Inventory Management Overview

Learn how to manage your items and products using Inventory management. Here the info areas and functions involved are described without dictating a fixed approach to inventory management.

Outgoing items can be deducted from stocks in the "central warehouse" (an external ERP system).

Inventory management in Aurea CRM provides the following functions:

  • Each rep can manage company-independent stocks for each item and lot.
  • Stock movements are stored in the Stock Control info area (e.g. receiving goods, returns, losses etc.).
  • When adding orders, offers, samples, refunds and promotional material, you can enter details on how items affect stocks.
  • The number of items in reps’ stocks are automatically calculated in the Stock info area based on the information entered in stock control, order, sample, refunding and promotional material records, such as which lot an item is taken from and what quantity.
  • You can define various transaction types (e.g. order, return, delivery, loss etc.) for orders, refunds and stocks control records, which determine how stocks are affected: For each type, you can determine whether items are added to or removed from stocks, and whether quantities are specified in units or packaging units.
  • You can assign stocks to SAP company codes in the SAP Company Code info area for use with SAP.

    When stocktaking, data that affects stocks (in order, sample, refunding, promotional material or stock control records) is aggregated for reps, stocks, lots and items. The results are written to the Stock Control info area.

    During stock-taking, stock-relevant data in existing orders is taken into account. If you edit or delete these orders after completing stock-keeping, your changes no longer affect current stocks.

    Note: Your administrator can determine (in Aurea CRM win) how Aurea CRM behaves if a transaction exceeds current stock levels, e.g. display a warning message, or permit negative stocks.

Administrator Information

Your administrator can configure Aurea CRM’s inventory management to meet your company’s specific needs: Stocks can be added or updated automatically or manually, transactions can be represented using either positive or negative numbers, calculations can be carried out using single units or packaging units etc.

Depending on how the inventory management features are used in your company, your administrator must configure the following options:

  • Automatic stocktaking and stock calculations are enabled by default. If you do not wish to use Aurea CRM’s inventory management features, your administrator can deactivate the "Stock Calculation" process in the Process configuration info area.
  • To use Aurea CRM’s stock management features in a distributed system, all info areas containing stock-relevant data (Stock Control, Order etc.) must be communicated .
  • The Stock Control info area requires all stock-related data to be present on branch offices in order to correctly track stocks. For this reason, records (e.g. companies) for which stock-relevant data exists for reps assigned to the station (Stat.No. field in the Rep info area) are not deleted by the synchronization process.

    Use the No Inventory configuration entry (Communication category) to disable this behavior. Alternatively, you can disable Aurea CRM’s stock management features across the entire system by locking the "Stock Calculation" process (recommended method).

  • By default, stocktaking (Stocktaking and Reset options) can only be carried out on the main office. Use the Take inventory configuration entry (Inventory category) to allow stocktaking on other stations (possibly restricted to certain reps or groups).

Stock

Use the Stock info area (not available in the default version of Aurea CRM web) to manage various stocks for each rep and item. When a rep removes goods from storage, their personal stock increases; when a rep distributes goods, their personal stock is decreased. This allows reps to sell items or hand out samples from their personal stock.

Based on stock-effective stock control item, order item, refunding item and promotional material records, Aurea CRM automatically adds stock records for each rep, stock, lot and item. Each time stocks are affected by a transaction, the corresponding number of units are added or subtracted.

Items can also be distributed without affecting stocks, in which case the rep’s stock remains unchanged.

Stocks are always counted in units (Quantity Unit field). The available packages and remaining units are calculated as follows:

  • Quantity Unit: Quantities entered in stock-effective records are added/subtracted in units.
  • Target number of packs: Number of packages available (Quantity Unit / Pack. Unit)
  • Target remainder units: Number of remainder units available according to the database (Quantity Unit - (Packaging Unit * Target number of packs))

Use the No Restrics. (no restrictions) and Negative stock allowed (negative stocks allowed) fields to determine how the system behaves if stocks are exceeded.

To use the automatic stock calculation functions, for example when adding orders, enter the following data in the order:

  • Rep or Rep ID: The rep whose stocks are affected. By default, you are automatically entered.
  • Stock: The stock from which items are deducted.
  • Receipt Type or Quantity factor.
  • The Currency.

The items and quantities are entered in the Order Item info area. Enter the following details:

  • Item No.: The Item name, Sector, Product Group, Brand, Grade and Packaging Unit are entered automatically.
  • Quantity: You can also enter a lot number in the Lot No. field. The stock-effective quantity is calculated automatically based on the Quantity factor (in the order) and Pack. Unit and entered in the Inventory quantity field.

The corresponding stock is automatically updated in the Stock info area.

Note: Offers do not affect stocks. However, you can enter information on how items impact stocks when adding an offer (Stock, Receipt Type, Quantity factor, SAP Company Code in offers; Pack. Unit in offer items). This information is then transferred to the order and order items when creating an order from an offer by selecting Copy to Order from the context menu , and is consequently taken into account when calculating stocks.

Assigning Stocks to an SAP Company Code

You can assign each stock to an SAP company code in the SAP Company Code info area when integrating Aurea CRM with SAP. You can assign multiple stocks to the same company code.

If you then select a stock, the corresponding SAP Company Code is entered. The SAP company code is entered automatically in the following info areas:

  • Offer
  • Order
  • Stock
  • Stock Control
  • Promotional Material
  • Refunding

Records with no Effect on Stocks

You can flag order items, stock control items, refunding items, samples and promotional material as having no effect on stocks (Entered in Inventory enabled). Records where this option is enabled are ignored when calculating stocks and when stocktaking.

  • You can enable or disable the check box as required in order item, stock control item, refunding items sample and promotional material records.
  • Once stock-taking has been performed for order item, stock control item, refunding items sample and promotional material records (Stocktaking and Reset options), the Entered in Inventory field is automatically enabled.
  • Stock control items added during stocktaking (Count and Calculate options) are also flagged as having no effect on stocks.

Exceeding Stocks

For each stock, you can use the No Restrics. and Negative stock allowed allowed fields to determine how Aurea CRM handles cases where stocks are exceeded.

No Restrics. and Neg.stock allowed enabled: Aurea CRM ignores cases where stocks are exceeded, and stocks may be negative.

No Restrics. disabled and Negative stock allowed enabled: Aurea CRM does not output a message when saving the record if stocks are exceeded. The order item record can be saved.

Both No Restrics. and Negative stock allowed disabled: Aurea CRM displays a corresponding message and the record cannot be saved.