Setting Up Products for Inventory Management

You can work with any product to set it to work well with the inventory ordering system by logging into the system and going to Products > Products, search for the product, then click on its title to go to the Edit Product view.

In the Edit View of the product, you'll want to make sure of a few key areas to prepare the product for working with our PO/RO system. The first is on the right-side of the upper part of the Details tab, as pictured below.

To set your Primary Vendor and any Secondary Vendors, click on the Select Vendors button. You'll be able to search for any Vendor you have saved in the system.

Please note: after you select a Vendor, it is best to scroll to the bottom of the page and Save the product immediately. That will allow you to do the next step.

After you have a Vendor saved for the product, you'll be able to do the next part, which is configuring your reordering. This will be further down the Details tab in the gray section where you enter product ID numbers and prices. Find the area just below the Inventory area, as pictured below:

The Purchasing area allows you to set how the vendor packages inventory they send to you. Click the Manage link to open the window below and you can set a wide variety of packaging options.

You can set the Reorder Point you want for the product. This is the quantity on hand at which you feel it would be necessary to reorder the item. This number tells the system if the item is in a 'low inventory' state or not. Items that have inventory above this number will not appear on the Low Inventory report, and will not automatically be prompted to be added to vendor Purchase Orders.

The Desired Stock Level is the ideal amount to have on hand before you start selling an item, so whatever number at which you would consider the item to be fully stocked. The ordering system will do its best to get you to exactly that number with your order. So if you have two on hand and your Desired Stock Level is 24, it will automatically put in the quantity of 22 on the order.

Your Default Cost is only needed for items you have never ordered through our PO/RO system. When you order an item that has no ordering history, the system won't know what Cost to put into the Purchase Order. The Default Cost will let you put in your 'guess' about what the Cost might be per unit (or yard, or meter, as the case may be). After you've received your first order of the item, the system will use your Cost history to populate that field in Purchase Orders.

That's it! If you do that will all of your products, every time you go to the Low Inventory report you will see items that need to be reordered and which Vendors have the most items low in inventory, so you'll be better able to stay on top of your inventory levels.