Darwin Merchandise Planning

In the Merchandise Planning the season budget is set on all levels of the product planning hierarchy. Darwin supports up to ten planning levels. Usually four to six levels are in use, e.g. 1.Division, 2.Product main group, 3.Product group and 4.Product subgroup.

Setting the budget can be started on each level. Darwin supports a top-down and a bottom-up planning.

The user is supported with relevant historic information of previous seasons, e.g. turnover, markdown, sell through%, gross profit%, retail price, #pieces, #styles, #style/colors.

The user can select which historical seasons he/she wants to see the information of. Per season the following can be selected:

• The historic budget
• The actuals (in season and total)
• Actuals + budget (actuals until today, budget today until end of season)

The merchandise plan of a new season is first initialized on the basis of a previous season together with parameters, e.g. increase of margin compared to the reference season.

Clever functionalities that can be used while setting the merchandise plan:

• Fast and easy navigation between the different planning levels
• Easy budget adjustments on all plan levels with the save-up and save-down function
• Reading and writing rights can be set on all plan levels
• Extensive notes functionality; notes will be displayed in future seasons in the merchandise and purchase planning
• Balance function for easy elimination of minor budget discrepancies (between planning levels)
• User and date + time of last change can be seen
• Copy icon for fast copying of budget lines

Many reports with budget information are available, e.g. all budget information of a number of seasons with flexible aggregation, actuals versus budget, check of match between plan levels.