In addition to the main aspects of RICS Inventory Management, there are other things you should do on a routine basis to keep your RICS data as clean as possible. Below are some suggestions on some additional things you should be looking at regularly that can affect your inventory or your automatic orders.
While it may seem daunting to add these tasks on top of everything else you're taking on for inventory, once best practices are established for your store, all of the below should only take a few minutes worth of your time and will have a huge impact on the overall health of your RICS data.
Suggested Cadence: Monthly
Although it's best practice to close POs in the moment, there may be times when you forget to do this or where there was logic to leaving it open at the time. You can see a list of all open POs by going to Enter Purchase Orders or Receive Purchase Orders and searching % in the Quick Lookup tool, or you can run (and subscribe to) the Purchase Orders Report (not the report just called Purchase Order) with the following parameters:
Report Options:
A lot of people tend to run reports as Excel or PDF, but I like to run it in a CSV so I can easily delete unnecessary columns and so I can sort by Order Date column.
What details do you want to show? I'd suggest keeping it to PO for this exercise, but you can also run it as SKU or SKU Detail if you'd like to see what product is on these POs.
Which POs would you like to include? Select "Open POs Only."
Leave all date ranges set to "none."
Note: This report tends to take a few minutes to run.
To schedule this report, select it in your Report Manager to load that report's preview on the right hand side. Then, click Subscribe, set your preferred time & delivery frequency, then enter the email of anyone you might want to receive this report. RICS will automatically send you an updated report each month for you to review.
This will give you a list of all open POs in your system, where you'll be able to see the order date and if you've received part of that PO. If you have received part of it, RICS will tell you the date last received as well.
Once you have the list, you can close out old POs using the button on the "Receive PO" screen. Remember: When in doubt, you can always backorder the units in case they do end up showing up later.
Suggested Cadence: Monthly
Go to Inventory > Receiving > Receive Transfers. Pull up the Quick Lookup tool and search % to pull up a list of transfers waiting to be received. If there's anything old in there, reach out to the sending store and ask if they have tracking information for you so you can confirm if you've already received it or if you need to close it out.
Once you've managed those, go to Inventory > Stock Transfer > Reconcile Transfers and search % to pull up any transfers that need to be reconciled. Follow the reconciliation instructions on the Creating & Receiving Transfers SOP doc for each instance.
Suggested Cadence: Weekly
Correcting negative on hand values is a quick way to keep your inventory in check between cycle counts. First, you'll want to create and subscribe to a negative on hand report.
Under Report Creator, find the Stock Status report.
Under Report Options, in the "Select Which Inventory Items" field, select "Only Items with a Negative On Hand Quantity."
Under Printing Options, in the "Print Which Quantities" section, keep "on hand" checked and then check the "Show Negative On-Hand" box.
To subscribe, find the report in your Report Manager and click on it to pull up the report preview. Click "Subscribe," title it "Weekly Negative On Hand report," and schedule your preferred day & time so the report runs automatically.
Once you've verified your actual on hand, whether you have units or you truly have zero, correct your inventory using Receive Without PO.
Suggested Cadence: Monthly (Before Monthly Cycle Count)
If the correct process is not followed for closing out special orders, then it can cause inventory issues in RICS.
If a customer places a special order and they pay for it up front in the form of a special order deposit, then that special order needs to be "picked up" through RICS at the same time the customer comes to get their item. If it is not "picked up" through RICS, then your store does not receive credit for the sale and the inventory will not be taken out until it's corrected in a cycle count (where it will then show as a variance).
If you then "pick up" the special order after that, then it will affect the inventory that you had already fixed, and will show as a variance again in your next cycle count.
Best practice is to ensure all special orders are being handled correctly in the system, however this is good to audit monthly regardless.
To do so, you can run a Special Orders Activity report. You do not need to change any of the default parameters here - you should not narrow down by any date range, and you do not want to check the box that will include picked up or cancelled special orders.
Reading the Report/Clean Up:
The report gives you a list of all currently open special orders in your system. First, you'll want to discern what special orders are still open/waiting to be received or picked up and what really is old.
You'll see two types of special orders: one where the liability value listed is $0, and another where the liability listed has a value (and should match the value of the "tender" amount in the Deposit line below).
If the liability value is $0, then the customer did not put down a deposit, and the customer either did not pick that up or the outfitter that helped them upon pick up ran the transaction through as an actual sale. In this case, you'll need to cancel the special order. This will have no effect on your inventory.
If there is a liability value, then the customer paid for that product in full, and upon pick up, they were likely just handed the product. In this case, you'll need to pick up the special order. This will register the sale and remove that product from your inventory.
Your store's non-sellable bin should be an accurate representation of what's currently on your non-sellable shelf in your back room waiting to be sent back to the vendor for credit.
To audit this, you'll first want to run an Export Non-Sellable Inventory report in RICS.
This is another report that may be easier to read in a CSV format so that you can delete unnecessary columns, but a PDF format will work as well.
Report Options: Under "Non-Sellable" Options, check the "Include Items not on a batch" and "Include Items on an Uncompleted Batch" checkboxes.
Any line item on the report without a Batch Name should still be on your non-sellable shelf. If it isn't, you'll want to verify if it was accidentally put back onto the shelf with your sellable inventory or if it was missed on a previous batch that was sent back to the supplier.
If you find the product and determine it was sellable, you can use Move to On Hand to move the item from your non-sellable inventory and back to your on hand inventory. If you no longer have the item or aren't sure what happened, you can add it onto a batch and "complete" it with a note in the comments that the batch is an adjustment.
Similarly, anything still on your physical non-sellable shelf should be represented on this report. If it's not, verify if it's still in your inventory or if it was missed when packing up products being sent back to the vendor in a prior batch. Be sure to move the inventory into non-sellable if you find it's still showing in your on hand inventory.
Auditing Uncompleted Batches
Finally, take a look at all of the items in that report that have a Batch Name associated to them. Verify if any of these batches have been sent back to the vendor and that you have an RMA number, if applicable. If so, be sure to complete these batches so you are left with only a list of uncompleted batches still in progress.
Please refer to the non-sellable SOP doc for more information on when you should complete a batch.