Halo Implementation Series – Stock Control Continued- Purchasing and Procurement. – Video 17

hey everyone and welcome to another installment in the Halo implementation series uh with me today I have my favorite person again M Mr Halo um and today we're going to talk about um uh well we're GNA in the last video we talked about stock what is stock what is an asset um and now in this video we're going to bring that all together um and we're going to talk about you know how do we add stock in the real world so things like you know creating purchase orders um that kind of thing and then how do we actually then go and sell um this item to our our customers through uh adding a how do we take it out of stock and add it to a ticket add it to an invoice all that kind of good stuff so we're going to cover all of that um and as I said with me today I have my favorite person Mr Halo um and uh how how are you doing since we last spoke Morgan hello again Chris yeah long time no speak yeah it's been a while yeah um yeah absolutely as Chris mentioned um in the last session we just took a look at the concept of stock manipulation for non-serialized and serialized products in Halo we didn't really do any real world examples so I thought it' be a good opportunity to just go through a couple of practical examples of how uh msps actually make use of stock management inside of payo um and we'll we'll have look at two examples we'll have a look at um stock manipulation from uh a sales order through to an invoice and also stock manipulation when um issuing products onto tickets so without further Ado let's have a look at that first example so I'm going to go into my quotes and orders module and I'm going to go to my sales order section uh again we've got sessions earlier on in the implementation series looking at everything that happens prior to a sales order being created uh the opportunity workflow proposal management e signatures all of that stuff so I'm going to brush over that I'm just going to go ahead and I'm just going to create a sales order straight away yeah uh let's add a laptop in here now um the first point to note is from our sales order we have our create po option here we also have our order items option up top here now this option is not available on every single line of a sales order so uh the lines or or more specifically the products that allow purchase orders to be created against are products in Halo that are marked as consigna deliverable so for example if I go to my laptop we can see that that is been that has been marked as consal so if a product is non-con signable then uh you can't create a purchase order for it so the fact that this product is consal means that our create po option is here so um we have our create po at the top we got our order items it's the same mechanism uh in both cases a purchase order will be created for the sales order the difference is uh with our create poo at line level you can imagine a sales order with 15 20 lines you might only want to create a PO for two or three of those lines so you can be granular in terms of creating purchase orders for particular lines uh by doing so you have your your popup specifying that for the laptop product you're going to be creating a purchase order against the respective vendor and uh creating a new order or adding that to an existing open po or I can go up here and click order items it's exactly the same mechanism yeah cool so um there is this deliver to the user and deliver to us option uh just want to briefly cover the distinction here and what I'll do is I I'll talk about that after creating the purchase order so created that PO now and we can see a column has appeared it's my sales order and with a link to my purchase order here so we just saw a moment ago that deliver to the user or deliver to us um so deliver to the user is like Drop Shipping uh you're ordering it from Dell and it's going directly to the the end users's location um or you're delivering to yourself which means that it will come into your Warehouse initially to then subsequently be sent out to the customer so it really depending on whether or not you need to get your hands on uh that this laptop to perform some configuration on it install your rmm agent that kind of stuff before sending it to the customer or you just send it directly to the customer in practice what that means is uh when you are not delivering to the customer you have your receive stock option here however if I check this and save that receive stock option disappears and we are it that has been replaced with the consign SL deliver items so hopefully that makes sense if you're Drop Shipping you don't need to receive it you just say it's been delivered if you're not Drop Shipping you say it's been received and then you say it's been delivered so um we saw in the last session that against our products there was a receive stock option at the top of the product um if you haven't seen the previous session very much recommend going to watch that without watching that this session won't make much sense to you at all um but for those of you that have watched it you'll notice that we've got that same button up here and um we have pretty much the same set of options here we don't have the cost because of course the cost has already been added to the PO uh and similarly the notes have already been added to the PO however um we have the option to receive our stock and again we have that modal window that's popped open um specifying that or allowing me to input some information against this particular laptop yeah and just in in here so what a lot of lot of people ask me and I um and and I answer it the same way in pretty much any tool that you're using is you know people ask can we use a barcode scanner on this and the answer is yes because a barcode scanner is pretty much just a keyboard so it's it it's the same as inputting something from a keyboard right so if you did have a you know a barcode scanner either on your phone or a proper Barcode Scanner and you wanted to scan these things in just place your cursor into the the serial number field blip it and you're good to go so um and I I get asked that all the time so it's probably good to put it in there cool thank you for that lovely so um we have now received our stock notice how the receive stock button is disappeared because we have received the one of one laptops against this PO and then we've also got this assets received tab uh specifying the asset that I just created let's also very quickly oh already here um let's also take a look at our laptop product just going to refresh the screen real quick and let's have a look at the stock Tab and stock history tab that we saw in the previous session so now um we've got our one uh stock we've got the one device that has been received we go to our stock history we can see that uh right here one asset or one uh we have received one stock of the laptop which in Halo equates to an asset being created at our stock location and we can also see in our stock history audit the PO and the cost again sort giving us complete transparency over exactly what's happened with all of the stock of this product at any given time cool so um that's our purchase order if I hop back over to the sales order now uh I have the option to consign my items slash deliver my items where I am picking the uh the location that I want to deliver the laptop from and furthermore the particular laptop that I want to deliver now if you uh if you follow the process that I just followed where you've got a sales order from the sales order you create a purchase order from the purchase order you receive stock and create an asset when you then go back to the sales order and deliver that asset Halo will automatically recognize that the asset that you created from the PO is uh likely going to be the asset that you'll be delivering however you do also see an option to uh browse your existing stock so if you did uh bring in a bunch of laptops separately and instead of creating a PO you just want to browse what you've currently got in your stock locations you can always browse that stock and uh pick a different device to send to the customer cool so um that stock has now been or that you that stock has now been delivered to the customer denoting uh that we've got noted by the little tick against our Po and the fact that we've got our Consignment notes Here If we go back to the laptop product go to our stock tab we should now have zero uh in stock let's have a look yep has all worked well we should have zero in stock yep we do zero in stock we go to our stock history and we can see that the uh the laptop that I just received um has been consigned delivered on sales order id2 and then finally go to our assets Tab and we can see that laptop that I just created in this session has been automatically moved to the site uh to the end users site uh for the sales order so the sales order was against Halo PSA main meaning that when I deliver my laptop it goes to Halo PSA main yeah that's great and and I know there's a bunch of people who are kind of watching this from um you know from other PSA tools um so it's good that this automates the process in you know if you're coming in from aask um and and you know other PSA tools um this this process is very similar but it doesn't automatically create the asset or the configuration item for you you actually have to tick a box to say yes I want this to be created as a as an asset um so I like this approach that it gives you the ability to say um just you because if you're selling it to the customer then then you would why would you not want to create it as an asset right but you know in in in order for example you do have to tick the box to say create um create configuration item or create asset and then you and then you created from all of that information so um so same thing um but this is just a much more streamlined way of of doing it in my opinion so yeah really cool okay so um this next point is a big one as well this comes up quite a lot um and uh that point is uh let's create the invoice simple as that invoice on the right hand side how do I tell my customer on this invoice what the serial number for this laptop is right that's a question that comes up uh quite a lot so um that is achieved by going to your uh respective products and in the in the billing yeah in the billing tab there is this invoice Consignment description so and in here what we can include are dollar Vari Ables for the different asset fields that uh have been uh have details in them within the the respective assets that have been created so of course uh for my laptop when I'm receiving stock I am prompted to enter a serial number so I want to return that serial number back onto the invoice line again for complete sort of 360 transparency over the entire process internally and then back to the customer uh upon invoicing so if I put AF serial number in here serial underscore number I think that's what we want and I go to my invoice and delete it and then go back to my sales order and then recreate that we'll find that the invoice long description has included the uh Consignment description that I just added at product level where our dollar AF serial number has been replaced with the serial number that we've actually delivered to the customer now um if we were if we were delivering uh multiple laptops what we would find is uh just sort of carriage returns um with the respective IDs uh added to them like that and and this and it's good that you you've kind of gone around it this way and I think um you know again for anyone who's who's doing this if if you do want to put serial numbers onto your your invoices moving forward then I would go and set up that um you know that dollar variable thing first so that every time you then generate the invoice it it's going to kind of appear in here rather than kind of you know as an afterthought and then having to go and delete the invoice and get get it back onto the invoice and stuff like that so um so yeah don't set that up for first um and then it'll it'll make sure that that information is is put in there and then this long description will then carry through to QuickBooks or zero or whatever it is that you're using um just in the normal way it does with any other invoice cool so uh yeah that's a brief look at a more practical example of how to make use of stock in Halo again we're not covering uh all of the aspects we're just taking a look at the uh the real world application of the most basic aspects of stock in Halo um and then the other the other example that I want to provide again keeping the the functionality uh basic for the sake of understanding how it all works the other example that I want to provide is uh creating a purchase order independently over sales order and then subsequently uh issuing a product on a ticket and sort of following following that route so you don't have to create purchase orders from sales orders of course you can go to your quotes and orders module and simply uh go to the purchase order section click new and create a new purchase order that is independent of any kind of quote or or sales order so let's just uh hard drives actually let's do c supplier I'm not going to put any end user because at this point we're just buying some MacBooks because we know that we sell them and we're running low on stock um so we'll add a couple in uh this is this is an interesting point so notice how there's only two products that have appeared in here um the reason for that is because there are only two products in Halo within the configuration that we have specified as being supplied by Apple so if I go to my product section and I go to my Apple magic keyboard the manufacturer supplier is Apple but if I go to my MacBook that is not Apple um so if you're ever creating these purchase orders and you pick a vendor you pick a supplier and then you have a very reduced list of products that is uh exactly why that is the case I think that an option has been added in that allows us to uh override that option so maybe it's not been added in yet not be on this version uh one of the place purchase orders okay there is yeah so um so what we saw there is the case uh as long as this option is enabled which is saying restrict the available products to add to a PO against the manufacturer for them uh if you don't want if you're not concerned about that uncheck this box in configuration purchase orders and then you can go to your PO do the same thing we'll pick Apple uh stri items against he says allow you to I'm sure I've tied that before controller sorry yeah it's just cached cool um yeah so you can uncheck that that option clear your cash and then you'll have your full list of products appear in here regardless of the vendor that you pick against the PO anyway um so let's receive free MacBooks save that receive my stock put them into the stock room H again uh just worth noting that now we've got three rows of course because we're receiving fre MacBooks exactly the same screen exactly the same configuration um as as Chris mentioned you can go in and uh with your Barcode Scanner uh you know enter scan the barcode tab enter your barcode and so on that like that cool uh it's throwing uh a wobbly at me because um I have already got an asset in the system with this serial number which is the asset that I made earlier on in this session I believe so yeah we just take that out uh he says MacBook 2 let's just put something else in here six what is I thought your serial number was 1 two 3 4 5 in the previous one anyway let should see see what's going on there bring three into the stock room one two three well let's just go look at our assets we may have an asset in there called MacBook 2 already um it was the serial number I'm not sure why uh that was I thought I I might have just put the same serial number in there but yeah anyway um press forward so I've added the free MacBooks in there now again if we go over to our MacBook product inside of Halo go to the stock tab free in stock against the stock room can click in here I can see the um the free that have been received there's still uh none that have actually been issued or delivered uh we can see the stock history for uh this particular event again all coming from P4 and then we've got our serialized assets those threee MacBooks that I've just created cool so um we've now got three MacBooks in Halo and let's go ahead and create a new ticket pick it as a laptop it's just going to be a single user just go ahead do that so um yeah let's say someone emails in my macbook's not turning on um and they've got you know free replacement or or they've you have MacBooks in stock that you can then replace that MacBook with yeah in reality you probably wouldn't do that with a Macbook in reality you probably do it'd be more likely to do that with something like you know Ram or a hard drive or a switch or something something but we'll just we'll use MacBook the logic still applies um because what you can do with tickets is you can issue products which basically saying that uh the product that you select in here has been used consumed delivered uh in relation to this particular ticket so of course you've got your standard opportunity process with the proposal and the quote that gets signed off um and that's probably what you would do if someone said that their MacBook broke you probably you know uh sell them a new one and get them to sign off on the the price for the new one um but another way to do that would be to go directly to the ticket issue your product which will then uh add a products tab onto the the ticket in question now again just out of our sales order we need to mark this MacBook as actually being consigned as being delivered and we can do that from the consign items down here where again I'm delivering from a stock location where this time I'm going to browse my stock and we gave them Book 2 save that and then now if I go back to my stock for the MacBook it' be two in stock one would hope yeah two in stock and you know we've done this a couple of times now um we just received the free from the purchase order and then uh this one has been consigned delivered on ticket 2247 again um if I wanted to uh make sure that when I invoice for Ticket 2247 um I'm specifying which MacBook was delivered or you know which uh hard drive was taken out of the van and was uh used on site or something like that i' again i' go into my in tab for my product make sure the invoice Consignment description is set with the appropriate dollar variables and then when I create my invoice for my ready for invoicing section for my items issued uh is going to include that description on there exactly the same as what we just saw with the sales order yeah um so those are two Prim primary use oh I suppose the only other thing to mention is uh we go back to ticket 2247 and we go to the site that the ticket is located against and we go to assets there's that MacBook again uh the the consignment from that ticket has moved that asset to the site that the ticket is against so yeah those are the two main ways in which you're going to be working with stock inside of Halo um hopefully that all makes sense Chris makes perfect sense to me yeah um and yeah I'm I'm sure you know you've explained it really well I'm sure it makes sense to um to to everyone who's watching this if it doesn't if you can leave a comment below um and and we'll we'll get back to you we can explain it more if if needs be um but yeah I think it I think it makes a um makes a lot of sense in terms of how stock works and um and it's actually a a relatively straightforward process and again you know if you've worked with any other PSA tools it's not too dissimilar way that most of the other PSA tools work anyway is just getting an understanding of how stuff works within Halo so yeah it's um it's great it works really well and I think there's a lot of people I talk to that that that have this um you know this thing where they're kind of keeping stuff in stock and they want to serialize items and things like that so I think that that'll be of massive benefit to people um you know obviously you know there's msps that aren't necessarily keeping stock or certainly not keeping serial numbers but you just might want to um have a few cables in stock or or something like that you can still use this um and and you know in the previous video we kind of just showed how to put stuff into stock so um yes I think it's definitely useful yes cool thanks um there's a couple of other couple of points that I want to mention couple of things that I uh brushed over um and one one other point to look out for so I I'll start off with that um I've had situations in the past where I've been you know helping out on support or someone has come to me with a question and they've said um I've consigned this uh asset on this ticket but the stock hasn't gone down now um the first thing to look out for for that is make sure that the ticket or the sales order uh that the site is related to is not a stock location itself of course if you you are moving stock from one stock location to another stock location the stock won't be depleted so keep an eye out for that um a another couple of options if we hop into items of stock control is the uh reserving of products slash assets so on our sales order uh let's create a new one oh sorry on our sales orders uh we have the ability to reserve items meaning that uh we can prevent particular assets from being taken out of stock uh you know if they are reserved right so yeah say that we've got and this is just the like the way I like to always explain this to people is it's it's kind of like just putting a a sticky note or a posted note on something right on a you know you've got a bunch of rooters or switches or what have you sitting in your stock location you put a big sticky notes on it saying don't touch you know it's for customer XYZ whatever the case might be that that's all we're doing here right all we're doing is reserving this item on the system saying don't touch that's exactly it yeah and then we can see that against our in stock column we've still got the two because there are two in stock but now there is one reserved uh meaning that there is one available because obviously one of the two has been reserved yeah of course you can you can cancel your reservations as well um so if the customer you know they actually don't have the funds for this MacBook for a while or they turned around and said oh no i' I don't want it you you know don't don't bother sending it to me whatever it is you can always cancel that reservation or or or in the case of some of my clients there's a customer that's more important that needs it more than like I said you know somebody said hey another two weeks there's actually an order that needs it today um you can kind of go and pull the posted note off take it out and then go and order another one for um you know for that other customer later on so yeah yeah exactly um the uh another point to mention that's kind of brushed over uh was uh against sales order lines we do have the ability to override the delivery site so the delivery site is not always necessarily going to be the site against the sales order you can if you wish specify a separate site to send particular sales order liance to so might have one big sales order with loads of lines on it uh but you know you got some laptops going to the lead's office some laptops going to the the war office and so on so you can override that delivery site um in in here against the individual sales order lines and also another another point to to mention that I brushed over because uh it's not there's not heaps of configuration behind it um is the concept of stock bins in Halo so uh we should know that stock locations in Halo are sites that are marked as stock locations uh and I also provided um the example there against that ticket of saying well you know we might want to take this hard drive out of this individual van when uh you know the technician goes on site to replace the hard drive or fix the PC whatever um now a van would not be a site in Halo sites in Halo are like buildings they have a physical address however you can have sublocations stock bins uh and store stock against the sublocations that is enabled in config items and stock control uh by enabling this allow selection of stock bins in addition to stock locations when you enable that what you'll find is all of the same options as I mentioned before well firstly you enable that and uh the first thing that you should do is go to your stock locations and go clear my cash yeah so enable stock bins clear your cache go to your stock location your sites in Halo where you'll then have a stock bins Tab and this is where you can specify those uh Sub locations yeah I might just want to say Morgan's van and then everything that we've seen so far is still applicable with regards to receiving and consigning and um uh stock takes stock transfers all of that is still still exactly the same but now you basically have additional options where instead of just uh the two levels SEL consulting or client site you've now got client site stock bin yeah and that's actually nice because I think in um you know again in in other PSA tools you have to do those as an actual location rather than a well you can do a bin but the bin is normally like a um a number or something like that so you would have warehouse and then the bin would mean it's it's like shelf number three in the warehouse blah blah blah so it's more a you know where inside that warehouse is it that's the bin um yeah which is also what is what these are used for yeah um you can you can use Morgan's van as an example but you're absolutely correct um in your Warehouse you've got different rooms and different shelves and those are are also the bins that you're putting Hal yeah and and I think for the majority of people that we're probably talking to and and and to any the ones I am you know the having stuff in a specific location near this is if you've got massive warehouses with you know a bunch of stock um you know if you were Amazon you'd probably be doing this but I think for most msps probably they're going to go well it's in the warehouse somewhere I don't necessarily need to know that it's in bin number three or bin number four but I do like the fact that you can kind of make that bin that it's it's still in the sundel belongs to sandella somewhere but that location is actually Morgan's van um because then I know that okay I need to replenish that particular area rather than having that as a completely separate um stock location so to speak yeah yeah now that makes a lot of sense okay cool any questions from you Chris or anything that you've seen in your sessions with msps that you think I haven't covered no I think that's pretty much made a huge amount of sense um and I think that's the way that you know majority of people are going to be are going to be doing this so I think you know what we should say here is if there's anyone that does have any specific questions and stuff that we haven't covered off then you know again leave a a comment in the description below and what we'll then do is we'll um you know we'll address that on on another video or I can get back to you directly and address that um what have you but yeah I think this is this has been really good because it's kind of given us a really good broad overview of how people would use stock yeah yeah yeah I'd like to think so yeah absolutely so really appreciate it again Morgan as always um you know thank you so much I appreciate you appreciate the time um you know and I really appreciate uh Halo allowing us to do these it is really important and I know there's a lot of people that are starting to watch these videos they're getting lot of traction um and I'm hearing a lot of people say please keep doing these so um so yeah it yeah it's really been a good thing that we we decided to do the series and I really appreciate it so um massive thanks to everyone and uh we look forward to seeing you on the next video absolutely yeah thanks everyone keep watching and uh see you soon Chris see you soon thanks cheers bye bye bye