We begin with our Purchase Order, Accounts Payable, Purchase History, Inventory, Stock Log, Sales and Call Tracking, Prospect Tracking, Sales Order, Accounts Receivable, Sales History, and General Ledger systems.  In keeping with our general philosophy, all of these systems are customized to meet the customer's specifications.

We then tie all of these together using our unique Order Entry processing system.  The heart of the system is the 'Scan for Action' screen.  Orders are broken down into a set of steps:

• Inquiry Pending - initial customer inquiry order information is entered
• New Inquiry - an actual sales order is begun
• Cost Request - product costing information is requested from buyers
• Cost Quote - buyers return quotes either from vendors or inventory
• OK To Quote - the sales manager authorizes a quote to be sent
• Credit Approval - multiple levels of credit approval are requested
• etc. through many more potential steps.

Each person in the supply chain has a screen which displays currently open 'action items' which require their attention.  The items shown on each person's screen are entirely table driven.  In addition, each person can see where the order is in the process.

Initial inquiry information becomes the basis for customer quotes, credit checking and scoring, invoicing, and sales history.  Cost quotes become the basis for purchase orders (if needed) or inventory pick slips, or production requirements.  Purchase orders are automatically checked against vendor invoices which become part of the purchase history.

The idea is to increase the speed of order processing, reduce the paperwork, allow information entered to flow through the system without additional data entry, and quickly identify any point of backlog, keeping the customer in the loop with updated expected ship dates.  Many reporting tools are built in to facilitate the process.