This introduction explains how stock works in RetailVista. With this knowledge, it becomes easier to understand the associated procedures.
RetailVista essentially works with stock, free stock, and forecast stock. Stock levels are always recorded per branch and are more or less 'owned' by that branch. Stock is the number of products you would encounter at a branch if you were to count that product. Free stock is the stock minus the number of outstanding reservations (resulting from sales orders or customer orders) and minus allocated stock. Forecast stock is the free stock plus the number of outstanding purchase orders. Essentially, it is the stock as it is expected to be in the longer term.
In general, free stock is communicated to external systems, such as webshops. This is the stock that is freely available for sale.
SKU, stock unit
An explanation of stock also requires an explanation of SKU, Stock Keeping Units, or stock-holding positions. In RetailVista, stock always relates to the number of SKUs. What constitutes a SKU is up to the business owner and depends heavily on the type of business, such as Business To Consumer (B2C) or Business To Business (B2B). One example of a SKU could be a jar of peanut butter. Especially in a B2C environment where items are sold to customers, large packs are always broken down. Products are sold per unit, and each unit sold reduces the stock by one unit. The SKU for a jar of peanut butter is therefore ‘units’, and when taking inventory, the number of jars must be counted.
In a wholesale situation (certain B2B variants), it may be that only full cases are sold. In the peanut butter example, this could mean that only unopened trays of 24 jars are sold. In such cases, the tray is often chosen as the SKU. The stock quantity then represents the number of trays available. During inventory, the number of trays is counted.
Even in B2C or B2B situations where units are used, there are always exceptions where stock is not measured in units. This applies to products sold by weight or length. In such cases, it is important to choose an appropriate SKU. For example, for pet food, 1 kg is often chosen as the SKU. The stock quantity then represents kilograms in stock. During inventory, the kilograms are counted.
The choice of SKU also affects a webshop. On almost all webshops, the number of SKUs in stock is displayed, and a customer orders a number of SKUs. In the jar of peanut butter example, this is straightforward, but for something like pond liner, it is important to know what the SKU is. For pond liner, the SKU is generally the number of linear metres. In the ‘Sales’ tab of product maintenance, the sales SKU can be specified.
The price of a product is always the price for selling one SKU. In the pond liner example, where 1 linear metre is the SKU, the sales price must be specified for 1 linear metre.
Stock levels
In addition to stock, free stock, and forecast stock, RetailVista has several other stock levels.
| Allocated stock: | A portion of a product’s stock can be set aside, meaning it is no longer part of the free stock. An example is showroom models. These products are included in the total stock and must also count towards total stock value, but showroom products are generally not sold. For this reason, free stock is reduced by the quantity marked as allocated stock. |
| Store stock: | Store stock is the total stock minus the quantity in all warehouse positions. Increasing or decreasing a warehouse position will automatically affect store stock. An increase in a warehouse position automatically reduces store stock and vice versa. |
| Warehouse stock: | Warehouse stock is the total of all warehouse positions. Increasing or decreasing a warehouse position never affects total stock, which always remains unchanged. The reason is that warehouse stock is considered a breakdown showing where part of the total stock is located. If warehouse stock is incorrect (which sometimes occurs), it usually means that receiving or issuing (bringing or removing products from the warehouse) was not properly registered. Incorrect warehouse stock in this case simply indicates that the product is not in the warehouse but is still in the store. Any later warehouse correction will only increase or decrease store stock, while total stock remains unchanged. |