On this page you will learn which stock data plentymarkets provides to you, how and where to get an overview of your stocks as well as how to create a reorder. Your stock data is calculated based on your incoming and outgoing items data records.
The following stock terms are used in plentymarkets:
| Stock term | Definition |
|---|---|
Physical stock |
The quantity of a variation that is actually present in your warehouse. |
Reserved stock |
The quantity of a variation that is already reserved for orders. A variation will be reserved as soon as an order or a warranty is created. The stock is reserved until either outgoing items are booked or until the order or the warranty is canceled. The reserved stock is part of the physical stock because the reserved stock is still present in the warehouse. As soon as the outgoing items are booked the quantity will be subtracted from the physical stock and the reservation is canceled. |
Reserved for listings |
The quantity of a variation that is currently listed on markets. In legal terms, listings are binding offers to potential customers. Therefore, it makes sense to be careful and to reserve those items offered in listings, even before they have a concrete order. Otherwise you might sell more variations than you have in stock. You can decide whether or not you want items from active listings to be registered as reserved stock in plentymarkets. Stock that is reserved for listings is seperated from the quantity that is reserved for orders. The quantity listed on a market will be part of the net stock if you do not reserve stock for listings. The net stock is the quantity available for sale anywhere. Go to Setup » Listings and open the submenu stock to set the stock options for listings. When you create a market listing, select limited (with reservation) for the stock dependence. This will reserve the listed quantity. As soon as a listing was successfully completed, the setting is no longer active. However, the sold item is now reserved within the order. |
Net stock |
The quantity of a variation that is available for sale. The net stock is part of the physical stock. Substract all reserved qunatities from the physical stock and you will get the net stock. If a purchaser tries to buy more copies of an item than are currently available in the net stock, then this purchaser will receive a warning that the delivery will be delayed. |
Ordered items: |
The quantity of items or variations that you ordered from your supplier but that you haven’t received or booked in yet. As soon as these items are booked in (as incoming items), they are listed as physical stock. |
The system can reserve stock for listings and orders if you manage your stock in plentymarkets.
When is stock reserved?
We have already described the reserved stock as the quantity of variations that have been ordered or as the difference between the physical stock and the net stock. Now we want to take a closer look at the cases in which plentymarkets can automatically reserve stock.
When orders are created:
If an item is purchased, an order will be created and the variation will automatically be reserved until the order is either canceled or until it is booked out. The reservations will be applied to all orders from all kinds of referrers, also from external markets.
When warranties are created:
If an item is returned by a customer, then you can create a warranty for one or more items by opening the original order. These warranties are treated as individual orders with a distinct order number. Exactly the same rules apply as for orders: Stock is reserved until either variations are booked out or until the warranty itself is canceled again.
When listings are posted:
If you do not reserve stock for active listings, then it is possible that you may end up empty-handed after a listing has been terminated. This is because you may have already sold the item. In order to stay away from this kind of trouble and bad evaluations, it is recommended that you use the system’s function of reserving stock for active listings. Go to Setup » Listings and open the sub-menu stock to select the relevant options for stock and listings. When you create a market listing, select limited (with reservation) for the stock dependence. This will reserve the listed quantity. As soon as a listing was successfully completed, the setting is no longer active. However, the sold item is now part of an order and is reserved within the order.
Exception item bundles:
Item bundles consist of multiple products. No individual stock is administered for those bundles in plentymarkets. The stock of item bundles directly depends on the stock of the single items contained in the bundle. If a bundle is sold, the items included in it are automatically taken over into the reserved stock.
When opening the menu Stock » Stocks no filters are set and a search for all stocks will be carried out automatically. By default, the results are sorted by variation ID. In addition the stocks of a variation are sorted by warehouse. Use the filters to narrow down the stock results.
The column titles are abbreviated. If you point your cursor over an abbreviation, then you will see the entire name.
The parametes displayed depend on the user’s rights. Options that can be restricted for a user are e.g. the warehouse options. When you edit a user open the Rights and then open the Visibility tab, this is where you will find the warehouse options. Go to Setup » Settings » User and check the settings for users who work with stocks.
Searching stocks:
Go to Stock » Stocks.
Select filters. Pay attention to the information given in table 2.
Click on Search.
→ The stocks that correspond to the search criteria entered will be listed.
| Setting | Explanation |
|---|---|
Table type |
Standard = lists results by variation ID |
Search |
Triggers a search The stock data found is listed in the results in the Stocks tab. |
Reset |
Completely resets the selected filters |
Variation number |
Enter a variation number to search stock of this variation. The search may return more than one result. Let’s assume you enter 987 and because you have a lot of variations you also have a variation that has the ID 9871, then both variations will be found. In addition also variations of the same item that the variations belong to will be listed. |
Item ID |
Enter an item ID to list the stock of all variations of that item. |
Variation ID |
Enter a variation ID to search stock of this variation. |
Barcode |
Enter a barcode to search stock of this variation by barcode. |
Item data |
Enter data in this field to browse through the item ID, variation ID, variation number, item name and variation name. The search will not browse through the preview text or the item text. |
Limitation |
Select an option from the drop-down list to only search for variations that have this stock limitation. |
Order |
Yes = Allows to create reorders within the stock search menu. The items need to be linked with variations to create reorders. The button Create reorder is above the result list. The manual pageWorking with reorders explains all necessary steps in detail. |
Sorting |
Choose whether to sort the stock entries by item ID (default) or by their item number. |
Supplier |
Select a supplier to search stock of variations that you receive from this supplier. This makes it easy to create reorders for a supplier. |
Flag 1 |
Select a flag to only display stocks that have this flag. The two flags form a conjunction and this means that only variations with the two flags will be listed if both flags are set as filters. |
Bundle |
Choose between searching vor variations only and including bundles into the search. |
Inactive |
ALL = All variations and stock are displayed. The option is set by default. |
Category 1 |
Select the category to only search for stock of variations that have this category. The categories are based on each other. You can only choose a third level category if you have selected a second and first level category before. This means you need to start with the first level category. However, you do not have to select a second or third level category. You will only see the stock of the lowest category that was selected. |
Warehouse |
Select a warehouse in order to display stock only from this warehouse. |
Net calculation |
Select a calculation variation to display the net stock: If you want to include listings, then select the setting reserved orders + listings. |
Date of receipt |
Select a date in order to search stocks by the date that incoming items were booked. All stock of this variation that was registered or booked in that day will be listed. |
Net stock |
Select an operator and enter a quantity to search variations with net stock quantities above, below or equal to the quantity entered. You will search for all variations that have a net stock of more than 20 if you select (>) as operator and enter 20 as quantity. |
Interpreting the result list
The results list the stock of a variation per warehouse. The stock of two or more storage locations in the same warehouse will be added to display only one result per warehouse if a variation is stored at several storage locations in the same warehouse.
| Setting | Explanation |
|---|---|
Purchase price |
You can define whether the average purchase price or the purchase price that is currently saved in the variation data will be displayed. Open the Setup » Stock » Stock » Search and select an option for the purchase price. |
Storage location |
Shows the storage location of a variation if you click on the magnifying glass. Also allows to redistribute stock of a variation to other storage locations. |
Value |
The value is calculated by multiplying the purchase price with the physical stock. |
Phy |
Physical stock of a warehouse. Click on the stock to open the stock movement of a variation. |
RS |
The total quantity of reserved stock. Click on the stock will open the orders these reservations are included in. |
RSL |
The quantity of a variation reserved in active listings. |
RSB |
The number of item bundles that are included in pending orders and are therefore reserved. The quantity of a variation that is reserved by an item bundle is also included in the quantity displayed in the Reserved stock column. |
Supply |
Quantity of reordered items. Click on the quantity to open the Stock » reorder management » reorder menu. The reorders that form the supply will be listed automatically. |
RL |
The reorder level currently saved for the variation. |
RLΔ |
Reorder level Delta = Shows the quantity that is missing to reach the reorder level |
ø sale |
The average sales depend on the sales period that was saved in the Setup » Stock » Reorder management » Settings menu. However, you will only see a value for average sales here if the search filter Order is set to Yes. |
Quantity |
Enter the desired quantity for an order that is placed with the Create reorder button. The quantity saved as minimum order quantity for the supplier will automatically be suggested. This value will only be displayed in the table if the Order filter was set to Yes. If you see a crossed out shopping cart symbol instead of a text field for entering the order quantity, then this means that no supplier was saved for the variation. In this case, save a supplier in the variation’s Supplier tab. |
Supplier |
Select the desired supplier for a reorder. This value will only be displayed in the table if the Order filter was set to Yes. |
∑ |
Sigma sign = The total of the values in the individual columns (e. g. value of items in Euro). This value will only be displayed in the table if the Order filter was set to Yes. |
When changing the storage location of a variation in the stock overview, you can also easily redistribute the stock of a variation. You can redistribute the entire stock or only part of it. You can redistribute the stock from one storage location to a storage location in the same warehouse or in another warehouse.
However, you can not increase the quantity when redistributing. In other words, redistributing can not be used to book new stock in. Only the already existing quantity can be redistributed. Even if you enter a quantity that is higher than the current stock quantity, only the current quantity will be redistributed.
Redistributing stock:
Go to Stock » Stocks.
Click on the magnifying glass in the storage location column for the variation that you wish to redistribute.
→ A window will open.
Select the warehouse that you wish to book the stock to from the New warehouse drop-down list.
Select the storage location that you wish to book the stock to from the New warehouse drop-down list.
→ You can select storage locations that are in use for this variation from the drop-down list. Click on Search to add a new storage location.
Enter the quantity that you wish to redistribute into the New stock field.
Click on Redistribute.
Another menu where you can redistribute stock is the Stock tab of a variation. Open the Item » Edit item menu and then open a variation.
You can redistribute stock with best before dates/batches to other warehouses. However, please note the limitations for redistributing stock with best before dates/batches listed in Table 4.
| Option activated for warehouse | Limitation |
|---|---|
Best before date and batch |
Tip: These limitations do not apply when you redistribute stock using the plentymarkets app. |
Best before date |
Tip: These limitations do not apply when you redistribute stock using the plentymarkets app. |
Batch |
Tip: These limitations do not apply when you redistribute stock using the plentymarkets app. |
You can also redistribute stock using the plentymarkets app. Refer to the Receiving goods and replenishing stock page of the manual to learn how it’s done and which settings you’ll need to configure in advance.
A good reason to manage stocks in your system is that it allows you to reorder variations from your supplier early enough to not run out of stock. The reorder level is your reference figure to define a stock level at which reordering early enough is still possible. To filter variations that have reaached the reorder level, proceed as follows.
Filtering variations by reorder level:
Searching stocks:
Go to Stock » Stocks.
Select a Supplier from the drop-down list.
Select the option Reorder level reached/below in the limitation filter.
Click on Search.
→ The variations that are below or have reached the reorder level will be listed.
When you have listed the variations, you can directly create a reorder in this menu.
To reorder the variations that you have just listed, porceed as follows.
|
Click on reorder before switching pages
When you switch a page, the quantities entered will be reset. This is why you need to click on reorder before you switch the page. As long as the reorder is still open, further variations will be added to the reorder. |
Creating reorders:
Go to Stock » Stocks.
Filter by reorder level as described above.
Click on Accept suggestion.
If a suggestion does not seem right to you, you can enter the quantity that you wish to order.
Click on Create reorder.
|
Create reorder is not visible
If you can not see the Create order button, than check that Yes is set for the order filter on the left. The filter has to be set to yes. Otherwise reorders can not be carried out. |
Go to Stock » Reorder management » Reorders to see the reorder that was just created. The reorder will be Open. Further variations that you want to order from the same supplier will be added to the same reorder as long as you have a reorder that is open.
Booking variations out is crucial for managing stocks correctly. If you note that reserved stock exists for a variation or that more stock is reserved than should be and you know for sure that all orders have been shipped, you can search for orders that have not been booked out. Stock remains reserved until you booked the variations out. This means that the order status does not influence whether or not stock is reserved. The important step is to actually book the variations out.
Our recommended course of action that many users follow is to first book the variations out and to use this action to set the order in status 7. Use status 7 to display all orders that are in status 7 but that have not been booked out correctly.
Searching for outgoing items that were not yet booked:
Go to Orders » Edit orders.
In the Filter tab, select [7] Outgoing items booked for the = Status option in order to select all processed orders.
Select the filter Outgoing items and set the option not booked.
Click on Search to carry out the search.
If there are still orders in status 7 for which the outgoing items were not yet booked, then you will receive an overview of them with this search filter and you can decide individually how to proceed with the orders listed there.
|
Automatic stock update: Changes to the order status
The automatic stock update works in such a way that certain orders are automatically moved to another status. |
If you or your customer cancel an order, the stock that was reserved for that order can be released again. You can only create a cancellation as long as no variations have been booked out. In case variations have already been booked out and the order is about to be shipped or has already been delivered to your customer you need to create a return. The stock calculation is not based on order statuses but on events and actions. This means if the status of an order changes, then the stock will not autmatically be released.
However, you can still define a status for cancelled orders and use this status to release stock. Define the status for cancellations. Status 8 is commonly used for cancellations. If you use a status other than [8] for cancellations or if you use the additional status options 8.1, 8.2 etc., then you can define this status or even a whole range of statuses in which orders are considered to be canceled.
Editing basic settings for the status of canceled orders:
Go to Setup » Orders » Settings.
Select the status range that you wish to use for cancellations from the two drop-down lists under Status of canceled orders. The drop-down lists are from and to.
Save the settings.
You can export or import stock data and this way you can let your system know about the latest stocktaking that you carried out. The data format Stock contains the relevant stock data from your system. Data formats that might generally be useful when working with stock are:
All data formats available in plentymarkets as well as a general description on how to export or import data from or into plentymarkets can be found in the data exchange chapter of the manual.
You can view a variation’s stock movements in the Stock movement tab of the variation. You can open the stock movements by either opening the variation or by clicking on the physical stock of one of the results in the stock results list. This tab shows you how your stock reached its current level. In other words, you will see the different bookings that led to the current result. This will increase transparency of your stock management and in addition it enables you to understand your bookings also later.
Item bundles do not have an own stock movements tab, because the stock of bundles is calculated from the stock of the bundle components.
Opening the stock movement tab:
Go to Stock » Stocks.
In the results list, click on the quantity displayed in the PS (physical stock) column (image 1, red arrow) of the variation that you wish to open.
→ The Stock movements tab within the Stock tab of the item will be opened.
For example, the item’s display in the online store can depend on its stock: If the item can be delivered, it is offered in the online store. As soon as the net stock is 0, then the item is no longer displayed. Furthermore listings can depend on stock. This is a way to avoid overselling. You can choose your hood and ricardo settings to end listings if the stock is low. You can also choose to end eBay listings if the stock is low, but in addition you can choose to automatically relist eBay listings if stock has increased. To get a more detailed description of the settings, open the eBay listings page.