Unlimited Building Supplies, a specialist supplier of ceilings and partitions, has implemented Sage Inventory Advisor to streamline inventory management and improve the accuracy of its sales forecasts. The software has enabled Unlimited Building Supplies to slash the time it spends on forecasting and ordering, while ensuring that it carries the optimal amount of stock for each product it carries.

The company operates a wholesale arm that imports a range of leading international brands into South Africa, as well as a retail arm that sells direct to large and small building contractors. If it goes out of stock with an item that a retail customer requires, Unlimited Building Supplies needs to source the goods at a higher price from one of its wholesale competitors, says Warren Kilborn, financial director at Unlimited Building Supplies.

For that reason, the company decided to extend its Sage Evolution ERP implementation by adopting the Sage Inventory Advisor cloud solution. This cloud-based software taps into financial information from Sage Evolution to deliver real-time health-checks on inventory levels.

Using a range of algorithms, the solution forecasts sales of various product lines so that Unlimited Building Supplies can buy stock it needs to service demand, yet also not carry the costs of holding too much inventory in its warehouses. The algorithms are precise enough to cater for abnormalities, such as an unexpected but temporary spike in sales, says Kilborn. That means Unlimited Building Supplies has a realistic and accurate forecast to work from when it orders stock. “We have a hit rate of almost 99.5% in projecting sales for our product lines,” says Kilborn. “We hardly ever run out of stock. With Sage Inventory Advisor, we’re able to make realistic forecasts by supplier or by item.”

With Sage Inventory Advisor, Unlimited Building Supplies has insight into which lines of stock move fast and which are moving slowly. It is able to use this information to negotiate pricing with suppliers and optimise stock availability. “It used to be a manual job to work out the numbers, but we now are able to manage stock efficiently right across our 11 branches,” says Kilborn.

Says Daryl Blundell, general manager of Sage Pastel Accounting: “Sage Inventory Advisor is an affordable solution that helps companies reduce excess inventory and working capital, while eliminating stock-outs. Because it’s cloud-based, it is fast and easy to roll out, and gives you mobile access to your information.”