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.
Users of the type Back end can only access limited areas and menus in the plentymarkets back end. Thus, their access to the system is limited. If users of this type should be able to work with stocks, a user of the type Admin has to assign the rights listed in Table 1 to those users.
Assigning user rights for back end users:
Go to Setup » Settings » User » Rights » User.
Use the search function () and open the user account that should be edited.
In the Authorisations area, activate the rights as listed in Table 1.
Save () the settings.
| Setting | Explanation |
|---|---|
Stock > Show |
Authorises back end users to see stocks. |
Stock > Edit |
Authorises back end users to edit stocks. |
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 cancelled. 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 cancelled. |
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 separated 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 a subset of the physical stock. Subtract all reserved quantities from the physical stock and you will get the net stock. If a customer tries to buy more copies of an item than are currently available in the net stock, this customer 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 cancelled 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, 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. Stock is reserved until either variations are booked out or until the warranty itself is cancelled again.
When listings are posted:
If you do not reserve stock for active listings, it is possible that you may end up empty-handed after a listing has been terminated. This is because you may already have 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.
Note: A bundle is only available, if its components are stored in the same warehouse.
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 filters to narrow down the stock results.
The column titles are abbreviated. If you point your cursor over an abbreviation, you will see the entire name.
The displayed parameters depend on the user’s rights. Options that can be restricted for a user are e.g. the warehouse options. Go to Setup » Settings » User » Rights » User » [select 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 entered search criteria are 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. In this case, both variations will be found. In addition, variations of the same item that the variations belong to will also 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. |
Tags |
Click in the field to add tags and to filter by them. In the Tag search mode drop-down list below, you can also choose between an and and an or connection of the tags. |
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 suppliers to create reorders. The button Create reorder is displayed above the result list. The chapter Creating 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 easier 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, i.e. if an option has been selected for both flags, only variations that have both of the flags will be listed. |
Bundle |
Choose between searching for 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 and 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 only display stock from this warehouse. |
Net calculation |
Select a calculation variation to display the net stock. If you want to include listings, 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. The entire stock of this variation that was registered or booked on 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 entered quantity. 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 menu 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 to 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, 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 cannot increase the quantity when redistributing. In other words, redistributing cannot 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.
In the storage location column, click on Search () for the variation that you wish to redistribute.
→ A window opens.
Select the warehouse that you wish to book the stock into from the New warehouse drop-down list.
Select the storage location that you wish to book the stock into from the New warehouse drop-down list.
→ From the drop-down list, you can select storage locations that are in use for this variation. 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, note the limitations for redistributing stock with best before dates/batches listed in Table 5.
| 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 redistributing 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 so you do not run out of stock. The reorder level is your reference figure to define a stock level at which reordering in time is still possible. To filter variations that have reached 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, proceed as follows.
|
Click on reorder before switching pages
When you switch to another page, the entered quantities 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, enter the quantity that you wish to order.
Click on Create reorder.
|
Create reorder is not visible
If you cannot see the Create order button, check that Yes is set for the order filter on the left. The filter has to be set to yes. Otherwise reorders cannot be carried out. |
Go to Stock » Reorder management » Reorders to see the reorder that was just created. The reorder receives the status 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.
You can decide whether you want to define a reorder level for your items and thus receive reorder suggestions. If you don’t want to do so, it is not necessary to define a value for the reorder level in the Warehouse tab. In this case, proceed as follows:
Working without reorder level:
Go to Item » Edit item » [select item] » tab: Warehouse.
In the Reorder level field, delete the default value 0.
Save () the settings.
→ No reorder level will be specified for this item.
In case you have defined several warehouses for this variation in the Warehouse tab, enter the value 0 for each warehouse in the Reorder level field. Here you can also define whether you want to activate (define a value) the reorder level for a variation in a specific warehouse, but deactivate (do not define a value) it in other warehouses.
If you want to delete the value for several variations, use the import type Item. In the mapping, select the field Warehouse/Reorder level as target field and activate it via the toggle button on the left. By doing so, the respective column in the CSV file will be empty.
|
Use reorder level for main variation only
If you want to use the reorder level for a main variation but not for a side variation, you need to deactivate the inheritance on the side variation. Otherwise, the reorder level of the main variation will be used for the side variation, too. |
Booking out variations 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 out the variations. 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 out the variations and to use this action to set the order to 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 booked yet:
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 booked yet, you will receive an overview of them with this search filter and you can decide individually how to proceed with these orders.
|
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, the stock will not automatically 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., you can determine this status or even a whole range of statuses in which orders are considered to be cancelled.
Editing basic settings for the status of cancelled 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 cancelled orders. The drop-down lists are from and to.
Save () the settings.
With imports of the type Item, Stock or Incoming items you can import negative stock. This is useful if you notice a difference in your stock after inspecting your inventory or if less items were delivered than you actually ordered. When using the import types Item and Stock, the values from the CSV file or from the Own value are imported 1:1. When using the import type Incoming items, however, the values are subtracted from the stock.
Importing negative stock:
Go to Data » Import.
→ The import overview opens.
Select an import. The import has to be of the type Item, Stock or Incoming items (warehouse, storage location and quantity are mandatory fields).
Or: Click on Add import in order to add an import of the type Item, Stock or Incoming items. For further information, refer to the Using the import tool page.
Switch to the Mapping tab.
In the field Source, select the option Own value.
In the field Value, enter the negative stock (e.g. -25).
Save () the settings.
→ The negative stock is imported.
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 on the data manual page.
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 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 opens.
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, 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.