A simple, intuitive warehouse management program

Each account may belong to one or more group, e.g. Jan Kowalski may be both a supplier and a customer. A removal of an account from the list is possible only if it has not been used in documents. The accounts are visible in all warehouses, i.e. if you add an account to one warehouse, you may use it in all other warehouses.

6. Warehouse documents

All documents in the programme are added in the same manner. To accelerate work, apart form the icons, you may also use the keyboard shortcuts available:

• F2 - GRN (Goods Received Note), e.g. receipt of new items on stock;

LoMag warehouse management program is a tool created for the management of warehouses of small and medium sized enterprises. It ensures basic functionality necessary for the support of warehouse organisation. At the same time it is easy to use and reliable. It may be used on one computer or in a network.

Program functionality

• F3 - GIN (Goods Issued Note), e.g. sale of goods;
• F4 - GRN correction (Return to supplier), e.g. return of a faulty batch of items;

LoMag warehouse management program enables intuitive preparation of the following warehouse documents:

• GRN - Goods Received Note
• F5 - GIN correction (Return from recipient), e.g. return from customer due to a complaint;
• GIN - Goods Issued Note
• Return to supplier (Goods Received Note correction)
• F6 - stock level correction note, e.g. goods lost in the warehouse;
• Return from recipient (Goods Issued Note correction)
• F7 - Interbranch transfer, e.g. transfer of some of the items to another building;
• Internal GIN - Internal Goods Issued Note
• Internal GRN – Internal Goods Received Note
• Correction
• Discount
• Interbranch Transfer
• F8 - discount note (Change of item value), e.g. lowering of prices caused by the decrease in the value of items;
• Inventory sheet
• Inventory
• Assembly (production)
• F9 - Internal GRN (Internal Goods Received Note), e.g. receipt of items coming from own production;
• F10 - Internal GIN (Internal Goods issued Note), e.g. issue of items to an employee;
• F11 - Assembly note e.g. the manufacturing of products from raw materials in the manufacturing process.

Similarly, Shift+F2 adds another GRN, Shift+F3 adds another GIN, etc.

Thanks to the use of modern Microsoft .NET technologies, the application allows for the storage and management of thousands of such documents. These documents are appropriately sorted and grouped, thanks to which, even if they are numerous, they are presented in an intelligible manner. All data, regarding a given warehouse may be printed or exported to other files (e.g. Excel or PDF).

After opening the document creator window, you may select an account form the list, or find it by pressing the [..] button, or entering the first letters of the account's name, and then pressing the down arrow. The account selection field may be invisible, if you turn off the account support in settings.

One of the advantages of LoMag is the support of an unlimited number of warehouses. Those warehouses function completely independently. An unlimited number of warehouses may be created, edited and removed. Even with a lot of documents, including Interbranch transfers, you can remove the whole of the warehouse. It is possible to manage several shops or even enterprises on one computer. Of course there might be a situation in which a given warehouse is housing the same items as another warehouse. In this situation one needs to import the items from the first to the second warehouse. This is enabled by the Import items function.

The program automatically enters the current date and time of creation of the document and proposes a consecutive number. You may change the number to any sequence of signs. You may also change the date, however, you have to remember to maintain the chronology of documents. When entering archival documents, you should begin with the oldest and continue to the newest. Changing the date of an existing document may seriously impact the stock levels and the value of the warehouse.

The "remarks" filed may be used for notes regarding the whole document. Please note that there is also a "remarks" field for each line of the document.

Each item may be ascribed any unit of measurement, and it may be a part of any warehouse. The program supports basic units of measurement, such as kilos or pieces, but you may also create your own. It allows you also to group items.

At the bottom of the window there is an empty list of items for the document. To add a new item press "Alt-D" or use the "Add" button. An item may be selected in several various ways:

• by using s barcode reader to scan the code in the "barcode" field;
• by typing in the first letters of the name of the item and pressing the down arrow;
• by choosing an item from the drop-down list;
• by clicking the [..] button and using the item search engine. The search engine remembers the latest search settings and if you click [..] again, the recently selected criteria will be kept;

It sometimes happens that an item is transferred from one warehouse to another, in view of, for example, making space. Naturally, one could use correction documents for that purpose, however, it could be inconvienient and constitute a source of errors. Therefore, we introduced interbranch transfer documents. In order to make the transfer, you have to point out the warehouse to which you wish to transfer given items. If the transferred items have not yet been added to the target warehouse, the program adds them automatically to the database.

Efficiency, stability and reliability

• you may also use the Ctrl+F shortcut, which will activate the search engine;
• by typing the name of the item and pressing Enter. If there is no such item, the program will ask if you want to add that item to the item list;
• by adding an item to the document from an external Excel file (use the "Import" button on the tool bar of the document window).

LoMag warehouse management employs modern database access - Microsoft SQL Server. It is one of the best and newest technologies, whose developers prioritised stability and failure-resistance. Combine this with skilful employment of the system's best features, and you get quick and reliable access to your data.

All the above ways of selecting an item are equivalent and result in the filling in of the rest of the fields of the form: the barcode, the unit, the suggested price, and the current stock level. The next step should always be typing in the quantity. It is worth using the TAB button to pass from one field to another. The form for adding order lines varies between individual document types:

• in a GRN you can change the "purchase price" and add "remarks" to each line of the order;

The employment of Microsoft technology is further justified if you consider the position of Microsoft on the market. Most computer users employ the software of this company. Therefore, our application has been fully designed, developed and tested basing on Microsoft software. Thanks to that, the program cooperates smoothly with the majority of popular systems. The data saved by the users may be easily processed by software such as MS Excel, MS Access and many others.

Operation on many computers

• in a GIN you can change the "selling price" or the "margin (%)" or the "margin (sum)"; once you have entered the quantity, the program also calculates the purchase price and there is a possibility of previewing the purchase price, as well as the possibility of adding discounts - by enabling additional functions in "Settings/Documents".
• in an Internal GRN you can change the "price" and add "remarks" for each line of the order;
• in an Internal GIN you can only add "remarks". The price is calculated automatically basing on the value of the item;

For many enterprises, cooperation between several computers connected with a network is crucial. If you have a big warehouse, you may even have over a dozen computers with the application installed. In view of maintaining data coherence, the individual instances of the program must communicate with each other. It has all been made possible by Microsoft SQL Server technology. One computer plays the role of the server, and the other ones are clients. The computer which plays the role of the server may have any given number of computers connected to it at any given time. All computers opearate one the same data.

Management of warehouse transfers

A well devised process of adding warehouse transfers

• in an Interbranch Transfer the program shows current stock levels of the chosen item in the source and target warehouses. You can perform a transfer to several different warehouses on one Interbranch Transfer document, by choosing a different target warehouse for each line. If the item is not on the item list at the target warehouse, the program suggests copying it from the source warehouse. The value of the item is not altered as a result of being moved to another warehouse; You may also transfer an item within the same warehouse - by using the "Warehouse locations" option.
• in a stock level correction you can type in a new stock level and any remarks you might have;
• in Discounts, you may enter a new quantity or value, and you can also change the name of the item. Discounts introduce modifications not only of prices, but also of quantities of individual items. Therefore, the application can take into account the following example situation: 10 multi-packs of water were received. 2 multi-packs were unpacked and individual bottles were sold with a new price. After entering this discount, the stock level of "multipack of mineral water" will decrease by 2, while the stock level of the item "bottle of mineral water" shall be increased by 12;

The basic task of LoMag warehouse management program is the management of warehouse transfers. Receipt or sale of items are examples of such transfers. Introducing information about any operation is very easy. Let's take, for example, receipts. In order to add data about this operation simply click an icon on the tool bar or choose an appropriate option from the Warehouse menu. The program will create a new Goods Received Note. After entering basic data such as the date, the hour and remarks, you have to establish the elements of the receipt. The program significantly facilites this process. It displays the current stock level of a given item and informs you what amount may be issued from the warehouse. It also helps you to determine the date of sale of the item, basing on the price of purchase and the margin. The margin is entered as a set value in the item list, or it is typed in manually each time. You can also download the sale prices, directly from the item list.

In the windows for adding items to a document (apart from GRN and GIN correction) in the "Preview and selection of receipts" part, you may determine precisely a concrete receipt from which the item is to be issued.

Editing and removing documents

Each element comprises of the following fields: Item Name, Amount, Price, Value and Remarks. The remarks field is ascribed to each of the elements of the receipt, thanks to which you may describe various situations which may happen at the warehouse. When entering individual items of the receipt, the application informs about the value of the whole receipt. The name of the item may be entered manually, via a barcode reader or found basing on a search algorithm.

The program enables you to modify the existing documents. You may find a document which needs to be repaired or corrected. You should be particularly cautious when changing the quantity of items on archival documents - you cannot remove an item which has been issued on subsequent documents. Similarly, the program will not allow the removal of documents, from which at least one item has been issued.

Once you add all the necessary data, you may start printing them or proceed to other activities in the program. The document is automatically saved in the database, so that you may come back to it at any given moment and, for instance, apply some corrections. Documents for sales, returns, corrections and discounts are handled in the same manner.

An open document allows you to check the history of warehouse transfers for each of the items on the document (the "History" button on the tool bar over the list of items or "Alt-H"). The "To Excel" button enables the transfer of the list of items from the document to a chosen Excel file. The table may be freely adjusted by right-clicking any column and selecting the "Manage columns” option. The program remembers the chosen settings, and it will recreate the column layout when generating a new document.

7.Inventory

A GRN may be displayed or printed by clicking "Print GRN". Of course this pertains to all the documents. We have included in the program the possibility of multiple entry of the same item as a part of the same receipt. It may happen, for example, that some of the goods have a different prices than others. The GRN shall include all this information. If you wish to print a document grouping items from a given receipt, select "grouping items on documents" in options.

The information entered into the program may differ from the actual stock level for various reasons. Therefore, from time to time you should make an inventory of the warehouse. It often happens that making an inventory is a long process which blocks the operation of the warehouse. In view of facilitating and accelerating inventory-making, LoMag features "Inventory sheets".

Inventory sheets

To create a new inventory sheet, go to "Documents/Inventory/Inventory Sheets". The program will display a list of the already existing inventory sheets. To add a new sheet, click "Add" or use the "Alt+D" shortcut. You may also edit the existing sheets or remove them completely.

The program registers the amounts and the prices accurately to 7 decimal places, although, usually there is no need to display or print them with this level of precision. For example, prices are usually quoted accurately to two decimal places. There are cases, however, in which the prices and the values must be quoted more accurately. Instead of setting fixed rules for rounding off the numbers, we left this choice with the user. The user may change the settings to the desired accuracy for displaying and printing the amounts, prices and summaries. Thanks to that the program is more flexible.

Support of inventory sheets and discounts

You create inventory sheets just like all other documents, by adding items and their current quantity on stock. The possibility of generating several sheets at the same time, which may be later joined into one big inventory, constitutes a great advantage of the inventory sheets. If the same goods may be found in two locations at the warehouse and they are featured on two inventory sheets, the program shall sum up the quantities from those sheets.

The Warehouse Management Program enables you to generate inventory sheets, i.e. organised lists of items available in the warehouse. Such sheets are written basing on the actual stock levels, which may be different from what the receipts and other documents may suggest. You may generate an inventory basing on one or many inventory sheets. After entering an inventory sheet and generating an inventory, the data of the program is changed. The user is informed about the differences between the stock levels in the program and the actual stock levels of the warehouse. Correction documents generated automatically smooth out those differences.

There is also a possibility of stretching the inventory-making over time. If the warehouse contains inactive items, you may create an inventory or inventories including the inactive items several days earlier, and then merge the sheets into one inventory. If, however, one of the inactive items has been issued form the warehouse, you may make a correction on the sheet before creating the inventory (the "Edit" button on the inventory sheet list).

The inventory in LoMag does not have to pertain to the whole assortment - if some of the items are omitted, the program will not change the stock levels for items not included in the inventory sheets. Therefore, you may execute a partial inventory, including only a part of the assortment. In case of a partial inventory, the omitted items and their stock levels may also be accounted for on the documents and set to zero balance.

Making an inventory

Introducing discounts is an additional function. Discounts may modify not only prices, but also the amounts of individual items. The application takes into account, for example, the following situation: Ten multipacks of mineral water have been received. Two multipacks have been unpacked and the individual bottles are to be sold for a new price. After entering a price, the stock levels of item “mineral water multipack" will be decreased by 2, while the stock level for “mineral water bottle" will be increased by e.g.,16. Such a situation may be entered to the program thanks to the discount option. It is especially useful in dealing with everyday situations, which take place at the warehouse.

It sometimes happens at the warehouse that an item is issued internally in the enterprise. A simple example of that is as follows - a light bulb blows in the warehouse, which stores, among other things, light bulbs. There is no need to order light bulbs; one may simply take a lihgt bulb from the warehouse. Such an operation may be done through an Internal Issue Note. Internal Goods Received Note has exactly the opposite use.

Document numeration

To make an inventory basing on inventory sheets, go to "Documents/Inventory/Create new inventory". Mark the sheets on the basis of which you intend to make the inventory. Then click "Create inventory from the marked sheets". After this operation the program shall correct the stock levels and display a report with the results of the inventory. The report includes information about the stock before and after the inventory, as well as information about the value of the warehouse before and after the inventory. The final result is presented at the bottom of the window - a total of values before and after the inventory. The final report may be printed or exported to Excel.

An inventory may also be created on an empty document, by adding items to it one by one (while omitting inventory sheets); and basing on the current stock level, where you can change item value by clicking "Edit".

Each document in the program has its own number. It may be entered manually or generated automatically. The automatic mechanism ensures the uniqueness of the number; so it is easy to find it later. The automatic numeration is executed basing on a template. A default template for a GRN is: PZ$$$$$$/yy - MAG. This template may be changed for any type of documents. It is created with the use of the following elements:

• $$$$$$$ - denotes the relatively unique document number
• ******* - denotes the absolutely unique document number for the whole system
• yy - the year of the document
• mm - month
• dd - day
• MAG - warehouse name

The Inventory removes all the differences between the stock level in the program and the actual stock level on the sheets. It is achieved by adding the stock correction document. The correction may be previewed in "Documents/Stock level corrections". The program inserts "Correction generated automatically through inventory" in the remarks field. You can find a list of items for which the stock levels have been changed below.

Inventory correction

An inventory may be corrected or removed completely. To remove an inventory go to "Documents/Inventory/Backed up inventories". Select the inventory you wish to remove and click "Remove". The removal of the inventory causes the removal of the stock level correction and results in the restoration of the warehouse levels from before the inventory. The removal of the inventory does not affect the inventory sheets - you may create an inventory again basing on the same inventory sheets.

If you've marked the wrong sheets while making the inventory, the easiest thing to do is to remove the inventory and redo it marking the correct inventory sheets.

IThat way you can create a mechanism for numbering documents, in accordance with the standards adopted at the company. The terms relatively and absolutely unique document number require explanation. A relatively unique document number ($) introduces a number dependant on other elements. In case of PZ$$$$$$/yy - MAG, the number it will depend on the year and the warehouse to which the document belongs. For example the first document will be called PZ000001/08 - Warehouse1, the second document will be called PZ000002/08 - Warehouse2, etc. If you add a document in another warehouse, the document will receive number PZ000001/08 - Warehouse2. The absolutely unique number (*) on the other hand replaces the star symbols with a unique number for the whole program, independent of the warehouse, the date, etc.

Additional columns

If you wish to correct only one or several items from the inventory, you may do it by editing the appropriate stock level correction. ("Documents/Stock level corrections"). To print the final inventory report again, go to "Documents/Inventory/Backed up inventories". Next, select the inventory from the list and click "Edit".

Opening Balance

LoMag is used by various companies with very versatile warehouse management schemes. Depending on the character of enterprise's activity, the goods might be numbered and described in many different ways. Therefore, our warehouse management program included an option for creating your own attributes for individual items, thanks to which you can add additional columns with data adjusted to the needs of your company, both when working on the program and on the printouts.

If an item sheet which hasn't been on stock before is added, the program activates the "Price" and the "Value of item" fields. It happens because the program does not know what price to ascribe to the item. You should fill in these fields or leave a zero, if you wish to receive this item on stock with the purchase price amounting to zero. You introduce the "opening balance" in this manner, when commencing work with the program.

8. Item library

To add additional dedicated columns you should open the Settings menu and select the "Dedicated fields" tab. These fields are divided into three groups: text data, numbers, and links to files or internet sites. The text fields can be used for additional descriptions of the item, in the number fields you can put numbers referring to a given item. Select appropriate attributes in an open tab and enter their names. Upon clicking OK the fields will be added to all windows of the program which modify or browse through the items. For the fields to be visible also on the reports, you have to modify the layout of the report, which will be described in the section entitled "Making reports".

Warehouse control

Item libraries were added to the program to accelerate the creation of similar documents. They are templates used for quickly preparing documents basing on a previously defied list of items with quantities. To create library, go to "Items/Item libraries". After clicking "Add", define the library name and its code (it may be a barcode). Next, you may add the library components - the list of items with quantity. For instance, a library may be called "daily fruit delivery" and include 30 kg of apples, 10 kg pears, 10 kg of bananas. With a library defined in this manner you are able to very quickly prepare a goods received note by selecting a ready template from the list. There is no need to list the same items and quantities everyday. Of course, you have the possibility of correcting the automatically added entries - you may, e.g. remove the bananas or change the quantity of pears.

When warehouse transfer documents are added, the stock levels are simultaneously changed. The value of the individual assortments is calculated. The values are calculated basing not on the fixed price for a given item, but basing on the price quoted on the warehouse transfer documents. Apart from that discounts are taken into account, as well as inventories. There is also a possibility of correcting the already existing data, as well as preparing separate correction documents.

The libraries may be used in the following types of documents: GRN, GIN, Internal GRN, Internal GIN, GRN correction, GIN correction. The library may be chosen from "Items", a drop-down list which can be found in the window for creating order elements The names of the libraries are on the top of the list over the items. If you select quantity [1], all items and quantities from the library will be added. Selecting quantity [2] will double the contents of the library - so continuing with the above example - it would be 60 kg of apples, 20 kg of pears, 20 kg of bananas.

LoMag employs accounting methods to evaluate the warehouse. LIFO and FIFO models are examples of such methods. FIFO [first in - first out] is most commonly used. It indicates that the item which will be issued from the warehouse first is the item, which has been first received. This model functions best with fast rotation of goods. The LIFO model [last in – first out] is also sporadically used. Additionally, the program allows manual selection of receipts on the issue documents, i.e. selecting a concrete receipt from which you wish the item to be issued.

The employment of libraries in the issue notes (GINs, Internal GINs) requires a comment. Let's say you want to issue the whole of the library, but one of the items is not on stock. The program will not allow such an issue. In this situation you may check which item is missing from the library and what the current stock level of the library is in the "Items/Item libraries" menu. Below, you will find examples which will facilitate the understanding of library stock levels basing on the example above:

• 30 kg of apples, 10 kg of pears, 10 kg of bananas, LIBRARY STOCK LEVEL = 1

Another useful function of the program is the items listing basing on the type of warehouse transfer document. You can make a monthly or annual listing, including a list of items with amounts and values for each of the warehouse transfers. The user is presented with how the sales, deliveries, returns and such developed over individual months. Preview of sales profits is one of the options. This preview shows you how much you have earned on the sales of individual items on a given day, month or year.

• 60 kg of apples, 20 kg of pears, 20 kg of bananas, LIBRARY STOCK LEVEL = 2
• 60 kg of apples, 20 kg of pears, 0 kg of bananas, LIBRARY STOCK LEVEL = 0 , because the bananas are outstanding
• 60 kg of apples, 20 kg of pears, 10 kg of bananas, LIBRARY STOCK LEVEL = 1, quantity of bananas decides about the library stock level

To facilitate the planning of deliveries for individual assortments, the item history function has been introduced. You can see all actions, which were executed on any given assortment. Dates and numbers of the documents are displayed, as well as the number and the value of a given item at that time. Thanks to that you have quick access to information on how the stock levels for a given item changed over the last weeks or months. Such information is useful especially when planning receipts, as it is easier to establish when and what amount of goods should be ordered.

Making reports

The find option may be launched at any given time with the CRTL+F shortcut. You may also select the "Items/Find" option or click the button on the tool bar. The find window comprises of 3 tabs "Items/Documents/Accounts":

Finding Items

It is hard to imagine a warehouse management program without the possibility of preparing reports. Thanks to our application this process is even easier. Simply select any warehouse transfer and click Print. A dialogue window is displayed in which you can preview the report. You can also print an individual document or a list of documents from any chosen period.

In order to find a given item you need a fragment or a few fragments of its name. If you have an item called "LCD PLE2607WSD-B1 2ms" on stock, you can find it by typing in "LCD 26 2ms".

Stock levels for a given day

All search criteria narrow down the results (conjunction). For example, if you type in only a fragment of a name, e.g. "car", the program will find all items which have "car" in their names: "carrot, carp, caramel". If you additionally mark "vegetables", the result of the search will be only "carrot". The remaining fields also narrow down the results - if you additionally select "Stock level>0", "carrot" will only come up, if it is on stock.

You may create a report of stock levels. What is very important, the report may present the stock level from a given day or even a given hour. Stock levels are calculated basing on the receipt, sales and returns documents. Manual corrections introduced by the user are also taken into account, as well as inventories, discounts and interbranch transfers. For example, after the inventory is approved, the stock level for the date on the inventory will always equal the stock level on the inventory sheet of this inventory. Thanks to that solution it is possible to browse and print stock levels for a given date. The stock level values are calculated basing on LIFO or FIFO or manual ascribing of receipts to issues.

Accounts support

The search engine also allows you to search for items in all warehouses. If you mark the "find in all warehouses" and item = "carrot" and "Stock level > 0" the program will display a list of warehouses in which you have carrots on stock. The table will show the stock level in each of the warehouse, the price of purchase and the value of the stock.

If you mark the "Items/Find/Low Qty Threshold" field, the program will find all the items the current stock levels of which have reached the minimum values set in the item list. The minimum value for each item is defined separately - e.g. it may be 100 kg for potatoes, and 10 kg for bananas. If there are only 9 kg or less bananas left, the item will be placed on the list of products which reached the low quantity threshold.

LoMag warehouse management also stores information about your business partners. You can save their address, Tax Identification Number and National Register of Business Entities as well as contract data. We took care for the data to be properly stored, sorted and presented. You may browse the accounts freely. The accounts are divided into recipients, suppliers and employees, but it is possible for the same company to be a both a recipient and a supplier. Although the introduction of the account on the documents is not compulsory, it is recommended, for the sake of order. If, however, you do not wish to use the accounts option, you may disable it in the Settings window.

Information about items

If you mark the fields "Items/Find/High Qty Threshold", the program will find all the items the current stock levels of which have reached maximum values set in the item list. The maximum value for each item is defined separately - e.g. it may be 10 000 kg for potatoes, and 1000 kg for bananas. If there are 1001kg or more bananas left, the item will be placed on the list of products which reached the high quantity threshold.

On the tool bar, over the results list, you have the possibility of viewing the history of warehouse movements, adding or editing items, exporting the result "to Excel", printing the labels, and setting the mark-up simultaneously for several items - by clicking "Change" .

Finding documents

The document search engine also works on the basis of narrowing down the results with various criteria. You can enter a fragment of a name into the text fields, e.g. if you enter "123", you will find in your results: "GRN 123/2010", "GIN 123/2010". If you additionally select "GIN" as a criterion, only "GIN 123/2010" will come up as a search result.

You can store practically any amount of items. Basic data, such as the name of the item and its barcode, which facilitates the search, are saved. The items may be grouped. They may be ascribed measurement units, such as kilos or pieces. Although over the months the price of the item often changes, it is helpful to enter the default price of sale and purchase for each item. The default prices are only the suggested prices and do not have to correspond with the prices included in the warehouse documents. When adding a document, the program uses them as a suggestion, which can be followed or not. In some cases it makes the entering of elements of warehouse documents faster.

Printing and export of reports to external files

The default setting of the search engine displays only documents form the current warehouse, but you may also search in all warehouses, simply mark "Find in all warehouses".

There is also an option of finding documents in which a given item with a given name has been used. To do that, you must select the name from the list or scan the code of the item in the "with the barcode" field.

The printouts are clear and legible and they include all the needed pieces of information and summaries of number values. The appearance of the reports can be adjusted to your own needs by changing the list of visible columns, their size and name. Apart from printing, you may also find the export function useful. You can save the report as a spreadsheet XLS file with one click...

Adjusting printouts to the needs of the company

Please note that the field "Remarks include" will help you find documents in which the searched text may be found either in the remarks to the whole document, or in the remarks to one of the lines of the document.

Finding Accounts

Enterprises differ from one another and they print individual reports differently. Therefore, we introduced a special mechanism of adjusting the appearance of the reports to individual needs. Combined with the possibility of creating additional dedicated columns, it gives you the possibility of considerable influence on the layout of the printouts.

You can find accounts in the same way - enter a fragment of the account's name, the name of the contact person, the Tax Identification Number, or the phone number and press Enter or click "Find". When entering the Tax Identification Number you do not have to worry about spaces and dashes - the program will find the account irrespectively of how you enter the number.

10. Reports

LoMag gives you the possibility of creating your own templates for all documents, e.g., a unique GIN with the company's logo. Creating your own template is very simple thanks to the visual editor of document templates. Move and arrange elements of the document with your mouse, add your own texts and graphical elements. You can place barcodes for each line in the document, as well as thumbnails and other data necessary on the printout.

All reports are supported in a similar way. You mark the period to which the report is to pertain, or set the exact dates below . You may select filters from the drop-down lists, which narrow down the results (conjunction).The results of each of the reports may be printed or exported to Excel. Below are the most important reports and examples of their employment:

"Reports/Documents in active warehouse” – examples of reports you may obtain:

• A list of all GRNs from a given year / quarter / month from a given warehouse. A total value of the documents can also be found at the bottom of the report

You can change the visibility and the sequence of display of individual columns with “Move up" and "Move down" options. You can also change the header of the column, the alignment, the width, the number of decimal places, the summing of numeric data and the type of the generated barcode, e.g. EAN 13, Code 39, or Code128.

• A list of GINs for a given customer in a chosen period and the total value of sales
• Documents for the largest and the smallest sum in a given period (you may sort through the results by clicking the "value" column).

"Reports/Documents in all warehouses":

• A list of all GRNs from a given year / quarter / month from all warehouses

The labels designer works on the same principle. It enables the user to create their own labels for various types of printers and paper sizes together with barcodes. The designer also includes an option for printing on divided paper - i.e. a sheet of paper divided into small labels (e.g. 3x6 small self-adhesive labels on A4 sheet)

Printing of any displayed data

• With the common numbering for all warehouses you get a sorted through list of all documents and their values
• Internal receipts and issues in all warehouses

"Reports/Stock levels in the active warehouse":

• Stock level on a given day for all items. Total value of items on stock
• Stock level and value of the warehouse on a given day for a chosen group of items and/or item unit
• Total amount of items for individual units: e.g. 123 kg worth X , 234 pcs worth Y

"Reports/Stock levels in the active warehouse":

Aside from standard documents and reports you might also need to print out data, which has been displayed in one of the tables of the program. For example, after finding items in the "Find in warehouse window, you would like to print out the search result. LoMag is equipeed with a button, which makes it possible for any table with data to be printed out and exported to Excel. In this way you can obtain a printout or an Excel file for any data displayed in the program e.g. the results of your search.

Communication with the program

• Stock level on a given day for all items with a detailed register of advanced options (e.g. document no., lot no., location).
• Stock levels on a given day for a chosen group of items.

"Reports/Stock levels in all warehouses":

• Stock level on a given day for all items in all warehouses . Total value of items in all warehouses.

"Reports/Expiration date":

• Expiration dates for all items on stock at all warehouses.

"Reports/Items for an account":

LoMag supports most of the popular barcode readers and label printers. You can adjust the interface of the program so as to add further items only with the use of a reader or with a reader and keyboard for confirmation of quantity. To speed up your work, keyboard shortcuts have been defined for the often used operations. The program also enables you to import data such as item lists, accounts lists, as well as the content of documents, e.g. inventory sheets, from Excel,

• A list of items issued to an account in a given year / quarter/ month. A total amount and value is shown for each item. If the same goods have been issued several times on different documents to the same account, the program sums up the amount and the value. A total of the value of all of the items may be found at the bottom of the report.
• Total amount and value of the items ordered from a given supplier during a given period (total at the bottom of the report)

"Reports/Item turnover":

The program has been developed with the use of the latest Microsoft technologies. Thanks to that the access to the database is quick and reliable. The whole of the database and the settings can be found in two files in the "Database" folder. Therefore, it can be copied and moved to anywhere on the disc. Of course the program is also equipped with Backup Database and Restore Database functions.

User friendly MDI interface

• Report on initial values and final values for a given period, account and item group.

"Report/Items by type and group":

• Total amount and value of items ordered in a given year / quarter / month
• Detailed list of all ordered items with total amount and value for each item (if you select "all groups")
• Total amount and value of the items sold in a given period (if you select "all groups" at the bottom of the report)

The idea behind LoMag was the creation of an application which would be simple to use as well as reliable and functional. The transparent interface meets that challenge. The access to individual functions has been carefully considered, bearing in mind what the program is going to be used for most frequently. A huge asset is the employment of MDI interface, which allows you to operate on many dialogue windows at the same time.

Document filter

• Profit (i.e. the difference between the selling price and the purchase price) for each sold item (if you select "all accounts")
• Profit on individual items sold to a given account and total profit for a chosen account (total sum at the bottom of the report)
• Total profit in a given year / quarter / month (total at the bottom of the report if you select "all accounts")

After you have entered thousands of documents for warehouse transfers, the problem of data filtering will inevitably come up. We took care in our application, for the data to be sorted and presented in a logical order. You can browse through the list of all documents, or filter them following any given key, e.g. account, dates, values. The filters can be named and reused in the future.

"Reports/Profit from sales - list of documents”:

Configuration of network operations

• Profit (i.e. the difference between the value of sales and the purchase value) from individual warehouse transfers (documents).
• Total profit in a given year / quarter / month (total at the bottom)

"Reports/Warehouse transfer detailed report”:

Organising work in a network is extremely easy. If you want two computers connected with a network to use the same database of the Warehouse Management Program, you should change the network settings. You can do so by choosing Settings form the Program menu. You will have the following options in the "Network operations" tab:

• Total sales (quantity and value) for a chosen item in a given year / quarter / month (sum at the bottom of the report)
• Work on one computer only
• List of warehouse transfers for a given item, barcode, account or group of items in a given period
• Many computers - this computer is a client and it connects with the server
• Many computers - this computer is a server:
• Detailed list of all discounts for the chosen criteria and total balance of value of discounts
• Total amount and value of the sold items from all the warehouses for the chosen criteria

"Reports/Time spent on assembly”:

• Active (manufacturing) time for individual items comprising of many components. You may also check the time devoted by a given employee to a given assembly process.

„Reports/Detailed serial numbers report”:

• Serial number database for all items on stock.
• A list of serial numbers for a given item or barcode, account, or item group in a given period.

Select the third option (server) on the first computer. Please note that the computer name and SQL instance name are filled in automatically. In special cases they can be changed if needed. Please remember the name of the computer, which will be playing the role of the server, as it will be required in order to connect the other computers. Click OK. Choose the second option on the other computer (client), but remember to type in the name of the first computer in the "Server name" field. Confirm your choice by clicking OK. From this moment the computers are working on one database.

Find

„Reports/Report on serial numbers on stock":

• Database for serial numbers for all items on stock in all warehouses.

We realise the importance of finding information fast. It is especially important if we have thousands of documents or items gathered in the warehouse. LoMag Warehouse Management is equipped with highly developed search options.

The list of reports is being constantly broadened, and the existing reports are being frequently streamlined. The program may already include reports not described in the instructions.

11. Users and authorisations

LoMag offers the following possibilities of restricting authorisations:

• Access only to chosen warehouses, e.g. you have three warehouses, but a given user may access only 2 of them
• Access to only some of the functions, e.g. a given user does not have access to reports
• Access only to chosen operations e.g. a given user may add documents, but they cannot change or edit them

You can find an item by typing in its name or a part of its name. The search results shall be displayed as a list including all attributes of the item, the price of the purchase, the amount on stock and total value of the item. You can also define the search in such a way as to find items of a given status or matching the scope of previously defined numeric attributes. In the result column you can limit the results to items, for example, from a given group, of a certain weight or with low stock levels. The filter including these criteria can be named, saved and used to quickly find information in the future.

Finding documents and accounts works on the same principle. The documents may be found by their number or type as well as account, name or code of the item on the document or even the remarks included in the document.

Further development

The only default user in the program is the Administrator, who is authorised to enter all warehouses and all options in the program. The login and password of this user are empty. The Administrator is a special user and you cannot restrict his authorisations or remove him. You may, however, change the login and the password of the Administrator. ATTENTION: Please note down the changed Administrator's password. If you forget this password, the only way to retrieve access to the program is by sending the database to the manufacturer.

And what if the presented application does not include a function which would be useful for your company? All you have to do is to adjust the program to your individual needs and add such a function. We are open to cooperation, which will help us improve the program and, more importantly, help you to run your enterprise.

LoMag warehouse management program is being constantly exapnded. We release updates with suggestions for the users systematically. We value each remark and idea regarding our application. We hope that the changes we introduce will be welcomed by the users.