These days, businesses in the fast-paced produced industry sometimes have trouble keeping up! That’s where PICS software gets top marks! Designed for growing businesses in the fast-paced produce industry, Produce Inventory Control System (PICS) software saves time, reduces errors, cuts costs, and most of all, lets owners and managers look like the stars they are!
PICS software offers complete traceability, supports every type of inventory and lets you buy and sell in multiple units. Did we tell you about the new wildcard search feature? Gold stars for us!
Affordable for every business, available through a convenient monthly subscription, and it’s easy to add new users or new add-on modules like brokerage, growing, production, and shopping basket. But let’s start at the beginning with the standard features of PICS.
Check out this significant update we made to PICS in April
We added code to the system to determine the total number of storage units (usually referred to as pallets) in a more comprehensive way. This has been done for both the buying and selling systems. The reason for this is to help users who deal with logistics when planning for trucks or other ways to transport sales/purchase orders. When a Purchase/Sales Order is entered, PICS will calculate the total number of storage units using the quantity ordered, and quantity per storage unit on the lines. As receiving/shipping records are added, these calculations will use quantity received/shipped instead of quantity ordered. Also, if you are using either type of storage units in PICS, then they will be used instead of these two fields as receiving/shipping is done. These new total fields have been added to the Purchase Order, Inbound and Outbound Load, and Sales Order Shipping header tables. They can be seen on the 4 screens which manage these tables. They have also been added to the following reports:
- Purchase Order
- Inbound Load Confirmation
- Outbound Load
- BOL
Make the switch to PICS! Powerful, reliable, and user-friendly. Not sure PICS is what you need? That’s okay! Arrange a no-pressure demo of PICS with WaudWare General Manager, F. Charles Waud.
ICYMI here are all the enhancements, updates, and improvements we made to PICS from January – March 2026:
March 2026 Updates
- Added a Buyer Assigned Location ID field to the customer and customer ship to tables and screens. This, along with GLN and DUNS # is used for EDI import programs to be able to identify the customer.
- Added a new “Selling/Ship Un-Ship Button to fill or blank date and time shipped” system control which will allow you to configure PICS such that when a sales order is shipped, the date and time shipped fields in the sales order header and shipping header tables will be filled with the current date and time. Likewise, when you unship, those 2 fields will be blanked.
- Added a new “Selling/Disable line editing after Sales Orders are Shipped” system control which will allow you to configure the sales order screen such that when a sales order is shipped, users can no longer add/edit/remove lines. If they need to do these activities, they need to un-ship the sales order first.
- Added a new feature to Purchase, Sales and Work Orders as well as Stock Lots. It is called “Standing“. You can think of it as a user defined status. In the new Standing setup screen, you can define the different Standing types (we’d suggest things like CANCELLED, ON HOLD, INTERNAL USE, QUARANTINED etc.) as well as what they apply to. Once these are set up you can use them in the above screens.
- Enhanced the notes system such that they now share the security settings with the screen they are called up from. For example, if a user only has rights to view customers, they will also only be able to view the notes for the customer. If they have add/edit/del rights for the customer, then they can also add/edit/del notes for the customer.
- Enhanced the attachments system such that they now share the security settings with the screen they are called up from. For example, if a user only has rights to view customers, they will also only be able to view the attachments for the customer. If they have add/edit/del rights for the customer, then they can also add/edit/del attachments for the customer.
- Added default Stock Transfer from and to warehouse system controls. If these are filled, when Stock Transfers are created, these will be used.
- Added a new PICS 3.0 Printing method system control. This is for the changes we are making to modifying and anchoring reports. The code is not finished yet, so please contact us for information for the time being. There are several improvements arising from this, but one of them is major and worth noting … we are separating the anchoring from the layout. This means that when you modify a form, all users (and EmFx) will have the changes immediately, and nothing needs to be done to re-anchor the reports. Anchoring can be changed independent of modifying reports.
- Added a new system control to allow you to suppress the warning to let you know that when duplicating a Work Order, only the header will be duplicated, and that you need to use the BOM to create lines.
- Enhanced the stock list such that in the stock totals popup, it now shows the total for the items in the entire list. This is very handy when searching with a filter. For example, if you put in *RED GRAPE, you will see all the items where RED GRAPE appears somewhere in the description, c/w a total for all of them. If you change it further, to include a label, so *RED GRAPE ALLISON for example, only items with those 3 words in the description will appear, and the total will be updated.
- The wildcard search in the lists has been enhanced to include the leading asterisk in the search box at the top.
February 2026 Updates:
- Added an Administration/Multiple Instance Limit system control (default of 1, maximum of 3) which allows you to set the maximum number of concurrent instances of PICS 3.0. Note that if you need more than 3, you will need to get another license.
- Changed the GL Post screen such that it now shows the batch number first and the type of batch second. This means that if there are old batches (of any type) out there, they will appear at the top. We think this is a better way to use this screen.
- Changed the Thermometer bar process such that when a process is running which brings it up, a grey-coloured shaded box will cover the underlying screen. This box will disappear when the Thermometer goes away. The reason for this is to prevent users from clicking on the buttons of the screen underneath, which could interrupt the process.
- Added 4 new System Controls to allow the following 4 sets of captions/fields to be hidden on the outbound load screen: Required date, Arrival date, Min/Max Temp, Preparer.
- Added arrival date and arrival time to the outbound load and bill of lading cursors.
- Added a new Selling – Screen Fields/Show Ship / Un-Ship Button system control which allows you to configure whether that button appears on the Sales Order and Sales Order Shipping screens (PICS 3.0. only).
- Added a column containing the total dollar amount for each batch in the list you get when updating sales order batches.
- Added a new “Administration/Copy Attachments instead of moving them” system control. If you set this to Y (default N), PICS will copy attachments from the folder you place them into the appropriate attachments folder, leaving the file in the original folder. This would be used if you need to do something else with the file after it has been attached to the appropriate transaction or entity in PICS.
- Added cubic measure and cubic scale to the Stock Items screen. This is for setting up how much space items will take in a warehouse location. At this time, it is used to communicate this information with a trading partner via EDI, but we think there may be other uses for it as well.
- Added a new Buying/Don’t show Thermometer when costing system control to allow you to hide the Thermometer windows during the costing calculations, We believe these windows should be shown, but some users have complained that they think it slows down the process. This is in PICS 3.0 only.
January 2026 Updates:
- Added a Freight Type table to PICS 3.0 and the ability to specify it in the Inbound and Outbound Load screens. This can be used for things like FTL, LTL, etc.
- Added a Temperature Mode table to PICS 3.0 and the ability to specify it in the Inbound and Outbound Load screens. This can be used for things like SINGLE TEMP, MULTI TEMP, DRY, etc.
- Added a status column beside the list of sales orders on the Stock Lots screen.
- Significantly enhanced PICS 3.0s ability to automatically create GTINs in the stock and alternate unit records.
- Added a Customer, Ship To, Product table and screen to PICS 3.0. It allows you to set up different Hi and Tie values for stock items being shipped to different customer ship-to locations.
PICS. Smart technology for smarter fresh produce management. Read what others are saying about PICS software, then request your customized, no strings attached, PICS software demo today!
