creating suggested POs done for you.

• Use your judgment more efficiently by focusing only on any needed adjustments to suggested purchases.

• Trust that your purchasing decisions are based on assumptions that are continually updated for recent trends.

• Create just-in-time POs from your sales orders.

• Make special adjustments to the purchasing controls for any stock item.

• Identify seasonal sales items and adjust suggested purchases for seasonal needs.

• Recognize normal and abnormal usage patterns for your inventory.

• Order the most profitable quantity levels based on EOQ or other quantity discount calculations.

• Take into account line buying and other special vendor requirements.

• Know which vendors are giving you the best performance on each item.

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Return Authorization - Fully Integrates Returned Merchandise With All Your Business Systems

Confidently manage both the process of customer returns to you and the process of your returns to vendors with SouthWare’s Return Authorizations. Designed as an add-on module to SouthWare’s Inventory Control, Return Authorizations lets you manage your inventory in conjunction with items being returned from customers and items being returned to vendors.

Other processes such as receivings and sales returns integrate seamlessly with Return Authorizations so your return information is always as current as the last related information entered anywhere in the system. And, if you sell/service equipment, Return Authorizations integrates the information from the Service Management Equipment Tracking module and Service Orders module for such situations as exchanges.

• Easily record each item you return to a vendor.

• Handle complex situations such as exchanges, warranties, and advance swaps.

• Track the status of returned items to identify situations that need follow up attention.

• Know whether you’re expecting a vendor repair, replacement, credit, or refund.

• Automatically close your vendor returns from other modules.

• Track the items you’ve authorized your customers to return.

• Know what you’re supposed to do when you receive a particular customer return.

• Keep track of labor reimbursement amounts owed to you by a vendor.

• Automatically create the appropriate inventory and general ledger adjustments as you process returns.

• Inquire and report on the status and handling of customer/vendor returns.

• Be confident that your return situations are under control.

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Assembly Work Order - Keep Your Products Flowing

Inventory management and work order control is a real challenge when you have assemblies and components. Not only do you have to keep track of the items that come in and out of your business, but you have to keep track of them as they flow in and out of assemblies. SouthWare's Assembly Work Orders module integrates with SouthWare’s Inventory/Sales Series to give you a complete sales and inventory management system. With Assembly Work Orders you’ll be confident that you’re keeping good records of the flow of inventory within your business.

• Create, track, post, and analyze work orders that document all your assembly activity.

• Take an order from a customer via Order Entry and interactively create a work order to produce his customized shipment. You can select optional components that increase the selling price. When it’s ready to ship you can then optionally print the details of the customer’s assembly bill of materials on his picking ticket and invoice.

• Check the availability of each component on an assembly and then reserve stock or substitute, backorder, purchase, or sub-assemble needed items.

• Put component parts back into inventory when you break down an item.

• Generate work orders for make-to-stock items.

• Make sure the costs of your assemblies reflect the actual cost of the components, including variable and fixed costs.

• Post work orders as they are finished or even partially post made-to-date quantities.

• Pre-define all your standard bills of material for faster and more accurate processing.

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Integrated Equipment Rental Management Software

Process the pricing, renting, tracking, and management of your rental contracts and inventory with SouthWare’s Rental Department. Designed as an add-on module to SouthWare’s Inventory Control, Rental Department makes it an ideal solution for the business that both rents and sells items.

You can sell resale items and rent rental items in the same bill, and your invoices for rental contracts flow into the normal invoicing process history and reporting options available for other SouthWare invoicing products. And if you service your equipment, SouthWare’s Service Management modules integrate to give you a complete sales/rental/service solution.

• Quickly create a rental contract from any normal SouthWare billing entry program.

• Add inventory items, services, or other types of line items handled by the billing entry program to a rental transaction.

• Track availability and scheduling conflicts for each rental item.

• Identify items which are past due for return.

• Handle various rental pricing structures with the system automatically figuring out which rental unit (hours, days, weeks, etc.) to use for each rental transaction.

• Track rental items by specific tracking number or by quantity only.

• Easily rent and analyze kits or combinations of items via Inventory/Control Standard Bills and Kit Codes.

• Handle special commission and taxing override situations.

• Transfer rental inventory between locations with the option to treat these as sub rentals for additional control.

• Report on scheduled deliveries and pickups of rental items from customer sites.

• Analyze customer and rental ID rental performance.

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Warehouse Tracking - Simplify Management

Do you want better management of your warehouse without more work? Do you need a warehouse tracking system that gives you the information you need without too much complexity? Would you like to process warehouse activity more efficiently without a lot of retraining of your operators? SouthWare’s Warehouse Tracking module adds multi-bin tracking and warehouse transactions to the capabilities of SouthWare’s Inventory/Sales Series.

With Warehouse Tracking you get supporting warehouse details for the information in Inventory/Sales while keeping your warehouse records separate from your stock and order information. Your Inventory/Sales operators don’t need to enter warehouse information, and your warehouse operators don’t work with anything but warehouse information. This gives you the benefits of an integrated system for purchasing, receiving, put away, stocking, selling, picking, staging, shipping, etc. without requiring complicated data entry functions.

• Identify each storage ID or bin.

• Use both fixed (bins, slots) and moveable (pallets, license plates) storage IDs.

• Organize the storage IDs into zones/areas for easy review.

• Know which items are in a storage ID.

• Store a stock item in multiple storage IDs.

• For putaway, use pre-assigned or “floating” assignments.

• Keep track of items in moveable storage IDs such as pallets and trailers.

• Do directed putaway with option to receive directly into bin.

• Do directed picking with option for combined picking (wave) or zone picking.

• Option for separate Packing/Shipping transactions.

• Suggest picking locations based on oldest received, locator preferences, or largest quantity.

• Plan and track the movement of items between storage IDs.

• Assign and reassign warehouse work to different stations.

• Optionally specify preferred sequence of storage ID assignment for each station.

• Optionally match attributes of storage IDs with required attributes of stock items (such as refrigerated, hazardous, secured, etc.).

• Build custom rules (via SouthWare WorkFlow ™) for the assignment of transactions to storage IDs.

• Optionally keep warehouse details of tracking/serial number.

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Item Group Matrix -  Lets You Control How Data Is Entered and Organized

Do items you sell belong to groups or styles that can be presented via a row/column matrix such as color/size? Do you want to be able to enter and review quantities for items via a row/column matrix? With SouthWare’s Item Group Matrix Adapter, an add-on module for SouthWare’s Inventory/Sales Series, you may use a matrix-oriented entry interface to efficiently buy, sell, and receive items within a matrix group. For example, you could set up colors as matrix group rows and sizes as columns and then easily buy, receive, and sell items within the group. You can quickly enter multiple quantities for items within a group and the system will generate the necessary related transactions.

• Utilize different matrix types of row/column combinations such as clothing color/size, show color/size, variety/size, product/user count, pants waist/inseam, lumber dimensions, plant size/variety, etc.

• Identify all the row/column attributes that apply to a matrix type.

• Specify which attributes apply to each group matrix.

• Use the same group definition in multiple locations.

• Automatically generate stock records needed for group row/column combinations OR use existing stock numbers.

• Indicate that certain row/column combinations are not applicable within a group.

• Inquire stock item information for items in a matrix group.

• Easily view and edit quantities for group matrix items via a grid or tree in the following entry programs: Sales order entry, Purchase order entry, Purchasing work file entry, Service order entry, and Receivings entry.

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 Additional Detailed Product Resources

• Financial Management
  Accounts Payable
  Accounts Receivable
  General Ledger
  Payroll
  Cash Flow
  Collections
  Fixed Assets
  Job Costing
  
  
• Inventory Management
  Inventory Control
  Point of Sale
  Order Entry
  Purchasing
  Assembly Work Orders
  Return Authorization
  Rental Department
  Shipping Interface
  Warehouse Tracking
  Matrix Pricing
  
  
• Service Management
  Service Orders
  Service Invoicing
  Contract Management
  Equipment Servicing
  
  
• Productivity Tools / E-Commerce
  NetLink - browser based network access:
  Submit orders
  Check balances
  Check order status
  Submit Service Requests
  Customer Access
  

SouthWare® and SouthWare Excellence Series™ are registered trademarks of SouthWare Innovations, Inc.