The Problem
In DSD operations, managing hundreds of daily orders which need to be delivered in a very short time, without the help of delivery and route planning software, is next to impossible. Operations where a high quantity of orders need to be sorted by hand, grouped in batches, picked from one or multiple warehouses and loaded / checked on the delivery vehicle order by order, require many resources and is a highly error prone process.
A similar challenge is faced by route settlers and cashiers when delivery vehicles are reconciled at the end of the day, especially in ‘Cash on Delivery’ environments. This latter process requires stock to be manually reconciled, return orders to be created one-by-one and processed manually, cash collected needs to be recorded and payments created one at a time and allocated to the originating invoices. Such processes, besides being time consuming, are prone to mistakes which result in unreliable information, disputes, risks of cash “going missing” and decreased customer satisfaction.
The Solution
Standard Acumatica Distribution Edition functionality is enhanced to process sales orders, shipments, and related fiscal documents in a more streamlined and efficient manner. Orders can be automatically split by storage classification (such as ambient, chilled and frozen temperature regimes) and shipments are auto sorted and grouped for the dispatcher to create one or more loads which are assigned to one or more specific delivery vehicles. Pick lists can be generated by load and wave picking, individual picking and picking by weight are all supported picking methods. Orbis DSD continuously assists the dispatcher by providing warnings where assigned vehicles are overloaded or loaded with the incorrect SKUs, and it facilitates the bulk printing of delivery documents and related fiscal documents.
Orbis DSD extends standard Acumatica with tools to manage the reconciliation process for both stock and payments. Warehouse users can verify that delivery documents provided to drivers at the start of the day’s delivery cycle are all returned, can create return documents for non-deliveries, and can fully reconcile stock – all from a single Acumatica screen.
Cashiers and accounts receivable personnel use the cash drawer screen to keep track of payments collected both by route drivers and non-route personnel, to generate and allocate payments for paid invoices, and to generate credit memos for non-deliveries also using quick processing. Additionally, accounts receivable personnel are provided with simplified tools to effect daily bank transfers of collected cash and checks.
Customer related functionality is enhanced with new features including annual rebate management, loan management, and additional central views for fast response when inquiring a customer’s transactional history. Furthermore, the standard Fixed Assets Module has been extended so that the finance department, in collaboration with the logistics department, will be able to track fixed assets movement by customer location as well as expenses incurred on each fixed asset.
Executive users will be able to take better informed decisions making use of both new operational out-of-the-box Acumatica dashboards as well as our new sales data cube (based on MS SQL Server Business Intelligence Stack) which is provided as an extension to the Orbis DSD Route Accounting & Planning solution. Power users will be able to create new dashboards focusing on key performance indicators to ensure the business is running efficiently, customers are serviced on time and as promised, and profitability is exceeded. Users are also empowered to make use of this cube as a data source to easily create ad hoc reports directly on MS Excel.
