Designing your stock business workflow

Before you configure the software
First understand the business. TidyStock should represent the real operational journey of goods through your organisation — including the points where ownership, quantity, form, location, commitment and value change.

1. Start with the physical flow

Do not begin with screens or accounting entries. Begin with what physically happens. Follow an item from the moment someone decides it is needed until it has been delivered to the customer, returned, consumed, written off or otherwise leaves the business.

Important
Your business may combine several of these flows. Map what really happens rather than choosing the nearest-looking example.

2. Separate the events that are easy to confuse

A robust workflow distinguishes events that may occur on different dates. If the business treats them as interchangeable, the system can appear wrong even when it is faithfully recording a different event.

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3. Map transformations, not just movements

Many stock businesses do more than buy and resell. They assemble, manufacture, cut, mix, repackage, bundle, refurbish or otherwise transform materials. Each transformation should be understood explicitly.

• What input materials or components are consumed?
• What output product is created?
• What quantity or yield is expected?
• What waste, scrap, by-product or loss is normal?
• Are units of measure different between buying, storing and selling?
• Does the transformation happen to order, to stock, or both?
• At what point should the system stop showing the input and start showing the output?

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4. Map the information flow beside the stock flow

The physical item and the information about it must stay aligned. For each step, identify who knows the event has happened, who records it, and how quickly it should appear in Tidy.

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5. Ask the discovery questions

• What do you buy, and from whom?
• In what units and pack sizes do you buy it?
• Do goods arrive in full, partially or across multiple deliveries?
• Where is stock held? Do you have multiple warehouses, vehicles, bins or other locations?
• Do you manufacture, assemble, repackage, bundle or consume stock?
• What becomes the finished or saleable product?
• How do you know what is available, committed or required?
• When does a customer order become a real commitment?
• When do goods physically leave?
• When do you invoice — before, at, or after dispatch?
• Can quantities or prices change after goods leave?
• How do you handle returns, damage, samples, wastage and write-offs?
• Do you use customer-specific or supplier-specific pricing?
• Who owns each step?
• What information does management need daily, weekly and monthly?
• What causes the most stock errors or customer-service problems today?

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6. Look for process gaps before they become software problems

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7. Decide how Tidy should represent the business

1. Agree the physical workflow first.
2. Identify the standard TidyStock transaction that corresponds to each real event.
3. Identify any genuine gap where the standard TidyStock workflow does not match the business requirement.
4. Where a workaround is necessary, document it, test it and train every relevant user before relying on it.
5. Where the gap is commercially important, discuss configuration or product capability with Tidy rather than embedding a fragile manual process.
6. Confirm the resulting workflow with the people who actually purchase, receive, sell, pick, pack, dispatch and reconcile stock.

A useful rule
Do not configure Tidy around an accidental habit simply because 'that is how we have always done it'. First decide whether the habit is good business practice.

8. Turn the map into management information

Once the transaction chain represents reality, the same information can support better decisions. The objective is not only accurate stock; it is better management.

• Purchasing: what should we buy, when, from whom and in what quantity?
• Working capital: what cash is tied up in slow or excess inventory?
• Customer service: what can we promise, and what is at risk of being late?
• Operations: where are bottlenecks, incomplete transactions or recurring exceptions?
• Pricing and margin: are selling prices and costs producing the intended result?
• Stock accuracy: which items or processes generate repeated differences?
• Year end: can financial stock information be supported from normal operational records?

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9. Use your workflow map before a TidyStock discovery or review session

A completed workflow map gives your team and Tidy a common language. It makes a discovery, implementation or review session much more productive because the conversation can focus on your actual business rather than generic product features.

Recommended sequence
1. Watch the TidyStock overview/demo.  2. Complete the Business Workflow Map.  3. Identify uncertainties or unusual steps.  4. Use the map in the discovery/review session.  5. Agree the TidyStock workflow.  6. Train the team.  7. Use the companion guide 'Run a Better Stock Business with TidyStock' to maintain good operating discipline.

10. What good looks like

• Physical goods and Tidy transactions tell the same story.
• Users can distinguish order, receipt, dispatch, invoice and payment events.
• Transformations and unit conversions are understood and repeatable.
• Exceptions are visible and controlled rather than hidden inside adjustments.
• Each important event has an owner.
• Management information is produced from normal operations rather than reconstructed later.
• Year-end stock reconciliation is confirmation of a controlled process, not an emergency repair.

Tidy Academy note: this guide explains workflow and management principles. Detailed screens, settings and product capabilities can change over time; use the current Tidy Academy product guidance for click-by-click instructions.

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