knowledge base

Using inFlow to manage your Retail location? Need some pointers? Look no further! Welcome to your quick and easy guide to streamlining sales in inFlow.

Workflow
There are two ways to complete your sales in inFlow: Simple and Advanced. For retail locations we usually recommend sticking with the "simple workflow" to speed up sales completion. What this allows you to do is complete your order without ever having to change screens, all your options are available from the main sales order window and you can complete your order with one simple click. What's more, your inventory is updated to reflect the sale.

For more information on Sales orders in simple workflow please click here:
http://www.inflowinventory.com/KnowledgeBase/questions/147/

Customers
One of inFlow's many strengths is that it can track your customer history and provide reports or further information for you. But for a retailer who may see their customers once a month (or only once) it requires unnecessary time and effort. By setting up one customer (let's call them "Retail Customer") you can speed up your sales orders and once again, lessen the number of items which need to be filled in. As of inFlow 2.2 the program will automatically select your customer, if you have only one in your records, saving you that step entirely.  You can always choose to track some customers if you have regulars for whom you would like to keep information, but you can use your "Retail Customer" customer entry for all other sales.  Please keep in mind that the program will only auto select if you have one customer.

Change
Your customers will most likely not have exact change on them when they come to your store so you will need to know, what change to return to them. While you may be able to do the calculation in your head, inFlow can do the work for you using the paid field. Rather than simply clicking "Complete & Pay" at the end of the order, enter the amount that your customer has given you and hit the tab key. This will show you the balance of the sale and allow you to pull the correct amount of change from your cash drawer. Now when you click "Complete & Pay" the program will complete the order and set the payment to match the total sales value (since you've provided your change).

Barcodes
One of the features which can be the most useful in streamlining sales is the barcode scanner. inFlow is set up to recognize barcodes when an item is scanned in the sales order, once the barcodes have been saved in your product record. Even better, the program recognizes when a barcode has been scanned twice and simply updates the quantity of the item that was previously scanned in order to keep your sales slip easy to read.

For more detailed information on Barcodes please click here:
http://www.inflowinventory.com/KnowledgeBase/questions/5/

Receipts
One very handy feature of inFlow's newest version is the ability to create custom documents. Specifically you can tailor your sales receipt to your own needs. Many retail locations use thermal printers to print receipts and these receipts are usually very narrow, making printing of conventional receipts inconvenient. Using inFlow's custom document features, you can now set up a template for your printer to ensure that you can continue to use the equipment you have with inFlow. We've even created a template as an example of what you can do! Feel free to use it to create your very own customer receipt:

DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE

For more detailed information on Custom Documents please click here:
http://www.inflowinventory.com/KnowledgeBase/questions/193/

Reporting
When closing up at the end of the day most retail locations like to see how the day's sales went. inFlow has built-in reporting features which will allow you to pull reports on the day's sales and as well as check on profit levels or inventory. Most notably, the Sales Order Summary Report is a quick and easy way to check your sales for the day. Simply choose the report from the list of available reports and tell inFlow that your Order Date is "Today". inFlow will provide a summary of the orders for that day, their subtotals, taxes and total sales amount. In addition, you can make changes to the columns of information that are included such as adding "Payment Method" to track how much cash vs. credit sales you have done.

And there you have it! The foolproof guide to streamlining your sales using inFlow. Give it a try! We think you'll like what you see.