WhichAddon Magazine - Issue 4 (The Modern Whosaler)

WWW.WHICHADDON.COM ISSUE 4, AUGUST 2018

Stock on Hand Cost of Goods Sold Profit Margin Faster Fulfillment Multiple Warehouses

The Modern Wholesaler

MEET US IN PERSON AT XEROCON 2018

5-6 September

We’ll be there.

VISIT US AT STAND

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T.O.C.

WELCOME Jeri WAMBEEK – Co-Founder of WhichAddOn

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Welcome to Issue 4 of the WhichAddOn Magazine. A lot of client work has kept us very busy lately - never a dull moment and exciting times!

Despite our workload this month we found the time to attend the National BDO Business Services Conference on the Gold Coast. We were a Platinum Sponsor and were treated to a range of interesting speakers and insightful topics. A key theme was making use of technology to help businesses be more informed and agile than ever before. We took the time out to speak to Shaye Thyer (page 20) and ask about her work leading the innovation charge within BDO. Speaking of exciting, I know you are all excited to meet and greet at Xerocon in Brisbane this year!

The cloud revolution continues and I am SO looking forward to catching up with old friends and making some new ones. We will be exhibiting this year, so please make sure you drop by the WhichAddOn booth - and bring those client questions with you!

This month’s special topic is the Modern Wholesaler.

This breed of client (and we’ve helped a few lately) is looking to connect their systems to their larger

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buyers through EDI connections (see our eBook on our website for more on that), Business-to-Business (B2B) portals, third party logistics providers (3PL) and eCommerce platforms. Bringing these pieces together forms a compelling solution for modern wholesalers. To introduce our readers to this topic we’ve written a beginner’s guide to Inventory Management systems (page 6) and we’ve also evaluated the main points of three vendors in this product category: Cin7, DEAR Inventory and Unleashed. Following this, we illustrate some of our recent work with wholesalers through two Case Studies: CommBox and GAP Drinks. As always, each client situation is unique. The key is selecting the solution that suits THEIR needs, and to get the setup, integration and training done right. We love a challenge!

Finally, in our last issue I mentioned our team was growing. Our most recent staff member James joined us recently, you can read more about him on page 13 or just come up and say hi at our booth.

Until next issue,

Jeri

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CONTENT04 ISSUE

03 Welcome

Jeri Wambeek

06 Needing an inventory management system?

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A guide for beginners

Client Story: CommBox

Case study

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Introducing James Hoare

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Xero Vs QBO: Invoicing in QBO

Software Comparison

20 5 mins with Shaye Thyer

Interview

22 A review of Inventory Management Systems

Cin7, DEAR and Unleashed

26 Xero Vs QBO: Invoicing in Xero

Software Comparison

32 Client Story: GAP Drinks

Case study

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26 10

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A GUIDE FORB

EGINNERS

NEEDING AN INVENTORY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM? - A GUIDE FOR BEGINNERS...

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So, you’ve built a great product and selling it to the world. Fantastic!

products available at any point in time.

Perhaps you are importing/ exporting, providing assembly of various parts before shipping it out. You might be selling medical devices, electronic equipment, clothing items, or perishable goods. You could be selling these via a number of channels. The increased scale of your business, one that perhaps began in your home garage, is now taking off and you need to better track what you’re selling. As you’ve been getting larger, and your warehouse has become more complicated, you’ll need a better method to track your stock on hand. This refers to the amount of goods such as parts, materials and finished

To run your business better you may be starting to ask some of these questions already: what is the market demand for my products? Am I carrying too much stock? How can I identify my hard to move stock so I can encourage my sales reps to campaign on those? The trick is to strike the right balance of stock across your warehouse. Stock can expire, go out of date (or out of fashion!) or get damaged. So how do we track it all? To do this, you’ll need to start thinking about an inventory management system.

In any case, in your financial accounting system you’ll be

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tracking your product sales, and no doubt you’ll be monitoring which products are selling the best with an eye to identifying trends over time and looking to the future. One thing your accounting system will be tracking are cost of goods sold (COGS). This refers to the total cost of products sold during a specific time frame. Although the products in your warehouse are an asset they’re not actually expensed when you purchase or produce them. Instead, they go into an asset account. When they are sold, the value of the product (the cost, not the sell price) is moved from an asset account to an expense account called cost of goods sold.

Your COGS appears on your profit and loss statement and is used for calculating inventory turns.

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As you investigate inventory management systems there are some terms you’ll come across.

One of them is bin which is where your products are located within your warehouse. Think of your house: you’ve got your socks in your sock draw, your ice cream in your freezer, and your vegetables in that crisper compartment in your

refrigerator. In your house you know where things are, and a bin does just that. A bin in an inventory system is the smallest addressable unit of space in a warehouse where your goods are stored.

Now, things can get complicated: you can have bins across multiple warehouses, sub-bins, and all sorts of bin numbering systems.

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An inventory system will make sense of this for you, and make sure your warehouse doesn’t end up looking like that kitchen drawer full of mismatching tupperware containers. You know, the one where none of the lids match… who wants that, right?

One thing you will need to consider

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are your costing method options.

There are different reasons for choosing one over the other, with implications for each. And, most importantly, it is important to know if and how your prospective system will handle this. A term you might encounter is FIFO or ‘first in, first out’. This is a method of rotating inventory to use the oldest product first. Another method is average cost, which recalculates an item’s cost at each receipt by averaging the actual cost of the receipt with the cost of the current inventory.

If you’re selling perishable goods with expiry dates you’ll also need first expiring first out (FEFO). Most systems will handle batch and serial number tracking. Batches are useful for those selling food, and serial numbers are very useful for items such as electronics and medical devices, to name just a few.

the purchased cost plus other associated costs to get your product to your warehouse.

These include transportation costs, import fees, duties and taxes. Different landed costs calculation methods include by weighted value or weighted

volume, or you might want to assign a specific landed cost per item.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR WHOLESALERS: To get in the big chain customers

Another term you may come across is landed cost. This is a costing method that includes

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and department stores, you’ll need to consider an Electronic Data Integration (EDI) connection.

This is a data exchange used by large companies that have multiple stores throughout the country or world. Examples are Coles & Woolworths (for food and beverage products), Iconic, Myer, David Jones and Nordstrom (for fashion businesses), Bunnings (for manufacturing businesses) or Houzz and Wayfair (for lifestyle products businesses). To interact with these larger stores efficiently you’ll need to use a system that can connect electronically to their platform. Since these larger trading partners have huge number of customers, trading in large volumes, they need to know exactly when you’ll be sending their order to them, when it will arrive and they’ll also want to know it is labelled correctly (using Advanced

Shipping Notices). If you don’t handle this correctly you run the risk of being “black marked” and you may lose your accreditation with these larger suppliers. Get it right however, and you’ll be on your way to taking your wholesaling business to the next level.

Ecommerce for wholesalers is also becoming a norm, they need to be able to ‘self serve’ from your website. A business to business (B2B) portal is therefore a must - you can use this area of your website to invite your wholesale customers to join your own branded portal with your unique domain name. Here you can set up multiple catalogues and control which products you sell to which customers. Now that you have your EDI integrated with your larger buyers, you’ll need to consider a Third Party Logistics (3PL) to

dispatch these quickly, eliminating the need for manual data entry and in turn giving better customer service. It should reduce your shipping costs, too.

For specific vendor comparisons of some of these features please see page 22.

Now, this is just the beginning.

Special consideration needs to be given to some of these, not only now, but how your business will evolve over time. If you, or someone you know is looking to make sense of how their requirements match the many options out there in the market, and, how to implement this into their business, then feel free to make contact for a no-obligation chat. We can be contacted for an appointment via our website www.WhichAddOn.com 

WE ARE HERE TO

HELP MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL

Book a free scope call with us!

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CASES

TUDY

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INTRODUCTION

PROBLEM

CommBox, established in 1976, is Australia’s premier designer and manufacturer of control and presentation technology, tailored to suit the needs of education and corporate markets. CommBox manufactures its products in Australia and South Korea, distributing domestically and internationally.

CommBox used a few independent systems to run their businesses.

These included their accounting system (a custom desktop based system), customer management system (Sugar CRM) and also reporting (excel based).

to each other. This led to a lot of inefficiencies and double handling.

Recommended by their external accountant at Kelly + Partners, WhichAddOn was brought on to assist with finding a solution.

The major problem with all these systems were that they did not talk

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and well tested. Although there were initial teething issues, these were consistent with all projects we come across when clients transition their systems. Besides that, there were not real issues which was pleasing to experience.

SOLUTION With the importance of connectivity across systems it was important to find cloud based solutions that could natively talk to each other. The solution was to use Xero as the accounting engine, DEAR Inventory to manage their

inventory requirements across multiple warehouses, and Salpo to manage their customers, support and warranties.

FINAL THOUGHT We found that the Dear and Xero integration was very sound, solid

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However it should be noted that Salpo required some heavy customisation to incorporate CommBox’s workflow. Indeed, we pushed Salpo to its limits, in turn causing some issues. These issues are not normally experienced within our normal implementations with Salpo. Due compliments to the Salpo team who were very helpful and worked closely with us to rectify issues as they have come up. Nice job!

CommBox has expressed to us how much more efficient things have become. We continue to work closely to meet their expectations. ď ł

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INVENTORY, EDI, ECOMMERCE & RETAIL EXPERTS

Lose the chaos.

Make an informed decision.

The add-on marketplace now has a wide choice of sophisticated solutions. It is also a rapidly changing landscape.

This is great for your clients, but how can you help them make the right choice?

If you have clients that want to move into the cloud, now is the time to create a working relationship with a great cloud integrator.

At WhichAddOn we’ll listen to your client’s specific needs. We do this without fear or favour because we’re not beholden to any individual supplier.

Let us help them walk the tight-rope of change while still running their business.

+ SOLUTION SELECTION + DATA MIGRATION + TRAINING + CONFIGURATION AND INTEGRATION + ONGOING SUPPORT

T.O.C.

“Transformational change for business is so exciting” Our latest hire is looking forward to making a difference to small businesses

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WhichAddOn (WAO): What is your role?

James Hoare (JH): I’m employed as a Solutions Architect which is a very wide-ranging role. I conduct a lot of initial scoping calls which is a discovery process to uncover their pain points and establish a roadmap to get them from point A to B. It’s important to not only speak to the business owner about high level strategy but to also interact with staff on the “shop floor” who have an intimate knowledge of the detailed workflows and processes. You really need to expose those nasty little spreadsheets and workarounds and get them out in the open air!

WAO: What do you enjoy most about your job?

JH: Each business is unique, so it’s important to keep an open mind during the discovery process, and to not just make the same recommendation you did for your previous client.

This means you’re constantly learning which is what I probably enjoy most.

Sometimes I feel like a doctor trying to make a complicated diagnosis. The fact we are independent is quite liberating, we can recommend a solution without fear or favour of being beholden to any individual supplier which is fantastic.

Because we’re independent this means we can also get closer to the client’s real needs. As the saying goes, “If you’re a hammer then everything is a nail” which is something we want to avoid. Of course, there is never a perfect solution.

Although we make a recommendation we also need to be transparent and accountable about any shortcomings of it, because a single perfect solution doesn’t exist. Don’t trust anyone that says there is! I enjoy learning and

networking with suppliers and peers.

All of this with eyes on the end goal of making transformational and exciting change to small business. Doesn’t get better than that in my opinion.

WAO: Tell us a bit about your work history.

JH: I lived in The Netherlands for over a decade. There I worked in Publishing, Supply Chain Management and taught business English part time while juggling a young family. I also learnt how to play football (badly at first, but I slowly got better!). In Australia I’ve worked for MYOB and Xero which is where my passion for small business was probably born. I joined Xero in 2009 when the company was in its early stages. Back then there wasn’t even integrated payroll and the Australian market really expected that in a software package, but it didn’t stop the early firms adopting it. It was clear back then what Xero’s influence would be on the industry.

A lot of our discussions with clients revolved around explaining exactly what the cloud was, and how access to and collaboration with accurate GL data would help their productivity. The forward-thinking firms had been looking for a Xero solution, but for others it

was a more gradual process. When I started at Xero there were about 10 add ons which is very hard to imagine now.

I’ve worked with accounting firms of all sizes, but I’ve always enjoyed being involved in new start-up accounting firms, say a manager that leaves a second-tier firm and decides to run their own firm the way they’ve always wanted to run one: not just from a systems and infrastructure viewpoint but also setting down a new workplace culture.

WAO: What is funny about your job?

JH: One of the funny things I notice is that sometimes an accountant or bookkeeper will ask about the latest up and coming add-on that no one’s heard of. They’ll sort of lean forward in their chair and ask, “So, what’s I silver bullet? What’s the one app out there that’s making a difference that we need to know about?” I always think that’s a funny approach, because if you take inventory apps for example, it’s very dependent on each individual business, price point, and integration with other apps that they’ve either already invested in or about to choose. No one app operates by itself, so it’s all about how they work together and how that matches their individual needs. 

James Hoare in Profile: AGE: 41 • Education: BA, UNSW • Career: James spent 14 years in Europe where he worked in publishing, supply chain management and has also taught business English to Engineers. In Australia he has worked for MYOB and Xero • Hobbies: James has recently started surfing with his teenage children. He claims he spends more time off his surfboard than on it! The winter months are great for surfing, if you’re lucky you’ll get to spot some whales migrating north.

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XERO

VS QBO

THE QBO vs XERO: INVOICING CREATING INVOICES IN QBO

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Creating invoices in Australian versions of QBO and Xero Invoicing is a core function of your business, and you certainly need to do it right from the word

go. When it comes to Quickbooks Online (QBO) and Xero, the process is utterly simple. Please note this article focuses on the Australian versions of QBO and Xero.

However, for purposes of a fair comparison, we’ll look at a step-bystep procedure of how invoicing is done on both applications.

CREATING INVOICES IN QBO Click the ‘+’ button on the top right-hand side of your homepage.

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From the drop-down menu, select ‘invoice, below the ‘Customer’ section.

When you click on the ‘invoice’ icon, an invoice page will launch and you will be required to fill in the various sections including customer name, email address, payment mode, payment terms, invoice date, and so on. Here’s how the invoice page typically looks like when launched.

You can either choose to email the customer the invoice instantly, or later by appropriately checking or unchecking the ‘Send later’ box.

In case the customer you are dealing with is new; you will click on the drop-down menu under the ‘Choose a Customer’ box and click on ‘Add new’.

Fill in the name of the customer and click on ‘Details’ to fill in other relevant information about the customer as seen.

Save and proceed to create the customer invoice.

You can fill in the details in your invoice in any order you choose but a flowing sequence is most preferred. You could adopt the numbered sequence below.

Number 1 indicates the first item to fill and 12 the last one since 13 will automatically get filled up.

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Ensure that all the details about the invoice are filled in then click on the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the invoice. Next to the ‘Save’ button are the options for ‘Save and new’ in case you need to create another invoice, ‘Save and close’

in case you don’t need to create an additional invoice, and ‘Save and share link’ in case you need to share the link to the invoice.

What’s more? Should you need to delete the invoice all together, you can simply select the ‘delete’ option under the same menu.

invoice to someone, then go to the home page and click on ‘Sales’. Hit the ‘Invoices’ button and select the invoice you wish to work on. Click on the drop-down menu on the right-hand side next to the ‘Receive

And if you need to print or email an

Invoices. Proceed to click on the drop-down menu displayed beside the ‘Receive payment’ button.

Choose the option marked as View/ Edit.

If an invoice needs to be edited, click on the Sales icon then

payment button.

You will see various options among them, to print, send, or edit the invoice as seen below.

Do you do work for your customers and get paid instantly? If so, you need to create a sales receipt; not an invoice.

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There is a big difference between an invoice and a sales receipt.

In QBO, invoices can be created manually as seen above, in a recurrent way, or by importing them to QBO. If you wish to create a recurring invoice, you can simply click on the ‘make recurring’ option at the bottom of the invoice-creating page.

Then, fill in the details—these include the template name, template type, intervals, and so on.

This is how the page would possibly look like…

POINTS TO NOTE:

1. Quickbooks Online doesn’t have a built-in mechanism for importing invoices—however, there are a number of other third-party import applications to help you with that.

Be sure to check them out in the Intuit App Centre.

2. In QBO, you can receive money from a customer without necessarily having to create an invoice. This can be done

through creating a sales receipt as described earlier in this guide. The same can be done when you need to send a receipt to a customer without having to create an invoice.

However, you cannot send both a receipt and an invoice to a client— you will need to either mark an invoice as paid or create only a sales receipt.

3. Currently, Quickbooks Australian version doesn’t permit you send multiple/bulk invoices to a group

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of people. However, we the help of recommended third-party apps on apps.intuit.com, you can make this possible.

4. Whenever there is a need to approve invoices first before they are sent out, there are two options. The first would be to create a ‘Delayed Charge’; meaning the invoice will be recorded in your system and sent only after approval.

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The other option would be to create a quote then seek its approval before converting it into an invoice.

After the quote is approved, it can then be converted into an invoice and sent to the customer.

So, how exactly will you convert the quote into an invoice after approval?

Click on the ‘Sales’ icon on the home page.

Under the ‘All Sales’ menu, you will see the created quote.

Select it and click on the ‘Create Invoice’ icon; you will then be taken

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to the invoice page similar to the one illustrated above for creating an invoice manually.

a third party app, the process is evidently a piece of cake.

Can the same be said about Xero?

Whether you choose to create an invoice manually, convert a quote into an invoice, or import it using

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Let’s find out on page 26!

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5 MINS

WITH

5 MINS WITH SHAYE THYER Shaye Thyer is a National Cloud and Advisory Specialist at BDO Australia and a Practice Advisory Council Member for Xero. She is speaking at Xerocon Brisbane this year.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a loyal Adelaidian that loves indie music, waterskiing and basketball. I’m passionate about small business in the way it positively supports and shapes our lifestyle, gender equality and diversity and being a positive role model for my 2 girls

Your role is National Cloud and Advisory Specialist at BDO. What does that involve?

In an “MBA” sense it’s about operationalising our national transformation strategy for the accounting division. In real life, supporting our team in their diverse journeys towards becoming modern business advisers. My work spans really ground level stuff like hands-on ‘cloud 1-0-1’ training with team members, to designing and executing the change management strategy (top down) for internal operational technology changes, for example.

What parts of your job/industry to you love? What do you like least?

What motivates me continually about my role is seeing the positive change in our people. If I can

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assist them in any way to enjoy their work more, this means I’ve improved their life in a way. This could be as simple as taking the friction out of their day with some new tech, or convincing them that (thank goodness) no-personality number crunching is not their destiny. About the industry - I love that we have the opportunity to positively influence people’s lives.

It’s incredibly easy to get caught up with the nitty gritty politics of all the disruption (“I don’t believe compliance is dead”, “you don’t even do advisory,” “do you even do data visualisation” etc) but at the end of the day, we are a bunch of incredibly talented people that have the opportunity to assist our fellow humans in improving their business, their lives and indeed all the lives around them that their businesses touch. This is incredibly powerful.

What I like the least about the industry: oneupmanship (and yes sorry, the ‘man’ was deliberate).

Who cares if your firm is bigger than mine? Who cares if you do a thing that we do too. There are enough clients to go around, and the collective mission is clear: better outcomes for clients which means everyone is better off. What do I like the least about my role? a) that I’m a team of 1 :( and b) that some of my colleagues are convinced I can’t be successful in this “big old firm”.

But, haters gonna hate, I suppose!

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You’re speaking at Xerocon this year. What will you be speaking about? Why is that important to you?

Smaller firms have more choice for the practice management tools they use. What are your hopes for larger firms?

I hope and pray that us larger firms have the privilege of choice, flexibility and efficiency that the smaller firms have. The big clunky legacy PM tools large firms have been stuck with for so long are preventing these

“Open sharing of this stuff in the industry is so crucial” firms from embodying the agility that is required in the industry now - it’s heartbreaking! No one wants to be big old and slow! Big is fine, but not the other 2.

Are you optimistic about larger firms and their ability to change their culture?

5 out of 7 days of the week - yes. It is a HUGE task, but so critical. If larger firms can be honest, self-reflective and approach their own businesses like they would a client’s business, we’d have very different outcomes.

We’d see more BUSINESSES and less FIRMS, very different ownership structures, a dissolving of the flawed traditional promotion ladders and ultimately happier Partners, happier and more engaged staff and the best part - happier, wealthier clients.

You’re on the Xero Practice Advisory Council. What does that involve?

XPAC is a group of industry leaders that participate in a really critical feedback loop for Xero. Like all organisations, there can be a tendency to get caught

Shaye is a loyal Adelaidian (Image: flickr_robertdralst)

The topic is: “You’re on Xero, now what?” I’m collaborating with a guru bookkeeper from Perth sharing the BDO journey, how we started, what the roadblocks were and how we’ve overcome these, what success looks like, new services offered, and the positives from doing it. I think it’s important to talk about the hard things out loud. It’s all well and good to say “it’s so easy, just start up your practice using the Xero tools” and it is, if you do it from scratch. It’s much harder to transition a business from an ‘old way’ to a ‘new way’. There’s not a week that passes where I think - gosh can’t we just have a do-over! Open sharing of this stuff in the industry is so crucial - it is the opposite of the ‘one upmanship’ that I loathe - its collaborating and working as a team for the greater good.

in your own internal ‘bubble’ - XPAC helps Xero ensure this doesn’t happen and that they’re continuing to have an amazing positive impact on the industry and small businesses everywhere. We provide product feedback, influence development priorities, share real life challenges and successes, and Xero in turn supports members with profile and media opportunities.

What is something we might not know about Shaye Thyer? hobbies, quirks, fav TV show etc :-) I’m an introvert (Myers Briggs confirmed!) I’d rather sit happily with a beverage and watch the party than cut moves on the d-floor. My dad is my idol.  IN BRIEF: Current position: National Cloud and Advisory Specialist; Xero Practice Advisory Council Member Age: 35 Education: Chartered Accountants, ANZ; PROSCI Certified Change Management Practitioner; Australian Institute of Company Directors, BComm Flinders University Hobbies: Basketball, Water Skiing, Yoga, growing 2 strong independent young ladies Motto / Favourite quote: It's either f*k yes - or it's NO (Mark Manson) Advice to others: There is more credibility in being vulnerable than pretending you’re invincible (because no one is) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shayethyer

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SOFTWARE

SOLUTIONS

A

A large part of our work is selecting inventory management systems for manufacturing clients. On the face of it, this might seem pretty easy.

Visit a vendor website, review the list of features, sign up for a trial, and off you go. This might be possible for some business needs, however considerations for Inventory are often more complex.

The risk if things go wrong are also considerably higher. It’s not always easy!

The purpose of this article is to highlight some key points of difference among three inventory management systems: Cin7, DEAR

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and Unleashed. Each of these products are different in their own way. Hopefully as a result the reader will be slightly better informed - the key is to have a good understanding of your client’s workflows and processes and understand how this would be solved in an inventory management system. WhichAddOn have recommended each of the following system, however one general recommendation or verdict is very difficult, since since each business is unique.* When signing up for a trial account, your initial impression will be that

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Unleashed has the most elegant user interface. Whilst all three have demo data, help centers, videos/articles etc, it is Unleashed that does the best job in guiding new users through the first stages of getting used to their product.

Cin7 has a chat feature pop up and their response times are excellent.

DEAR has a useful feature where you can book in a call with a salesperson who can demonstrate the software and answer all your questions. Unleashed will allow you to extend your trial at the push of a button and use demo data, whilst Cin7 was a little more difficult to access trial data. Expect

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A review of Inventory Management Systems: Cin7, DEAR and Unleashed

to have some level of human contact when dealing with Cin7, you’ll receive a call and email from them to check how you’re going and what your specific needs are.

There are generally at least four stock control accounting methods: FIFO, LIFO, FEFO, batch and serial.

FIFO is the most popular method which Cin7 and DEAR however Unleashed does not. Stock is valued in your base currency according to the value paid to your supplier, plus any freight and duties incurred to get it to your warehouse. All three systems allow goods to be shipped before

the paperwork with landed costs comes in from the supplier to be applied later. Only Cin7 caters for landed costs by volume and weight, the other two spread landed costs by weighted value. It can also assign landed cost on a per item basis. Cin7 is also the only one to cater for costs by location (without workarounds).

If you are selling fashion products it is good to consider how your system will cater for colours, sizes and styles. It’s best to not have to create multiple product listings for each specific product you well - far better to create one product with

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different colours and sizes which will save you time spent on data entry. Unleashed cannot cater for sizes/colours/styles, DEAR and Cin7 can. Cin7 probably does it a little easier where it has a colour/ size grid or ‘line sheet’ format when creating purchases, sales orders and invoices.

Another consideration is pricing tiers. These will allow products to be sold at different prices, depending on the type of customer, eg retail, wholesale, VIP etc. Not only will you need to apply discounts, but what about customer specific pricing?

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EDI level which is a requirement for food wholesalers trading with Coles.

Promotional and volume based pricing? Automatic mark ups?

Special pricing for end-of-season sales? Can your system cater for loyalty programs by issuing discounts to your customers based on predefined spending thresholds? These considerations might not be immediately top of mind for you, but it is good to ask these questions where you’re starting out.

With Xero integration turned on, all three systems can assume responsibility for payments, receipts, shipments, returns and adjustments. DEAR is the only of the three to provide a full two-way sync of payments. It is also the only one to have the option of autosync. Cin7 can record payments, however Unleashed will not. Both DEAR and Cin7 will map locations to Xero’s tracking categories, enabling users to generate P&L reports per location. Unleashed doesn’t have this feature. Their recommendation is to add the tracking categories once these transactions hit Xero. Dear seems to have the tightest integration with Xero. Here, DEAR becomes the central point of all inventory management within your business.

This means that all inventoryrelated purchases, sales, and manufacturing can be performed in DEAR Inventory and then synchronised over to Xero. DEAR has a very useful “view in Xero” buttons throughout the product which will take you to the relevant screen in Xero. Auto Sync can be

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turned on if desired, however the advantage of a manual sync can be that it serves as a sanity check.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Unleashed added this button also earlier this year. Unleashed also released batch journals, abling to batch all transactions made within a day and post this to your Xero account as one journal, split by accounting codes. Cin7 links with one cost centre in Xero. However, you can link additional cost centres using alternative GL account. These can be applied against contacts, products, and orders. All three systems cater for multi-currency.

Invoices are sent through to Xero in the customer’s base currency and Xero does the rest. All show stock in base currency.

Make sure you consider the level of document customisation you’re looking for. If you are used to (and comfortable with) the mail merge functionality in Xero then you’ll be at home with how DEAR handles documents and forms. Unleashed does this within the product which is easy to design but the end result is functional and not highly sophisticated. Cin7 does a better job of in-house form customisation here.

All three systems have reasonable B2B portals. All three support EDI: Cin7 does this natively via their API and DEAR and Unleashed achieve this via an EDI provider (examples are B2B Gateway and Crossfire EDI). Cin7 in the only one which has expiry dates on products at an

ISSUE 4, AUGUST 2018

Pricing for all three is on a per user basis. Cin7 is priced higher given it’s broader functionality set, whilst DEAR and Unleashed are much more similar and compete much more directly with each other. The online support for all three products is very good. All three have comprehensive online documentation and videos. Cin7 has a certification program similar to Xero which again, might reflect the high level of customisation it can offer.

SUMMARY: Cin7 has a broader and richer feature set - it is a more mature product and it’s price tends to reflect that as well. The other systems may need more add ons (POS, 3rd party integrations) to meet the same level of features, which would then in turn increase the cost. So Cin7 for more advanced needs for clients who are looking for a more inclusive and comprehensive system. Cin7 has a more mature CRM and forecasting module, multi-entity, POS and B2B portal. It caters for multiple units of measure (the others have workarounds).

Although it’s probably harder to use, it is worth the effort given it’s richer functionality, if indeed you need the features it offers.

When evaluating a system for your business you’ll need to ask the right questions to see if you’ll be missing out on any functionality, and/or whether some workarounds are acceptable to your individual business. 

WhichAddOn provides an independent and free noobligation scope call to help businesses select a range of online solutions that suit their specific needs.

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XERO

VS QBO

THE QBO vs XERO: INVOICING CREATING INVOICES IN XERO

C

Creating an invoice in Xero is a three-click process. Start by clicking on the ‘+’ button on your top home screen area as seen to the right:

A drop-down menu will open. Click on ‘invoice’ to open the invoice page.

Fill in the various sections; to (customer name), date, due date, invoice number, item being sold, and all the other areas.

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Right below the invoice, click on your preferred option—you can click on ‘Save’, ‘Save as draft’, ‘Save (continue editing)’, ‘Save and submit for approval’, or ‘Save and add another’ in case you need to create an additional invoice.

In Xero, you can create a draft invoice by clicking on the ‘+’ button. Click on ‘Invoice’, then fill in the details including the name of the customer, date, item, and so on; then click on the drop-down menu indicated as ‘Save’.

Therein, you will find the option to ‘Save as draft’.

The draft invoice can be viewed from the dashboard area indicated under ‘invoices owed to you’.

If you need to create an invoice and submit for approval, then you will hit

the ‘+’ icon on your home screen—then click on invoice. After filling in the required areas, click on the drop-down menu indicated as ‘Save’. You will see an option for ‘save and submit for approval’.

This will create your invoice and submit it for approval to the relevant person(s).

Under the ‘invoices owed to you’ section on the dashboard, you will find all invoices that have been approved and sent out to the clients. These

invoices will be indicated as ‘Awaiting payment’.

Just below the ‘Awaiting payment section’, you will find the category for ‘Overdue’ invoices. This section will contain all invoices whose payment dates are overdue.

And in case you need to print or email your invoice, then simply locate your invoice either through your dashboard area indicated as ‘invoices owed to you’, or through the ‘Accounts’ section in the home screen.

If you choose to follow the ‘Account’ menu route, click on it and hit the ‘Sales’ button. The invoices section will open—you will then choose the category (Draft, Awaiting Approval, Awaiting Payment, or Overdue) of the invoice you wish to print.

Alternatively, you can choose the ‘See all’ section to sift through all the invoices that you wish to print or email.

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When you click on the invoice that you wish to print or email, select the required action.

Creating invoices in Xero can be done manually as described above, in a recurrent way, through importing invoices into Xero, or via an app.

A recurrent invoice can be created by going to the ‘Account’ section on your dashboard. Then click on ‘Sales’.

Click on the drop-down menu under the ‘New’ button.

Fill in and check the various fields of the invoice.

You will be able to choose whether to repeat the invoice in terms of weeks or months.

After filling in all the details, click on save.

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To import sales invoices into Xero, you will click on the ‘Account’ icon then click on ‘Sales’ from the opened menu.

Then click on ‘Import’.

An import page containing the steps to be followed will then open.

In case the system you’re importing the invoices from is not among the listed ones, you will be required to fill in a template invoice file.

The template will contain relevant fields to populated such as customer name, invoice amount, date, and so on. Not all the fields in the template are mandatory—but try as much as possible to fill in the important details.

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Key all the invoices in and import it when ready.

When it comes to creating invoices using a mobile app, you can either use the IOS or Android version. It enables you to perform a number of tasks including invoicing, approval of expenses, conducting reconciliations, among other things.

One notable difference between

Xero and other accounting applications relates to the creation of sales receipt for customers.

Adding ‘Receive money’ is the equivalent of creating a sales receipt in Xero.

This is to say in Xero, you will only be able to create a Receipt for a customer after having generated an invoice first--unlike in QBO, you cannot receive money from a

customer without an invoice.

Another conspicuous difference between QBO and Xero is that unlike in Quickbooks Online (AU version), Xero users are able to send group invoices.

To do this, simply click on contacts then on ‘All contacts’ to add everyone you’d like to have in the group you wish to invoice.

Next to the ‘Group icon’ is the ‘New’ icon. Click on it and name the group you wish to create.

Click on the ‘Customers’ icon to add the customers you wish to include in the group.

Then click on the drop-down menu under ‘Options’. Select the ‘Add to Group’ icon. You will be required to select the group you had created.

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After selecting the group, click on the ‘Add’ icon.

When you go to the ‘Accounts’ menu and click on ‘Sales’, you’ll notice you can create a bulk invoice under the ‘New’ icon.

This is how the group invoice would look like…

The invoice will be sent to the created group; Vic.

AND THE WINNER IS… Both systems are able to add, edit, email, delete/void an invoice, submit an invoice for approval, and create recurring/repeating invoices.

But then, how do they differ? Well...

Quickbooks online puts up a good fight when it comes to receiving payments from customers without invoices through directly creating a sales receipt. Also, with QBO, you’re able to send a receipt to a customer without an invoice; unlike its Xero counterpart.

However, overall, Xero comes out as user-friendly software with all the features in Quickbooks, save for the invoicing bit mentioned above. The app offers a unique group invoicing feature, the ability to save a draft invoice, import invoices, among other

QBO

Xero

Add an Invoice

Y

Y

Edit an Invoice

Y

Y

Delete/Void an Invoice

Y

Y

Email an Invoice

Y

Y

COMPARISON TABLE:

Save an Invoice as a Draft

N

Y

Submit an Invoice for Approval by another user

Y

Y

Receive Money without an Invoice

Y

N

Send a Receipt to Customer without Invoice

Y

N

Send a Receipt to Customer with an Invoice

N

Y

Create Recurring/Repeating Invoice

Y

Y

Bulk invoice to a contact group

N

Y

useful features missing in QBO. SO, WHO IS THE OVERALL WINNER? For now, we’d have to go with Xero.

As much this piece tries to provide an objective analysis this article only portrays the invoicing aspect of

ISSUE 4, AUGUST 2018 | Subscribe at www.whichaddon.com

the two applications. If you were to make an unbiased verdict on these two accounting giants, then it would a shame not to go for the whole analysis. Therefore please check out a full comparison in our e-book “QBO vs. Xero for Getting Paid Faster and Managing Customers” - we trust you’ll find it useful! 

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CASES

GAP DRINKS GOES NEXT LEVEL

TUDY

INTRODUCTION

GAP Drinks is a distribution & sales company specialising in drinks brand development in the Asia Pacific region.

The company works closely with independent drinks companies to fill portfolio gaps and bring solutions to distributors and retailers. Long term partnerships and high levels of customer service are highly valued at the Australian based business, so it was with this in mind - coupled with a changing technology landscape - that they went to market for a solution.

PROBLEM GAP drinks started out using Xero, so their cloud journey was already well underway. However as the company grew over time, staff found that spreadsheets were increasingly being used to track their increasingly complex inventory needs. The levels of data entry, and associated business risk, led the company to conclude they had outgrown Xero’s inventory module. A specific limitation they were experiencing as an importer of goods was their inability to track serial numbers and batches of goods. Just as important was to track all landed costs such as freight, duties and custom fees. Tracking these associated costs when purchasing goods would give them a much better picture of their inventory costs.

Addressing these problems led GAP drinks to seek a solution, and the company engaged WhichAddOn to conduct not only system selection, but to also migrate data, configure, integrate and train staff. Moreover, this project had to be performed whilst GAP drinks maintained their daily operations.

SOLUTION As they were already familiar with Xero, it was quite a straightforward and logical step to integrate with a cloud based solution. In this case WhichAddOn chose DEAR Inventory. DEAR is one of the many solutions we implement and in this instance it was a perfect fit for GAP drinks.

The use of serial numbers allowed GAP drinks to search and track availability of individual stock items, rather than just an overall quantity. GAP drinks also needed to track batches or groups of items of an individual stock unit. Their new system now assigns a batch number to each batch of product items. This batch number stays with the batch as it goes through their cloud system. Batches can now be tracked and monitored. Staff can see exactly when they were were received, shipped and assembled. All landed costs are also now recorded, and dashboards and reports now supply the business owner with a true snapshot

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T.O.C.

of inventory costs, and in turn higher visibility into product margins. No more spreadsheets!

FINAL THOUGHTS DEAR Inventory has future-proofed GAP drinks buy giving them a new platform from which they can gain insight and integrate to more systems to better track stock. They have better peace of mind knowing they will have fewer stockouts, and now have a platform to further grow the business over time, and provide better service and respond to market developments now that they have their inventory in the cloud.

In the dynamic environment of modern

businesses it is important to run a solution that can very easily integrate with an e-commerce store and allow suppliers to self service with their own B2B portal. A boutique retail shop also needs their own point of sale (POS) functionality, which GAP now possess.

Their new system gives them vital soughtafter functionality as well as insights into their inventory that previously was not possible.

Before the rise of cloud applications this level of sophistication and functionality would have cost a business a small fortune. These days the cost of setting up such a powerful, simple yet amazingly affordable system is now within reach of most small to medium enterprises.

Life is better in the cloud! ď ł

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