Warehouse Wednesday: Acumatica In-depth Part 5
We talked about manufacturing, construction, retail, and eCommerce in previous articles; we even talked about field service management, but we need to discuss businesses that provide wholesale and distribution. For these businesses, Acumatica will provide distribution, financial, and reporting capabilities that can be specifically configured to meet the needs of your business and your business processes.
It's true that retail, especially eCommerce retail, grows closer to the traditional distribution/wholesale market every day. In addition, many manufacturers seem to be taking up positions to supplant wholesale/distribution businesses by serving more high-volume retailers directly. One of the culprits to this merging is 'the Internet,' but just because it has disrupted the traditional distribution model doesn't mean you can't do anything about it.
The right accounting platform can make all the difference. Solutions like QuickBooks Enterprise.... are close, but when a wholesaler/distributor grows, they soon find that QBE doesn't meet their demands.
Those who have transitioned to cloud-based solutions like QuickBooks Online or Xero quickly discover that they need multiple plug-in apps for inventory, commerce, and supply-chain management.
These may be first-step accounting for just-getting-started wholesalers and distributors, but they are not long-term solutions. The key is a solution with design elements specific to wholesale/distribution business requirements.
Acumatica is such a solution. It's an ERP that can evolve with your growth, adapt to market changes impacting your business, and help you stay ahead of the game.
Acumatica provides your general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and bank management (cash management or bank reconciliation). It also provides your sales functionality, including CRM, quoting, sales orders, sales commissions, shipping (including drop shipping), returns and exchanges, and many other forms of order fulfillment.
Inventory functionality is vital to your needs, including stock and non-stock item management with unit-of-measure definitions, pricing, and packaging. But if you manage inventory, you must purchase inventory at some point.
Acumatica provides your purchasing function, including purchase order requisitions with approvals workflows, requests for quotes (RFQ), blanket orders, receipt of goods processing, and put-away features. Landed costs, FOB definitions, vendor returns, and vendor bidding are additional functionalities that are available when you are ready.
Acumatica's standard inventory management features include replenishment, movement classes, calendar-dependent physical inventory cycle counting, lot and serial tracking, expiration dates, and inventory allocation. Features like kitting and disassembly and matrix items are available to Acumatica users.
Inventory valuation is also critical to wholesale and distribution operations, so you have support for average and standard inventory valuation, FIFO, LIFO, and actual or specific (lot-based) valuation methods. You can also use embedded barcoding and mobile warehouse management to automate pick, pack, ship, and other inventory transactions.
Acumatica includes native warehouse management with mobile application connectivity. That means every order will flow through Acumatica for fulfillment to help ensure proper inventory balances at the most appropriate stocking level. Your fulfillment operations will run just as smoothly as every other aspect of your business.
Built on a modular and adaptable platform, Acumatica is designed to meet the needs of distribution and wholesale businesses in today's changing economic environment. It will streamline your operations by allowing all of your business functions to share the same critical data and information from anywhere to provide the best service to your customers.
Top distribution and operations executives, warehouse and distribution center managers, and supply chain personnel can manage everything from acquisition, sales, fulfillment, and logistics, whether you have one location or one hundred.
With Acumatica, you will gain meaningful insights into your business on customizable dashboards based on each user's requirements and need-to-know. With Acumatica's configurable workflows, you will foster key improvements in every aspect of your wholesale and distribution operations.
As we continue our series on Acumatica, we will look into many features that make it a perfect warehouse and distribution solution. Stay tuned.