Maintaining good ordering procedures provides the foundation for a healthy Ascend system. This process ensures:

• Product information (e.g., UPC/EAN, description, size, color) is correct.
• Orders are not duplicated.
• Margins are calculated correctly.
• Reorder levels are adjusted as required.
• Redundant products are not ordered.
• The store does not have excessive inventory.
• Only necessary products are ordered, reducing the need for "clearance" sales.
• Customers receive special orders quickly.

Overall Best Practices

• Keep vendor/supplier product data up to date. 
  • Use the Cloud Product Catalog when available. Article: Products - Using the Cloud Catalog.
  • Import vendor/supplier products using Ascend-vetted spreadsheets. Ascend receives product information directly from the vendor/supplier, ensuring your data is consistent for ordering.
    • Remove any products you don’t intend to sell (including special orders). For every 1,000 products imported, your database size increases by approximately 1 MB. Larger database sizes can significantly impact performance
    • Use Ascend spreadsheets to update product information (pricing, descriptions, case quantities, etc.). 
• Keep pricing up to date.
  • Use the Price Update tool in Ascend HQ to help expedite price updates and print labels for products in inventory. Article: Ascend HQ - Price Update Tool.
  • Manual process for updating pricing, Article: Products - Handling vendor/supplier price changes (updates).
• Customer Special Orders
  • Enter all customer order items as special orders (see Sales - Special Orders). 
    • Note: If you have outstanding orders allocated to customers which were NOT marked as special orders, Ascend lets you easily tie these items together. Article: Selling products from existing vendor/supplier backorders.
  • Check out the Ascend HQ - Special Orders Management Tool.
• Review Case Qty/Bulk Products
  • Ensure products bought in bulk (case quantity) are configured. Article: Products - Case Quantity (Items Bought in Bulk).
• Review Reorder (Min/Max) Levels
  • Use the Ascend HQ - Reorder Analysis tool to analyze, suggest, and set values for product reorder levels (mins/maxes).
  • If your sales trends are seasonal, be sure to set separate reorder (min/max) values and switch to your “off” season when you’re ready to use your secondary values. Article: Products - How to Use Out-Of-Season Min and Max Values.
• Adjust Stock Strategies
  • Use the Ascend HQ - Category Analysis metrics to compare differences in your sales and inventory performance and adjust your stock strategies accordingly.
  • Ascend HQ - Schedule email delivery of Ascend HQ Category Analysis report so you always have a copy on a consistent basis.
• Cycle Counts
  • Perform regular cycle counts to catch inventory management issues early. 
    • This can help identify areas where additional training or process improvements may be needed. Article: Prepare for cycle counts.
• If a vendor/supplier is changing products to a new model year before you’ve received pending backorders, use the Product Replacement Wizard to easily swap your order items and/or customer special orders to the new model. Article: Products - Product Replacement Wizard (Rollover Process).

Placing orders

Build all orders in Ascend before they are placed with the vendor/suppliers. Article: Ordering - Create a Vendor Order (purchase order). This process ensures:

• You’re accurately tracking order status.
  • Note: Trek Project One (P1) bikes (Sales - Selling and Ordering Trek Project One (P1) Bikes) and other customized bikes are the exception to this “rule”.
• You maintain a record of what was ordered.
• Customer Special Orders are being tracked through Ascend.
• Receiving Accuracy
  • Creating Orders in Ascend when they are placed, ensures order accuracy at time of receiving.
    • Categorization
    • Cost/MSRP Updates
    • Case Qty items set correctly
• You’re not ordering unnecessary products (e.g. if the product is already on a previous order).
• Data trending is accurate (e.g. how quickly orders from a specific vendor/supplier are received).
• You’re accounting for items’ reorder (mix/max) values.
• For integrated vendors/suppliers, submit all orders through Ascend.
  1. Ordering - Trek integration in Vendor Orders (purchase orders)
  2. Ordering - Quality Bicycle Products (QBP) integration 
• For non-integrated vendors/suppliers, be sure to accurately record the date and method in which the order was submitted.
  • While not integrated, when you place an order on JBI (J & B Importers) B2B, you can download your order in the formatted needed to import into the Ascend Purchase Order screen.
  • If you are unfamiliar with how to Import Products into a Purchase Order, check out our article, Ordering - Create a Vendor Order (purchase order).

Receiving orders

Continuing the framework started with ordering, maintaining good receiving procedures promotes inventory accuracy. This process ensures:

• Product information in Ascend (e.g., UPC/EAN, case quantity division) matches the product itself.
• Products are accurately labeled with:
  1. A UPC/EAN to scan during a sale or inventory count.
  2. Pricing information for customers.
• Accurate quantities on hand can be advertised to customers.
• Margins are calculated accurately.
• Inventory dollar values are accurate.
• Customers with special orders are notified as soon as it comes in.
• Products are not sold into negative quantities.
• You have historical information for data trending (e.g., how often orders are improperly filled, special order turnaround times).
• Serial numbers are tracked as soon as they enter the store.

Receiving - Vendor Orders (purchase orders) promptly to accurately reflect inventory levels and ensure products aren’t “lost”. Since an order may be received in multiple shipments, orders can be received in multiple sessions. An order remains open until all products are received or removed when unavailable.

• Verify Costs vs. Pack slip
  • Comparing the costs on your Purchase Order with the vendor’s packing slip is an excellent method to prevent receiving errors. There might have been an extra discount applied to the products, or the vendor could have updated the product costs after the order was placed.
• Split and scan all order items individually. 
  • This ensures products aren’t miscounted and you received the correct quantities and products from the vendor/supplier.
• Record all serial numbers at the time of receiving.
  • This ensures you can accurately track every serialized item in your store (e.g. if a bike is stolen). Article: Serialization 
• Transfer Products (multi-store retailers)
  • If you receive all orders in a central location (e.g., a warehouse location), transfer items to other locations directly within the order. Article: Multi-Store - Transfers Between Locations.
• Try the Receiving Wizard. Article: Receiving - Check in multiple Trek orders with the Receiving Wizard.

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