20. Similarly, do you need to assign/record serial numbers for your products? If so, are you under a regulatory constraint (such as the FAA for air transport)? Do your products carry time-defined warranty periods? Do your products carry expiration dates? If so, does your present software provide serial number functionality? If not, you should investigate new software. Some of the newer software packages also provide for physical (cycle) counting by serial number.
21. Do you need to record bin/shelf location assignments for inventory? Have you outgrown a fixed location system and need to implement a randomized storage algorithm? Does your present system provide for multi-bin tracking?
22. Do you issue Return Merchandise Authorizations (RMAs) to customers? How do you track RMAs? Does your present system provide RMA management functionality?
23. Does your present system allow you to maintain customer specific contract pricing? Customer type-based price discounts? Product category-based price discounts? Order quantity-based price tiers?
24. Do you import product? If so, are you able to track and roll-up landed costs such as freight, insurance duties, and broker fees into the cost of the product in your present software?
25. Does your product require a final QC inspection stage prior to being approved for release? Examples of this requirement are importers of high volume, low cost electronics from Asia, specialized manufacturing operations with high reject rates, and manufacturers of low-volume, high cost items. If so, does your software provide a Material Review Board feature set that would allow for controlled, formal release of product from a QC inventory location-to-finished goods.
26. Does your software provide a barcode-ready interface to support order-picking verification or EDI/ASN with your trading partners?
27. If you are managing a made-to-stock manufacturing operation, does your software provide for issuance of stock from raw materials to WIP with corresponding distribution to a WIP Inventory G/L account?
