BatchMaster for QuickBooks – Introduction

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Editor's Note: This is the first installment of a series featuring BatchMaster process manufacturing software, which can integrate with QuickBooks.

You and your staff love your QuickBooks software. The problem is that it simply cannot keep up with the demands of your growing formula-production-based business. You have tried maintaining production schedules and purchasing demands outlined on spreadsheets, but that’s a nightmare because you are double-entering many aspects of your work.

You cannot keep going the way you have been, yet your people don’t want to give up QuickBooks for their fundamental accounting.

Now, you are looking for a better way to formulate, produce, ensure quality control and manage the related inventory of your food, nutraceutical or environmentally-friendly chemical business.

BatchMaster can help you bring your products to market faster while reducing overall costs and complying with regulatory mandates. It can eliminate the spreadsheet nightmare, and let you and your people keep the QuickBooks you have grown up loving.

Let’s look at how BatchMaster for QuickBooks can handle all your requirements.

Formulation allows authorized users to manage multiple product specification versions, including intermediates, separately from their packaging specifications (BOM).

Here are just a few supported transactions:

  • Dynamically adjust ingredient weights/volumes to meet property target values
  • Account for fixed and variable labor costs, including consumable costs
  • Analyze and compare specifications/versions
  • Employ a multi-level workflow approval process

In addition to defining product ingredients, BatchMaster allows product developers to embed QC tests, special manufacturing instructions and costs into the specifications.

Production and Resource Planning is achieved with BatchMaster’s Master Production Scheduling (MPS), which generates a master plan for what you need to produce, how much and when to make it, based upon one’s supply and demand. Integral with MPS is Materials Requirements Planning (MRP).

MPS uses open production orders, sales orders and forecasting to determine finished goods demand. It then creates the optimal number of batch jobs required to meet current and forecasted demand.

Then, MRP creates a master plan of the raw materials you need to meet future production and generates the optimal number of purchase orders to meet the MPS production schedule.

Here are just a few supported transactions:

  • Establish short, medium and long-range planning periods
  • Run by facility, or by an item or a range of items across facilities
  • Consolidate supply and demand across facilities
  • Perform “what-if analysis” while planning production

More about the MPS – BatchMaster’s Master Production Scheduling software serves as your master plan for what needs to be produced, the quantity required, and the schedule to meet open production orders, sales requirements and forecasted needs. It considers everything from inventory in stock, inventory on order, the production timing for orders promised and related alternatives. 

With all of this data "in the mix," so to speak, the MPS then produces an accurate schedule using a calendar view of all orders, sold or otherwise required to meet production demand. The scheduling dashboard allows users to make appropriate decisions to reconfigure or alter production schedules to alter or supplement production requirements.

MPS users can configure "what if" scenarios based on product orders, production time, production process changes and raw materials.

More about the MRP – While the MPS determines production in light of orders and production demand in conjunction with the availability of resources, the Materials Resource Planner determines the requirement for material resources in relation to the production schedule. The primary function of the MRP is to optimize the inventory stocking levels of raw materials to always have sufficient quantities on hand to meet production demand.

In achieving this primary function, the MRP provides an accurate and detailed view of materials quantities on hand and existing purchase orders and determines timely procurement requirements to meet the production schedule. Based on those requirements, the MRP will create purchase orders based on vendor criteria.

MRP users can configure "what if" scenarios relative to altering production requirements and raw material alternatives.

Production manages the mix, blend, fill, assemble and other manufacturing processes for intermediates and finished goods across facilities, including co-products and by-products.

Here are just a few supported transactions:

  • Dynamically sizing, linking, and scheduling dependent batch jobs together
  • Managing equipment and resource availability and capacities
  • Reworking intermediates and finished goods and capturing deviations
  • Automatically back-flush inventory for partially or fully closed jobs

Accurate production cost becomes a reality with BatchMaster. Roll up existing and theoretical costs of inventory and fixed, tiered, and scalable costs into your formulas, intermediaries and finished products. Incorporate labor, waste and spoilage factors, as well as consumables at their landed cost values, into your overall costs of production.

Manage product packaging from raw materials and costs of package components separate from your formula-processed products. Then, combine packing costs into the overall cost of distributable finished goods.

  • Apply fixed and variable labor and consumable costs into your packaging requirements
  • Identify the actual costs of packaging inventory from raw materials to finished containers
  • Integrated QC and approvals into packing production workflows
  • Manage container production, including multi-level packaging assemblies

All aspects of the bills of material used for finished goods packaging and configurations are managed separately from the production BOMs for your formula-based products.

Inventory management gives process manufacturers greater visibility and control over their raw materials and finished goods in their plants by tracking, adjusting, and moving raw materials, packaging, intermediates, co-products, by-products, and finished goods in terms of their QC statuses, weights, volumes, units, plant locations and licenses.

Here are a few of the capabilities:

  • Adjust batch jobs based on the variable characteristics of inventory
  • Allocate inventory based on expiry dates, certificates, and quality status
  • Execute warehousing tasks with mobile devices
  • Maintain allergens, safety, certifications, and other industry-specific attributes and documents.
  • Manage inventory down to the bin level
  • Perform physical counts against any selected inventory
  • Revalue inventory
  • Track inventory adjustments and movements

When integrated with QuickBooks, BatchMaster supersedes the existing product data to provide a wealth of information needed for process manufacturing, including quality status and reason codes, lot numbers, expiration dates, strength or potency values and multiple units of measure.

In addition, inventory records identify product locations down to the granular license and bin level.

Warehouse management enhances the inventory features of Batchmaster by using handheld mobile devices to perform various inventory and warehousing functions such as receiving, putaway, inventory transfers and relocation and cycle counting.

As part of the manufacturing process, these devices enable warehouse workers to pull appropriate inventory in schedule with production orders. When orders are finalized, they ensure proper product selection for order fulfillment, packing, and shipping tasks.

  • Capture QC information for inbound, in-store, WIP, finished products and distribution
  • Check and confirm inbound materials for condition, documentation, and PO matching
  • Define putaway locations and regulate the flow of inbound materials to proper locations
  • Ensure movement of inventory is tracked both in-house and when being transferred out
  • Generate required labels and supply orders
  • Manage batch job releases and completions.
  • Perform physical inventory audits and counts on a scheduled basis without paperwork
  • Pick, pack, and ship finished orders
  • Pull raw materials for production or manufacturing orders.
  • Putaway raw components from manufacturing over-supply for inventory restocking

This browser-based application runs on various mobile platforms, including smartphones, tablets and RF data collection devices, without third-party interfaces.

Lot-controlled inventory is an essential component of process manufacturing because raw, intermediary, and finished products have characteristics requiring them to be segregated by quality, expiration, strength, or potency.

Batchmaster’s lot tracking begins with raw materials receiving through to production and shipping. The lineage of every raw material, intermediary, finished product, co-, by-product and adjustment is captured.

Here are just a few supported transactions:

  • Auto-assign lot numbers during receiving and production
  • Execute “bi-directional” searches in seconds using a graphical lot traceability tool
  • Generate recall letters for suppliers and customers
  • Manage inventory with lots based on variable inventory characteristics
  • Mandated capture and validation of lot numbers throughout the product lifecycle

BatchMaster provides industry-leading lot traceability functionality, enabling instant lot recall by tracking the entire process where any lot number was used. This is done simultaneously at all levels and in all transactions, from the raw materials used in producing finished products to the finished products distributed from the production facility with Quality Control issued batch lot numbers.

Quality control and assurance capabilities are built on all processes managed by Batchmaster software, from receiving into production through shipping.

Here are a few supported transactions:

  • Setup QC tests with accepted values, tolerance values, sample and recount values
  • Execute inspection plans, checklists and QC tests against products, people, and equipment
  • Generate COA and production deviation documents
  • Manage adverse reporting, customer complaints, deviations, and nonconformance situations
  • QC managed batch lot tracking for the identification of which finished products were sent to which customers
  • Substitution control, management, tracking, and documentation to ensure that formula properties are within specification whenever there is a need to make a component alteration

Industry-specific compliance is built into every process to meet federal and industry-specific regulatory mandates.

Here are just a few supported transactions:

  • Alert formulators when specs exceed industry-established levels
  • Mandate the capture of item, user, and location data (CFR 11)
  • Maintain essential transactional history for auditor reports (e.g., Master Batch Records)
  • Generate industry-required product and safety labels and documents

Part 2 of this series will dive deeper into some of the capabilities BatchMaster makes available to QuickBooks users.

BatchMaster software configuration depends on the needs of the user, the existing computing environment, and the version of QuickBooks software in use. BatchMaster is available in two configurations.

One configuration is purchased by the user and installed on their local server. The second is a software-as-a-service subscription-based cloud configuration.

BatchMaster integration is available for QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Enterprise and QuickBooks Desktop Plus versions.

When integrated with QuickBooks, BatchMaster effectively manages all the manufacturing complexities inherent to the products, processes, and variables in process manufacturing industries.

Inventory, Sales Orders and Purchasing are under BatchMaster’s control because our Master Production Scheduling (MPS) and Material Requirements Planning (MRP) modules require access to critical, granular manufacturing, customer, sales and purchase order data to generate detailed plans on what needs to be made and when it needs to be made. It also generates the proper purchase orders for the materials required to execute that plan at the right time.

QuickBooks serves as the general ledger and is responsible for collections and customer payments related to Accounts Receivable and payment to vendors associated with Accounts Payable. QuickBooks would also provide payroll functionality unless a third-party resource provides that function.

We will look more closely at the integration between BatchMaster and QuickBooks in a future installment of this series.

Disclosures:

Materials within this feature, including graphic illustrations, were developed from resources provided by BatchMaster, or the BatchMaster website.  All such source materials were adapted by Insightful Accountant solely for educational purposes.

BatchMaster® Process Manufacturing Software, aka: BatchMaster, is the registered trade name of BatchMaster ERP Software for Process Manufacturing, a privately held company with corporate headquarters in Irvine, California, USA. 

As used herein, QuickBooks®, QuickBooks Desktop Plus (all versions), QuickBooks Enterprise, and QuickBooks Online (all versions) refer to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit Inc., a NASDAQ "INTU" publicly traded corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California (USA).

Other trade names used herein, including any other vendor (app/software) products discussed, may be registered, trademarked, or otherwise held by their respective owners and are now acknowledged accordingly. They have been referenced for informational and educational purposes only.

This is an editorial feature, not sponsored content. No vendors within this article have paid Insightful Accountant or the author any remuneration to be included within this feature. This article is provided solely for informational and educational purposes.

The publication of this article does not represent any form of endorsement by either the author or Insightful Accountant.

Note: Registered Trademark ® and Copyright © symbols have been eliminated from the articles within this publication for brevity due to the frequency or abundance with which they might otherwise appear or be repeated. We attempt to credit such trademarked products or copyrighted materials within our respective article footnotes and disclosures.

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