Altru 3.1: New Merchandise Features

“It’s about time!”  That’s what we heard from many of you as we researched adding new features to the Merchandise area of Altru.  Well, it IS about time! The biggest request we heard was to make it easier to update inventory for multiple items at once, to see a history of changes for an item rather than just updating the quantity field, and for better reporting on cost of goods sold. Well, we think you’re going to like what’s coming.

In Altru 3.1, we've implemented an audit trail for inventory transactions. Whether it’s performing a regular physical count, receiving a shipment, or making a manual adjustment, you can see a full history of transactions on the new History tab! I hear gift shop managers (cautiously) applauding somewhere. You can now accurately track inventory movement and see which items may have excess shrinkage. You can also see how your costs change over time to better inform your purchasing activities. And you’ll have plenty of comments and reason codes to explain the discrepancies!



Average cost:  Receiving shipments will update the cost of an item to reflect the weighted average cost of inventory on-hand. See your operations textbook for details on that calculation – it’s actually not that bad. You’ll now have an accurate representation of current markup on the Inventory list for an item, which will help in setting pricing to maintain appropriate margins. And we’ve made receiving shipments even easier with a new Merchandise Batch. You can even scan items into the batch by their SKU or UPC, and skip the search screen altogether! Or use the Add functionality to create a new Item or Vendor on the fly, so there’s no need to add records to the system ahead of time.



“That’s all” you say? No, we’re not done yet. In the following release (August), we’ll update the Merchandise Sales report to reflect the Cost of Goods Sold, based on the average cost we’re now storing. We’ll also provide batch entry and a worksheet to facilitate your regular Physical Inventory counts. No more one-off updates! In subsequent releases, you’ll see updates to the Inventory report to show proper inventory valuations. We’ll also update the Merchandise Activity report with the new transaction types, so you can view a summary of how your inventory is changing over time. Finally, we have plans to improve label printing, with new formats and a streamlined process to choose which labels should be printed. Now that’s worth writing home about, but you’ll need to buy a postcard first!



Thanks to all the users who participated in Discovery for Merchandise – your feedback was essential! We would love to hear from everyone what you think about the final result. Feel free to email me with your comments or post to the community.