If you have suggestions on ERP software that can manage inventory for a distributor of horticultural products, I'd be grateful if you could contact me. There are some unique needs, e.g. where a plant may be "small" and sells for $7.99 in spring, but mid summer it has grown to "medium" and should now sell for $10.99. Thanx!
Software for a horticultural distributor
Answers
Len,
I would start with one of the single-purpose plug-in inventory systems, like Unleashed or similar. I get your needs, but it sounds more like a process problem than an
What I mean by that is that my approach would be (and I haven't run a nursery yet...) to handle it through inventory audits, and moderate the changes in the same manner one moderates WIP, along with appropriate allocation of costs to the mature plants.
Say you buy 100 plants on Jan 1 for $1 each. You've got them classed as "Geranium 1-gallon" or "Geranium size 1". They'll have a $2 selling price at that point.
Your quarterly audit shows that you've sold 50, 10 have died, and you've got 40 left.
You break the quarter-growing-cost across all 100 (say it was $50). So, the plants you sold have cogs of $1.50 each, the "Shrink" account gets charged for 10x$1.50, and you swap classification of the remaining plants allocating the 40x$1.50 to inventory, while classing them as "Geranium-2" with some new target selling price.
Other firms have similar problems. For example, a winery might have a 2000 merlot that sells for $10 new. The cellared stuff will go for $40 if it is good, $5 if it is vinegar, a few years on. In this case the inventory SKU doesn't change, but they still have the same changing cost-basis and price-target problem.
That's just my two cents from the software I've seen and its capabilities.
Cheers,
KP
Keith-that's great info, thanks!
My pleasure!
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