When an organization grows, the uniform program evolves and becomes more complex. While a small to mid-size company with a few dozen employees can have one person manage uniform distribution on a spreadsheet, larger organizations have more complex needs.
Most uniform programs start out with one person keeping a handle on orders, inventory, and distribution. He or she can rely on a gut check to know how things are going. Eventually, they begin using a spreadsheet to keep track of employees’ orders and manage inventory. As things get busier, the spreadsheet isn’t updated and distribution becomes less accurate.
The requirements of a uniform program evolve and change over time. New safety standards mandate specific uniform requirements. Perhaps your organization decided on different uniform allocations based on roles, for example full-time vs. part-time employees or managers vs. technicians. Or maybe the organization’s employees formed a union and there are specific needs to manage. Keeping track of your orders, inventory, the clothing items distributed, and all of the rest of the requirements becomes very complex to manage.
Unitec Distribution Systems developed The Proximity System™ to manage all of this and provide insights that other systems can’t deliver. Our online apparel management system provides complete control over your uniform program for everything from limiting the items your employees can order to providing managers instant access to the complete status of your program.
With a properly setup uniform program, you should be able to easily run reports about budget, product usage, and distribution. Unitec clients have access to all of the reports online, 24/7. Here is a sampling of the reporting available to Unitec clients and how it can help improve uniform program management.
Reports for Understanding Your Uniform Budget
Organizations develop their own unique accounting systems to manage expenses. Invoices and purchase orders are assigned to specific accounts based on the cost center, department, and category of the expenses. And while it’s illogical to have a line item for each individual product purchased, it’s important to be able to audit the expenses associated with your uniform program. That’s why Unitec’s proprietary online tool allows you to run a variety of budget-related reports.
Budget
When using The Proximity System™ you can quickly run a report to see what has been spent by employee, by cost center/department and by account. This includes tracking what has been ordered or returned between any two dates.
Accounting Invoice Report
This report lists all invoices produced for shipments between any two user-defined dates. Unitec’s system creates an invoice for every shipment and offers the option to consolidate multiple invoices into a manifest invoice twice a month. Our Accounting Invoice Report breaks down all invoices and allows you to sort by division, department, or cost center. This makes accurately entering expenses into your organization’s accounting system easier.
Reports for Managing Uniform Product Usage
At the foundation of every uniform program are the specific items offered to your employees. Managing product usage is important for balancing the budget and ensuring you are offering apparel items your employees want to wear. To improve employee morale, you could run a report on which items are the most popular and explore similar styles or items to complement the uniform. To eliminate confusion for your employees, this report also shows which items were not purchased so you can remove them from the program.
Here are two reports built into The Proximity System™ that help with managing product usage:
Catalogues and Modifications
This report breaks down every item in your uniform program by uniform catalogue, including the price of each item. You can also track what embellishments are included, such as embroidery, screen printing or emblems.
Style Usage
Also referred to as Product Usage, this report breaks down every item in the uniform program with quantities for how many have been ordered, canceled, shipped, or returned between any two dates. Using this report, our team can help you analyze all the items that are offered to your employees and make decisions on what to keep or remove from the program.
Reports for Understanding Uniform Distribution
Our system ensures your employees are only able to order items specific to their roles. We offer a variety of reports for understanding the current distribution of items to your employees.
Open Order Report
Managers can quickly see which uniform orders are open and the status of that order – whether it was just received, processed or awaiting approval – with the expected ship date. This helps them understand the status of their employee uniform orders and manage expectations.
Allowance Usage
This report breaks down the current allowance and status per employee. Managers can see the remaining balance of each team member.
Employee Reports
Since The Proximity System™ allows employees to order their own uniform items, we developed a dashboard that allows an employee to track his or her individual orders. This is helpful for employees wanting to confirm sizes, preferred items, and expected ship dates.
Most Valuable Uniform Program Report
With a production report, administrators can better understand budgets and gain the insights required to effectively manage allowances.
Production Report
This is the most valuable report available to managers looking to control their uniform program. Our Production Report breaks down the total spend by employee over any time period, including month-to-date, year-to-date, or the entirety of your relationship with Unitec.
Managers can see what items are ordered by each employee and the costs associated with each item. The report also adds up the total spend for the employee, the cost center/division and the account in that specified time period.
Improving Your Uniform Program
Unitec Distribution Systems developed Proximity™to make managing your uniform program easy. We can take care of everything related to your uniform ordering and distribution. With Unitec, your employees place orders for the items they need based on pre-determined item catalogues and limits. Our team customizes and embellishes orders in-house, including embroidery, screen printing, emblems, and hemming. We can also distribute orders direct to your employee’s home, a work location, regional office, or headquarters.
Our entire system, including the reports outlined above, is built to save you time, money, and headaches.
We take you “out of the uniform business”!
Still not sure if a managed uniform program is right for you?
Uniform Program Evaluation Tool
Use this free online evaluation to see how your program is performing and find opportunities for improvement.
See it in Action
We can customize a demo of our Proximity System™ for your team to see how it works and better understand how Unitec can save you time, money, and headaches.