Historic hardware retailer counts on inventory management

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Published on the 19/04/2013 | Written by MYOB

AT A GLANCE

Read Brothers Hammer Hardware

INDUSTRY

Retail

BUSINESS OBJECTIVE

A system that could control a large and complex inventory of products

SOLUTION

MYOB Exo Business with professional services provided by Speciffix Solutions Ltd

THE BENEFITS

Excellent inventory control, especially in the procurement cycle, as well as easy searchability
Handles promotional pricing and tags it making it easy to track and report on a promotion
Makes receiving stock easy and can handle complex pricing, sizing and supplier configurations
Up-to-date stock information available in real time at the POS, inventory can also be controlled from the POS

FOR MORE INFORMATION

MYOB//
E: biggerbusiness@myob.com
NZ: 0800 696 239
AU: 1300 555 110
https://www.myob.com/

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When Read Brothers Hammer Hardware needed a solution to track its 30,000-plus inventory it wanted more than just a nuts and bolts solution…

Overview
Read Brothers Hammer Hardware is a fifth generation family business that’s been operating in Thames since 1867. With a staff of ten and over 30,000 stock points to manage, Read Brothers is one of the larger Hammer Hardware stores in New Zealand. The company depends on superior inventory control to satisfy customer needs.

Since its implementation in 2004, Read Brothers has been using MYOB Exo to manage its mammoth product range. With Exo and Speciffix Solutions Ltd – an MYOB Enterprise Solutions Partner – management found the perfect match for the size and complexities of their business.

“We’re confident we chose the right system, and because Speciffix Solutions can access our system remotely most requests for assistance don’t even require a site visit,” says Stuart Read, who runs the business with his wife, Jocelyn and son, John.

Managing more than just nuts and bolts
With an extensive product range to manage, inventory control is paramount for Read Brothers. Exo is renowned for its excellent inventory control, especially in the procurement cycle. It offers real-time processing for easy stock identification, ETA of fresh stock, current cost and sell pricing, and all product attributes, and searching for stock is fast thanks to Exo’s screen presentation and barcode support.

Stuart explains “We can easily search for stock items, even for alternatives, by keying in one or more space separated strings. The system allows us to define where to search, even in custom fields that we have defined ourselves.”

Seamless integration with the Hammer Hardware Group
As part of the Hammer Hardware Group, Read Brothers enjoys buying privileges through its parent company, Mitre 10, and participate in country wide promotions. For the Read Brother’s team, Exo handles promotional pricing for supply chain and over the counter. Pricing at point of sale is automatic, with optional date ranges and is pre-loaded to the system weeks ahead of the promotion.

“We can specify an unlimited number of pricing policies containing multiple levels, such as customer and stock groups, or individual customers and SKUs,” explains Stuart.

Exo’s forecast-based purchase orders make maintaining stock levels easy, especially for promotions because all purchases and sales are traced to a promotion code so the promotion’s success can be measured.

Inwards goods made easy
Receiving stock has also been made easier. Purchase prices and discounts per supplier/stock item/pack size can be stored in the system to automate purchase order pricing, plus up-to-date information on outstanding orders and ‘goods received not invoiced’ is also easily accessible with just a few clicks of the mouse.

“The Inwards Goods function is most important to ensuring business profitability. MYOB Exo’s procedures provide the correct data for us to make critical business decisions,” says Stuart.

For John, it makes his day run smoothly. “We carry a large range of products, many not found in other Hammer Hardware stores. Some items are sourced from multiple suppliers and we can buy in different purchase pack sizes,” explains John. “For each of our stock points we can set up multiple-supplier info and even different supplier stock codes from the same supplier when they offer multiple pack sizes. Quantity conversion on stock receipt is automatic.”

Friendly POS
Read Brothers operates four point of sale lanes. These can be secured by password as staff are often assisting customers at the shelves. To start a new transaction, staff just need to scan their barcode and all transactions are traceable, even if the tills are shared. Data is updated in real time, on-account sales can be checked and the POS interface means staff can raise sales orders when stock is unavailable or configure customised stock.

Stuart says, “We find the POS transaction parking feature particularly useful, it enables us to suspend multiple transactions and even recall them on a different lane workstation.

“With Exo, there has been no downtime on our workstations and EFTPOS,” says Stuart cheerily.

Behind the scenes
With six workstations, the administration staff handle the usual debtors, creditors and general ledger processing and reporting, along with inquiries and mail orders. Other terminals are used for inwards goods processing and typical stock management functions.

Jocelyn explains “Exo allows us to do a soft end-of-month rollover. This is great for us as, after we close the shift on the last day of the month, we can immediately roll to the new period ready for the next day’s trading and then go home. On the following days we can key final transactions [into the prior period], such as cheques in the mail, and then produce all our end of month reporting, statements. We do it in our own time without holding things up at the counter.”

Read Brothers also has an inbuilt Contacts system which provides it with CRM information to maintain communication with regular customers, including those with frequent customer buying privileges.

Stable and flexible
Read Brother’s data is stored on an MSSQL server and Exo data structures are open and easy to understand. It also has a very powerful report writer (Clarity) which is used to customise business forms. Typically report design is done by the Exo Channel Partner, however, after the initial implementation, Stuart opted to learn the Clarity tool himself and now alters or writes reports, including business form design, himself.

The open nature of the MSSQL data structure also allows for experienced channel partners, such as Speciffix Solutions Ltd, to customise procedures as required.

“At times,” explains Stuart, “we get Speciffix to build us custom solutions to meet our unique needs. They developed an EDI interface which downloads national product data from the parent Mitre 10 head office and uploads stock levels and daily sales.

“Speciffix have even employed MYOB’s custom database extension facility to implement extra fields that allow Read Brothers to tag dangerous goods items and, through the Clarity reporting tool, manage stock holding and store placement of these items. We report on this using the MYOB Exo Clarity reporting tool. This, with all the other benefits of MYOB Exo, has made us so much more productive.”