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Inventory in QuickTouch:

Organization of Inventory

All your inventory is divided into Inventory Groups. Thus, when you run an inventory report, you can choose to have your inventory listed by group – air filters, oil filters, bulk oil, impulse sales items, etc.

In addition, each inventory item is assigned a Vendor. This is the company from which the item was purchased.

Thus, before entering any of your inventory into the system, you will need a list of all your Inventory Groups, and for each Group indicate which Inventory Items belong to that group, and for each item, indicate the Vendor. Note that not all inventory in the same group is necessarily from the same Vendor.

In addition, for each Item, you will need to indicate the Cost (this is how much it cost you to purchase the item), and the Price (this is the price that you extend to the customer). Unfortunately, every market is different, so Sage cannot recommend or produce a price list for your inventory – your best bet for pricing suggestions is your local distributor. The average lube industry markup for inventory is 230%, but obviously this is highly variable depending on the items and market.

Certain items will be packaged by your distributor in multiples. For instance, a particular air filter might come in a package of 3, or an oil filter might come in a box of 12, bulk oil is delivered in gallons (4 quarts), and case oil is delivered in cases (12 bottles). Many distributors will require that when you place an order with them, that you indicate how many Cartons (Gallons, Cases, Packages, etc.) you want, not the actual count of the items. For each inventory item in your stock, you should indicate the package quantity.

Reordering Inventory

Finally, you will need to decide on how you want to reorder your inventory. There are several reordering methods supported in QuickTouch:

• Minimum-Standard Order

• Manual based on usage

• Automatic based on usage

Minimum-Standard Order For the Minimum-Standard based reordering method, you need to know how often you receive shipments. For instance, let’s suppose a two-week usage period between reordering.

For each item, say, an air filter AF1, you want to define the Minimum stock level – this is the lowest level you want to keep on the shelf at any time, and if it falls below this level you want to reorder more of that item.

Then, you want to define your Standard Order – this is the number of items you want to reorder and put back on your shelf. The Standard Order should be high enough to service two weeks of vehicles (in our example), but not so high that you have extras sitting on the shelf for extended periods.

Finally, you have the Target level. The Target level is your Minimum + Standard. This is what you will start your two-week period with.

Let’s take our air filter AF1 for example. Say, you want to start with 10 AF1 on Monday to be able to service all of your customers for the next two weeks. The following Wednesday, when you run the Reorder report, you have 3 left on the shelf. Since this is below your minimum level of 5, the system will calculate that you need to reorder 7 AF1 in order to get you to your target level of 10.

Finally, let’s suppose that AF1 comes in packages of 3. In this case, since you need to reorder 7, QuickTouch will calculate that you need to reorder 3 packages, or 9 items.

Manual Based On Usage For this method, you simply run the Stock Sales report for the previous two weeks (or your time period), and then reorder only the parts that you used. That was easy! So why doesn’t everyone use this method? Because this method is unable to anticipate future usage and inventory levels.

Automatic Based On Usage This method will have the computer calculate how many items to reorder based on the sales history of this item. QuickTouch will look back X number of days, determine how many of that item were sold during that period, and divide that into your reorder period. For instance, say you’ve sold 60 AF1 in the past 90 days, and you reorder every 14 days. QuickTouch will calculate that you need to reorder 9 AF1 to service your customers (60 ÷ 90 * 14) for the next two weeks. This method provides the best of both worlds, and because it’s looking at the previous 90 days (or your time period) sales history, is able to predict trending