How to handle inventory

[coupons29]

Hello and thank you for your willingness to try and answer my question.  Our business currently sells freezer meats (chicken, beef, turkey) and we sell wholesale and retail.  I have 2 different items so that I will be able to track how much we sell wholesale and retail separately and we sell each package by weight; for example, I have item for Chicken Breast and one for Chicken Breast Wholesale.    When we get the packages back from the processor I put the total weight in the Chicken Breast item and nothing in wholesale.  So at this point their may be 120 lbs in Chicken Breast and zero in the wholesale item.

Now one of the wholesalers want a box of breast which weighs 60 lbs. Here is my issue, I can make the invoice and put item "chicken wholesale" and do the 60 lbs which then flags as not enough inventory but I can bypass that to continue with the invoice.    Currently after that I go into the wholesale item and "receive stock" of 60 lbs which will then show it back to zero.  Then I go into the regular one and, from my example, subtract 60 from the original 120 and then do an "inventory recount" and make the original 60.

Is this the best way to do this? It is a lot of extra work and I am constantly "inventory recounting".  I cannot place stock received in each item because the wholesale portion is erratic and I don't want to run out of the store item while there is more sitting under the wholesale item.  

If this is the way it has to be then that's how I will continue, but I am hoping a more experienced user has a better idea. Thank you so much!

[maxpete]

@coupons29 thanks for your question here! Tagging in a couple of folks who might be able to assist based on their experience. 

@MAXSDELI, @balmonte, and @Donnie-M 

[balmonte]

Are you selling them at different price points for wholesale vs retail?

Off the top of my head, you can try to create one product and add a variation that can be labeled Wholesale and Retail. Then add the price per lb that each are priced at. Then if you sell 40 lbs, enter 40 as your quantity and select either wholesale or retail to add the correct price to charge per lb. 

With this approach you only need to track inventory in one product. I don’t have this use case so you’ll need to try at and see if it fits your need. 

[coupons29]

At first that seems like a good idea but even when you have variations you have to have inventory in both areas.

[balmonte]

@coupons29 The following worked when I tested. Instead of using a variation, use a modifier. Here is the setup:

1. Setup your product and add a base price. Assuming the lesser of the two is going to be wholesale. If your wholesale price is $1.99 / lb, set that price to the overall item.
2. Create a modifier with two options:
   1. Wholesale - set the price to $0.00
   2. Retail - set the price to the difference. So if your retail price is $2.99, your modifier would be set to $1.00 ($1.00 + $1.99 = $2.99)
3. When you add the modifier to the product, make sure to update the settings to look like this which ensures that a modifier must always be set to one of the two options:
   
4. This was the inventory update in Square once I placed an order for 40 lbs of chicken:
   
5. From a user perspective it may would look something like this:
   
6. Now when you go into reports you will see for chicken the following:
   
7. if you click on the Chicken by the Pound item, you'll get a further breakdown that will show the modifier sales:
   

Let me know if this helps.

[Candlestore]

@coupons29 ;

Do you have a % discount for your Wholesale Items?  If you sell your Wholesale meats at the same % off of the original price you could apply manually a Discount to wholesale buyers to get the item from Retail price to Wholesale price.  For example:

If you sell your meats at $1 a pound  and wholesale is 60 cents a pould, create a 40%discount called Wholesale.  This would then gettheprice to what they want a lb, track your inventory without duplicating it.  The issue I see is if you mark your beef up 50% and your Chicken up 40% and chicken or pork up 30% this would get more complicated.   But your receipt would show $1 per pound and your Discount % and the final price on your wholesalers receipt.

Not sure if that would be an issue.

I believe you can put these discounts so that a Manager or owner can only apply these discounts.

Here is a link for more about discounts:

3955-create-and-manage-discounts 

[coupons29]

Thank you for your answer but the only thing is that I wouldn't be able to track how much I sell wholesale vs retail when I look at historical numbers if I just apply a discount.    

[Candlestore]

@coupons29 

Assign the sale to Customer for Wholesale orders or create a Customer Called Whole Sale and then you can filter your reports by that customer Last name Whole , First name Sale for examlple. 

I have a Barcode that has no price, I scan it and just put in the Custom amount sold.  I also create an Invoice in my accounting software that matches the Total price.  My custom price does not effect my Square inventory at all.  I have to download my sales from Square and my Online store not associated with square and those items are then deducted from my accounting softwares inventory.   This is more complex than just creating the discount, but my accounting software is tracking inventory anyway, and Square just tracks my In Store sales.