Retail Inventory
Tracking inventory by retail without specifying category or item details, then purchasing or selling merchandise. This method takes least effort entering data into the system and requires minimum skills to organize records and inventory in a store. Using this method will seriously limit the customer’s ability to analyze merchandise movement. However, it will still make the correct calculation of Cost of Goods Sold and Gross Profit margin as well as the retail inventory level at a store at any given time.
In this method, the customer uses the Non-Itemized Invoice Entry form to enter purchases by cost and retail without any further details and only a few departments in the cash register to upload taxable/non-taxable sales into the system. This method is not recommended for use due to lack of information, however, it may be adequate for single store owners.
Retail Inventory by Category
Tracking inventory by merchandise category (NACS and/or any other classification preferred by the customer). In this method, the customer uses the Non-Itemized Invoice Entry form to enter purchases by category by cost and retail. The customer sets up appropriate departments in the cash register to upload categorized sales into the system. This method will give the user the ability to track inventory, analyze profitability and inventory shortages by category. This method is used by many small and midsize companies in the industry.
Item Level Inventory
Tracking inventory by item. To use this method, the customer must scan items sales, maintain a Price Book and enter detailed itemized purchases into the system by using any combination of the following:
- Manually using the Counts > Itemized Inventory form.
- Automatically, by receiving item-level information from suppliers by EDI (electronic data interchange).
- Scanning items into the store at the time of delivery using a
- Using the Petrosoft Data Processing Service for all data entry needs (additional fees apply).
If you work with PLU items, make sure the Consider PLU items as missed items when processing inventory tickets (Y/N) option is enabled for your account. Otherwise, PLU items will be considered in the inventory results only on the category level.
This method is the most advanced and rewarding and gives the user maximum ability to analyze and control merchandise inventory. Automatic ordering, dead stock and overstock analysis are just a few examples of many possibilities the user may exploit by tracking inventory at item level.
The user can combine the above methods, or at any time move from one method to another to find the solution that fits their needs the best.
Example
For example, the user can keep a Price Book and scan all items out but put purchases in by category only for all categories but cigarettes. In this instance, the user gets cigarettes purchases by item through EDI from the wholesaler. In this case, the user will be able to track cigarette inventory by item (since this is a high risk item) and everything else by category. It will give the user itemized information about the most valuable merchandise and category level about everything else with minimum data entry efforts.
