Introduction to Material Manager for Shopify

What is Material Manager?

Material Manager is a specialized inventory management tool tailored for Shopify stores that create their products on demand. This application bridges the gap between your raw materials and finished product inventories, offering a comprehensive solution to manage both seamlessly.

Who Should Use Material Manager?

Material Manager is ideal for any Shopify store that:

• Produces products on demand.
• Requires precise tracking of raw materials.
• Seeks to streamline the inventory management process for both raw materials and final products.

Core Features of Material Manager

Inventory Management

• Two-Way Inventory Management: Material Manager ensures a dynamic inventory tracking system, updating both raw material and product inventories in real-time based on sales, returns, and adjustments.
• Multi-Location Support: Effectively tracks different inventory levels of raw materials across multiple locations, ensuring that product inventory reflects the raw materials available at each specific location.
• Pre-Assembled Inventory: Supports both on-demand assembly, pre-assembled inventory, or a combination of both. When an order is placed, the app will first use any available pre-assembled inventory before drawing from raw materials.
• Real-Time Updates: Inventory levels are updated within seconds, ensuring that your store always reflects current inventory statuses.

Product and Material Management

• Raw Material and Product Association: Effortlessly link multiple raw materials to each Shopify product variant. This association allows automatic updates to product inventory levels when raw material quantities change.
• Create Materials from Products: Convert existing Shopify products into tracked raw materials with automatic linking and data synchronization (SKU, barcode, images, inventory levels, and cost).
• Copy Materials Between Products: Save time by automatically matching variants between similar products and copying raw material associations from one product to another.
• User-Friendly Interface: Associate raw materials with product variants either directly in Material Manager or via the Shopify product page, providing flexibility and ease of use.

Order Management

• Order Management Synchronization: Integrates seamlessly with your Shopify store, adjusting raw material inventory with each order creation, update, cancellation, or return.
• Efficient Return Processing: Supports restocking of raw materials when products are returned, maintaining accurate inventory levels.

Sales Analytics and Forecasting

• Sales Tracking: Track raw material usage over time with detailed reports showing sold counts, days of inventory remaining, and restock forecasts based on historical sales data.
• Low Stock Notifications: Receive email alerts when material inventory falls below customizable thresholds for each location.
• Visual Sales Data: View graphs of sales trends for each material with adjustable date ranges.

Purchasing and Restocking

• Purchase Order Management: Generate purchase orders for raw materials with automatic quantity calculations based on historical sales data and desired days of inventory.
• Supplier Management: Associate suppliers with materials and filter by supplier when creating purchase orders.
• Smart Restocking: Automatically identify materials that need restocking based on current inventory levels and sales velocity.

Import and Export

• Bulk Material Management: Import and export materials via CSV files to update properties, inventory levels, and product associations in bulk.
• Product Association Management: Export and import material-to-product associations to efficiently manage large inventories.
• Pre-Assembled Inventory Import/Export: Manage pre-assembled variant inventory levels through CSV files.

Benefits of Using Material Manager

• Increased Efficiency: Streamline inventory management with bulk import/export, material copying between products, and automated purchase orders—saving time and reducing manual data entry.
• Enhanced Accuracy: Keep track of inventory levels accurately with real-time updates, reducing the risk of overproduction or running out of stock.
• Better Resource Allocation: Understand your material usage with sales tracking, forecasting tools, and low stock alerts—enabling more informed purchasing and production decisions.
• Flexible Production: Support both on-demand and pre-assembled inventory workflows, or use a combination of both to optimize your production process.
• Data-Driven Decisions: Leverage historical sales data to forecast restocking needs and automatically calculate purchase order quantities.

Getting Started

To begin using Material Manager, first install the application from the Shopify app store.

View our quick start guide to start syncing your raw material and product inventory levels.