LightSpeed has many tools with which to adjust, track and organize your inventory. Both the Browser and the Point of Sale screens employ color coded inventory statuses, allowing you and your staff to see at a glance where your inventory is, and whether a Product is expected for either a Stock or Customer Order. Available stock may be transferred to one of ten virtual warehouses to represent "stockpiles" that are in your possession, but you do not want showing as available. The Reporting module gives you access to overviews of inventory valuations and inventory counts. The Product card allows you to scan a Product's entire purchase history, and set reorder points to insure you are not caught short without stock of key items.
There are four ways of adding your existing inventory levels into LightSpeed.
The most obvious first choice for adjusting your inventory levels is to use the Count Inventory feature, found in the Tools menu. This will allow you to move through your store with a barcode scanner, and take a physical count of your inventory. For more information, see the Count Inventory article.
The second method is to put your Products onto one or more Purchase Orders, and then ‘receive’ the quantities into your inventory. By ‘receiving’ your Inventory using a PO, you then have an easily accessible record of your Inventory count, the location of each Product, and a simple way of recording the serialized Products.
Note! The next two methods of modifying your inventory levels are not recommended for setting your initial inventory levels, and instead should only be used for modifying individual or small batches of Products for which little or no origin information exists. In other words, if you find an extra three items that were forgotten behind a shelf, an individual adjustment may be made (with an appropriate note). However, a Count Inventory event or a received PO gives you a bigger picture later on if a large number of Products must have their quantities modified.
Third, by doing individual Inventory Adjustments for each Product. This would be the most time-consuming method but allows you to enter specific notes for each Product for later reference. It is important to remember, however, that you cannot modify the costs of inventory adjustments (done individually or by a batch import) once they have been completed.
Finally, you can import the information using the LightSpeed Import Tools. Choose Import Products and match fields by dragging the field names in the right column to correspond with the data in your tab-delimited file. While this method is faster, be advised that you will still have to go to each serialized Product, specify it as a serialized Product with the Serial Numbers checkbox, and enter the serial numbers. To do this, click Adjust, and thenNew, and you must add as many serial numbers as is reflected in your Quantity. If the Products already exist in LightSpeed, it is also possible to update inventory levels in a batch using the Update feature of Import Tools, matching on Product Code or Product ID. However, this method is not recommended for adjusting inventory into or out of your stock.
LightSpeed is able to accommodate up to ten virtual warehouses, allowing you to be able to track stock that exists in your store but that you do not want to appear as part of your available inventory. To set up your warehouses, choose the Warehouses option of the Tools menu and select the Warehouse to rename it. You may wish to set up Warehouses for your RMA inventory, store demos, damaged product, or simply a locked stockroom that is inaccessible by sales staff.
Transfers to a Warehouse
Once a Warehouse has been set up, you are able to transfer stock from your inventory to any of these virtual warehouses. In the profile of a Product, go to the Inventory tab and click the Transfer button. The Transfer Inventory window will appear, listing the current status of all existing inventory and Orders for that Product. Below the status section, there will be two pull-down menus indicating the origin and destination of the Product in question. Your available stock is known as “Inventory”, and any Warehouses you’ve set up will appear here also. Choose the origin of the stock with the pull-down menu marked “From”, and the destination of the stock with the pull-down menu marked “To”. If the Product is non-serialized, simply enter the quantity of stock you want to transfer in the Qty field, and click Transfer. You will be notified that the transfer was successful. The available inventory will decrease, and the quantity will now appear in the Warehouses status (this status will total the stock in all Warehouses).
If the Product is serialized, all available serial numbers in the Product origin you’ve chosen will appear below. Choose the serial number(s) you wish to transfer, and click Transfer. You will be notified the Transfer was successful.
To view the transfer history of any given Product, go to the History (With Transfers) tab in the Product profile. To have an overview of the stock in any Warehouse, go to the Inventory Valuation section of Reporting, and choose the Warehouse report you want to check. Click Preview or Print.
If you need to add inventory outside the normal channels of Invoicing and Purchasing, you are able to make manual adjustments to your inventory levels in the Inventory tab of the Product card. Stock that must be written in because it has been found or balanced against another Product may be addressed using the Adjust button in the Inventory tab of the Product profile.
Non-serialized Products
Adjustment of non-serialized Products allows you the choice to set the total quantity you wish to adjust the inventory to, or to add a certain quantity to your existing inventory. There is also a field which allows you to set the cost of the quantity you’re adjusting in, which will be calculated into the cost average total for that Product. There is also a Note field that allows you to enter information regarding the adjustment, useful for later reference. Click Save to save your changes; you’ll notice the Total and Available quantities change in the statuses listed above.
Once the adjustment is saved, you can go back to your product History and see the change. If you saved a note with the adjustment, an indicator icon will appear which will display the note when clicked.
Adjusting Value
I have ten Silver 2gb Nanos worth $200 each, for a total value of $2000, and I receive price protection and wish to bring the cost of each unit to $150. I would calculate the difference between the two costs (-$50) and multiply it by the quantity (10), and enter the resulting value (-$500) into the Change Value by field. Once I click Save, my total value will be decreased by $500 (because it’s a negative value) and that would result in each unit’s cost being decreased by $50 in value.
Serialized Products
Adjustments made to serialized Products are done by clicking the New button in the Adjust Inventory window, and entering the serial numbers you are adding in the New Serial Numbers field. As with non-serialized Product, you may then edit the system cost for the additions as well as a Note. Click Save and the totals will be adjusted. You will see the adjustments made to the Product’s History are logged separately for each serial number, and a Note icon will appear beside each. Clicking on the Serial Numbers tab will display the new serial numbers you have added to inventory.
Loss/Shrinkage
In the event that you need to write off Products that have gone missing, it is recommended that you create a "Written Off" Customer to whom the missing Product can be sold, on an Invoice, at Cost. This allows you the ability to track these write-offs thoroughly, rather than simply using a manual adjustment that cannot be distinguished from other adjustments in the future.
You may even create a new Payment Method with which to pay this Invoice, and assign a GL Account specifically to track write-offs to this Payment Method.
Inventory Levels
The six inventory level bubbles show you how much inventory you have on hand available for sale, reserved for Orders, reserved in virtual Warehouses, coming in on POs for customers, and coming in on POs for stock. These bubbles are color-coded using the same schema used in the Browser.
If you have any quantities reserved to Customer Orders or allocated to any virtual Warehouses, you can automatically release these quantities by clicking on the appropriate status.
Reorder Point
You can set up Reorder Points and Reorder Amounts for a Product so that it is flagged for reordering on the Reordering reports or on the Reordering Purchasing Action. When the inventory level for a Product drops to the Reorder Point, the Reorder Amount will be added to an Order as an outstanding Order Request, accessible in the Actions tab of the Browser and sorted according to default Supplier (see image). You also have the choice to specify a Reorder Max quantity, so that when the Inventory drops to your Reorder Point, a maximum quantity will determine the amount necessary for reorder, taking into account stock in Warehouses and Reservations.
Reorder to Max
I have a Product called "LAMP", and my stock level is at 10. The Reorder Point for LAMP is set to 5, and the Reorder to Max is set to 14. I transfer 2 LAMPS to a Warehouse, and reserve 1 LAMP for another Customer on an Order, making my available stock 7. Then, a Customer walks into my store and buys 2 LAMPS, triggering my Reorder Point. After creating the reordering PO in the Actions tab, I'm prompted to order 9 LAMPS - 14 minus the 5 I show as available, regardless of what's Reserved or in Warehouses.
If you use a Warehouse to represent inventory stored in a locked stockroom, it is important to remember that using the Reorder to Max feature does not count quantities in Warehouses, so you do not over order.
Inventory History
The Inventory History tab shows a reverse chronological history of the any action that affected the inventory level of the Product. If the action was an Invoice or a PO, the Invoice or PO ID will be shown in the Source column. If an Inventory History record has an associated note, an alert icon will be shown beside that record. Double-clicking the line will display the note. There is a cost associated with each action that affects the Cost Average for the inventory.
Tabs
You can click the History With Transfers tab to see a history of the Product including any transfers to and from your Warehouses. The Warehouses tab will indicate the quantities of this Product that are in any of your ten virtual Warehouses. The Reserved tab shows which Orders have reserved this Product. The Coming tab indicates which POs have ordered this Product but have yet to receive it.
Adjust Inventory
The Adjust button opens the Adjust Inventory tool that allows authorized users to increase or decrease the inventory level of the Product, or its total value, which will modify the Cost Average. (see Costs & Prices and Purchasing)
Build Inventory
If the Product is built from other Products, like a build-to-order computer, a custom piece of furniture or even a gift pack, the Build button will open the Build Inventory tool and load the constituent Products so that they can be built into the finished Product.
If you wish to add other constituent Products to build more of the finished Product – adding RAM to a built-to-order computer, for example – you can click the Edit Build Settings button, which will take you to the Related for Build tab. You can then add more constituent Products that can be used to build more finished Products using the Build feature. The costs of the constituent Products will be added to calculate the cost of the “built” Product.
Building Inventory
You have Nails, Paint, and Wood set up as Products in your inventory, and you want to create a Fence with them. You create a Product called “Fence”, save it, and click the Build button in the Inventory tab. Then, call up Nails, Paint, and Wood in the search field, click them to add them to the Build Inventory window, and enter the quantities needed for each Product to build one Fence. Enter the amount of the finished Product you want to create, and click Build. The total of the Costs associated with the constituent Products becomes the Cost of the Built Product. Once built, the quantities of the constituent Products will be decreased, and the quantity of the finished Product will increase. If there aren’t enough constituent Products to build the finished Product, you will get a warning.
Transfer
Transfer allows you to transfer stock from your inventory to one of ten virtual Warehouses, so it will not appear as available in the status bars. (see chapter on Ordering, Purchasing, and Receiving for details)
Export
Clicking the Export button will allow you to save a tab-delimited text file with that Product’s inventory history.
Serial Numbers
If a Product is serialized, the Serial Numbers tab shows the Available or Sold Serial Numbers. Users can check the serial numbers in each Warehouse, or access the Adjust Inventory tool by clicking the Adjust button, edit a specific Serial Number by clicking Edit or double-clicking, or delete a Serial Number by clicking Delete. Transfer allows you to take serial numbers from your available inventory and put them in a virtual warehouse.
