Incoming orders and receiving deliveries

An incoming order is stock you have bought that has not arrived yet. You upload the supplier’s invoice (or type it in), LASI reads each line and matches it to your catalog, and the order waits as pending until the truck arrives. Then you count what came, mark anything short, and receive it — that is the moment it becomes stock.

Along the way LASI does the tedious parts for you:

• It recognizes products by their barcode or by the supplier’s item number, so the second invoice from a supplier mostly matches itself.
• It remembers where each product went last time, so lines route themselves into the right pallets, or into your catalog as items.
• For brand-new stock with a UPC on every line, one click makes every line an item in your catalog with its count and cost, and no bins at all.
• It divides freight, fees and discounts into the cost of every unit, to the cent, so your profit per sale includes what it cost to get the stock to you.
• It keeps every truck’s PRO number (or parcel tracking number) in one list, with a link to the carrier’s own tracking page.
• It tells the forecast what is on its way, so reorder alerts go quiet for stock you have already bought.

Click Incoming at the top of the Inventory page, or Inventory → Add inventory → Orders on their way. Staff click Incoming in their sidebar.

trylasi.com/inventory/incoming

The Orders tab lists your orders, filtered by On the way, Received or All, and searchable by supplier or invoice number. Each row shows the lines and units, the expected date, the next shipment, and (for admins) the landed total. The Shipments tab lists every truck and parcel still coming, soonest first, then the ones that arrived in the last two weeks.

Every order carries a stage:

1. 1On the Incoming page, click New order.
2. 2Under The invoice, choose the file — a PDF, or photos of a paper invoice (up to 6 pages and 4 MB).
3. 3Optionally fill in the Supplier (read from the invoice when left blank), the Invoice number and when it is Expected.
4. 4Click Upload and read it.

You land on the order right away. While LASI reads the invoice, the order says “Reading the invoice. Its lines appear here in a moment.” — you can wait or leave; it fills in by itself.

LASI reads the header (supplier, invoice number and date, total), every product line in units rather than cases, the freight, fees and discounts, and any PRO or tracking number with its carrier.

Typing an order in

To enter an order without a file, choose no file and click Start the order, then use Add a line for each product. If invoice reading is not set up on your LASI, there is no file box: the dialog says “Reading invoices is not set up on this server, so the lines are typed in.” and every order is typed.

Read the notices at the top of an order before anything else:

• The reader was unsure about this: — a list of things to check, such as a line where it multiplied cases by a pack size, or a UPC printed on two lines.
• The lines and charges come to …, but the invoice says … — the lines do not add up to the invoice total. A line may be missing. (Admins only.)
• A failed read, with Try again.

To read the file again from scratch, use More → Read the invoice again. It replaces the lines that nothing has come in on yet.

trylasi.com/inventory/incoming/…

The Items table has a row per invoice line: Item (with its photo once it is matched), Units, and Goes to; admins also see Cost and Landed / unit (the unit cost with its share of freight and fees).

A line that needs you shows a chip: Not matched (LASI does not know what it is), Where does it go? (no destination yet) or No price. An amber notice counts them: “3 lines need you before this can be received”, with these buttons:

• No bins — stock as catalog items — every line becomes an item in your catalog, with its UPC, and goes in without a bin (see No bins: stocking an invoice as catalog items).
• Match N to your catalog — opens the Match items screen, one line at a time, to link lines to items you already have (see below).
• Add a barcode list — when the invoice printed no barcodes (see below).
• Use the suggestions — takes LASI’s best guess for every line at once.

Where LASI has a guess for a single line it shows it as a button on the line: Is it “…”? for the product, Into “…”? for the bin. One click accepts it.

To place several lines at once, tick them and click Place N lines…, then choose Catalog items — no bin, A bin or A new bin. To add something the invoice left off, click Add a line.

Click a line’s Goes to cell (or its name) to open it. The line has:

• What the invoice calls it.
• Units — cases times the pack size, not cases.
• Line total (admins and managers) — what the invoice charges for all of these, before freight.
• The supplier’s item number — how the next invoice from them will be matched.
• Barcode (UPC).
• What is it? — the catalog product, with Change and Remove, or Save item to make a new catalog item from this line. With Catalog item — no bin chosen below and nothing picked here, saving makes the item from the line for you.
• Where do its units go? — see Where each line goes.
• Note.

Changing Units keeps the line total, because the money on the invoice is the truth: 12 read as 12 but really 72 units becomes 72 units at a sixth of the price each.

Click Remove to delete a line.

An invoice with two hundred unknown lines is linked one line at a time on the Match items screen. Open it with Match N to your catalog on the order. (If the lines are all new to you, No bins — stock as catalog items does them all at once instead.)

trylasi.com/inventory/incoming/…/match

The top card shows the line as the invoice printed it. Below are the Closest in your catalog cards, with photos. Pick one and the screen links it and moves to the next line by itself.

When you reach the end, click Back to the order, or Go through the rest again for the lines you skipped.

Matching here does exactly what matching on the order does — including teaching the product the line’s barcode.

LASI matches a line by, in order: its barcode, then the supplier’s own item number as the last invoice from that supplier used it, then an exact product name. Only those certain matches are applied by themselves. Anything fuzzier is a suggestion you accept.

A barcode always wins over a name. Two lines that share most of their words (“Fern Faux Plant” and “Rosemary Faux Plant”) but print different barcodes are never put on one product.

When you pick a product for a line, the line’s barcode becomes that product’s barcode — so your warehouse scans, your catalog and the next invoice all know it.

When the barcode already belongs to something else

If the line’s barcode already names a different product, LASI links the line but leaves the barcode where it is and tells you: “Linked — but that barcode is spoken for”. Choose Leave it · next (the usual answer — suppliers do print one UPC on two lines) or Move the barcode here if the other product was wrong.

Many suppliers invoice without UPCs but will send a price list or item list that has them. Without a barcode a line can only be matched by name, so adding the list usually turns a page of unmatched lines into matched items with photos.

1. 1On the order, click Add a barcode list in the notice, or More → Add a list of barcodes.
2. 2Choose The file: a spreadsheet or CSV (read directly), or a PDF or photo (read by AI). Up to 4 MB.
3. 3Click Tie them in.

LASI pairs a barcode to a line by the supplier’s item number, or by an exact name. It works out which column holds what, even without headings. Lines that gain a barcode are matched again straight away. A line that already has a different barcode is left alone and listed for you, and anything two rows could claim is left for a person.

When an invoice is brand-new stock with a UPC on every line, you can skip bins altogether. Each line becomes an item in your catalog, and each piece that arrives is counted under that item at what it cost you landed. Afterwards, scanning the UPC anywhere in LASI shows what it is, how many you have and what you paid.

1. 1Open the order and click No bins — stock as catalog items in the amber notice (or More → Stock as catalog items — no bins).
2. 2Read what it will do and click Stock as catalog items.
3. 3Check the lines: Goes to reads “Catalog item · no bin” on each.
4. 4When the delivery arrives, Receive it as usual.

For each line LASI:

• keeps the catalog item the line is already matched to;
• otherwise uses the item its UPC already belongs to, so nothing you already have is made twice;
• otherwise makes a new catalog item, named the way the invoice words it and carrying its UPC. Two lines printing the same UPC become one item.

A line that was headed for a bin is taken off it, and the confirmation says how many. A line of more than 10,000 pieces is too many to count one by one and is left as it was.

To do only some lines, tick them, click Place N lines… and choose Catalog items — no bin. For one line, open it and choose Catalog item — no bin under Where do its units go?.

The new items are ordinary catalog items: rename them, add photos or link them to a bin later in the Catalog, where each shows how many you have. Because every piece is counted on its own, they can also be listed on your TikTok Shop from there. Nothing is in stock until you receive the delivery.

Every line needs a destination before it can be received. Under Where do its units go? choose:

You mostly will not have to choose. A line whose product LASI knows goes into that product’s bin — the pallet it went into last time, or a new pallet named exactly what the catalog calls it. The choice is remembered: the next invoice from the same supplier follows it.

Anything the supplier charges on top of the goods is a charge on the order, and it is divided into the cost of the units, so a unit’s cost is what it really cost you landed.

1. 1Under Freight and fees, click Add.
2. 2Pick Freight, Fee or Discount.
3. 3Enter the Amount and What is it? — liftgate, fuel, pallet fee, early-payment discount.
4. 4Under Divide it, choose By cost, By units or Per line.
5. 5Save.

A discount is always divided by cost, so it can never take a cheap line below zero.

When a delivery comes in parts, each part carries its share of every charge, and the last part takes whatever is left, so every cent lands in stock exactly once. Once part of a charge is already in the cost of received stock, how it is divided can no longer change.

1. 1On the order, under Shipments, click Add.
2. 2Find the Carrier by typing: a few letters of its name (“old” finds Old Dominion), a name it used to go by (“UPS Freight” finds TForce Freight), or the four-letter SCAC code printed on the bill of lading. The carriers your team has used before are at the top.
3. 3If the carrier is not there, keep typing its name and choose Use “…”. Any carrier can be added this way.
4. 4Enter the number, and optionally Expected, Pieces / pallets and a Note (“Appointment Friday am”). Freight carriers take a PRO number, parcel carriers a Tracking number; a UPS or USPS number picks its carrier by itself.
5. 5Set Where is it?: Not picked up yet, In transit, Out for delivery, Delivered or Problem.
6. 6Click Save.

Every shipment still coming also shows on the Incoming page’s Shipments tab. Track opens the carrier’s own tracking page with the number filled in. For carriers whose page cannot take the number that way, the link reads Carrier site — click Copy # first and paste it there.

A carrier LASI does not list

A carrier you added by name has no tracking page yet, so its shipment shows Find tracking page (a web search for that carrier’s tracking page) and Copy #.

1. 1Click Find tracking page, open the carrier’s tracking page and look the shipment up.
2. 2Copy the address of that page from the browser.
3. 3Back in LASI, click Edit on the shipment and paste it into Their tracking page. Click Save.

LASI keeps the link for the carrier, not for the one shipment. Every shipment by that carrier, old or new, gets a Track button that opens it with that shipment’s own number. If the address you pasted had this shipment’s number in it, LASI marks the place as {n} and puts each shipment’s number there.

Admins and managers can save or change a carrier’s tracking page. Staff can add the shipment and the carrier’s name. To remove a saved link, empty the box and save.

When the truck arrives

LASI does not ask the carrier where a shipment is. A shipment becomes Delivered in one of two ways: you mark it, or you receive its delivery.

trylasi.com/inventory/incoming

1. 1To mark it yourself, click Mark delivered on the shipment, on the order or on the Shipments tab. The order moves to “Delivered — ready to receive”, and on the Shipments tab the shipment gets a Receive button.
2. 2Or just receive the delivery. When you click Mark received, LASI marks the shipment delivered for you and says so. It shows as “Delivered Sep 25 · marked when it was received”.

What receiving marks depends on how much of the order came:

A shipment you set to Problem is never changed by receiving. A delivered shipment stays on the Shipments tab for two weeks, below the ones still coming.

Knowing a truck is coming today

On the iPhone app, admins and managers get an Arriving today card on the Today tab on any day a shipment is due: one that is set to Out for delivery, or one still on its way whose Expected day is today. In the lists, a shipment due today reads “Expected today” instead of its date. See Arriving today.

When the truck arrives, open the order and click Receive.

trylasi.com/inventory/incoming/…/receive

1. 1Every line starts counted as ordered. Scan a barcode anywhere on the page (or click Scan with the camera) to jump to its line.
2. 2For a line that came short, lower its count with − or type the number. Choose Short — claim it (a credit to claim from the supplier) or Still coming (a backorder).
3. 3For a line that did not come at all, click Not here. Click It came to bring it back. Everything arrived resets every line to what was ordered.
4. 4Check the bar at the bottom — units in, lines, how many short — and click Mark received.

Under the title, the page says which shipment will be marked delivered when you click Mark received. After receiving, the order says what was marked. See When the truck arrives.

Lines missing a price or somewhere to go cannot come in yet; the page says so, and managers can fix them on the order.

If you scan a barcode LASI does not know, pick the line it belongs to with This one — name barcode …. If it already belongs to a different product, LASI asks rather than changing anything.

Receiving happens standing at a truck, so it is on the iPhone app too. Open Menu → Incoming (or tap the “deliveries on the way” banner on the Inventory tab), open the order, and tap Receive N units.

1. 1Every line starts at what was ordered. Use − and + (or tap the number) on any line that came short.
2. 2For a short line, choose still coming or claim it.
3. 3Tap Mark N units received. If lines are short, LASI lists them and asks you to confirm with Receive anyway.

The screen that follows says how many units are on the shelf and which shipment was marked delivered. To mark a truck delivered before anyone has counted it, tap Mark delivered under the shipment, on the order or on the Shipments list, and confirm.

The counts you type are kept if the app goes to the background. If someone changed the order meanwhile, LASI reloads it and asks you to check the counts, rather than receiving against lines nobody reviewed. A retry with a bad signal never receives the delivery twice.

A short line is received for what actually arrived, and costs only what arrived.

• Short — claim it / claim it: the missing units are a credit to claim from the supplier. The order reports it, and the line is done.
• Still coming / still coming: the missing units become a new pending line on the same order, marked “still to come”. The order stays open as Partly received until they arrive and are received.

A line you marked Not here is not received at all and stays pending on the order.

Receiving is the only step that changes your inventory, and it happens all at once or not at all.

• Units going into an existing pallet are added as a new batch, dated with the invoice date and carrying the supplier, at the landed cost of the lines that went into it.
• A new bin is made as a new pallet with this delivery as its first batch, and linked to its catalog product when every line in it is that one product.
• Lines going in as catalog items are counted piece by piece under their item. Each piece also gets a LASI label of its own, which you only print if you want to, since the product’s own UPC scans. Their costs add up to the line’s landed total to the cent.
• The order closes when nothing is left pending.

Several lines landing in one pallet become one batch at their blended cost. Because a batch’s cost is kept to the cent per unit, its value can differ from the landed total by less than half a cent a unit; the order shows the difference rather than hiding it.

An open line headed for a pallet that already exists counts as stock on order in the forecast, just like Mark ordered does. If it is due before the pallet runs dry, that pallet’s reorder alert goes quiet (it shows On order), and the order’s Expected date is what the forecast counts on.

On the Forecast page, Receive for such a line says “On an incoming order. It is received there, with its freight.” with Open the order. See Forecasting and reordering.

The order’s More menu holds:

• Order details — Supplier, Invoice number, Invoice date (the date the stock’s batches carry), Expected (what the forecast counts on), Invoice total (checked against the lines and charges) and Notes.
• Stock as catalog items — no bins — see No bins: stocking an invoice as catalog items.
• Read the invoice again and Add a list of barcodes.
• Match again — re-runs matching over the lines.
• Cancel the order — it stays on the list as cancelled, and nothing on it counts as on its way. Reopen the order brings it back.
• Delete the order — the order, its lines and the invoice file go.

Cancel and delete are only offered while nothing has been received from the order.

Managers open the same pages as admins, on the web and on the phone, with every price left out: no line costs, no freight amounts, no totals. A manager can type a line’s cost but does not see it afterwards. Staff see no money anywhere on these screens.