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December 26, 2006

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This is an overview of the standard ON-HAND REPORT found in POSIM's Inventory Client module, and how you can use it to best fit your needs.

The most crucial point: the On-Hand Report is not run for a date range or for a specific date in history. It is available strictly AS OF THE EXACT MOMENT THAT YOU RUN IT. Thus, you can NOT run it for a prior date...it reports on the inventory levels RIGHT NOW.

If you need to know your inventory at the end of each month, make sure that you run the On-Hand Report at the end of each month and save it. You can save it to Disk File, and thus have access to that report at any time in the future by opening it in Excel. The same holds true for quarterly or yearend inventory reports--you should run the On-Hand Report at the end of each quarter and also at the end of your fiscal year, and save these reports for future access.

Next, the key feature to having this report work best for you is understanding how the 'Sort On' works, and thus how the 'From / To' fields on the On-Hand Report work. The From / To always relates to your choice for 'Sort On' (again, the From/To NEVER refers to a date range in the On-Hand Report--it reports on your inventory right now).

Let's take a look.

POSIM's default selection for the 'Sort On' is Item ID.

In this case, the From / To fields are related to the Item ID (the 'Sort On' chosen)--you can run the report for just one Item ID (as shown here), or for a consecutive range of Item IDs. Or, if you want all your items to appear in the report, leave the From / To fields blank.
On-Hand Report by Item ID

We can just as easily choose to sort our On-Hand Report by the Items' Descriptions. In this case, we would choose Description as our 'Sort On'. And the From / To would also be based on the Description field.

In the example shown below on the left, any books where the Description is "Baseball Greats" released between 2001 and 2006 would appear in our report (since "Baseball Greats 01" is in the From field, and "Baseball Greats 06" is in the To field).

If we click on the "Exclude Zero Quantities" as shown on the right, the report will now only include the Baseball Greats items that are currently in stock...it will NOT include any Items that have "0" pieces on hand. We do NOT click the "Exclude negative quantities" option, because we want to see if any items show a negative on-hand value (usually the result of forgetting to receive a PO into POSIM).
On-Hand Report by Description On-Hand Report Without 0's
We can also opt to sort our On-Hand Report by 'Vendor ID'...if you have an appointment with a vendor, you might want to run a report of all inventory that you currently have from them for reference during your meeting.

Thus, the Sort On is Vendor ID, and the From / To fields should show the exact Vendor ID of that particular vendor so that your On-Hand Report shows your inventory from that one vendor only.

In the example shown to the right, we are reporting on a vendor whose POSIM Vendor ID is "Scribner". Again, clicking the "Exclude Zero Quantities" option will tell the report to include only items that are currently in stock...it will NOT include any Items that have "0" pieces on hand (if you wanted to include ALL items that you ever had from that vendor, whether you currently have inventory on them or not, you would not click the "Exclude Zero Quantities" box).
On-Hand Report by Vendor

You can also choose to sort your On-Hand Report on any of the five Misc fields on the Item Card--this is a powerful tool if you have set up your Misc fields appropriately on your Item Cards.
On-Hand Report by Department

For example, if Misc 2 on the Item Card holds your Department information, you can get an inventory listing for just one Department by identifying 'Misc 2' as the Sort-On criteria, and the specific Department itself (here, the BOOK Department) in the From / To fields.

And in case we were mistakenly inconsistent when typing "Book" into the Misc 2 field--typing "Book" into some Item Cards and "Books" into others--we can ask for the On-Hand Report to Sort On Misc 2 From Book To Bookz...this will ensure that the report captures all the Item Cards where you have either Book or Books.

If, however, you have two separate Book Departments (for example, "Book Fiction" and "Book Nonfiction"), you might want to run two separate On-Hand Reports to see their inventory separately. In that case, one report would be From "Book Fiction" To "Book Fiction", and the other would be From "Book Nonfiction" To "Book Nonfiction".

Or, if you want to see all thems in your total Book Department, if you run an On-Hand Report sorted by Misc 2 with From "Book" To "Bookz" it would give you all inventory for BOTH your Book Departments combined.

You have broad selection of Sort-On options to choose from in your On-Hand Report, and they all function the same way, as outlines above. So run your inventory reports and choose the Sort-On options that best fit your needs.

A couple of tips from Debby:

 1.

 As a general rule, you want to include negative quantities when you run your On-Hand Report... these are in all likelihood errors that need to be corrected in order for your On-Hand Report to be accurate. For example, if you forget to receive an order into POSIM even though you have physically received that merchandise in your store, and then you begin to sell this item, your On-Hand count for that SKU would go from 0, then to -1, and then to -2, etc. (depending on how many you sold). Fix these errors, then re-run the report.

 2.

 It is good practice to put a "z" as the SUFFIX in the To field--this will catch any items where you might have made a data entry error (for example, if you have "Pant" in your Misc 2 field on one Item Card and "Pants" in your Misc 2 Field on a different Item Card, they are probably both part of your PANT Department. By putting From "Pant" To "Pantz" in the On-Hand Report's From / To fields, the quantities from both items will appear on your On-Hand Report for this Department.

 3.

 Avoid 'typo' errors in your Misc fields by using POSIM's feature: Default Misc...if you take the time to set these up, POSIM will auto-fill as you start typing in the Misc field on the Item Card. To set them up, go to the "Misc" menu in the Inventory Client module and choose "Default Misc" from the list. Then type in the appropriate values into the Misc 2, 3, 4, and 5 areas. Click "Save" so that POSIM remembers the approved values for each field (all your approved Departments in Misc 2, etc.).
4. It is an excellent idea to run an On-Hand Report at the end of every month. Save it to Disk File--that way, you always have access to a report showing the on-hand value of your inventory at the end of your Quarter, Half-Year, or Year End. Make it a practice to run the On-Hand Report after close-of-business on the last day of each month (or before opening for business on the first day of each new month).

Best,


Debby Levine
RWS INFORMATION SYSTEMS
dal@rwsinfo.com
(310) 822-8820
Fax (310) 943-2338