Originally written by John Hardwick, last updated Feb 28, 2024, on the Swan Retail knowledge base (FRS).

Part of: Implementation Guide

Overview

There are two forms of product code (SKU) within SwanFRS.

• Flat SKUs with no options

• SKUs with option choices

Loading Flat Products

Assuming SKUs have been created in SwanFRS for the stock items to be loaded, simply create a data file adhering to the file specification detailed in the Mass Stock Load document, name and position the file appropriately and follow the upload process.

Rejections are reported via the load rejections report.

One write on note is generated per location and date combination, with costs either taken from the current prevailing cost or the cost specified in the load file.

Optioned Products

The mass stock load process cannot accommodate options and therefore these items need either manually writing on or a series of ‘short term - limited use' SKUs can be generated.

The write on process is detailed during training, requiring each SKU-option combination to be entered and prior to confirming the write on note for the stock item to be available within SwanFRS.

Whilst this is time-consuming it ensures the stock holding in SwanFRS links to current products and immediately allows sales of existing stock to accumulate against the SKU thus providing performance analysis.

This process is the recommended approach, however there are circumstances where this process may not be the best way of informing SwanFRS of stock. For example, The stock may be end of life, not to be re-ordered or there are too many items to process manually.

To accommodate these scenarios, the following steps are suggested.

• Make a list of all the optioned stock items to be processed in a spreadsheet detailing

  • supplier

  • product range

  • description including option choices

  • legacy code / original stock code

  • cost price

  • selling price

  • Receipt date

  • location

  • Quantity

• Decide if a ‘Legacy Stock supplier’ is needed or if all items are to be linked to their original suppliers

  • Create the ‘Legacy Stock Supplier’ if needed

• Decide which SwanFRS product group these items are to be linked to - do you want a ‘Legacy Supplier’ or link each one to its appropriate product group - the latter will take longer to set up.

  • It is strongly recommended that the product group chosen is a ‘Unique’ class, although other classes will work subject to the restrictions these classes impose on stock processing.

• Import the data collected into a product creator spreadsheet. (Whilst it is possible to do this within the application, the spreadsheet is the quicker solution in this occurrence).

  • either create 1 spreadsheet for the ‘legacy supplier’ or several ones for each supplier to have legacy stock written on.

  • The product description should FULLY define the stock item.

  • Use the legacy reference in either a description, barcode or legacy code field to allow staff to sell the old code and to bypass relabelling if this is desired.

  • Costs and selling should be set along with the chose product group.

  • Lead Times will be 1 as everything created will be ‘in stock’

  • Set a discontinued date to stop further orderings / selling of these SKUs

• Import the spreadsheet(s) into SwanFRS to create the short-lived codes.

• Use the SKU generated in partnership with the location, quantities, write on dates etc to create a mass stock load data file.

• Use the mass stock load process to load FRS with the stock created.

This process will create many stock items quickly however the SKUs used / stock items will be separate from the ‘on-going’ SKU and will not show in performance reporting etc.

This process is simply a way of loading stock onto the system quickly bypassing the requirement to specify options for each one.

SKUs created this way will disappear from search lists once the last stock item linked to it is sold, and therefore effectively they auto disappear over time.

Files from the Confluence page

• barcodesetup.zip