Inventory Overview  



The daily use of GroovePacker is going to have a significant impact on your ability to maintain a reliable inventory since you'll be eliminating shipping errors, which is one of the most prevalent causes of inventory discrepancies.  Inventory tracking was added to GroovePacker because of its unique position in your shipping workflow. Rather than deducting inventory based on what was sold, GroovePacker deducts based on what was physically scanned and shipped. By maintaining an independent count of what was shipped you have an opportunity to compare sold inventory to physical inventory if you find that your inventory counts are off.  



GroovePacker's count does not automatically sync to other channels as it is intended to maintain an independent count that you can reconcile against rather than serving as your inventory master. (if that functionality is required we recommend Ecomdash's inventory module or another multi-channel inventory sync option.) There are times when you may want to overwrite inventory counts in other apps with the data in GroovePacker, such as after receiving or recounting inventory using GroovePacker. This can be done using our CSV import/export options. Full details can be found in this article. 




  Inventory Levels  



On the inventory tab of the product detail page you'll see a few different inventory numbers tracked for each SKU:


Quantity on hand or QOH is the only editable count and in most cases the only one that is used. This is the total number of items that you have on hand in the warehouse. When counting, importing or receiving inventory this is the total that will be modified. From the time inventory enters the warehouse until it is scanned as it departs, it will be part of the QOH count. QOH will equal Available plus Allocated.  



Allocated inventory is that which is in the warehouse and required to fill open orders in GroovePacker. Open orders are those with the statuses of Awaiting, Action Required and Service Issue. Closed orders have a status of Cancelled or Scanned. As orders import into the system, the inventory automatically transfers from Available to Allocated.  



Available inventory is inventory that is not required to fill open orders. In other words, all open orders could be scanned and once they have left the warehouse the QOH would be equal to the Available inventory.  



Scanned inventory is inventory that has been scanned during the packing of an order and has left the warehouse. All items scanned continue to accumulate in this count until the inventory is reset. (disabled and re-enabled clearing all values). In some cases, you may need to scan an order that has previously been scanned. See Inventory Exceptions below regarding how this will affect inventory. 




Inventory Workflow


Once inventory tracking is enabled from Settings > System Settings > General Preferences, the typical inventory flow begins by assigning a starting QOH value to each SKU in one of several ways: 


 - Current inventory levels can be exported from your Inventory software, an order manager, or a storefront. These counts can then be imported into GroovePacker using the Product CSV importer 


- A count may be performed and entered in GroovePacker using the recount option 


- The QOH can be edited directly from the products list by displaying the QOH column, right-clicking the value and entering the current count. If the QOH column is not visible in the products list you can right-click any of the visible column header labels which will display all possible columns. Clicking the X beside the QOH column will toggle it on.



  • If you are in the onboarding process and plan to track inventory from the start, inventory levels should be updated prior to importing orders for the first time. 
  • If you're enabling inventory after setup it should be done when there are no Open orders in the system. 



 Initially, the Available inventory will match the QOH and no inventory will be allocated.  Next, orders are imported into the system and inventory for each order item is moved from Available to Allocated. The QOH remains unchanged since the inventory is still in the warehouse. 


 Inventory remains Allocated until the order is Scanned, Canceled or Deleted. 


  • If the order is Scanned the inventory is moved to the scanned count. 
  • If the order is Cancelled the inventory returns to Available. 
  • Inventory for Deleted orders is also returned to Available. 



Inventory Exceptions


Moving "Scanned" orders back to "Awaiting" - This may be done in cases where the original shipment was lost in transit, or never actually shipped but re-stocked instead. Because inventory will need to be adjusted differently for these two scenarios, GroovePacker will ask whether inventory should be deducted from the Available count and moved to Allocated. Choose "Ok" if the order has Shipped and you will be packing new inventory.  Choose "Cancel" if the previous items were not removed from inventory. Another way to think of this is to choose Cancel when the same items will used to pack the order and choose Ok, when the items used before are gone and new items must be pulled from inventory.


Inventory Locations    


The primary, secondary and tertiary bin locations in GroovePacker are text fields where you can make note of the location where pickers can find the SKU and you can optionally make note of additional inventory stored in these locations with the quantity field. The inventory count in GroovePacker is not linked to a specific location, so the QOH (quantity on hand) represents the total inventory in all locations. Said another way, GroovePacker does not track separate counts for each location. As a result, you do not need to initiate a formal inventory transfer to replenish inventory from a secondary or tertiary location. That said, if you wish to make note of the number of SKUs stored in a particular location you can add the quantity, as text, in the location's quantity field. These quantities can be updated when inventory is stocked or moved.  


For example, if you have a total of 524 pieces on hand, you may have 24 pieces in the primary location that you pick from and you may have a master case of 500 in your secondary location. You can make note of this in the Secondary Location quantity field. When the case is broken to restock the pick location the Secondary Location quantity field can be updated to reflect the change. 


Low Inventory Report Emails  


 We've added a report that alerts managers to items that have low stock and need to be ordered and it can be scheduled to automatically email you with daily or weekly updates. You'll receive a list of all items with inventory counts at or below the threshold value you specify.  The report can be enabled in Settings > System Settings > General preferences  To see the options you'll need to first enable inventory tracking if it is not already enabled.  A global threshold can be set for all items that do not have an individual threshold value set. The individual values can be set on the inventory tab of each product's detail window. (this can be found by clicking on the product name in the product list and then clicking the inventory tab) Individual threshold levels will override the global threshold.  A report will be sent at the scheduled time that includes all inventory items with counts at or below the specified threshold.  



GroovePacker Pro Inventory Features


There are some additional inventory features planned for GroovePacker Pro including an inventory projection report and Push / Pull inventory sync with Shopify. Reach out to GroovePacker support for more information.