Planning and Setting Up Inventory
Before you can sell, purchase, or track products, you need to build your inventory structure. This chapter covers the hierarchy — departments, subdepartments, and items — and explains how to plan and set up your items efficiently.
The Inventory Hierarchy
Quasar organizes inventory in a three-level hierarchy:
| Level | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Department | Broad category for reporting and organization | Grocery, Hardware, Clothing, Beverages |
| Subdepartment | Carries the default GL accounts, tax codes, and target margins that items inherit | Dairy, Canned Goods, Power Tools, Outerwear |
| Item | The individual product | 2% Milk 1L, Hammer, Winter Jacket |
See the full reference: Department Master | Subdepartment Master
Planning Your Departments and Subdepartments
Departments
Keep departments broad. They are used primarily for high-level reporting and organizing the subdepartment list. Most businesses need between 3 and 15 departments. Examples:
- Retail: Grocery, Produce, Meat, Deli, Health & Beauty, General Merchandise
- Hardware: Tools, Plumbing, Electrical, Paint, Lumber, Fasteners
- Restaurant: Food, Beverages, Alcohol, Supplies
Subdepartments
Subdepartments are where the real power is. Each subdepartment carries default settings that all its items inherit:
| Setting | What It Does |
|---|---|
| COGS Account | GL account for Cost of Goods Sold |
| Income Account | GL account for sales revenue |
| Asset Account | GL account for inventory asset value |
| Purchase Tax | Default tax code for purchasing |
| Selling Tax | Default tax code for selling |
| Target Margin % | Target profit margin for pricing |
Group items by tax and margin behaviour. If two categories have different tax codes or target margins, they should be separate subdepartments. For example, “Taxable Food” and “Non-Taxable Food” need separate subdepartments even though they might be in the same department.
Understanding Item Types
Every item has three type flags that control how it behaves in Quasar. These are set on the Item Master Main tab:
| Flag | When Checked | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Purchased? | Item can appear on purchase orders and vendor invoices | Most physical products |
| Sold? | Item can appear on customer invoices and POS transactions | Most products and services |
| Inventoried? | Quasar tracks on-hand quantities and costs. Enables the Asset Account and serial number tracking | Stocked goods (not services or labour charges) |
Common combinations and their financial ramifications:
| Combination | Use Case | What Happens Financially |
|---|---|---|
| Purchased + Sold + Inventoried | Standard stocked product (most items) | Purchasing adds to the Inventory (Asset) account. Selling moves cost from Inventory to COGS and records revenue in the Income account. On-hand quantities and average cost are tracked. |
| Sold only | Service, labour, or fee charges | No inventory tracking. Selling records revenue in the Income account. No cost is posted (or a fixed expense is used). |
| Purchased only (not Inventoried) | Cleaning supplies, office supplies, consumables for the store | Cost is expensed immediately when purchased — posted directly to the Expense account (COGS account), not to Inventory. No on-hand quantity is tracked. The store uses them and they are gone. |
| Purchased + Inventoried (not Sold) | Raw materials, kit components consumed in manufacturing | Purchasing adds to the Inventory asset. The item is not sold directly to customers — instead, it is consumed through the Item Build process when assembling a finished kit. |
| Inventoried + Sold (not Purchased) | Kits / manufactured items assembled from other items | The finished product is not purchased from a vendor. Instead, it is created through the Item Build screen, which consumes the component items and produces the finished item in inventory. Selling then moves cost from Inventory to COGS normally. |
Sizes and Units of Measure
An item can have multiple sizes (units of measure). For example, a beverage might be sold as “Each” but purchased as a “Case” of 24. Each size has:
- Name — Each, Case, Box, Pack, Kg, etc.
- Quantity — multiple relative to the base size (Case = 24 Each)
- Weight — weight per unit for shipping
- PBV Size — the standard comparison size for shelf label unit pricing
- Volume — volume per unit (e.g., 500ml)
Quasar automatically converts between sizes on purchase orders, invoices, and inventory reports. Costs and prices are maintained per size.
PBV Size and Volume: Shelf Label Unit Pricing
Many jurisdictions require shelf labels to display a price per standard unit (price per 100g, price per litre, etc.) so customers can compare value across different package sizes. Quasar supports this through two fields on each size:
| Field | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
| PBV Size | The standard comparison unit code used on the shelf label | 100g, 100ml, 1L, 1kg |
| Volume | The actual volume or weight of this size, expressed in the PBV unit | A 500ml bottle has Volume = 500 and PBV Size = 100ml |
When printing shelf labels via the Label Batch, Quasar uses these values to calculate and print the per-unit comparison price. For example, a $3.99 bottle with Volume 500 and PBV Size 100ml would show “$0.80 per 100ml” on the shelf label.
Costs and Vendors
On the Costs tab, you define which vendors supply the item, at what cost, and in which purchase size. Key points:
- An item can have multiple vendors with different costs
- Costs can be store-specific or apply to all stores
- The order of costs determines priority — the first matching cost is used by Auto Order
- Each cost record includes the vendor’s order number (catalog/SKU) for that item
Pricing
The Prices tab defines selling prices per size, per price zone. Quasar shows the cost, calculated profit, and margin percentage inline so you can see the impact immediately.
- Use Auto Fill to generate prices from the subdepartment’s target margin across all zones
- Use Price Batches to update prices for many items at once (see Chapter 11)
Stocking: Which Stores Carry the Item?
The Stocking tab controls where the item is physically stocked. Each row represents one store with:
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Store | Which store stocks this item |
| Location | Warehouse bin or shelf position |
| Min | Reorder point for Auto Ordering |
| Max | Target stock level (order qty = Max − On Hand) |
| Multiple | Order in multiples of this quantity |
Use the Clone button to copy stocking settings to multiple stores at once.
Item Numbers and Barcodes
Each item has a primary Item Number in the header, plus any number of additional barcodes and alternate numbers in the Numbers table on the Main tab. Each number maps to a specific size, so scanning a case barcode automatically sets the size to Case.
Importing Items
For large inventories, entering items one at a time is impractical. Quasar supports two import methods:
- XML Import — via Setup → System → Import XML File. Full-fidelity import of all item fields including costs, prices, stocking, and images
- CSV Import — via Setup → System → Import Item CSV. Simpler format for basic item data (number, description, department, cost, price)
See Chapter 8: Importing Data for detailed import procedures.
Inventory Setup Checklist
- Plan and create Departments (broad categories)
- Create Subdepartments with correct GL accounts, tax codes, and target margins
- Create items (or import via XML/CSV), assigning each to the appropriate subdepartment
- For each item, define sizes if sold in multiple units
- Add vendor costs on the Costs tab
- Set prices on the Prices tab (or use Auto Fill)
- Configure stocking for each store that carries the item
- Add barcodes in the Numbers table
- Run Stock Status to verify the initial setup
- Chapter 5 — Configure additional stores and transfer pricing
- Chapter 6 — Set up customers, vendors, employees, and security
- Chapter 8 — Matrix Items (style/size/colour variants)
- Chapter 11 — Price Batches and Promotions