I need advice on: Inventory Control for Fluid Products

[Abinator]

Some of our products are liquids sold in different quantities. For example... we may buy 25lbs of "Liquid A", and 25lbs of "Liquid B" and keep them in stock. We then package them (as they are ordered) in different size bottles and resell them. For example... We may sell an 8 oz bottle of "Solution A" which is actually just 8 oz of "Liquid A", or we might sell and 8 oz. bottle of "Solution C" which is actually 4 oz of "Liquid A" and 4 oz of "Liquid B" combined.

To complicate matters, every "Solution" is sold in 1oz, 2oz, 4oz, 8oz, and 16oz sizes.

I need to offer each size for every "Solution" and I want the system to pull the right amount of each "Liquid" from the inventory. I am looking for ideas/suggestions on how to accomplish this with Able Commerce 7

I hope this was clear... If not, please reply and I will answer any questions.

Thanks in advance for any assistance/ideas you can provide!

Abinator

[jmestep]

The only thing I can think of that might work is kits with the amounts of each as hidden products. We had a bookkeeping system once that let us build "assemblies" made up of different parts and this would be similar.

[AbleMods]

Some of our products are liquids sold in different quantities. For example... we may buy 25lbs of "Liquid A", and 25lbs of "Liquid B" and keep them in stock. We then package them (as they are ordered) in different size bottles and resell them. For example... We may sell an 8 oz bottle of "Solution A" which is actually just 8 oz of "Liquid A", or we might sell and 8 oz. bottle of "Solution C" which is actually 4 oz of "Liquid A" and 4 oz of "Liquid B" combined.

To complicate matters, every "Solution" is sold in 1oz, 2oz, 4oz, 8oz, and 16oz sizes.

I need to offer each size for every "Solution" and I want the system to pull the right amount of each "Liquid" from the inventory. I am looking for ideas/suggestions on how to accomplish this with Able Commerce 7

I hope this was clear... If not, please reply and I will answer any questions.

Thanks in advance for any assistance/ideas you can provide!

Abinator

What you are asking for is Unit of Measure conversions. Unfortunately AC7 doesn't support UOM. You would need some significant customization to handle UoM conversions properly throughout the entire order/inventory process.

You could try "fooling" AC7 inventory, but only if you could translate everything down into a single, common unit of measure. In your post, you only reference Ounces when talking about what you sell but you buy the product it's in pounds.
If you managed ALL your inventory in the form of Ounces, you could create a kit for a 4 Oz bottle that includes a Qty:4 Liquid A + 1 bottle. You would have to maintain all your bulk liquids in the form of Ounces as well. Since all liquids weigh differently, you'd have to determine your own pounds-to-ounces conversion rate and record your incoming liquids as ounces in AC7.

That's about as close as you're going to be able to get without some heavy programming.

[Abinator]

Joe, thanks for the reply! I am doing the conversion myself and keeping track of all the bulk product in ounces instead of pounds... Sorry, I should have stated that. I have been playing with the kits, and I think I have come up with something similar (or exactly) like you are suggesting. I still have a small problem with the way it looks though. do you know how I can remove the (qty) in between the product display name and the price? Here is a screenshot to show what I am talking about.

ScreenShot059.jpg

Thanks again!!!
Abinator

[mazhar]

Joe, thanks for the reply! I am doing the conversion myself and keeping track of all the bulk product in ounces instead of pounds... Sorry, I should have stated that. I have been playing with the kits, and I think I have come up with something similar (or exactly) like you are suggesting. I still have a small problem with the way it looks though. do you know how I can remove the (qty) in between the product display name and the price? Here is a screenshot to show what I am talking about.

ScreenShot059.jpg

Thanks again!!!
Abinator

Check the following thead
viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9836

[Abinator]

I got it... Thanks mazhar! I was able to modify the code from the post you referred me to. That text would have been very confusing to my customers, and it looks great now. Best of all, it should pull the kit components from the inventory just like I want now.

Abinator