SalesVu iPad POS System Tip of the Day: Using the Component Feature

The first use: is when you need to track inventory, ‘Chocolate,’ ‘Eggs,’ ‘Flour,’ and ‘Oil’ as products. Since we do not sell these products to customers as standalone products when creating them we would change the field ‘Type’ to ‘Component’. This denotes that it is only sold as a part of another product. A single product such as ‘Chocolate Cake’ can have several components (or ingredients) that make up that product for inventory tracking purposes. For example the components of a product ‘Chocolate Cake’ might be, ‘Chocolate,’ ‘Eggs,’ ‘Flour,’ and ‘Oil’.

To complete the product setup for the example above you would need to do the following:

1. 1. Login to SalesVu.com
2. 2. Click the ‘Products’ tab or icon
3. 3. Click ‘Add Product’
   1. a. In the name field enter, ‘Chocolate’
   2. b. A description can be added (optional)
   3. c. Click ‘Select Category’
   4. d. Choose a category by clicking one or create one by entering one at the top and clicking ‘Add’
   5. e. Click ‘Save’
   6. f. Change the field ‘Type’ to ‘Component’
   7. g. Click the check next to ‘Track this component in inventory using the following unit’
   8. h. The default unit is ‘Item,’ which is good for retail, etc. but will likely be changed in situations like this example. Click ‘Select Unit’ and choose the unit that you want to track ‘Chocolate’ in. In this example I will choose ‘kg’ for kilogram. (note: if you need to create a unit of measurement that is not there please see ‘Settings->Unit Conversion’ or the support article here-
   9. i. Once a unit is selected click ‘Save’
   10. j. Click ‘Finish’
4. 4. Repeat steps, 3a – 3j above for each component of your product in this case you would repeat for ‘Eggs,’ ‘Flour,’ and ‘Oil’.
5. 5. Next we’ll create the ‘Chocolate Cake’ product. On the products page, click ‘Add Product’
6. 6. In the name field type ‘Chocolate Cake’
7. 7. Next to the ‘Type’ field you will leave this as ‘Product’ for ‘Chocolate Cake’ since you will actually be selling this product
8. 8. Do not click the box next to ‘Remove the following number of units from inventory every time this item is sold’ unless you plan to track how much cake you have in inventory as well as the ingredients.

1. 9. Fill out remaining fields with necessary information
2. 10. Click ‘Add Modifiers’
3. 11. On the next page, click ‘Add Components’
   1. a. Click ‘Select Product’
   2. b. Choose the first product, ‘Chocolate’ and click ‘Next’
   3. c. Choose the unit that you want to use to have as a part of this product (the inventory will be tracked in the unit that the ‘chocolate’ component product was setup with and will convert automatically) and click ‘Next’
   4. d. Enter a quantity. When we set the inventory up for the ‘Chocolate’ component product we choose to track in kilograms (kg). If each ‘Chocolate Cake’ product uses .10 kg of ‘Chocolate’ per cake you would enter .10 and click ‘Next’
4. 12. Repeat steps, 11a – 11d for each component of your product. In this example you would repeat for ‘Eggs,’ ‘Flour,’ and ‘Oil’.
5. 13. Click ‘Save’
6. 14. You now have created the product ‘Chocolate Cake’. Each time that it is sold the component products, ‘Chocolate,’ ‘Eggs,’ ‘Flour,’ and ‘Oil’ will be removed from inventory

The second practical use for components:

Components can be considered as ingredients in the example above, but they can also be used when you sell products in various quantities and only want to track one product in inventory. For example if you have a wine tasting room or wine bar where you sell by the glass, bottle, or case, but you only want to track your inventory in terms of bottles you can use the components feature.

For example if you sell a product called, ‘House Red – Glass,’ ‘House Red – Bottle,’ and ‘House Red – Case’, but you only want to track it in inventory by the bottle you would do the following,

1. 1. Login to SalesVu.com
2. 2. Click the ‘Products’ tab or icon
3. 3. For the product that you do want to track directly in inventory click, ‘Add Product’
   1. a. In the name field enter, ‘House Red – Bottle’
   2. b. A description can be added (optional)
   3. c. Click ‘Select Category’
   4. d. Choose a category by clicking one or create one by entering one at the top and clicking ‘Add’
   5. e. Click ‘Save’
   6. f. Since we are selling all of these products directly to the customer the ‘Type’ for all these will be ‘Product’

1. 4. Click the check box next to the field ‘Remove the following number of units from inventory every time this item is sold’ for this product since this is the product unit that we want to track.
2. 5. The ‘Unit’ can be left as ‘Item’ or you can create a unit named ‘Bottle’ in the ‘Settings->Unit Conversion’ menu
3. 6. Once a unit is selected click, ‘Save’

1. 7. Repeats steps 3a – 3j for each product that you do not want to track directly in inventory
2. 8. For the products that will not be tracking directly, click ‘Add Product’
   1. a. In the name field enter, ‘House Red – Glass’
   2. b. A description can be added (optional)
   3. c. Click ‘Select Category’
   4. d. Choose a category by clicking one or create one by entering one at the top and clicking ‘Add’
   5. e. Click ‘Save’
   6. f. Since we are selling all of these products directly to the customer the ‘Type’ for all these will be ‘Product’
   7. g. Do not click the check box next to the field ‘Remove the following number of units from inventory every time this item is sold’ for the product(s) that you do not want to track in inventory (in this example it would be the ‘House Red – Glass’ and ‘House Red – Case’ since we want to track by bottles)
   8. h. The ‘Unit’ can be left as ‘Item’ or you can create a unit called bottle in the ‘Settings->Unit Conversion’ menu
   9. i. Once a unit is selected click ‘Add Modifiers’
   10. j. Click ‘Add Components’
   11. k. Click ‘Select Product’
   12. l. Choose the product created earlier, ‘House Red – Bottle’ and click ‘Next’
   13. m. Choose the unit that you want to use to have as a part of this product (the inventory will be tracked in the unit that the ‘House Red – Bottle’ component product was setup with and will convert automatically) and click ‘Next’
   14. n. Enter a quantity and click ‘Next’. When we set the inventory up for the ‘House Red – Bottle’ product we choose to track it as an ‘Item’ or ‘Bottle’. In this example we will say that each glass of red wine is 1⁄4 of a bottle we would enter 0.25 or for a case if there were 12 bottles in a case we would enter 12
   15. o. Click ‘Save’
   16. p. Repeat steps 8a – 8o for each product that applies (in this example you would repeat with the case product’.

You have now created 3 products (glass, bottle, case of wine) that pull inventory from 1 product (bottle of wine).