Transporting goods is an expensive business. So it is in everyone's interests to use internal or external transport capacity as efficiently as possible. This can be achieved by drawing up proper plans, recording agreements and providing your hauliers with full and clear information. To make this clear and easy to follow you will want to carry out these transport management transactions from within your business application. This will also enable aspects such as successive transport to be planned correctly and enable the process to be managed from various disciplines in your organisation.
The Food and Beverage industry is characterised by specific requirements which can often not be catered for by a standard company-wide solution. For this reason Schouw Informatisering and Technology Management have combined their many years of knowledge and experience into SI Foodware®. In combination with Microsoft Dynamics® NAV, this forms a fully integrated standard company-wide ERP solution specifically for food and beverage companies.
SI Foodware is under continuous development and meets the latest industry requirements. This creates a specific solution, where costs remain manageable as the amount of customisation is reduced to a minimum. SI Foodware has been recognised by Microsoft with the highest quality label: 'Certified for Microsoft Dynamics'. SI Foodware consists of a number of integrated solutions, one of which is SI Foodware - Transport Management. With this solution you will be able to plan your entire transport needs and they will be transparent.
When transport is scheduled, a transport order is created. And when you plan the transport order from a purchase order or sales return order then Dynamics NAV will automatically create an incoming transport order. Of course if transport is related to a sales order or a purchase return order then an outgoing transport order will be created.
If transport is required for a transfer order, you can decide for yourself whether an incoming or outgoing transport order will be created. A transport order may contain the following items: the supplier responsible for the transport, the means of transport and the tariff, the loading and unloading location, the date and time that loading and unloading should take place and the order details.
With SI Foodware – Transport Management you can incorporate your hauliers' standard routes in the transport order. Defining and planning transport does not necessarily have to be initiated from a purchase, sales or transfer order, known as 'Push' transport.
It may also be that transport is already planned for fixed days, times and routes and that the transport orders and their respective loading and unloading details have to be fitted in to this schedule. This situation is known as 'Pull' transport. 'Pull' transport can take place per route, per order or per order line. A transport planning screen is available within SI Foodware - Transport Management which gives you a clear overview of the source documents of all incoming and outgoing shipments. For the specific source documents, transport orders can be created directly from this screen.
With SI Foodware - Transport Management, you have the option to define transport tariffs. Transport tariffs are defined per transport district, per shipment container or per kilogram, or if required in combination with a volume agreement. These tariffs can then be assigned to purchase, sales and transfer orders. Based on the expected transport costs, a purchase invoice to be received is created for transport tariffs, and linked to the general ledger. This results in a transparent overview of the profitability and cost coverage of the transport.
You may have to arrange transport for third parties. In such a situation, you have the option of charging these costs commercially to customers. This can be done by using Sales Costs functionality. This enables you to define commercial tariffs that can be linked to the customer for whom transport has to be carried out.
In some cases a supplier may not be able to deliver the goods to their final destination, in which case you have to arrange for the transport route to be completed. This is defined in the same transport order, so the expected transport costs can be recalculated. In this situation, it is possible to create a separate purchase invoice to be received for cost of the successive transport.
Within SI Foodware - Transport Management, you can create all the documents required for every transport order. This enables you to provide your haulier with information such as the loading and unloading location, times, route or a list with goods (per location). Examples of this documentation include a loading list/route plan, a bill of lading or a collective CMR. This last document is a bill of lading based on specific international legislation.