Question for guys with shops

[fordf150]

Been doing this for a number of years now and I am thinking its time to for some upgrades to my shop.

I have been in too many OPE/atv shops to count now and one thing that is common between them all is that there is generally a lack of organization to their parts inventory and in my area 75% seem to be still using paper receipts and who knows what for inventory tracking. the other 25% are using quickbooks or some other form of cheap accounting software.

I have enough parts coming and going that i am starting to have trouble getting inventory put away in a timely manner along with its just taking too long to find/pull parts for orders and customers. Currently using filing cabinets for gaskets/seals which seems to work great and packs allot of parts in a small area that are easy/quick to find. most everything else is grouped by category in boxes with dedicated shelving units for dolly, echo, stihl, husky parts.


Any tips on organizing parts....


The next issue that needs upgraded is the accounting software. Quickbooks has been a cost effective solution for the accounting side of things but has always left me wanting more on the tracking of my inventory and this years inventory count has given me the motivation to search out a new, hopefully better way of dealing with it. We pretty well shut down for a week to count inventory....3 people counting inventory for 4 straight days....we gave up before we made it to the saw parts. My year end sale resulted in 2 full days of manually transferring sales from the website, PM's, and emails into quickbooks. There has to be a better way....Any of you guys have experience with any of the OPE managment software? A quick search of google turns up way too many versions to be able to pick one. I have looked into this before but always got overwhelmed with info and gave up but last week i actually started the search again and talked to a couple different companies. Of course they all claim to be the best and do things the others cant do but at first glance they all appear to be similar in the features they offer. This stuff is such a big upfront investment and so complicated that once you make the choice of which one to use your not going to switch a year or 2 down the road...your going to be stuck with it for a long time to come. I tried searching google for some reviews and comparisons but basically came up empty. AS came up the same...Any help would be appreciated because i am sure there are other dealers out there struggling with this same decision as me.

this is small sample of the software companies i came up with and at least 3 of 10 or so i looked at claimed to be the #1 software for the OPE industry.

http://www.powerprodms.com/
http://www.idealcomputersystems.com/business-management-software-outdoor-power-equipment
http://chartersoftware.com/ope?view=fjrelated&layout=blog
http://www.nizex.com/outdoor-power-equipment/

 

[big t double]

Bin locations for parts. We're also a rental store so our software is geared toward that end but we have made that software work on the ope end.

 

[fordf150]

Bin locations for parts. We're also a rental store so our software is geared toward that end but we have made that software work on the ope end.

almost all of the software i listed contains rental software as well just as a FYI.

bin locations is one of the things missing from quickbooks that i desperately need.

 

[big t double]

Not sure about how quick books works but is there a place to add a description of the part?

 

[2stroker]

Not sure about how quick books works but is there a place to add a description of the part?

Nate,
I'm not the guy to ask about software for OPE operations, but I've been in close to 100 shops over the last 5 years and the best way to organize parts I've seen is a vidmar style storage cabinet. They can gobble up parts and store them for easy access and a quick glance can give a visual inventory.
Many can be had at used, at used machinery dealers. They aren't cheap, $700 to $1200 ea used.
Glad
2stroked
Don

 

[fordf150]

Nate,
I'm not the guy to ask about software for OPE operations, but I've been in close to 100 shops over the last 5 years and the best way to organize parts I've seen is a vidmar style storage cabinet. They can gobble up parts and store them for easy access and a quick glance can give a visual inventory.
Many can be had at used, at used machinery dealers. They aren't cheap, $700 to $1200 ea used.
Glad
2stroked
Don

The local Deere dealer has them. Yep they hold a ton of stuff but the the prices those go for... Even used.... I would go broke just buying enough for my current inventory

 

[fordf150]

Not sure about how quick books works but is there a place to add a description of the part?

Sure is... But can't add a bin location to the end of every part description because only a limited number of characters show up unless you go to a different screen and open that item only. Already thought of that.... Thought about adding it to the beginning of every one but thought it would look dumb on people's receipt having part descriptions start with A10, D25, F2 or whatever you used for your locations.

 

[rynosawr]

Does every part you buy and sell come with a barcode?

Having a system that allows barcode scanning input for inventory in and out proves very useful.

There are also barcode generators you can use, but that takes time and effort.

Another point I would like to add is this....

Lots of small businesses buy up inventory that is slow moving and not very profitable, many times for the convenience factor of the customers; be careful of this, as I have seen and personally avoided buying huge quantities of "necessities" and instead bought one or two more than the highest months sales number. This meant we always had some on hand, but not so much as to hurt our operating capital.

 

[AVB]

Here one software package to check out http://www.adminsoftware.biz/

It contains an auto manger which should be more inline of what your looking for. The payroll system is basically useless for the US as is setup for the British system but you be hard pressed to beat it up front cost. But for one person operation with an inventory of around 10K has definitely help me to not order parts that I already have on hand and to find them fairly quickly once I know the part number I'm looking for.

As far inventory tracking it fairly good. I use storage totes with smaller containers so a matrix system location works best for me. ie 2c-zama1 This get me to the correct storage container and smaller container. This matrix can be expanded to additional levels if needed. The above software can up to three warehouse locations but it combine the location all in respect to amount of inventory on hand but you check each location thru search. What I mean by warehouse location is example Office, Shop, and Part Room. The main reason I use storage totes is that they have lids to keep mice out. These little monsters can do a lot damage before you know it.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

The shop inventory is just whoever knowing where to look.

I looked at several programs but they were pricey *like 4-5 figures pricey)

 

[backhoelover]

How do you organize your Stihl Echo husqvarna parts numbers I do it by the first set of part number

 

[fordf150]

Does every part you buy and sell come with a barcode?

Having a system that allows barcode scanning input for inventory in and out proves very useful.

There are also barcode generators you can use, but that takes time and effort.

Another point I would like to add is this....

Lots of small businesses buy up inventory that is slow moving and not very profitable, many times for the convenience factor of the customers; be careful of this, as I have seen and personally avoided buying huge quantities of "necessities" and instead bought one or two more than the highest months sales number. This meant we always had some on hand, but not so much as to hurt our operating capital.

Most parts have a bar code... Dolly currently is moving away from bar coded individual packages and towards a bulk packed hand written part numbers.

Every software I have looked at supports bar codes and can generate them with purchase of a thermal printer.

That's one of the downfalls of QuickBooks. Inventory tracking is is virtually nonexistent. I have inventory that's been on the shelf 5 years but you could never figure that out just using QuickBooks.

How do you organize your Stihl Echo husqvarna parts numbers I do it by the first set of part number

No real system. A combination of just knowing where the part is and by grouping of similar components. Fuel lines all go in one box.... In numerical order. One box is labeled control.... That box has all the operator presence levers, master control switched, throttle levers, and any other closely related components.

I've tried a couple different ways and this is where I stopped.... Most sales include a a few parts from the same "group" so often times I only need to go to one location and pull one box to get all the necessary parts

 

[big t double]

Sure is... But can't add a bin location to the end of every part description because only a limited number of characters show up unless you go to a different screen and open that item only. Already thought of that.... Thought about adding it to the beginning of every one but thought it would look dumb on people's receipt having part descriptions start with A10, D25, F2 or whatever you used for your locations.

I gotcha. Yea that's how we do it. Sometimes we just shorten the description to make it work. Yea it looks funny on a receipt sometimes but it is what it is. Good luck in your software search. It's a pain in the azz...as you've obviously figured out.

 

[redtractor]

Thought about adding it to the beginning of every one but thought it would look dumb on people's receipt having part descriptions start with A10, D25, F2 or whatever you used for your locations.

Not dumb looking at all. Almost looks like you're organized or something.

 

[Definitive Dave]

95% of our sales are through Ebay so our system is geared to mesh with the way we pack and fill orders, we use software centric to this as well, it is all about being fast an efficient.
We use bin boxes on wire racks on wheels, the boxes are super cheap and the racks are about $100 each at Sam's club.
The bins are labeled based on type of part and then a number so all the "D" bins are complete carburetors and each number is a different model, "D12" is the flat top 026 carb.
Our shipping labels print this ebay "custom label right on them so orders of a single item are super simple to pull and package.
In most cases we try to have only one part per bin though we do group parts in a single bin if we only sell them together such as "A20" which also has a number 5 circled on the front of the bin to remind us that there are 5 different pieces in this "part".
Any item always sold in a quantity has that number on the front of the bin uncircled to let us know that we need to include 10 of the P04 screws in the package.
Way back in the dark ages I made the mistake of sticking some OEM Stihl items in larger bins grouped together and those are more of a pain in the butt to pull, but we make it work.
If I was less lazy I would have a separate bin for each model of top cover badge and recoil badge but I only have two bins and flip through them daily to find what I need to ship, same thing with a lot of other physically small OEM parts, fuel lines, buffers, etc.
For oil seals and bearings I use the front of the bins as a sort of cheatsheet so that I know which bearings to pull to go with a set of MS290 oil seals.
The system gets mangled when a large item gets added that wont fit on the shelves properly so it goes on the large item area shelves at the far end. Bin 055 (6 piece tool kit) is next to bin P68 (4.5mm roll of pull cord) but we muddle through.
Making the inventory work is a constant struggle, if a part gets mis-shipped, we have to ship the correct part, and adjust the inventory for the accidentally shipped part. When we forget to fix the inventory we can accidentally sell something that we don't have
Same thing when somebody wants an item "not through Ebay", we have to adjust the inventory on each item manually.
Dave

 

[HarleyT]

The Stihl reps used to look for me a job to winter at, so I would organize a hick Stihl dealer's inventory. Most of them
were set up on the "old school" bin location system, which never worked too well. After a decade, there would be a huge
pile of cards with a part number scribbled on it, along with a "bin" number. Then if you were lucky, the part may
be thrown in a box with a bin number on it, but the same part may also be located in another bin location as well, and
the "correct" part count was supposed to be scribbled on the card too......

Which going in to organize, it didn't matter. The worse part was the loose parts with no part number, so those went into
a bin of their own, for starting out.


The second obstacle was the shop owner, because he didn't want any change. "That's the way Grandpa did it"!!!!

If they let me organize their parts, I would just re-assure them, "We are just relabeling the bins!!"

Instead of bin A-1, we will label it 0000, next would be #1106, and so on. Back in the day, the Stihl dist. would
package their parts in a manila envelope, and usually it was in a size that stood up nicely in a standard cardboard
parts box, so then it was a matter of using the next set of digits, and putting them in the bin in numeric order.
Of course, in the real world, there are large and odd shaped parts that won't fit in in this way, so a larger bin/box was set aside the bin for those.
This system worked pretty well.

While working through the entire Stihl inventory, most of those "loose" parts are figured out too.

 

[fordf150]

@Definitive Dave that manually adjusting inventory is some of what i want to get away from. staying on top of ordering for several sales channels is very difficult to do using quickbooks. keeping up with manually entering sales from the website/ebay is difficult and very time consuming. One of my mandatory items for the software to do is integrate with the website....that way everyone will see an accurate, up to date inventory count on what i have and there wont be unexpected back orders that take a day or 2 to ship. inventory says currently there are 35000 items in stock but quickbooks doesnt show me how many individual part numbers there are, 35000 items would make me guess somewhere around 15000 part numbers.....kinda hard to put every part number in a seperate box.

I constantly reevaluate my stocking level on parts that are listed on the website but husky case splitters for example....from june when it was added to the beginning of december i sold 4. for the month of december it was probably a dozen...when my inventory of them gets down to 1 i will order 6....so at any given time i can have as many as 7 on hand to as few as 1. that used be half that number...be nice if customers knew that when ordering but my current setup is impossible to do that without massive amounts of time updating inventory on the website ever time a order comes in.


@HarleyT that index card system is how my "good" local husky dealer has his system set up. Its a nightmare.....go in for a part and its pretty easy to spend an hour waiting on him to backtrack through the superceded part numbers....for whatever reason he wont jsut write the updated number on his cards so in some cases he has to backtrack through 10 yrs of updated numbers to get the number that is actually on the index card, locate the index card, then the real fun begins because of 12yrs using that system, and never doing a physical inventory has led to exactly what you describe of parts being in 3 different places, index card saying he has 5 and not able to find a single one.


We have debated just organizing everything in numerical order but having parts grouped makes picking the parts easy and most orders are for parts to complete a specific job so having all related parts in one location makes pulling those part easy. one box is all the parts to replace oil pump/worm gear and the box right beside it contains the oil lines and tank vent even though those part numbers are often miles apart but then we have carb kits, gaskets, seals, and gasket sets all in numerical order so i end up with a confusing system to an outsider and even for the guy out in the shop that doesnt deal with parts very often. maybe just switching to numerical order for everything would be an easier way to go and have consistency for the entire parts inventory.

 

[HarleyT]

I have found that it works out best to keep it all in numeric order.

Also to keep the mechanics out of the part room!

 

[AVB]

Then Fordf150 basically what your looking for is accounting software with real time e-commerce compatibility and that will take some research on your part as to what will work best for you. I looked into this several years ago but it way too involved and expensive for my small shop. The software should be out there somewhere, just finding it is the problem.

Good luck on your endeavor.

 

[fordf150]

Then Fordf150 basically what your looking for is accounting software with real time e-commerce compatibility and that will take some research on your part as to what will work best for you. I looked into this several years ago but it way too involved and expensive for my small shop. The software should be out there somewhere, just finding it is the problem.

Good luck on your endeavor.

already found a couple that have everything i am looking for plus a couple more that are close and one company said it would be no problem to write a module to integrate with the ecommerce. If you have looked into it much at all then you know just how much of a commitment it is to upgrade to one of these programs and i hate to go at it blindly with jsut a sales reps reassurance that they are the best and it will truly save time. I know one guy that is just getting started with the http://www.powerprodms.com/ and is happy with the tech support and functions but hasnt used it enough(been using it for about 2 months) to find the flaws which the sales reps never tell you about. they also happen to be the one that doesnt have ecommerce built in but said it would be no problem to write a program to add it for a very minimal extra cost.

my shop is a 2 man shop with 1 part timer.....I have came to the conclusion that i either need to hire another person jsut for data entry or invest in software to streamline as much of the process as possible.