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Inventory management

A major feature of this system is the ability to manage inventory, using three different inventory types. Each inventory type is used for specific purposes, with a relationship tying them each together.

Components

Components are what a business purchases through the purchasing system, and are stored in the warehouse. Components are not directly sold to customers.
Components have the following attributes:

• Name: human-readable name for the component.

• SKU: internal ID used to represent the component (must be unique).

• UPC: optional secondary identifier.

• isUnits: a true/false field, signifying how the component is measured.

• Bottles, caps or labels, for example, would be measured in units.

• An oil sold by volume (ml, fl oz or gal), and or an oil or other raw material sold by weight (wt oz, lbs or kgs) would be “not units.”

• Category / Subcategory: for filtering and organization.

• Threshold: if estimated stock levels fall below this value, an alert can be triggered.

• Default density: used to more accurately convert between volume and weight units.

• forResale: if set to false, the component will be excluded from reports

Components can also have the following mappings / extensions:

• Suppliers, with supplier codes, for easier lookups.

• Batches, for keeping track of lot numbers, expiration dates, and CoA information.

• Containers: a warehouse tracking system, more on that later.

Products

Products are made up of components, and represent what is sold to customers. Product setup is very similar to how components are set up, with the main difference being products can only be measured in units, and a product can potentially be a bundle.

As an example, you have have a product that maps to these components:

• 16 fl oz of a raw material

• 1 x 16 oz bottle (the product’s container, measured in units)

• 1 x cap (perhaps a spray cap that was purchased separately from the bottle)

• 1 x label for the bottle 

Using the products -> components mapping system, a sale for 1 product can be automatically broken down into the amounts for each component, allowing for faster and more accurate reporting.

Product map to components. However, you can also make a product that is a bundle, which will map to other products. This will allow you to set up “pack of” skus, or variety sets, without having to do excessive math. For example, you could create a “pack of 2” product that maps to qty 2 of the product used in the example above. Then, any sale for this “pack of 2” product automatically breaks down into 32 fl oz raw material, 2 bottles, 2 caps, and 2 labels.

This software currently integrates with ShipSation, and product skus are mapped to shipstation products using the alias system. This will allow for consolidated reporting, even if you have the same products on multiple marketplaces (or even the same marketplace) with different skus. 

In order for this to work, you will need a local copy of ShipStation’s data for your business. The software includes scripts to automatically gather this information, and can be set to run at whatever times you’d like. 

Fulfillment

Fulfillment items are similar to products, but are separated according to marketplace. For example, a product may be used for fulfillment on Amazon, and also on Walmart. Internally, in terms of a product, it is the same. However, each marketplace considers it a different item, with a different set of identifying information (sku, marketplace id, ASIN, etc). The separate tracking allows for easier management through the Fulfillment Workflow and Fulfillment Event system. More on this later.

 

Purchasing/Receiving

The purchasing system allows you to better track invoices from your suppliers, and even track receipts (receiving events). First, you create a new purchase order, selecting a supplier you’ve set up and entering an order date and internal PO number. Then, you add items to the PO from the component system. 

When the component arrives, it is “received” through the system, putting in a date / time and amount that arrived. Overall status of the item and PO is handled automatically, so shortages and overages can be detected and automatically displayed.

Warehouse/Container System

The container system is used to track locations of components, using a “per box” or “per generic container” system. As an example, you may order an item that comes in boxes of 100, and you may receive 8 of them. Or you may receive a component in a 180 kg drum, and receive two of them. The box, or the drum, is the “container,” and each container can be set to a custom location, and even has a system to track status (sealed, opened, discarded), quantity (how much remains in the container), which purchase order / receiving event it was from, and which batch it belongs to.

Production

As mentioned above, products are made up of components. The act of assembling components into a product (ex: taking a bottle, filling it with various amounts of a raw material component, putting a cap on it, and applying a label) is called “production.” The production system simply tracks who, when, what, and how many. 

If integrated with ShipStation, it is possible to use the “Scan Production” system to provide a list of order numbers, which will be searched in order to load up all items in that group of orders. You can then easily adjust for which ones had to be produced. 

Fulfillment

The fulfillment system, a very recent addition to the software, is used to track fulfillment item stocks, and workflows. 

The system allows for two ShipStation integration options:

• Stores that can include fulfillment sales (Amazon)

• Stores that cannot integrate fulfillment sales, so a manual store must be made (Walmart)

Once you set up prodivers (and optionally, a list of addresses for each supplier), and set up fulfillment items for each prodiver, you can begin “prepping” fulfillment items. This is essentially pre-preparing items for fulfillment, a step which may differ depending on the fulfillment provider (which is partially why fulfillment items are managed separately from products). Some providers may require certain labels on their fulfillments items, or may want them wrapped or packed in a specific way. 

The fulfillment workflow system is used to plan and set up workflows for your fulfillment providers, and allows you to add items and amounts to the workflow, box up your workflow shipments, and set timestamps for when they were sent off to fulfillment centers. This shipment data is taken into account when estimating component (and product) stock levels. Like purchase orders, statuses are handled automatically, so it can be easily seen which items still need to be prepped, and which items have already been sent out, and so on.

Stock Estimates

Technically, there are two stock estimate systems currently in play. One is the warehouse container system, which is meant to be a “real time” location-based system currently only used for components (though that may change in the future). Using the warehouse system, it should be possible to ascertain exactly how much of a component you have in stock, provided you keep the container system accurate and up-to-date.

The other system is the “event” system. All three inventory types (component, product and fulfillment item) allow you to enter in a “count” event. Think of this like a starting amount that you have for the inventory item, at that specific moment in time. Depending on the inventory type, this amount is then increased or decreased over time until you reach today’s date and time, and what you should have then is an accurate estimate of what you should have in stock.

Component Estimates

Component estimates operate with a starting count, with any purchase order receiving events after that date/time adding to the amount, and any product sales (from ShipStation) or fulfillment item outgoing shipments (from the fulfillment system) are broken down into components and are subtracted from that amount. 

Note that product production does not subtract from component estimates at this time. This may change in the future. Component counts are entered from the warehouse module.

Product Estimates

Similar to component estimates, these begin with a starting count, with production events increasing the number, while product sales and outgoing fulfillment subtracting. Product counts are entered in the production section.

Fulfillment Estimates

As expected, these begin with a starting count, with fulfillment prep increasing the amounts, and outgoing fulfillment shipments decreasing it. Fulfillment estimates are not yet available in the system, but are planned to be implemented by the end of the month.

A starting count is necessary to give an accurate estimate, and it’s recommended that you enter in new counts every 3-6 months, in order to make reporting quicker.