Manage your live inventory seamlessly between Shopify and QuickFlora from grower to consumer.

The purpose of all business is one thing, and that is to make money. To do that the business must manage its assets, control costs, account for all payables, and sell products in an efficient way. One of the important assets of any business that sells products is the inventory it carries to facilitate needs and wants of their customers.

Live inventory is the only way to establish total control of this asset and maximize its profitability, which accounts for most of the profits of a sales business. To be able to accomplish with live inventory several things must be done to meet this goal.

Live Inventory Planning

You must identify each item/SKU sold to be able to account for that product throughout the sales process. An item code/SKU must have the following parts to distinguish that item from all others.

Here is what must be identified within an item code:

  • Product Group Code

  • Manufacturer, Grower, or Vendor

  • Variety or Merchandise Code

  • Color

  • Type

  • Grade

  • Unit of Measure

Once all products have their individual codes the process of keeping track of the live inventory will require protocols.

  • When ordering these codes will identify what is being ordered, from whom, and in what quantities and how that product will be shipped after purchase..

  • Each Purchase Order (PO) will have the item code so that once confirmed the item will be placed in future or to be received as live inventory. The invoice for this PO will have a ship date and the receiving date will be placed on that product.

  • When the order is received the PO will be reconciled and the inventory will show as on hand. When the invoice and PO are reconciled, they will automatically create a voucher that when authorized will be paid by the payables department.

  • After the product is received, the buyer will determine how that product will be sold and allocated for sale. It can be sold as follows:

Examples of measure, and based on products there may be other necessary.

§ Each

§ Stem

§ Bunch

§ Grower Bunch

§ Case

  • And the pricing of these items are assigned at the same time. An item code may be sold in different measures. A rose for example could be sold as a stem, a bunch, or a case. In this example the stem would be the base measurement of that item, any item code that is sold in different quantities, the base quantity will be the smallest amount sold. Pricing will or should be different for each quantity.

  • The live inventory is now completed and will show on hand. An item ordered (but not received) will also be available based on the date of receiving. This enables inventory to be sold before it is actually on premises. Inventory will be deleted as it is purchased or placed in an order to be processed based on the date it is to be delivered or picked up.

  • Items can transfer into a collective item code if barcoding of each item is not possible. This is an important decision to be made as it affects an effort to account and sell inventory on premises or with eCommerce virtual wholesale.

  • Once an item is sold the inventory is deleted, and the sale is recorded. The data of that item is complete and stored for reports. This can be critical at holidays, special events, and year end analysis by customer, location, and profit.

  • Items that are no longer sellable must be dumped by item code, this allows for the inventory to be removed when an item is no longer deemed sellable. This is a key fact with live inventory control. This can give a snapshot of whether an item being sold is profitable. It will also give the buyer insight into the shelf-life of perishable products. With hardgoods breakage and returns are handled in the same way.

Knowing the disposition of your live inventory is true asset management. Knowing the profitability of each item, profit from each manufacturer, and who the item is being sold to will increase profits and enable marketing of that item to a targeted customer base. It is necessary to take the time to create the item code for many reasons, as shown above.

There are many other benefits for doing this.

  • Online sales will be concise

  • Searching of products are made easier

  • Scanning of items can save time at checkout

  • Processing phone orders is concise and improves accuracy

  • Picking orders mistakes are eliminated

  • Pricing of item is always correct and returning maximum profit

Modern systems remove paper, increase accuracy, document orders, reduce time, create profit and reduce waste.

With live inventory and adoption of all the protocols you can create the seamless processing of all elements of the wholesale and retail business. The accounting of all these processes will be automated with correctly entered data, payables will be quicker, customer service issues made simpler, and over all time reduced.

With the proper planning and execution of live inventory a business will save money, reduce time, and increase profits.

Contact us directly for a free demo.