Automated Purchasing for CounterPoint Retail POS


Automated Purchasing provides retailers the tools to control every aspect of purchases and receiving.

New purchase requests are entered with system-assigned or user-entered PO numbers. Or you can use Add Items to simplify the process of entering purchase requests by allowing you to quickly add items to a purchase request simultaneously, without requiring you to create each line individually.

You can optionally print PO forms when you post.

CounterPoint automatically updates on-order quantities for items. New vendors and items may be added on-the-fly. During receiving, PO's may be retrieved by PO number, vendor, or other keyword fields. A PO may be received in full with minimal data entry, or only selected lines may be received. Unreceived goods can be easily backordered or cancelled. You can add additional lines or change, reissue, or reprint the PO. Merchandise that arrives without a PO may be entered on-the-fly during receiving as well. You can optionally import a receiving from a file built with a handheld data collection device.

An item may have unlimited vendors, each with its own cost and purchasing unit. Costs and quantities may be entered on a PO and printed on forms. Vendor items are automatically defined as part of normal Inventory and Purchasing usage.

Full support is provided for 3-dimensional gridded items (color/size/width) when entering PO's, entering receivings, and printing reports. Additionally, with the Serial Numbers Feature, you can enter serial numbers during receiving.

You can also use Quick Receivings to enter and receive inventory in a single step.

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Forecast Driven Replenishment

Create seasonal forecasts for your items, allowing you to more accurately estimate future demand based on historical sales, using proven forecasting methods. Once you have created a forecast, CounterPoint can use the forecast data to calculate and set the ideal minimum and maximum quantities for your items. In addition, you can generate purchasing advice based on the updated minimum and maximum values to ensure that you have the forecasted quantities on hand for each period or season.

This feature allows you to more easily evaluate your inventory needs, dynamically adjust minimum and maximum quantities, and automatically replenish your stock to meet changing demand for your items.

Purchasing Advice

CounterPoint's Purchasing Advice can automatically calculate and create restocking orders, plus view or generate purchase orders by lowest cost vendor.

Purchasing Advice calculates the quantities to reorder based on current inventory levels, commitments, backorders, in-transit merchandise, open PO's, desired stocking levels, vendor multiples, and/or vendor minimum order requirements.

Reorder quantities may be calculated using one of two methods:

  • Min/max-Orders an item up to its desired maximum stocking level when it falls to or below its minimum (reorder) level.
  • Replenishment-Orders enough of an item to replace what was sold during a specified time period and allows you to enter a history factor so you can order, for example, 20% more or 5% less.

Days of Supply

The Days of Supply method, allows you to enter the number of days you want a supply of, and using a specified time period considers both quantity on-hand and actual sales trends to calculate suggested quantities to order to last for the numbers of days requested

Returns to Vendors (RTVs)

RTVs may be entered, reviewed, and posted to record the return of merchandise to a vendor. RTVs reduce on-hand inventory. RTVs may also be vouchered into Accounts Payable to record credits with a vendor.

Purchasing Adjustments

After your receivings have been posted, you can correct receivings costs and miscellaneous charges to adjust inventory and/or cost of goods sold.

Allocated PO's

For multi-location purchasing, Purchasing Advice can generate allocated PO's. Using location groups, you can order and receive merchandise for a group of stores in a single, combined PO. CounterPoint supports allocated/merged PO's as well as allocated/separate PO's.

Allocated/merged PO's remain a single document throughout the order/receive process. When the PO's are received, transfers are created to distribute the merchandise to the appropriate locations.

Allocated/separate PO's are split into one PO per location when issued.

Multi-Location Purchasing

Full support is provided for purchasing and receiving across multiple stores. PO's may originate at the main office and may be received at the other stores or received into the central warehouse for distribution to the stores through transfers

Customer Specific Purchases

CounterPoint makes it easy to take a customer's order from the point-of-sale, place a purchase order with a vendor, track and receive the PO, and fulfill the customer's order. Copy the detail of that order into a PO to the vendor and stamp the PO with the POS order number to identify the inventory as allocated to a particular order, track the PO- even at the POS you can zoom in on Special Order to see the status of the PO attached to the order

Views and Reporting

A detailed history of PO receivings and cancellations is retained for viewing and reporting. Open PO's may be viewed or printed showing quantity ordered, received, and expected. The Open PO Report shows outstanding PO's and can be printed by PO number, vendor, delivery date, etc.

Accounts Payable Interface

Received PO's may be vouchered directly into a third-party Accounts Payable system. Invoices may be vouchered to the vendor and a report of unvouchered receivings is provided.

Electronic Orders

You may print paper PO's for your vendors or output text files suitable for use in electronic ordering. You may save PO's as PDF files to fax or email to vendors. Full EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) typically requires use of third-party translator and communications software.

Miscellaneous Charges

Extra charges (for freight, etc.) may be entered during receivings and optionally included in the landed cost. You can enter up to five separate miscellaneous charges which can be allocated based on the weight, quantity, cost, or cube (cubic volume) of the items received.