With Packaged products, you have the flexibility to use the different packaging quantities that your products are available in throughout the many in-store workflows, from ordering, all the way through to selling.

You can order in the quantity that your supplier sells to you and when you receive the products into your store, you can easily break them down into the products that you'll sell to your customers — optimizing inventory management across your packaged products.

Assigning product packaging relationships

Packaged products are best managed using Products with variants to represent the quantity levels. This allows you to view the packaging relationships and edit them within one product.

We suggest creating these as a Product with variants, using the How to add a product with variants guide, before proceeding. Alternatively, Standard products can be used.

1. Navigate to Catalog > Products and locate the product you wish to assign packaging relationship(s) to, using the filters if necessary.

2. Click on the Edit pencil for the relevant product to open the Edit product page.

3. Scroll to the Variants section and ensure that all quantities that you wish to assign packaging relationships to are represented.

4. Click on the first variant to expand it and select Packaging.

5. There are two packaging relationships that can be assigned to the product:

• The products that “X” comes from
  • If the product comes from other products, add the products that it comes from here. For example, a single bottle of beer can be broken down from a 6 pack and a 12 pack.
    
    
• The product that “X” breaks into
  • If the product breaks into another product, add the product that it breaks into here. For example, a single bottle of beer cannot be broken down any further; however a 6 pack can be broken down to 6 separate Singles.
    
    
    
    
    

      Important

    Products can only break into one other product.
    

6. Click Add a product relationship in the relevant relationship section.

7. Select a product variant using the Search or scan to add a product box and enter the corresponding quantity into the Qty box. This product variant MUST be one of the variants within the product you're working with, separate products cannot be packaged.

The relationships added can only be for the next level above or below the product you are adding the relationships to. For example, Box of 12 packs > 4x 12 pack > 12x Single.

8. Repeat steps 4 to 7 until all packaging relationships have been added.

9. Once all the relationships have been added, click Save.

Breaking down packaged products

Breaking down packaged products allows you to quickly shift inventory from one product to another in order to be sold at the different quantities your customers want.

1. Navigate to Catalog > Products and locate the product you wish to break down, using the filters if necessary.

2. Click on the product to expand it and click Break down.

4. Select the Outlet you're breaking down inventory for from the drop-down and click Next.

5. Enter the Quantity to break for the products you're breaking down and review the Inventory value changes

6. Once you've entered the quantity to break down and reviewed the inventory, click Update inventory to finish

Packaged products in inventory counts

Products with packaging relationships do not change the way you conduct an inventory count, as each product still holds individual inventory levels.

If a discrepancy is recorded in an inventory count for a product that has packaging relationships assigned, Retail POS will flag this under the Unmatched tab when reviewing the count. An exclamation mark popover will advise that the discrepancy may be the result of a packaged product being broken down outside of Retail POS but not recorded in Retail POS.

Click on the Exclamation mark next to the unit quantity on a packaged product to open the unit difference popover. This will show a possible explanation as to why the unit differences have occurred based on packaging relationships and counted quantities.

In the example above, the discrepancies show that counted inventory for the Good beer / 6 pack is 2 units less than the expected inventory. The counted inventory for the Good beer / Single, which the Good beer / 6 pack breaks down into, was 12 more than expected inventory.

This would suggest that the 2 units less for the Good beer / 6 pack have been broken down outside of Retail POS but not recorded in Retail POS, and therefore what has been counted is correct.

For this specific scenario, no changes would be required and the inventory count can be completed to correct the inventory.

There may be scenarios where that counted inventory doesn't directly match the packaging relationship as the above does. In these cases, we recommend recounting the affected items as required before completing the inventory count.

For more information on processing an inventory count, refer to our What is an inventory count and how do I complete one? guide.