As I leaked out earlier this week in my blog post The future of web apps: end-user web platforms, Method Warehouse is now available!  If you are already a user of Method Full Blown Edition, the news is even better: Method Warehouse is included in your monthly subscription (yes.....even the Method MRP Calculation!).   All you need to do is go to Customize > My Account, and add the Method Warehouse app.

Method Warehouse is an app that solves the inventory problems faced by QuickBooks users.  More importantly, it has been carefully designed to solve these problems in the most streamlined and useful manner possible.

QuickBooks users who maintain inventory need inventory tracking outside of what QuickBooks itself currently offers. Whether they are distributor with multiple locations, a retail store that needs real time knowledge of which store has what inventory available, or a manufacturer that needs to know how much inventory to purchase and build – Method Warehouse is the missing piece of the puzzle.

When we embarked on creating an inventory app for Method, we decided to first firmly establish what core problems an inventory app should be solving:

• Companies that have multiple locations need to be able separate their QuickBooks inventory by location, and by sublocation.
• Reorder / Build Points in QuickBooks are not sufficient for companies with multiple locations. They need to be able to set different Reorder / Build Points per location.
• Inventory must be able to be grouped and tracked by lot number, expiration date or revision level.
• Inventory must be able to be tracked by serial number from the moment it enters the door to the moment it leaves, and leave a breadcrumb trail along the way.
• Companies that manufacture goods needed a solid MRP (Material Requirements Planning) calculator that looks at existing inventory, forecasted demand, inventory lead times and existing pending transactions in order to tell manufacturers how much to purchase, how much build, and when to do it.

We think existing inventory solutions for QuickBooks are too complicated, cumbersome and bloated.  So, next we set out to find out exactly why this was the case to avoid running into the same perils ourselves.   After investigation, we came to the conclusion that they were loaded with unnecessary features – unnecessary because most of the screens in the existing inventory solutions duplicated what already exists within QuickBooks.  The existing solutions out there all require you to move all inventory control outside out of QuickBooks and into their solutions, thereby requiring you to enter inventory-related transactions in their solutions only. 

However, when building Method Warehouse, we were fortunate to have a powerful, patent-pending, Method sync engine at our disposal that listens to everything that happens in QuickBooks and shuttles changes back and forth with the Method web server.  We reasoned that the only way to create a streamlined inventory app was to do what the other inventory solutions couldn’t do, and that was to leverage the Method sync engine to allow users to keep their inventory control in QuickBooks.  This allowed us to streamline the Method Warehouse interface to be just a few small screens.

This was no small accomplishment for our sync engine.  For example, when a QuickBooks user enters an Item Receipt directly in QuickBooks, the sync engine has to "hear" this Item Receipt, check to see if there are inventory items listed on it, and then figure out which location and inventory bin to move those items to.  But what happens when the QuickBooks user later changes the item quantity of one of the items on the Item Receipt? Well, the sync engine has to know that there is an existing transfer order to an inventory bin, and then update that inventory bin with the new quantity.  Now, what if the QuickBooks user changes the Item Receipt by using a different item instead of the previous item?  Well, the sync engine has to remove the quantity from the previous bin, and then move inventory into a different bin belonging to the different inventory item.  And what if the item receipt is deleted altogether?  Well….you get the idea.  Moral of the story: There is a reason why other inventory solutions require you to move inventory out of QuickBooks!!   

Here's a few screen shots of the interface:

 
Inventory Control Monitor - Automatic alert levels per location, per inventory item

Inventory Locations - Multiple inventory locations, with sublocations

Inventory Control Bins

Inventory Control Transfer Orders

We felt it was a challenge worth choosing – and after you use the streamlined interface, we think you’ll agree it was a good choice. 

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'till next time,

Paul