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Getting Started Guide

Welcome to the inFlow Community! With this guide, you’ll be able to set up inFlow for you and your team. This should take about one workday to complete.

Before you begin, you should switch from the sample company that you were using from the 14-day trial. On the “How do you want to start screen?” select Empty.

You’ll be able to complete this guide fastest if your data is already in spreadsheets.

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Setting up the basics | Getting Started with inFlow
To get started in inFlow, you’ll want to personalize it for your company. You can do that by adding your company name, logo, and address first.

Company information & logo

Adding your company information and logo is important for tailoring the system to your business. Your company name and address show up on invoices and quotes when printed out. So you’ll want to make sure they’re set up to give that professional look.

  1. Log in as an administrator here: https://app.inflowinventory.com/options/account
  2. On the Account page, click on Edit company details.
  3. Click on Select image to add your company’s logo. Below, enter the company name, address, and other contact details.
  4. Click Save when done.

Locations

In inFlow, adding locations is important for organizing your inventory. Even if you only work with one location, the name of the location in inFlow should match the name of your physical location. This makes organizing quick and easy and reduces confusion.

Note: Your location options will depend on your inFlow plan. Higher-tier plans offer unlimited locations.

  1. Go to https://app.inflowinventory.com/options/inventory
  2. Click on Locations.
  3. Click on the arrow next to Default location to rename this to the name of your main location. (You should rename this location to the name of a building, not a room within a building, for reordering to work correctly!)
  4. If you want to add an address to the location, click on +Add address.
  5. If you have another location, click on the blue arrow to the top left of the window to return to the main location screen.
  6. Next, click Add location to enter another main location to inFlow. Return to the main locations screen by clicking on the blue arrow at the top left-hand corner of the screen.
  7. Click the star to the right of a location to set that as the default location for inFlow.
  8. Click Save when done.

You can add sublocations to your main locations to represent rooms, aisles, shelves, or even bins that are in your building. To learn more, take a look at this article on how to track inventory in sublocations.

Costing methods

Tracking the cost of all of your products is vital. You can choose how inFlow will track the cost per product.

If your company is working with an accounting professional, ask them which option you should choose. You should choose your costing method before adding products to inFlow.

inFlow can track costs with the following methods:

  1. Moving average (inFlow’s default)
  2. First in, first out (FIFO)
  3. Last in, first out (LIFO)
  4. Manual costing

If you're not sure which one to use, we suggest using the moving average costing method. This option takes an average of your costs from past orders to determine the product costs. Here’s an article on how inFlow calculates cost.

Note: changing the costing method can take inFlow a few minutes or several hours to process. Only make this change when your team doesn't immediately need to use inFlow.

To choose or change a costing method:

  1. Go to https://app.inflowinventory.com/options/global.
  2. Click on Costing method.
  3. Select an option from this list, then click Save. If you decide not to change the costing method, click Cancel.
  4. inFlow will have to perform a calculation to make this change. Type in CONFIRM in the field below, then click Proceed.
  5. You’ll see an Account under maintenance message. When the calculation is complete you’ll be able to log into inFlow again.

Next: Adding inventory

Adding Inventory | Getting Started with inFlow

inFlow’s main job is to help your team keep your inventory organized. In this step, we’ll be going over how to add products to get your team started right with inFlow Cloud.

You can create products one at a time by selecting New Product from the inFlow homepage.

But the fastest way to set up products is by importing them from spreadsheets.

Importing data

Importing is the process of taking your product data from a spreadsheet and adding it to inFlow.

There are two basic steps:

  1. Creating the CSV import file
  2. Importing the CSV to inFlow

Creating the CSV import file

  1. Download the inFlow product import CSV template from here.
  2. Fill out the columns on the CSV spreadsheet with your product information.
  3. When you’re done adding your products to the CSV, be sure to save the template as a CSV file. Now you’re ready to import these products to inFlow!

Importing products to inFlow

Once your CSV is complete, you can import your file to inFlow.

  1. Click on Main Menu > Import.
  2. In the Data type drop-down menu, select Product details.
  3. Select the CSV file from your computer that you’d like to import, then click Next.
  4. A preview of your import file will appear and will let you know how many products you have in your file.
  5. To make sure all the data on the CSV matches a field in inFlow, click on Edit data mapping.
  6. The fields below the preview represent fields in inFlow that you need to match to the fields on your CSV. This process is called mapping. Match the inFlow fields listed on the left, to the fields in your CSV file that are in the drop-down menus.
  7. Match the inFlow fields on the left, to the fields in your CSV file that are in the drop-down menus.
  8. Once you’re satisfied with the mapping, click Next.
  9. A confirmation message will appear to let you know your import is in progress. Once the import is complete, the team member who started the import will get an email with the results.

Next: Barcodes & SKUs

Barcodes and SKUs | Getting Started with inFlow

Barcoding is essential for quick and efficient work. Scanning barcodes can drastically speed up the process of picking or receiving products or making quick adjustments to your stock.

Stock-keeping units (SKUs) are your internal codenames for your products. SKUs are often required if you want to connect inFlow to ecommerce sites.

If your products don’t have barcodes or SKUs, inFlow can generate them for you.

  1. Go to app.inflowinventory.com/options/inventory.
  2. Under Barcodes, click on Generate.
  3. For barcodes, toggle ON Automatically generate barcodes when saving or editing products.
  4. For SKUs, toggle ON Automatically generate SKUs when saving or editing products.
  5. You can set a Prefix, Next number, and Suffix for inFlow to use when generating barcodes.
  6. Click Generate barcodes & SKUs.

Next: Product costs and starting inventory levels

Product costs and starting inventory levels | Getting Started with inFlow

As you continue to set up, you’ll want to make sure your product costs and inventory levels are accurate. In this section, we’ll go over how to set these up.

Like adding new products, you can import product costs and starting inventory levels to inFlow.

Product costs

When importing product details, the cost field on the mapping screen has to be selected. This is a built-in safety feature designed to make sure you are knowingly selecting the cost field during importing. This is to make sure costs aren’t updated when they shouldn’t be.

You can change costs with imports when inFlow's costing method is set to manual or moving average. If you mapped the cost field when you first imported products in step 2, then you can skip to the next section of this guide.

Importing costs into inFlow

If your costs are already on a spreadsheet, you can use that to import them into inFlow.

  1. Go to https://app.inflowinventory.com.
  2. Go to Main Menu > Import.
  3. Set the Data type to Product details, then click Next.
  4. If on-screen, select Edit data mapping in the bottom left-hand corner.
  5. On the mapping screen, map the Product name and Cost drop-down menus. You can ignore all other fields on-screen.
  6. Click Next when done. You’ll get an email when the import is complete.

If you’ve selected the LIFO or FIFO costing method, take a look at this article on how you can set your FIFO/LIFO costs.

Starting inventory levels

To get selling, all your products need to have their stock levels added. You can add all your product stock levels with a stock levels import.

Unlike the product details CSV, for the stock levels import, you only need 3 mandatory columns:

  1. Product name
  2. Location
  3. Quantity

You also have the option to add the following columns:

  1. Sublocation
  2. Serial number

If you have a file with the above columns, then you can proceed to the section called Importing stock levels to inFlow. If you don't have a file, this next section will guide you on how to create a stock levels template.

Creating the Stock levels CSV template

If you don't already have a spreadsheet with your stock levels, inFlow can create one.

  1. Click on the Main Menu > Export.
  2. From the Data type drop-down menu, select Stock levels.
  3. Click Export.

From here, you can fill in the quantities from the CSV file you exported. Because inFlow made this file, inFlow will be able to import the file without having to map any fields.

Importing stock levels to inFlow

If you have your import file ready, read on for how to import your file to inFlow.

  1. Click on Main Menu > Import.
  2. In the Data type drop-down menu, Stock levels.
  3. Select the CSV file from your computer that you’d like to import, then click Next.
  4. A preview of your import file will appear and will let you know how many products you have in your file.
  5. Match the inFlow fields on the left to the fields in your CSV file that are in the drop-down menus.
  6. Once you’re satisfied that all the fields you need match, click Next.
  7. A confirmation message will appear to let you know your import is in progress. Once the import is complete, the team member who started the import will get an email with the results.

Next: Prices and taxes

Pricing and Taxes | Getting Started with inFlow

Now that you have your products and starting inventory levels in inFlow, it’s time to set your prices. In this section, we'll go over how to add them to inFlow.

Pricing schemes (special pricing)

Pricing schemes are pricing options that you have when selling to your customers. These can be different currencies or different prices. Examples of pricing schemes are retail price, wholesale, sale price, etc.

You might have noticed there’s a “Normal price” in inFlow by default. This is the price you regularly sell your products for. You can rename this to a term your company uses more often.

We don’t recommend adding more than 50 pricing schemes to inFlow. Since this can impact the speed and performance of inFlow.

Adding new pricing schemes

  1. Go to app.inflowinventory.com/options/orders.
  2. Click on Pricing schemes.
  3. If you want, rename Normal Price to what your team usually calls your regular price.
  4. Click on Add pricing scheme.
  5. Enter the name of the pricing scheme.
  6. If needed, add a checkmark in the Tax incl field. This means the prices on orders include the tax.
  7. Next, select the currency of the pricing scheme.
  8. When done, be sure to click on the star icon next to the pricing scheme that you want to be the default in inFlow.

Updating pricing for multiple pricing schemes

Once you've created pricing schemes, you can add all the different prices to your products with a CSV import.

This feature is only available on inFlow Cloud for Windows. Here are complete steps on how to import multiple pricing schemes.

Taxes

Taxes are required in most countries. You'll want to make sure you've added the correct taxes to charge your customers. And for you to pay those taxes when you buy from vendors.

Adding taxes into inFlow before getting started is a good way to make sure your team is organized and ready for any potential audits.

Adding taxes to inFlow

  1. Go to app.inflowinventory.com/options/orders
  2. Click on Taxing schemes.
  3. By default, “No tax” will be set. Click on the blue arrow next to this tax to edit it.
  4. Change the name in the Taxing scheme name field, along with the rest of the information on the screen.
  5. If you don’t have more taxes to add, click on the Save button. If you have more taxes to add, click on the blue button arrow at the top left of the tax screen.
  6. You can add more taxes by clicking on the Add taxing scheme button at the lower left-hand corner of the tax screen.
  7. Click Save when done.

If some products have special rates or are tax-exempt, you can set that up, too. You’ll need access to inFlow Cloud for Windows to set this up. Here’s how to tax some products differently on one order.

Congratulations on finishing the Getting Started guide! You are on your way to taking full control of your inventory with inFlow.
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