There is no way to prevent RetailEdge from selling item quantities into the negative. In theory if a customer comes to the counter with an item, it is available. Are you going to tell a customer that you cannot sell them the item because the POS says it does not exist?

Warnings When an Item is Not Available #

If you want to notify the clerk at the time of sale that there might be a problem, there are some options you can turn on in the Workstation Settings (Tools|Settings|Workstations|Register Options) that allow you to warn the clerk. This warning will be displayed when entering the item onto the sales screen and again when posting the sale and will notify the clerk that the item’s available quantity (On Hand – On Order) is less than or equal to zero. These options are:

1. Turn QTY Warning OFF
2. Warn When No QTY
3. Warn When No QTY – Confirm. Reqd. (This will require that the clerk type in YES to indicate that they are aware that they are selling into the negative)

Most Common Reasons for Negative Quantities #

There are many reasons why RetailEdge’s inventory quantities might be incorrect but the most common are:
1. Incorrect receiving or non-receiving, and
2. Selling the wrong item.

Using The Warnings #

Warnings can be useful for businesses that might have stock that has been allocated to open orders, set aside, and a customer grabs from this inventory (garden nursery stock, equipment deposits, etc.)

Some people use negative quantities to their advantage and will periodically “reset” the item’s quantity to zero. This allows them to see the quantity sold since the reset by just looking at the item’s negative quantity. We would not recommend doing this, but that is something that we have seen done over the years. In this case you would turn the RetailEdge warnings off so that you are not prompted about the quantity on every sale.

Currently the most common reason we see negative quantity warnings is due to improper fulfillment of online sales. When a sale occurs online and is pulled into RetailEdge, the quantity is decremented in RetailEdge. If the eCommerce manager does not remove the item from the shelf/stock in a timely manner and so an in-store customer grabs the item and wants to purchase it, RetailEdge will display the quantity warning. In this scenario, what should the clerk do? Not sell the item to the customer who has it in-hand and wants to purchase it? Probably not.

Fix The Problem #

If you are being warned about an item’s available quantity, then you should write down the item number and investigate the reasons why this might be happening and correct the issue causing the problem.