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Batch IDs, Expiry Dates, & COGS

Stay on top of inventory with batch tracking, while always having insight into your products' expiry dates and tracking COGS.

Mark Epchteine avatar
Written by Mark Epchteine
Updated over a week ago

There are a lot of features in OrderEZ that are essential to making sure your business runs smoothly and efficiently. However, we also go one step further and add some features that we think are important and tailored specifically to the F&B industry.

With batch IDs, expiry dates, and cost of goods sold tracking as optional fields for all your products, you can stay in control of different shipments, batches, costs, and timelines when it comes to perishable products. While these are optional inputs, we highly advise utilizing them when possible, as you can use OrderEZ to execute a Recall Plan if required by certain vendors (typically hotels). Also, it's good to get a heads up if a pallet of beer somehow gets near expiration hidden in the back corner of your warehouse. As the global macroeconomic environment changes, so do your costs, and we give you the ability to track the dynamic COGS for all of your inventory in ways that most accounting software simply cannot.


Batch IDs

Each time you add inventory to a product, OrderEZ views it as a specific inventory addition. The Batch ID field allows you to label, for example, every shipment you receive, or different batches of beer that have been brewed (for example: Customs Lot Numbers).

Batch IDs can be input in a few ways:

via Adding New Inventory

  • When creating a new inventory addition, you're able to input a Batch ID for the addition. This applies the batch ID to all the products in this inventory addition.

  • If you leave the Batch ID field blank on step one or want to switch it for specific products, you're able to edit the field in the second step of the inventory addition process.

via Product Specific Inventory Overview

As we mentioned, each addition of stock creates a new inventory addition, which can all be found on the individual products inventory overview page.

From here, you'll be able to see the individual inventory additions, with their specific COGS, batch ID, and expiry date.

By clicking Edit next to the individual inventory addition, you'll be able to modify the COGS, Batch ID, and/or Expiry Date to your choosing (user permissions pending).


Pro Tip: By enabling the Batch Tracking toggle in inventory settings, Batch ID becomes a mandatory field for inventory management.


Expiry Dates

Our inventory management lets you set expiry dates for any products, allowing you to stay on top of expiring goods. When it comes to order fulfillment, by default OrderEZ uses the inventory that is expiring the soonest, allowing you to prioritize the shelf-life of all your stock.

Within Inventory Settings, we also have an expiry date indicator. This setting allows you to create an expiry date indicator for products whose expiry date is within the number of days you set here. If the value is 0 the expiry date indicator will be disabled.

The indicator, as shown below, is triggered on your main product page when a batch of a product falls within x days of its expiry date:

Just as batch IDs, expiry dates can be set:

1) via the first step of the "Add New Inventory" workflow.

  • If you leave the Expiry Date field blank on step one or want to change it amongst the different products, you're able to edit the field for each product in the second step of the inventory addition process.

2) via the Product Specific Inventory Settings

  • Like with Batch IDs, you're able to see the individual inventory additions on a product's inventory overview tab, along with their assigned COGS, batch ID, and expiry date. Here you can make any changes to the expiry date (and Batch ID/COGS).


Cost of Goods Sold

Navigate rising cost (or hopefully sinking cost!) environments with accurate insight into your cost of goods sold. With each new inventory addition, we're able to assign and dynamically track the product's COGS.

Just as batch IDs and expiry dates, the cost of goods sold can be set:

1) via the first step of the "Add New Inventory" workflow.

  • The default cost of goods sold that automatically pops up is based on the next outgoing batch of inventory. In the case of expiring products, it'll be the soonest expiry date. For standard products, the COGS will be based on your earliest active inventory addition.

2) via the Product Specific Inventory Settings

  • Like with Batch IDs and expiry dates, you're able to see the individual inventory additions on a product's inventory overview tab, along with their assigned COGS, batch ID, and expiry date. Here you can make any changes to the COGS input (and Batch ID/Expiry Date).


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