Using VISCO, importers and wholesale distributors are able to allow all departments the ability to share the same information. One of the biggest challenges to growth of a small importing business is having people work in silo’s where each employee is managing their own individual spreadsheets. This is normally a result of people creatively working around shortcoming in their current software. Even if the accounting department is happy using QuickBooks, the Logistics department and sales department are supplementing with spreadsheets because QuickBooks alone will not meet their needs. This is an indication you are ready for VISCO.
Sales-The sales department can easily see the status of their customer orders, including orders that are pre-allocated against PO’s still in production overseas or orders that are on the water.
Purchasing-Informed Purchasing decisions can be made because users can look at the inventory position forecasted out over time by taking things into account like
- Production lead time by the factory overseas
- Transit time (Ocean, Air, Railcar, or trucking)
- Pre-allocated and pre-sold inventory can be removed from the available position
- Multi Warehouse Positions
- Future Orders
- Blanket Order
Finance and Management-CFO can get realistic look at profitability per transaction by looking at the real cost of goods. Simply looking at sale price minus purchase price is not accurate enough to picture of how the business is doing. Worse yet, taking an average cost for an item is not informative and can lead to significant pricing mistakes because fluctuation in freight costs, storage, trucking, customs exam fees, etc. By using VISCO you get a precise calculation of how much each unit costs, and this information is all tightly integrated into QuickBooks or other accounting software.
Traffic/Logistics –These users are able to save time by avoiding the constant internal emails and phone calls to find out where shipments are and how much inventory is available. By using centralized system that takes into account the unique shipping and inventory needs of an import and wholes distribution business that pressure is relieved.
Trading Partners and Sourcing Agents-You can leverage the time and effort of your sourcing agents, overseas office, or even the suppliers themselves. Giving these parties limited access, you can allow them to update shipping info and upload shipping documents so you save time for your in house staff and have the data in the system already when you come in the office in the morning.
