FAQ
Why am getting logged out of the app?
Getting logged out of the app only happens in two situations, either:
1- Your authentication session has timed out. This could happen if you don’t open the app for roughly a month.
2- You have more than the allowed number of active sessions for your account type.
Every device that you log in on starts a new ‘sync’ session with our backend. The personal subscription will allow you to have up to 3 devices running sessions simultaneously, but if you open a 4th one, then your first session will be logged out automatically. If you encounter this often then you should upgrade to a Pro subscription.
When logging in, I am prompted to Overwrite or Merge. What does this mean?
Whenever you log in to your account from Inventory Now and you have previously existing data on your device, we have to figure out what to do with that data. You can either choose to remove the local copy and replace it with what is saved to your account in the cloud (Overwrite), or you can sync all the records on your device with the ones that are stored on your account (Merge).
Merging will ensure that any data that was changed since you got logged out will also save up to the cloud, but if you haven’t made any changes or if you want to discard those changes then the Overwrite option will be better for you.
Overwriting happens very quickly because we just need to load from the server, but merging takes much more time since we have to send all of your data to the server, let it decide which data to replace and then pull that data back down.
Which hardware barcode scanner devices do you support?
We offer native support for the following hardware barcode scanners:
Linea-pro 6/7 Series
Infinea X Series
Infinea TAB 4 Series
Purchase them these at https://lineapro.store.
Most other hardware scanners offer non-native support provided that it simply reads data in and places it into a text field like it came the keyboard.
We handle this support by simply allowing a long string of characters to be entered into the search bar at the top of the Items tab. When a long string gets entered into the search bar at once, we treat it the same way we do when you scan a barcode with the camera. We’ll see if an item exists with that barcode and if so, we will bring it up for you. If one doesn’t exist yet, we’ll create one and even try to pre-populate some basic item data such as unit buy and sell price, name and image.
I don’t currently have a list of devices which are supported in this fashion, but I would love to hear from you if you have tried any specific models so I can share this information.
I’m having difficulty importing my items, help!
Our item import uses a rather strict file format. This format MUST be a CSV file, and it must have its columns named a certain way in order to import correctly.
You can create your own import template by simply adding an item and exporting the file to yourself.
But, here is an already existing one for you to download.
Note that Order and Summary export files cannot be imported back into Inventory Now. Orders are saved to your account, make sure you create an account to keep that data safe.
The CSV files can be opened and read in most spreadsheet programs such as Numbers, Excel or OpenOffice.
After creating your import file, make sure to save it in the CSV file format, do not change it to Excel or Numbers or any other file format. Use the following options:
- use a comma , as the Column Separator or “Delimiter”
- you may enable “Quoted Field as Text”, which allows a column inside of quotes to ignore commas inside of that column
To re-import your file, you may email it to yourself or save it to dropbox.
To open from email, simply open the file from your email to view a preview then press the share icon on the upper right and scroll over to find ‘Copy to Inventory Now’ to import the file.
To open from dropbox, save the file in your Dropbox/Apps/InventoryTracker folder. Go to the settings tab and select Import Items from Dropbox, navigate to and Open the file.
How do you calculate the fields on the summary tab?
Net Profits: This is the simply the total money you’ve earned minus the total money you’ve spent.
Accumulated Profits: This counts profits from items that have sold and ignores costs of items that have not sold. So if you have 10 items and sold 1 of those for a $1 profit, your accumulated profits would be $1, even though your net profits are still negative.
Completed Profit Margin: This percentage looks at the profit for all of your items that have been marked as completed and divides that profit by the sales revenue for those items. So if you have made $100 profit from your completed items and spent $100 on those items, this would be a 100% completed profit margin.
Completed Mark Up: This percentage looks at the profit for all of your items that have been marked as completed and divides that profit by the cost of all those items. So if you have made $100 profit from your completed items and spent $100 on those items, this would be a 100% completed profit margin.
Can I access my data from an Android phone or laptop?
Yes. When you have an active subscription, your data remains synced with our application servers. That data can be accessed via a mobile friendly web application from your Android phone or your laptop.
Log in to the web application by using the same login you use for your mobile app and you can see all of your items and your orders and even perform basic edits.
Note that the web application isn’t full featured YET. It is still a work in progress. If a particular feature is not available on the web that you absolutely need, then please let me know.
The web application is available at https://www.inventorynow.app and is only available to Pro level subscribers.
How can I track multiple items in different locations, or with different categories?
You can keep track of items at different locations or at different categories using a feature called “Similar Items”. The way that this works is that when multiple items have the same name, but different metadata (such as a location or category) it will identify that the items are related and enable a view to see all of your related stock from a single screen.
1- After you have added your first item, select it and press the “edit” button.
2- Now press the “Create Similar Item” button in the footer. This will add a new item with all of the same basic information.
3- On this new item, change the Category or Location to whatever you want to use for this new type of item and save it.
4- Now add stock to this item like you normally would with any item.
5- When are you viewing an item (not in edit mode), you will see a section in the center of the view screen that says “1 similar item found”. Tap that to “View All”.
6- This takes you to a Grouped view for the item. It allows you to see stock and revenue numbers for all of the items together and shows each separate category as a different line item to show how many of each type are in stock.
7- You can drag and drop from one line item to another to move stock from one location /category to a different one.
8- You can tap into any of the individual items to view and edit that particular subset of the item.
How does the Square / Paypal Integration work?
Square Point of Sale and Paypal Here integration work essentially the same way.
To summarize the integration, in Inventory Now you can fill a cart with items to make up an order and then check out the customer to receive payment for that order with the “Paypal Here” or “Square POS” iPhone Apps.
First there is a small bit of setup required. You just need to download the Paypal Here app or the Square Point of Sale app, whichever you want to use… or both. Open the Square / Paypal app on your phone and login or setup an account with them so the app is all ready to receive payments. If you want to use a card swiper, you can get it set up in their app and make sure it is good to go for payments.
Once you are all setup you are ready to create an order in Inventory Now:
- First, make sure Inventory is all set up and you have items that are in stock and ready to sell. Do that by adding a new item and selecting “Buy” to add new stock.
- Now find and select the item that you want to sell. Press the Sell button at the bottom of the item screen. Enter the quantity you want to sell and the sale price. Now instead of pressing “Save”, press “Add to Card” found just below the save button.
- The app will go back to the overview screen and you’ll see a cart icon in the top left with a number representing the number of items in the cart.
- You can add more items to the cart if you’d like the same way as you did above.
- When you are ready to take payment, click on the cart button and you’ll be viewing the order summary. It’ll show the items in the cart and the total cost. You can add tax here, shipping fees, or discounts.
- Press Check Out and a menu will open asking if you’d like to check out with Square or Paypal Here, or “Manual Check Out”
- Select Square or Paypal Here and the selected app will then open on your phone. Inventory Now will pass the order info into the app so Square / Paypal will immediately prompt you to collect payment for the desired amount via Credit Card or any other payment method supported.
- Collect your payment through the app and when you are done, Square / Paypal will call back to Inventory Now to open and mark the order as sold.
TIPS: If you regularly sell things with the cart check out method, go to your settings and enable the “Prefer Checkout when Selling” setting. This will make the Add to Cart button the default.
If you select “Manual Checkout” when checking out, you’ll be responsible for just collecting the cash for the order on your own rather than going to Square / Paypal.
How do I cancel or change my subscription?
Apple provides wonderful privacy for all of your purchases on the App Store. As a result, app developers like myself can not directly view or modify your specific subscription. Instead all subscription management must be done through Apple directly. Please see the link below for a guide on how to modify or cancel your subscription through the App Store subscription management settings on your phone.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202039
Please considering dropping me a line to let me know why you are cancelling your subscription. I’d love to hear any feedback you have so that I can improve.
We are still compiling our list of Frequently Asked Questions.
In the meantime, if you have a question please ask it!