General Trade Supplies

Control costs and streamline your supply chain from purchasing to customer fulfillment.

It takes a strong system to control the range and quantity of products that general trade suppliers have to deal with. From small single item sales to large multi-line orders, Solarsoft will not only supply a system to satisfy your high volume of orders, it will also keep your warehouse staff happy too.

With years of experience in the industry, Solarsoft products help you to control your business, aiding you to achieve high customer service levels and ensuring customers return to you time after time. At the same Solarsoft products provide the depth of functionality where it is required, to help you manage the often complex supply chain. In addition, fast access to graphical management information, fully automated warehousing, and an integrated web option are available for you to take your business to the next level.

Key Benefits

• Better management information
• More effective sales order processing
• Smarter buying
• Efficient stock/warehouse operations

Solarsoft offers merchants and wholesalers of general trade supplies a modern enterprise application specifically developed to meet the needs of the business, that includes:

• Stock and pricing data integrating with accounting and invoicing systems. The system draws on the same set of data, so you only have to input the data once. Sales Order Processing and Purchase Order Processing can be integrated in the system so that stock balances and statistics are automatically updated as orders are processed.
• Automatic stock monitoring, triggering orders when the re-order level is reached.
• Identifying the cheapest and fastest suppliers.
• Bar coding systems which speed up processing and recording. The software will print and read bar codes from your computer.
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) which enables individual valuable products or components to be tracked.

Solarsoft understands that modern systems must actively help businesses deliver the streamlined service, sharp prices and reliable product delivery critical to winning orders in competitive markets.

Built on our proven xVP technology platform, our software overlay for general trade wholesalers is designed to be rapidly installed and easy to learn, cutting training time and delivering value from day one.

Management Information

Getting reliable and up-to-date information about what is happening within your business can be a complicated task. Most business owners know what their top selling product is - but which products contribute the most margin and which customers are buying those products?

The Management Information Option* is easily mastered and presents key performance data for your business in a graphic “dashboard” giving you instant access to:

• Margin by product, supplier or customer
• Supplier price and delivery performance
• Patterns of sales by region or between products
• Stock turn, ageing and outages

What’s more, with a few clicks of the mouse, a line-by-line breakdown of the transactions behind each summary chart can be inspected or exported to Excel for further analysis.

Sales Orders

Our goal for sales order processing is to maximise the value of each customer contact. Our software supports multiple sales channels: there’s a Web Sales Option for online account service and tele-sales and trade counter support optimized for rapid and efficient customer service.

Product images, data sheets, and flexible delivery options round out features essential to a modern, full-service merchant:

• Rapid entry for prompt service on the phone or at the counter
• Integrated PO generation for back-to-back orders
• Kitting and quotation calculators
• Full search and histories available with smart search
• Targeted promotions – upsell, cross-sell and vouchers

Pricing flexibility is built in but can be controlled product by product to ensure that staff keep to target margins or get proper authorization for special offers.

Stock Management

From goods-in to dispatch, xVP promotes efficient warehouse operations, precise stock management and timely delivery. Multiple warehouses and optional bin-level stock control are available with full support for a complete range of movements and operations:

• Streamlined GRN operations – orders, returns, goods-in and PO matching
• Forward order stock allocation with contracted delivery
  schedules
• Drop shipment, returns and collections
• Accurate stock records using smart wireless devices and barcodes

Large product catalogues are easily maintained and managed using the powerful key word search that does not require users to memorise product codes to find items quickly and accurately.

Purchase Orders

Small and larger businesses can maintain full control over their purchases using the requisition and purchase order process controls in xVP. Purchasing is completely integrated with ledgers, sales order processing and stock control, offering:

• Efficient order quantity alerts for breaks and
  supplier rebates
• Comprehensive history and drill down
• Full returns process handling
• Best price/performance – reliability, defects, discounts

Optional Bankers Automatic Clearing Services (BACS) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) messaging is available for automation of orders and payments direct to suppliers or buying associations.

Technology & Options

Built on our cross-vendor platform, xVP, Solarsoft for Merchants is a Windows based system that is modern, open, reliable and easy to use. Easily installed on low-cost industry standard servers, xVP is a low-risk investment that delivers a high return.

• Standard edition: Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server
• Open source edition: Linux and mySQL
• Relational database for ODBC access to data
• XML message support for fl exible data exchange
• Built-in data migration tools for rapid implementation
• Compatible with a wide range of warehouse and yard automation equipment such as WiFi handheld devices and barcode scanners

xVP supports the Solarsoft Open Services Architecture (SOSA), a data gateway that allows systems to be easily and securely connected to business partners and customers via simple web services. SOSA compliance means that xVP also supports the full range of Solarsoft added-value Options plug-in applications that allow the core system to be extended as your business grows. Options include Web Sales for online customer service, our Warehouse Automation and Delivery Management Options for end-to-end barcode tracking and proof of delivery and the Management Information Option for graphic performance analysis.