Dry Goods Ordering

Inventory

This is basically to take stock of what we have in order to see what we need. This should be done as close as possible to the ordering time, for obvious reasons, but the night before is ok. Dan has an inventory sheet, that is a work in progress, that he prints out. A portable electronic device would work even better.

Placing Orders

Inventory is compared with sales rates to see what and how much we need. If a sales rate is too low, an item may be dropped. The waste sheet is checked to see if items are expiring or going bad, which is either an indication that a product is selling to slowly and/or workers are not stocking new behind old.

Special orders are entered from the special order sheet or from email, or else research into what is available may need to be done and shopper may need to be contacted.

Some spreadsheets have a factor cell, in order to multiply numbers to meet order minimums.

Some of our major suppliers with deadlines, who we buy from regularly:

UNFI ("United Natural Foods, Inc.) - the deadline is 1pm Tuesday, but Helen puts together her order on Monday. This includes what Dan asks her to include that isn't already on it. Dan reviews the order. That includes taking items off that we get from other suppliers, especially locally grown items, taking items off that are don't meet the Ethics group's standards (happens rarely nowadays - those products are essentially the ones that are supplied or manufactured by companies owned by transnational corporations), and checking for accuracy.

Tierra Farm: due 1pm, any day of the week. Monday is a good day to order, because we've depleted a lot over the weekend. We get a lot of our nuts from them, as well as some dried fruit and trail mix. Ordering from them can be complicated, because they have a $300 minimum, or else they charge $7, and we have limited space in the cooler for overstock of nuts.

Angello's: presently due at 2pm on Monday. It could be on another day of the week if the delivery date is changed, but that is up to Produce. It is done by Helen and Dan.

Regional Access: Due noon Monday. We don't order from them every week, because it's hard to meet the $500 minimum. Meeting the minimum is something that can be worked on, but that is out of the scope of this document.

Pricing

Prices must be calculated - they usually show automatically on the spreadsheets and database, once we enter our cost.

For UNFI, we use the database. UNFI prices change frequently. The wholesale prices are entered manually, from their Web page. They could be entered from the confirmation email, but Dan has a method to enter the data from their Web page into a spreadsheet, that makes it easier for him to do this. As prices are entered into the database, retail prices are automatically computed. When there is a change in the wholesale price, the database asks whether we want to change the retail price. When there's an increase, we always say yes. If there's a decrease, we sometimes say no, especially if the decrease is temporary, or if the decrease is new, so that existing higher price stock can be sold without a loss. Taxable items are manually notated as such, for the Receiving crew. If a packaged item has increased in price, that is notated, in the same field. The total is checked to see if it is correct. Changed bulk and frozen item prices must be entered into the Google Doc and put on the bulk bins. Then a new Google Doc should be printed. Lower prices should be flagged so that it can be checked whether they are on sale so that more of them should be ordered before the end of the monthly sale period. Then the price sheet is printed out, and blank for time received is handwritten at the top. The sheet is then put in the designated spot for the Wednesday Receiving crew.

Some suppliers have a delivery or shipping charge. That must be figured into the retail prices, by plugging it into the spreadsheets. Usually such retail prices on the spreadsheet vary as a result. When the variation is small, it may be a good idea to only raise the prices, not lower them.

Non-UNFI orders have prices calculated via spreadsheets. They must have their contents and prices put on the wiki pages for the respective suppliers. Changed bulk and frozen item prices must be entered into the Google Doc and put on the bulk bins. Then the old Google Doc should be replaced with a printout of the new one.

Reconciliation

One thing to keep in mind is that some suppliers make a lot of errors, which can be usually in their favor. Invoices and payouts are matched up with orders that were expected to arrive, looking at the wiki. Quantities, prices, and total amounts due are matched with those in the spreadsheets. Invoice numbers are notated in the spreadsheets, to avoid being double-billed. Invoices are signed and put in the designated spot for Finance to pick up.

If one has time, it is checked whether items are priced, displayed, and overstocked correctly.

Receiving problems are addressed to the appropriate Receiving people and Lippe.

Billing problems are addressed to the appropriate suppliers. If necessary, a total on an invoice may need to be crossed out and replaced or an invoice may need to be held.

-- DanB - 02 Aug 2009

To be added

Including fuel charges, delivery charges, etc.

...taking into account the Fuel Surcharge. How do you propose we take it into account:
1) use a variable order total, or
2) use the minimum order amount? I'm leaning toward 2) for simplicity and because it's refrigerated. (from emails, 4.19.10-Lippe)

... shipping should be covered somehow, using either option 2) or by using the lowest the average order could ever be. It could also be shifted away from some items and towards other items, as long as the latter are ordered every time...(from emails, 4.19.10-Lippe)

Comments

At the 7/19/10 meeting, people were asked to give suggestions on how to make this document more useful for trainees. Here are some remarks, starting at top and working down. (JillW - 21 Aug 2010)

• inventory: would be useful to see a template of what such a spreadsheet would look like, better yet a link to the actual document online.
• sales rates: where is this info found? what is considered "too low"? A range at least would be helpful though I'm sure it's quite different for different items.
• there are multiple references to spreadsheet(s) in discussing order minimums, pricing. Where are these spreadsheets? If they are google docs, a link would go a long way towards getting the idea across.

• My inventory clipboard spreadsheet is nothing fancy at all. It's just a list of products in two columns, with two boxes to the right of each product name, the first for amount of case in bin and the second for amount of and/or number of cases in overstock. It's has no math functions. I don't think it's worth publishing. The one Antonia used to use may be better, but I've never seen it. I got the idea from her. The spreadsheet I type the data into has some functions, but it's really a work in progress. I plan to contact Park Slope's I.T. department to find out what kind of formulas their software uses. That would be much better. I don't think mine is user-friendly enough to publish. Orderers may tend to devise their own systems. Some older, experienced ones at least, e.g. Helen and some clients of R.E. Diamond, they tell me, don't use spreadsheets at all but gauge things in their head, not so quantitatively. I can't really say one way is better than the other. It depends what the individual feels works best for them.
• sales rates are not readily available but are calculated based upon data available. What a sales rate is is subject to interpretation. Do you look at how much sold in the last week, the last month, the last year, the last 3 years? This again is something I'd like to learn a lot more about by consulting Park Slope's IT department about their software. Helen and some experienced professional buyers for other stores only have this information in their heads. That actually may be the most effective way to come up with the best feel of how much to order, except maybe for really good software. Of course, it can only help to keep a record of past inventories and past purchases, as well as special orders along with that, so things don't get thrown off. I do that in various forms for different products using spreadsheets. They are made in a hurry and are not user-friendly, in my opinion, and don't use the same styles. There's a lot of haphazardness in the variations of styles used, as well as some differences due to different circumstances that must be dealt with for different suppliers. Sure I'd like to design some ideal styles, but I haven't had the time, and I'd rather design software, though that would take more time. I do not use Google Docs because speed is crucial, for this, and that would greatly slow down my ordering. Too low is, of course, subjective. It depends on a number of different factors, which may apply in a given situation, including the time of year and what is going on then. I could probably quantify it for a given item, but can't make a general formula or range. It really depends. Reports of purchases can be generated on the UNFI Web site, though one has to decide what dates to look at. One pitfall of that is that it does not take into account periods when an item was temporarily discontinued or out of stock, separate out special orders, items reported as waste, or I think even items not received. We also have legacy Microsoft Access-based software used for UNFI ordering, that always shows order, cost and price history, for the past 6 months I think, when a particular item is entered. I do not know how to readily have it generate reports, without learning Visual Basic, which I do not want to do.
• There are Google Docs for pricing, that are available to the public, linked to on the main Store page. They comprise what is printed as the bulk and frozen price sheets.