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Inventory Management Getting Started

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Inventory Management is a process used to control the location and quantity of Physical Goods and to follow their movement.

Specifically, Inventory Management tracks:

  • The importation of new Physical Goods into Warehouses.
  • The location where Physical Goods are stocked and who their Supplier is.
  • The availability of Physical Goods Stock.
  • The inventory movements between Warehouses and customers.

What Comes First

To start using Inventory Management configure the System to support your own business model. In the following table, you can find the configuration modules related to Inventory Management

Sub-moduleTypeClassificationNavigationDig In
Warehouse TypesConfigurationCONFIGURATIONFOUNDATION APPLICATIONINVENTORY MANAGEMENTSET UP WAREHOUSE TYPES/wiki/spaces/WIP/pages/10008289
Inventory Management Business DefinitionsConfigurationCONFIGURATIONFOUNDATION APPLICATIONINVENTORY MANAGEMENTSET UP BUSINESS DEFINITIONS/wiki/spaces/WIP/pages/10008288 
Installed ItemsTransactionalFOUNDATIONINVENTORY MANAGEMENTMANAGE INSTALLED ITEMS/wiki/spaces/WIP/pages/10008299 
WarehousesConfiguration FOUNDATIONINVENTORY MANAGEMENTMANAGE WAREHOUSESCreating Warehouses
Installed Item CategoriesConfigurationCONFIGURATIONFOUNDATION APPLICATIONINVENTORY MANAGEMENTSET UP INSTALLED ITEM CATEGORIES

/wiki/spaces/WIP/pages/10008287

Step 1: Setting up Warehouse Types 

First you must configure Warehouse Types

Warehouse Types are used to group Warehouses in order to provide differentiated functions to each Warehouse. Warehouse Types are used by the various configuration areas of CRM.COM to set up and provide business rules and restrictions. such as the Inventory Management Definition, or for creating Warehouse

Step 2: Setting up  Inventory Management Definition 

An active Inventory Management Definition must then be configured. 

Inventory Management Definitions is a set of business rules used to control the behaviour of Inventory Management  throughout their Life Cycle. In particular, through Inventory Management Definitions you have the option to define the Warehouse Types from where Physical Goods will be retrieved or moved back to when used either on Jobs or Subscriptions. For each Warehouse Type, a Classification must be defined, which determines the type of Sale the Physical Goods of the Warehouse will be available for.
There exist 3 Classifications: 

  • Rentals: Used for Installed Items to Subscriptions as 'Rentals'. i.e. the customers don't actually buy the Installed Item. When the Subscription is terminated the Installed Item must be returned
  • Direct Sales: Used for Installed Items that are sold through Jobs and are extracted from Warehouses that belong to your business. i.e. the customers get billed for the Physical Good through CRM.COM and the good is not required to be returned after the customer stops cooperating with your business.
  • Indirect Sales: Used for Installed Items that are sold through Jobs and are extracted from Warehouses that belong to partners of your business. i.e. the customers do not get billed for the Physical Good through CRM.COM and the good is not required to be returned after the customer stops being your customer.

Set up the Warehouse Types to be used in each of the following cases, where movement of Physical Goods is required

  • Adding Physical Goods
  • Removing Physical Goods
  • Adding Physical Goods during Swap
  • Removing Physical Goods during Swap

Step 3: Creating Warehouses 

Warehouses are the storage places where Physical Goods reside. Warehouses can be created through the Inventory Management module. To add a Physical Good to a Subscription or a Job, the good it must reside in a Warehouse, whose type is defined in the active Inventory Definition as a type used to add Physical Goods from. In addition, the Group of the Warehouse must be the same as the Group of the user you used to log in.

Step 4: Creating Installed Items 

Installed items are instances of Physical Goods which are classified as traceable (see Products). Each Installed Item is a unique instance of a Product, with a unique serial number used for identification and tracing.

There are three ways of creating Installed Items:

To create an Installed Item the following attributes must be defined

  • Product:  The traceable Physical Good Product
  • Serial Number: The unique identification of the Installed Item. (This will most probably be sent to the Provisioning Provider System as an identification of the subscriber)
  • Components:  Components are required in case that the Product is a Fixed Product Bundle, i.e. it is made up of multiple other Products.

Once an Installed Item is created (if not imported) it must then be added to a Warehouse.

Step 4: Setting Up Installed Item Categories

Configure the following modules for additional functionality and categorisation. You can skip configuration of these modules if not required by your business model:

  • Installed Item Categories:  Installed item categories are used to classify installed items into generic groups based on specific similar attributes that they share. Installed item categories are following a hierarchical tree structure. Each installed item an be classified only in one category.

Your Inventory can be managed through the Inventory Management Module and you can:

  • Add Stock into your Warehouses: Add stock to your existing warehouses by performing Stock In Warehouse Transactions. Use this type of warehouse transactions to add stock in your warehouses, either by using physical goods which are already imported into the System or by creating those physical goods while performing the warehouse transaction. Specify the items that should be added in the warehouse and post your warehouse transaction whenever you feel that you are ready to add the stock.
  • Removing Stock from your Warehouses: Remove stock from your existing warehouses by performing Stock Out Warehouse Transactions. Use this type of warehouse transactions to remove stock from your warehouses, by specifying the items that should be removed. Post your warehouse transaction whenever you feel that you are ready to remove the stock.
  • Moving Stock between your Warehouses: Move stock between warehouses by performing Stock Movement Warehouse Transactions. Use this type of warehouse transactions to move stock between your warehouses, by specifying the source and target warehouse and the items that should be moved. Post your warehouse transaction whenever you feel that you are ready to move the stock.
  • Viewing the location of all your Physical Good: View the location of all your physical goods, through the Location Information sections available on Installed Items. Access this area by navigating to Inventory Management > Installed Items. Use this information to view if a specific Installed Item is located in one of your Warehouses or if it was already provided to a specific Subscriber. View all the warehouse transactions that were applied on a specific Installed Item, through the Installed Item History Section

Do it Yourself!!

Let's see how you can quickly set up the System to start using Inventory Management module for your Subscriptions business


Create the following Warehouse Types & Inventory Management Definition

Company ZX would like to set up its warehouses for 4 different product types and its different sales branches.

CRM.COM Solution

Create the following warehouse types

      1. New Items 
      2. Temp Items
      3. Broken Items
      4. Returned Items

Set up the inventory management definitions

  1. Under Allowed Warehouses for Physical Goods Sales
    1. For adding a new physical good on subscription: Warehouses of type new items
    2. For swapping an existing physical good from a subscription: Warehouses of type temp items
  2. Under Allowed Warehouses for Physical Goods Returns
    1. For removing an existing physical good from a subscription: Warehouses of type broken items
    2. For physical goods that were swapped from a subscription: Warehouses of type returned items
  3. Create one warehouse per each warehouse type owned by sales branch 1:
    1. Type: Warehouse New Items, Name: Sales Branch 1 - WHS New Items
    2. Type: Warehouse Temp Items, Name: Sales Branch 1 - WHS Temp Items
    3. Type: Warehouse Broken Items, Name: Sales Branch 1 - WHS Broken Items
    4. Type: Warehouse Returned Items, Name: Sales Branch 1 - WHS Returned Items
  4. Create one warehouse per each warehouse type owned by sales branch 2
    1. Repeat steps as for sales branch 1
  5. Create a warehouse of type new items owned by sales branch 3
    1. Type: Warehouse New Items, Name: Sales Branch 3 - WHS New Items

 

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