There is no question that QuickBooks is a great accounting software for small to medium food distribution businesses, but what do you do when your company’s needs start to pull a little at the seams, when your operations start to become more robust? The answer may not be scrapping QuickBooks and starting all over again with a whole new solution, but instead bringing in complimentary software to draw more functionality from your systems.
When searching through seas of software, it’s important to be wary of cookie cutter solutions that pledge the world by saying they can fit into a variety of industries when, in reality, they leave little to be desired. For those hunting down software that will improve operations in the food distribution industry while simultaneously filling some of the holes that QuickBooks can leave behind, it is important to find a multi-faceted solution that offers the following:
Automatic Truck Routing – Avoid the manual, time-consuming processes that come with old-school methods of logistics. Mapping out routes and creating time-tables after manually putting orders into sequences can be a task of the past. With automatic truck routing integrated into IT systems, organizations can save time, reduce errors, and improve the efficiency of their shipping and distribution.
Product Tracking – This technology is monumental for food manufacturers. Being able to track shipments that have potential contaminants quickly and efficiently has become a necessity. With the latest line of produce fiascos, the US Food and Drug Association (FDA) have made a considerable number of new policies to ensure that food distributors have this ability.
Pick Lists – With more organized pick lists that don’t require multiple reports, companies can increase the efficiency of warehouse workers, avoid duplicate item pulls, and decrease the number of times workers have to flounce in and out of freezer and refrigerator zones. Enhanced integration also allows mangers to see inventory quantities, out of stock information, order history guides, and more.
Catch Weights – Being able to input the exact weight of food products bought from various locations has a couple major benefits for food distributors. First, there is an added layer of traceability. Very few meat orders measure the same, after all. Second, when catch-weights are stored, the prices of items can be better tracked. After all, seafood and livestock prices fluctuate daily. Now, workers no longer have to manually change amounts to keep up.
Overall, organizations need reliable software that not only integrates with existing solutions, like QuickBooks, but also meets the needs of the food distribution industry. SR²Food from SR²Software is a competitive solution that offers traceability and enhanced functionality to improve the efficiency of your workers and overall operations. Explore what SR²Food can offer your business. Contact one of our SR²Software experts today at 866.245.6216!