Software Second Look: SOS Inventory

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Vendor Corner

SOS Inventory by Saddle Oak Software is a complete inventory, order management and manufacturing solution featuring tight integration with QuickBooks Online. SOS was built for QuickBooks Online from the ground up and was the very first inventory software to connect to QBO. If you haven’t checked-out SOS recently, you need to; that’s why we are taking a ‘Second Look’ because in the last few years it has undergone significant enhancements and implemented a modern looking graphical interface, made significant performance enhancements and implemented improved manufacturing capabilities including process manufacturing.

Insightful Accountant is hosting a webinar with SOS Inventory on July 24 @ 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time. For more information on Master your Inventory, Order Management, & Manufacturing for QuickBooks Online with SOS Inventory, click here.

SOS covers the entire lifecycle of your inventory-based or light-manufacturing business. When you first sign-in the SOS Dashboard (shown below) acts as your "Home Page" from which you access the various inventory and manufacturing functions. 

QuickBooks Online does not include sales orders. Use SOS Inventory instead for all your order management needs. You can create sales orders and then create full or partial shipments as needed. In addition, you can create full or partial invoices from the sales orders. The invoices synchronize with QuickBooks Online.

While QuickBooks allows you to create and track products and services, SOS significantly expands both the type and functionality associated with inventory management. SOS makes it easy to convert raw materials into finished goods and tracking work-in-progress. You can set customer-unique pricing and vendor-specific costs, add custom fields to track specific data you need, and much more. With SOS you can track serial numbers and lots/batches and sync them to QuickBooks Online. You can also track the history of each individual item, which allows you to see your specific profit-and-loss for any specific item.

Did I mention multiple locations? SOS fully supports multiple locations allowing you to not only see how much inventory is in each of your facilities, but to purchase and receive materials at each location. You can also expedite customer deliveries by controlling shipments since you will now be able to fulfill orders by shipping from one or more locations. You will also conveniently transfer raw materials as well as finished goods between locations, allowing you to manage your business more effectively.

And speaking of raw materials and finished goods, one of the reasons you look for an inventory or manufacturing plug-in App for QuickBooks is the ability to handle complex items like Assemblies. In SOS, an assembly is the output associated with turning raw materials into one or more finished goods, based on a bill of materials (BOM). You can create a bill of materials (BOM) that specifies the components of the assembly, and then you process transactions that build a specific number of the assemblies as of a certain date. SOS also supports process manufacturing based upon a recipe or formula.

While you must ‘build’ each Assembly item in SOS, just posting a build in doesn’t actually get the assembly manufactured, that’s where SOS Work Orders come into play. In SOS, a work order is an order to manufacture a given number of items. SOS work orders can specify detailed instructions about how to manufacture each assembly item. This allows you to send the work order to your foreman, plant or factory, so the assembly can be built, and the work order fulfilled. You can even organize your manufacturing into stages around ‘work centers’ and then track the various states of each Work Order as the work progresses right to the point it is finished. Typically, you see this level of sophistication only with far more ‘expensive’ manufacturing/ERP systems.

Another area of sophistication found in SOS is the highly flexible design. SOS offers users two entirely workflows from which to choose. While most plug-in applications ‘take over’ key areas related to inventory when they are connected to QuickBooks Online, SOS is different. One workflow permits QBO users to continue to process most transactions normally within QBO, then SOS reads those transactions and generates the related SOS records automatically. The second, and more common workflow has day-to-day operations like sales, purchasing, shipping and manufacturing entered into SOS which synchronizes them QBO so that your financial data is up to date.

You'll easily track the results of your manufacturing orders as well as the value of your inventory stock values for both raw materials and materials committed to work in progress using the many reports that SOS has pre-configured for users. And, if you ever need a report not already in SOS, it's easy to simply export your data into Excel for custom reporting purposes.

And if all of that wasn’t enough, SOS is in the process of testing a new iPhone/iPad App version that will provide SOS functionality optimized for this Apple iOS. While the SOS Inventory User Interface is intuitive and cloud-based so it can be used from any device with a web browser, the new Apple iOS App will provide streamlined accessibility for those wishing to make use of their iPhone or iPad.

So, if this sounds like the perfect inventory or light-manufacturing App you have been needing to bolster your QuickBooks Online, then you should head on over to the SOS landing page at the Intuit QuickBooks Apps Center, or check out the SOS Inventory homepage to sign-up for either a Demo or a Risk-Free Trial. Insightful Accountant is also hosting a webinar with SOS Inventory on July 24 @ 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time. For more information on Master your Inventory, Order Management, & Manufacturing for QuickBooks Online with SOS Inventory, click here.