POS for Inventory pricing only

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Larry Peterson

Larry Peterson

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
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Being online only, I don't have a need for a POS for order processing and all the other things that you store fronts have. I didn't use a POS when I had a store front.

I am wondering about using one for inventory and inventory COG.

I offer about 200 mouldings, 100+ mats and the rest of the gamut of glazing, fitting supplies and so forth.

Keeping track of inventory and the pricing of supplies has always been an issue. Currently all of that information is in a database that I maintain. A POS that allows for exporting of price data into my website databases would seem to be useful. Exports in any format is fine. I can program whatever database conversion that would be needed. All my online pricing is done dynamically via pricing information in my site database.

If you were in my situation and didn't need to worry about customer orders would you still use a POS?

Any recommendations? Most of the comparisons I have seen are geared towards the creation of orders with the back office stuff secondary- at least that's my impression.
 
Wouldn't you still need the data from each order, to deduct the materials from your inventory and to determine COGS ?

Your situation is somewhat unique, and I don't think any of the current programs are necessarily set up to work this way.

Would it be possible for the developer of your website POS to add these features to the product, to handle the back end too? If nothing else, it would eliminate entering things twice. (or a custom app that can import your web POS data and subtract it from a simple database)

Someone else may have a better solution/advice.

Mike
 
Mike Labbe @ GTP said:
Wouldn't you still need the data from each order, to deduct the materials from your inventory and to determine COGS ?

Your situation is somewhat unique, and I don't think any of the current programs are necessarily set up to work this way.

Would it be possible for the developer of your website POS to add these features to the product, to handle the back end too? If nothing else, it would eliminate entering things twice. (or a custom app that can import your web POS data and subtract it from a simple database)

Someone else may have a better solution/advice.

Mike
Click to expand...

I should clarify a couple of points.

The main benefit for me of using a POS is not having to enter new prices whenever the cost of goods change. LJ, Studio, Decor, United, M&M etc come out with a new price book and I have to update umpteen zillion prices. That is the main benefit for me. Not having to update prices.

And I never know if something is discontinued unless I get a notice. Most vendors just delete it from their catalog and don't give notifications.

I am my own developer for my site, which is currently undergoing a major redevelopment so I can do anything needed on the back end.

I prefer to do most inventory counts update manually and can keep track of it in my site DB. I don't want to rely on a computed amount used on an order. I would assume that a normal POS would allow you to enter the exact quantities used on a order but I can also keep track on the back end. I have my completed customer and order history in my DB so it can be added to or modified as I need.

My web database is the master. Any pricing data that a POS would provide would be imported into the master. I can, and do, and will, program my DB to do all the tricks I need.

I'm a retired programmer so I can do anything needed for this. For example, here is something I am currently working on. I have 100+ mats that are displayed on the site and am adding a bunch more. The order that mats are displayed in is an issue, especially when you don't have any sort of color order. I currently decide manually what order to display them in. I want to automate this and be able to tweek the order. The images of the mats aren't a solid color. I want to display the mats from lightest to darkest. A sort by RGB value isn't any use as it isn't geared towards lightness/darkness. An HLV sort is when sorted on the V, but available sampling algorithms are geared towards rgb. So my routine will go through the list of all my mat images, sample the rgb value at numerous arbitrary places in the image and come up with an average, convert the rgb to HLV and store both the RGB and HLV values in my database which will then allow me to select the mats ordered by the 'V' value. But I digress....

But nothing can eliminate having to update prices like a POS would. That's my main goal.............Not having to enter and update prices.


BTW Mike, I know you have a POS comparison somplace but I can't find it. Would you post a link. Thanks,
 
Hi

Absolutely. The link is at the bottom of this post.

What the moulding vendors do is send regular updates to every POS company. The POS companies then make these changes to their databases, transmit them electronically to their subscribers. (rather than just once per year, in paper form) Changes are processed 7 days per week, by many of the POS companies. There is a good chance of seeing new/deleted/changed items on any given day, if you carry a lot of vendors.

One option would be to have the vendors send their updates to you, as they do for the other software developers. There isn't a standard format, but they usually come in as TXT or Spreadsheets. One other would be to get a professional pos system, and let them do all the vendor/conversion work for you. Then write something to periodically synch it with your database. This wouldn't be an officially (tech) supported venture, though :)

In any case, I hope you're able to find a practical solution.

Mike
 
Mike Labbe @ GTP said:
One option would be to have the vendors send their updates to you, as they do for the other software developers.
Click to expand...

I hadn't thought about this. This might be my best option if I can get data from LJ, Studio, Decor, United and M&M.

Any suggestions on who to contact to get this information?

Format isn't a concern. I can work with, modify and convert jsut about anything they could through at me.

Thanks for the link. I knew it was around someplace.
 
I don't know the contacts for each company, but your rep can probably point you in the right direction.

Best regards,
Mike
 
Larry,
One of the things a typical retail POS system does NOT do is keep track of moulding inventory - you would need a higher powered system such as typically used by a distributor for that. Since you can write that part of it yourself I agree that getting the pricing data directly from the supplier is your best option if they will include you in the loop.
 
We use Frameready.ca pos system. We decided to use them specifically because they track inventory of mouldings, mats etc.

Yes they also have a vendor pricing updates.

The systems is running on filemaker pro. As a programer you'll find it super easy to customize the program to better suit your needs.

Download a trial version on their website and see for yourself.
 
The mat pricing you would get from POS vendors will not match your mat pricing from your actual distributor.

All your vendors should be able to give you an export file.

That's honestly the way to go, if just for inventory purposes.
 
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