Streamline Order Fulfilment

The are several steps in fulfilling a customer order that a computer cannot do. Your business will not be at its most efficient unless your staff are spending most of their time performing those tasks.

Your staff should not be wasting their time, and hence your money, repeatedly doing tasks such as

• filling in paperwork,
• calculating shipping charges,
• generating shipping dockets,
• booking couriers,
• manually checking product availability

These are tasks that are ideal for a computer, and of course Bonsai ERPTM knows how.

Using Bonsai ERPTM, a typical automated order fulfilment process might go something like:

1. an order for one of product number 123456a and two of product 321654c is forwarded to Bonsai ERPTM
2. Bonsai ERPTM checks stock levels, and notes that there is only one of product 321654c in stock, but a purchase order has already been raised, and delivery is expected tomorrow.
3. Bonsai ERPTM also notes that after this order is fulfilled, stock levels of product 123456a will be lower than desired, and there is no pending purchase order for more stock.
4. Bonsai ERPTM raises and sends a purchase order to the preferred supplier for product 123456a.
5. Bonsai ERPTM sends an email to the customer, notfying them their order is out of stock, and telling them its best estimate of when the order will be ready to be shipped.
6. The next day, the supplier of product 321654c notifies staff that there is a delay, and they will not be able to deliver for three days. The staff enter the revised delivery date into Bonsai ERPTM.
7. Bonsai ERPTM sends an email to the customer, notifying them of the unexpected delay, and advising them of the revised shipping schedule.
8. Four days later, stock of 321654c has not arrived. Bonsai ERPTM notifies staff that stock is overdue, and staff contact the supplier. The supplier has made a mistake and apologises, and personally delivers stock that afternoon.
9. Staff receive the new stock, and tell Bonsai ERPTM what has been received.
10. Bonsai ERPTM notifies staff that they should prepare a package containing one of product 123456a and two of 321654c.
11. Staff package the three products, and tell Bonsai ERPTM the package is ready. They also tell Bonsai ERPTM if they used a different size package to usual.
12. Bonsai ERPTM contacts the shipping company's computer, and books a pickup for the package.
13. Bonsai ERPTM prints all necessary labels and shipping documents, plus any relevant receipts or invoices.
14. Staff attach the documents to the package, and place the package where the shipping company can pick it up.
15. Bonsai ERPTM emails the customer to let them know their order is on its way.

If your supplier supports standard business-to-business (B2B) computer communcations, the delays in receiving stock, and the followups regarding non-arrival of stock, could instead be handled by direct communcation between Bonsai ERPTM and your supplier's computer system. Bonsai ERPTM would then only notify staff if the supplier's computer said stock had been delivered but Bonsai ERPTM had not been told of any delivery, or if the delay between the incoming order and receipt of stock was too long.