Getting Started with Products / Inventory

Finally, you've found a system that will help you keep all your items, products and stock under control! Follow these 10 simple steps to get a feel for what Brightpearl can do.

In this guide we're going to walk you through some of the features that will help you track stock in your Brightpearl account.

This guide also assumes you have looked at the Getting started with Sales and Accounting guides, so tasks in those areas are not covered in detail in this guide.

You will learn how to:

1. Add a product
2. Create products with options / variations
3. Create a purchase order for products
4. Send the purchase order to your supplier
5. Check items on order
6. Receive goods into stock
7. Check stock levels
8. Allocate products to sales orders
9. Make stock corrections
10. Create an automatic purchase order

1. Add a product

Follow the steps and add a new product. Use the following data for the exercise so we can follow the process together:

1. On the left-hand side of the screen click the Quick Add icon and select Product.
2. In the Product info tab enter the item name and category.
3. (Retail companies only; if you are on a Services subscription you will not see this tab) In the Stock/Inventory tab make sure that "Manage inventory levels for this item?" is set to Yes.
4. Enter the minimum stock level and re-order quantity.
5. In the Prices tab select the COST tab and enter 1 in the Break field and then the price. Do the same for the RETAIL price list. Your item won't appear in searches when adding to an order if it doesn't have a price.
6. Click the Save changes button to finish adding the product.

You'll be returned to the product list screen displaying your new item. Notice the stock level figures; indicating this is a stock tracked item. You can view a list of your products at anytime by going to Products > List products/services.

2. Create some options

We're going to create 3 sizes of mug; Small, Medium and Large. Follow these steps to create the product variations:

1. Search for the Mug you just added; us the Quick Search box in the top-right corner of the screen: Type "mug" and select Products from the drop-down before clicking GO.
2. When your product is listed click the Create options link just underneath the item name.
3. You already have one mug, so enter 2 and click Add to create 2 extra copies of this item, giving 3 options in total.
4. The three products are listed below. Use the Option 1 column to first select Size, this will be copied down all the items.
5. In the "=" field select Small for the first item, Medium for the second and Large for the third.
6. Click the Save button and then the Back to product list link to exit.

Brightpearl has copied your original item so that each exists in its own right, and you can track stock for each set of options. These are now known as Sister Products. If you search for "Mug" now you will see all three items listed.

You can create more options (e.g. "size") and option values (e.g. "large") in Setup > Products/Inventory > Options and Option values.

3. Create a Purchase Order for some items

Generally most workflows in Brightpearl start with a contact. In case you haven't already added contacts, let's add a supplier now. Use the following data and steps to add your supplier:

1. On the left-hand side of the screen click the Quick Add icon and select Supplier.
2. Enter the supplier Company, Firstname, Lastname.
3. In the Info tab enter the email address.
4. In the Addresses tab enter the supplier address.
5. That's all you really need at this stage. Click Save changes.

We are simply going to save at this stage, but by clicking the small drop-down arrow on the Save changes button you can select Save & order. Assuming you're generally going to be dealing with suppliers already in your system, you will add new purchase order using the following steps:

Use this data for the exercise:

1. On the left-hand side of the screen Quick Add icon and select Purchase.
2. In the pop-up window search for and select your supplier.

You can either add pre-defined line items or products, or you can just add rows with free-form text and prices. I'll show you both.

Adding free-form rows (Line item 1)

1. If you are not using the stock module there is a row automatically added to new orders which you can just fill in. Enter a description of the item in the first blank under Details.
2. In the Account drop-down, choose the Account/Nominal code to which this purchase belongs. This will be used to track purchases by category in your Accounting.
3. Choose a Tax code, this is populated from the Purchase code you choose, you can override it if needed. If you're not VAT registered, this will be not applicable.
4. Enter a Quantity (Qty) to order.
5. Enter an Amount/Rate excluding tax, this give you the total amount.
6. Click Save changes.

Adding pre-defined line items/products (Line item 2, 3 & 4)

This is where things really start to save you time. Your Brightpearl database can store everything from labour and delivery charges to products with SKUs and full multi-warehouse stock control.

1. In your purchase order click the Add a blank row link.
2. You can use the Quick Add or Batch Add of product items.
   • Quick Add - in the Item code field begin typing your product name, SKU or ID.
   • Batch Add - click the Batch add price list item link. Search for your products and enter the quantity of each to add. Click the Add button to add them all.
3. The Account code, Tax code and List price are all drawn in from the product settings.
4. Click Save changes.

You'll be taken back to the order, where you can see that the items have not yet been received since the rows are pink and it says "0 received" in the Details column.

4. Send the Purchase order to your supplier

1. From within the order, click the Email/Print button at the top.
2. The purchase order is displayed in a new tab using your default template. If you have multiple templates for purchase orders, you can choose another template by clicking the Change template link.
3. To send the order click the Email link.
4. Select the supplier email address or enter a new one in the space provided.
5. Select to send the document as a PDF and click Send. You can then close the tab.

When you're taken back to the Purchase Order, you can see that the status has been updated to "Placed with supplier", and in the Notes and payment history tab you can see some information that let's the rest of your team know what's going on.

5. Check stock on order

Search again for "mug" in the Quick Search box, make sure you select to search Products before clicking GO. You can see that there are no items in stock, but you should have 10 in the "On order" column. Click this number and you'll get a pop-up that gives you more detail of what's coming and when. Handy!

6. Receive items into stock

A few days later, a box should turn up at your warehouse with the stock that you ordered. Let's assume you received the following:

1. Search for the purchase order. You can do this by using the Quick Search (Purchases) using the supplier name or purchase order number, or you can search Suppliers and view their order history.
2. When you have located the order open it by clicking the order number or using the pencil icon on the right.
3. Click the Receive stock button.
4. Ensure the correct warehouse is selected at the top; this won't need changing if you only have one warehouse.
5. Confirm the quantity received, amend the figures as required.
6. Click the Submit button.

You'll be taken back to the Purchase Order, where you can see that two rows are received in full and one is still to receive some items.

7. Check stock levels

Search for "mug" again in the Quick Search (Products). You can see that there are now 10, 10 and 8 items in stock, with 2 on order for one of the items.

If the 2 items turn up later, you can open the same PO and receive them in, or if they never arrive you can update the number on the PO to 8 so that all tallies up. You and the supplier will always have a record of what you originally ordered since there's a PDF on the notes history.

8. Allocating stock

Brightpearl lets you earmark stock for a certain customer without removing it from the system, which can be handy if you only have part of an order in stock, and want to hold items while the remainder items come in from a supplier.

Create a new sales order using the following data:

1. Once you have saved your sales order select the Products and prices tab.
2. Just under the details of the line item, enter the number of items that you wish to reserve for this customer in the allocated box. Or click the allocate all link just below the table.
3. Click Save changes.

Search again for "mug" in the Quick Search and you'll see that there's a number for stock allocated.

In Stock - Allocated = On hand

So if you have 10 in stock and you've allocated 4, you have 6 on hand for other customers.

The committed column shows the number of items on sales orders regardless of whether they are allocated or not.

9. Making stock corrections

If you need to make corrections to your stock levels for any reason, then you can use the Corrections screen.

First of all we will add 2 of the Mug - Small into stock:

1. Go to Products > Add inventory.
2. In the pop-up window search for "mug" and select the warehouse where this stock is held.
3. From the results, click on the Add items link corresponding to the product whose stock you wish to adjust.
4. Enter the adjustment quantity and add a value for this quantity. While not mandatory, it is useful to add a value for the adjustment quantity i.e. what you paid for it - so that the accounting system can calculate Cost of Sale.
5. Enter a reason for this adjustment, such as "found during stock take".
6. Click Add items to complete the adjustment.

Now let's make a negative adjustment of 1 Mug - Medium:

1. Go to Products > Remove inventory.
2. In the pop-up window click the link to view the stock detail report.
3. Locate the item in the listing (you can use the filters to narrow down your results).
4. Hover you mouse over the item and click the pencil icon next the quantity.
5. In the pop-up window enter the quantity to remove and a reason, such as "adjustment due to stock take".
6. Click Remove items to complete the adjustment.

Not only will your stock quantities be updated, but all the necessary accounting adjustments will be made.

10. Create an automated Purchase Order

We're going to use the Low Stock Report to re-order stock based on our minimum stock levels. Do do this you first need to:

• Tie products to a supplier - search for your product and select one or more suppliers in the Supplier tab.
• Enter minimum stock level and re-order quantity for products - search for the product and enter the figures in the Stock/Inventory tab.

Follow these steps to view the Low Stock Report and create an automatic purchase order:

1. Go to Products > Low stock report.
2. Click the Filters button and filter the report by warehouse (if you have more than one) and supplier.
3. Click Filter report to view the results. You'll see that Brightpearl is comparing your existing stock levels to your minimum quantities and, using the re-order quantity, suggests the number of each item to order in the Actions column.
4. Make any amendments to the quantity to order in the Actions column.
5. Click the Create Purchase Order button.
6. Brightpearl will create the PO using prices from the supplier and the items as per previous screen. You can run this on hundreds of items at once to save yourself lots and lots of time!

Additional stock features

There are a whole load of stock reports that you can explore, and also plenty of options to choose from when creating new products. Make sure you check out our help documentation online and watch our YouTube videos for more information!

Finishing up

Hopefully this has give you a good overview of some of the basics. We go into more detail on each of the topics within their own section of our free online support documentation.

If you want to reset your data and start over, then read about resetting your data here