Managing surplus stock

One characteristic of a good inventory management program is an on-going dead stock and excess inventory control program. Short-term surplus inventory is inevitable. The key is to monitor it constantly, make adjustments, and transfer products to other locations as needed. Excess or long-term surplus inventory is usually considered to be any quantity of a product greater than a 6- to 12-month supply. There are numerous tools in Distribution SX.e that can be used to manage short-term and long-term surplus.

Use these methods to review your surplus stock.

As part of your daily review of the Purchase Entry Recommended Replenishment Action Report, check for any surplus in other warehouses using the Surplus option. Using surplus in your warehouses rather than buying more stock from the vendor helps keep your costs down. You can reposition stock items to create better turnover. You can view a product’s surplus in all warehouses, in warehouses within a zone, or from warehouses in other companies. View surplus in the Short Terms Surplus and Long Term Surplus columns on the Edit Details window in Purchase Demand Center Entry.

Note: You should consider the effect a surplus transfer has on your target buy. If the surplus transfer disrupts your ability to meet the vendor’s total order discount on the remaining items, you must weigh the benefit of accepting the surplus against the whole order discount. You may be able to justify adding other items to the purchase order and accepting the surplus. Surplus that is shown on a report in Purchase Demand Center Entry includes associated costs.
To view surplus stock in other warehouses, access Product Availability Inquiry. Short- and long-term surplus is displayed on the Product view. You can view surplus available in all warehouses on the Warehouse Availability view. Long-term surplus is calculated using the number of months defined at the company, warehouse, vendor, or product line levels in Product Replenishment Setup-Ranking.
To view all Order-as-needed and Do Not Reorder stock items, and clear ordering controls that might exist for these items, run the Product Needs Analysis Report.
To print a report of short-term and long-term surplus stock, run the Product Surplus Stock Report. Specify a number of months in the Number of Months for Long Term Calc option.

Note: Select the options to create a CSV-formatted output file that can be sent to vendors or other warehouses. When vendors and other warehouses approve the returns or transfers, the CSV file can be imported in Purchase Order Entry or Transfer Entry to create PO RM or WTs.