Q.
Does the Product Catalog consist of a general listing of ALL products
made by a certain manufacturer and general prices ?
A.
Absolutely not. The files you download are individually generated
for your particular customer account number. They include the exact
same products and prices as shown on your price lists received in
the mail.
Q. Does
this Product Catalog become obsolete ?
A.
No. The first transmission includes all products and current
prices. Every subsequent related change on your particular account
is automatically transmitted as an update. This includes new product
records and drop notices. Your VenCom Product Catalog is updated
accordingly and a detailed report is provided alerting you to each
change. These changes can also be ported into your accounting software.
Q. What
information is included in the Product Catalog ?
A.
In addition to the name, style number and manufacturer ID, each
listing shows width, standard roll size, general description (i.e.;
"100% Nylon"), the technical vendor SKU number (used to
place electronic orders), and those all-important huge color lists.
Pricing includes effective dates, roll and cut price for each FOB
and minimum length needed to qualify for roll price. It also includes
promotional pricing with begin and end dates. Your transaction report
lists old prices, new prices and the difference between them. Unusual
changes are automatically flagged.
Q.
Can I print price lists from the Catalog ?
A. Yes, and
much more. You can view and print sorted and filtered listings by
vendor and create your own sophisticated sell price formulas then
use them to create hardcopy lists. You can mark individual products
as inactive and exempt them from hardcopy lists and/or export to
other software. The software also allows user assignment of "type
codes" to create your own classes or groups of products.
Q. What
else is done with the Product Catalog ?
A. In addition
to the obvious benefits of automatic maintenance by vendor computers
and eliminating tedious manual updates by your staff, these records
are used to create Purchase Orders with information sufficient to
allow vendor computers to automate their processing as must be done
in a real-time enviroment. The price you expect to pay is extracted
from the Product Catalog (subject to operator insertion of a lower
price for any particular transaction) and included in the P.O. to
insure acceptance at the proper price. These records are also used
to verify invoice price. Finally, the vendor updating process allows
you to confirm that new negotiated prices were actually updated
in the vendor system and therefore will be correctly billed in future
purchases.
Q.
How can I be sure electronic invoices are correct before posting
to my accounting system ?
A. Invoices
arising from pre-priced electronic orders are much less likely to
contain errors. VenCom has its own verification/alerting system
and is especially effective when used with electronic orders and
ship notices. VenCom software allows you to respond to alerts by
putting a questioned invoice on "hold" to prevent it from
being ported to accounting until the "hold" is released.
Electronic invoices are created by the same processes used by vendors
to create traditionally-mailed paper invoices and contain information
identical that shown on paper. Of course there is no need to open,
sort, manually inspect and risk errors by loss or keypunch. Finally,
most accounting systems allow you to review invoice entries prior
to final posting.
Q. As electronic
invoices will be received earlier than mailed paper, are terms the
same ?
A. Yes. Terms,
due dates and discounts are calculated by the date of the invoice
regardless of when the invoice is received.
Q. Who
do we call if any problem arises ?
A. VenCom is
your first line of support on all matters relating to operation
of the VenCom software and its' exchange of electronic data with
vendors. To insure smooth, continuous compatibility, Vencom provides
support to dealers and their accounting software providers
and Trading Partners (mills/distributors).
Q. Why
are mill bar codes included in electronic Ship Notices ? Can we
use their numbers in-house ?
A. The mills
affix their own internal bar code number to almost all products
upon final cutting and/or assignment and prior to shipment. Including
these unique bar codes numbers together with your PO/Reference number
in the immediately-transmitted Ship Notice tells your system what
the bar code will be for each item before it arrives. Your
in-house system can match the number to the product record in the
PO to electronically identify and receive the item. The exact content
of the mill bar code number and what it means to the vendor system,
for all practical purposes on the dealer side, thus becomes irrelevant.
