Setting up your inventory items

The following will detail how to properly setup inventory items and manage them

When you setup your inventory items you want to think about the “architecture” of your inventory management.  This means, what inventory is going to be associated to which category or categories.  Aside from that, you should have images for inventory items (if applicable) and all of the information below necessary to setup your inventory.

  1. To get started, go to the “Inventory Items” link under the WP Inventory tab in your WordPress dashboard.
  2. Click the “Add Inventory Item” button.
  3. You will now see the available fields to fill out to manage inventory.  The following is a list of default fields when installing the plugin.  You may change the text of these fields in the display options or you can turn them off completely.  Turning them off will also render them unavailable when adding new items to your inventory.
    1. Number – This is for labeling a product and keeping them separated and organized.  It is not a serial number and is different in the fact that it can be used as a unique identifier for several products that may be associated to a given serial number, for example.
    2. Name – This is your inventory item name.
    3. Category – This drop down allows you to associate the product to a category.
    4. Product Description – The description text for your product/inventory item.
    5. Manufacturer – Manufacturer of your inventory item.
    6. Make – The make of the item.
    7. Model – The model of the item.
    8. Year – What year the item was made or published, etc.
    9. Serial # – A serial number.  This is very valuable and is essential in the architecture of your inventory management.  Serial numbers should not change.  They are meant to be a branding and used for the duration and life of the item.  In addition, no other item, past or future, should use the serial number of another.  This is for record keeping and should be thought of, to use an analogy, as a social security number is unique to an individual.  Social security numbers are never re-used and issued to only one person.  As should be a serial number to an inventory item or product.
    10. Quantity – Represents the amount on hand you have of this particular inventory item. In the admin listing, items below the low stock threshold set in the settings will display with a red background.
    11. Quantity Reserved – You can enter an initial amount of the quantity that is reserved.  Any new reservations will be reflected here as well and will not be allowed to go to a negative value.
    12. Price – The price for your item.
    13. Images – Any images you have associated to the item.
    14. Media – All media such as PDF, Word Docs, music files, video files, etc.; should be uploaded through the media option.  This could be materials and things that are related to the inventory item you want people to have.
    15. Sort Order – Providing a sort order and managing them will allow you to control what order your inventory item is shown in when being displayed in the inventory listing page view.

Again, all of these labels can be easily changed or turned off by visiting the display options tab.