MSA Reporting for Tobacco Industry with ManageMore

Step 1 – Setup Your MSA Distributor Account Profile

You will need to establish an account with MSA for reporting data.  MSA will email you an account profile which contains important information necessary for submitting the MULTICAT file.   From the ManageMore menu, select Setup… Application… Optional Features… MSA MULTICAT.   Please fill out all fields on this setup window which relates to your personal Distributor detail account profile.  This only needs to be done once.

Step 2 – Entering an MSA Inventory Item Correctly

In order to produce an acceptable MSA MULTICAT™ file for submission, you must do your part of proper data entry within the ManageMore Supertrack inventory.   There are specific requirements with how your sales data must be provided to MSA or the electronic submission will be rejected.  Within the ManageMore inventory record, the most important MSA field settings will be the “UPC/Barcode”, followed by the “MSA Product Description”, “MSA Category Code” and “Items per Selling Unit” fields found in the MSA section of the inventory record.  

Most of the MSA-specific fields are grouped into one convenient window that can be accessed by clicking the MSA button on the inventory item toolbar.  Below is a screenshot of the fields and where they are located.

It is important that you mark the checkbox “This item requires reporting sales data to MSA…” in order for the product to be considered in the MSA reporting process. 

• Include all attributes of the product when describing the SKU.
• Separate each attribute description with a space.
• Exclude any extraneous words that do not describe the actual product (e.g. B3G2F, DSPLY, On Sale, No Returns)

The good news here is that you don’t have to abbreviate your descriptions as ManageMore will automatically handle this aspect.   If for any reason there is a product description that is not acceptable by MSA for brand identification, ManageMore provides you a separate product description field just for MSA reporting purposes. 

Examples of attributes to include:
Below, we have listed the preferred abbreviations standards recommended by the MSA guidelines.  This is for reference purposes only. 

MSA requirements expect certain products (mostly cigarette brands and smokeless tobacco) be reported in cartons and rolls and NOT by the pack or can.   ManageMore Business Software provides a clean solution that will allow smaller distributors to keep and sell inventory on hand by the individual pack or can or pouch, while still satisfying the MSA reporting requirements.

The key is to still identify the items per selling unit  as you normally would when selling the item by carton/roll/display.  Additionally, ManageMore provides optional settings that will aide in the calculation of  the fractional quantity expected for MSA reporting with lower denomination unit sales.   For lower denomination product sales, you must do three things differently in the data entry of your tobacco product to be in compliance with MSA and to make your business run smoothly. 

• Use the SKU Item and main UPC/Barcode field to represent your lowest denomination of the product for barcode scanning purposes at the point of sale.  In other words, a pack of cigarettes will have a different printed UPC barcode than that of its full carton packaging.  Since your business sells by the pack, and not necessarily by the carton, it is in your interest to scan product sales by the individual pack for efficient point of sale practices.
• Use the Optional Settings within the MSA details window of the item to identify the product carton/sleeve/case UPC barcode value.  MSA matches this value to its own database of known UPC product codes and expects the reporting file to contain carton UPC values (not the pack UPC code).  ManageMore will handle the translation of your packs to carton automatically as long as you provide this value.
• Provide ManageMore with the lower denomination multiple in order for ManageMore to compute a correct fractional quantity to MSA.  In other words, a carton of cigarettes contains 10 packs of cigarettes.  This number is your UPC item denomination of a carton.   If you sell smokeless tobacco by the can, you would enter something like 5 or 10 cans for the UPC item denomination, depending on the number of cans in a roll.

Please see the screenshot below for a good example of how to key in a cigarette product that is sold by the pack to retail stores.  The optional settings highlight the key fields that must be supplied for ManageMore to do the proper conversion to carton for MSA reporting.  

Example MSA Item sold by the Pack

Step 3 – Manufacturer Product Promotions

If you are not currently involved with promotional products, skip this step.
Distributors who are dealing with promotional items will be required to identify promo sales in a special manner.  How you report promotional items through MSA varies from one brand manufacturer to another.  In some cases, simply identifying an item as promotional is all that is required to be in compliance with the brand manufacturer.   

When selling promotional products, you need to indicate that the product is a promotional item by clicking on the checkbox provided on the MSA Product Detail Window (shown below) of ManageMore.   The promotion description is probably the most pertinent field and is often expected by most brand manufacturers.  For example, products that are sold as a 3 for $1, or Buy One Get One Free, are likely promotional items that will need to be checked as such.  In some instances,  the manufacturer may also request you to place a specific promotional code on these items to track their individual sales. 

Promo Description Example
Good promotion reporting example:  B&M B2G $1.00 OFF 21091
Poor promotion reporting example:  BM COMBO

The item description in the poor promotion reporting example above will not be matched to any brand/packing by MSA. The assigned 5-digit promo code is not reported and therefore any volume associated will not be assigned to the proper 5-digit code. This type of promotion description will not be properly classified.

For more information regarding promotional item reporting, please contact MSA for the details needed to be in compliance with your trade program.

Step 4 – Proper Setup and Data Entry of Customer Accounts

In order to properly comply with your brand manufacturer and the MSA guidelines, all sales data must be linked to a customer account within ManageMore.   Manufacturers want to know where every item is shipped/delivered to and who is receiving it.   This means that every ManageMore sales invoice which needs to report tobacco sales must have a customer account number associated to it (including Cash and Carry sales).   

Furthermore, the brand manufacturer wants to know the type of customer you are selling their merchandise to.  Within ManageMore, each customer account has a “Class of Trade” field.  In general, the brand manufacturer wants to know if you are selling to a retail store, distributor, or some other entity.  In most cases, they will expect a value such as RETAILER or DISTRIBUTOR or OTHER for the Class of Trade.  Please check with MSA to confirm the Class of Trade required for your brand manufacturer.

The following are proper guidelines for data entry of customer accounts in ManageMore:

• Report the customer name as it appears on their storefront in the Company Name field.  DO NOT place the headquarter name or owner name in the Company Name field.
•  When selling to an employee or general consumer, it is best to create a single customer account you will use repeatedly to represent employee sales, consumer sales, etc.  In the Customer Name field, label the account as  “Employee Sales” and/or “Consumer Sales” to identify the customer type appropriately.
• MSA wants a distinction between customers that are on specific NET Terms versus those customers who come in and pay for their products immediately (referred to as “Cash and Carry”).    A customer will be considered “Cash and Carry” if you do not check on the “Allow on Account Purchases” on the Customer Financial tab.
• Report DBA (doing business as), when applicable, using the following naming configuration:  {Customer Name} DBA / {Alternate Customer Name}
• Provide the Customer Class of Trade on each account record, where applicable.

OPTIONAL: When dealing with a chain assigned store, it is imperative that you utilize ManageMore’s sub-account capabilities.  The sub-account Ship To information will be properly exported as long as you select the sub-account on each sales transaction you create.

Step 6 – Running the MSA Reporting Wizard

Once your database has been properly inputted into ManageMore, you are ready to begin invoicing your customers.

When you are ready  to produce your first MSA electronic file,  you may be asked to send a TEST file to MSA in order for them to review all the basics are properly configured.  See  Setup… Application… Optional Features… MSA MULTICAT.  There is a Test MULTICAT button at the bottom of this screen for creating an example MSA file.

MSA reporting requires weekly electronic submission of your inventory and sales data.  Please go to Activities… Company… MSA Reporting… to start the process which creates the file.  

MSA Reporting Wizard Window

Final Step – Submit Data to MSA

Once you have created your weekly electronic MULTICAT file from ManageMore, you are ready to deliver the data to MSA.
Using a web browser, login to your MSA account with your credentials.  Once you are signed in, proceed to the MSA MFT B2B File Exchange portal  and upload your file for submission (see screenshot below).    Please refer to the MSA Managed File Transfer User Guide provided by MSA for more details, if necessary.

MSA MFT B2B File Exchange screen

Do not be discouraged if you get an initial rejection (or two) when submitting your first reported data file to Management Science Associates.  After all, it is MSA’s job to ensure you are sending  accurate information to the brand manufacturer you have a trade agreement with.  Accuracy is key to receiving appropriate credit for your sales.   MSA checks for a variety of problems that may be incorrect with your data and will reject or warn you accordingly.  You will either be given a (F) Fatal , (S) Suspend, or (W) Warning Report if something goes wrong  (See Example below).

 Example MSA Error/Warning Report

A Warning report is not serious and typically involves a phone call to your MSA Representative to clear up “false positive” issues that MSA is flagging as a potential issue.

Inventory Adjustment Considerations

If you are being given warnings from MSA about your closing inventory numbers being inaccurate or incomplete, then you will need to make an inventory adjustment to get your quantity values to match your correct stock levels.  If you are being asked to correct your inventory numbers and resubmit your MSA reporting data, then it is important that you must back date your inventory adjustment in ManageMore prior to resubmitting a past MSA reporting period.  Failure to backdate the inventory adjustment to match the MSA reporting period will result in identical inventory closing numbers being resubmitted to MSA.    

For more detailed questions regarding MSA Reporting, please contact the company directly to speak with your representative:
Management Science Associates, Inc.
6565 Penn Avenue,  Pittsburgh, PA   15206
Office:  877-544-4429
www.msa.com
https://dataservices.msa.com