Setting up your items and inventory is a key step to ensuring the success of your store. This is a collection of all the products available in your store(s) and where you record essential product information such as product names, pricing, supply costs, variations, and inventory. A well-set-up inventory makes for an efficient sales process, accurate reporting, and better inventory management.

Understanding item types

There are five types of items that can be added to your inventory:

Individual item

A single product with a single SKU and its own inventory. Examples include a plant, handbag, or one of a kind housewares.

Item matrix

A group of similar items that are offered in different variations, such as size or color. Each variant in the matrix is a unique SKU with its own inventory. Examples include a shirt that comes in different colors and sizes or teapots that come in different colors.

Boxes

A situation where you buy an item by the case but you sell it by the case, in smaller packs or as a single. An example would be a case of 12 boxes of tea that you sell by the case or by individual box.

Assembly

A combination of individual items you receive from vendors and sell them as a fully assembled item, such as a bicycle, or items you sell as a bundle such as a gift basket.

Non inventoried items

An item with no stock. For example, a gift wrapping or maintenance fee.

Adding items to your inventory

Items can be added to your inventory individually from the Inventory screen. This allows you to add items to your inventory and can be especially useful if you sell a limited number of products or don't make large changes to your product offering on a regular basis.

Select the type of item you wish to add for detailed steps:

• Individual item
• Item matrix
• Box
• Assembly
• Non-inventoried item

Adding items with a spreadsheet

For larger product offerings or already digitized product inventories outside of Retail POS, formatting and importing items via a spreadsheet (CSV or XLSX) will allow you to speed up the process.

We recommend getting familiar with adding products individually before importing with a spreadsheet. Once you have an idea of the type of product information you require, refer to our Importing products using a spreadsheet to learn how to correctly format the product information and import it to Retail POS.

Adding inventory to your items

Adding inventory allows you to utilize Retail POS inventory management, a feature that maintains accurate stock levels for your items as you make sales so you always know what you have in stock.

Reporting is also an important part of inventory management, not only for tracking the sales performance of your products but calculating the cost and profitability of those products too.

Before adding inventory to your items

Before you begin adding inventory to your items, we recommend checking that you have correctly entered a unit cost for each of your items. This will ensure reporting that relies on the unit cost remains accurate.

• Unit cost: The cost of the item when you buy it from the supplier. This is initially entered when adding a product to your product catalog and subsequently confirmed or updated (as needed) when creating purchase orders/receiving stock. The unit cost is then used to calculate the product's average cost.
• Average cost: The average cost is a value for each product that is automatically calculated in Retail POS by averaging all supply prices recorded over time. The calculation for average cost occurs and updates in the following situations:
  • When items are received from a purchase order.
  • When the item’s unit cost and/or quantity on hand is updated manually.
  • When performing a vendor return.
  • When performing an inventory import that includes quantity on hand and cost information.

Adding inventory during the setup process

While you're still setting up, you can add inventory to your products directly as long as an inventory movement hasn't already been triggered for the product(s), by:

• Editing items manually
• Using a spreadsheet 

Adding inventory after going live

Once you've gone live, inventory movements have been triggered, and the average cost is set, you should only use a purchase order to add inventory.