The purchasing side of Arx draws upon many parts of the system to help manage the procurement, quality assurance and optimum stock holding of products. The marketing function gives valuable data to help forecast sales. Sophisticated modelling of past sales within the purchase planning modules also gives a valuable indication of expected sales. The detailed behaviour of suppliers that can be recorded at various levels of detail guide the automated reorder system. Comprehensive product details and packaging requirements are catered for. Exception reporting of unexpected sales gives the purchasing department an early warning, with quality records from goods inwards and returns analysis from sales enabling the purchasing department to keep an eye on supplier quality.

The Purchase Planning module in Arx is unrivalled in the industry. With sophisticated, flexible reorder parameters that you control, Arx confidently takes all the drudgery out of purchase ordering, allowing your purchasing department to spend time being proactive rather than reactive in maintaining a consistent reorder policy. Purchase Planning uses a sales forecasting model that takes into account marketing intelligence, past and current campaign sales, seasonality and makes allowance for the months when a product has been on special offer which has potentially affected demand. Safewire also understands that groups of products behave differently so this is reflected in Arx's group seasonality profiles that have more statistical significance. Allowance is made for new products having a different profile to established products. Arx automatically creates purchase orders and anticipates future stock levels. Full product barcoding is catered for where you can either print and send the barcodes to your suppliers or provide them with a file.

For companies that produce special offers on a regular basis, Arx has a module that can select special offers based on flexible offer parameters supplied by Marketing. Using parameters for price elasticity, Arx optimises its selection for profitability and stock availability within the marketing constraints. The products suggested and the anticipated sales are then applied to the sales forecast so that the Purchase Planning module is aware of the extra stock required. Bill of Materials and Product Sets Product lists can be used to manufacture other products (Bill of Materials) or for grouping products for discounting and promotion (Product Sets). A works order can be created from a bill of materials for booking out to a subcontractor or an internal department to be assembled into a finished or intermediate product. Fractional quantities are allowed and stock is tracked through the supplier and its return via a purchase order, then through goods inwards to stock as the assembled item. Work in Progress, both internally and as Stock at Suppliers, is visible to perpetual inventory / stocktaking. Labour times can be included for full product costing and can be reconciled to the employee-clocking module. Arx can cope with different subcontractors using different bills of materials e.g. internal manufacturing may work with subassemblies that are different when external subcontractors are used. Product Sets are used to group together products under a single SKU for marketing purposes. Sales order entry checks the availability of the set components when a set SKU is entered and allocates stock accordingly. The pick list shows the components so that stock is kept flexible and not committed until needed.

Bar-coding is used extensively with the supply chain to track product through to final despatch. A variety of
barcode printers are supported and basic laser printers can also be used. Arx can generate its own barcodes or use supplier barcodes. The system can print barcode labels to send with a purchase order to ensure full compliance when the product is delivered. Supplier cartons can be barcode labelled to make stock control easier. Similarly, barcode labels are used to track picked orders through to manifest. All programs recognise product barcodes as a replacement for manual keying.

Comprehensive product data is included as standard and can be extended with user defined properties. Information for catalogue production, for Sales staff (including picture and text notes), purchasing, nominal analysis and for quality control connect product data to all functions. Arx has a module dedicated to product packaging where packaging types can be set up and associated with product records to ensure consistency. Product dimensions and weights are used by the warehouse system to lay out the picking face.