User guide

Stock and purchasing

Receiving goods, buying from societies, moving stock between branches, counting it, and keeping the catalogue.

How stock is counted

Stock is never a number someone types in. Every receipt, sale, return, transfer and adjustment is a movement, and the stock at a branch is the sum of its movements — so it can always be explained line by line.

• Tagged pieces — each saree has its own tag and is tracked from receipt to sale. Choose this per category.
• Loose goods — counted by design, in pieces, or in metres for cloth sold off the roll: held to the centimetre, so 95.5 m received and 2.25 m sold leaves exactly 93.25 m.
• Yarn and raw material — by weight, held to the gram and shown in kilograms, or by hank; in lots by bale or dye lot.

Receiving goods and purchase bills

Inventory → New purchase bill books a supplier's or weaver society's invoice and, usually, receives the goods at the same time.

1. Choose the supplier, and enter their invoice number and date.
2. Add lines: item, quantity (in the item's unit — 95.5 for metres of cloth), rate per unit and GST rate. For tagged items give one tag code per piece; for yarn give the lot.
3. Post. The purchase voucher is posted and the stock received; print tags for the new pieces straight away.

Inventory → Goods receipt receives stock without a bill, for goods whose bill comes later.

Sending goods back

From a purchase bill, return goods to the supplier on a debit note. It takes the stock out and reduces both what you owe and the input tax you claimed. This is an outlet manager's or head office's authority.

Transfers between branches

1. Inventory → Transfers → new transfer: choose the branch to send to and the items.
2. Dispatch. It is numbered as a delivery challan (Rule 55) and prints for the driver. The stock leaves the sending branch and is in transit.
3. At the other end, receive it, entering what actually arrived. A short delivery is recorded as a variance, never silently accepted.
4. If it never goes — the van breaks down, the trip is called off — the sending branch can call it back with the reason, while it is still in transit. The stock returns to the branch that sent it and the transfer stays on record as cancelled. Once the other end has signed for it, it is a transfer back, not a cancellation.

Stock take

Inventory → Stock take: count what is on the shelf; the difference from the books is shown by item. A variance of more than five pieces on a line needs an approval before the books are adjusted.

The catalogue

• Categories carry their own attributes — weave, motif, cluster, fabric — and whether items are tagged per piece.
• Products have a SKU, HSN code, unit and attributes. Prices are effective-dated, so a new price starts on a date and past bills keep the old one.
• Tag labels print on a thermal roll or A4 sheets.
• Products and opening stock can be imported from Excel — see setting up.

Purchase orders

Inventory → Purchase orders. An order tells a society or supplier what to deliver, by when, and at what rate. It commits nothing to the books: the stock comes with a goods receipt, and what you owe with their bill.

1. New order: the society or supplier, the order and delivery dates, and a line per item — quantity (pieces, metres for cloth, or kilograms for yarn), rate, GST and any specification such as design or colours. An unregistered society's order carries no GST.
2. Print the order to send to the society.
3. When goods arrive, receive a delivery on the order: what came of each line, with tags for tagged pieces and the lot for yarn. Deliveries can come in parts; nothing more than is still to come can be received.
4. When their invoice arrives, book the supplier's bill from the order. The bill opens filled with what was received and not yet billed, at the order's rates, and does not receive the stock a second time.
5. Amend the order while nothing has been delivered against it: the date it is wanted by, a quantity, a rate, the specification. A line already received or billed against is what that delivery was measured by and stays — close the order short and raise another instead. The supplier and the branch stay as ordered.
6. If the society cannot deliver the rest, close the order short with the reason. An order nothing was ever received or billed against can be cancelled instead.

The Still to come list on the same page shows every open line with goods outstanding, oldest delivery date first, with how many days late — and downloads to Excel for chasing the societies.