Recommended inventory technique to "move inventory between item variations" Green Bananas to Ripe

[EastRace]

Small grocery store. We buy bananas and sell them by the each. The come green, but then become ripe and we mark them down. The inventory cost is the same. Over time we transition them to ripe bananas with a lower price.

How should we handle this in Retail?

We looked at discounts, but a $0.20 discount doesn't have a way to apply it multiple times equal to the number of ripe bananas purchased. 

We looked at options and modifiers. No luck, modifiers can only be positive not negative. Didn't want to charge extra for green bananas. Poor customer experience.

We looked at creating 1 item with 2 variations, but then we'd receive inventory. 

Today we just have 2 items, each with 1 variation.

There has to be a clearer way to do this? Maybe with the api even to do a stock conversion or to do an inventory transfer between items (I see transferring inventory between locations).

Thanks!

[Candlestore]

@EastRace ;

Here is an idea.... its a little odd but may work till Square lets you move inventory.

item 

       bananas

             Variations

                    Green

                     Ripe

 Green Bananas    $1.20 each

  Ripe Bananas      $1.00 each

When the Green Bananas go ripe, goto your Square Dashboard and Items bananas and then Manage Stock..... Decrease the Green bananas by the number and Increase Ripe bananas by the same number.  Keep the cost the same for the Ripe as the Green Bananas.  This will keep track of the inventory atleast but not Costs.  The other thing this will do is in your Sales you will see you bought 300 Bananas..... Sold 175 Green and 325 Ripe Bananas.  You might be able to see if you sell More Green or Ripe ones using Square.

[EastRace]

Appreciate the reply Keith! Thanks, I tried to do this initially but it seems that inventory is tied 1-1 to a variation. So when we receive inventory today we receive into Bananas, Green. (E.g. 40 lbs / qty go up for that variation).

I didn't see a way to move inventory between items though, as you confirmed.

Are saying is to do a physical recount of both to move them? Or what mechanism of an inventory change to decrease the green by a number and increase ripe by the same number.

I could waste 20 of green and receive stock of 20 of ripe, and try to keep the default costs the same but when we ultimately sell I think it would overcount our COGS? Because ultimately the same 20 bananas were wasted once and then eventually sold.

I tend to get confused with the COGS reports and inventory adjustments. Basically it seems really easy to do manual adjustments when we don't want to and then the default cost gets applied. I try to always Receive stock by a PO to prevent automatically adding inventory. But then there has to be a cost, and here we don't want a cost since we already incurred the cost.

Thinking...

Maybe I need to waste 20 green and then receive 20 ripe. And have the ripe default cost as $0 and whatever the actual cost is on the ripe. If we look at reporting at the item level we would see accurate costs (not double counting, I think). And at any point since we are wasting then receiving the total banana count should be correct.

Maybe I'm making an error in my thinking and someone can help? Thanks!

[EastRace]

Maybe we could create a 2nd unit. We have bananas by the pound, but could abandon that and sell them by the each. We could create 2 custom units: Green, and Ripe. With a 1-1 conversion between the two. But can we have a different price for each (when it has a 1-1 conversion)? (Obviously e.g. a 100' spool of wire would sell different total vs 10 foot of wire - a more conventional conversion unit example). 

[maxpete]

Tagging @TCSlaguna, @Minion, and @homeprogreen in case they have any advice too!

[homeprogreen · Accepted solution]

Discount is the best way to do it but you need to set it as a percentage instead of a fixed amount in order for it to work correctly with quantities. So let’s say bananas are a dollar each and ripe bananas are 80 cents each. You would create a discount “ called ripe bananas and set it as 20%. It can even be set to automatically apply. This would accurately track inventory and COG’s without have to constantly adjust inventory. Otherwise you would need to adjust inventory by creating the item ripe bananas, receive your green bananas into inventory with your costs then once they’re ripe you would count the number you’re moving, adjust green banana inventory while selecting spoilage or loss while adding the same number of ripe bananas to that item with the correct cost

[EastRace]

This is a great answer, thanks very much!

[homeprogreen]

You’re welcome. Glad I could help