This article helps you to manage the QuoteMachine inventory module as follows:
1. Initial set up
Once you’ve acquired the inventory module you’ll be able to access it from the left side menu.
At first only the “Settings” tab will be available in the inventory section. Use the toggle there to activate the feature.
Once enabled, you will be prompted to choose a cost calculation method from the following available options:
- FIFO (first in first out)
- LIFO (last in first out)
- WAC (weighted average cost)
After saving the selection, the rest of the tabs in the module will become available such as:
- Stock Control: This is where all documents related to stock movements will be found
- Imports: In this section, the user ou can import items via a csv file upload. A list of all imports and their statuses is also available
- Stock Locations: Stock location set up
- Documents types: Inventory document setup
2. Set up stock locations
A stock location is associated with a location in QM and is created as follows:
*** Notably, at least one stock location is required in order for stock tracking to be enabled and you can create as many stock locations as your subscription allows.
3. Import Items
From the “Imports” tab you’ll be able to download a csv template, complete it with your products information and upload them to QuoteMachine.
*** To learn more on how to import items for inventory tracking, please check here.
You can verify the imported items by clicking on each import:
4. Customizing the document types
Three types of documents are available to record different types of stock movement
- Vendor Return (takes stock out)
- Purchase Order (adds stock)
- Stock Adjustment (allows to adjust stock by either taking stock out or in)
You can customize each document and Email templates under the templates tab:
5. Stock control
In this section, you could create the inventory documents such as Vendor Return, Purchase Order and Manual adjustment as follows:
Vendor Return:
This document is used to return the items to the vendor. To do so, first create a contact as vendor and save it.
Then from the inventory section, select new stock movement under the stock control tab:
On the following window, select, the document type as "Vendor Return", then "Location" and the Vendor.
Add the items to the pricing table and Email this document to the vendor:
After marking it as done, the status is changed to "in progress":
Once you have the items in hand, click on send items button and adjust the amount of items being sent to the vendor:
Then, the status is changed to completed.
Purchase order:
The purchase order is sent to the vendor/supplier to outline what the merchant would like to purchase and how much of it they would like to receive.
To create the Purchase order, you could add the items either from the catalog or any open order as follows:
After receiving the items, select the “Receive items “ button to complete the purchase order:
Stock Adjustment:
This document allows you to adjust the stock by either taking items out or in:
6. Enable stock tracking for items:
On the products’ pages, a new “Inventory” tab is available. Use the toggle there to enable stock tracking for the item. Once done, two sections with inventory information about the item become available under the " Quantity per location":
For each location, the following stock information will be available:
Quantity Available: quantity in stock that is not reserved and could be included in sales.
Quantity on Hand: all quantity in stock (sum of available and reserved quantity)
Quantity Reserved: quantity that’s been included in QM orders
Quantity in transit: quantity that’s been ordered but not yet received (total quantity of all POs for the item with a “In progress” status)
*** Important note: To add a new item to the inventory, you need to create the item in the catalog then enable "Track inventory" . After that, create an stock adjustment document to add this item to the inventory.
Adjustment History
All stock movements for the items will be listed here along with links to the corresponding inventory documents.
7. Track Inventory for Matrices
Tracking your inventory will allow you to view all adjustment history for a specific item. To turn this on navigate to Catalog > Matrices > Click into item. From here click into the Inventory tab at the top.
Once you click on the Inventory tab, switch on Track inventory.
Now you should be able to see Quantities per location, be able to update quantity on hand, see all matrices for that item, add suppliers and see all adjustment history.
For more information on Matrices, please visit our Matrices article.