Inventory

Inventory keeps what you buy and count. A part is anything you buy: retail products, color, back-bar supplies, materials, packaging. A product is what you sell (in Products), and selling one takes its parts out of stock. Every movement goes through one stock ledger, at what it cost, so the books always agree with the shelves.

Parts

1. Open Inventory, Parts, and choose Add part.
2. Give it a description, a part number, a brand, a type (Retail, Back bar, Supplies) and the unit it is Measured in.
3. Choose Inventory for something counted on the shelf, or Non-inventory for something bought but not counted.
4. Switch on Track lot numbers and Track expiration dates for anything that expires or could be recalled.
5. Save it.

On a part's page: its Stock by place, its Vendors with their part numbers and prices (the first is the preferred one), Barcodes that find it when scanned, and its Units. Set Low at, Reorder at and Order up to so the app tells you when to buy and how much.

Vendors

Under Vendors, choose Add vendor for each supplier: contact, your account number with them, how many days an order takes to arrive and how it ships. Payment due is when its bills fall due (on receipt, or net so many days), with an Early-payment discount when the vendor gives one ("2% within 10 days" makes it 2/10 net 30); the books date each bill by it and the Payables desk says what paying early saves. Open a vendor to see what you buy from them and to order.

Approving vendors and their documents

Each vendor has a standing: New, Under review, Approved, Approved with conditions or Suspended. It is in good standing when it is approved (or approved with conditions) and every document you require of it is on file and has not run out. The list of vendors shows each one's standing; open a vendor to see its Qualification card.

1. Under Inventory, Setup, Documents from vendors, choose what every vendor must have on file (a W-9 and a certificate of insurance to start; add GMP, ISO, organic, allergen statements, SDS, specs, price lists or contracts as you need them), and how many days before each runs out the vendor is reminded by email. Choose Keep these rules.
2. Under A Vendor Not in Good Standing, choose what purchasing does: Warn (the order says why, and can still be placed), Refuse (an order cannot be marked ordered or emailed until the vendor is in good standing) or Do nothing, which is where every business starts.
3. On a vendor's Qualification card, Make the link and Email it to the vendor: a private page where they see what you need and upload each document, without signing in. Each upload arrives as Waiting for review.
4. Open each document, then Accept it or Reject it with the reason (the vendor sees it on their page). Dates corrects when it runs out. You can also Add a document yourself.
5. When the vendor is ready, choose its standing under Change the standing, say why, and Sign it off. Who signed it off and when is kept, with the history.

One vendor can be asked for more (Also require…) or let off a kind (Not required) on its own card. Before a required document runs out, the vendor is reminded once by email with its link, and the assistant can tell you which vendors are not in good standing.

Purchasing

1. Open Purchasing, Purchase orders. The Worksheet lists what to order: the parts that are short, under their reorder point, or running short in their forecast, each with how much to order and the day to order it by. See Purchasing: what to order and when.
2. Type how many of each you want, and build the order. Review it, change anything, and send it. With email from the app not switched on yet, it opens your own email with the order written out.
3. Choose Mark as issued once it is sent.
4. Orders lists every purchase order and where it stands; Standing Orders are orders that repeat: on their day a draft is written for you to review and place. Nothing is ever sent to a vendor on its own.

Receiving

1. Open Receive and pick the purchase order that came in, or choose Receive without an order for something bought at the counter.
2. What is still to come is filled in. Change an amount if less arrived; clear it if that part did not come. The order stays open for the rest.
3. Type the lot number and expiration date where the part tracks them, and the packing slip or invoice number.
4. Choose Receive it.

Each quantity received makes a stock tag: what came, when, at what cost, with its lot and date. Print tag labels with the tag's barcode to put on the shelf.

Stock, moving and adjusting

Stock, On hand shows every tag on hand, by place, with what it is worth. Open a tag to move it, adjust it with a reason, write it off, or print its label. Stock is taken from what expires first, then what was received first.

Under Setup, Stock rule, Never let stock go below zero refuses to sell or use more than is on hand. Off, it is allowed and the shortfall is flagged to correct.

Counts

1. Open Counts and choose Start a count: of a place, a group, or the bins of a place.
2. It writes down what the system thinks is on hand. Walk the shelves and enter what is really there; scan to jump to a line.
3. Choose Post count. Each difference goes into the ledger and the books. Nothing changes until you post.

Count blind hides what is expected while counting, so what is entered is what was seen.

Losses

Losses shows what was written off and why: damaged and unsellable, expired, shrinkage, samples and testers, each with its own account in the books. It lists lots past their date (write them off, or move them to a held place), and what runs out in the next 60 days so you sell it first. When a carrier, a warehouse or a vendor damaged stock, record a Claim for what it cost; what they pay comes off the loss.

Units and conversions

Under Setup, add Units of measure (each, ounce, tube, case) and How units convert: rules for every part, and a rule for one part (a tube of color is 2 oz) on the part itself.

The marketplace

Marketplace is where brands, distributors and services on the app sell to businesses at wholesale, by industry. Apply to a brand that shows its prices only to the businesses it approves, order at your prices, and what arrives can go straight into your parts. See The marketplace.

Reports

Reports shows the stock's activity: what came in and went out, what it is worth, and aging and turnover.

Retail: stores, sell-through and restocking

With advanced inventory on, the retail add-on watches each store's stock. Turn it on under Inventory, Setup, Advanced inventory, Use the retail add-on; it needs advanced inventory on first. A store is a location whose kind is Store (set it in the Locations view). Inventory then has a Retail view, with five parts of its own:

• Overview: sell-through over the last four weeks beside the four before, items that ran out at a store this week and last, what is under its safety stock, and the transfers on their way. Choose a figure to see what is behind it.
• Stores: each store with what it holds for sale and is worth at cost (its back bar, kept for services, is left out, as it is from sell-through), what is below its reorder point or under its safety stock, how many days its stock lasts at the last four weeks' sales, and when it was last counted. Open one to see what is low there and what is already on its way.
• Sell-through: by product or by store over a week, a month, a quarter, a year or days you choose, beside the period before. Sell-through is what sold over what there was to sell: the opening stock and what came in. Weeks of cover is how long the closing stock lasts at that rate. Download gives the table as a spreadsheet.
• Restocking: What to send lists every item at or under its reorder point at a store, counting what is already on its way, with what brings it back up to its order-up-to level. Pick where it comes from (a warehouse, as a rule), change any amount, choose Drafts or Asked for, and Make transfers: one transfer a store, all at once. Levels at each store is every item against every store, one level at a time, saved together.
• Store counts: each store's last count and the counts open there. Count everything here starts a count of the store; with bins, a count of the bins counted longest ago. Posting one changes stock as any count does.

Sales at the register and online, and orders sent from a store, count as sold where their stock left from. Once a day the app tells your webhooks when something at a store has fallen to its reorder point, with what each store needs (Restocking suggested); it never makes a transfer by itself.

Best practices

• Name a part the way its vendor's invoice does, and keep the vendor's part number on it. Receiving becomes matching, not guessing.
• Set reorder levels on what sells most first.
• Receive every delivery against its purchase order, the day it arrives.
• Count a little often rather than everything once a year.
• Write off what is damaged or expired as it happens, with the right reason, so the books show where stock goes.
• Leave Never let stock go below zero off until your counts are good, then switch it on.
• Set a store's order-up-to level to about two weeks of its sales, and its reorder point to what it sells while a transfer is on its way, plus its safety stock.
• Look at sell-through by store before moving stock between stores: a low sell-through with weeks of cover is stock to send where it sells.