Virtual Stock

What Virtual Stock Does

Some of what you sell never sits in your warehouse. A supplier ships it straight to your customer, a partner holds a pallet for you, or a manufacturer keeps stock you can call on. Your sales channels still need a stock figure for those products, otherwise they show as out of stock and stop selling.

Virtual Stock lets you record stock that a third party holds for you, against each product. Helm adds it to the stock level it sends to your sales channels, so the product stays on sale. It is kept completely separate from your physical stock, so it never turns up in a pick, a stock movement or a count.

Example scenario: you sell a garden bench that your supplier, Oakline Furniture, ships direct to customers. You hold none in your warehouse, but Oakline tells you they have 40 ready to go. You add 40 units of Virtual Stock against Oakline on the bench. Your channels now show the bench as available, while your warehouse team never sees it on a pick list.

Each holder of stock is set up once as a Virtual Stock Source (for example, one per supplier) and reused across every product they hold for you.

Before You Start

• Know who holds the stock. You will create one source per third party, so it helps to agree a naming convention first, such as the supplier's trading name.

• Have up-to-date quantities from them. Virtual Stock is only as accurate as the figure you enter. Helm does not check it against the third party's own system unless an app is updating it for you (see Keeping Figures Up to Date below).

• Physical stock stays physical. Anything that genuinely sits in your warehouse belongs in a stock location, not in Virtual Stock. Virtual Stock is never pickable.

• Available in Basic mode. You can use Virtual Stock if your Helm account runs in Basic mode.

How to Set Up Virtual Stock in Helm

Step 1: Create Your Virtual Stock Sources

1. Go to Settings > System Settings > Virtual Stock Sources.

2. Click the + button in the top right of the Virtual Stock Sources panel.

3. In the Add New Source window:

   1. Enter a Name for the source, such as the supplier's name.

   2. Leave Available switched on so the source can be used.

   3. Click Add.

The list shows each source's Name, how many products use it (Product Using) and its Status. Hover over the information icon next to a name to see when it was created.

To rename a source or switch it off, click the ... button under Actions and choose Edit. To remove a source you no longer need, choose Delete.

Step 2: Add Virtual Stock to a Product

1. Go to Inventory and open the product.

2. Scroll down to the Virtual Stock section. It carries a Not in Warehouse label so it cannot be confused with your stock locations.

3. Click the + button in the section header.

4. In the Add Virtual Stock window:

   1. Choose the Source that holds the stock.

   2. Enter the Qty they hold for you.

   3. Click Add.

If the source you need is not in the list yet, click Manage Sources in the same window to go straight to the Virtual Stock Sources screen.

A product can hold Virtual Stock from more than one source. Each source has its own row, and the Totals row adds them together.

Step 3: Check the Product's Stock Figures

Look at the Stock Control panel on the right of the product page. Virtual Stock has its own Virtual figure, shown alongside Physical, In Orders and Available, so you can always see how much of your sellable stock is on your own shelves and how much is held elsewhere.

Managing Virtual Stock Day to Day

Each row in a product's Virtual Stock section shows:

To change a quantity, type the new total into the Qty field on that row. Enter the total the third party now holds, not the amount to add or take away.

To see every change made to a row, click ... under Actions and choose View History. The history shows who made each change, when, how it was made and the quantity it was set to.

To stop counting a source's stock against a product, click ... and choose Delete.

Fulfilling Orders That Use Virtual Stock

Virtual Stock is held by someone else, so it is never picked from your warehouse. When a customer buys a product that is covered by Virtual Stock, the order is fulfilled by the third party that holds it, not by your pickers.

To get the order to the third party, either:

• Raise a Purchase Order yourself to the supplier, with your customer's delivery address on it, so they ship direct; or

• Let the Helm Dropshipping app do it for you. It raises and sends the Purchase Order automatically for every order containing a SKU you have marked as dropshipped.

Example: Selling a Supplier-Held Product

1. Your supplier Oakline Furniture holds stock of a garden bench (SKU BENCH-OAK-2) and ships it direct to your customers.

2. In Settings > System Settings > Virtual Stock Sources, you add a source called Oakline Furniture.

3. You open BENCH-OAK-2 in Inventory, add Virtual Stock from Oakline Furniture with a quantity of 40, and click Add.

4. The Stock Control panel now shows a Virtual figure of 40, while Physical stays at zero.

5. Your sales channels keep the bench on sale.

6. A week later Oakline tells you they have 25 left. You type 25 into the Qty field on the Oakline row.

Keeping Figures Up to Date

Virtual Stock can be maintained by hand, or kept current by an app. The Helm Dropshipping app, for example, can set Virtual Stock quantities from a CSV file or read a supplier's own stock feed every half hour, and creates any sources it needs. Changes made that way show in the Via column, so you can tell them apart from manual edits. See the Helm Dropshipping article for setup.

Best Practices & Notes

One Source per Third Party

Create one source for each supplier or partner and reuse it across all their products. The Product Using count on the sources screen then tells you at a glance how much of your range depends on each one.

Update When the Third Party Tells You

Virtual Stock is a promise someone else is making on your behalf. The closer your figure is to what they actually hold, the less likely you are to sell something they cannot supply. If a supplier sends regular stock updates, enter them as soon as they arrive, or let an app do it for you.

Keep Physical and Virtual Separate

If you start holding some units of a product in your own warehouse, book those into a stock location as normal and leave the Virtual Stock row to cover only what the third party holds. Helm keeps the two apart, so your picks only ever use what is on your shelves.

Switch Off Rather Than Delete

If a supplier is temporarily unable to supply, edit the source and switch off Available rather than deleting it. You keep the source and its history, ready for when they are back.

FAQ

If your Virtual Stock figures do not look right, check the row's View History first, then contact the Helm support team if you need a hand.