Stock forecasting
Empower future planning
This powerful module lets you easily forecast your physical
stock position by day, week, month or quarter, up to 26 periods
ahead. As you play out different scenarios, your free stock is
instantly re-calculated and displayed graphically. Completed
forecasts can be translated directly into production and purchasing
schedules and output to Excel for easy distribution with non-system
users.
At-a-glance information
The Stock forecasting module consolidates inputs from across
your business (e.g. purchase orders, sales orders and purchase
requests) and displays this information visually. By using live
data held in your Access system, you can be sure your forecasts are
always accurate and up-to-date.
'What if' scenarios
As you play out different scenarios (for example, new sales and
purchase orders and supplier lead times) the free stock is
instantly re-calculated and displayed in a visual grid.
Colour-coded indicators represent where stock quantities fall
within your pre-defined parameters, showing your entire stock
status at-a-glance.
Traffic light indicators
The colours used are up to you, with the following default
settings:
- Green: minimum stock exceeded (optimal level)
- Amber: nearly out of stock
- Red: out of stock
- Blue: maximum stock exceeded.
You can group by column to view stock by supplier, colour or
brand, or all stock from a specific country. You could also view
all items by status (e.g. those selling fast/those running low).
The ability to 'slice and dice' your data this way gives you far
greater visibility and early warning of issues before they pose a
threat to your sales activity.
Sales predictions
You can enter sales forecasts manually, inputting the number of
new customer orders you expect to receive, week by week, taking
account of the season, promotions, sales force predictions and any
other factors. If you're building forecasts by customer and want to
see the overall impact, you can also import from Excel. For more
sophisticated forecasts, we provide wizards to guide you through
the process of generating and scheduling, for example:
Generating sales forecasts
This wizard allows you to create named forecasts (e.g. by
customer) and set a range of values such as: date range, start date
and whether you want to apply a 'moving average'.
This option averages the sales for the last 'n' months and
creates a single forecast for each part. Sales force information
about buying trends for example can be factored in using the %
growth/decline option. Finally, you can also choose to include
another product's profile, making it easy to factor in the historic
sales performance of similar items.
Purchasing predictions
Simply enter quantities in the grid until the free stock
indicates green or amber. With seasonal stock you will aim to 'go
amber' towards the end of the season and may even accept red at the
close if it's more profitable to sacrifice a small number of orders
in favour of keeping out-of-date stock. Estimates can be confirmed
as purchase or build requests which can then be consolidated into
purchase orders or build orders with scheduled 'required by'
dates.
Alternatively, let the Resource Engine (MRPII) take the demand
you have forecast and suggest the purchasing schedule automatically
for you.
Importing purchase order forecasts
Purchase orders created in Excel can also be imported into your
forecast, allowing you to upload large volumes of data without
re-keying.
Schedule forecasts
This option enables you to set a specific quantity for the
selected stock item, either in total or by forecast. For total
forecasts, you set the amount you want to forecast and choose the
frequency (e.g. forecast 50 over 10 weeks = 10 forecasts of 5).
Global change
This function enables you to roll entire forecasts forward and
back, saving time and effort. A wizard guides you through the
process of applying bulk changes, utilising sort keys so that you
can filter records by any combination of date, stock and/or MRP
code.
Stock Forecasting - key features
- Visual traffic light alerting
- 'What if' scenario modelling
- Integration with MRPII
- Roll forward/back
- Import/export from Excel
- Bulk changes.
Further information:
What does ERP mean to you?
By thinking about ERP as a "joined-up" way of working rather than just a
software system, mid-market businesses can approach their
replacement project by focusing on those efficiencies not currently possible
within their current technology
Find out more »
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