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seespotrun4you
(stranger )
02/05/07 03:30 PM
How to Handle Inventory  

Howdy-
I've bounced around the forum and can't figure out the best way to handle my setup and keep the IRS all happy if they ever come knocking. Plus, I think I'm really dense and need things chunked down again to newbie level.

So far I've been creating my auctions in the AW2K AUCTION LOT section of the program. But apparently you experienced folks do it a different way.

If I understood correctly, JudyBlue from Kansas first enters each widget she sells into the inventory module of AW2K. Then, when the stars are right to sell, she creates her Auction Lots to upload to eBay in the Auction Lots module of AW2K - in effect copying all the data/pictures etc. she set up for each widget in INVENTORY into the AUCTION LOTS section. So the flow goes:

Widget Data > INVENTORY > Widget Data Auction Stuff> AUCTION LOTS> upload, sell, eat pizza

If that is correct, my first question is, doesn't this double up the disk space used for each widget's data/pictures (a copy in INVENTORY and a copy in AUCTION LOTS)? Since my auctions tend to have many large pictures, it seems like this would make my hard disk would explode by about next Tuesday.

Second question-
I keep my accounting in Quickbooks which also has an inventory module which I'm assuming most of you don't use to manage your auction business. So do you handle all your auction business in AW2K and then at the end of the month pull the total sales, total fees, etc. from the AW2K reports and then post the totals into Quickbooks (or whatever accounting package)? So that AW2K in effect becomes your Sales Journal?

Okay, that's enough to start with, I'm sure more questions will follow after I hear how the experts do it.
Thanks in advance,


Michael



bluepennylady
(old hand)
02/05/07 04:13 PM
Re: How to Handle Inventory new [re: seespotrun4you]  

Michael,

I understand EXACTLY how you feel. Does seem a bit overwhelming, doesn't it.

First, when you create an Auction lot from an Inventory Item, images are not duplicated but rathered "referenced" So you do not have duplicate images. Imagine an old fashioned wagon wheel with the hub and spokes. The hub is the Inventory item and image, each spoke of the wheel is an Auction lot you created from the Inventory Item. Each time you create an Auction lot, it is attached or referenced back to the original. Make a change to the Image in the Inventory item and it affects all the images referenced.

The only thing that will not change is the description and listing template. That is exact copies. Consignor, description, listing template, those are copied into a new Auction lot. But the image is referenced so it doesn't take up tons of space on your hard drive.

You might consider using "shrink by factor" option when editing. It will conserve quite a bit of space in the Image folder if you have tons and tons of images. I use "shrink by factor" to save image space. I like lots of images too

Text doesn't take up space. Images do.

If you do not use Inventory items there are reports you do not have access to. That is another reason I use all Stock Inventory Items.

I use Excel to maintain a spreadsheet of Internet sales and retail sales. I pull the information from the reports, which will match my daily Paypal and other Internet funds deposits into the bank account I use solely for Internet sales.

I do not use the Inventory Management portion of QuikBooks. I use AW2000 for that instead. However, I will say if I change to the QuikBooks POS system for the retail side I will start using it. But not for my Internet business. It is better, or I have found at least for us, to maintain my retail inventory completely separate from my Internet inventory.

You will want to check with your accountant/CPA to see how they want you to maintain records for your particular business situation. If you were audited, you would have to show the income matches your tax records, less expenses. All of that information is provided with each Auction lot and Invoice. Auction fees, FVF, payment service fees, actual shipping and insurance costs, Item cost, etc. The whole nine yards is maintained in AW2000. And the information is easily gathered up in reports.

Does that help at all??

Judy/blue




seespotrun4you
(stranger )
02/06/07 01:36 AM
Re: How to Handle Inventory new [re: bluepennylady]  

Judy, thanks, I think we are getting there eventually...
I wish someone in Kansas would write a comprehensive manual on how to use this puppy to make it easier to pull together the various pieces into an understandable work flow. You know, in your spare time. :-)

Okay if I understand, you do all your web based business in AW2K,
create reports to summarize your data, and then plug those totals into an Exel spreadsheet/ your accounting software. Is that correct? And since I don't see a function to export reports from AW2K, this is a manual process?

So by creating records in INVENTORY I can keep seasonal widgets in a holding pattern until National Potato Chip Day, or whatever, rolls around and then I can quickly create my Elvis Head Potato Chip AUCTION LOT and make billions on eBay. Being able to work ahead and group Inventory into categories works for me.

So what about deleting Inventory Records and/or Auction Lots. Say I've listed the Elvis potato chip unsuccessfully so many times that the listing fees are to the moon. I just want feed Elvis to my puppy and be done with it. Can I delete the Elvis Auction Lot record to save disk space and let AW2K run its indexes more efficiently. How about the originating Elvis Inventory record? Is everything I need for P&Ls stored in the invoices.database/table?

So, in short how do you houseclean all the widgets that don't sell?

PS Visited your Store, you sure carry a lot of interesting stuff.

It's 2:30am and I'm pooped, more later...


Michael



bluepennylady
(old hand)
02/06/07 08:30 AM
Re: How to Handle Inventory new [re: seespotrun4you]  

Michael,

The entry into my Excel spreadsheet is manual. However, there are only 2 figures to enter. One is the total Internet sales. The other are the expenses. All the mathematical calculations are performed by the formulas in Excel. I have always used an Excel spreadsheet (30+years) for tracking my retail and wholesale sales. And when I started selling on the Internet, I simply added 2 more columns. Internet sales and Internet expenses. Others may need more information. That will depend completely upon your accounting needs. But I can say, for the most part, just having the total Internet sales and Internet expenses is all you really need.

If an Auction lot does not sell, you can do more than one thing. Sometimes, I will delete the Auction lot, unselect the "Stock" inventory option and group that Auction lot with a couple of others. Sell the grouped lots for a ridiculously low price. The buyers love getting something dirt cheap.

Sometimes, I do simply delete the Auction lot, then I will edit the Qty in Stock field value to zero, uncheck the "Active" button. When you archive records, AW2000 will clean up all the Inactive Inventory Items, email, Auction lots, etc according to the settings you select when you archive. I archive about 3 to 4 times a year.

If you delete a record, the financial records associated with the record are also gone. Which is why I do not delete many Auction lots. And if I do elect to group Auction lots together and sell them as a single lot, I will even record all the past fees on the grouped lot. You can do that by going to the "Additional fields" tab and clicking the "+" sign on the Auction fees area. You can add any type of fee cost in that field you want.

Working ahead in Inventory Items is a real plus. We, I mean my staff, creates Inventory Item numbers in banks of 50 numbers. And each bank of 50 are assigned to a particular staff member. They record what Inventory Items they have completed each day in a spreadsheet saved into Shared documents in the network. That way I can see how much work they have performed on any given day. Plus keep track of where everyone is.

For instance, if Staff member A is working in 10000 to 10050. Then Staff member B would work in 10051 to 10101. Let's say Staff member A completed 35 Inventory Items yesterday. The spreadsheet in the Shared folders for Staff member A would be saved as 2-5-07 And the Inventory Items completed would be 10000 to 10035. Leaving 15 for today. Which means I have to get busy and assign more Inventory Item numbers to that staff member today

I can keep track of what and where. If staff member A was working on Christmas stuff, there would be a note in her spread sheet saved from yesterday noting it was a seasonal good. Then I know where it is when it is time to list that goody that is going to make me a millionaire. Gee I am feeling rich already just thinking about it

Now you asked about how we houseclean the widgets that don't sell. Well, we have an interesting thing we do and it works very well. For the items that absolutely do not sell and need to be removed from AW2000. I delete the Auction lot, qty in stock to zero for Inventory Item and uncheck the Active. The unsaleable gizmo goes into the "Sack Sale" pile. And twice a year we have a sale here at the store. We have stuff from the retail store as well. It goes on front on the long front entrance of our retail store. Customer buy a sack for a set price and whatever fits into the sack they get for the set price. We call it our "Heads down, butts up" sale. As that is all you see, heads down and butts up in the air as the customers dig through all the boxes of stuff. It is a major event. We have been doing it for 8 years. Works great!

But that is what we do. Keeps the customers coming back. I have a retail side as well as an Internet side so it works for me. That will not necessarily work for everyone else.

Judy/blue



bluepennylady
(old hand)
02/06/07 11:00 AM
Re: How to Handle Inventory new [re: seespotrun4you]  

Michael,

By the way, is there something in particular you are wanting instructions concerning. You know, the "manual" You never know, I might already have something in my "library" done up. I have quite a bit of step by step I have made up for users in the past few months. So what do you need??

Judy/blue



seespotrun4you
(stranger )
02/06/07 09:18 PM
Re: How to Handle Inventory new [re: bluepennylady]  

Judy-
I don't have any specific area I'm interested in, Just trying to figure out how to use AW2K most effectively while trying to create an eBay business. So barring the existance of a AW2K Bible to read, I appreciate your help. Not only trying to learn/master eBay but this program at the same time. Unfortunately, I am the bookkeeper, accountant, photographer, computer jocky, and chief figure-it-out-er, so there is a degree of thrashing about.

Where is the "active" button you referred to? I looked all over the program and I couldn't find one. Nor could find an EASY button.

I see how you are using the Refence Id field. Up to this point when I created an Auction Lot we were packing/weighing the item and then putting a label with the Lot # on the box before sticking it on a shelf. Using the Inventory method we can make listings ahead and stick the Reference Id number on the box instead - since that field seems to carry forward from the Inventory section to the Auction Lot section.

Some miscellaneous questions:
1) So do you handle widgets in your eBay store the same way you do traditional eBay auctions?
2) Once I load photographs into AW2K, the files of those photographs DON'T have to remain resident on my hard disk in order to upload/list Auction Lots which use the pictures. Is this correct? In otherwords, AW2K isn't just pointing the the image files on the hard disk, it actually has a copy of the pictures in AW2K.
3) When you combine Inventory items A & B into a single Auction Lot to move unsalables, how do you do that? I see only how to create an Auction Lot from a single Inventory or Stock Inventory item.




Michael



bluepennylady
(old hand)
02/07/07 00:00 AM
Re: How to Handle Inventory new [re: seespotrun4you]  

MIchael,

AHHH a fellow chief cook and bottle washer. I am one myself. Sometimes I forget which hat I am wearing and have to look in the mirror so I will know what it is I am suppose to be doing at that particular moment

The "Active" button is located in the Inventory Items window. When you create an Inventory Item, and select "Stock" the "Active" button becomes functional. It is then "Active" can be unselected.

And Yes the Reference Id field value does copy forward to Auction lots and then Invoices. But the field is not "Hot" meaning if you make a change to it in the Inventory Items window, the change doesn't show up in existing Auction Lots. It would be necessary to manually enter in changes to that field on any exising Auction lots and/or Invoices. Subsequent Auction lots would reflect the change.

I am not sure what you mean about do I handle eBay store items the same as regular auctions. If you are referring to how the information is entered into AW2000, the answer is Yes. In fact, my staff always completes eBay and eBay store Item specifics, shipping options and category so with the click of a mouse, the auction profile can be changed and the Auction lot is ready to go without tons of editing.

All images added to an Inventory Item or Auction lot are saved in the Image folder inside of the Auction Wizard program files. It is not necessary to save images on your hard drive after you have added those images to AW2K. Just takes up lots of hard drive space. Keep in mind, you should be sure to scan your hard drive for errors and defrag after deleting images from your hard drive just to be sure everything is back in order.

Grouping Inventory Items together onto a single Auction lot is really neat. We do it alot. Generally for lesser priced items of which we only have one. I'll group several together to make it more economical to list and more appealing to a buyer.

Here's the run down:

First, the Inventory Item cannot be a "Stock". So it is necessary to delete the Auction lot (if there was one created) and uncheck the "Stock" option on that particular Inventory Item. Once the "Stock" option is unchecked, the Inventory Item is referred to as "Non stock."

Then create an Auction lot from the "Non stock Inventory Item".
Go to the newly created Auction lot. You can jump to the newly created Auction lot by double clicking the red hammer on the tool bar.
Click the "inventory Items" tab on the Auction lot.
Click the "+" sign located on the far left side of the Inventory Items tab.
The "Add Inventory Item to Auction lot" dialog box appears.
You can then select other Non Stock Inventory Items to add to the Auction lot.

The images as well as the Description fields will all add up in order of how you select them.

You will need to manually adjust the Start price as well as the Auction title so it reflects the changes. The Auction title will read for the first Non stock inventory Item you added.

It is slicker than all get out.

Hummm, AW2K Bible. Now that is a thought. Who knows what will appear in the next few months

Judy/blue



seespotrun4you
(stranger )
02/07/07 00:13 AM
Re: How to Handle Inventory new [re: seespotrun4you]  

Ha! I found the "Active" button on the Inventory page. The EASY button, however, is still missing.

I was experimenting by creating a dummy Inventory item and then creating an Auction Lot from it. Apparently I created that Inventory item as non-stocked and then the Auction Item from that, which made the Active button disappear. When I deleted the Auction Lot,
the Active button re-appeared. That was interesting. So another question arises:

Judy, you always create Inventory items as stock items. Why is that? What is the difference between stocked and non-stocked, just whether you physically have the item on your shelves?

Also, what does turning the Active button on/off do? Now that I found it. Will it make Britney Spears and Donald Trump shut up and go away, or anything else useful like that? You said that unchecking the Active button will flag an Inventory item to be archived, does it also mean that the Auction Lots that were created from that Inventory item will also be archived too?

I would love to see one of your "Heads Down, Butts Up" Sack Sales. If I could get my wheelchair in your front door, it'd be worth firing up my big blue van and hauling across Kansas for a day trip- since we live practically on the Colorado-Kansas border anyway. I have fond memories of that long stretch of flat Inter-state highway, and my wife LOVES junk.



Michael



seespotrun4you
(stranger )
02/07/07 00:29 AM
Re: How to Handle Inventory new [re: seespotrun4you]  

Whoa!
A shock to get a response at 1:30 am! On that AW2K Bible, you have one pre-sale. In younger times we published a magazine, a sales book, and I wrote a dismal novel...in case you need an editor! :-)

Michael



bluepennylady
(old hand)
02/07/07 05:58 AM
Re: How to Handle Inventory new [re: seespotrun4you]  

Michael,

I'll see if I can help with getting you an "Easy" button.

WEll I'll just email you in the Spring when we have it. 'Cause the front doors at my store are wheel chair accessible---6'wide. And the aisles are over 5 foot wide. And I have a van/wheelchair parking spot as well.

Yes I always start out with Stock Inventory Items. There are some reports that are not accessible if you don't use Inventory Items. Stock Inventory Items have a "qty in stock" field. So we can add product if we find more instead of creating another Inventory Item.

Stock Inventory Item storage location and Item number will print out on packing slips. Non Stock does not which means for those few Non Stock Inventory Items we do have, the staff has to sit down and look up the Item number and storage location, manually recording the information on packing slip.

If you'll look on the toolbar, uncheck the Active button and the hammer disappears. So you can't create an Auction lot from Inactive Inventory Item,

When you archive all associated records are archived as well. According to the settings you select in the Archive utility. Inventory Items, Auction lots, Invoices, email. The Ledger will even archive if you so choose.


Judy/blue




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