PsL Monthly 1993 December/PSL Monthly Shareware CD-ROM (December 1993).iso/reviews/ab_02

Text File | 1993-10-01 | 17KB | 399 lines

AB-02:  Inventory-Related Programs


Cost Effective II
   Ehrenfried, Frank B.
   $?
   #7643/1044
is a bill of materials program. It allows a manufacturer to track costs by
specifying raw materials and their unit costs and CE will compute the cost of
each product. When the price of the raw materials change, the program will
recompute the costs automatically. It also contains many other features such
as, upon request, giving the user a list of products by material. (NOTICE:
Cost Effective is written in a system that will not let you use RAM disks nor
memory-resident utilities at the same time CE is running.)


Material Notebook
   Nael Software
   $0-$10
   #7643/2860
keeps track of up to 1500 material inventory items; keeps track of all vendors,
users, and materials received, ordered, or used.


CRIS
   McCoy, Matthew A.
   $75
   #7095/2036
is a point-of-sale inventory control program. First you get the program ready
by entering company information, sales tax rate, etc, and then putting in all
your inventory information. Then when you enter a sale and put in the part
number, it automatically displays the product name and price, extended amount,
sales tax and total. It uses the Code field to itemize charges, e.g. Labor,
NonTaxable, Merchandise, and Shipping. The program can even use bar code
readers. A number of reports are available. CRIS uses dBase III+ compatible
files, so you may link these databases to a wide range of software.

CRIS is basically well designed. We have always been impressed by programs
that keep the changing of screens and wading through multi-layered menus to a
minimum. For example, you can search, edit and add new entries all on the same
screens, although there are, by necessity, different screens for inventory,
for customers, and for orders.

In contrast to the excellent general design, there are some minor, but
maddening quirks in the keyboard handling. For example, once you select to
enter a transaction, you cannot Esc out; and once you have entered a quantity,
you cannot go back and change it, although in other situations you can move
back to prior fields. These stumbling blocks are partially mollified by the
ability to easily go back and edit or delete a transaction, and overall, we
have no qualms about recommending the CRIS for businesses needing a
point-of-sale program.


CSINV
   $0
   #7095/1151
is a perpetual inventory system. Features include item query, monthly
summaries and status reports, analysis and usage reports, turnover and reorder
point calculations based on data entered during the months. The disk contains
both the BASIC source code for you to customize if you wish and the compiled,
executable programs.


DTS-Inventory
   Smith, David
   $70
   #7095/1355
enables tracking of stock items across up to 15 stores. End-of-month reports
include count sheets for taking inventory, printouts of stock movement
invoices, stock summaries, envelope addressing, end of month merge of
inventory counts, and invoicing. If you are presently using a database
program, short routines can be written to load most databases to eliminate
hand loading.


Easy Inventory
   Smith, I. M.
   $35
   #7095/1956
is an an easy-to-use, stand-alone inventory program. Besides various inventory
reports, other sales reports monitor cash flow and income from sales. The
program provides for inventory by number, locations, and by supplier for the
reorder report. It also offers virtually unlimited record capacities. The
program is fast and easy to use. Requires 512k and a hard disk is recommended.


Inventory Base Module
   North Woods Software
   $50
   #7096/1411
is an inventory control system aimed at small to medium sized
businesses. It is completely menu driven with full documentation and
context-sensitive help screens.

Information which can be recorded for each part includes a part number,
description, substitute part, short name, location (and bin number),
Commodity Code, Category, unit of measure, weight, ABC Code, Make/Buy,
last cost, standard material cost, current labor rate, list price and
discount prices (plus volumes needed to get those discounts); quantities
on hand, on order, allocated, work in process, and available to promise;
starting balance, month to date, year to date, last year, Cycle Count
Code; dates of last cycle count, last receipt, and last issue. Other
information includes reorder point, maximum on hand, economic order
quantity, lead time, reorder policy, reorder cost, shrinkage, maximum
order quantity, maximum order dollars, name of buyer or vendor and more.

Functions include entering buy and sell transactions and inventory
counts, period-end processing, status reports, availability reports,
movement logs, and printing bin labels and price lists.

The program appears to be bug-free and easy to use (though it does not
allow full-screen editing - one of our pet peeves). If all the features
mentioned are not enough for you, the same company sells many other
manufacturing accounting programs that can be integrated with this one,
such as receivables. (The authors can no longer be reached at the
address provided in the documentation.)


Invoice-It
   Future Systems
   $79
   #7096/2470
will keep track of invoices, merchandise, vendors and customers at the point
of sale. This is an easy to use, menu driven program. A perpetual inventory
system helps keep track of inventory as well as providing easy look-up. It
eliminates the need for pre-printed invoices since all information is printed
on plain paper. Features include multiple price setup in inventory, support
for Canadian GST Tax, and American/European date formats. Requires 640k RAM
and a hard disk.


Micro Register
   Micro Methods
   $75
   #7096/2413
is a point-of-sale and invoicing program designed to automate a retail or
service related business. You can print invoices for customers, statements for
charged sales or services, and even generate price quotations. Past invoices can
be saved to disk. The program keeps track of inventory and customer account
information and gives you the option of using a salesman file that will
automatically give you total commissions earned by each salesman. Income is
recorded on a daily, monthly, and year-to-date basis. These totals can be
printed at any time and have password protection. File capacity allows a maximum
of 65,000 records. Requires a hard disk and 512k of DOS RAM.


RAMbase Accounting
   Ram Base Systems, Inc.
   $35
   #7097/2124
is a point of sale, inventory control and check register program. The
on-screen help is pretty good and the screen layout is very good, showing you
the invoice under way, the inventory list, and the customer list all on the
same screen, along with the totals for the invoice. Inventory items can be
entered by specifying a part number or by moving the cursor to the desired
item. Pressing F2 changes the screen to Payables and shows a list of
suppliers.

The inventory records let you enter the storage location, supplier, stock
level, reorder point, cost, wholesale price (to customers) and retail price.
Of course, balances are adjusted automatically as you assign goods to
invoices. The customer records do not let you enter a discount rate for a
particular customer, but a useful account status window pops up showing an
account aging and other information. The program's strong point is a choice of
100 different reports.

NOTE: We have heard that the author of RAMbase may no longer be taking
registrations for this program. We have not been able to contact him for
verification.


REGIT Point-of-Sale
   American Precision Instruments
   $60
   #7097/2326 [2 disks]
transforms a PC into a powerful point-of-sale cash register capable of
controlling 12,000 products and tracking 10,000 customers. This program is
designed for retail and service businesses. You first enter your inventory,
using product codes which can be as long as 16 characters - enough space for the
Uniform Product Codes.

The transaction window insta