Podcast WSW - Feature Comparison - QBES and Katana - Serial #/Lot #
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[00:00:00] [00:00:30]
[00:00:38] Introduction and Welcome
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[00:00:38] Dan DeLong: Welcome to another Workshop Wednesday brought to you by schoolbookkeeping. com where it's casual conversations for serious workflows. And now we have the three of us here today.
So welcome.
[00:00:51] Rachel Dauchy: That was so fun.
[00:00:53] Dan DeLong: Yeah. Welcome. Welcome back to to Rachel.
[00:00:58] Feature Comparisons: QuickBooks vs Katana
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[00:00:58] Dan DeLong: you were gone at Appy Camp last [00:01:00] time that we were speaking with With Shawn and we have Shawn again with with Katana joining us as we are going through this series of feature comparisons for the advanced inventory minded folks that might be looking or evaluating.
QuickBooks Enterprise Platinum Edition with a cloud based solution. And, really the whole idea of what I was hoping that this that this [00:01:30] series would really uncover for us. And a lot of people watching now or later is that what are my workflows look like today? And what. Would they look like moving to a, cloud based solution?
And like one of the things that we had talked about last time, Shawn was like my big aha takeaway from that was as we were talking about multiple locations in QuickBooks, they're [00:02:00] defined, like bins are defined as like a sub location where. That is not the definition of what you would call a bin in, in, in Katana, right?
[00:02:13] Shawn Coultice: Yeah, that's right. So to sum it up, I guess in Katana, you have multiple physical. Kind of building locations typically, and they can have different use cases as well. If you outsource manufacturer, do you want to move some inventory to your outsource manufacturing company [00:02:30] before you receive it in as a finished product?
But for the most part, a location is a physical location and a bin is where you house that inventory within that location.
[00:02:41] Dan DeLong: And as we discovered last week you, assign Katana assigns the bin location on the item level. And whereas QuickBooks it's as it's like this hierarchy of Parent location.
And then a bin is, a sub location within that [00:03:00] location. It's assigned like that, right? Like it's, a completely separate field and it's not assigned on an item basis, which you actually have Katana gives a little bit more flexibility because you can have the same item in different locations, but in different bins and it becomes what I've taken away from all of that, that you're.
[00:03:27] Understanding Inventory Management
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[00:03:27] Dan DeLong: inventory site list in QuickBooks [00:03:30] Enterprise ends up being very unruly because you have This whole hierarchy of bins and locations being on essentially on the same list and and that's what I, that's what I think we were, as we were talking yesterday about our topic today, which is, traceability, and we'll start to define that first before we go into that, but batches and lot numbers and serial number tracking.[00:04:00]
Again, there is a a slightly different way of, things being handled between the two systems and that's where I think this series will, come in very handy because people evaluating different things might want to know how is this going to, how is this going to play out in, the, within moving to a different solution and you had mentioned last week Shawn, that the there's not like a [00:04:30] It's a best practice if somebody is actually considering the switch is to work with an implementation specialist.
To actually move things over. You want to talk recap a little bit about that. What we talked about last time.
[00:04:45] Shawn Coultice: Yeah. And I think when you look at Dan, I like your definition of simpler inventory management through to more advanced inventory management, and as we're starting to discuss more advanced inventory management aspects, such as lot or batch [00:05:00] traceability expiration dates or even serialization.
You're starting to get into that more advanced aspect or realm. And when you get into that more advanced realm, the software can add a ton of efficiency into your business, but you have to get it set up, right? You have to get your data imported correctly. And that's where a partner can really help. Ensure you're getting the full value out of that system and utilizing it correctly because all [00:05:30] too often you see these businesses have more advanced requirements and they're utilizing a system, whatever system it may be, maybe 10 percent 15 percent of the actual capabilities of that software because they can never really get it up and running.
And they end up just running most of the operations in Excel.
[00:05:50] Rachel Dauchy: I think we've all seen this a lot of times.
[00:05:53] Shawn Coultice: Yeah, exactly.
[00:05:56] The Importance of Implementation Partners
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[00:05:56] Dan DeLong: Rachel, in your experience, is that what you typically [00:06:00] find a new, a client doing is that they're just barely using the system that they are utilizing at first and then just going with what they know.
[00:06:11] Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. And it's also they just don't know how. Just think about when you've implemented something for your own self and didn't really understand what it was. I don't know. Maybe Dan, you haven't had that experience. [00:06:30] I have, and, then I'm like, forget it. I'm not even going to use this anymore because it's so frustrating.
Or I just don't have the time, so I understand that feeling of this is broken. It's an, it's all your fault company. And so they want to blame somebody in actuality, it's just that this concept is. Now, for me, just almost like second nature, but for somebody [00:07:00] that might not know, it's, it can be really frustrating.
So you definitely want an implementation partner. And I've been implementing here probably four years. For the past six months, even though I told Shawn, I never want to implement ever, And yet this is what we're doing. Ask Jamie and Diana. It's nothing but implementation over here right now, but it's fine.
But it's it's a lot. It's a lot. [00:07:30]
[00:07:30] Shawn Coultice: Yeah. And there are companies that specialize in it too, right? Yeah. They specialize in
[00:07:33] Rachel Dauchy: it. So we do it.
[00:07:36] Exploring Traceability in Inventory Systems
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[00:07:36] Rachel Dauchy: If For what we're going to discuss today barcode scanning and lot tracking, I am not implementing that. I am, I can implement something that does not need that and if it's something that is going to have that complexity.
That is going to go to a full implementation team.
[00:07:59] Dan DeLong: Yeah [00:08:00] that's the I'm trying to think of a witty thing to say, but it's just not coming to me but like that's where you draw the line, right? Like the red flag.
So do you find Rachel that the people that come to you are already in something or are they, basically starting from scratch for the, ones that, when you're bringing them in,
[00:08:24] Rachel Dauchy: it
[00:08:27] Dan DeLong: depends. It's
[00:08:29] Rachel Dauchy: [00:08:30] the adult diapers,
[00:08:31] Dan DeLong: the adult diaper answer. It just totally
[00:08:34] Rachel Dauchy: depends. I can't even tell you guys what is happening with these people.
No, I love them, but yeah, it's half and half.
[00:08:44] Dan DeLong: And that seems to be par for the course and that's why we make a joke of this answer is that there is no such cookie cutter, one size fits all. Thing. And that's why we wanted to have these kinds of discussions ahead of time [00:09:00] so that you don't get yourself into trouble when you're like, oh, I didn't know you had a lot number or serial number to track, though, asking these questions front.
So that's where an
[00:09:14] Shawn Coultice: implementation partner, just to tie it up is they ask those right questions that you don't even know to ask when you're evaluating solutions. And so that's, I think, a key part to the partner aspect. Is [00:09:30] engaging with them, not after you've made the decision, right? It's not Hey, let's call the implementation partner and get this thing I bought up and running.
Have them be a part of that evaluation process because that'll help them help you help. They will help you ensure you're asking the right questions. And then you're evaluating the different solutions for the right feature set.
[00:09:53] Dan DeLong: Yeah. Yeah. It's what's the saying? It's I have good, judgment because of experience and my [00:10:00] experience comes from bad judgment, right?
It's you, always make new mistakes and as long as you're making new mistakes, then. You're not going to be making the same mistake over and over again. So speaking of, no, we're not speaking of mistakes. We're talking about QuickBooks and I'll, throw up. Let's see. Ah, I want to try these things side by side, but I can't do that.
Okay. So I'll just turn off.
[00:10:28] Rachel Dauchy: By the way, Dan, I wanted to mention [00:10:30] yesterday in the, in the QB power hour, there were certainly a lot of comments of, but I can do this in QuickBooks enterprise. Why wouldn't I just do it there?
[00:10:43] Dan DeLong: Yeah, I did. I definitely saw that Shawn, if you didn't know we, we did e commerce fundamentals course overview on the QB power hour.
And there were a lot of conversations about when we got to the inventory management piece was like I could just do this and enterprise. [00:11:00] I could just do this and enterprise was a common theme. And yeah, yes, you can do these things in, in, in enterprise. However, it's the connectivity to other things where it gets a little complicated because there's typically more things on the other side of that.
[00:11:21] Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. And Dan came up with this really great saying. That we're going to implement and put forward just because you can, it doesn't mean you should, [00:11:30]
[00:11:30] Dan DeLong: right? Exactly. Okay.
[00:11:35] Deep Dive into Katana's Traceability Features
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[00:11:35] Dan DeLong: so we're going to talk about the traceability aspect of, QuickBooks Enterprise and compare that with with Katana. So traceability.
Shawn what would you classify or define the traceability bucket or, defining that as,
[00:11:55] Shawn Coultice: yeah, so I would say traceability is usually driven [00:12:00] from an industry standard. So some of the most common places you'll see. Traceability requirements are food and beverage medical devices pharmaceutical, areas, and then maybe get into electronics where you have serialization aspects to those components or, medical devices also will have.
that. So it's driven by an industry standard and often in support of a recall or warranty. [00:12:30] And so that at the end of the day, if you think of why it's in place, it helps you understand how to use it and what some of the functions you should be looking for in a solution that offers it.
[00:12:41] Dan DeLong: and and because of this traceability I've seen I remember people would just have bouts of food poisoning or bad drugs, but not necessarily, the rest of the world wouldn't know about it because it was [00:13:00] so isolated and disjointed.
Now, it's almost like as soon as somebody. Has some, has a bad salad from Wendy's. I'm looking at you, Shawn. The world knows about it, not just because of the ramifications of eating the bad salad, but the because there is such a, an accountability of the, traceability, people could run those reports and alert.
[00:13:30] Their customers or clientele's pretty, pretty quickly. My my, my truck told me that there was a recall, right? I didn't have to wait for, I didn't have to wait for a piece of mail to show up or, anything like that. I just. It showed up on the apps like your car may explode.
[00:13:50] Rachel Dauchy: Oh,
[00:13:50] Dan DeLong: okay. I bet I better take care of that.
[00:13:54] Shawn Coultice: And if you think about it, like the, potential cost if you're a business that has [00:14:00] a some sort of default, or recall situation, It comes down to how specific your traceability is. If you're doing a lot traceability and you actually can't narrow down the specific lots that are impacted through to raw material and the finished goods, you then have to take a wider chunk it then goes down to, okay, anything we made over this amount of time.
date range is [00:14:30] now recalled rather than anything we made with this raw material is recalled. And so it can really impact the business. When you think of something like that occurring and can they keep that, impact tighter because they have better traceability requirements, not to mention making it just easier to meet compliance standards, which can be really costly from an operational efficiency perspective.
[00:14:54] Dan DeLong: So in Looking at what we were seeing here in enterprise, [00:15:00] the serial number lot number feature is an either or functionality. So when you turn on serial number tracking, you can't do anything with lot numbers or vice versa. If you turn on lot numbers, you can't do anything with serial numbers and that I think is the biggest differentiation between, QuickBooks Enterprise and something like Katana as we'll unpack there is that you can actually use both, [00:15:30] In Katana.
So this when we have an industry that has a serial number and a lot number need, with, enterprise, we are forced at that point to use custom fields, right? Because you, those fields are no longer available as lot numbers or serial numbers deciding whichever one is the heaviest workflow needs.[00:16:00]
You choose that one, and then you use the other one for for the other for the other field, which has its own set of problems because, oh, you have all this great functionality tied to this feature, like the built in reports and those types of things, but then you can't do that, with your other thing, and then it just ends up Making more work to make it work, right?
So in this feature, [00:16:30] it's really just activating it and then specifying whether you want to be alerted and what, what transactions they're, going to be utilized in and, new ish feature, I think it was in 2023. Two years ago, they added the option finally of an expiration date which was.
That was a what took you so long type of thing because [00:17:00] they, had a lot number serial number tracking for probably 10 years before they added the, expiration date as a, as an option, which for something like food and pharmaceuticals and in warranty purposes, you want to have that expiration date be part of Your serial number, lot number tracking because you need to know when something's going to expire, like the warranty or the food.
So that right
[00:17:29] Rachel Dauchy: now [00:17:30] that they're making sauce that expires in three months. That has to be tracked.
[00:17:37] Dan DeLong: Fortunately, it's there now, but for those people who didn't have that, it was, again, we'd have to use a custom field in order to put in the expiration date, but it doesn't have a tie with the lot number.
Now you can have the ability to add the expiration date and alert view if the expiration date's not there. [00:18:00] And when you turn on
[00:18:02] Shawn Coultice: Dan, I was just curious, if you turn on any sort of traceability, does that mean that all your products have to be either lot or serial tracked? Or can you then select that on the product level?
[00:18:16] Dan DeLong: As long as, yeah, on the you're not going to be specifying that there is a serial number for that particular item. But what's going to happen is every transaction [00:18:30] type that you're going to be bringing up, whether it's a sales order or or an invoice here is going to have. a field for serial number, right?
So as soon as you put in an item that has we'll put in this inventory part here. If there were serial numbers there, then they would be, I got to choose a site in a bit. Then it would allow me to put those in [00:19:00] and then whether or not, whether whether I specified that this field is mandatory or not would apply to all items.
If it if it was blank, it would give you a message or or, not. So I can record a transaction that doesn't have a serial number in it. I got to choose a customer.
And it does allow me to save it, right? So even though that item didn't have [00:19:30] certain numbers in it, but you can choose to make that preference available so that it doesn't so if it's mandatory, but that's an all or nothing. Type of thing, right? So if the field is missing or blank and you try to record it, it will prohibit the transaction from being recorded.
Then we have in here reports, when you go into inventory, you have several transaction or transactional [00:20:00] reports. So you can look at transactions by serial number, see your serial number that is in stock and then serial numbers in stock by site. And I was taking a look at this earlier. So this report here.
Brings up this this listing of everything that has a serial number in it. And I can click on the transact or the the line item. And it will tell me where all that stuff is, and by what serial number. [00:20:30] But one thing that it can't do and, we discovered this yesterday is it can't generate these serial numbers.
And there's a pretty good reason for that. So I'm going to turn it over to Shawn to demonstrate the traceability inside of Katana.
[00:20:48] Rachel Dauchy: Oh my gosh, Dan, you're killing me. I cannot read that.
[00:20:53] Dan DeLong: That's Shawn's fault, because
[00:20:58] Shawn Coultice: It's not, is it not [00:21:00]
[00:21:01] Dan DeLong: Breaking out the, glasses.
[00:21:03] Shawn Coultice: All right. Okay. We'll take a look. So one thing you'll notice as I go into lot or serial number traceability is I'm not actually going to the settings area. I'm actually going to go. Because it's not a overarching selection. It's at the product level that you would determine, do I serialize this product or do I [00:21:30] want to have this product lot traceable?
So for example, I was just looking at cheese and so cheese is a lot traceable. It has an expiration date and all those things that go along with it. And so when we look at this product information under cheese, I have this product tracking. Area here and I say, oh, there's no tracking related to it.
There's batch or lot tracking or serialization related to that item.
[00:21:57] Rachel Dauchy: And Shawn, can I just ask you really quick? Sorry to [00:22:00] interrupt you.
[00:22:00] Shawn Coultice: This
[00:22:01] Rachel Dauchy: is cause I'm in a client's Katana right now and they don't have this. This is an add on to their regular Katana subscription. Yeah, they can add on lot tracking.
[00:22:13] Shawn Coultice: That's right. So any it would be just traceability. So if you add on our traceability feature. Oh, I
[00:22:21] Rachel Dauchy: see full traceability. Okay, that will
[00:22:22] Shawn Coultice: give you full traceability. So serialization.
[00:22:26] Rachel Dauchy: You can add FIFO. [00:22:30]
[00:22:30] Shawn Coultice: I don't No, FIFO wouldn't be part of that.
[00:22:32] Rachel Dauchy: It says it!
[00:22:36] Shawn Coultice: Oh, I guess the batch number The batch numbers would come out in FIFO functionality.
That is true. I wonder if you
[00:22:44] Rachel Dauchy: have the option. To toggle back and forth between the two. Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
[00:22:50] Dan DeLong: Leave it to Rachel to I
[00:22:52] Rachel Dauchy: have to follow along when he's doing it because I want to know and understand exactly where he's going.
[00:22:58] Dan DeLong: You're talking next [00:23:00] session, we're going to be talking about costs.
[00:23:05] Rachel Dauchy: That I can, jump in because that's what
[00:23:06] Dan DeLong: I'm foreshadowing for next next session with Shawn is FIFO as well as landed cost. So
[00:23:15] Shawn Coultice: cost and moving average costs. So we can, chat through those different functions and how you can handle those and katana. But today we're going to be focusing around a lot traceability, but great point, Rachel.
So it is an add on feature. If you don't need it, you don't need to pay [00:23:30] for it. But if you do need it, it's when you think of, a food and beverage business, most of the food and beverage systems that are feature like focused around those specific industries are very expensive when you add in this.
Lot traceability functionality, and that's built into Katana. So it is from a value offering perspective quite reasonable. So on the other end, you have your your [00:24:00] serialization products. So let's look at, I think I set up like a lounge chair. So just to, I think it was a chair, some kind of chair.
I'm trying to remember what I did. Yeah, it must've been the lounge chair. Okay. And if it isn't we'll turn it on. So I can turn this on to be. Serialized. And you'll notice that it comes up with, oh, and it's assigning serial numbers. Let's go back here. What did I assign a serial numbers? I know I can go check over here.[00:24:30]
I don't want to assign serial numbers to all of my inventory. So on the serial numbers, I have my coffee table that's set up with a serial number. So let's go and look at my coffee table. Okay. So the coffee table that I have set up here, I can see that I've set that up as serialized and Katana will generate serial numbers for our manufactured products for us.
And it'll allow you to identify what format you want that Serial number generated it. So you can edit how that [00:25:00] format is set up within the system. So you can decide how, you want it to work today. It's going to copy your order number and then your sequence. So there's some relation to the order it was produced on or purchased from and the sequence that it was then received in.
Okay.
[00:25:21] Dan DeLong: And that was something that when, Shawn and I were, we're talking about this yesterday, that, QuickBooks Enterprise does not do. It [00:25:30] doesn't create those serial numbers, typically, because, your, You're either recording the serial number as they are received, or you are recording the serial number as it's sold, not necessarily manufacturing said serial number, and that's that's, one of the key distinctions that we discovered yesterday.
[00:25:54] Shawn Coultice: Yeah, it's a great point. Like when you think of for example, this is a manufactured [00:26:00] product. I'm making this coffee table. So obviously the coffee table that I'm making now doesn't already have a serial number associated to it. So Katana needs to generate that serial number for that, particular product.
And so because we have more of a focus on the manufacturing side, of businesses or industries, that makes sense that Katana is built in that functionality, whereas maybe enterprise isn't as geared towards manufacturing. [00:26:30] And so that's where, bringing in serial numbers that are already assigned to parts is the primary use case that they're solving for.
So, then it comes down to I guess we can go through some transactions, like when I buy a product, how do I assign a lot number? Or what would you think would make sense Dan from here?
[00:26:53] Dan DeLong: Yeah. Yeah I just wanted to show, have people see that you could [00:27:00] have, the lot number or the serial number.
So you do have the ability to do both, in, in one file. And then where you would, where you were that screen that you were just looking at, where you have, All of the lot numbers or the serial numbers, but you can see what, what the supporting detail, I think that's one thing that we [00:27:30] want to talk about too, is the difference between the reports, where, I showed in, QuickBooks, you got to go into a report in order to see see some of this stuff, but.
[00:27:43] Real-Time Data and Reporting in Katana
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[00:27:43] Dan DeLong: In, Katana it's, again, it's one of those, like learning, changing the workflows from one system to another, instead of being solely or mostly relying on running reports, you're more working [00:28:00] in live data
[00:28:02] Shawn Coultice: or the list in a sense. Yeah you're not really as much running reports as you're looking at real time data.
So for example, if I'm going to go over to my stock screen, okay, here's my, inventory, right? So I've got all my inventory listed out. I can see my costing and my quantity. And then there's this two tabs here. I've got my batches and my serial numbers. So I can go and look at my batches, for example.
So I've got a few batches in the system currently [00:28:30] milk, cheese. And I have create a date and an expiration date in here. I I could have assigned an expiration date when I received in or created or made the milk or cheese. And so I can put those dates into the system and track making sure I'm not selling products that are expired or letting them sit on the shelf before they expire.
And then when we look at the individual cheese here I can click on this [00:29:00] 10 pieces. And this helps me see the transactions that have occurred against that particular batch number.
[00:29:09] Rachel Dauchy: That's everything, by the way. We look at that all the time, the movements. Wait, what happened with this? What happened with that?
It's so important.
[00:29:18] Shawn Coultice: And you're not running a report. It almost is seems like a report, right? Because it's happening, but it's live data. So The moment a new batch [00:29:30] is added into the system, it is a, it is live and invisible on here. So I'm not having to print out a report and then it does allow me to click through things much quicker.
More readily. For example, I'm looking at this cheese here. I can see that I have 10 in stock. I can see I had what sort of removed an item here on a sales order. And then I also had manufacturing orders that added inventory into the system. So I can see the transactions that have occurred. [00:30:00] To create the inventory that I have today, all related to this individual batch.
And if I wanted to click in on any one of these, I could go, for example, into manufacturing order 21 and I could see what was related to this. So I could see the milk. Which batch number was associated to that. And I can also see the lemon and salt that was used on that, which aren't batch tracked.
So only the milk needs to be batch tracked. And then also the manufacturing processes and who actually worked on that job. [00:30:30] So I when you're thinking of that drill down capability, if this batch for whatever reason was returned, you had something from batch 10, 001 returned, I can go into that manufacturing order and see everything else that was produced on this, where it was sold and then also any raw materials that were used and maybe where the, product 10, 000 or 1000 milk batch was used to making sure I'm cleaning up all of the items that are associated to the batch that we had to [00:31:00] return on.
Maybe some issues wi
[00:31:04] Rachel Dauchy: it allows some raw mater but you don't have to bat you definitely
[00:31:09] Shawn Coultice: don't want don't aren't required to or batch tracking. It's n fun thing to do. No, it's we, but we do make it relatively easy to handle within your proper workflows within Katana, but it is an extra level of control and, operations that [00:31:30] if you don't have to do it, I don't recommend it.
[00:31:32] Dan DeLong: Are there preferences, for the traceability as far as like being alerted or making something that, that is required, especially if it's a, if it's a compliance thing, definitely would want to make sure that they. Do that in that particular industry or is it more of a open field? So to speak.
[00:31:56] Shawn Coultice: Yeah. So like usually for example [00:32:00] if you're like ISO 9001 compliant for a machine shop industry, their, requirement is that you understand what manufacturing order every item was produced on and the operations that job went through and who worked on that job. With a sign off on that.
And so that would be What the requirements are for that specific standard. And so any industry that you're, currently [00:32:30] operating in will force you to comply to those standards. Cause you won't be able to sell your products into customers that require you to meet those standards. And usually have to show some form of documentation or proof that you're, meeting those standards, whether that be a barcode with the lot number on it.
Or each item having a serial number on it. Those are things that you might have to produce to show that you're meeting those, standards, but it's usually industry driven. [00:33:00] So if you're looking at, moving into a medical industry, maybe you're currently a machine shop and you're like, Hey, we could start producing parts to, for instruments used in the medical industry.
That sounds like a great idea, but. Are you set up from a, a technology perspective to actually meet the compliance requirements? That's something you'd, want to look into prior to starting to produce parts and sell it to the space.
[00:33:29] Rachel Dauchy: But [00:33:30] I think he also is meaning, will it let you even do, like it, it won't let you do a manufacturing order.
Like your components are expired or something like that. There are,
[00:33:41] Intro: yes, it just won't
[00:33:42] Rachel Dauchy: let you, like you, you'll have to add new or buy new materials. So you, like the system won't allow you to build something if the, if items are either out of stock or expired,
[00:33:58] Shawn Coultice: you've got it. Exactly. Rachel. Great [00:34:00] point. So what the system will do say you were to go in, if we were to go and create a manufacturing order for cheese.
So I can go in here and I'm going to go and make some cheese. So we're going to make some cheese. Because this is a batch produced product, it's going to require me to identify a batch number that I'm using here. So I can add it to an existing batch where I can go and put in the batch [00:34:30] number here.
And I can create a new one and confirm, and I could have added in the expiration date, but it won't let me complete the manufacturing order until a batch number has been assigned to that manufacturing order.
[00:34:40] Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. And I just this is for somebody like me, this is so, important because, one company that I used to work at, they used to do all of their, components just on a whiteboard.
And do we have all the things and there was no way that was [00:35:00] accurate. It was always off. And so we never knew if something we had all seven items or if we had six and one was missing and we manufactured offsite. And so something like this, we would have known immediately if there was.
a reason that we couldn't put in that manufacturing order.
[00:35:21] Shawn Coultice: Yeah. And it'll also identify that right on the shop floor for the employee that is using say a device and they're going in and [00:35:30] completing that order. They'll say, it'll say you have to add a number, a batch number to this. You can't complete it.
So there's controls in place, not only for the people let's say in the front office, but also in the back office to ensure that the standards are being met and you have that proper compliance that's in place. So those controls, prevent an employee from doing something without having the proper traceability information entered in the system.
[00:35:55] Rachel Dauchy: Yeah, that's what I really like about it. It's really great in [00:36:00] that way.
[00:36:01] Dan DeLong: And that's that kind of leads to what we were talking about last last week about how QuickBooks is really good about the rearview mirror of reporting and doing things of what you did do. Whereas something like Katana is more forward facing, more planning oriented and, would catch problems before they start, as opposed to recording the problem after it happened.
[00:36:30] Yeah.
[00:36:30] Rachel Dauchy: It feels very databasey as opposed to it's my reporting system.
[00:36:37] Shawn Coultice: Yeah, that's right. So for example, you're looking at your serial numbers and I can go and maybe create a quick job for a coffee table, so If I go in and manufacture it, usually this would be like an electronics style company, but let's say I made some coffee tables here
[00:36:54] Dan DeLong: Cheese, electronics,
[00:36:55] Shawn Coultice: so I'm going to go and say, we're going to go and make, I don't [00:37:00] know, 10, 10 coffee tables here we'll see.
So I've got the components would and pain to make it, it's going to go through these different operations, but let's just go and say, That, I completed this. So when I go in and complete this, it's now going to, you've got this traceability area here. And so what the system's gone and done is it's created the 10 serial numbers that are associated.
[00:37:30] To the 10 products that I've now produced and it's generated those automatically in the system.
[00:37:36] Dan DeLong: And you'll also just a side by side comparison here in, in QuickBooks, as I was curious myself, I'm building something in inside of QuickBooks. Doing a build assembly. The only thing I can do with regards to entering in my serial numbers is here and enter in multiple serial numbers.
Now I got to either scan them in with a barcode or type them in, [00:38:00] which is now, I think the technical term is a pain.
[00:38:04] Rachel Dauchy: Yeah,
[00:38:09] Shawn Coultice: And the, other thing is cause we don't assign them. We don't create them automatically on serial numbers on purchase orders, just because the idea was if you're serializing items that you purchase, that, that must mean that they're already serialized, but I can see chat to be D.
Doing a good job. And you could just say, Hey, Chad, GPT generate 10 serial numbers for me with [00:38:30] commas in between, and you could just paste that into Katana and that would generate those serial numbers within a couple of seconds. So that would be a quick way to solve for that.
[00:38:37] Dan DeLong: Or you could use, you could train your Katana AI to do that.
Katana
[00:38:43] Shawn Coultice: AI is not good enough to do that yet, but the we've just released some really cool things. It'll graph out some really cool sales analysis for you. So the Katana AI bot is ever improving and, it'll definitely get to a [00:39:00] level where it'll be able to analyze. Your reconciliations and, point to looking at your, Shopify orders and ensuring that they've all been entered into Katana some, really cool stuff that we're going to be releasing shortly.
[00:39:15] Rachel Dauchy: Are you going to be able to, Nevermind. That's something I can see in the report, nevermind. I was going to ask something about cost of goods sold, but I could probably just see that in the screen. Okay. Nevermind. [00:39:30]
[00:39:31] Shawn Coultice: No worries. So just back to the serialization thing, I just wanted to quickly show.
Again, I'm not running a report. I'm just going to that serialization thing. And then I can see, I just produced all these serial numbers and I can see the manufacturing order that it came from. And I'm, I can click right into that manufacturing order. I can see the product here. I can click into that.
And if it was sold, you would see what sales order it was sold on. If there was a a transaction or stock adjustment done. Relative to that [00:40:00] serial number. You'd see that as well. So all that information is available here and you can click through to find it. And there's these filters in place.
So if you do get that call up where someone's on the phone and saying, Hey, I'm just calling you relative to, serial number zero, zero six, you can go and find that in the system really quickly. And Hey, here's the manufacturing order. It was produced on and see the data was added and any information relative to it.
[00:40:29] Dan DeLong: Are you able [00:40:30] to, and this is where, my, my older QuickBooks mind is, having wanting to make sure I'm, covering the bases. Are you able to, to filter or sort this list like multiple ways or, is it more one field or another? So if you, a certain date range and this is probably across the system, but are you [00:41:00] able to, add multiple filters in, in, in when you're looking at a list of anything?
[00:41:07] Shawn Coultice: Yeah, you can definitely add, multiple filters in. So if I wanted to look at, for example all the serial numbers I produced this month, I can apply that date range and then I can say, and I want them to. Okay. They were part of a specific I don't know item code. So they were part of a table group [00:41:30] and they were a specific serial number.
I'd be able to do all that really quickly within the system. Or you, maybe you just want to organize it you want to see I want to organize this by top to bottom rather than the other way around. So you can go and do that really easily within the system. So some really nice things, but maybe you want to reorganize your grids as well.
You can go and drag and drop them and maybe put those in different areas so you can go and source those. And maybe there's some things on here. You don't want to see [00:42:00] I don't really care if it's in stock or not. I can just get rid of that so you can customize and move the grids around and make them kind of work for you.
And really, increase your efficiency with utilizing the tool.
[00:42:15] Dan DeLong: All right.
[00:42:16] Conclusion and Upcoming Topics
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[00:42:16] Dan DeLong: So that kind of puts a button or a bow on the traceability comparison between Katana and QuickBooks Enterprise. And I hate when it does that. [00:42:30] As soon as I turn something off, it makes that noise. It's my face so huge, but, it's not on purpose really.
So, next week we're actually going to take a week break because this is the last follow up appointment for my wife's surgery. So they always seem to do it on Wednesdays. So we we're going to take next week off, but the week after we'll have Shawn back and we'll talk [00:43:00] about some of the things that Rachel.
foreshadowed FIFO cost calculation and landed costs. So we're going to talk about the costs of some of these things, not how much it costs to to purchase these, the software we're going to talk about the cost of the items that you're tracking. So we'll appreciate you joining us this week and we'll see everybody next time on the workshop Wednesday.
Oh, and before I go there, if let's see, I'm sorry, Rachel, I'm [00:43:30] covering you up with a QR. If you want to learn more about Katana, there's a QR code there. You can take a, take out your phone and learn more about it right now. And we will see you next time on the workshop Wednesday, as soon as I'm looking for the outro video, there it is.
