The needs of video distribution are beyond the need of most distributors so essential features are not available in most packages to meet these special needs. These include features such as Previews, Rentals, Distributor Sales, Producer Royalties, Product Series Pricing, and various reporting.

Items are often previewed (free of charge or for a small fee) prior to the purchase decision.

Items are needed for meetings or other date driven functions. Rentals allow the customer to use the item and return it for less than a full purchase price.

Once a preview or rental is viewed by the customer, he or she may wish to purchase the item. Of significance is the tracking for calculating conversion rates and other marketing statistics.

Since previews and rentals are planned to be either returned or converted to sale, follow up is necessary when neither happen.

A series of video titles may be combined (such as into a complete course). The series is often advertised separately and priced separately.

Whether you are selling products produced by others or others are selling your products, features are available. The issues are usually who ships the product, who bills the customer, who gets the commissions (royalty). All situations are handled.

Video distributors often will sell a product that is produced by others requiring a commission or royalty to be paid. Royalty contracts are often very complex and unique. ARC/400 provides royalty reports for accurate royalty payments.Supports flat fee and percentage of sale calculations. Supports calculation based upon sale price or list price. Supports four levels of percentages and dollar amounts for different customer types (e.g. intermediate distributors vs. end-use customers). Supports past period re-calculations to adjust for retroactive contract changes.

Since previews have a high return rate (by definition of the transaction), an easy way is required to process these returns back into inventory. Bar coding allows for one swipe of the bar code and return to the shelf. All other processing and tracking to performed automatically.

Used mostly by educational product distributors and distributors to corporate environments. Allows for tracking the marketing contact, the AP department, and a receiving warehouse. When centralized buying is used, the ship-to provides excellent "where used" marketing reports.

Consignments are often used to track sample products provided to sales staff and outside distribution organizations. On-Approval is used like a preview but is automatically invoiced if not returned in a user specified number of days. Bill Only is used to bill for services or whenever a physical item is not shipped.

Kits are the result of "light assembly" at the warehouse location. The system will track the components and the kits so that the customer may order an entire kit of any component.

Different pricing can set up for previews, rentals, sale and other order types so that the correct price is displayed at order entry eliminating possible key entry mistakes.

Preview copies with spoilers are supported so that the spoiled version gets shipped for the preview and a good sale copy gets shipped for the sale. ARC/400 supports a local preview library with optional drop ship from a producer.