Where should I enter new products, kits, inventory, or orders between Shopify and SKUSavvy? Will this data sync over to Shopify?
Something that comes up often is questions about where to enter new products, kits, inventory, orders, and more when using SKUSavvy. There are some data elements that can only sync in a one-way direction from Shopify to SKUSavvy, and others that should only be dealt with in SKUSavvy so lets go through these.
New products should be added to Shopify with complete details, including variants, barcodes, SKUs, and initial inventory values. Assuming you've already connected Shopify, these products & variants will immediately sync over into your SKUSavvy account.
Name
Description
Image
Status
Sales Channels Available
Category
Vendor
Tags
Collections
Options
Variants - Variant option selection (size: large, color: red etc.), Variant image, Variant price, Variant compare at price, Variant cost, Variant inventory locations, Variant barcode & SKU, Setting to track stock & continue selling out of stock, Variant weight, Variant origin country, Variant harmonized code
Step counts for purchases
Dimensional information
Vendor association
Lot & expiration date on new inventory
Serial numbers
Mark as backordered
sku
backorderable
option1
option2
option3
weight
weightUnit
price
You should plan to add vendors in SKUSavvy IF you have already connected Shopify. If a completely new product and a new vendor is added to Shopify, you can include the vendor on that product. If the vendor is already listed in SKUSavvy you should plan to to add the product to Shopify, and go to SKUSavvy > Vendors > Items to add the product to that vendor as an item they carry.
Add the new product to Shopify with vendor field filled out
Find the vendor on SKUSavvy (or add the vendor) and ensure the product is listed as an item under that vendor
Add the new product to Shopify, ignore vendor field
Find the vendor on SKUSavvy and assign the new product to that vendor
Using bundles will enable you to put multiple products together to form another product. This is handled in SKUSavvy as a kit (the logistics term for it). To handle this scenario, you will want to have your bundled (output) item on Shopify so that it can be sold on the storefront. For the inputs to your bundle, you can choose to put those on Shopify if they are also sold individually, or you can omit them from Shopify and add the inputs directly on SKUSavvy.
Note that currently SKUSavvy does not send up a theoretical inventory value of the finished kit based on the lowest available quantity across inputs
Finished bundle product
Bundle inputs if sold separately
Bundle 'Recipe'
Bundle inputs as separate products
Inventory for all inputs
Final kit inventory
Once you have connected Shopify with SKUSavvy you should TREAT SKUSAVVY AS THE SOURCE OF TRUTH FOR INVENTORY and all inventory changes should be made within SKUSavvy. This is because SKUSavvy uses bin locations for all inventory whereas Shopify does not offer this. Any inventory added to Shopify will not sync down into SKUSavvy (beyond the first import) but inventory changes made on SKUSavvy will send back to Shopify.
Inventory changes that occur as a result of fulfilling orders, transferring inventory, purchase orders, kitting etc. should all be managed within SKUSavvy.
Never
Ad-hoc inventory adjustments
Purchasing inventory
Fulfillment adjustments
Transfers
Kitting inventory
While setting up SKUSavvy you can continue to use Shopify for normal operations including updating inventory quantities and fulfilling orders. Keep these things in mind while setting up.
Resync Regularly
If you have already connected SKUSavvy but you update inventory in Shopify, make sure to resync from Shopify to SKUSavvy to pull those fresh changes in. You do not need to resync if you've been updating inventory within SKUSavvy.
Reconcile Stock
When a new order is fulfilled external to SKUSavvy the stock for that order held as a reconciliation. If a product exists within just one bin location, the stock will automatically reconcile. Otherwise you will need to manually reconcile it.
Allocate Stock Quickly
If you don't have bin locations already, you'll need to get your Shopify inventory allocated to bins. Do this quickly, often it will make sense to stop fulfillment for a day and quickly allocate all stock.
Start Fulfilling in SKUSavvy
The faster stock is allocated the better you can start fulfilling all your orders within SKUSavvy which is the most efficient way to utilize the system and keep stock values aligned between Shopify.
Any purchase order you plan to make should be entered on SKUSavvy. In order to do this you will first need to add your vendors, or if they have already been added to your products in Shopify the vendor field will come over. Once you have your vendors, you can assign products to that vendor. One product can be assigned to multiple vendors and have different costs across vendors.
Never
Vendors
Products & costs associated to vendor
Purchase order placement
Check-in of inventory from PO
Transfers or cross-docking is a method of moving inventory from one warehouse location to another. Any transfer of stock should be managed entirely within SKUSavvy on the transfers module (included with every account). When inventory is moved from one location to another within SKUSavvy the corresponding inventory will be reduced from the origin and added to the destination at which point the inventory values on Shopify will be updated from SKUSavvy to reflect this change.
Never
Outbound transfer fulfillment
Inbound check-in of transfer
New orders should be added to Shopify although you can also place orders in SKUSavvy to have them sent up to Shopify. Shopify orders will flow directly into SKUSavvy according to the default warehouse, then are routed and split to the same warehouse Shopify has routed the order. Shopify POS orders will also flow into SKUSavvy, they will automatically be fulfilled and reconciliations created or auto-fulfilled from inventory.