Inventory: bins and barcoded items

LASI keeps your stock in two shapes, and you can use both at once. Which one a product belongs in depends on whether you care which exact unit a buyer gets.

A pallet is a bin of units that are all the same thing — 3,000 throw blankets, a case of one fragrance, a lot of mixed clothing you sell one piece at a time. You never scan the individual units; you just say how many are left. Most live-auction sellers keep most of their stock this way. LASI calls these “pallets” on the Inventory page and “bins” in other places. They are the same thing.

A barcoded item is a product you scan by its barcode — a candle with a UPC, a pair of sneakers in size 10, a jacket. LASI keeps each physical unit with its own LASI barcode (a code like AUC-000123) and its own cost, but the Items tab shows one row per product and size, with how many you have: 80 of one candle is one line that says 80.

Every time you buy more of a pallet, LASI adds a batch to it: how many units, and what each one cost. A pallet restocked three times at three different prices has three batches.

When units sell, LASI takes them from the oldest batch first. When that batch runs out, selling moves on to the next one automatically. The cost of every sale is worked out from the batches the units actually came from, and it is saved on the sale, so your profit figures stay right even after prices change.

Barcoded items work the same way. Each unit keeps what it cost, and whenever LASI picks a unit of a product for you — a scan of its UPC at a show, or Sell, Move to a show or Record a loss from a product row on the Items tab — it takes the unit that came in first. So when you restock a product at a new price, the new units sell after the ones already on the shelf, and each sale carries the cost of the unit that actually left.

This is why the Inventory page shows two different cost figures for a pallet:

• Next unit — what the next unit to sell will cost: the price of the oldest batch that still has stock. It is not an average.
• Value — what everything left on the pallet cost, added up batch by batch.

Open Inventory in the sidebar. The page has two tabs, Pallets and Items. It opens on Pallets, unless you have no pallets and only barcoded items.

trylasi.com/inventory#pallets

The tiles across the top give you the shape of your shelves at a glance:

The buttons at the top right are Incoming (deliveries on their way, see Incoming orders), Catalog (every product, see The catalog and scanning stock in), More and Add inventory. Add inventory holds every way stock comes in (see Adding stock). More holds the related pages: Catalog barcodes, Forecast, SKU pricing, Losses, Record a loss and Push to Shopify.

Each row is one pallet. The columns are Pallet (its name, supplier and location), On the shelf (units left, with a gauge against what it started with), Days left (from the forecast), and for admins Next unit and Value.

Three chips choose which pallets you see:

• Active — every pallet with stock, plus any pallet that sold out while still selling (the forecast flags those “Sold out · order now”, and hiding them is how reorders get missed).
• Running low — pallets the forecast marks Order now or Order soon. The dot on the chip turns red when anything needs ordering now.
• Empty — pallets whose last unit has sold.

The sort menu offers Newest first, Name A–Z, Running out first, Most left, Fewest left and (for admins) Highest value. The search box matches a pallet’s name, supplier, location or invoice number.

The Days left column reads “Learning” for a pallet with too little sales history to forecast, a plain number of days when all is well, and a red Order now or amber Order soon chip when it is time to reorder. See Forecasting and reordering.

Click a row to open the pallet’s own page.

The Items tab shows barcoded items By product: one row per product and size — one per UPC — however many units you have. Each row shows the Item (its name, SKU and UPC), how many you have (On hand, with how many are in stock and at a show), the Size, Next unit and Value (admins only) and Where it is kept.

It lists what you have. A product LASI knows but has no units of — a barcode named so that scanning it says what the box is — is not here; it is in the Catalog, and that is the right place for it.

• Next unit is what the next unit to sell cost: the oldest one in stock. When you have restocked a product at a different price, the row says how many prices are in stock.
• Value adds up every unit at its own cost.
• The chips On hand, In stock, At a show and Sold count products and change what each row counts. Sort by newest, name, most on hand or (admins) highest value. When your items use them, a Category and a Size filter appear too. Search by name, SKU or barcode.

Click a product to open it. It shows how many are in stock, at a show and sold, then In stock, in the order it sells: each delivery with how many are left and (admins) what each cost, the one marked Sells next first. Each delivery also says when it was bought, who it was bought from and the invoice number, as recorded when it was counted in. Admins also see the invoice total and the delivery’s notes. A delivery received from an incoming order has Open the order and its invoice. One counted in with no supplier says Supplier not recorded: click Add the supplier (or Edit purchase) to fill in the supplier, the date bought and the invoice number. That changes the record for the whole delivery, so every product on it shows the change. No stock or cost moves. Units added by hand say they have no purchase on record. Under Take from stock enter How many and click Sell, Move to a show, Print labels or Record a loss. LASI takes the oldest units in stock and opens the same screen you would get for ticked units. One action takes up to 500 units (100 for a loss).

Switch to Each unit (next to the chips), or click See each unit on a product, for the list of single units with their own barcodes, statuses and costs. That is where you edit, delete or tick one particular unit. Back to products returns to the product list.

In Each unit, click a row to open that unit’s edit dialog. Both lists load in pages; use Show more at the bottom for the rest.

Every row has a ⋯ menu at its right end. For a pallet it holds Edit details, Print labels, Sell units… (only when units are left), Record a loss, Batches & restock and Delete pallet. For a product on the Items tab it holds Sell…, Move to a show…, Print labels… and Record a loss… (while any are in stock), See each unit and Open in Catalog. For a single unit (in Each unit) it holds Edit, Print label, Move to a show and Mark as sold… (only while in stock), Record a loss and Delete.

Tick the box at the start of several pallets, or several units in Each unit, and a bar floats up at the bottom of the screen with actions for all of them at once:

• Pallets: Sell, Record loss and Delete.
• Units: Print labels, Move to show, Mark sold, and under its menu Add fees to cost, Push to Shopify, Record a loss and Delete.

The tick box in the header selects every row shown. Changing a filter or the search clears your selection, so you never act on rows you can no longer see.

Click Inventory → Add inventory. The menu is grouped by where the stock comes from:

1. 1Click Inventory → Add inventory → Add a pallet.
2. 2Type a Description — what is in it, like “Queen blankets” or “Shoes Mix”.
3. 3Enter the Total Quantity and the Base Cost per Unit.
4. 4If you paid shipping or processing on the whole lot, enter them under Additional Fees (Optional). LASI divides them by the quantity and shows the Effective Cost per Unit.
5. 5Optionally add the Supplier, the Purchase Date (it defaults to today in your business timezone), a Location and an invoice under Attach to Invoice (Optional).
6. 6Click Create Pallet. You land on the new pallet’s own page.

The quantity and cost you entered become the pallet’s first batch.

If you are moving to LASI with stock already on your shelves, import it rather than typing each pallet.

1. 1Click Inventory → Add inventory → From a spreadsheet.
2. 2For pallets, click Use the pallet import in the CSV Format box. (The first page is for barcoded items.)
3. 3Build a CSV with the columns Name, Quantity and UnitCost, and optionally PurchaseDate (YYYY-MM-DD), Supplier and Location.
4. 4Upload it. Each row becomes a pallet with its opening batch at that cost and date, and rows LASI cannot read are listed as skipped.

The barcoded-items import takes SKU, Size, Cost and Quantity, with optional Name, Location and Supplier, and makes one labelled unit per quantity.

Click a pallet on the Inventory page (or choose Batches & restock from its menu) to open its page.

trylasi.com/inventory/pallets/…

The top card shows the supplier, location, date added, how many it started with and how many sold, with a sell-through bar. Admins also see the current cost per unit, the remaining value, revenue, cost of goods, profit and ROI.

Batches (FIFO) lists every buy of this pallet, numbered in order, each with its purchase date, supplier, cost per unit and what remains. Each batch carries a state:

Below the batches is the Forecast panel: how fast it sells, how long it lasts, when it runs dry and when to order. See Forecasting and reordering.

Got more of something you already sell? Restock the existing pallet rather than making a new one, so its history and forecast stay in one place.

1. 1Open the pallet’s page and click + Restock.
2. 2Enter the Quantity and the Cost per unit of this buy.
3. 3Check the Supplier and Purchase date (they default to the pallet’s usual supplier and today).
4. 4Click Add batch.

The new batch waits in line until earlier batches sell out, then sales pull from it at this cost.

If you restocked by mistake (the wrong pallet, or the same delivery twice), you can take that batch back out, as long as nothing has sold from it yet.

1. 1Open the pallet’s page.
2. 2Find the batch under Batches (FIFO) and click Remove.
3. 3Confirm with Remove batch.

The pallet’s count shrinks by that batch’s units. The Remove button only appears on a batch that is completely untouched, and never on a pallet’s only batch — to get rid of that, delete the pallet from the Inventory page.

Choose Edit details from a pallet’s menu. You can change its Name, Location and Invoice, and correct its counts: Started with and Left. Admins can also change the Cost per unit and use + Add shipping or processing to spread extra costs over every unit it started with.

• Changing only the name or location touches nothing else.
• Changing Left is for correcting a count. Units added this way join the pallet, and units taken off come out of the oldest batches.
• A corrected cost reaches only sales that were recorded without a cost of their own. Sales whose cost came from a batch keep it.

Most sales reach LASI from your shows, TikTok and Shopify. For anything else — a wholesale buyer, an eBay sale, a sale at a market — record it here so the stock leaves and the sale appears on the Sales page with what it cost.

1. 1On the Pallets tab choose Sell units… from a pallet’s menu (or tick several and click Sell). On the Items tab open a product (or choose Sell… from its menu), enter How many and click Sell — LASI takes the oldest units in stock. In Each unit you can instead tick particular units and click Mark sold.
2. 2Pick how it sold: One price, A price per pallet (A price per SKU for items) or Auction.
3. 3Under Where it sold pick eBay, Mercari, Poshmark, Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, In-Person, Consignment or Wholesale, or Somewhere else… and type it. In Auction mode pick TikTok, Whatnot or Other instead.
4. 4For pallets, check the units sold. Each box starts at everything left on the pallet, because selling a whole pallet to one buyer is the common case.
5. 5Enter the Sale price (the total for all the units), or a price per pallet or SKU.
6. 6Enter any Platform fees and Shipping you paid. In Auction mode the fees are worked out for you at your own rates: TikTok at what TikTok has been charging your shop, Whatnot and Other at your Platform Fees settings. The dialog shows the rate it uses.
7. 7Optionally add who it was Sold to and a Note, then click Record sale.

trylasi.com/inventory#pallets

Admins see the cost of the units (oldest batch first) and the profit before they record. Managers see what you keep after fees. A total price is split across the units to the cent.

Barcoded items can be staged for a show straight from the Items tab, without scanning each one.

1. 1Open a product (or choose Move to a show… from its menu), enter How many and click Move to a show — the oldest units in stock go. Or, in Each unit, tick particular units and click Move to show.
2. 2Pick the show. Only shows being staged or live right now are listed.
3. 3Click Move N items.

Items move one at a time into the show’s running order, exactly as if you had scanned them. Only items In stock are moved. If no show is being staged, start one first — see Shows: types and creating one.

LASI prints 2 × 1 inch labels for thermal label printers such as a Rollo.

• Pallet labels — choose Print labels from a pallet’s menu. Every unit of a pallet carries the same code, because the units are interchangeable and a scan only has to say which pallet. Set How many, or click One per unit left, then Print N labels.
• Item labels — open a product, enter How many and click Print labels, or in Each unit choose Print label from a unit’s menu or tick several and click Print labels. Each label carries that unit’s own barcode with its SKU and size. Click Print, or Download PDF. A product you sell by scanning its UPC does not need these labels.

On the Items tab switch to Each unit (or click See each unit on a product), then click a unit to open it. You can change:

• Product name — this renames the product for every unit with that SKU, not just this one.
• SKU code, Size, Category and Location (a rack, shelf or bin).
• Status — In stock, At a show, Sold or Returned, for correcting a unit that is in the wrong state.
• Invoice — which purchase it came from.
• Cost (admins only), with optional Shipping and Processing added on top.

Click Save changes. To add shipping or processing to many items at once, tick them and choose Add fees to cost from the selection bar’s menu: the total is split evenly across them and added to what each cost.

Delete is for stock that should never have been entered — a duplicate, a test. For stock that was damaged, lost or sent out, use Record a loss instead so it shows in your reports.

• Delete pallet removes the pallet and whatever is left on it. Sales already recorded stay on the Sales page.
• Delete on items removes them for good. Items that are sold, at a show or in a sale cannot be deleted and are kept, and the dialog says how many.

A loss is stock that left without being sold, or came back: a customer return, damage, a unit that went missing, a replacement sent to a buyer. Recording it takes the units out of stock at their real cost, so your inventory value and reports stay honest.

1. 1Click Inventory → More → Record a loss, or choose Record a loss from a row’s menu (the pallet or item comes pre-picked).
2. 2Under What happened? pick Customer return, Damaged, Missing, Replacement sent or Other.
3. 3For a customer return, choose Write off (unsellable, the full cost counts as lost) or Back to stock (resellable, it goes back on the shelf with no cost lost).
4. 4Set the Date and add Notes (optional) — an order number, the buyer, what broke.
5. 5On the Pallets tab enter a quantity for each pallet; on the SKU Items tab search for items by barcode, SKU or name and tick them. For a return, tick Show sold-out bins to return units to a pallet that has since sold out.
6. 6Click Record N units as ….

trylasi.com/inventory/losses/record

Every loss is listed on Inventory → More → Losses, with totals for units lost, this month and returns restocked, a breakdown by reason, and a row per loss. Admins also see what each loss cost, and can open the same list with their other costs under Finance → Costs → Losses (the See them with your other costs button).

Recorded one by mistake? Click Undo on its row. Units written off go back into stock at their recorded cost; units that were restocked are taken back out.

Sometimes the same product ends up on two pallet rows — two deliveries entered as separate pallets, or one product stored in two places. You can link them on the Forecast page so they forecast as one product. Linking changes only the forecast: each pallet keeps its own stock, batches and costs. See Linking bins into one product.

Separately, a pallet can be linked to a product in your catalog, which puts its photo and cost beside the catalog entry. See The catalog and scanning stock in.

The iPhone app’s Inventory tab has two views: Bins (your pallets, with units left and days left) and Items (every catalog product with its picture, barcodes, stock and bin). A banner at the top says when deliveries are on the way.

• Tap a bin to see its batches and to Restock, Order stock, Record loss or delete it.
• + Add on the Bins view adds a pallet.
• Menu → Losses lists losses.

Selling by hand, moving items to a show, printing labels and editing barcoded items are on the web. See The LASI iPhone app.