Stock Control Software

[cr0ft]

Folks,

This is primarily aimed at people running plumbing companies with more than one van as stock control is a very easy job to do when you've got one van and you're in it every day. As soon as you have 2 vans and a staff member is running around in the other one you lose visibility and the process starts to get a bit tricky or time gets wasted doing it all manually. I don't know about all of you but we have around 200 lines on each of our vans and keeping track of them manually is a really chore.

We have a working system we're using at the moment that allows us to barcode up all our bins in the van and accurately keep track of all the stock in our vans by line each month. Barcodes are generated from any laser printer and they scan a treat on all mobiles with an auto-focus camera. The guys can scan the bin barcodes with their iPhone and allocate stock out to customers etc. The system then automatically generates orders by van to keep to the set minimum stock levels. Stock updates happen in real time where there is a 3G/4G/Wifi signal or when the van gets back into such an area if there is no signal. In the case of suppliers like Williams it will email orders through at the touch of a button.

For myself with a 2 van business the admin time savings are massive. I can only imagine this would be multiplied for those with 3 or more vans. I can also ensure I'm holding enough van stock to ensure I'm buying from the cheapest suppliers which often require minimum order sizes (like Williams do).

As I mentioned, the system is being programmed for plumbing businesses/electrical businesses and other such construction businesses.

Once it's done I'm considering reselling it as there aren't many great stock control programs available in the UK for small/medium businesses. The price of them is usually very expensive.

This will be a sideline thing for me and once each business is setup there is no real time investment from me. Question is, how much (if anything) a month would you guys be willing to pay for a system like this? Multi-van business owners like myself are probably the target customers so I wouldn't want to price it so high that it's not attractive (like the other products out there). The iPhone App will be free and easy to use for employees but the license will involve an ongoing monthly fee per user basically.

As the software is Cloud based it can scale easily to any size of business really with any amount of products.

 

[plumben]

This isn't really relivent to me and my van atm but hopefully in the future ill have a need for it, sound like a brilliant idea, towards pricing, id say the cost would have to be what you save from doing it manually yourself
all the best with your new venture though

 

[cr0ft]

To be honest I want to price it so it's affordable for all sizes of business. From what I can see the other options at the moment all seem far too expensive for small businesses hence why I'm having my own developed. The software is already available in the USA and we're using a full version of that just now (I used some technical crap to get it downloaded on my phone here in the UK) but there is nothing like it here in the UK as far as I'm aware.

 

[Deleted member 64964]

This is something we have looked in to a few times and we have 10 vans and a warehouse. It's all a bit of a mess really. I have tried a few different things but not really thought any of them fit the bill so to speak.


My opinion but I hate monthly services.

 

[cr0ft]

Interesting. I believe the monthly payment with these things is due to the ongoing cost of the infrastructure, servers etc.

What would you pay as a one off cost for something that did this properly and worked out of curiosity. I figured as I am getting this custom built I may as well try and recover my money on it. The other option is for businesses to run the server software on their own computer but obviously they still have ongoing costs. I'm sure with 10 vans you must spend a fair bit of time ensuring they are all stocked which is costing you money each month in time.

 

[Destroyer2813]

Surely the onus should be on the staff to replenish the stock the use from the merchants and book it out to the correct job , not the employer to go round counting every fitting in 10 vans

 

[Deleted member 64964]

Surely the onus should be on the staff to replenish the stock the use from the merchants and book it out to the correct job , not the employer to go round counting every fitting in 10 vans

Yeah that's exactly how we deal with it, but we have lots of stock that doesn't get used and we can't always return like pcb, gas valves etc.

Plus we hold Viessmanns stock at our warehouse for warranty calls. It would be nice to know what and where it is if we have it lol

 

[cr0ft]

Surely the onus should be on the staff to replenish the stock the use from the merchants and book it out to the correct job , not the employer to go round counting every fitting in 10 vans

If they are doing that for you then they aren't out earning money. I want my staff to be working as much of their 8 hours a day as possible.

If you have 10 vans for example, you are going to be able to get much better prices by buying one order across all 10 vans rather than little bits here and there. I know I can buy parts for around 50% of the local prices when I buy them across our vans at once. The savings you can make on your parts bill over a year are massive and will most likely equal your labour charges if you get it right.

You are also relying on staff not to use the van stock for their own uses without any sort of stock tracking. All problems that become apparent as soon as you get that second van.

Good stock control software also lets you know exactly how much of a line you have used over a year and will actually adapt ordering to suit to ensure you aren't holding more stock than you need. This should get our stock holding per van down to around £1k each rather than £2.5k currently. This can also release a lot of spare money. Not to mention the time saved once it's up and running on all the work phoning/emailing orders through to wholesalers. Fuel savings not nipping to local suppliers, instead ones like Williams will deliver to us direct to site.

When I think of all the hours I've wasted running to get the odd part this year or popping into local wholesalers this year to buy parts the hidden cost of not having efficient stock management soon becomes obvious. How many times too have you forgotten to charge out all of the small bits used on a job to a customer? This doesn't happen with a decent system as the parts list used is there in front of you when you invoice it.

The administration saving alone to me is worth around £80 per month as I reckon I spend 2.5 hours or so working on orders etc easily.

The main thing I noticed when switching over to a computer stock system was how much stock I was holding that I don't really use and how much stock I was holding that I had no idea I had lol.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Its certainly true that decent inventory management should save you money and time once you pass a certain size.

I've seen several different attempts from various firms, and they all seem to fall down on user input. Operatives forget/can't be bothered/book out wrong item, or the administrative overhead of a well meaning, but poorly designed system means that they waste more time on process than they save.

I have to say that I have never come across a plumber who says "my firms inventory management system really is the mutts nuts!"

 

[IDCHAPPY]

You're far to organised dude

 

[rpm]

I ask for and they give, not the way I`d run it if it was my company but then I`m not complaining.

 

[Chalked]

Company I once worked for, had a 3ft x2ft box for each boiler they worked on. Each box had all major spares for that model. When you went out you took a box for each boiler you were working on that day. The vans were designed to take 6 boxes in the back door.
every box had a sleeve on the front with a list of parts in the box, all you had to do was tick next to the part you used. When all the boxes were back in the yard, the manager would go to the sheet on the boxes and re order the parts used. This worked very well and was simple.

i personally think you are creating yourself more work.

 

[Deleted member 64964]

our office is next door to plumbase and we all meet in there half an hour before the day starts and get what we need for the day, so they're not wasting time in the day.

Obviously they can't think of every eventuality but that wouldn't be stocked on the van anways.

 

[SimonG]

A stock control programme will come with downtime as well. Also who will do your cycle counting? Butvthen as a one man band it doesnt worry me, but I would see it more of a tool for a medium to large enterprise rather than a small to medium.

 

[cr0ft]

Cheers for all the input guys. For me more than anything it's about having good processes in place before the business grows much further so I'm not sorting out massive issues down the line. From what I've seen so far the effect of bad processes on profit etc just get magnified as the business grows.

 

[Nostrum]

I think very much in a similar way Croft. I create systems that allow for growth far before I need them to save having to change the way we operate when we take more staff on. I'm also a bit OTT when it comes to organisation.

Stock control is one thing we haven't figured out yet, nor is it a major problem just yet either.

The idea sounds good although possibly a bit OTT and relying on your staff to complete essential activities to make it work.

You could print a list and tick off what you have used for no cost.

If you were looking to launch something like this to the masses, you'd have to offer it for under £20 a month, more like £5 a month to begin with or a free trial.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Build what works for you.

Don't worry too much about selling it to others. Do you have any experience in software development and marketing? If not, what makes you think that you can compete effectively in that field?

And, as the book says "if you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete!"

 

[gasmanrob]

Do you have any experience in software development and marketing? If not, what makes you think that you can compete effectively in that field?

theres a short course available and his mate is a software designer and said he is welcome to tag along on the occasional Saturday to get a feel for it

 

[cr0ft]

Build what works for you.

Don't worry too much about selling it to others. Do you have any experience in software development and marketing? If not, what makes you think that you can compete effectively in that field?

And, as the book says "if you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete!"

Hi Ray. That is indeed a good point. I've been quite focussed on trying to recoup some of the cost and lost track of the fact it will give us a good competitive advantage locally.

 

[cr0ft]

theres a short course available and his mate is a software designer and said he is welcome to tag along on the occasional Saturday to get a feel for it

LOL sarky bugger. I'm not programming the bloody thing myself lol.

 

[cr0ft]

I think very much in a similar way Croft. I create systems that allow for growth far before I need them to save having to change the way we operate when we take more staff on. I'm also a bit OTT when it comes to organisation.

Stock control is one thing we haven't figured out yet, nor is it a major problem just yet either.

The idea sounds good although possibly a bit OTT and relying on your staff to complete essential activities to make it work.

You could print a list and tick off what you have used for no cost.

If you were looking to launch something like this to the masses, you'd have to offer it for under £20 a month, more like £5 a month to begin with or a free trial.

If I did launch it in the end it would most likely be a limited thing to you guys on here to start with as a freebie to see what you reckon to it. Use you as guinea pigs to let me know if you feel it's worth anything or not. I wouldn't spend a lot of time promoting it as it would detract from my own business. To my mind if these things are good enough they promote themselves fairly quickly. If they're not they're not.

The issue for us is the amount of lines we have in each van. Over 200 actually, maybe we are a bit unusual because we do 2 main trades. Our vans are like mini plumbing merchants lol. The software we are using currently is very intuitive (even my apprentices can use it) and is incredibly quick to use which is important. The guys really like it to be honest as it's so simple to use and they know if they do it properly they don't need to stock check any more.

The price they want for it is not so good though - around £350 a month. Hence me getting someone in to create our own.