Understand your Front Systems setup for your company

Front Systems defines categorizes an organization into Company, Store and Stock.

It is important for Company admins / IT managers to understand these three units.

• Company
• Store
• Stock

Company

A company is at the top level with one or several stores. Each store contains stocks.

If you have several stores that needs to share the same product catalog and customer base, then these stores must be within the same company. Company Admins will have an overview of all the stores within the Company. 

Stores within the same company will be able to transfer products between them and Company Admins will have overview over all the stores within the Company. 

You can view the name of the company on the store selector in Front Systems Portal. This is only visible to users who have been assigned access via Portal.

Store

A store is at the second level in Front Systems. All sales are registered through a store.

So, if you sell a product in Front Systems POS or in the online store, then this is registered as a sale associated with the store where the sale was processed. 

A store shares the same product catalog as other stores within the company, but stock levels will be segregated by store. 

Except company admins, all other users will only have access to the store defined on their user account.

Stock

A stock is the third level in Front Systems. Products that are available in the store for sale or stocked and stored in a warehouse are referred to as a stock.

A stock often has the same name as the store, but works as a separate unit. So, when you sell a stocked item, it is retrieved from a stock, but sold through a store.

Stocks can be shared across stores, and it is therefore possible for a stock not to be attached to a specific store. This can be useful if you have a central warehouse from where goods are sent.

You can move goods between stocks, make purchases and reconcile them through a stock count. 

Physical / virtual stocks

A stock can be either physical or virtual.

A physical stock is also called a salable stock. When you sell items through the POS/Till then the products are pulled out of a physical/salable stock.

A virtual stock is a container for goods that need to be removed from a salable stock.

For example, a virtual stock can be 'Supplier returns' where you can move all the defect items that are to be sent back to the supplier. The purpose of this stock is to get the items out of the salable warehouse and log the flow of goods.