A simple, intuitive warehouse management program

LoMag warehouse management program is a tool created for the management of warehouses of small and medium sized enterprises. It ensures basic functionality necessary for the support of warehouse organisation. At the same time it is easy to use and reliable. It may be used on one computer or in a network.

Program functionality

LoMag warehouse management program enables intuitive preparation of the following warehouse documents:

GRN - Goods Received Note
GIN - Goods Issued Note
Return to supplier (Goods Received Note correction)
Return from recipient (Goods Issued Note correction)
Internal GIN - Internal Goods Issued Note
Internal GRN – Internal Goods Received Note
Correction
Discount
Interbranch Transfer
Inventory sheet
Inventory
Assembly (production)

Thanks to the use of modern Microsoft .NET technologies, the application allows for the storage and management of thousands of such documents. These documents are appropriately sorted and grouped, thanks to which, even if they are numerous, they are presented in an intelligible manner. All data, regarding a given warehouse may be printed or exported to other files (e.g. Excel or PDF).

It sometimes happens that an item is transferred from one warehouse to another, in view of, for example, making space. Naturally, one could use correction documents for that purpose, however, it could be inconvienient and constitute a source of errors. Therefore, we introduced interbranch transfer documents. In order to make the transfer, you have to point out the warehouse to which you wish to transfer given items. If the transferred items have not yet been added to the target warehouse, the program adds them automatically to the database.

Efficiency, stability and reliability

LoMag warehouse management employs modern database access - Microsoft SQL Server. It is one of the best and newest technologies, whose developers prioritised stability and failure-resistance. Combine this with skilful employment of the system's best features, and you get quick and reliable access to your data.

The employment of Microsoft technology is further justified if you consider the position of Microsoft on the market. Most computer users employ the software of this company. Therefore, our application has been fully designed, developed and tested basing on Microsoft software. Thanks to that, the program cooperates smoothly with the majority of popular systems. The data saved by the users may be easily processed by software such as MS Excel, MS Access and many others.

Operation on many computers

For many enterprises, cooperation between several computers connected with a network is crucial. If you have a big warehouse, you may even have over a dozen computers with the application installed. In view of maintaining data coherence, the individual instances of the program must communicate with each other. It has all been made possible by Microsoft SQL Server technology. One computer plays the role of the server, and the other ones are clients. The computer which plays the role of the server may have any given number of computers connected to it at any given time. All computers opearate one the same data.

Management of warehouse transfers

A well devised process of adding warehouse transfers

The basic task of LoMag warehouse management program is the management of warehouse transfers. Receipt or sale of items are examples of such transfers. Introducing information about any operation is very easy. Let's take, for example, receipts. In order to add data about this operation simply click an icon on the tool bar or choose an appropriate option from the Warehouse menu. The program will create a new Goods Received Note. After entering basic data such as the date, the hour and remarks, you have to establish the elements of the receipt. The program significantly facilites this process. It displays the current stock level of a given item and informs you what amount may be issued from the warehouse. It also helps you to determine the date of sale of the item, basing on the price of purchase and the margin. The margin is entered as a set value in the item list, or it is typed in manually each time. You can also download the sale prices, directly from the item list.

Each element comprises of the following fields: Item Name, Amount, Price, Value and Remarks. The remarks field is ascribed to each of the elements of the receipt, thanks to which you may describe various situations which may happen at the warehouse. When entering individual items of the receipt, the application informs about the value of the whole receipt. The name of the item may be entered manually, via a barcode reader or found basing on a search algorithm.

Once you add all the necessary data, you may start printing them or proceed to other activities in the program. The document is automatically saved in the database, so that you may come back to it at any given moment and, for instance, apply some corrections. Documents for sales, returns, corrections and discounts are handled in the same manner.

A GRN may be displayed or printed by clicking "Print GRN". Of course this pertains to all the documents. We have included in the program the possibility of multiple entry of the same item as a part of the same receipt. It may happen, for example, that some of the goods have a different prices than others. The GRN shall include all this information. If you wish to print a document grouping items from a given receipt, select "grouping items on documents" in options.

The program registers the amounts and the prices accurately to 7 decimal places, although, usually there is no need to display or print them with this level of precision. For example, prices are usually quoted accurately to two decimal places. There are cases, however, in which the prices and the values must be quoted more accurately. Instead of setting fixed rules for rounding off the numbers, we left this choice with the user. The user may change the settings to the desired accuracy for displaying and printing the amounts, prices and summaries. Thanks to that the program is more flexible.

Support of inventory sheets and discounts

The Warehouse Management Program enables you to generate inventory sheets, i.e. organised lists of items available in the warehouse. Such sheets are written basing on the actual stock levels, which may be different from what the receipts and other documents may suggest. You may generate an inventory basing on one or many inventory sheets. After entering an inventory sheet and generating an inventory, the data of the program is changed. The user is informed about the differences between the stock levels in the program and the actual stock levels of the warehouse. Correction documents generated automatically smooth out those differences.

Introducing discounts is an additional function. Discounts may modify not only prices, but also the amounts of individual items. The application takes into account, for example, the following situation: Ten multipacks of mineral water have been received. Two multipacks have been unpacked and the individual bottles are to be sold for a new price. After entering a price, the stock levels of item “mineral water multipack" will be decreased by 2, while the stock level for “mineral water bottle" will be increased by e.g.,16. Such a situation may be entered to the program thanks to the discount option. It is especially useful in dealing with everyday situations, which take place at the warehouse.

It sometimes happens at the warehouse that an item is issued internally in the enterprise. A simple example of that is as follows - a light bulb blows in the warehouse, which stores, among other things, light bulbs. There is no need to order light bulbs; one may simply take a lihgt bulb from the warehouse. Such an operation may be done through an Internal Issue Note. Internal Goods Received Note has exactly the opposite use.

Document numeration

Each document in the program has its own number. It may be entered manually or generated automatically. The automatic mechanism ensures the uniqueness of the number; so it is easy to find it later. The automatic numeration is executed basing on a template. A default template for a GRN is: PZ$$$$$$/yy - MAG. This template may be changed for any type of documents. It is created with the use of the following elements:

$$$$$$$ - denotes the relatively unique document number
******* - denotes the absolutely unique document number for the whole system
yy - the year of the document
mm - month
dd - day
MAG - warehouse name

IThat way you can create a mechanism for numbering documents, in accordance with the standards adopted at the company. The terms relatively and absolutely unique document number require explanation. A relatively unique document number ($) introduces a number dependant on other elements. In case of PZ$$$$$$/yy - MAG, the number it will depend on the year and the warehouse to which the document belongs. For example the first document will be called PZ000001/08 - Warehouse1, the second document will be called PZ000002/08 - Warehouse2, etc. If you add a document in another warehouse, the document will receive number PZ000001/08 - Warehouse2. The absolutely unique number (*) on the other hand replaces the star symbols with a unique number for the whole program, independent of the warehouse, the date, etc.

Additional columns

LoMag is used by various companies with very versatile warehouse management schemes. Depending on the character of enterprise's activity, the goods might be numbered and described in many different ways. Therefore, our warehouse management program included an option for creating your own attributes for individual items, thanks to which you can add additional columns with data adjusted to the needs of your company, both when working on the program and on the printouts.

To add additional dedicated columns you should open the Settings menu and select the "Dedicated fields" tab. These fields are divided into three groups: text data, numbers, and links to files or internet sites. The text fields can be used for additional descriptions of the item, in the number fields you can put numbers referring to a given item. Select appropriate attributes in an open tab and enter their names. Upon clicking OK the fields will be added to all windows of the program which modify or browse through the items. For the fields to be visible also on the reports, you have to modify the layout of the report, which will be described in the section entitled "Making reports".

Warehouse control

When warehouse transfer documents are added, the stock levels are simultaneously changed. The value of the individual assortments is calculated. The values are calculated basing not on the fixed price for a given item, but basing on the price quoted on the warehouse transfer documents. Apart from that discounts are taken into account, as well as inventories. There is also a possibility of correcting the already existing data, as well as preparing separate correction documents.

LoMag employs accounting methods to evaluate the warehouse. LIFO and FIFO models are examples of such methods. FIFO [first in - first out] is most commonly used. It indicates that the item which will be issued from the warehouse first is the item, which has been first received. This model functions best with fast rotation of goods. The LIFO model [last in – first out] is also sporadically used. Additionally, the program allows manual selection of receipts on the issue documents, i.e. selecting a concrete receipt from which you wish the item to be issued.

Another useful function of the program is the items listing basing on the type of warehouse transfer document. You can make a monthly or annual listing, including a list of items with amounts and values for each of the warehouse transfers. The user is presented with how the sales, deliveries, returns and such developed over individual months. Preview of sales profits is one of the options. This preview shows you how much you have earned on the sales of individual items on a given day, month or year.

To facilitate the planning of deliveries for individual assortments, the item history function has been introduced. You can see all actions, which were executed on any given assortment. Dates and numbers of the documents are displayed, as well as the number and the value of a given item at that time. Thanks to that you have quick access to information on how the stock levels for a given item changed over the last weeks or months. Such information is useful especially when planning receipts, as it is easier to establish when and what amount of goods should be ordered.

Making reports

It is hard to imagine a warehouse management program without the possibility of preparing reports. Thanks to our application this process is even easier. Simply select any warehouse transfer and click Print. A dialogue window is displayed in which you can preview the report. You can also print an individual document or a list of documents from any chosen period.

Stock levels for a given day

You may create a report of stock levels. What is very important, the report may present the stock level from a given day or even a given hour. Stock levels are calculated basing on the receipt, sales and returns documents. Manual corrections introduced by the user are also taken into account, as well as inventories, discounts and interbranch transfers. For example, after the inventory is approved, the stock level for the date on the inventory will always equal the stock level on the inventory sheet of this inventory. Thanks to that solution it is possible to browse and print stock levels for a given date. The stock level values are calculated basing on LIFO or FIFO or manual ascribing of receipts to issues.

Accounts support

LoMag warehouse management also stores information about your business partners. You can save their address, Tax Identification Number and National Register of Business Entities as well as contract data. We took care for the data to be properly stored, sorted and presented. You may browse the accounts freely. The accounts are divided into recipients, suppliers and employees, but it is possible for the same company to be a both a recipient and a supplier. Although the introduction of the account on the documents is not compulsory, it is recommended, for the sake of order. If, however, you do not wish to use the accounts option, you may disable it in the Settings window.

Information about items

You can store practically any amount of items. Basic data, such as the name of the item and its barcode, which facilitates the search, are saved. The items may be grouped. They may be ascribed measurement units, such as kilos or pieces. Although over the months the price of the item often changes, it is helpful to enter the default price of sale and purchase for each item. The default prices are only the suggested prices and do not have to correspond with the prices included in the warehouse documents. When adding a document, the program uses them as a suggestion, which can be followed or not. In some cases it makes the entering of elements of warehouse documents faster.

Printing and export of reports to external files

The printouts are clear and legible and they include all the needed pieces of information and summaries of number values. The appearance of the reports can be adjusted to your own needs by changing the list of visible columns, their size and name. Apart from printing, you may also find the export function useful. You can save the report as a spreadsheet XLS file with one click...

Adjusting printouts to the needs of the company

Enterprises differ from one another and they print individual reports differently. Therefore, we introduced a special mechanism of adjusting the appearance of the reports to individual needs. Combined with the possibility of creating additional dedicated columns, it gives you the possibility of considerable influence on the layout of the printouts.

LoMag gives you the possibility of creating your own templates for all documents, e.g., a unique GIN with the company's logo. Creating your own template is very simple thanks to the visual editor of document templates. Move and arrange elements of the document with your mouse, add your own texts and graphical elements. You can place barcodes for each line in the document, as well as thumbnails and other data necessary on the printout.

You can change the visibility and the sequence of display of individual columns with “Move up" and "Move down" options. You can also change the header of the column, the alignment, the width, the number of decimal places, the summing of numeric data and the type of the generated barcode, e.g. EAN 13, Code 39, or Code128.

The labels designer works on the same principle. It enables the user to create their own labels for various types of printers and paper sizes together with barcodes. The designer also includes an option for printing on divided paper - i.e. a sheet of paper divided into small labels (e.g. 3x6 small self-adhesive labels on A4 sheet)

Printing of any displayed data

Aside from standard documents and reports you might also need to print out data, which has been displayed in one of the tables of the program. For example, after finding items in the "Find in warehouse window, you would like to print out the search result. LoMag is equipeed with a button, which makes it possible for any table with data to be printed out and exported to Excel. In this way you can obtain a printout or an Excel file for any data displayed in the program e.g. the results of your search.

Communication with the program

LoMag supports most of the popular barcode readers and label printers. You can adjust the interface of the program so as to add further items only with the use of a reader or with a reader and keyboard for confirmation of quantity. To speed up your work, keyboard shortcuts have been defined for the often used operations. The program also enables you to import data such as item lists, accounts lists, as well as the content of documents, e.g. inventory sheets, from Excel,

The program has been developed with the use of the latest Microsoft technologies. Thanks to that the access to the database is quick and reliable. The whole of the database and the settings can be found in two files in the "Database" folder. Therefore, it can be copied and moved to anywhere on the disc. Of course the program is also equipped with Backup Database and Restore Database functions.

User friendly MDI interface

The idea behind LoMag was the creation of an application which would be simple to use as well as reliable and functional. The transparent interface meets that challenge. The access to individual functions has been carefully considered, bearing in mind what the program is going to be used for most frequently. A huge asset is the employment of MDI interface, which allows you to operate on many dialogue windows at the same time.

Document filter

After you have entered thousands of documents for warehouse transfers, the problem of data filtering will inevitably come up. We took care in our application, for the data to be sorted and presented in a logical order. You can browse through the list of all documents, or filter them following any given key, e.g. account, dates, values. The filters can be named and reused in the future.

Configuration of network operations

Organising work in a network is extremely easy. If you want two computers connected with a network to use the same database of the Warehouse Management Program, you should change the network settings. You can do so by choosing Settings form the Program menu. You will have the following options in the "Network operations" tab:

Work on one computer only
Many computers - this computer is a client and it connects with the server
Many computers - this computer is a server:

Select the third option (server) on the first computer. Please note that the computer name and SQL instance name are filled in automatically. In special cases they can be changed if needed. Please remember the name of the computer, which will be playing the role of the server, as it will be required in order to connect the other computers. Click OK. Choose the second option on the other computer (client), but remember to type in the name of the first computer in the "Server name" field. Confirm your choice by clicking OK. From this moment the computers are working on one database.

Find

We realise the importance of finding information fast. It is especially important if we have thousands of documents or items gathered in the warehouse. LoMag Warehouse Management is equipped with highly developed search options.

You can find an item by typing in its name or a part of its name. The search results shall be displayed as a list including all attributes of the item, the price of the purchase, the amount on stock and total value of the item. You can also define the search in such a way as to find items of a given status or matching the scope of previously defined numeric attributes. In the result column you can limit the results to items, for example, from a given group, of a certain weight or with low stock levels. The filter including these criteria can be named, saved and used to quickly find information in the future.

Finding documents and accounts works on the same principle. The documents may be found by their number or type as well as account, name or code of the item on the document or even the remarks included in the document.

Further development

And what if the presented application does not include a function which would be useful for your company? All you have to do is to adjust the program to your individual needs and add such a function. We are open to cooperation, which will help us improve the program and, more importantly, help you to run your enterprise.

LoMag warehouse management program is being constantly exapnded. We release updates with suggestions for the users systematically. We value each remark and idea regarding our application. We hope that the changes we introduce will be welcomed by the users.