Helios Inventory- what to do with missing products

[schoolboy]

I've been doing regular inventory checks lately and have no clue what to do to zero out missing lotion bottles or packets that disappeared (probably theft?). I want to be able to identify lost product with some report. I've looked at the choices Helios offers, transfer in/out, store use, etc., but am having trouble understanding which one would be best to track lost inventory.

[Andy]

schoolboy:

The Inventory portion of Helios is among the most WANTING parts of Helios. It fails in many ways to meet the needs of a service retailer handling products.

I have discussed this MANY times with Tony and others at Helios, but they really just do not get it. Their attempts to address other markets such as Fitness etc will be severely hampered by their total lack of understanding or at least action on this issue.

Many salons (at least within my client base) have significant investment in product inventory, including but not limited to Tanning Lotions and Accessories. I have a number of clients with over 1,000 SKU's of Gift, Clothing and related items.

Among the problems are: Average Costing or should I say the lack thereof, Erroneous handling of costing on all adjustment types save Receipts and Transfer In. Return to Stock POS processing, Quantity Pricing, flexibity on reporting ... etc etc etc.

Back to your question ... I suggest using Audit In and Audit Out to record adjustment to physical quantities. There is then an Adjustment report that will list these transactions but it only has a selection criteria of date range and provides no totally by Adjustment Type ... grap your calculator.

You may wish to consider Salon Wizard from Solarsoft. This is the Reporting Module of the new POS system coming from Solarsoft. We have created data definitions for Salon Wizard to use to report against the Helios Databases so Helios Users can get a taste of the style and flexibility coming in Salon Works later this year.

Salon Wizard installs on your computer system at the salon and you can run (and define your own) reports to run either within the salon OR with Internet connectivity at the salon from ANYWHERE that you have Internet Access.

With Salon Wizard you can run PARTIAL inventory Master Lists with appropriate subtotals. You can run partial Inventory Adjustment reports (by type in your case) with appropriate subtotals.

Endless possibility ... you could even create tables of information OUTSIDE of Helios, like Product Category, Vendor Part Numbers etc and incorporate them into Salon Wizard reports ALSO involving information from your Helios Database.

TRULY unleashing the wealth of information within your Database.

Hope this helps ...

[schoolboy]

Can salon wizard completely replace Helios? One of the reasons I got Helios is because it coordinates with Nails, Hair, Massage and other services that I offer in the day spa and has been fairly good at giving me some data on tanning that I am using to track trends. What would I lose from Helios if I switched?

[Andy]

schoolboy:

Solarsoft will be releasing Salon Works later this year. It is a complete POS system that will completely replace Helios and then some.

Many of my clients that use Helios also provide other services including the ones you mentioned. Salon Works with also handle these services. If you have any functions that you would like to see added to a POS system our ears are open to suggestions.

If you were to consider Salon Wizard at this point, it would not replace your Helios POS until Salon Works is released and you evaluated which is the best option for you.

Salon Wizard is solely a Reporting Module, which ALSO works against the Helios database. It allows a Helios User to get a taste of the power available including the following:
... reporting via Internet connection or locally within the salon
... display formats can be modified to meet your requirements
... add those additional reports you have wanted
... Summary and Drill Down capability to speed analysis of exception reporting
... MAPPING, overlay your sales, promotions etc on a Map for analysis
... ... ad effectiveness
... ... new store opening analysis

Hope this helps ...


_________________

Andy Thompson
ACT Business Solutions
Toll-Free 877-777-6717
andy@atso.ca
ACT Help Center [ This Message was edited by: Andy @ ATSO.ca on 2003-03-07 17:04 ]