For the Smart Money Cookie

The movement of goods in and out of warehouses, distribution centers and final outlets like retail chains form an integral part of supply chain management. With the gradual demise of ‘just-in-case’ inventory management and the arrival of the ‘just-in-time’ inventory concept, the logistics operations have become critical, and form the backbone of production and distribution operations.

The function of logistics is to provide auxiliary service along the value chain of a product, by transporting the product to different locations for value addition, storage and final consumption. This function assumes significance in light of companies moving their manufacturing locations across different parts of the world for competitive cost advantages. Furthermore, the concept of modular manufacturing and assembly at different locations has forced a strategic role upon logistics to deliver the goods in time.

The function of transporting goods is provided by transportation companies who have extensive fleets consisting of trucks, ships and planes. The ownership of oil tankers and other container carriers, and airplanes in the tourism and courier industries, involves huge costs. The fleet is owned by the companies who manufacture the goods, or is rented out by transportation companies.

Asset management for fleet owners means effective utilization of the fleet, maintenance of the fleet and prolonging the life of the fleet. Maintenance management software packages help achieve these goals. Since fleets are mobile assets, the computerized maintenance system is mostly networked through base stations and mobile stations like hand-held digital assistants and palmtops. Advanced technologies like RFID help pinpoint the location of assets for on-the-road maintenance.

The fleet MMS provides features like data management of the fleet, including fuel entry, the running of miles and crew details. It provides regular features, like scheduling preventive maintenance and crew shifts. The fleet MMS links to the financial parameters by allowing the entry of billing and payment of bills for fuel or on-the-road repairs.

Maintenance Management Software provides detailed information on Equipment Maintenance Management Software, Facility Maintenance Management Software, Fleet Maintenance Management Software, Foundation Maintenance Management Software and more. Maintenance Management Software is affiliated with Fleet Maintenance Software.

Serving Microsoft Business Solutions clients, formerly Great Plains Software Dynamics, eEnterprise, Dynamics C/S+, Siebel Great Plains Front Office, we found that Transportation & Logistics is the industry where Great Plains & CRM tandem is the most popular. In this small article we would like to give you highlights on ERP & CRM in transportation & logistics

• Shipment Tracking System. Transportation & Logistics industry is pretty mature and you more likely have industry standard (like Efreight) or custom system. So, if you plan to implement new ERP - it should be tightly integrated with your cargo tracking system.

• Clientele. This is the question of the core application. If you have to sell to a large number of prospects and track their relatively small shipments - you should first consider Microsoft CRM, which has Sales and Service modules. In this case - you should enable shipment status lookup from MS CRM screens. In the case when you ship to limited number of large customers - you are focusing on the profitability of the shipments and looking at Great Plains as the core system.

• Agent Settlement Report. This seems to be logistics industry feature. You use agents and settle their AR/AP invoices on the monthly or weekly basis. In Great Plains you should use customer/vendor consolidation, available for Great Plains Professional version. Plus you will need Great Plains Dexterity or .Net customization to link SOP and POP invoices in the settlement process.

• eConnect. Each logistics business has unique business processes and this is why we see software developers in staff plus strong IT department. This makes eConnect (Microsoft Great Plains SDK) very popular among logistics companies. You can create Great Plains objects: Customers, Invoices, Purchase Orders, etc. Plus it allows you to eliminate GP licenses cost - you can have users work with Great Plains through web forms

• Integration Technology. In the case of both Great Plains and Microsoft CRM you use MS SQL Server linked server technology. Then you deploy MS CRM SDK, Dexterity, Heterogeneous Stored Procedures.

• Programming Tools. You use Visual Studio.Net to program MS CRM lookups, in some cases you can use WebMatrix, but we do not recommend tools, which do not have rich debugging features.

• Reporting. Crystal Reports is the tool of choice. You should create heterogeneous SQL view and base you Crystal Report on this view. Microsoft CRM security suggests you to use MS CRM SDK or built-in Crystal Reports Enterprise to comply.

• MS CRM Messaging. Microsoft CRM Exchange connector has relatively straightforward mechanism - GUID in the message header. If you need advanced messaging - capturing emails, based on contact email or domain - you main consider advanced connector, developed and supported by Alba Spectrum Technologies. In some cases you would like to use Lotus Notes Domino as email server - this is also possible.

You can always have us help you, give us a call: 1-630-961-5918 or 1-866-528-0577, help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.
We are serving USA Nationwide: CA, IL, NY, FL, AZ, CO, TX, WI, WA, MI, MA, MO, LA, NM, MN, Europe: Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, Russia, Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, OAE, Bahrain), Asia: China, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South & Central America: Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Chili, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

If you have a business that takes cash from your customers at the front desk then you must have a good and robust point of sale software package, or POS as it is sometimes called.

The reasons are quite simple.

1. Many products today have bar code labels attached to them. This means that the product can be fed into the sales invoice via a bar code scanner. There are several advantages in doing this.

As the product is scanned into the point of sale software, or p.o.s., the product is immediately recognised by the software. The sales person is not fumbling around trying to find the correct product code, the correct product is charged for because the sales person isn’t given the opportunity of picking the wrong product from a price list.

2. You have a computerised reporting system that tells you exactly what has been sold and for how much and the cash in the money drawer can be easily reconciled to this.

3. Your stock control is handled automatically for you. You know at a glance exactly which products you are low on and need to order as well as which products are not selling very well.

4. There is less chance with a point of sale system that your staff can give special prices to their friends, or in fact wether they charge at all, thus reducing theft of stock. There are employees that see petty stock theft as a perk to increase their take home pay. In fact there are even those that seem to think it is their right.

5. With a sales docket that most point of sale systems will produce your customer has a professional looking receipt for the transaction and, thereby, improving your business image.

6. Point of Sale software ( P.O.S. ) will keep track of any tax implications involved in the sale which will decrease your workload in doing manual calculations.

When choosing a point of sale system you need to be very careful of several factors -

* Is the P.O.S. suitable for your industry

* Is it easy to use or will you have to give new staff extensive and costly training

* Does it track and keep record of all sales history so that you can view your daily transactions or is it merely a reciept producing mechanism

* Does it have a back office accounting system that it links up to or will you have to amny post the results on a daily basis

* Does it have the facility to use a bar code scanner and will it open a cash drawer at the appropriate time. It is important that access to the cash drawer is secure and that it cannot be opened at any time without the opening being recorded

* Does it record different types of payment such as cash, various credit cards types, account customer payments and so on. This is important so that when you are balancing the cash at the end of the day you must now what value of sales was paid for by non cash means

* Is it necessary for your Point of Sale system to be able to process account customer payments. Therefore having extra money of one form or another in the cash drawer without the appropriate sale

There are some other security issues that also need to be considered when choosing a POS software system one of the main ones being - after a sale has been made and the customer has left the premises is it possible for the sales person to manipulate the sale to make it look like a lesser value sale and by doing so pocketing some of your money

There is always a temptation for some employees to help themselves to a little extra cash on the side if it is easy to do with the owners of the business relying on trust and honesty coupled with little control over how much has been sold and what goods.

I have seen staff members who have been employed for long periods of time sabotage or resist new point of sale systems when they are being installed. In some cases they have become fairly hostile about the whole thing. You can only guess why, and it’s not just because they are resistant to change.

Point of sale software should be able to trigger a cash drawer when the sale is made as well as produce a detailed reciept for the customer. In some countries it is required by law that these receipts also give details of the tax that has been charged.

I have been involved in all aspects of the accounting software industry for over 20 years. I run several websites that specialize in various subjects including http://www.diyaccounts.com.au that gives advice on all aspects of accounting software from choosing, setting up and using it. Amongst other sites that I run are http://www.sense-now.com that helps newbies understand what internet business will probably work for them and what won’t. http://www.oumas.com.au is all about arts, crafts, hobbies, wine and beer making and much more.

The performance of the company largely improves by this innovative porcess in terms of the cost and time, and even Quality. An accounting department clearly understands the firm’s desire to achieve a sustainable advantage in the present Software Outsourcing marketplace.

Offshore Software Development Company filters the best to the excellence in every phase of the financial reporting process. So the financial manager of the IT Industry is contributing its largest services to the organization by reducing the time and cost of the present industry. The benchmark practice is to give a creative insight to the offshore software department as to how the company can improve upon its processes of financial. It is assistance to the need of the firm. Knowledge management as in information management leads to ultimate goal of enhancement over the company’s market postion and the botton line is the team management between all the department processes. The new thoughts entering in to the company affects the market position of the Software Outsourcing India.

Consulting firms of accounting saccour Offshore Software Development

The consulting firms of accounting saccour Offshore Software Development industries in their costs and realizes savings of the company. It is a disciplined method to measure a company’s performance when such process takes place in an Outsourcing setting. The initial steps are rather approachable and are user-friendly and does not involve too much tasking in understanding the specific activities involved in the process. Now the specific performance measures can be derived through this new benchmark process of accounting in IT Company.

To review the accounting before closing books in Software Companies in India depends upon the time-frame taken in completing and closing of subsidiary modules to the general ledger of the actual produce of work. Thus the financial statement can be reviewed as and when in need. The average company takes up as closely as 15 days to get a monthly close. Improvements can be made in regards to the company spectrum.

The progress of any Offshore Software Development firm should be in need to have realistic picture and derived from incremental improvements. Each company targets their monthly close according to their convenience and man-power strength. Some may see the closing cycle as two days while other Software Outsourcing Companies may take 6 days. It depends upon the work and strategic plan and aims of the company.

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