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Inventory Tracking

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Overview

The Order Manager can "track" your inventory, i.e. as you receive new inventory, ship orders, accept returns and process exchanges, etc., the program keeps track of exactly how many of each item you have in stock. Or, if you prefer, you can configure the program to ignore inventory levels and just assume that everything is always in stock. 

Track Inventory

• To configure the program to track your inventory quantity-on-hand (QOH) the number of pieces of a particular product that the merchant has available to fill orders (in the context of the basic Order Manager inventory system); the number of pieces of a particular product that actually reside in the merchant's warehouse that have not been marked as shipped (in the context of the Warehouse Manager's Inventory Management System), set the system parameter CheckInventory (in the Order parameter group) to TRUE.

The exceptions are:

• Drop Ship an order placed with a supplier for an item or items that are not normally stocked by the merchant; the supplier then ships the merchandise directly to the merchant's customer. The merchant does not take ownership of any of the supplier's inventory. Items: The Order Manager does not track QOH for drop-ship items.

• Items Marked "Ignore QOH": This option one of the possible choices for a product's attribute; for example, blue is an option for the product attribute of color, introduced in the Order Manager version 2.010, lets you track inventory for some items, but ignore it for others. For example, most of your items are probably physical products, such as books or clothing. But you may also sell "virtual" items such as software or electronic books that are delivered electronically and thus are always "in stock". Select to mouse "left-click" on an object, usually a row in a table, in the context of Order Manager documentation the Ignore QOH option for your virtual products and the Order Manager treats them as always available to ship. 

Figure 1: Inventory screen synonymous with the Microsoft Access Form Object or user interface. - Product Info tab

Do Not Track (Ignore) Inventory

• To configure the program to assume all items are always in stock, set the system parameter CheckInventory (in the Order parameter group) to FALSE.

• If you use this option, you can still backorder When an item is out of stock, preventing an order from being fulfilled, the program considers the item to be "backordered". If inventory tracking is enabled in the Order Manager, Manager, the program will to backorder items. an item if necessary.

• 1. At the View Orders screen, navigate to the appropriate order record and then select the item you wish to backorder by clicking anywhere in the item row.

  2. Click the [Force] button in the group of Backorder buttons (Fill, Cancel and Force).

  3. Later, to fill the backorder, click the [Adjust QOH] button and change the current QOH to reflect at least as much stock as is needed to fill the backorder.

  4. Then use the [Fill] button to fill the backorder.

Figure 2: Order screen, showing buttons related to backorders

Other Related Options

• Tracking Inventory Adjustments (Adjustments to QOH):

1. To track changes made to inventory QOH values, set the system parameter TrackInventoryAdjustments (in the Program parameter group) to TRUE.

2. Each time you adjust the QOH of an item from any location in the Order Manager, the program stores the details, i.e. the reason for the adjustment, who made the adjustment and the quantity increased or decreased.

3. To review these details, print the Inventory Adjustments report.

4. The lists of reasons for adjustments and sales people are both maintained at the List Maintenance screen which is accessed via the Maintenance Menu.

• First In First Out Cost Tracking (FIFO):

• This option tracks your cost of goods sold on a First In First Out (FIFO (first in first out) method of tracking inventory costs) basis.

• It is controlled by the system parameter TrackInventoryFIFO (in the Program parameter group). If this option is set to TRUE, the program tracks all incoming and outgoing inventory and its cost.

• FIFO requires that you enter a cost for all inventory items. If inventory is received, adjusted, etc. and an item does not have its cost on file, the program will prompt you to enter the cost at that time. 

• To set up your initial costs, go to the Maintenance Menu > Inventory Functions tab > Initialize FIFO Data.

•  You can then initialize your costs, either from your existing inventory data, or by importing it from a text file.

• Once you are tracking your FIFO data, you can check the FIFO status of any item by navigating to the appropriate item record on the Inventory screen and clicking the [FIFO Status] button.

• There are also two special reports - FIFO Inventory Details by Supplier vendor and FIFO Inventory Value by Supplier - that you can use to print FIFO information.

• Sub SKUs:

• • Using Sub-SKUs allows the program to track your inventory at the attribute level, i.e. colors, sizes, etc. These are usually displayed as drop-down lists that let your customers select colors, sizes, styles or other options.

  • It works with shopping carts that support "order options" or "attributes Product attributes are color, size, or style etc. An attribute can have various options or variants from which the customer can choose, such as Large or Extra Large for the size attribute, or Blue or Green for the color attribute. The base product SKU combined with each of the possible options for each attribute create a sub-SKU record in the Order Manager's inventory. Sub-SKUs are important for tracking the accurate quantity on hand for a particular item rather than the general product.". Some shopping cart an e-commerce software system that allows a merchant to sell products on the Web. In the context of the Order Manager, it refers to the settings that describe a merchants web store to the program, allowing it communicate with the online shopping cart and import orders, and other information etc. systems already have unique SKUs for each variant of a product and it is not necessary to build Sub-SKUs.

  • When the Order Manager imports orders from your shopping cart, it will combine the main or "parent" SKU the abbreviation for Stock Keeping Unit; a unique identifier used to track product inventory for each item with the selected options to generate Sub SKUs for the items ordered. The program then uses the sub SKUs to track inventory. For more information, see Options, Attributes and Sub SKUs.

• Real-Time Inventory Tracking:

• • This feature is only available with some shopping cart systems. It enables your customers see up-to-the-minute inventory status (in stock, out of stock, etc.) information about your products.  For information about other shopping carts that support Real-Time Inventory Tracking, see the Cart Matrix.

  • As items are received into the Order Manager, or sold at the Manual Orders and Point of Sale (POS abbreviation for Point of Sale. The cash register interface for use with walk-in business at "brick and mortar" stores. Used with barcode scanners and cash drawers. Sales made on the POS screen draw from the same inventory as orders imported from online stores.) screens, etc., the changes in inventory QOH are reflected in your Web store within minutes or seconds.

  • Click the following links for information about inventory tracking with Miva Merchant, Yahoo!Store and AbleCommerce.

Created: 10/11/11

Modified: 9/12/13

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