NetSuite’s Advanced Inventory module extends the end-to-end capabilities of NetSuite with advanced features for wholesaler distributors and other product-oriented companies. These tools give growing and midsize businesses sophisticated functionality, made simpler with NetSuite.
Why NetSuite Advanced Inventory?
Lot Management Lot numbered inventory items use a ‘specific’ costing method that tracks the exact cost of each item from purchase to sale. Each lot number record includes the quantity of items in that lot, an expiration date, and an area to enter notes about that lot. You can set up a warning to let you know when an item you’re fulfilling is about to expire. Lot numbers must be entered when building or receiving a lot numbered item into inventory, and when fulfilling orders for a lot numbered item. NetSuite’s sophisticated transaction search functionality makes it simple to view the entire history of a lot as it moves through your system and to customers. This auditing function is useful in the case of a recall warning.
Bin Management NetSuite lets you ship orders to your customers more efficiently by organizing your warehouse using bins, to track the exact location of items in stock. Employees will be able to pick and fulfill orders faster when they know exactly where to go for the items they need. Each item may be stored in multiple bins, and different items can be stored in the same bin. Using bins will also help streamline the re-stocking process, by generating a put-away list for goods received but still in the loading area. You can use bins to organize a single warehouse or multiple warehouses, when using the Multi-Location Inventory feature.
Landed Cost Maximizing profit margin is key to the success of wholesalers and distributors. To more accurately calculate profit, particular for importers, expenses like shipping or duty must be added to material costs to calculate landed cost. NetSuite makes it easy to track landed cost, by allowing you to allocate expenses to inventory receipts according to weight, value, or quantity. These allocated costs become part of the item’s asset value. Then, when you sell, landed cost is used as the basis for cost of goods sold, and your inventory profitability report will compare revenue to landed cost rather than material cost.
Demand Based Inventory Replenishment NetSuite provides intelligent control over inventory replenishment, helping ensure that you have enough on hand to fill anticipated orders, but keep excess stock to a minimum. Average lead time, historical or seasonal-based sales demand, and number of days’ supply to stock are used to dynamically set reorder point and preferred stock level for each item, on an ongoing basis. You can always override or disable these calculations for individual items, to handle atypical circumstances. You set up the rules, NetSuite runs the numbers; the end result is a dynamic ordering queue, where you can order all your inventory items with one click and get what you need, when you need it.
Serialized Inventory Serialized inventory enables tracking of products through all the stages—production, sales, shipment, and service. NetSuite maintains a complete history of each serial number. NetSuite also tracks the specific cost for each serial number as products are bought and sold, helping you to track and optimize your inventory processes.
Matrix Items Matrix item capabilities allow you to stock and sell products in various colors, sizes, and style combinations—but without managing line items for each valid combination in your product catalog. Under a matrix item, sub-items can represent any number of characteristics such as pricing, inventory status, and description. Rather than filtering through endless item listings, sales representatives can simply select the item and its matrix options when entering a sales order. You also improve your customers’ shopping experience by enabling them to select from drop-down lists that specify the combination of options they would like to select.
Multiple Units of Measure NetSuite offers units of measure capabilities combined with quantity-based pricing, allowing you to offer flexibility in volume pricing and better control your re-stock levels. Units are also reflected in your sales and inventory reports, so that you can analyze which units have the highest sell-through rates, and later adjust your pricing, production, and stock levels to maximize revenue.
Pick, Pack, & Ship Pick, Pack, & Ship is an extension to Advanced Shipping that allows you to track order fulfillments as they go through three phases—picking, packing, and shipment. This is particularly useful in high volume order processing environments, when these different tasks are performed by different employees and at different times. Separate queues for action display orders that are waiting to be picked, packed, or shipped out. With pick, pack, and ship, you can always easily know the status of your customer’s order.
Integrated UPS® & FedEx® with Tracking NetSuite integration lets you manage UPS and FedEx shipping right within NetSuite. Put an end to toggling and cutting and pasting between systems by printing shipping labels, generating tracking numbers, and validating destination addresses, and checking real-time rates all from within NetSuite. Tracking numbers automatically tie back to your sales orders, allowing you or your customers to track the status of shipments instantly.
Bar Coding NetSuite enables you to print bar codes with transaction numbers on sales orders, packing slips, and invoices. When combined with any bar code scanner that functions as an input device, order entry and processing is made significantly faster. Plus, you can scan product bar codes to add them to transactions, or scan transaction numbers during activities such as sales order fulfillment, and printing packing slips or shipping labels.
