Columbus Food Retail

Columbus Food Retail is the software solution for grocery retail chains.

Description

The complete solution Columbus Food Retail on the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform considers the best practices of management and a know-how in the field of product retail. The unique tool kit of a system and industry expertize of consultants of Columbus will allow network of any scale:

• It is effective to manage the range
• Increase the accuracy of planning of trade inventories
• Structure the system of pricing
• Control settlement with suppliers
• Study preferences and maintain loyalty of buyers
• It is effective to work with personnel of shops
• Minimize operating costs
• Increase investment attractiveness of the company

The solution covers processes of accounting and management accounting, supports treasurer functions, planning of budgets and accounting, manages customer relations, coordinates work of personnel of shops, solves problems of warehouse logistics, is integrated with different applications of an electronic and mobile commerce, etc.

Assortment management

Software helps to create assortment matrixes by the set parameters by nomenclatures, commodity groups, formats of shops, regions, allows to set range quotas for each outlet or a format.

Columbus Food Retail supports centralized operation by each stage of a goods lifecycle. The system of the statuses provides to retail network a necessary set of transactions with goods. It is easy to define product availability for sale by Columbus Food Retail, internal transfers, order placement to the supplier.

Demand forecasting

Tools of a system help to create demand forecasts on goods taking into account statistics of sales, scarcity factors, information on the taken place and future actions, holidays, week and annual seasonality, etc.

Purchase planning

Planning of orders in Columbus Food Retail happens taking into account the sales forecast of goods and its analogs, a relevant remaining balance and terms of their validity, the calculation size in shops, the planned promotion actions, the calendar of work of warehouses and suppliers. In addition to retail sales a system allows to consider needs of the channel of wholesales and the need for self-produced raw materials.

Pricing and management of programs of loyalty

A system supports different pricing models, helps to set and change the prices on all network, taking into account the specific region, a format of outlet, commodity categories and nomenclatures. The statuses and dates of activation of the prices are fixed automatically, printing of price labels is possible directly from a system or from a data collection terminal. Different discount types can be set for a certain period of action (dates, days, hours), for example, for new products or promo. For marketing actions additional price caps at the level of nomenclatures, a brand or separate shop are appointed.

Within the software solution it is easy to operate with discount and bonus cards of network, to consider the information about the actual card holders, the period of its action, perfect operations on a sales history, to charge bonus points for purchases, etc. The Columbus Food Retail tools help the retailer to possess exact information on preferences of key clients and to manage future marketing activities.

Management of shops and integration into POS terminals

Integration with different types of POS systems helps retailers to control cash transactions, to monitor work of personnel of shops, to manage on a centralized basis the prices and discounts, marketing actions, to print price labels and labels, to obtain up-to-date data about sales and a commodity remaining balance on all network.

Functionality of the solution:

• sales management by shops;
• acceptance using data collection terminals;
• arrival registration of a returnable container and packing materials;
• acceptance of goods on safe custody;
• preparation of accompanying documents (acceptance acts of goods, acts of discrepancies, delivery notes on return of shortages and/or defects, etc.);
• control of excesses/underdelivery of products, prices, barcodes;
• control of existence of certificates and expiration dates

Columbus Food Retail also supports a complete and selective inventory of goods in shops and in a warehouse, accounting of defects and registration of supplier returns.

Management of merchandising and supply chain

A system supports all planning cycle, the organizations, control of execution of orders and monitoring of goods flows on all supply chain. For operational vendor interaction in a system mechanisms of support of uniform electronic document management are put that many times reduces labor costs by approval and order processing, timely informing on the shipped products by the time of its actual acceptance in a warehouse. Columbus Food Retail also provides replenishment of shops: purchase orders form automatically proceeding from up-to-date data about a remaining balance in outlets of network and in a warehouse, the plan fact of sales and the stated campaigns.

Settlement with suppliers, awards of suppliers

The solution services each stage of vendor interaction, providing tools for the most effective implementation of the tasks connected with the choice of partners and the organization of procurement process. In Columbus Food Retail it is possible to consider price agreements with suppliers on separate commodity groups and nomenclatures, to configure delivery conditions and to define payment schedules. A system saves all history of purchases by volumes and dates, the issued returns on the basis of which summary reports on quality of work of the supplier form, the corresponding awards and bonuses are calculated.

Own production

As a part of the solution there are necessary instruments of accounting of self-produced finished goods and the raw materials required for its production, determination of requirement of each shop for production orders. Columbus Food Retail also supports process of dekitting of finished goods and cost accounting of its results, helps to trace up-to-date data in a remaining balance of retail chain stores.

Analytical reporting

In delivery of Columbus Food Retail the packet of previously configured analytical reports according to industry standards is included, operational collecting and information analysis on all activities of grocery retail chain is provided.