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Advanced Inventory moves your store from periodic snapshots to perpetual, always-on tracking, where every receiving session and every invoice updates your counts automatically. That shift is powerful, but it depends on the data you start with. A store is launch-ready when the criteria below are met. ✏️ Note: Advanced Inventory is enabled per store by Vori. If you don’t see it yet in your Back Office or on the handheld, contact Vori Support.

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How ordering, receiving, and cost changes work together

Advanced Inventory connects three workflows that used to run separately. Understanding how they hand off to each other will help you set expectations with your team before launch.
  • Ordering creates pending inventory for the products on a purchase order.
  • Receiving happens on the handheld when a delivery arrives. It records the quantity actually delivered against that pending order — this is where discrepancies like shortages or damage get logged.
  • Cost Changes, in the Back Office, is where a teammate reviews the invoice, resolves any new items, and updates cost and retail price. This is a separate concern from receiving: receiving governs quantity, Cost Changes governs price.
  • Nothing is final until a teammate clicks Approve Changes in Cost Changes. That’s the single moment your on-hand quantity, cost, and retail price all become official and sync to the POS — see Manage Invoices, New Items, and Cost Changes for the full walkthrough.

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Choosing a receiving mode

On the handheld, receivers choose between two modes for each delivery: 💡 Tip: Decide which mode fits each vendor before launch, and share that decision with your receiving team. Switching modes mid-delivery causes confusion about what still needs to be scanned. ✏️ Note: Receive against one invoice at a time. If a single delivery arrives with multiple invoices mixed together — common with large distributors — split it into separate receiving sessions by invoice.

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Step 1: Take a full inventory count

Advanced Inventory’s accuracy depends entirely on the baseline you start with. Before you launch, get your on-hand counts as close to reality as possible. You have three ways to do it:
  1. Run an Inventory Session on the handheld. Use Count mode to walk the floor and set an accurate on-hand quantity for every item. See Manage Inventory with Sessions in VoriOS.
  2. Hire a third-party inventory service. Many stores use a professional counting service for a full-store count. Whatever service you use, the file they hand back only needs two things per item: a barcode (or PLU, for produce and other items without a UPC) and the on-hand quantity.
  3. Upload a count via CSV in the Back Office. If you already have counts from a physical inventory or another system, format them into Vori’s template and upload them directly. See Manually Manage and Bulk Upload Inventory.
⚠️ Caution: Skipping the count doesn’t skip the work — it postpones it. You’ll still have inventory levels the moment you launch, but they won’t reflect what’s actually on your shelves. You’ll need to true them up with a real count eventually, so doing it upfront means accurate data from day one instead of a rockier catch-up later.

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Step 2: Clean up your vendor products (if you’re also launching Ordering)

This step isn’t required to launch Advanced Inventory on its own — receiving and Cost Changes will still work without it. But if you’re launching Ordering alongside Advanced Inventory, it’s worth doing at the same time: Ordering depends on your vendor products being mapped correctly — the UPC, cost, and case size for what you buy from each vendor — and incomplete vendor data is the most common source of slow order and invoice processing after launch. Before you go live, review your Vendor Products list and confirm your active vendors have accurate item codes, costs, and case sizes on file. See Preparing Your Store for Ordering Launch for the full vendor-readiness checklist.

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Step 3: Assign who reconciles in the Back Office

Receiving on the handheld and reconciling in Cost Changes are two different jobs, and they don’t have to be done by the same person. Before launch, decide who on your team owns reviewing and approving invoices in the Back Office — this person will need to check receiver notes and photos against the invoice, resolve any new items, and click Approve Changes to finalize each delivery.

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Step 4: Confirm your network connection where you receive

Receiving happens where the truck comes in, and that’s not always where your Wi-Fi is strongest. A stable connection matters most when a receiver is uploading an invoice photo or looking up items mid-session. 💡 Tip: If the signal is weak in your receiving area, use Select Existing Invoice for invoices that are already in Vori — for example, ones forwarded by email — instead of scanning a paper invoice on the spot with the camera.

Related topics

Preparing Your Store for Ordering LaunchGet Started with Inventory EssentialsAdvanced Reporting: Filtering, Customizing, and Saving Report Views