The Merchandise Financial Planner (MFP) starts with a well thought through category or departmental structure to run the business. MFP has provision for up to 99 categories however in retailing "less is more" and 18 to 25 is recommended. An inbuilt Wizard steps you through the set up phase and a detailed manual is provided with the software.The MFP Open to Buy software provides management control by category across all retail KPI's to improve buying decisions. The MFP program allows a "family tree" of categories to be planned and therefore will calculate the amount of purchases (open to buy) available each month and future months. It is a "living and breathing plan" that allows the management team to "see" the results of their actions and become proactive rather than reactive.
The buying plan manages inventory at retail prices or retail inventory. The green colour shows how the retail KPI's are managed at retail and then converted to cost price. As each category and month is built it allows easy reference to last year and of course future months.
Once stock levels are set the MFP calculates the OTB available in each category and shows past stock intakes by month. OTB is about working out the amount of money to spend to generate the sales and enable the category to perform across the retail KPI's.
MFP allows easy export to Microsoft Excel to enable further analysis or charting.
Download a free evaluation copy of MFP
