A store in Tabs is any place you sell from or keep stock in. That could be a shop, a second branch, a kiosk or a warehouse. Each store has its own stock, so 20 bags of rice in Ikeja are never confused with 20 in Lekki.
A transfer is how stock moves from one store to another, with a record of what left, what arrived and who handled it.
Adding a store
You created your first store when you set up the business. To add another, go to Stores and press Add store. Enter its name and where it is: the street address, city and state. You can also add an email address for the store.
From the Stores page you can also search your stores, edit one, or choose View products to see what a store holds.
The primary store
One store is your primary store, your main location. Only one can be primary. If you mark another store as primary, the old one stops being it.
The primary store comes first in every list. Its address is also the one shown for the business as a whole in your settings.
How stores affect everything else
Once you have more than one store, a few things follow:
- Every product belongs to a store. You choose it when you add the product. Its prices are in that store's currency.
- Every sale is made from a store. When you record an order you pick the store first, and you can only sell what that store has.
- Staff can be attached to a store on their member page.
- Your dashboard can show one store or all of them. See the dashboard.
A product that has stock, or that has ever been sold or transferred, stays in its store. You can't just switch it to another one. To get stock to another store, transfer it.
Moving stock between stores
Transfers need at least two stores. With only one, the Transfers page points you to Stores to add a second.
- Go to Transfers and press New transfer.
- Choose the store the stock leaves and the store it goes to.
- Press Add item and pick what's moving, and how many. You can't send more than the first store holds.
- Fill in the shipment details if you have them: how it's being sent, the date you expect it, a tracking number or waybill, and a note for the other store.
- Press Create transfer.
Tabs shows the value of what's moving, at cost price, before you create it.
If the second store has never stocked one of the items, Tabs sets it up there automatically, starting from zero. You don't have to add the product twice.
Once a transfer exists, its route and its items are fixed. You can still edit the shipment details. If the items are wrong, cancel it and make a new one.
Following a transfer
Creating a transfer doesn't move any stock. Two buttons on the transfer's page do that.
Mark as shipped when the goods leave. They come out of the first store's stock at that moment.
Receive when they arrive. The person at the second store counts what actually came and enters it for each item. That amount goes into the second store's stock.
The transfer's page shows a packing list with three numbers per item: how many were asked for, how many left, and how many arrived.
When fewer arrive than were sent
This is the part that makes transfers worth recording.
Say Ikeja sends 10 cartons of milk to Lekki. Ikeja marks the transfer as shipped, and 10 cartons come off Ikeja's stock. At Lekki, the manager counts 8 and enters 8. Lekki's stock goes up by 8.
The other 2 are now in neither store's stock, and the transfer shows that fewer arrived than were sent. Tabs doesn't quietly add them back anywhere. You have a clear record that 2 cartons went missing between two named people on a named day, which is exactly what you need to sort it out.
Cancelling and deleting
Cancel a transfer you no longer need. What happens depends on how far it had got:
- Cancelled before it shipped: nothing had left stock, so nothing changes.
- Cancelled after it shipped: what was shipped goes back into the first store's stock.
A cancelled transfer stays on record as cancelled.
Delete removes the transfer from your list. It doesn't undo anything. Stock it already moved stays where it is. To put shipped stock back, cancel instead.
Getting the most from several stores
- Do the receive step at the second store, by the person receiving. If the sender fills in both ends, you lose the check.
- Use the note field. "Fragile, 2 cartons opened" tells the other store what to expect.
- Count each store on its own. A stock count covers one store's shelves.
- Look at stock value by store on the dashboard. It shows where your money is sitting.
Who can do what
Stores and transfers have separate permissions for viewing, creating, editing and removing. You might let every manager create transfers while only the owner can add or delete a store. Set this under roles.