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Stock Control and Order Processing

The stock level of an item is the number of that item in store.

When a shop sells items, it is sometimes important that the shop..

  • does not stock too many of an item eg The item might be perishable and those not sold will become unsellable. 

  • does not stock too few. A customer may want to buy one and there are none available.

For these reasons shops set reorder levels and reorder quantities. When the number of items is reduced to the reorder level, then more of that item are ordered. The number of items ordered is determined by the reorder quantity.

Stock Control is the administration of stock levels.

 
A good stock control system will...
  • keep track of exactly how many of each item are in stock.
  • be able to say which items need re-ordering.
  • analyse which items are selling well or needed most and which are not.

All businesses which store items (in shops, warehouses etc) will need a stock control system.
Some shops use barcodes and POS terminals for automatic stock control. A computer stores a master file with records of every item held in stock. One field would be the item's stock level.

Every time an item is bought, the barcode is scanned and the computer will deduct 1 from the stock level for that item. The computer will know exactly how many of that item are in stock.

A similar system would operate in a warehouse. Each item removed would be logged and the stock level automatically adjusted.

This would be an example of a real-time system. Data is processed s soon as it is received and the system is always up-to-date.

 

 
Order Processing.

Customers may buy goods from a business by sending an order - which will have details of which items they want to buy and how many.

Orders may be received...

  • ...through the post on order forms. These will need to be entered onto the computer as records on the orders file. 
  • ...online. Customers send orders by email or over the Internet. These orders would be saved in the orders file.

The orders file would have fields with information about ...

  • the date of the order
  • customer details
  • item details and quantities
  • money owing or received from the customer.

Appropriate data validation will take place when the orders are entered.

 
When the goods are dispatched, an invoice is sent requesting the amount of money due for the order. The customer may then pay by cheque.

Online orders are usually paid for using credit (or debit) cards.

 

 If goods are paid for online over the Internet, there would need to be a secure system in place to avoid problems with credit card details being stolen.
When an order is processed....
  • stock levels are adjusted for the items sent.
  • financial information is stored and analysed. Who owes what and how much has been received etc
  • statistical information is updated - numbers of sales, best selling products etc...