Inventory management

Articles of multiple units of measurement and weight

A lot of companies use more than one unit of measurement to improve the handling of various articles. In Comarch ALTUM every article has a default unit (in which goods are stored), as well as auxiliary units. The auxiliary units can be assigned to different documents used for different transactions in the system (i.e. the primary unit on a sales invoices and another one on the POR documents). This functionality enables you for example to buy goods in pallets and sell them in pieces. Another valuable advantage of the system, affecting its usability, is handling the weight of articles.

Separating warehouse stock from commercial stock

Let’s imagine the following scenario: A delivery is arriving in the middle of the night and the only person at work is a warehouse employee, who simply receives the goods and books them into the warehouse without knowing their value. Or a delivery is received but there is no invoice for it. Both cases lead to the same result: You have articles in your warehouse that can’t yet be sold, since you don’t know the price that you actually bought them for.
Comarch ALTUM offers a solution for that: The system separates the warehouse stock from the commercial stock, which means that you can assign items to your warehouse, but your salespeople can only sell them after you have added a price.

Distinguishing between articles with the same code and name

Comarch ALTUM uses product features to describe every article in the warehouse. Once you have defined which features, such as color, size, model and delivery date to use to describe an article in more detail, you can easily distinguish different variations of this article from the moment you order it until the moment it leaves your warehouse.
When using features, you split up the stock into distinguishable lots, so you can choose from these lots whenever you create a document anywhere in the system. Thanks to the possibility to more closely describe articles, you can keep your article-list as small as possible, not having to register each variation of one article as a separate article.

Handling products with the help of barcodes

In Comarch ALTUM you can identify articles with the help of barcodes; by barcodes we don’t mean only one barcode per article, but different barcodes for the same article but with different features. By adding multiple barcodes you can also handle different barcodes of different suppliers everywhere in your company simultaneously.
Barcodes can help with managing different units of items. All you have to do is add separate barcodes to units such as pieces, boxes or crates and then you can quickly sell hundreds of pieces simply by scanning a single code.

Valuation methods: FIFO and LIFO

Comarch ALTUM allows you to valuate your stock using two different valuation methods: first in first out (FIFO) and last in first out (LIFO). As such, you are able to handle differences in purchase price and costs for you inventory according to the method used in your company. Not only does this help you meet legal regulations, but also gives you a more realistic picture of the actual margin you gained when selling a given item.

Picking articles out of certain lots

In addition to the default methods for releasing articles from a warehouse (FIFO and LIFO), the system enables picking items from lots. This functionality is particularly important when an inventory is diversified by features (i.e. color, size, model, expiration date) and it is necessary to release goods taking into account these characteristics. Looking for average weighted method – you’re going to get it in Comarch ALTUM 5.0 available at the end of the year!

Tracking of faulty lots

If a customer complains about a faulty article he bought from you, Comarch ALTUM allows you to track down the exact article the customer received and obtain information about it such as what supplier it came from, when it was delivered and who handed the article to the customer. This information can be very useful for lodging complaints to your supplier as well as for a quick reaction during product recalls – as you can track in detail who bought the items out of the faulty lot.

Inventory counts

Comarch ALTUM helps you with the preparation of inventory sheets. The system displays the exact quantities of all articles in a given warehouse (warehouses) and can be filtered for example by:

• item group item
• one or several item features
• items with quantities more than zero

In the next stage of the stocktaking process, you can verify the physical quantities of items utilizing a mobile data collector. After introducing data into the mobile device, the system compares data right away with the data recorded in the system.  If any disparities occur – release or receipt documents can be generated (with the calculated data) and the necessesary accounting entries can be made automatically, upon confirmation of the inventory sheets, in order to eliminate the differences.

Logistics

Warehouse management

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Improve Customer Service

With the help of Comarch ALTUM your employees will be able to quickly locate every article in any warehouse or store within your network, searching by article name, barcode or its feature (such as size, color, collection or any other). In other words, you will be able to more quickly and accurately fill your orders, which will improve client satisfaction by decreasing delivery times and improving information about the availability of certain items.

Increase Cash Flow

An important role for every warehouse manager is to plan shipments in a way that optimizes the use of the available resources, as well as shortens the time period of storage and thus reduces the cost related to the "freezing" of working capital. When you optimize your inventory levels and reduce the amount of safety stock that you need to carry, you free-up cash that would normally be tied-up in your inventory and storage costs. Helping to raise the level of Cash Flow in your company, Comarch ALTUM allows you to develop your business even faster.

Keep track of your articles

By assigning features and attributes to articles, you are able to track them even if they have the same code and name; starting from the ordering process up to a sales order release. This makes it much easier and faster to find a specific article along with information about its origin and destination at the exact moment you need it – i.e. at the moment of a customer’s complaint or request. In addition, you can see if you still have items that have been delivered long ago in your warehouse and decide what to do with them.

Logistics

Warehouse management

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