Inventory management
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      Managing Inventory

      Overview

      This manual will teach you how to add green coffee, make adjustments, view your lot's history, and access your inventory report. 

      Feature availability

      Managing Inventory is available for the following products: 

      • Roast
      • Origin
      • Lab

      Why using Inventory? 

      Inventory outlines your physical coffee stock and helps you to keep track of it. 

      There are two types of lots stored in your Inventory:

      1. PG lots (Roast, Origin, Lab): Green coffee that is ready to be roasted. 
      2. PP lots (only Origin): Have yet to be milled, they may have been in a state of either parchment, dry-cherry or raw green. 

      With Cropster you can also split your inventory between locations, e.g. roasting facilities and warehouses. 

      Learn how to set up locations and to track your inventory amongst different locations. 


      To save you time and energy, Cropster will automatically deduct your green coffee used in your roast. In short, when you are roasting in RI (Roasting Intelligence), you will always know at a glance how much beans you have left. 

      Inventory in C-sar 

      You can manage and track your inventory with the online platform C-sar. 

      To access the Inventory you need to follow these steps:

      1. Log into the online platform C-sar. 
      2. Navigate to Inventory on the main menu bar.
      3. By clicking on Add lot, you can add One lot or Many lots to your inventory. 
      4. When adding the inventory for the first time, a window pops up where you can set the information you want to track your greens with. You can customize this information at any point.

      Adding lots in bulk (recommended for new users)

      1. Clicking Many brings you to the bulk uploader where you can add multiple lots at the same time via a built-in spreadsheet format.
      2. We recommend to enter Name, Weight* and Weight unit*.
      3. For Origin only: you need to enter the State*.
        You can select between the following states: Green, Parchment, Dry cherry, Raw green. 

      4.   You can also add the Registration Date in case you would like to change it before any transactions would be registered with the lot. 
      Note: By adding Varieties you are also able to add custom varieties to your lots. 
      Screenshot 2023-08-08 at 12.14.10

      5.  To save time entering lots, you can copy and paste data from e.g. an Excel sheet directly to the import table, or hover with the mouse pointer over the bottom-right corner of the cell until a + sign appears, then drag it down to copy cells within a column.

      6.  Click Import lots to submit.

      7.  A PG-number and PP-number will be assigned to your lots. 
          Note: PP-number is only for Origin.

      Adding lots one by one

      1. If you want to enter a single lot at a time, click One.
      2. The input fields can be customized via the Customize fields button.
        We recommend to add the Registration Date as well.
        As long as no weight adjustments are made to the lot, registration dates can be edited later on.
        Screenshot 2023-07-21 at 13.09.09
      3. Enter the information you would like to add to your lot.
        Note: State is only for Origin. 
      4. Click Create lot to submit. 

      Customizing the Inventory overview page 


      You can easily customize which information is visible on your Inventory overview page by following these steps:

      1. Navigate to the Inventory overview page.
      2. Click on the Customize drop-down menu and add or remove fields by clicking the corresponding checkboxes. You can also make consumed lots visible in the overview by using the toggle button on the bottom at Include consumed inventory. 
        Screenshot 2023-07-20 at 16.15.01
      3. There are also three presets you can choose from: Availability, Supply network and Quality. These presets will show you certain key lot information based on each category without you having to select individual boxes.

      Your settings will be saved to the server, so you do not have to change them each time you navigate to this page. 

      Editing Inventory 


      You can easily make changes to your green lots in two ways:

      • Edit them individually from their unique lot pages.
      • Bulk-edit them from the inventory overview page.
        Check the boxes next to the lots you prefer to edit. A menu bar will appear on the top of the table:Screenshot 2023-07-20 at 16.59.01

      By clicking on the drop-down next to Manage you can perform the following functions for the lots selected: 

      EditIcon Edit
      If you want to edit your lots individually or add further information click the pencil symbol. 

      WeightIcon Adjust weight
      If you want to change the weight of a certain lot, use the Adjust weight function. 

      SplitIcon (1) Warehouse Distribution
      If you have coffee in multiple locations, use the Warehouse Distribution function to distribute the lots amongst your locations.

      MergeIcon (1) Merge Inventory
      If you want to merge two or more lots, check the boxes next to the lots you want to merge and click Merge Inventory.

      Mark consumed
      If you want to empty a specific lot simply click Mark consumed. Consumed lots disappear from the main view.

      Share
      Select the Share icon and choose the details would you like to share about the selected lot. The lot is shared through a URL, and can be copied into e.g. an email. You can select several lots to share at the same time. If a selected lot has been previously shared you will receive a notification and the old sharing link will be deleted.

      The lot's detail page


      You can reach the lot's detail page from your Inventory dashboard by clicking on the PG-tag.

      Besides the information listed below, you can also track your inventory in different locations. 

      You can find the following sections on the page:


      Weights section


      The weights section gives you the following information:

      • Initial weight
      • Current inventory (turns yellow if it is below the minimum inventory level)
      • Minimum inventory level (optional)
      • Run out estimation
      • Price per unit (it only appears if you previously added the price to your lots)
        Note: If you would like to add price to your lots we kindly recommend you to review the steps of managing currency and adding value to the inventory.
      • Total value

        Screenshot 2023-07-21 at 10.25.02

      Transaction history and projection chart


      Navigate to Transaction history and projection chart to review all transactions of a green lot.
      The chart shows the weight added and removed over time. 

      Each data point on the graph shows the weight at the beginning of the day. 

      • The grey dot represents the initial weight.
      • The blue line represents the transaction history of your lot.
      • The green dot represents the current weight.
      • The yellow dotted-line represents the projected weight.
      • The red dot represents the estimated run out date. 
        If the estimated run out date is unavailable because e.g. your lot will not likely run out in the next 8 weeks a notification highlighted in blue will appear above your chart.
        Screenshot 2023-07-26 at 10.32.17

      Transaction history table


      To review your lot's transactions in the table format you need to check the Transaction history table.
      The tablet's columns can also be customized via the Customize button. 

      You can select three display sets: Show all, Hide all and Restore defaults.
      Screenshot 2023-07-21 at 12.05.33-1

      The following details are displayed on the Transaction history table:

      • Date: the date when the transaction was registered.
      • Weight before: the weight of the lot before the adjustment.
      • Adjustment: shows the weight adjustment applied (to the "weight before" value).
      • Weight after: the weight of the ot after the adjustment.
      • Event type:
        • Adjust: the transaction is a user-logged adjustment (i.e. Adjust weight).
        • Allocate: the transaction is a user-logged allocation of weight amongst your location (i.e. Warehouse distribution)
        • Current: the row refers of the current status of the lot.
        • Merge: the transaction refers to a merge of weight between two or more lots.
        • Projection: represents the projected weight until the run out estimation date.
        • Roasting: the transaction is roast logged manually from the online platform C-sar or from RI (Roasting Intelligence)
      • Location: refers to the location where the transaction occurred.
      • Relation: refers to the roast ID-tag resulting from a "Roasting" transaction
      • Comment: shows the comment entered when running th "Adding weight" function. 

      You can export the information from the table to an Excel file by clicking on Excel .xls.
      Please note that only the rows currently selected (visible) will be included in the export.

      Quality information

      You can find the quality information on the bottom of the lot's detail page.
      Screenshot 2023-07-25 at 14.04.56

      In order to be able to make the most out of this feature we kindly invite you to learn how to use the Quality module.

      Note: Sensorial History is only available for Professional and higher tiers. This history will show all quality data from lots within the same group.


      FAQs


      How can I change the registration date of my lot?

      When you register a lot, the registration date is an exact date when you added the lot to your inventory. You can only change the registration date when no transactions registered with the lot. 

      How can I change the initial weight of my lot? 

      If you need to edit the lot's weight use the adjust weight page.
      First you need to click on the PG number of the lot you'd like to edit, then navigate to the page mentioned above. You can only change the initial weight before you actually use the lot. 
      Screenshot 2023-08-09 at 15.48.34


      What if the variety I'd like to add is not on the list of varieties?

      By following the steps of adding custom varieties you can add a new variety to your lots. 


      Related content

      Congratulations! You are now ready to manage your Inventory!

      Your opinion matters. If you have further questions, feedback or concerns, please feel free to reach out by submitting a support ticket directly from support.cropster.com.