Before a business relationship is built, in most cases negotiations take place. You ask for something and give something back in return. Eventually, a consensus is reached and you settle the deal. As a result you have different tariffs per customer for similar services, like the custody fee or VAL-activities. A lot of our customers still work with service agreements, but this functionality will not be supported within a considerable time*. Luckily, for quite some time we offer a better, future-proof alternative: WMS Contracts.

WMS Contracts in brief

For more than a year ago now, in September 2017, Jan-Dirk wrote about WMS Contracts for the first time. If you cannot say it in a better way, quoting is your best option. So here I go: “With this new functionality, it is possible to capture multiple service agreements with different prices by document type based on filters on almost all fields on the document line.” In other words, you have all the freedom to create very specific tariffs per customer, per service.

The 6 benefits of WMS Contracts

In Dirk-Jan’s blog, he explains what WMS Contracts are and how you can use them. I want to go one level deeper in this blog and tell you what using WMS Contracts gives you; what it yields. And like I stated in the introduction: your current way of working can disappear with every next update, so the need is high. Next, I will give you 6 benefits of WMS Contracts.

1. Clear layout and easily accessible

Without WMS Contracts you have to do amendments in three different tables. Services, service agreements and service tariffs are separated from each other. Arranging these three tables will cost you a few extra clicks. Next to this unnecessary time and navigation, working with three different tables is unclear. WMS Contracts tackles these to aspects. In one clear overview you can see the tariff agreements you made during the negotiations. Besides, on the same page you can easily design another mutation type.

2. Customer specific calculation of numbers

WMS Contracts give you the option to adjust calculation of numbers. If you arrange these correctly, you can specifically decide per customer whether you want to charge something or not. Think about stock agreements or similar customer specific deals. There are lots of these examples, so you can understand that this can save you a lot of calculations.

3. Easy to change WMS Contracts yourself

A settled deal can be re-opened for discussion at any time. Maybe your customer is planning to store more articles in your warehouse, or they want to expand their service package. Chances are big that the tariff agreements change with these adjustments. If this happens, you do not have to do multiple changes on different locations. On many mutation types, like goods in and goods out, you can easily add a contract fact box. This way is a new agreement within just a few mouse clicks added to the existing WMS Contract.

4. Many filter possibilities

The times when you could only filter on article situation, type or transport are over. Use WMS Contracts and you will be able to filter on the header or on the line. Think for example about an order type you do not want to charge your customer. With this extra filter possibility it will become even easier to do specific actions for your customers.

5. Enter optional services

Some services you offer your client are sporadic. Not every batch has to be restacked or go through a quality check (with HTML 5 Scanning for example). But if this is the case, you definitely want to charge it. Anyway, it is preferable that these kind of services are not automatically activated in your contracts. Therefore, WMS Contracts offer you the possibility to add optional services. You can add and apply these on the mutation type. This way, you have total control. Is restacking desired at any time? Then add it as an optional service and you will see it appear on the invoice during the invoice run.

6. Copy WMS Contracts

You might think that you have to decide and arrange the beforementioned for all your customers individually. While you have the same agreements for most of your customers. We understand this like no other and that is why you can just go and copy your contracts. This will make it even more easier to arrange it for multiple customers or mutation types.

Introduce WMS Contracts today to your financial department

Creating new invoices over and over is in the past. Enter agreements once and 3PL- or Nekovri Dynamics will do the rest. Save the financial department hours of work and be sure that the correct invoices will be sent. Are you not making use of WMS Contracts yet? Call your consultant so you can arrange it before the regarding update*!

*The service agreement function will still exist after the next functional update. The one after that will eliminate the functionality.