Stock Control Overview

This topic shows you how to make the best of the IRP’s powerful Stock Control feature.

To make the most of the IRP stock control features, follow these steps:

1. Set Permissions and Application Settings:
   1. These are described in the sections following.
2. Enter your basic stock details:
   1. Enter your stock location details (Stock Control > Stock Locations). For details, see the Help Topic for Stock Locations.
   2. Enter your stock supplier details (Stock Control > Stock Suppliers). For details, see the Help Topic for Stock Suppliers.
   3. Perform a stock take at each stock location (Stock Control > Stock Takes). For details, see the Help Topic for Stock Takes.
   4. Configure Click & Collect operations. There are multiple places in IRP Admin where you add Click & Collect details. To begin with, make sure that you enable the master switch for Click & Collect: the ‘Enable Click And Collect’ Application Setting. You can then move on to the Stock Locations and Orders sections.
3. When you need to buy more stock:
   1. Create and approve purchase orders and handle newly-arrived stock (Stock Control > Stock Purchase Orders). For details, see the Help Topic for Stock Purchase Orders.
   2. If required, print stock labels for any model (Stock Control > Stock Label Printing). For details, see the Help Topic for Stock Label Printing.
4. Maintain your stock:
   1. Transfer stock between your stock locations (Stock Control > Stock Transfers). For details, see the Help Topic for Stock Transfers.
   2. Update your stock details and apply bulk updates (Stock Control > Stock Bulk Operations). For details, see the Help Topic for Stock Bulk Operations.
   3. Review all stock activity for your items (Stock Control > Stock Log). For details, see the Help Topic for Stock Log.
   4. Analyse how your costs, sales and profits may be affected by your stock levels (Stock Control > Stock Analytics). For details, see the Help Topic for Stock Analytics.

Before you can use the IRP Stock Control features, the following Admin User Group Special Permissions need to be set:

• Allow Authorise Purchase Orders: This permission is required in the "Purchase Orders" section (for authorising purchase orders).
• Allow Stock Check In: This permission is required in the "Goods In" section (for checking in and restocking purchase orders).
• Allow Stock Ordering: This permission is used mainly to limit visibility of stock costs/profit in various sections (for users who have this disabled).
• Allow Stock Purchase Order Selection: This permission is required in the "Purchase More Stock" section (selecting stock to buy).
• Allow Stock Take: This permission is required in the "Stock Takes" section (committing stock level changes).
• Allow Stock Transfer: This permission is required in the "Stock Transfers" section.

The following Application Settings are relevant to IRP Stock Control:

• Automatic Stock Reorder Leeway Days: This is a discretionary period of time (in days) that is used in the calculation of how much stock to buy when automatically reordering products. Typically this will correspond to how long it takes for a purchase order to go through the process of being restocked.
• Default Target Days To Sell Stock: This is the period of time in which, ideally, all stock belonging to a product should be sold. This will be used for all products unless a model-specific value has been provided.
• Enable Out Of Stock Transfers: When this setting is enabled stock transfers can be requested from stock locations that have insufficient levels of stock to cover the transfer. It is strongly advised that this setting is NOT enabled as it introduces the potential for stock levels to get out of synchronization and will make tracking accurate stock levels through the IRP functionality much more difficult. The purpose of the setting is to allow stock transfers to be added before stock has arrived at a requested location, or when stock levels are not accurately maintained.
• Low Stock Threshold: If a stock item's in stock-value falls below this threshold, the Add to Basket controls on the Models page will display as "Only x amount left in stock".
• Stock Control Enable Order Messaging: If enabled, a scan will be performed on the Order Manage and Orders Auto Dispatch page to check the Order's Stock standing for the Admin User's registered Stock Location. You will be able to view information about the stock status when you are managing an order and click through to the ProductStockAnalysis.aspx page (see the Orders and Stock Log help topics for more information).
• Stock Sales Velocity Time Frame Days: This is the interval at which to record sales velocities for products. For example if set to 7 this will record the sales velocities of products once every 7 days for the previous 7 days.
• Stock Target Tolerance Lower Value: This is a discretionary period of time (in days) that is used when determining if a stock holding is underweight (too little stock being held). For example if an item will sell out in 2 days' time and takes 4 days to restock through purchase orders then it will be deemed underweight. If this value is set to 2 days or more however, then the same item will not be considered underweight.
• Stock Target Tolerance Upper Value: This is a discretionary period of time (in days) that is used when determining if a stock holding is overweight (too much stock being held). For example if an item will sell out in 6 days' time and takes 4 days to restock through purchase orders then it will be deemed overweight. If this value is set to 2 days or more however, then the same item will not be considered overweight.
• Target Percentage CPA: This is your target for overall cost per acquisition (CPA%). Note that actual CPA values are considered negatively or positively based on whether they are higher or lower, respectively, than this value.

The following Application Settings are relevant to the Click & Collect feature:

• Enable Click And Collect: Check this box to enable the click and collect functionality on the front end of the website.
• Click And Collect Cancelled Order Ban Threshold: If you set this value to 3 then, after a customer has had 3 click and collect orders cancelled, they will be banned from placing any further click and collect orders. Note that the reason for the cancellation is NOT taken into consideration.
• Click And Collect Hours To Hold Orders: When a customer places a click and collect order the selected items will need to be fetched and reserved at the specified location before collection. This values determines the number of hours that the order should held for before the order should be cancelled.
• Click And Collect Hours To Prepare Order: This value is used when determining the collection time for click and collect orders.
• Enable Click And Collect Pre Pay: This setting determines whether or not a customer can choose to prepay for a click and collect order using a credit card.
• Click And Collect Send Order Confirmation To Location: When enabled the stock location at which the order was placed will be sent a copy of the order confirmation email.
• Enable Click And Collect Pay In Store: When enabled customers will be able to select 'pay in store' as a payment method for click and collect orders, when disabled this won't be available. Note that this MUST NOT be disabled at the same time as Enable Click And Collect Pre Pay - at least one of these settings must be enabled for click and collect orders to be allowed.

When you first click the Stock Control section heading in the IRP Admin left navigation menu, the main Stock Control Information page appears (StockAdminHome.aspx). The screen shows a statistical overview of stock across all your stock locations. You also see a breakdown of stock value and levels per stock location:

The key financial statistics are at the top of the screen. These are:

• Units In Stock: This shows the total number of units that you have in stock.
• Cost of Stock: This shows the total cost of all of your stock.
• Total Retail Value: This shows the total retail value of all of your stock.
• Potential Profit: This is an estimate of the profit that you could generate.

In the Stock Details section you see the following information:

• % In Stock: This is the total number of active, non-discontinued items that are in stock.
• Stock Turn Cycle: This is the turn rate for all stock based on the average sales velocity over the previous 6 months. It will take approximately this period of time before you sell all stock items.
• Average Sales Velocity (Last 6 Months): This indicates how fast, on average, stock has been selling over the last 6 months.
• Average Unit Cost: This is the average unit cost across all products. This will be inaccurate if you have not set Supplier costs for all stock items.
• Average Unit Retail Price: This is the average unit (sale) price.
• Number Of Stock Locations: This shows the total number of your stock locations.
• Number Of Stock Suppliers: This shows the total number of your stock Suppliers.
• Cost Of Items Low In Stock: This shows the total cost of items that are low in stock.
• Number Of Items On Order: This shows the total number of items that are on order.
• Overall Credit Limit: This shows the total credit limit that has been set by all of your Suppliers.
• Total Amount Owed: This is the total amount of outstanding purchase order payments due to stock suppliers.
• Value Of Items On Order: This shows the total value of all items that you have on order.
• Cost Of Items On Order: This shows the total cost of all items that you have on order.
• Margin For Items On Order: This shows the total potential % margin of all items that you have on order.
• Overall Percentage Of Items Returned: This shows the total percentage of items that have been returned.

In the Stock By Location section you see a pie chart that provides a breakdown of your stock by stock location. You can click Stock Cost/Stock Levels to toggle between stock levels and stock costs for each location:

In the Stock Location Information section you see the following information:

• Location: This shows the selected stock location.
• Stock Level: This shows the total level of stock in the selected location.
• Stock Cost: This shows the total cost of stock in the selected location.
• Stock Value: This shows the total retail value of stock in the selected location.
• Percentage Margin: This shows the % margin of all items in the selected location.
• Percentage Of Total Stock: This shows what percentage of your total stock is constituted by the stock in the selected location.
• Number Open Purchase Orders: This shows the total number of open purchase orders associated with the selected location.
• Value Of Open Purchase Orders: This shows the total value of open purchase orders associated with the selected location.
• Average PO Lead Time: This shows the average purchase order lead time associated with the selected location.
• Average Sales Velocity (Last 6 Months): This shows how fast items have sold, on average, over the last 6 months from the selected location.
• Next Stock Take On: This shows when the next stock take is scheduled to take place at the selected location.
• Average Time Between Stock Takes: This shows the average time between stock takes at the selected location.
• Average Stock Take Discrepancy: This is the average difference in stock level between what was expected and what was physically present at the stock location (as recorded in the stock take). High discrepancies could indicate an issue with stock going missing.
• Percentage Of Items Returned: This shows the percentage of items returned at this stock location. This is dependent on the return location when returning order items.

You can see at-a-glance information about your stock using the Stock Control alert bar at the top of your IRP Admin screen:

The alert bar shows the following details:

• Low Stock: This is the total number of products with levels lower than their corresponding minimum stock level, and therefore due to be reordered.
• Pending Goods In: This is the total number of open purchase orders awaiting goods in.
• POs to Authorise: This is the total number of new purchase orders awaiting authorisation.
• Transfers: This is the total number of pending stock transfers (both incoming and outgoing).
• Stock: This is the total cost price (the amount paid to your Suppliers) of all stock held in all of your stock locations.
• Turn: This is the turn rate for all stock based on the average sales velocity over the previous 6 months. It will take approximately this period of time before you sell all stock items.

If you do not already see this bar, click your account icon at the top-right of IRP Admin, click Enable Alert Bar and select the Stock Control option.