A few question regarding inventory

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HI
I am in the process(infact have made up my mind) of buying PC for my security cameras business. Just a few question
Q.1. Most of my orders will be by phone, is there a way to place the order for a customer in the control pannel and save the order for payment processing later on?
Q.2. If yes to the first question, will PC deduct the item form the inventory for the order that was just placed but not processed as yet. eg. Quick Books POS does not deduct items form inventory untill sales order is converted to sales invoice. This is a huge probem with the type of business that I am in. We have jobs that are on going for several weeks and sometime extend to couple months. With QB POS inventory tracking is a night mare.
Q.3. Can I create a payment class as CASH. Because I get walk in customers too.
thanks

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313-313 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 17-July-2008 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote 313-313 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: A few question regarding inventory Posted: 17-July-2008 at 7:41pm
	HI I am in the process(infact have made up my mind) of buying PC for my security cameras business. Just a few question Q.1. Most of my orders will be by phone, is there a way to place the order for a customer in the control pannel and save the order for payment processing later on? Q.2. If yes to the first question, will PC deduct the item form the inventory for the order that was just placed but not processed as yet. eg. Quick Books POS does not deduct items form inventory untill sales order is converted to sales invoice. This is a huge probem with the type of business that I am in. We have jobs that are on going for several weeks and sometime extend to couple months. With QB POS inventory tracking is a night mare. Q.3. Can I create a payment class as CASH. Because I get walk in customers too. thanks

Hamish Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Admin Group Joined: 12-October-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 56	Post Options Post Reply Quote Hamish Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 17-July-2008 at 8:39pm
	Hi, First of all - Good call - ProductCart is a great choice :-) Q1 - Yes, you can create a customer (or use an existing customer) and then place an order as if you are that customer, starting from the admin panels - It takes you through to your public side of your site, logged in as if you were that customer. I don't recall what happens when you get to the payment stage - I guess it's just the same as the customer would see. Q2. Yes. By the way, PC has good integration with Quick Books - there's an active section on the forum over a new version coming soon - not sure of any dates for it shipping though. Q3. Yes. If you only have one class of customer (not a mix of retail and wholesale/trade) or you treat all customers in the same way re payments and goods available etc, then you could set up a special "Customer" called, say, MyStore, and offer "CASH" as a payment option to just yourself. If you do have a mix, there will be other ways of restricting whom you offer the "CASH" option to. It sounds, like you want to use this as your main method for handling all orders. There has been work done by/for people on the forum for creating a "quick order" page - where you fill in the details of the order instead of going through the default pages. That may be of interest to you as well.
	Editing ProductCart Code? See WIKI Guidelines for Editing ProductCart's ASP Source Code

313-313 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 17-July-2008 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote 313-313 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 17-July-2008 at 9:25pm
	Hamish, <quote>Q3. Yes. If you only have one class of customer (not a mix of retail and wholesale/trade) or you treat all customers in the same way re payments and goods available etc, then you could set up a special "Customer" called, say, MyStore, and offer "CASH" as a payment option to just yourself. If you do have a mix, there will be other ways of restricting whom you offer the "CASH" option to.</quote> I have a mix of all types of customers(retail, wholesale and walk in). I appreciate your suggestion, but the problem is, that I have to track what each customer bought over a period of time. Because each customer uses certain hardware and requires accessories over and over again. It is very essential that we keep a history of all purchases. Hamish. If I understood you answer to Q 2 correctly. You meant that it will deduct items from inventory if the order is partially completed. can someone send me a link to "quick order" page as suggested by Hamish. Mean time I will keep browsing the forum. thanks

Hamish Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Admin Group Joined: 12-October-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 56	Post Options Post Reply Quote Hamish Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18-July-2008 at 2:30am
	Hi, Re Q3, In that case, you can treat the customers who walk in through the door the same as those that phone & put their details in. That way the full customer order history would be maintained. The issues I see right now are :- - Restricting "CASH" to only be displayed in the physical store. This could be done via some custom coding, or just add text to point out that it's an in-store option only, or call it "In-Store". There are several possibilities, The KEY THING is to ensure that you don't send goods to customers who haven't paid of course! PC does keep a record of what customers bought. If you have a lot of customers, or a lot of orders from each customer, then looking through, order by order, at what they bought would become a pain I would think. If it does become an issue you can easily export the data to use in either a spreadsheet or database etc. Q2 - By partially complete - I mean the order is placed, but not processed, shipped etc. From P132 of the PC manual "The inventory levels are updated immediately after an order has been placed (even if the order is still Pending)." Quick Order discussion on the forum :- www.earlyimpact.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1718&PID=5892#5892 Existing example :- www.confetti.com/store/pc/quickorder.asp
	Editing ProductCart Code? See WIKI Guidelines for Editing ProductCart's ASP Source Code

katharina Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 25-October-2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote katharina Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18-July-2008 at 6:44pm
	We have the options of "Call in Credit Card" or "Mail in Check/Money order". Either one of them will refer to a later payment and can be used for phone orders. We do that all the time. We sometimes get orders faxed in from wholesale customers. These never have a credit card number on the fax. We simply enter them and use the "Call in Credit Card" at check out. We are not having "On Account" as an option, because we know that retail customers will select it without knowing what it is. Hope this info will work for you. Katharina

Hamish Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Admin Group Joined: 12-October-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 56	Post Options Post Reply Quote Hamish Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18-July-2008 at 6:50pm
	Hi Katharina, Those are good names for the options - very clear as to what is required of the customer.
	Editing ProductCart Code? See WIKI Guidelines for Editing ProductCart's ASP Source Code

katharina Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 25-October-2005 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote katharina Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18-July-2008 at 7:04pm
	Customer's like those options, plus they are getting instructions on the following page. I really like that PC give you the possibility to create custom checkout methods. We don't get many checks or money orders anymore (perhaps one every 4 month), but we used to (3 per month). We do get some "Call in Credit Card" (perhaps 3 per week). It's really not many customers (and doesn't post much extra work for us), but this one sits well with those afraid to use a credit cards online. We also offer Paypal. What we have found is that customers will feel safer seeing some alternative methods of paying. That and having our contact info with phone number on every page. Katharina