Q:
Is there an easier way to get inventory transferred from wholesaler to retailer?

A:
Instructions for inter-company (wholesale/franchise) invoicing with automatic inventory grafting.

Introduction
This facility in The Jewellery Shopkeeper is designed to automate an otherwise tedious and error-prone aspect of bookkeeping and inventory control. It not just computerises, but actually fully automates the customer's inventory maintenance and creditors control. Whether you are selling jewellery or services to another company, or buying from the other company, you will appreciate this addition to The Jewellery Shopkeeper. A nice touch is that the jewellery keeps the original price tags. No re-coding and remarking is required.

Requirements
Three preconditions must be met in order for the system to work:

Both the buyer and the seller must be users of The Jewellery Shopkeeper.
The analysis group coding used by both companies must be similar. Or, the buyer must be willing to inherit the analysis codes of the goods supplied by the seller.
Some means must be available to copy computer files from the seller to the buyer. (CD, memory stick or email. Floppy diskettes, although big enough, are not reliable.)

Specifications
Any customer can be used provided that the account is marked as a grade 3 account. Grade 3 accounts use the cost price plus a pre-set margin instead of tag price or sale price. Separate margins are provided for each product group code.

All inventory codes can be sold and transferred, not just merchandise and standard stock. That includes non-inventory items and parts used on service orders. Raw material codes are converted to non-inventory and are not added to the buyers stock.

Code clashes are accepted, in the case of merchandise, only if the item is not in stock, and in the case of standard stock, only if one of the cost, selling price, or description are the same. In other cases, a warning message is given and the item is converted to a non-inventory code.

Setting up
Decide on what file path you will use for the shuttle data files. The default for Unix/Linux is ./shuttle/ and for DOS/Windows it is C:. For DOS/Windows you will not need to prepare the drive, except perhaps to have a formatted diskette available, but with Unix/Linux you must make the ./shuttle/ directory, and give it full user access rights, before you can use it.
Check that buyer and seller product group and material analysis codes are compatible.

Seller's (Supplier/Franchisor) side
Prepare the required margin percentages in the file igroup. This can be done quickly by using Utilities, Amend, igroup, and editing MARGIN.
Set your selected customers grade to 3 using Sales, File maintenance, Customers. At the same time, set the selected customers' "VAT modification code" to "N" (see notes). In the Unix/Linux version of The Jewellery Shopkeeper, you should also set the category code of your wholesale customers to F(ranchise or W(lsale as applicable.
Have file transfer media such as a floppy disk available, unless files are going to be transferred by e-mail.

Buyer's (Customer/Franchisee) side
No computer preparation is required. Just get the transfer files, together with the jewellery, from the seller.

Operation
Seller's side
Process as a normal sale. Up to 15 inventory codes per invoice. If the Margin (in group codes) was not set, or is set to a negative percentage, an alert window will warn that the price is at or below cost. You are free to overwrite the price as required. The program will display the net price, excluding VAT (provided that the VAT option was entered as "N"). When the alert dialogue asks if you wish to show discount, keep the default (just press Enter).
Print and post the invoice . After the transaction has posted, you will be prompted for the drive letter (DOS) or path (Unix/Linux) of the transfer data file. Be sure that your entry is valid and that the drive media (e.g. floppy disk) is inserted into the drive. A single file will be created with the name "ixnnnnnn.dbf" where nnnnnn represents the invoice number left-filled with zeroes.
Should an invalid drive/path be entered for the transfer file, the creation of the file will be unsuccessful. In such a case it will be necessary to do a sales "Return" to reverse the invoice, (being careful to enter the same prices as before) and then process the invoice from the beginning again.
Remember that data is valuable. It is therefor strongly advisable for you to record the transfer files initially onto your hard disk, and then to copy the files to floppy disk or e-mail for transport so that you have a backup copy of the files.

Regarding financial accounting: Your buyer is treated as a normal debtor.
If you wish to keep a separate sales analysis for your wholesale customers, you can first transfer standard stock to a branch/location code) specially reserved for the purpose, and then do all the wholesale invoicing while active in that location. Alternatively, if only a few wholesale customers are active, you can report the sales analysis for one customer at a time.
Output VAT is charged and recorded as normal, your buyer receives a tax invoice.
In the Unix/Linux version of The Jewellery Shopkeeper, you can set the category code of your wholesale customers to F(ranchise if this is applicable. In that way separate transaction and account balance age analysis reports can be obtained.
Grade 3 accounts can, as with normal accounts, also use revolving credit or HP instalments, be debited with interest on arrears, etc.
For general ledger accounting with the Unix/Linux version, print the Sales, Report, Transaction, Category for each month and enter the Sales figure from there into the wholesales sales account with the contra entry to the normal sales account. As an alternative method (the only method for the DOS version), you can process all wholesale sales from the head office branch/location (retail sales will all be done from other branches) and then simply use the head office sales figure for the general ledger. Both methods can be used at once as a cross-check of the data.
Cost-of-sales figures for the wholesale sales are a bit more difficult to obtain if only the customer category is being used because it is only available one customer at a time. On the other hand, if a specific branch code is being used, then any one of several reports either show the cost-of-sales or the gross-profit (which is sales-cost-of-sales). The sales, report, Transaction, By-salesman, summary report will probably be most useful.

Buyer's side
First the operator must check his goods received against the seller's invoices to ensure that the inventory is correct.
Then it must be established that the inventory transfer files are available. The files are named "ixnnnnnn.dbf" where nnnnnn is the same as the seller's invoice numbers, left-filled with zeroes.
Then go to Purchases Creditors Transactions Receive. Enter the date (it must be within the current financial month - and preferably, but not essentially, it should match the date on the sellers invoice. It can happen that the goods are sold to the buyer at the end of the month, and only received at the beginning of the next month - in that case just enter the date as the 1st of the current month. The reason for this restriction is because inventory value is recorded when the month-end procedure runs and back dating the receipt would make the previously recorded data inaccurate.
Enter the reference number to match the tax invoice number on the sellers invoice. Do not enter any prefix letters. If you like, you may enter letters after the number if there is room.
Enter the name of the seller (Supplier), edit the supplier file and add it if it is not in file.
Where it asks; "Look for transfer data file?" Type "Y", and then "Y" again to accept the information that has been entered thus far.
Enter the drive letter (or path with Unix/Linux) for the transfer data file. If all is well, the screen will show a form filled in which matches the seller's invoice except that net prices are shown instead of gross prices less discount percentage.

At this stage in the program the inventory transfer file is read for the first time. Inventory codes are checked and added if non-existent. Existing standard stock codes are compared for compatibility and all fields, except quantities, such as description, price, diamond weight, sub-descriptions, etc., are updated to agree with the seller's inventory description. Non-inventory items are ignored at this stage.. Should a merchandise code be found that already is in stock, or a standard stock code be found that has a different description, cost and selling price, an alert message will warn of the occurrence and the new code will be degraded to a non-inventory code.

The program then immediately propagates the body of the goods received form and at the same time marks inventory codes on the transfer data file to indicate that the transfer has been done, thus preventing duplicate transfers

You are still able to manually edit or add to the screen at this point, but manual changes are not recommended unless you really know what you're doing.

Press enter to accept the screen. The screen will change and prompt for a general ledger account number. 44100 is the default account for purchases - merchandise, you can, if you wish to be more exact, change this to a different account if the invoice being entered is not for merchandise..
If you are not happy with the account number selected, press the up-arrow key to re-enter the general ledger code. Entering a letter will find or list the accounts alphabetically, and a number with list the accounts numerically.
Press enter to allow input tax (unless of course the seller is not giving you a tax invoice.)
Check that the Total on the bottom line matches the total on the seller's invoice. Small adjustments to correct rounding errors may be made by simply editing the total to make it match. (See note below.)

General Ledger and VAT: The seller is treated as any other creditor and should present no difficulties. Input VAT is recorded in the VAT control file and will be calculated in accordance with the percentages that are recorded in the VAT control file. These VAT percentages must, of course, be the same as the seller's VAT percentages.

Notes:
The Jewellery Shopkeeper allows either tax-inclusive or exclusive prices when invoicing. Normal retail sales use the inclusive tax . However all cost prices in The Jewellery Shopkeeper are recorded excluding VAT. And when receiving goods, only net prices are allowed. When converting from an exclusive price to an inclusive price, and vice versa, prices are adjusted to the nearest whole cent. In doing this, up to half a cent error can occur. Multiplied by 100 items, this can accumulate to 50 cents. In order for the seller's invoicing program to calculate the net figures without any rounding errors, it is advisable to invoice the buyer in the tax Not included mode. This is set by changing the VAT modification code in the customer's (buyer's) account to the letter "N" using Sales File maintenance, Customers.
When exporting goods to another country, VAT will be zero. In this case set the VAT modification code to "Z". This will behave the same as code "N" except that just before asking for the total, it with prompt the operator for the Zero VAT option.

Reports of both the invoiced (seller side) and received sides of the transaction is available at Inventory, Reports, Journal, All inv.movement. Transaction types are S for the sale, and VR for voucher received. Select the exact voucher by specifying the invoice number by reference, and/or the customer/supplier number.
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