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Big Chain - Multiple Locations, Logistics

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Overview

Big Chain accounts are used for Users who have multiple stores in different locations that want to share a common inventory.

What it Does

  • Allows users to have multiple stores and a linked inventory.

What it Doesn't do

  • Allow you to have a different subdomain for each store.

Table of Contents

Differences Between Big Chain and Multiple Accounts

The Big Chain account is designed for users who have multiple stores and would like to share a common inventory between these stores.

New things you get with a Big Chain account

  1. You get a Logistics tab in place of the parts order tab, this allows more power in that you can create an order to move a ticket or inventory item between your store locations, with a checkout and check-in function. Learn more about this by going to the Logistics part of this article
  2. You get to share the customer database with all your stores
  3. You get location-specific inventory levels, reorder points, and retail prices
  4. You get controls on your users to define which locations they are allowed in
  5. You get reporting that can show all locations at once or just a single location
  6. Your printers, Marketr campaigns, etc can be mapped to a single location
  7. You get to use the same username/password/subdomain for all the locations
  8. Your templates get new tags for location information so you show the correct address/phone/etc on printed and emailed material
  9. Your customers will gain a 'Last Location' field, accessible from the 'Edit' screen on the customer detail page. This field will automatically update to reflect the last location in which they did business (both tickets and invoices count for this)

Reasons to not use a Big Chain account

  1. You do NOT want to share customer history between your stores.
  2. Your locations operate different types of businesses - it might make sense to have totally different inventory in this case, totally up to you.
  3. You need to use different outbound email addresses for each location.
  4. You do not want the same subdomain or custom domain visible in the customer portal.

How to know if you need a Big Chain account

If ANY of these are true, you need a big-chain account:

  1. If you want to have a single shared customer database now, or at any time in the future - you will need a big-chain account.
  2. If you want the same login/email for all the locations, you need a big-chain account. This includes your technicians having the ability to work at multiple locations with 1 user account.
  3. If you want a system to track moving inventory and jobs between your locations, you need a big chain-account.

Things to know when upgrading to a Big Chain account

  1. When you upgrade a single location to a Big-Chain we have to move all the existing data in your account to one of the locations.
  2. Your users will need locations set in their permissions or they will be able to see all of them.
  3. This process cannot be done twice, so you should think it through and be sure.

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Setting up a Big Chain account

If you're looking to set up multiple locations in the Big Chain account, there are a few steps to follow to make sure everything works as intended. IMPORTANT: If you are moving to a Big Chain (multi-location) and do not follow these steps completely, your data will likely be compromised. Please make sure to take the time to complete each step in this article.

NB: Make sure to reach out to help@repairshopr.com during this process to have your data moved successfully.

Note: If you plan on using an Accounting integration we have some location-aware tweaks you can make. See the relevant accounting integration help page for notes on class tracking or location categories.

Here are the steps you will need to take.

  1. Upgrade Account
  2. Set up locations
  3. Add locations to users
  4. Transfer tickets to main location
  5. Move inventory
  6. Add cash registers

Upgrade Account

  1. Go to More > Admin > Account Profile.
  2. At the top of the screen, click Choose a Plan.
  3. Under Big Chain on the right, click the orange Change to $149.99/month button. Note: If you already purchased this, this button will be disabled and you can proceed to the next step.

Set up locations

  1. After you upgrade to Big Chain, head over to More > Admin > General Preferences.
  2. Turn on the Multiple Locations box.
  3. Click Save.
  4. After doing so, Locations (big chain) will appear in your main Admin page. Click this now.

     
  5. This is where you'll add and manage your locations.
  6. Click New Location.
  7. Start with your main location and enter the email, address, phone number, website, and tax rates.
  8. Click Create Location.
  9. Repeat for each additional location.

After setting up your new locations, your Users, Tickets, and Inventory will need to be told where to go.

Add locations to users

IMPORTANT: If your users are not configured for multiple locations completely, your data will be compromised and not easily reconciled.

  1. To configure your users' Location, head to More > Admin > Users.
  2. Click Details by a user to edit.
  3. On that new page, you'll need to specify which locations that user is allowed, and what their default Location is when they log in.
  4. If you do you define a default location, you may also want to turn on the Prompt For Location after login box.

     
  5. When finished, click Update User.
  6. Repeat for each user.

Transfer tickets to main location

After enabling multiple locations, your Tickets will be floating and not visible. The first step is to send us a note at help@repairshopr.com, telling us to which of your locations we should move all Tickets.

After we send all Tickets to a location, you can use Logistics to transfer Tickets between the various locations if needed.

Move inventory

If any of your inventory in RepairShopr is at other locations, you'll need to distribute it to them as needed.

  1. Go to your Inventory page.
  2. In the upper right, click Inventory Modules > Export to CSV.

     
  3. Open the CSV file in a spreadsheet program like Excel. You will see new columns for each location. In these columns, specify how much QTY of that item you have at each location.
  4. Once finished, make sure to save the file in the CSV format.
  5. After this is done, on the same Inventory page, click Inventory Modules > Import.
  6. Click Choose File and select the CSV file you modified.

Add cash registers

  1. Head to More > Admin > POS - Cash Registers.
  2. Click New Register.

     
  3. Add a new register for your new location. For Name, just put in the location name; you do not need to put your business name.
  4. Make sure to pick the correct Location in that dropdown.
  5. Click Create Register.
  6. Repeat for additional locations.

 

That's it! Your Users, Tickets, Inventory, Registers, and Printers are now set up for big chain. You can use Logistics to transfer Tickets and Inventory to other locations, and users can change allowed locations from their account drop-down on the top right corner of the application.

There's not currently a migration path for moving existing Parts orders to the Logistics module.

Existing status links on tickets will no longer be valid. These will have to be manually re-created once you've set up your Big Chain account.

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Big Chain PDF Template

The templates section will now show new tags for location-specific information.

We recommend modifying your templates so that they reflect the location that the invoices, ticket and other info is for the location the purchase or work is being performed.

Please Note that the conversion to a Big Chain account will reset some of your templates to pull in the new location data. Your templates should be saved as previous versions but you can also save the HTML externally if you have customized your templates and will want to re-implement them.

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Logistics (Transferring inventory between stores)

What it Does

  • This allows you to transfer inventory and tickets between your different stores.
  • This is only applicable to Big Chain accounts that have multiple locations.

What it Doesn't Do

  • You can't transfer inventory between separate RepairShopr accounts.

Follow these steps to ensure that your inventory is properly transferred between locations.

Step 1: Create transfer request

Go to the Logistics tab. In the upper right, click New Request.


 

In the New Transfer screen, click the Transfer Inventory tab.

Once you fill out the form and click Submit, this will create a new request and take you to the Edit Transfer screen. Scroll down and select the items you want to transfer to the other store. They will get added to the Items section at the bottom.


 

Once you have selected all the items you want, scroll back up and click Update.

 

Step 2: Check out the inventory to transfer

Once you submit the request, check the little blue arrow icon next to the 'From Location' to remove the inventory from their stock.

 

Step 3: Switch locations

Switch to the receiving location by clicking your name in the upper right > Change Location.

 

Step 4: Check in the inventory

Go to the Logistics tab, then click the little blue arrow next to the 'To Location' to check in the inventory. This should update the stock quantities for this store.


 

And you're done! That's how you transfer inventory between store locations.

You can also transfer tickets following the same steps, except that you will stay on the Transfer Ticket tab on the New Transfer screen, rather than Transfer Inventory.

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Downgrading from Big Chain to a Single Location

To change your plan from multi-location back to single-location, it's pretty straightforward and you can do it on your own if you want. There will be no data loss (other than store location data) as long as you correctly follow the process.

  1. Go to More > Admin > Reports and save anything you might want, because the data won't be location-based after this is done. Our Export All Data article can help with this.
  2. Go to Admin > Locations (big chain).
  3. For each location you will not be keeping, click Process Removal.

     
  4. Select the location you want to Move stock to.

     
  5. If desired, turn on Also move tickets and other data to this location. Note that you cannot move them to a warehouse location.
  6. Click Archive.
  7. You will see a note at the top: "This will archive the location and associated data. This may take a few minutes." You will need to refresh the page to see the location removed from the list.
  8. Repeat steps 3-6 for any remaining locations except your main one.
  9. After removing all the extra locations, go to Admin > General Preferences.
  10. Turn off Enable Multi Locations.

     
  11. Click Save.
  12. Go to Admin > Account Profile.
  13. At the top, click Choose a Plan.
  14. Click the new plan you want.
  15. If you have more than 10 users active, go to Admin > Users and disable some until you are back under the 10 user limit (or buy additional users).

     
  16. The last step is to have all your users clear their browser cookies so it doesn't try to remember their location that was saved as a cookie in the browser—this causes issues sometimes after you do the above steps.

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Troubleshooting

Moving to Big Chain is a big step in getting access to powerful tools for managing your growing business. However, the migration process can cause a few bumps in the road if you aren't careful.

My Parts Orders disappeared how do I get them back?

If after the migration you notice that your parts orders are gone don't panic. The parts order has been changed to logistics which will allow you to move parts between locations. During the initial switch, however, old parts orders gets left in the old UI.

  • If upgrading to Big Chain, use this slug to access Parts again: https://subdomain.repairshopr.com/parts
  • If downgrading from Big Chain to a single location, use this slug to recover Logistics items: https://subdomain.repairshopr.com/logistics

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