POSIM On-Hand Report

Issue #1 August 2004

This issue examines how you can use the POSIM 'On-Hand' Report to best fit your needs.

The most crucial point: the On-Hand Report is your on-hand inventory AS OF THE EXACT MOMENT THAT YOU RUN IT. You CANNOT run it for a prior date, or for a range of dates...it reports on the inventory levels RIGHT NOW. If you need to know your inventory at the end of each month, you must 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. The same holds true for quarterly or yearend inventory reports--you must run the On-Hand Report at the end of each quarter and at the end of your fiscal year and save these reports to Disk File for future access.

Next, the key feature to having this report work best for you is understanding how the 'Sort On' and how the 'From / To' works

The From / To ALWAYS refers to your choice for 'Sort On' (again, the From/To NEVER refers to a date range--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 range of Item IDs. Or, if you want all items to appear in the report, just leave the From / To fields blank.

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, any items where the Description begins with "Baseball" (since Baseball is in the From / To fields) would show you all of items where "Baseball" is the first word in the Description field.

If we click on the "Exclude Zero Quantities" the report will only include items that are currently in stock...it will NOT include any Items that have "0" pieces on hand.

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 below, we are reporting on a vendor whose POSIM Vendor ID is "RWSINFO". And again, clicking the "Exclude Zero Quantities" option will cause 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).

You can also choose to sort your On-Hand Report on any of the Miscellaneous fields on the Item Card--this is a powerful tool if you have set up your Miscellaneous fields to properly meet your needs on your Item Cards.

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

And again, since the Department is our BOOK Department, we are entering From "Book" To "Bookz" so that the report will include any items where a data-entry mistake--for example: "Books"--was entered in the Misc 2 field on an Item Card.

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". In this case, if you ran 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 do NOT want to exclude negative quantities from 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 POS-IM via a Receiving Log even though you receive the merchandise physically into your store and then sell it--you On-Hand count would thus go from 0 to -1, -2, etc. (depending on how many you sold).

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 entry (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" the quantities from both items will appear on your On-Hand Report for this Department.

3.
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).

This is the first issue of our new RWSInfo-email, and we plan to send it to you regularly with tips and recommendations. We would appreciate all suggestions and feedback from you for future issues.

Best regards,

Bob & Debby
RWS Information Systems
web-info@rwsinfo.com

1.	As a general rule, you do NOT want to exclude negative quantities from 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 POS-IM via a Receiving Log even though you receive the merchandise physically into your store and then sell it--you On-Hand count would thus go from 0 to -1, -2, etc. (depending on how many you sold).
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 entry (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" the quantities from both items will appear on your On-Hand Report for this Department.
3.	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).