Clinic Settings
Select Clinic Settings in your Shepherd Admin menu
Under General, toggle on the Inventory toggle
If you plan on detailed inventory tracking by adding inventory lots and bottle numbers, including expiration dates, you'll also toggle on the Track lots and expiration dates toggle
Please Note: The action of toggling on Track Lots and Expiration Dates is irreversible because of the impact it has on existing data. In addition, it adds required fields to your inventory item setup that you may wish to proceed without until closer to launch. Please connect with your account manager to determine the appropriate time to enable this feature.
Building out your Inventory Management Tool
Shepherd is designed to make your most used information easily accessible; however, for setup, you'll want to make sure you're adding your vendors and locations (in any order) before adding your inventory items to the inventory management tool.
You may have imported some of this data using the product import tool. If you didn't, or you need to add new vendors, locations, or inventory items, follow the steps below in each section.
Vendor Setup
Setting up vendors for your items allows you to keep both your purchase orders and your inventory organized.
Select Inventory from your Shepherd Admin menu
Navigate to the Inventory Items tab
Select the Vendors subtab
Click the Add New button
Enter the vendor details in the field provided (the only required field is vendor name)
Click Save
Locations Setup
Knowing where your inventory is can sometimes feel like half the battle with managing it. Thankfully, our inventory tool keeps track of your practice's products, as well as where they're located in your facility.
Locations can be as granular as you want them to be, whether it's a shelf, a cabinet, or a room, this information is one more facet of how our inventory tool helps you manage your products YOUR WAY.
Select Inventory from your Shepherd Admin menu
Navigate to the Inventory Items tab
Select the Locations subtab
Click the Add New button
Populate the provided fields
An abbreviation (required): something easy to understand at a glance
The location name (required): the actual location name
A description: something a bit more in depth about location (useful for more granular locations like shelves)
Click Save
Inventory Items Setup
Please note: In order to effectively use our inventory management tool, inventory items must be linked to products you've set up in your admin menu. The products are what you'll administer and dispense. Once products are linked to an inventory item that will deduct/update the quantity on hand each time a product is administered or dispensed.
To add a new inventory item, follow the steps below
Select Inventory from your Shepherd Admin menu
Click the Inventory Items tab
You're navigated to the Inventory Items subtab by default
Click Add New to be navigated to the New Inventory Item page
Complete all required fields and any additional information you wish to include
Name your inventory item
Select the vendor from which you order the item
Select as many item locations as you need to cover all places you store the item
Select your single unit of measure (UOM) and how many individual units make up one UOM (e.g., One box contains 30 tablets)
Quantity and Re-order point fields are used to assist you in keeping track of when your inventory is low. Enter the number of units you order, the minimum quantity you should always have in inventory, a maximum quantity, and the quantity at which you should be planning to re-order (will auto populate when you add the item to a purchase order). Inventory reporting will help you sort and filter for easy maintenance of your inventory ordering.
Enter your current cost per unit of measure
If you're not tracking lots and expiration dates in Inventory, you'll see 2 additional fields that enable you to add an (initial) quantity and (initial) cost for your existing inventory of each item.
Tracking Lots & Expiration Dates
From the options in clinic settings, if your clinic has Track Lots and Expiration Dates enabled, you'll be required to enter at least one lot/bottle expiration date for each inventory item. New lot/bottle expiration dates will be entered as you receive inventory on a purchase order.
By tracking lots and expiration dates, you're enabling your clinic to take full advantage of the inventory management tool - creating the most accurate reporting by bringing your transactions down to a lot/bottle level vs. a single count for all inventory of an item.
During onboarding, we encourage you to first set up all your inventory items and create an initial count for your existing inventory prior to enabling Track Lots and Expiration Dates.
Requirements to add a lot include only the count and the expiration date
For further detailed reporting, add also the manufacturer, serial number, and lot or bottle number depending on the item
Once you've added one or more lots, you're able to view your inventory item's lot history. One lot is required to be active at all times. If you have multiple lots, you'll be able to archive all but one manually if needed. Click here to read more about the automations we have designed to simplify managing your lots and expiration dates.