Getting started as a product brand

This walkthrough takes a product brand from a new account to taking orders online, shipping them on its own carrier accounts and selling to salons and shops at wholesale. A brand has no calendar: the app opens on Products, Inventory and Shipping. Follow it in order.

1. Create the business

1. Choose Start free on BookNovi's site, or Create an account on the sign-in page, and make your account. The guided setup starts on its own.
2. Type the brand's name under The business’s name, pick Product brand under Other kinds of business, and choose Next.
3. Check the Time zone, type the address and phone (or leave them for later), and choose Next.
4. Under What do you sell and book?: say yes to the sales CRM if you have people who call on or visit salons and shops, and to coupons, gift cards or loyalty if you offer them. Choose Next.
5. Say how many people work there, how you heard of us and, if a rep or a partner gave you a code, type it in. Choose Start my business.

Inventory, wholesale and shipping are on for every brand. The people you sell to are called Customers, and your people the Team, until you name them yourself in Settings.

The business opens with What to do next: the steps of this walkthrough as a list that ticks itself as each gets done, under the top bar and in your menu at the top right. Your free trial starts the same day; see Plans and billing.

2. Set up the business

Open Settings, Business: set the Time zone and choose Save. Under Location and Tax, type the address you work from and the sales tax, and choose Save.

3. Say where stock is kept

1. Open Inventory and choose Setup, then Where stock is kept.
2. Add a location group for each building: your own warehouse, a back room, or a third-party warehouse (3PL).
3. Add the locations in each: shelves, a receiving dock, a quarantine shelf. Each says whether stock is received into it, picked from it, and counts as available.

See Warehouses, bins and pick lists to lay a warehouse out in bins. Stock kept in more than one place, such as your warehouse and a 3PL, or several stores, is followed location by location with advanced inventory; each building's address and hours are set in Admin.

4. Vendors and parts

A part is what you buy and count; a product is what you sell.

1. Open Inventory, Purchasing, Vendors, and choose Add vendor for each supplier, with their terms and lead time.
2. Open Parts and choose Add part for each thing you stock: the finished bottles you sell, and the packaging and materials you buy. Give each its brand, type, unit and cost, and switch on lot numbers and expiration dates for anything that expires.
3. On a part's page, set Low at, Reorder at and Order up to, so Purchasing can tell you what to reorder.

5. Products

1. Open Products and choose Add product: its name, price, brand, category and picture.
2. Under What It Is Made Of, choose the part that leaves stock when one is sold (a kit or gift set takes several).
3. For sizes or scents, name the option and list what it comes in. Each combination is a variant with its own price, SKU and part.
4. Switch on On the website to sell it online, and On the register to ring it up in person.
5. Group products into collections (best sellers, gift sets, a line) under Collections.

See Products.

6. Get stock in

Order from a vendor in Inventory, Purchasing, then receive it under Receive when it comes; or, for stock you already have, use Receive without an order. Each receipt makes a stock tag with its cost, lot and date. See Inventory.

7. Open the online store

1. Settings, Card payments: an owner chooses Set up card payments.
2. Products, Online Store: switch on Sell online, then set how orders reach customers (shipping rates by zone, pickup or local delivery) and sales tax.
3. Website: build your site with Edit the site and Publish it. Until it is published, only you and people with its password can shop.

The Taking Orders card lists what is still to do. See The online store.

8. Ship on your own carrier accounts

Open Shipping, Settings, and connect your UPS, FedEx or USPS account, add the boxes you pack in, and say where parcels go out from. Orders waiting show under To Ship: pick a rate and buy the label. See Shipping.

9. Sell at wholesale

1. Open Products, Wholesale. Under Account types, add the kinds of business you sell to (Salon, Spa, Distributor), each with a price list and payment terms.
2. Under Price lists, set a percent off retail, prices of your own, case packs and minimums.
3. Under Store settings, switch on Take applications online so businesses apply from your store's Wholesale page.

See Wholesale.

Best practices

• Name parts the way they are written on the vendor's invoice, and products the way a customer says them.
• Track lot numbers and expiration dates from the first receipt. It is much harder to start later, and a recall needs it.
• Set reorder levels on your best sellers first. Purchasing then lists what to buy before you run out.
• Weigh every product. Shipping rates by weight and label prices both depend on it.
• Keep wholesale prices in price lists, not on each account, so a change reaches every account of that type.