Multi-Location Stock Control

 

CAPITAL can keep track of inventory at multiple locations. This is useful when you have stock at multiple stores or warehouses, or consign stock to other companies. The stock search facilities found in CAPITAL can be used to easily locate where your stock is. There is no limit to the number of locations you can maintain per stock item.

In order to use multi-location stock you must do the following:

  1. Activate the Multi Location Stock options in INSTALLATION Workshop.

  2. Create the departments that your stock will be assigned to.

  3. Assign each of your inventory records to a location.

    4. You must create, at least, the departments that will represent your stock locations. Do this by going to the main menu and selecting Tables|Departments. For information on how to create departments please review the topic: Departments.

    Once you have created your departments you must assign locations to your inventory. If you do not do this you may be unable to access your inventory records. In other words, CAPITAL will not let you invoice, purchase, etc., your stock.

    Assigning Locations To Stock

    Once the Multi Location Stock Control system is activated, CAPITAL will only allow you to assign inventory to transactions that have been allotted to a specific location. It is important that you tell CAPITAL where this inventory is located. This is done by assigning a location code to each stock record in Stock Control.

    The location code is placed in the Location field on your stock record. You can type locations into your inventory manually, or you can use the Manage Stock Locations utility found in INSTALLATION Workshop.

    The recommended procedure is to:

generate/setuptip.jpgYou may not need to create a duplicate copy of your inventory file if only a smaller portion of your inventory will be held at other locations. (This would be expected if you are consigning parts of your inventory to sales representatives or vehicles, as opposed to having multiple warehouses.)

CAPITAL will automatically create stock at other stock locations for you, if you indicate that stock is to be moved from "point A" to "point B" via a Stock Transfer or other transaction that results in a stock movement.

generate/mistake1.gifKeep in mind that a location of "blank" (no location code specified), is in itself a valid location. It is not recommended that you use "blank" as a location in your system, because it is hard to tell whether the Location field in Stock Control was left blank intentionally, or because an operator forget to specify where the stock was located at. Your first step should therefore be to assign a non-blank code to your inventory records.

generate/notepad2.gifRemember: You cannot invoice, purchase, etc., a stock item that has not been assigned a valid location code.

Multi-location Stock and Consignments

If you will be using the multi-location stock system to consign inventory to other companies (dealers) or sales representatives then be careful that you distinguish between the billing account and the location account for that company or salesperson.

The billing account is a standard account. When your sales representative or dealer sells stock that he has on consignment, you should bill that stock to the dealer's standard account. This is a normal customer account just like any other standard account in the system.

When you are transferring stock to a sales representative or dealer, keep in mind that you are not using the same account code. You should have a second account which is set-up as an internal account/department. This is used to represent your department/location at the dealer's site. When you consign your stock to a third-party you are actually moving a small part of your operation (inventory) to that third-party. This might actually take the form of a portion of their warehouse, for example, which has been set-aside to house your inventory. This doesn't actually have to be the case in physical reality, but for accounting purposes a certain part of your business is considered to reside at this location. (Or at least your assets.) It's therefore important to distinguish between the dealer as a "customer" and the dealer as a "location". Hence the need to set-up two accounts, with one serving as the location of your stock.

Mixing Locations On Transactions

When the multi-location stock system is activated, CAPITAL assumes that the stock items that appear on a transaction should be the same as the location code of the transaction. If you select, for example, department 1 as the location code of the transaction, CAPITAL will search location 1 when you enter product codes. If the product code cannot be found at location 1 a "no match found" warning message will be reported, and the code will not be accepted, even if that stock item is found at another location.

If you wish to override this behaviour, you can activate the Permit Multi Locations Per Transaction option via INSTALLATION Workshop. This option will allow you to combine stock items from different locations onto a single transaction or job. You should note, however, that CAPITAL will assume that the location of the product code should still match the location of the transaction, unless you specifically indicate otherwise by selecting a product from a different location via a search window. When the multi-location stock system is activated, CAPITAL always present the product's location before the product code, in search windows.

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