Variance Overview

A variance is a difference between two or more inventory systems. 

For ItemPath users, this is most commonly Power Pick and your enterprise resource planning system (ERP). The inventory counts in your ERP are further removed from interactions in your warehouses than those in Power Pick, so discrepancies can occur in a wide range of circumstances, such as instances of improper inventory reporting, loss, or other unforeseen operational events.

The Variance app is an application in ItemPath that is built to help you compare numerical quantities in two or more data sources, outputting that information to reports that you build. These reports can then play into various dashboards, workflows, or our Order Builder app.

For example:

NexGen Fabrication’s inventory management infrastructure includes an MSSQL database which tracks quantities of parts (materials) by batch. Materials are placed into locations by batch and withdrawn as individual units. As orders are completed or fulfilled, the ERP reduces the number of items in each batch and updates this inventory database. Unfortunately, inventory updates from the warehouse into the ERP are tied to the completion of count orders. Power Pick sometimes has a more up-to-date inventory count than the ERP.

NexGen’s project plan includes generating reports for cases where the quantities remaining in the batch differ from the quantities recorded in Power Pick, using that report to prompt staff to initiate a count order. The Variance app, in conjunction with the Order Builder app, will let them do this inside of ItemPath. The results of these count orders will then be taken as authoritative reports for the inventory database. The report will need to include a breakdown of the quantities of materials from both systems and a comparison column that shows the difference in stock levels.

Prerequisites

In order to make the best use of Variance, you will want to ensure that you have the following:

1. A source (inventory database), that contains information that you would like to compare.
2. A working connection between ItemPath and the database.
3. A plan for the finalized report (e.g., any additional columns, actions or events that would proceed from the report).

After creating reports, they can be treated like any other report in ItemPath. You can review, export, plan snapshots, and add the reports to your Dashboards.