Stock alerts: cost rises, slow stock and price lists

Two warnings watch your money in stock. The cost-rise warning catches a supplier's new price the moment the delivery is received, so your margin does not shrink unnoticed. The slow-stock list shows what has not sold for weeks and the money it holds. Both are worked out from your own deliveries and sales. They come with every CreekPOS Online plan (Retail and up) and with the desktop program from Silver up. Moving slow stock between branches needs two or more branches (Chain), and price lists by photo ride the invoice reader.

#The cost-rise warning

When you receive a delivery (Receive stock, receiving a purchase order, or confirming an invoice from a photo), each line whose unit cost is 10 % (your setting) or more above the product's last cost warns on the spot:

Cost was 10.00, now 12.00 (+20%). Margin now 20% at 15.00 (was 33.3%). Suggested price 18.00 keeps 33.3%.

You choose:

• Apply 18.00: the price changes at once and reaches every till like any price edit; the change is in the activity log.
• Keep the price: nothing changes. That is your choice to make.

How it is worked out:

• Margins are on the price without VAT: VAT is never profit. When your prices include VAT, the suggested price puts it back on top.
• The suggestion is rounded up to AED 0.05, never under the margin it keeps.
• A product with no selling price yet gets the two costs only.
• Whoever receives stock sees the warning. Applying the price needs the Edit products right or a manager.

Imagine a baqala in Al Qusais: a carton of cooking oil arrives 2 AED dearer a bottle. The receiving line shows the old and new cost, the margin it leaves at today's shelf price, and the price that keeps the old margin. One tap, and the shelf price is right before the first bottle sells.

On the invoice-photo review page, the rise is shown in red from your own threshold, with the same sentence and the suggested price.

#The settings

Online they are under Settings → Selling; on the desktop under Settings → General, beside the expiry days. A manager changes them.

#The margin floor and squeezed margins

With a margin floor set (for example 25 %), a delivery that pushes a product's margin at its current price under it makes the line "squeezed": the warning adds "Under the margin floor of 25%", and online the product goes onto Inventory → Margins squeezed, with the price that keeps the margin and Apply. The owner's daily summary mail and the Telegram summary list the open lines, and the owner alert Margin squeezed is raised once per product and delivery.

A line leaves the list as soon as its margin is back over the floor: the price applied, the price changed by hand, or the floor lowered. Nothing is deleted; old lines age out after 90 days. With the floor off, the page tells you to set one under Settings → Selling.

#Slow and dead stock

A product is slow when it has stock and no sale for 45 days (your setting). An item that arrived within those days is not slow yet: a new line gets its chance.

Inventory → Slow and dead stock shows the value tied up at cost and, for each product: the stock, its value at cost, the last sale (or "no sale in the last … days" when the history does not reach that far), the supplier and What to do:

Every line gets at least one action. The day presets on the page save the branch's setting, and the list downloads as Excel or CSV. Reading the lists needs the inventory or reports right.

Slow stock also shows:

• as a dashboard tile: the count, the value and the three biggest items;
• in the summary mail, with the top five by value: weekly by default, or daily or off; the Telegram summary carries the same block on the same days;
• as the owner alert Slow and dead stock, once per branch and week: the count, the days, the value, the biggest item and a link to the page;
• in Ask your shop: "what is not selling".

Both owner alert kinds are on with the others once owner alerts are switched on; untick them under Settings → Owner alerts if you do not want them.

#Moving slow stock to another branch

With two or more branches (the Chain plan), the slow-stock page has a branch chooser and, beside each slow product, a Sells at column: every other branch where the same product sold in the reorder window, with its rate there, what it holds, the days that lasts, and the quantity to move:

Ajman: 1.4 a day · 2 on hand · 1.4 days of cover → move 13 Create transfer

Above the list, one line per receiving branch: "3 product(s) could move to Ajman" with Move all suggested to Ajman.

How the quantity is found: the receiving branch needs what its reorder settings keep for that product (its rate times its target days, minus what it holds and has on order; see What to buy today). The sending branch always keeps what it still expects to sell over its own target days. The spare is shared out, the biggest need first.

Create transfer (one product) and Move all suggested (every suggested product to that branch) make the numbered transfer note: print it and send it with the goods. The stock leaves one branch and reaches the other in one step, like any transfer between branches. Pressing twice never moves twice. If the list changed meanwhile, the page says "Nothing suggested to move right now: the list changed. Reload the page."

Imagine two branches in Sharjah and Ajman: a shampoo that sits in Sharjah sells well in Ajman. The weekly alert says "3 product(s) could move to Ajman", the summary mail lists it, and Ask your shop answers "what should I move to Ajman". Creating the transfer needs the inventory right and a plan with branch transfers; the buttons show only to those who may.

#Supplier price lists by photo

The AI invoice reader also reads a supplier's price list. In pilot — ask us to switch it on. It comes with Invoice from a photo: the same monthly allowance (each page is one reading) and the same agreement under Settings → Invoice photos. Online only.

1. Suppliers → a supplier → Price list by photo. Take a photo of the price list or pick a PDF, then Read the price list.
2. Review: the pages are beside the rows. Each row shows the matched product (by barcode, by this supplier's own names, or by name), the pieces per unit (a carton of 12 → 12), the list price, the piece cost that will be written, the cost now, the change, the margin before and after, and the suggested price that keeps your margin. A rise above your threshold shows the cost-rise warning. Green is sure, amber deserves a look, red has no product or no price.
3. Tick the rows to apply (all are ticked when read; Tick every row, Untick every row). On a row whose cost rose, tick Also set the price to …. Choose the supplier, correct the list's date, and tick The printed prices include VAT when they do (the VAT comes off: 6.825 → 6.50). A row without a product: Make it a new product, or leave it unticked.
4. Apply the ticked rows writes the new costs, never the stock, and the suggested prices where ticked. The list becomes this supplier's latest, and the program learns the supplier's names for next time. Set this price list aside drops it instead.

Afterwards, purchase orders to that supplier start from the list's costs ("list …" beside each line), receiving warns only when a delivery's cost differs from the list, and a list older than 60 days shows "may be stale" on the purchase order, the supplier's price list and the suppliers list. Applying costs needs the inventory right; setting prices needs the Edit products right or a manager.

#On the desktop program

From Silver up, the desktop program has:

• the cost-rise warning in the delivery dialog (from the inventory screen and from receiving a purchase order): it asks, applies the price you accept and saves;
• the Slow stock tab on the inventory screen: the day presets, Excel / CSV and, under it, the Under the margin floor list (the product list as it stands: price, cost, the floor);
• the slow-stock block in the daily summary;
• the settings under Settings → General.

The desktop keeps one shop's stock, so it has no branch transfers: the Slow stock tab says so under its list. Price lists by photo are online only. More on the smart stock page.