Allow Customer Purchases to be added as existing Inventory Items
Okay, this is very hard to explain, but the idea is simple. It's very unhelpful adding more and more NEW inventory items, rather than just increasing the Quantity On Hand when purchasing from a customer. We would like the ability to choose an existing Inventory Item and record a unique description and purchase price just like a serialized item.
How it works now:
We purchase a laptop from a customer for $120 that we plan to sell for $250. Let's just say it's in perfect condition to avoid the refurbishing process. We give it a name to lookup in inventory, like LAPTOP REFURB HP6910 and a purchase price of $120. After we "receive" the item into inventory, it creates a NEW inventory item, with it's own re-order value and other information that we are NEVER going to re-stock again! It's useless and just creates tons of inventory item's we'd have to look through to find what we're looking to sell. Most of the purchases we make are one time purchases we will never restock.
How we'd like it to work:
First of all, Customer Purchases really deserves it's own icon on the toolbar - but I know we're trying to keep that simple, so fine. When you go to make a new purchase, you should be able to choose from an EXISTING inventory item, rather than creating a new one. For instance, we have an inventory item called LAPTOP REFURB. We use serialization for that item, which allows us to add a unique description and cost to the purchase. The only issue is it won't let us specify a unique sales price the way Customer Purchases does. So we'd type in LAPTOP REFURB and choose the existing inventory item. Then we specify a unique description that would display the way a serial number does, that way we can choose THAT specific description from a list of all of the LAPTOP REFURB items we have in stock. So, when a tech goes to add LAPTOP REFURB to an invoice, it would as them to select a serial. They could then choose the specific laptop they are selling, which would have it's own unique description, tracked purchase price, and pre-set sale price.
Basically, this is just three things we'd like Customer Purchases to do, in addition to how it already works:
Allow purchasing of existing inventory items, rather than creating new.
Allow purchasing serialized inventory, rather than regular inventory.
Keep track of a unique sale price, in addition to the purchase price.
Everything else about the system works, but we don't want to use it and congest our current inventory system. It's a lot of work to add in purchases like regular serialized inventory, but it really helps make sure we're always finding the right item and everyone does it the same way.
I'm sure you're going to need some clarification on this, so please let me know if there's something else I can explain better.
This is live! We just updated the Customer Purchase model to search your inventory right when you’re buying something. Adding an item adds it to your existing inventory item now. (Note that we’re still updating the audit logs on the product page..)
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Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
OMG! Yeahhhh!
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Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
Please redirect all updates/votes for this topic to this newer topic that overrides this idea:
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Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
Okay, so you know how I love making mock ups…
The first attachment is the old, inferior way we were trying to do this (and failed miserably at): http://i.imgur.com/LOVmfoH.jpg
The second attachment is my new mock up of what this "Parts" module would look like: http://i.imgur.com/K4lJp5T.jpg
In the new mock up, you’ll see that “Item name” is not the link where you can edit information and details. This is because it would be possible to have parts one time and then never again after the one is gone (like a Sony slim-line BD rom drive or something) while other parts would be somewhat common (like an HP 65w charger). Therefore, there may be duplicate parts, but likely not duplicate descriptions.
Next, costs would be able to be set by any technician (security group add rights), but once added and saved, the cost would NOT be editable (unless global admin or security group edit rights). The same thing would go for price. This would be a security feature so if we buy a part for $15, someone can’t easily change the cost to $0 and sell it for $5, or some bullcrap like that.
Condition and area would be updatable by anyone, why not, right? Location would be set to the location where the person adding the part is currently checked in. Then, you could use logistics to transfer the part from one store to another.
You can see in the search box that these would be the results displayed if you searched for “HP laptop DV6”.
And instead of “View Disabled”, you would have the option to view the history of parts that were available, but since became sold or deleted.
Also, the option to “Disable” is replaced by “Delete”, because these parts are one-time use, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. Therefore, if a part because damaged or lost, you’d simply delete the part from the list.
Lastly, I feel like this would be its own module – just like Inventory. I think “Parts” is very fitting for the module name, because parts are really just miscellaneous items; whereas inventory is stocked items. (The only issue is that “Parts” is already what RS uses in place of “Logistics” for non-big chains).
In my opinion, Logistics is the same for small shops as it is for big; it’s for transfers and special ordered parts. Whereas “Parts” are inventoried items you do not plan to re-stock; kind of a mix of Inventory and Special Orders. I would change the current “Parts” in non-big chains to match Logistics, and then add “Parts” as a new module.
THIS IS ONE OF MY BEST IDEAS AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS WRONG - BECAUSE REASONS! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!
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Ryan (CTO, Pinellas Computers) commented
Okay, so this got some votes, but I really don't think all repair shops will use this. In the last 6 months, we've been forced to change the way we handle new "one time" inventory items (due to this idea not being approved). As such, I've put together a revision to this topic: Unique One-Time Assets module. This is an idea I had a long time ago, but never was able to successfully implement before we had RS. We tried to make it happen with a shared Google spreadsheet, but things constantly weren't deleted or updated, and it became futile to try. This would make a huge difference in keeping track of miscellaneous parts....Here we go:
The idea is to have a separate set of non-inventory items that are tracked and reported just like regular inventory items, but I'm a different module than inventory. The difference between these and regular inventory is that they would not have an "item name", because they would be one time use so making up a unique name would be pointless. They would have a category type, an extensive description, acquisition cost (usually nothing, unless it's a purchase), sale price, and location.
This is how it would be useful: a customer abandons a laptop that has a dead motherboard at the store. The store then takes ownership of that dead laptop and the most logical course of action is to part it out. The store can then enter in multiple non-inventory parts into the non-inventory module. Here are some examples of what would be entered:
(Category) "Description" (cost) (price) (store)-(charger) "HP 120w 18.5v 6.5a power charger ac adapter" (cost $0) (price $20)
-(screen) HP "15.4 CCFL LCD screen display" (cost $0) (price $35)
-(bezel) HP dv6-6100t outer bezel housing for screen black" (cost $0) (price $15)
-(keyboard) HP dv6-6100t keyboard with backlight silver" (cost $0) (price $29)Just like regular inventory items, you could search by keyword, or sort by category, or sort by location. This would make it very easy to keep track of every random part each store has, and be extremely useful when looking for a specific part before ordering it. It would almost completely cut out any need for stores to collaborate about parts on hand. It would also solve our previous request to have refurbished laptops added as non-inventory items with a unique cost and price.
I really think this is a majorly hopeful idea that would be reasonably easy to implement, as it is based on existing inventory system. Another RS user (Chuck) and I had a conference call last night and we're discussing the thousands of dollars of miscellaneous parts we both have at our stores and how we have no idea exactly WHAT we have but no it's worth SOMETHING when we finally get around to classifying and reselling it.
Really looking for your guys decision on this, and it's higher up on my list of wants than many other things. Let me know :)