One of the many benefits of Ollie Ops is inventory tracking and calculating your cost of goods. Tracking your packaging inventory will be important as you start packaging your beer and calculating your costs. In order to track inventory and COGs, you will need to add in all the packaging materials you use, and how much you have on hand to get started.
You can learn more about inventory management, by clicking here.
There are 2 options for adding your starting on-hand inventory of packaging materials in Ollie Ops. One is through a bulk import and the other is manually adding each packaging material into your packaging materials database and then manually adding it into inventory.
We recommended taking the bulk import option when getting started/adding your starting inventory. Doing so will not only add your packaging material inventory but also create/update your packaging material database (found under your icon in the top right-hand corner).
How to Import Packaging Materials and Inventory
1. On the left hand side, under Inventory Management, click Packaging Materials
2. Click the Import button
3. Click the Download Template button
4. Fill out the template according to the column headers, but be sure to delete the first line (which is an example). A description of what is needed for each column can be found on the right hand side of this screen.
5. Click “Choose File” , select the completed CSV file from your computer, and click Import
Once you have used the bulk importer tool to add your on-hand Packaging Materials Inventory, all the materials listed on the importer sheet will be added to your Packaging Material database found under the gear in the top right-hand corner.
How to Manually Add Packaging Material Inventory
We recommend importing your starting inventory into Ollie Ops but if you’d like to manually add your starting inventory, you’ll need to add the packaging materials to your packaging material database first, then go to your inventory management to add the inventory.
- Add your packaging material to your packaging material database with the instructions in the section listed below.
- Once your materials have been added/edited in the database, head to your Packaging Materials in your Inventory Management section on the left-hand side of the screen.
- Click the “New” button on the right side of the screen, fill out the appropriate information, and click “Save” to add your inventory.
How to Edit, Disable or Delete Packaging Materials from your Packaging Material Database
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Go to the dial in the top right corner and select Packaging Materials
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To edit a material, search or scroll to find the material you want to edit, then click the three dots on the right hand side of the corresponding line and select Edit Item:
Editing an Item will allow you to update the following information. Once complete click update to save.
Packaging Material Specs:
- Name: Name of the Packaging Material
- Notification threshold: When your inventory of this material hits or goes below this amount, you will be notified. Learn more about notification thresholds by clicking here.
The fields below will automatically populate when you add this grain to a purchase order or use the raw material forecast.
- Preferred Vendor: The vendor you typically order this material from. This is preferred meaning you can order this material from any vendor you’ve added under the vendor tab.
- Preferred amount per unit: How much of the product comes in a typical package when you purchase it (this needs to be a number). e.g. 1,000 for a 1,000 cans per pallet
- Preferred quantity unit of measure: The unit you use to order this material, i.e. what form of measure does this item usually come in. e.g. pallet for a 1,000 cans per pallet
- Unit price: How much you typically pay for this item and this will populate when you create a PO.
Updating this will auto-populate the following info on purchase orders when you create a purchase order or use the packaging material forecast.
Pro Tip: If you purchase multiple materials from the same vendor, or purchase with the same unit of measurement (or both), you can bulk edit (or bulk delete) items by checking multiple materials boxes and then selecting the Batch Actions button.
To delete a material, click the three dots on the right-hand side of the corresponding line and select Delete Item. Confirm the decision by clicking OK. Please note: You cannot delete an item from your database if it’s used on a bill of materials or currently has inventory in stock. If you need to remove an item that cannot be deleted, you are able to disable it the same way.