Set Up: Vendors, Storage Areas and Products in Food Cost Management

Food Cost Management Setup

Are you ready to streamline your inventory? This guide will walk you through getting set up with Avero Food Cost Management (FCM).

This article will discuss the following topics:

• Adding Vendors
• Creating Storage Areas
• Adding Products
• Upload Product Ranking

Adding Vendors

To get started with Food Cost Management, you first must add your Vendor information.  To do this, complete the following steps:

1. Go to Settings
2. Click on Vendor Set Up
3. Click on Vendor Info
4. Using the drop down, select your Kitchen.
5. Using the drop down, click Add and select Other.
6. Enter the name of your Vendor
7. Fill in the Vendor information and Delivery schedule. Your vendor's delivery schedule is required to place an order in Avero and is necessary for a Suggested Purchase to generate as well.

Please note: If you are a US Foods customer, we will pull in the vendor information and upload your US Foods invoice history automatically.

Vendors can be edited, but not deleted.

Need additional help?  Watch the following video for further instruction:

 

Creating Storage Areas

Imagine a blueprint of your building, where are all of your products are stored. In Avero, you will create a list of those areas to organize your inventory worksheets.  To create storage areas, complete the following steps:

1. Click Settings
2. Click Inventory Set Up
3. Using the drop down menu, select your Kitchen.
4. Click Add
5. Type the name of the area, and press Enter.
6. Re-order your storage areas by clicking the three lines to the left of the title and dragging and dropping in the correct order.
7. Rearrange your storage areas from within an inventory count on the web by selecting the three dots, and then selecting rearrange storage areas.
8. Click Save

Please Note: You will see a Default Storage Area. Please do not delete or rename this area.

Need additional help?  Watch the following video for further instruction:

 

Adding Products

There are a few ways to add products into Avero. You can add products manually (one at a time if you are only adding a few), or you can bulk upload products using our CSV file.

 

Bulk Uploading Products

If you're looking to bulk-upload products into Avero, we have a CSV template that you can use to upload tons of products with ease.  To bulk-upload your products, complete the following steps:

1. Go to Settings, and then to Product List
2. Click on Add Product
3. Choose the fourth tab, Upload.
4. Download the instructions and read them carefully as many of the fields are required. We recommend downloading the Product Guides as well, as it will have the exact naming conventions for your storage areas, vendors, and weight/volume conversions. 
5. Fill in the product information on your template, paying close attention to the instructions so you don't miss a required column.
6. Save the CSV file to your desktop.
7. Upload the file to Avero. 

Please Note: when you use the template, be sure to complete columns T through W.  These columns allow you to set up the product conversions and easily add products to recipes. 

Need additional help?  Watch the following video for further instruction:

Manually Adding Products

Do you only have a few products to add? To add one-off products, complete the following steps:

1. Go to Settings, and then to Product List
2. Click on Add Product
3. Click on the second tab, Add Manually
4. Fill in the product's information and ensure you add product conversions under the Units of Measure.  This will allow you to add your products to recipes. 

Please Note: The Inventory Unit is the unit we will display while you take Inventory.  However, you are able to count by any conversion unit you add in the product details. 

Need additional help?  Watch the following video for further instruction:

 

Upload Product Ranking

Once your products have been uploaded and moved into into the correct storage area(s), you can arrange your products into shelf-to-sheet order in two ways:

 

Updating the product ranking within the product

1. Within an active inventory count, select Rearrange Products, located at the bottom of the count
2. Click and drag to rearrange the products within the Storage Area into shelf-to-sheet order.
   1. Because updating the product ranking from within a count, updates the order moving forward, you will see all products that are within this storage area, including products that may not be included in the count you are working in.
3. Click submit to save the product ranking. This will update the product ranking for this storage area for any new counts moving forward. 

Please Note: If you would like your products to be organized in alphabetical order, select A>Z at the top. 

 

Uploading your product ranking

To upload your product ranking, complete the following steps:

1. Click on Settings, and then click on Inventory Set Up
2. Click the Upload Product Ranking Tab
3. Select your Kitchen and Storage Area
4. Click the download button to download the Template
5. Enter the Product Ranking (1 - 100+) in column A of the Template
6. Click the Upload button to Upload your completed Template. You will upload one template per Storage Area.
7. Once you have uploaded the ranking of all your storage areas, set up is complete.

Now, go take inventory!