Adding and Editing Inventory Items

The function for adding, editing, or viewing inventory details is accessed through Maintenance / P.O.S. Inventory Setup / Inventory Items (assuming you are authorized for the P.O.S. option).

Inventory Items Setup

The Inventory Items Setup dialog lists all current inventory items, with buttons to Add, Insert, Edit, Copy, or Delete items.  Double-clicking on an item in the list will also edit it.

Inactive items will show "(INACTIVE)" next to the Inventory code in the list.  To make an item active again (or to set one inactive), Edit the Inventory Item and check the "Item is Inactive" box accordingly.

You can also Move items up or down in the list -- this is primarily just for your convenience, to group similar items together.

You can also print the entire list, or print a Form for any items selected, by clicking the Print List or Print a Form button.  If the Print a Form button is clicked, the Select Form dialog will allow you to choose which form to print for each selected item (assuming any Forms are defined with Inventory Items as the base table).

Add/Remove General Discounts -- These buttons let you select any number of inventory items and add a General Discount to all of them or remove a General Discount from all of them, in one step.  This is handy for when you have a new discount or sale situation that applies to many or all items.

Edit Inventory Item

The Edit Inventory Item dialog is used for editing single items, but also has the standard Previous and Next buttons, Add New, Delete, Find, and Print buttons at the top just like the dialogs for Customer Details, Reservation Details, and Site Details (see one of those sections for details on how these functions work).

If there are no inventory item records yet, or if you click Add New, the Record ID will show <NEW RECORD>.  To add an item, just enter the information needed into this new record.  (Be careful -- if it actually shows a number for Record ID, you're editing an existing inventory record!)

When you're finished with an item's information, you can click Save,  which will save the changes and close the dialog -- or you can immediately click Add New to add another record so items can be entered one after another.  Each time you click Add New, the current item information will be saved, a new record will be created and the cursor will immediately jump to the Inventory code field to help speed entry.  Another time-saver is to use Alt-A on the keyboard instead of using the mouse to click Add New.

To further speed item entry, certain fields will be automatically set to the values used in the last item.  These fields are Inventory Class, Transaction Category, and any Tax selections.  Therefore it's a good idea to add your inventory in batches of similar items, so you don't have to change these fields often.

Another helpful feature is the Add Dup button.  This adds a new record with exactly the same information as the current one (and jumps to the new record so you're editing that one, not the original one).  This helps when you're entering many similar items, for instance different kinds of soft drinks.  Often the only changes you need to make between them are the inventory code (especially if using the bar code), description, and quantity on hand.  Vendor stock # or description might also need to be changed if you're not letting those default (leaving them blank -- see below).

If you decide not to save the changes or new record, even after entering some information, click the Cancel button.  You will be warned if any new information would be lost by canceling the changes to the record, at which point you can abort the Cancel and get back to the dialog without losing your changes.

There is no limit to the number of items you can enter (except in demo mode), except computer memory (10000 or more is generally not a problem).

The fields are described in detail below.  All discounts must have a description and either a percentage or an amount -- the rest of the fields are optional, and define when and how the rate is applied.

Inventory Code

If you're using a bar-code scanner, this should be the bar code as scanned from the product (you can use the scanner to read the bar code right into this field).  Otherwise it can be any name or code you want to use for the item.  While it's possible to leave this field blank, it's not recommended since some reports show items using this field.  Having one or more items with blank codes will make reports confusing.

Tip:  When an item scan code or text is entered on the P.O.S. sales entry dialog, it will look for an exact match with this field first -- if one and only one exact match is found, then that item will be immediately added to the ticket.  So if you're not using bar codes for everything, then using short unique codes like "fw" for firewood can speed sales entry for common items.

If more than one exact match is found, then it will show those items in a list for you to select from (for instance you could use the code "soda" for all of your soda items).  If no exact match is found, then it looks through all items looking for a partial match with either the inventory code or description fields, and will show all partial matches in a list to choose from.   If only one partial match is found, and if the Program Option is set to auto-add a single partial match, it will be used automatically.  Otherwise, if any partial matches are found they will be listed for you to select one.

More... codes

If you want to have more than one code match a single item, e.g. to have all types of candy bars ring up as a single "candy bar" item, then click the "More..." button next to the code entry field.  You can scan or enter any number of codes (or put any number of searchable words).  Just make sure each one is on a separate line.  A match on any one of these when making a sale will work the same as a match on the primary Inventory Code.  However all reporting will be done using only the main Inventory Code -- there will not be a record of which code was actually scanned or entered for the item.

Description

This description is exactly what will be shown on receipts for the item, so it should be descriptive enough for the customer.  It should also be short enough for the printer, so if you're using a 3" receipt printer (normally 40 columns), keep it short enough to fit on one line.  If you're using a pole display, it should be limited to 20 characters (or at least make the first 20 characters reasonably descriptive).  Also keep in mind that if discounts might apply then you should leave room for the discount's description.  Receipts will show discounts with this description followed by the discount description, like "20 oz. soda : 10% off" (where the discount description is "10% off").

Inventory Class

Every item must be assigned to an inventory class.  Depending on how detailed you want your reporting, you might have 2 classes or 100 classes, or more.  This is completely up to you.  Just click on the drop-down list and select the appropriate class.  For convenience, you can click the Edit button next to the drop-down list to open the entire pick-list of classes for editing or adding new ones.  For more information about setting these up, see the inventory setup section Inventory Classes & Transaction Categories.

Transaction Category

As with Inventory Class, each item must have a transaction category assigned, which will be used for each sale (charge) transaction for this item.  See above for details.

Park (location)

This field will only appear only if you have more than one Park record defined.  If you don't separate your inventory between parks (e.g. keep track of qty on hand separately for each location), leave this field blank.  

Otherwise, select the park where this inventory item is located.  If you have the same items at multiple parks, then the inventory items will have to be duplicated for each park, with the appropriate park selected and quantity on hand entered for each location.  Also note that you will need to set up a filter under Filter inventory sales lookup at each workstation depending on its location, so that the proper inventory record is used and updated as sales are entered.

Vendor

If you want to keep track of the vendor for each item (or the preferred vendor, if several), then select that vendor here.  Of course this is mostly important if you'll be printing purchase orders with the program, but you might want to just keep this information for your reference also.  You can add a new vendor easily with the New Vendor button, without leaving the item you're working on.  Note that it's important that each vendor have a different name, so that they can be identified in this list and assigned properly.

Vendor's Stock # and Description

These are only necessary if you're printing purchase orders.  Even so, if the item's inventory code can be used for the vendor's stock #, and/or the item's description can be used for the vendor's description, then you can leave one or both of these fields blank.  In that case, you must also make sure that the corresponding options in Maintenance / Printing Options / Purchase Orders are also enabled.  If the vendor for this particular item wants a specific stock # or description, then you need to enter them here.

Cost each

This is helpful if you're printing purchase orders (so you don't have to enter it into the order each time), or you can enter it just for your reference.  However it's not used in any reporting or accounting at this time.

Re-order threshold

This value can be used to warn you when stock is getting low, if the warning is enabled (Maintenance / Program Options / P.O.S.).  It's also used for reporting (P.O.S. / Inventory Reports / Items below re-order threshold), and for automatically selecting items when creating purchase orders (P.O.S. / Purchase Orders / Create Purchase Orders).

Re-order minimum qty

This value is only used for the default order quantity when creating purchase orders (P.O.S. / Purchase Orders / Create Purchase Orders).  Otherwise it can be left blank or just entered for reference.

Quantity on hand

This is the current quantity in stock, and should be entered for any item for which you wish to track the inventory level.  It will be automatically updated each time a sale (or return) is made, and can be updated through purchase order receiving.  Of course you can manually edit it here whenever needed also.  If you receive more items that you want to add to inventory, you should use the "Add" button next to the quantity and enter the number added.  This helps minimize mistakes that could be made by calculating the new quantity by hand.

If you don't want to track inventory for an item (and don't want any warnings that it's out of inventory), leave this field blank.  Don't enter 0 -- that would actually indicate none in stock, not that you don't want to track it.

Note that the quantity doesn't have to be a whole number.  For instance you can track gasoline, propane, yards of rope or whatever you need to in decimal-point quantities like 1.5 or 0.03.  Likewise, the price will be multiplied appropriately with whatever quantity you enter on the P.O.S. sales entry dialog, and inventory updated accordingly.

Price Each

This must be entered for every inventory item (unless Ask is checked -- see below).  This should be the pre-tax price for a single item (Quantity 1), before any discounts.  The dollar sign (or other currency symbol) does not have to be entered, just enter a number like 5 or 1.95.  Prices must be entered with the decimal point if not whole dollars -- it does not assume 2 decimal places (e.g. $5.00 is entered as 5, not 500).

Ask for price

If you check the "Ask" box next to Price Each, a small dialog for entering a price will appear when this item is selected when entering sales.  This would typically be for bulk-type items like gasoline, propane, or miscellaneous fees -- you can either interpret it as a total price (e.g. assume the Qty is 1) or a per-item price (e.g. assume they might have a multiple qty of an item that can vary in price).

If you check this box and also enter a Price Each value, then the Price Each will be used as a default.  The clerk can leave it at that price or change it.  If there is no "typical" price, then leave Price Each blank.

Ask for Qty each sale

If this option is checked, it will always pop up a window to ask for the quantity sold, immediately after scanning or selecting an item.  This eliminates the need to enter the Quantity before scanning the item, but also means an extra step (at least clicking OK or pressing Enter) for each one.  So it's recommended only for items that are usually sold in quantities other than 1 (e.g. a measured item like propane).

Applicable Taxes

Check the box for any taxes that normally apply to this item when it's sold.  The total price with tax (for a single item) will be shown below.  Of course tax is actually calculated after all items on a ticket are added up, rounding appropriately on the total rather than adding tax to each item at once.

Note that there is also an option to sell items as Non-taxable (e.g. for tax exempt customers), in which case the tax selections here would be ignored.

General Discount Pricing Schedules Applicable

To select one or more applicable general discounts, click the Select Discounts button.  A list will appear with all general discounts shown.  Use Ctrl-click to select one or more discount that should apply to this item.  Once selected, you can change their order with Move Up and Move Down.  Remember that the discounts will be applied in the order they appear here, so the order can be important if the discounts aren't defined to be mutually exclusive.  See the Item Discounts section for details on how discounts work.

Item-specific Discount Pricing Schedules

Item-specific discounts must be set up separately for each item that requires them (thus it's best to use general discounts whenever possible).  These are added, edited, an deleted right from this dialog -- they don't appear anywhere else.  If this inventory item is deleted, its item-specific discounts are deleted with it.  If it's duplicated using Add Dup, its discounts are duplicated as also (items never share item-specific discount records).

If more than one discount is shown, you can change their order with Move Up and Move Down.  Remember that the discounts will be applied in the order they appear here, so the order can be important if the discounts aren't defined to be mutually exclusive.  Also remember that any item-specific discounts that apply will override any general discounts. See the Item Discounts section for details on how discounts work.

Inactive

It's never a good idea to actually delete an inventory item once it has been used in a transaction (at least until all such transactions have been purged), because that would break the link with the transaction and affect reporting.  If you no longer stock an item, simply check the Inactive box.  That will keep it from being brought up for a sale, and will hide it from most reports unless specifically filtered to include inactive items.

Notes

You can enter any notes you like here, just for your records.  Customers and vendors will never see these notes, but you may find them useful for recording historical information, notes about ordering from certain vendors, etc.  To enter more than one line, click the "..." button to open a multi-line editing window.

Journal...

In addition to the single-entry Notes field, you can add any number of Journal entries to an item, which are date/time/operator tagged.  This can be used any way you like, for instance to track price changes for an item, or make notes as to why certain changes were made to it.  This button opens a list of existing entries and also the adding/editing functions.

Audit Trail...

This button opens the Audit Trail for this particular item, showing a list of all changes made to it (at least as far back as when version 6.0 was installed, since the Audit Trail function did not exist before then).  Note that all inventory quantity changes resulting from sales are also recorded, so this could be quite long for popular items.