Getting Started with Inventory

What Your Inventory Does

Every order Helm picks, packs and despatches is built from the items on your Inventory list. Once a product is in, Helm tracks how many you hold, how many are already promised to open orders and how quickly they sell, and keeps your sales channels up to date with what you can actually sell.

You can add items in three ways: import a file, connect a sales channel, or create them by hand. Most businesses import their items first, then connect their channels so each listing links to its item.

A cosmetics brand imports its 100 products and its stock levels from a spreadsheet, using the same SKUs it lists on Shopify. When the team connects the Shopify store, every listing links to its item on its own. They create one extra item by hand for a gift box that is not sold online. By the afternoon, new orders are arriving against real stock.

Before You Start

• Agree your item codes. The item code (often called a SKU) is how Helm, your channels and your pickers recognise a product, and it is fixed once the item is created. Settle on a naming convention, such as PLL-SPICE for a spice-shade lip liner, before you add anything. Use the same code on every channel, so listings link to their items automatically.

• Know your warehousing mode. Your mode decides whether you hold stock against warehouse locations. If you are not sure which one you use, read Understanding Warehousing Modes in Helm first.

• Check your access. Connecting a channel and importing a file both happen in Settings, so you need a user with access to Company Settings.

How to Add Inventory in Helm

Option 1: Import a File

This is where most businesses start. A file lets you create every item with the exact codes your channels use. It is also the fastest way to add detail such as barcodes, categories or stock levels to many items at once.

1. Go to Settings > Company Settings > Import.

2. In the Select Import window, choose an Import type. To create the items themselves, choose Inventory.

3. Click download import template to get a file with the right columns for that type. Fill it in and save it as .csv, .xls or .xlsx.

4. Drop your file into Import data, or click browse to find it.

5. If you have saved a column map from an earlier import, choose it under Selected map.

6. Click Continue and follow the remaining steps.

Once your items exist, these import types let you add detail to them in bulk:

Option 2: Connect a Sales Channel

Connecting a channel lets Helm receive its orders and send it your stock levels. Each listing on the channel is matched to an item on your Inventory list by its SKU. As long as the channel’s SKUs match the item codes you imported in Option 1, every listing links itself.

1. Go to Settings > Company Settings and open your store. The card carries your store’s name, for example NineTees Store.

2. In the Sales Channels panel, click + and choose your channel.

3. Follow the connection steps for that channel. On the Interaction Settings step, leave Import Products switched off unless both conditions below are met.

Check your listings are linked. When your SKUs are the same on every channel, everything links on its own.

1. Go to Settings > System Settings > Inventory Linking.

2. In the Channels panel, choose the channel to check. Each channel shows how many of its products are linked.

3. Listings under Unlinked Products are not yet matched to an item. Matched listings sit under Linked Products.

4. Leave Autolink on Perfect SKU Match switched on, so any listing whose SKU exactly matches an item code links itself.

5. If a channel uses different SKUs from your item codes, link those listings by hand. See Inventory Linking.

6. If you add new listings on the channel later, click Refetch Products to have the channel send them again. They can take up to 15 minutes to arrive.

For the full channel set-up, see My Store. For linking in detail, see Inventory Linking.

Option 3: Create an Item by Hand

Creating items by hand works well for a small catalogue or for one-offs, such as a gift box or a service you charge for.

1. Go to Inventory and click Create Inventory in the bottom right corner.

2. Enter the Item code and Name.

3. Choose the Inventory type:

   • Product: a physical item you hold in stock.

   • Group: a set of products sold together. See Group Products, Families & Containers.

   • Service: something you sell that is not held as stock.

4. For a product that you track by batch or expiry date, switch on Batch Item. See Batches & Expiry Dates.

5. Click Create Inventory. Helm opens the new item so you can finish setting it up.

To complete the item (stock, locations, dimensions, channel links and reordering), follow Manual Inventory Creation.

Finding Your Way Around the Inventory List

The Inventory page lists every active item. By default it shows these columns:

Average Daily Sales and Days Stock Remaining stay blank until an item has some sales history.

Searching & Filtering

Type an item name or code into the search bar at the top of the page. Click Filters to narrow the list by Available, Category, Channels or Item Code, open More Filters for further options, or reuse a filter from Saved Filters. For more on building and saving filters, see Search, Filters & Saved Views.

Choosing Your Columns

1. Click the sliders icon on the right of the search bar to open View Manager.

2. Under Add or Remove Columns, tick the columns you want. Useful extras include Barcode, Available, Virtual Stock, Primary Supplier, Tax Group, HS Code and Weight (kg).

3. Under Drag to Arrange Columns, drag the columns into the order you want.

4. Switch on Show Tags to display each item's tags in the list.

5. Click Save.

Working With Several Items at Once

Tick the checkbox beside each item you want to change. A bar appears at the bottom of the page showing how many items are selected, with two menus:

• Set: Set Tax Group, Set Category, Channel Stock Sync and Tags.

• Actions: Archive, Delete and Download Barcodes.

For a single item, click ... at the end of its row to Download Barcode, Disable Stock Sync or Delete it.

Reading an Item’s Stock Figures

Open any item to see its Stock Control panel on the right of the page. It shows where that item’s stock stands right now:

For example, an item showing Physical 25, In Orders 2 and Available 23 has 25 units on the shelf, two of them promised to orders waiting to be picked, and 23 free to sell. That last figure is what your sales channels should show.

To see why any of these figures changed, click Stock Logs at the bottom of the panel. See Stock Logs.

Where to Go Next

Once your items are in, these guides cover the rest of the Inventory collection:

Best Practices & Notes

Build Your Catalogue in Layers

Import your items first, using the same SKUs your channels use, then connect your channels. If an order arrives for a listing whose SKU matches nothing in Helm, Helm creates a new item for it, so having your items in place first stops the same product being created twice under two different codes. Then import extra detail such as barcodes, locations and stock levels, and create any remaining items by hand.

Change Stock Through Helm’s Own Processes

Once you are live, book stock in through Deliveries and adjust it through Movements and Inventory Checks rather than typing a new figure into an item. Each of these records the change in Stock Logs with a reason, so you can always see where stock went.

Archive Items You No Longer Sell

When a product is discontinued, archive it from the Actions menu instead of deleting it, so it stays out of the way while its history is kept. Archived items are listed under Archived Inventory, the box icon beside Filters.

Let the Numbers Guide Reordering

Once items are selling, check Days Stock Remaining each week. Anything with fewer days left than your supplier needs to deliver is worth reordering now.

FAQ

Still stuck? Get in touch with the team through Contacting Support.