Sage 100 Contractor or a dedicated Manufacturing Software – What’s best for my business?
Sage 100 Contractor is a system only for Home Builders and Contractors, right? Actually, it works for other industries as well. For example, Sage 100 Contractor is also a system that works incredibly well for job shop manufacturers.
But how? Aren’t the industries and their needs very different? How can Sage 100 Contractor work for both? The key difference between contractor and manufacturer is that a manufacturer usually produces in a plant or building where contractors perform their jobs onsite. Most manufacturers fall on a scale between 2 ends. On one end you have the job shop manufacturer that builds custom items to order, for example a custom furniture shop. On the other end you have a fully automated process manufacturer like a car or detergent manufacturer.
But there are similarities in how these two industries run as businesses. Labor in a pure job shop is tracked against a job just like a contractor. The manufacturing process often requires labor to be allocated to a job based on a standard labor cost as the tracking of actual labor may be too cumbersome to handle. To better allocate labor costs, time clocks or bar code scanners can be used to track the exact time for each labor task if need. This is something Sage 100 Contractor is designed to help facilitate for contractors and therefore can do equally well for manufacturing.
Sage 100 Contractor is also unique in the way that materials are handled. The system uses the same parts and assembly file for estimating, purchasing, inventory management and billing. This makes it easy to specify the unique components needed in a build to order product and track it all the way through the process.
Did you know you can allocate to a finished good inventory in Sage 100 Contractor? Simply create an assembly for the finished good containing all the components and standard labor that will be included in the finished good. Then add a line with a negative quantity for the finished good inventory part. Use the service receivables to create a Work Order. Process the workorder for the quantity to the finished good that is being manufactured. When you bill this, manually override the billing price to a 0 so you do not create a Service Receivable balance. Sage 100 Contractor will deplete your raw materials inventory and create the finished good inventory parts.
There are many features available through Sage 100 Contractor that will work for the job shop manufacturing industry. This award-winning software can take the pressure off both contractors and manufacturers because it was designed in a flexible and versatile enough to handle small, medium and large style businesses. Talk to your consultant about how to get more out of your system.
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