Stocktakes are a pain in the arse. You know it, we know it – so we decided to do something about it.
We’d like to see the days of closing branches, divvying up the stock across the workforce (who have all had to give up their weekend to help), manually entering everything into the system and then updating stock records over the following weeks, banished to history.
So we built Merchanter to make life easier.
And it really does.
“The simplicity and options available to control our stocks will be a gamechanger to our company.” - Mike Tregunna, Build Supplies
Most merchants already appreciate the need for enhanced stock management, and more and more are already adopting perpetual stocktake processes, counting a handful of products each day rather than everything in a dedicated, disruptive period, which is a big step forward.
But we wanted to produce a system that would go a step (several steps actually) further, to not only make stock taking itself easier, but also to help prioritise which stock should be counted, and optimise value across the entire stockholding.
Stock Confidence
Introducing a pioneering new metric unique to Merchanter, we would like you to meet the brand new Stock Confidence rating.
Most merchants would agree that having a real-time picture of your entire stockholding would be great – but that it’s not really achievable, because it’s just too time consuming. But what if your software could do it for you – and do it as accurately as if you were doing it yourself, but in a fraction of the time?
Expressed as a percentage, Stock Confidence is basically an accuracy gauge to show how sure the system is that the stockholding figure being displayed is accurate. Immediately after a physical stocktake, for example, the Stock Confidence rating would be 100%. But over time, that confidence rating is reduced, due to a number of factors, such as loss, damage, theft or error. In Merchanter, a complex algorithm has been designed to calculate that erosion level, so you have a good idea which products are most at risk from stock data inaccuracy.
Stock Confidence works across both your entire stockholding, and by individual product, so you can gauge how accurate your overall figures are, as well as knowing which specific products are least definite.
What that means is that you are always able to focus on the products which need checking most urgently. The system makes an intelligent assessment of where you need to make checks, and points you in the right direction so you’re only ever having to check a few products each day / week, and you know that those products are the ones most worthy of your resources.
Stock Confidence is a massively powerful and innovative metric and we will be talking about it a lot more depth in future posts, so watch this space.
Unlock more value from your existing stockholding
Merchanter has been designed to help you unlock the maximum value from your stockholding by helping to show you where the real value lies, where the opportunities are, and where you might need to take action.
Using various metrics like Stock Turn and Stock Confidence, you can see at a glance which products are returning the best value, which could be working harder, and which represent the best opportunities (or threats!)
Our customers are already feeding back the value they are finding in these insights – it really does pay to know these figures, and Merchanter makes it astonishingly easy to find them.
Real time accuracy (with real world flexibility)
Since you’re counting the stock in the yard or warehouse and adding it directly to the system from your tablet / phone / smart device, you know to the second when it was counted. The system knows every transaction happening around that point in time, so discrepancies can usually be explained instantly; click and collect orders being put through, goods in or out, items being picked or despatched within a few minutes – it’s all there, giving you real time accuracy.
But of course, we live in the real world, and we know that not everywhere has 4G or 5G, and so sometimes you have to work offline. Well, that’s no problem either, because you can simply export a spreadsheet (literally at the click of a button), add the numbers offline, and then click “import spreadsheet” when you’re back in the office and, ta-dah, it’s all up to date again.
We have spent years developing this system so it’s easy to use, and so that it works exactly how merchants need to it. Even in the real, imperfect world.
Stock Excellence is at the heart of the system
A merchant’s stock is the beating heart of its business – therefore, excellence in stock optimisation is at the heart of our merchant ERP system. From unlocking hidden value to providing the simplest, most accessible, most accurate, real-time view of your entire stockholding, Merchanter goes further to help you build better business.
And if you don’t believe that it’s really as good as we say, that’s not a problem – because you can try it out for yourself, at your leisure, completely free.
Happy counting!