Inventory with Check-Ins
Let’s talk about inventory management
We can all agree that managing inventory is one of the least exciting things to do in your shop. There can be many reasons behind inaccurate inventory numbers, whether a typo on a purchase order, inputting the wrong amount into inventory, or even adding the wrong part to a ticket. While some of these can be avoided, most shops don’t take inventory management seriously. This can be costly by neglecting to manage inventory in your stores properly, but if you do it right, you can save money and be better prepared. You can also check out Kevin’s video here How to manage your inventory with AdCentral! ⚡️ for an in-depth look at managing inventory.
The Basics
Inventory management doesn’t have to be complicated, complex, or confusing, but often it is. The common goal with managing inventory is knowing what is in stock, what is out of stock, what is almost out of stock, and what isn’t selling. You can quickly dive into deeper reporting and analytics around your inventory with forecasting and other details, but for most shops, it’s another layer of complexity they’re not interested in. If you can stick to the basics, you’ll be able to quickly adapt and build a process that enables your shop to stay on task and understand inventory. With Check-Ins Inventory management, we’ve built a simple framework that will enable us to build it out based on what shops want and need based on their feedback.
Where do you start?
Getting started with Check-Ins Inventory management is just as simple as using our other products. If you’re not an AdCentral Check-Ins user, click the links to download our app for Windows or Mac and give it a test drive! Once you’ve installed and signed up with an account, you’ll see the Inventory tab on our left toolbar, as shown below. This is where you’ll find anything regarding your parts, services, and accessories inventory. Device inventory management is coming soon! You’ll be able to add, search, filter, and edit your inventory from this tab with Check-Ins. At the bottom, you’ll show basic analytics, such as your average selling price, cost, quantity on orders, shelf, and total items.
Adding new inventory
When you are ready to add inventory to Check-Ins, we have a few different options. The idea for giving you different options is to make it easy for everyone to start using immediately.
- Start from scratch - this method is to learn how to use the system, understand it, and become familiar with it. This also gives you a fresh start with up-to-date inventory counts.
- Use our import template - Kevin has created a decent starter template for popular iPhone models and parts, and we’ll also have a link for the download here.
- Convert your existing inventory - if you’ve already got an extensive inventory list on your existing system, we can convert it to import into our system with the relevant data.
No matter your choice, we’re here to help if you have questions or feedback. Kevin has also created a video doing a deeper dive into using Inventory with Check-Ins, which will be attached to this post, so be sure to check it out.
Starting from the bottom
Let’s talk about jumping into inventory with no imports or conversions. You want to eliminate all the old, junk, and dead SKU’s that you’re no longer using, so what better way than to start fresh? When you start inventory from nothing, you can identify and properly input the correct quantities and costs related to that item, ensuring the data reporting is correct. While starting from scratch may seem like a daunting task, it’s an excellent opportunity to look at how your inventory is being stored, clean out old non-moving inventory, and begin setting it up for it to be a much easier task moving forward.
You can download a basic import CSV file to see how our inventory import layout is structured. This will also allow you to quickly create a CSV with your inventory without having to add each item one by one in the system. Using the template, you can quickly copy and edit products in the CSV while doing your inventory counts to streamline the import process. This makes starting from the bottom much easier, especially on more extensive inventory lists. Whether adding services, parts, or accessories to inventory, using the CSV to manage and edit in bulk is a timesaver.
Use Kevin’s import template
As I mentioned, Kevin created a simple starter template for most iPhone models and their common parts to give you a baseline idea of how to set up and continue adding additional brands, models, and items into your inventory. Using this template, you’ll be able to visualize how to move forward and continue adding other models like iPad, MacBooks, Samsungs, computer parts, and more. While Kevin’s import doesn’t include everything, it’s a generous starting point if you want to take advantage of what he’s created for you guys. If you’re lucky, we’ll continue to add to it over time to make it a little more extensive for models, devices, and other types. Once you’re finished adding items to your CSV file, you simply import it and watch all the data update before your eyes.
Convert if you must
Some of you have committed and put in a lot of time and effort building out your current inventory infrastructure with your current platform of choice. We understand how important it is to maintain that inventory structure and how it works for you. This is why we offer our inventory conversion process with extensive inventory lists with a large SKU list that is a little more complicated than your standard inventory import. If you’ve got a complicated inventory list, contact us, and we’ll be glad to help you.
Locked and loaded
Success! You’ve added some inventory items to your Check-Ins, and you’re ready to move forward! Now you’re ready to add an item to a Check-Ins ticket. Whether it’s a part, service, or accessory, you can easily add available items for the selected model in the Check-Ins ticket. For example, if your ticket is for an iPhone 11 screen replacement, you’d add the iPhone 11 Screen item from the parts inventory and then add your labor/install service you’ve created for screen repairs. You will only see items compatible with the device in your ticket, and this makes for fewer inventory mistakes. If you need to add something not currently in inventory, you can quickly use our quick sale button to add a custom item to the ticket.
Next sale!
It’s that simple. You’ve added inventory with your chosen import method; add items to your Check-Ins ticket and close the sale! You can suggest accessories as upsell to add on to tickets, easily seeing what is compatible with the device the ticket is for. So, if you’ve been looking to check out AdCentral Check-Ins, now is the time! Our inventory management module allows you to quickly identify the correct parts in inventory for the device on each ticket, which is a game changer. Stay tuned for new features with AdCentral Check-Ins and our other products!
