The catalog and scanning stock in

The catalog is the list of every product LASI knows: what you call it, its brand and color, its pictures, and the barcodes printed on its box. A product is not stock by itself. It is the answer to “what is this thing?”.

Three words carry the whole chapter:

• Product — one thing you sell, like “Sherpa Throw, Grey”. It can have several barcodes (a small, a medium and a large) and up to five photos.
• Barcode — the UPC or EAN on the manufacturer’s box. Once LASI knows a barcode, every later scan of it is recognized at once.
• Unit — one physical piece in your inventory. Units of a product live either in a pallet (bin) or as barcoded items with their own LASI labels. See Inventory: bins and barcoded items.

You build the catalog in three ways: by scanning stock in (the catalog grows as you go), by walking the warehouse with Catalog barcodes (no stock moves), and through supplier invoices on Incoming orders. Products imported from Shopify are in it too.

So the catalog and your inventory are two different lists, and it is fine for a product to be in one and not the other. Naming a supplier’s whole range of barcodes is a sensible thing to do — a scan then says what the box is, months before you ever buy one. Those products are not inventory: Inventory counts what you have, so a product with no units and no bin with stock in it shows up in the Catalog and nowhere else. On the phone, Inventory → Items opens on On hand for the same reason, and says how many more the Catalog holds.

Open it from the Catalog button at the top of the Inventory page. Staff find Catalog in their sidebar.

trylasi.com/inventory/catalog

Each row shows the product’s picture, name, brand, color and code, its barcodes with their sizes, the bin it lives in, and a stock badge: how many are in stock, how many are at a show, or None in stock.

Search covers the name, brand, color, code and any barcode. The sort menu offers Newest first and Name A–Z. The list loads 50 at a time; click Show more for the rest.

Admins also see what a unit of it costs, under the stock badge: that is the next unit — the oldest one in stock, which is the one a sale takes. A product whose stock is a bin has no unit of its own, so its price is on the bin line instead. Managers and staff see no price here.

Click a product to open it.

1. 1Open the product from the Catalog.
2. 2Change the Name, Color, Brand or Category.
3. 3Click Save changes.

The product’s code cannot be changed here: it is how Shopify and older scans know the product.

Under Barcodes, each barcode has a Size box — type the size and press Enter or click away to save it — and a Remove button that forgets that one barcode. To add another barcode to a product, scan it on Catalog barcodes and choose “another size or color of something I already have”.

A picture is what makes a product easy to recognize across a warehouse, on a scan, and on an incoming order. A product can show two kinds:

• A stock photo — one a barcode database gave LASI when the barcode was first scanned. It is marked “stock” and shown faded.
• Your own photos — up to 5 per product, taken of the real thing on your shelf.

Your first own photo is the product’s cover everywhere. With none, the stock photo is used; with neither, a blank tile.

1. 1Open the product from the Catalog.
2. 2In the photo strip, click Photo (or Add once there is one) to take or choose a picture.
3. 3To remove one, click the × on its corner.

Photos belong to the product, not to one barcode, so a photo of the medium also shows for the small and the large. Photos are resized before they upload; each can be up to 2.5 MB after that.

Open the product and click Delete this product. It goes with all its barcodes and photos.

A product that is still in use cannot be deleted, and the product says why before you try, under Can’t delete this product.:

If you keep stock in pallets (bins), you can say which bin each catalog product lives in. That puts the bin — and, for admins, what a unit of it costs — beside the product in the Catalog, and it tells LASI where the next delivery of that product should go.

• A bin holds many products. One “Throw Blankets” bin can hold a dozen different throws.
• A product lives in one bin. Linking a product to a new bin moves it; it is never in two at once.
• Linking moves nothing. No unit, cost or sale changes. It is a name, not a stock movement.

One product

1. 1Open the product from the Catalog.
2. 2Under Bin, click Link a bin (or Change bin).
3. 3Search and pick the bin. Each bin says how many items it already holds and how many units are on hand.

Click Unlink to take the link away.

Many products at once

1. 1On the Catalog, click the No bin filter to see what still needs a home.
2. 2Tick the box beside each product that belongs in the same bin.
3. 3In the bar at the bottom, click Link to a bin and pick the bin.

A product with its own barcoded units can be put on your TikTok Shop from LASI, without typing it into Seller Center. LASI sends the photos, the title, the category and the price, and one variant per size with its exact unit count — size 8 with 11 units, size 9.5 with 26, size 10 with 20.

Turning it on

An admin switches it on once, under Settings → Integrations → TikTok → List products on TikTok Shop. Until then the card explains that it is off. You also need your TikTok shop connected and your categories synced on the same page.

Listing one

1. 1Open the product from the Catalog and find the TikTok Shop card.
2. 2Check the sizes and counts listed — that is exactly what will go on sale.
3. 3Pick the Category (search TikTok’s own list), and enter the Price each and the Weight each.
4. 4Write a short Description. A blank line starts a new paragraph.
5. 5Click Create draft on TikTok.

The card lists anything still missing, one line each, and the button stays greyed until they are all dealt with. If the product’s name is shorter than TikTok allows, a Shop title box appears so you can give it a longer one.

What the category asks for

Every TikTok category wants different things, so the moment you pick one LASI asks TikTok what it needs and shows only those boxes. Three kinds can appear:

• Box size — length, width and height of one unit packed. Most shoe and clothing categories require it.
• Required details — things like Condition type, Upper material or Style name. Ones with a fixed list are a dropdown of TikTok’s own options; the rest are a box you type in. Each is marked *required by this category*.
• Which TikTok size? — TikTok keeps its own list of sizes, so each of your sizes has to point at one of theirs. LASI matches the obvious ones for you and asks only about the rest.

If you change the category later, LASI asks TikTok again and the boxes change with it. Answers that the new category does not ask for are dropped.

It arrives as a draft

LASI always creates the product as a draft. Nothing reaches a buyer until you open Seller Center and activate it — so you can check the photos, the price and the category on TikTok’s own screen first. Use Open Seller Center on the card.

After that the card shows where the listing stands: Draft, TikTok is reviewing it, On sale, or TikTok rejected it (open Seller Center for the reason). Check TikTok asks again.

Keeping the stock right

The count on TikTok does not follow your shelf by itself. When they differ, the card says Send stock (out of step) and shows what TikTok currently has beside each size; clicking it sets every size to the shelf’s count — including 0 for a size that has sold out, so the shop stops selling it.

Sizes you add after the listing was created do not exist on TikTok yet. LASI names them after a stock send; click Update on TikTok to add them.

Scan in new inventory is how a delivery of barcoded stock gets into LASI as barcoded items. You open a batch, scan everything that arrived, review it, and finalize. Nothing is in inventory until you finalize, so a mistake along the way costs nothing.

A batch lives on LASI, not on one computer, so someone can scan at the dock while someone else reviews at a desk, and you can come back to it tomorrow.

1. 1Click Inventory → Add inventory → Scan in items. Staff click Scan in inventory in the sidebar.
2. 2If a batch is already open, it is listed under Pick up where you left off — click it to carry on. Otherwise click + Start a new batch.
3. 3Fill in anything you want to keep: Supplier, Purchase date, Batch name, Invoice number, Condition and Notes. Admins and managers also see Cost per unit (if everything cost the same) and Invoice total (what the supplier charged).
4. 4Click Start scanning.

Every field is optional. Skip them all and you still get a batch, named for today. Change them later with Edit details under the batch’s name.

With a batch open you can scan three ways:

• A USB scanner — it works anywhere on the page, no box needs to be clicked first.
• Use camera — scan with the computer’s or phone’s camera.
• Type a barcode in the box and click Add.

Scanning a known barcode adds one to its line. Scan the same item again to count it, or type how many into the line’s box, or use the − and + buttons. Each scan shows a message with the new count and an Undo link. Remove takes a line off the batch.

For something with no barcode at all, click No barcode and describe it. It gets a LASI label when the batch is finalized.

A LASI label on a unit that is already in inventory is refused, so the same unit is never added twice.

The first time a barcode is scanned, LASI beeps and opens a New barcode form. You tell it what the thing is once, and every later scan is instant — in this batch, in future batches, and on incoming orders.

trylasi.com/inventory/scan-in

1. 1If a barcode database knew the product, the form is filled in for you. Change anything that is wrong.
2. 2Fill in Name, Color and Size — all optional. With nothing typed, the product is called by its barcode.
3. 3If it is a new size or color of something you already have, click It is another size or color of something I already have, search for that product, and give this barcode its size.
4. 4Set How many you are holding and, if you enter costs, Cost each.
5. 5Optionally take photos. For sneakers, + Style code, brand, shoe lookup lets you type a style code and click Look up shoe.
6. 6Click Save and add.

The product and its barcode are saved at once, even if the batch is never finalized — what a barcode is does not depend on this delivery.

Every unit needs a cost before it becomes inventory, because profit is worked out from it. There are three places a cost can come from, and LASI uses the first one it finds:

• Cost each on the line — for items that cost different amounts.
• Cost per unit on the batch — when everything cost the same.
• Nothing — the unit has no cost yet, and LASI asks you what to do before it finalizes.

On the review, admins see the costs entered against the batch’s Invoice total, and how much of the invoice is not on an item yet (or how far over it you are).

If some units still have no cost, the review asks what LASI should do:

Managers can type costs but do not see them afterwards: a cost they entered shows as “Entered”. Staff never see or enter costs.

1. 1When everything is scanned, click Review N units →.
2. 2Check each line and its count. Click ← Keep scanning to go back.
3. 3Answer the cost question if one is shown.
4. 4Click Finalize — add N to inventory.

Every unit is added at once, each as a barcoded item with its own LASI barcode. The batch is then closed: scanning into it again says it is already finalized. From the done screen, click View inventory or Scan in another batch. Print the new units’ labels from the Items tab (see Printing labels).

When staff scan a batch, they see “A manager or admin reviews and finalizes this batch — your scans are saved.” The batch waits under Pick up where you left off.

Catalog barcodes is scanning with no batch behind it. Walk the shelves and scan whatever is there; LASI learns what each barcode is, and nothing is counted, costed or added to inventory. The next time any of those barcodes turns up — in a scan-in batch or on a supplier invoice — it is recognized at once.

1. 1Open Inventory → More → Catalog barcodes, or the Catalog barcodes card on the Scan in new inventory page.
2. 2Scan with a USB scanner, click Use camera, or type a barcode and click Check. On a touch device the camera opens by itself.
3. 3A barcode LASI already knows answers “Already known” with its name and picture.
4. 4A new one opens the naming form — the same one as a batch, without “how many” or a cost. Fill in what you know and click Save.

The page counts the barcodes known, the new ones this visit and the ones already known. Below is the list of your barcodes, newest first, searchable by name or barcode, with Open the full catalog → beside it.

On the Catalog barcodes list, click Edit on a row to change its Name, Color, Size or Brand. Name, color and brand belong to the product, so every barcode of it follows; size belongs to that one barcode.

Click Delete on a row to forget a barcode scanned by mistake. The barcode always goes. Its product and photos go too, unless something else still uses them — another barcode, units in inventory, an open batch, a Shopify link or a purchase order — and the message says which. Stock is never touched.

Staff reach the Catalog, Scan in inventory and Incoming from their sidebar, and nothing else under Inventory. Hosts and customer service do not see any of it. See Your team and roles.

The iPhone app carries the catalog and the barcode walk:

• Menu → Catalog barcodes — the camera stays open; a known barcode answers on the strip at the bottom and the camera reads again a second later, and a new one opens a form to name it and take its photo. You can delete a barcode from the strip, from its row, or in the form.
• Menu → Catalog and the Items view of the Inventory tab — the same product list as the web, with the No bin filter. Tap a product to rename it, add photos, and put it in a bin from its BIN card.
• Long-press a product to start selecting, tick more, then tap Put in a bin to link them all at once.