WDLS Finance Application Overview
Table of Contents
WDLS Finance Application Overview 2
Interface with Other Financial Applications 3
WDLS Finance Application Overview
Invoicing
The proper dollar amount for the unique services provided by the warehouse must be invoiced to the customer periodically. The warehouse and the customer require the invoice to be priced accurately, based upon specific rates for the particular work performed. Warehouse and Administrative services can be invoiced in a variety of ways. Services may be invoiced upon Warehouse Receipt or Shipment of inventory, Storage of inventory, Administrative charges, or other Accessorial and General Invoicing.
Invoicing for 3rd party logistics services can be very complex. A variety of rates, bases, and minimums can apply at the account or even the individual product group level. Much of the invoicing is transaction or balance related. Invoices must be supported by detailed reporting that clearly delineates the source of each charge. These invoicing details must be retained to support research activities on an almost perpetual basis.
Revenue/Sales
The invoiced dollar amounts constitute the revenue or sales of the warehouse. The invoiced amounts or revenue are accumulated and maintained as a database. This revenue can be analyzed, reported and sorted by numerous categories, including by customer, by revenue type, by revenue rank, and by period.
In addition to customer, cost center, and ledger code, WDLS supports user defined accounting attributes that can be associated with individual customers and can be used to stratify the revenue and sales information in a variety of ways. For instance, by associating a vertical market group with each customer, any revenue or activity report can be produced for a specific vertical market. Another alternative is to associate each customer with a sales region and perform region-based reports.
Accounts Receivable
The invoices are set up in accounts receivable to assure proper payment is received for the services rendered by the warehouse. Accounts Receivable allows the user to track outstanding invoices by customer, due date and dollar amount to assure the payments from customers are received timely for cash flow purposes. Receivable aging and customer statements allow you to track and work the open receivables to manage collection.
Adjustments
Invoicing must occasionally be adjusted to account for errors, changes in pricing, customer discounts and other situations that either decrease or increase the original invoice. While WDLS will support this with a void or cancellation capability and use of debit or credit memos, WDLS also supports an adjustment to an invoice. This was done to reflect a common practice in the 3PL industry of having a phone conversation, agreeing to discount a charge, and each party using a pencil to mark their copy of the invoice. The WDLS adjustment process allows individual invoices to be easily adjusted up or down depending on the scenario.
Cash Receipts
To maintain an accurate account of the cash received and amount due from the customer, the exact cash received from each customer must be applied to the appropriate invoices for which the customer is intending to pay. Proper cash application to outstanding invoices is essential for cash management.
WDLS is unique in that it tracks cash application to the detail level of the invoice. If an invoice for a warehouse receipt contained both storage and handling charges and the tasks separate them to different ledger codes, the amount of the invoice for storage and the amount for handling are stored on the details. During cash application, any full payment is posted as appropriate across the detail lines. When a partial payment is received it can be spread across the details, or it can be applied to the storage or handling portion to reflect that the handling portion of the charge is being contested.
Interface with Other Financial Applications
The Sales, Accounts Receivable, Adjustments and Cash Received information is often interfaced to the General Ledger or other Finance package of the company. This interface can be at the gross account level, or it can be as granular as the individual transaction level. This communication, which can be performed daily, weekly, monthly, or as often as required, is essential to allow the accountant to provide a complete and accurate financial report of the operation.