The IDEAS distribution software is feature rich in functionality that will help you manage your entire front-office and back-office operations with a single, flexible, powerful business application. By integrating your customer service, financials, manufacturing, work orders, kitting and assemblies, inventory management, e-commerce and more, IDEAS is setting the standard for consumer packaged goods (CPG) distribution software.
Improved Inventory Visibility and Control
IDEAS distribution software gives companies the visibility they need to track inventory effectively: where it is, where it has been, and where it is headed. As a result, purchasing managers can use that data to make better, more informed buying decisions. The software can also help reduce purchasing and inventory costs, improve cash flow and help ensure that you have the right stock available when you need it by letting you connect inventory control, purchasing, and sales order processing with demand planning. More importantly, your company will hold only the inventory it needs — no more and no less.
IDEAS lets you harness the power of your inventory investment with clear visibility into trends, turn rates, slow-moving stock, item margins, and the performance of individual items or product lines. Robust tools for inventory planning and replenishment can help you accurately forecast demand, make smart decisions, and balance inventory costs against fill rates and customer satisfaction levels. When you fully understand individual product profitability, seasonality, and trends, you gain negotiation power with suppliers and the insight to enhance your customers’ success.
IDEAS also helps you optimize warehouse space and streamline picking with a clear understanding of which inventory moves most rapidly. In addition, IDEAS’ serial and lot number tracking lets you easily comply with product recalls or customer or retailer requirements for specific product and order identification, tracking, labeling and mapping tracking data directly to EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) documents as needed.
Streamline Operations for Faster Order Fulfillment
With the IDEAS distribution software, you can improve customer satisfaction by accessing up-to-date inventory information to make more accurate order promises and intelligent last-minute exceptions.
IDEAS lets you avoid wasting time and reduces the risk of errors by letting you enter data once and then use it for order entry, picking, packing, labeling, and shipping; inventory records and replenishment processes; and customer invoicing and accounting. With IDEAS, the data your business depends resides in a single database and can be accessed and updated anytime, from anywhere, by anyone who needs it. That means timely, accurate information and careful warehouse management, so stock can be promised with confidence, goods can be found where they’re expected, inventories remain accurate, and orders can be efficiently picked, packed, labeled, shipped and invoiced.
With IDEAS, you can automate repetitive tasks—such as order distribution, picking lists, carrier assignment, or customer invoicing—to save time and focus employee attention on satisfying customers. You can even tailor your solution to generate compliant shipping manifests for Federal Express, United Parcel Service (UPS), the USPS or other carriers without reentering data or switching systems.
What’s more, by integrating barcode or RF technology, you can further streamline inventory handling and more easily conform to customer compliance initiatives. RF capabilities will let your employees use handheld computers in the warehouse to dynamically generate pick, put-away, movement, and physical inventory documents on the fly. They can also streamline shipment packing right from the picking process by capturing package or pallet detail during the pick and yielding tremendous efficiency as it proceeds through packing, labeling, and the generation of carrier manifests.
If your company is moving toward an automated warehouse, you can gradually increase the extent of your automation painlessly over time—even if you do not yet have barcoded items. As new items are received and brought into the warehouse, you can assign barcodes easily, as well as identify bin locations, lot numbers, physical attributes, and weights in item records.
Automate and Enhance Product Import and Procurement
If you import, IDEAS distribution software is the right solution. IDEAS provides full compliance with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) as well as a range of other features designed to simplify and automate your import business. The software’s container receipts module lets you process purchase orders quickly and accurately, including information such as agent, packer, shipping line, port of entry, final destination, vessel and container number.
IDEAS’s in-transit inventory capability tracks on-hand inventory both in the warehouse and in-transit, and a flexible allocation system intelligently allocates inventory regardless of where it is in the pipeline. The result is better, more effective stocking levels. IDEAS also calculates exact landed costs, including all import-related fees. You can easily track and account for extraneous expenses such as freight, customs fees, duties fees and other costs that contribute to the true landed cost of the product—so you know your exact margins.
Linking Your Offices with Multiple Warehouse Facilities
IDEAS can link your office and multiple warehouse facilities, giving you one set of dependable data so you can make reliable promises to customers, fulfill orders quickly and accurately, and boost customer satisfaction. This robust management solution can also empower you to streamline warehouse processes, efficiently handle long lead-time items, and select the optimal forecasting formula based on past sales to yield maximum profitability.
Support for Third-Party Fulfillment Houses
If you buy in bulk from your manufacturers and want to avoid inventory carrying costs, a fulfillment company can provide a cost-effective, ‘just-in-time’ inventory and distribution solution. When orders are received from retailers, including via EDI transactions, a PO, pick ticket and bar-coded shipping labels are sent electronically to the to the fulfillment house. Once the product is shipped, a shipping confirmation with freight, fuel and other charges can be applied to the customer’s final invoice.
Assembly and Light Manufacturing Support Built-In
IDEAS lets distributors, assemble-to-order wholesalers and other light manufacturers manage their entire business with one integrated application. By integrating kits and kit resources into your sales, inventory, accounting and pick-and-pack operations, IDEAS helps you dramatically improve the management of kits and streamline related accounting processes. You can easily assemble and disassemble kits, including rollup pricing, kit components on documents, reservations and item tracking at the kit-component level.
Comprehensive Supply Chain Management
IDEAS software lets you tailor your sales, purchasing, and pick/pack/ship cycle processes to meet specific needs and keep pace with competitive markets and low margins. Help increase customer loyalty with better responsiveness, rapidly pursue new market opportunities, and improve your profitability by working efficiently with partners. With IDEAS, you can improve inventory management, manage single or multi-site warehouses and handle order processing and demand planning.
Analysis and Business Intelligence for Confident Decision Making
IDEAS brings strategic insight into your business processes with sophisticated reporting, analysis, and budgeting solutions that help you improve critical decision making throughout the organization. You can access and analyze accurate, up-to-the-minute data about every aspect of your operations, including individual transactions, key performance indicators, market trends and growth opportunities.
IDEAS’ reporting and analytical capabilities empower people across your organization to extract and analyze data, generate and share reports, or export to Microsoft Office Excel or other familiar programs for further analysis and graphical presentation. IDEAS lets you easily:
- Analyze key performance indicators and visualize trends
- Drill down to details driving revenues, trends, and profitability
- Capture supply chain data for regulatory or customer compliance requirements
- Pinpoint market shifts to identify potential new products, markets, and customers
- Assess the return on investment of potential inventory or operational changes
- Maintain a full audit trail for even the most complex transactions
- Get a clear understanding of product profitability, seasonality, and trends
- Gain negotiation power with suppliers
- Identify new ways to add value
Complete Accounting and Financial Management Solution
IDEAS can help you efficiently manage your general ledger, payables, receivables, inventory, analytical accounting, fixed assets, and cash flow as well as perform bank reconciliations and collections. You can also manage your financial processes across multiple currencies, locations, or companies.
You can gain efficiency and boost productivity by streamlining routine accounting practices with automated financial processes and an intuitive interface tailored to each user’s most common task. IDEAS helps you make informed, data-based decisions with powerful analytical capabilities and robust reporting services to help you monitor performance, identify financial trends and spot potential problems.
IDEAS improves the integrity of your core financial data by centralizing actual, budget, foreign currency, and average balances in a single ledger. A single posting process automatically synchronizes summary balances to provide up-to-the-minute data. What’s more, with IDEAS you’ll achieve complete financial transparency. The software’s integrated systems, shared data and drill-down capabilities help provide a clear view of your financial transactions.