When setting up your Booqable account, creating products the right way can save you and your team a lot of time and confusion when managing your inventory.
This article will guide you through everything you need to know about effectively creating and managing your products, through the Booqable Rental Software.
How it works
Every product in Booqable falls under either one of two tracking methods; trackable items, or bulk items.
Trackable items allow you to track items individually, by using a unique product identifier for each stock item of a product.
Bulk items only track a product's quantity, without separating each stock item via a number or code.
💡Example: Here's a real-life example of each tracking method:
Trackable items: Let's say you own three Sony FS7 cameras, and you want to know which customer reserved which exact one. That's when you select trackable items.
When a customer picks up an FS7, you have to specify which of the three stock items you're checking out today, based on their product identifier.
Bulk items: For bulk products, we'll use cutlery as an example. If you rent out cutlery, you wouldn't want to specify each fork or knife that goes out with a customer with their own product identifier code. It can be far too much work, and you don't need detailed reporting for each fork and knife going in and out of your store.
1. Choosing a tracking method
Choosing the correct tracking method will save you time in the order checkout, and prevent loss of valuable items within your store.
1. Click Inventory and click Add a new product.
2. Enter the product name as you want your customers to see it, and upload an image (or use Booqable's image search).
3. Now, choose the tracking method for this product.
💡Note: For trackable items, you can add identifiers to stock items in the next step.
4. Choose the pricing method you want to use for this product. If you need a more advanced pricing method like tiered structures or discounts over certain dates, you can set this up in the next page.
5. If you wish to create different colours and sizes of this product for the customer to select from the online store, you can enable variations. You can read all about how to enable and set up variations, and variation stock items, through the link below.
2. Add stock items
After you create a product, you'll see the inventory screen. This screen displays two different sections: Current stock and Expected stock.
Current stock are the items that are currently, and will be, in your inventory indefinitely (until you remove or archive them). They are the default stock type for newly created products in Booqable.
Expected stock are the stock items that you expect to own in the future. You can choose the date from which these items will be made available in your inventory for reservation (great if you purchase more stock for future orders).
Temporary stock are the items that will be part of your inventory for a temporary, predefined date-range. Booqable automatically adds and removes stock based on the available from and available until dates you enter (perfect for sub-rentals).
1. Click Add stock items.
2. Under Quantity, enter the desired number of stock items you wish to add.
3. Under Add to location, select the location you wish to add stock to. This will only appear if you have previously set up different store or warehouse locations in your account settings.
5. Click the arrow next to Advanced settings.
6. Choose the available from and available until dates from the calendar that will appear to create expected or temporary stock. Don't select dates to add Current stock items.
7. Adjust the Identifier format to match the product codes you wish all of this product's stock items to begin with.
💡Note: Booqable automatically generates randomized identifiers for your stock items. Identifiers help you distinguish individual items, so you can easily track their location, history, and utilization.
8. Click Add stock items.
9. To remove stock, click the Archive button at the end of the row, which decommissions the stock item.
10. If you need to separate your stock items further, you can click the blue + Add column button on the right hand side of the screen.
11. If you need to adjust your product Identifier codes further, you can press the pencil icon on the right hand side of the stock item.
💡Note: Booqable will prevent you from removing items when they're reserved or picked up on current and future orders. Archiving stock preserves historical data.
3. Add and remove bulk items
For bulk products, you don't track individual stock items. You only define a product's quantities. You can see how many you have available or out with customers in real-time.
On the Inventory screen, under Current stock, click the Plus-minus button next to each location this product holds stock, to add the quantity of stock you currently have of this item.
💡Note: You can add expected or temporary stock by repeating this exact step on the Expected stock tab.
4. Duplicate products
You can now duplicate products in your Products page to quickly add a similar product to your inventory, without having to repeat all the steps outlined so far in this article.
Click on the product that you would like to duplicate.
Click on the Duplicate product button in the top right hand corner of the page.
Type in the product name, product description, and select an image for the new product. You can also choose which settings will be duplicated from the initial product.
Click on the Duplicate button.
5. Delete products
In most cases, you'll want to archive stock items instead of removing products entirely. If you do want to delete a product, follow the below instructions.
Click on the product you wish to delete.
Click the Settings tab.
Click Delete product at the bottom of the page.
💡Note: Booqable automatically protects you from accidentally deleting products that are reserved or picked up on current and future orders.
Archiving stock items keeps historical and report data.
Deleting a product will remove any related historical and report data.
It is not possible to bulk remove all products. They need to be removed one by one. If you are looking to delete your whole inventory, please reach out to [email protected].