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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. Receiving is usually what sets your on-hand quantity, but Cost Changes can also update quantity directly from the Invoice Details page — Vori matches each invoice row to a receiving session where it can, and falls back to the quantity written on the invoice when no matching session is found.
  • 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.

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Tips for an accurate count

  • Time a third-party service close to launch. Schedule the count for one or two days before you go live. If you book a service well ahead of launch, keep managing inventory manually in the meantime — a count taken too early goes stale by the time you launch.
  • Count by department if you’re doing it yourself. Work through one department at a time — grocery, then frozen, and so on — and launch Advanced Inventory only once every department is counted. While a department is being counted, hold off on receiving into it or running promotions and adjustments there, or the count will be out of date before you launch.
  • Use more than one handheld. If your team has iPhones, they can run VoriOS on their own phones to scan barcodes and make adjustments during a count — you’re not limited to one or two dedicated handhelds.
  • Handle weighted items separately. Deli, produce, and other random-weight items don’t scan like a standard barcode — count these by PLU and weight instead.
  • Count against incoming invoices. For items arriving on a purchase order this week, count them before the delivery arrives so their on-hand quantity is accurate going into that receiving session.
  • Assign someone to resolve discrepancies. When a department’s count comes in noticeably different from the system’s numbers, have one person reconcile it before launch instead of going live on unverified counts.
  • Spot-check before you flip the switch. Recount a handful of your highest-velocity items right before launch as a final sanity check.
⚠️ 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: Set up invoice intake for every vendor

Advanced Inventory needs an invoice to receive against. Before you launch, every vendor should either forward invoices to your store’s invoice inbox or send them through EDI — without one of those in place, there’s nothing to receive against, and your morning receiving team ends up waiting on invoices that show up late or not at all.
  • Set up your invoice inbox and ask vendors to send to it. This is required before you launch. See Configure an Invoice Email Inbox.
  • Turn on EDI for vendors that support it. KeHE (send your DC number), Rock Island, Good Stuff, and Alta Dena all support EDI — see Preparing Your Store for Ordering Launch and contact Vori Support with your account details to get it turned on.
✏️ Note: Pick one intake method per vendor — EDI or email forwarding — so every invoice lands somewhere your team knows to check.

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Step 3: Clean up your vendor data

Clean vendor data keeps Cost Changes moving quickly once you’re receiving against real invoices. Duplicate vendors or vendor products split your data and break auto-matching, which means a teammate ends up hand-matching every invoice line instead of the system doing it for them. Before you go live:
  • Confirm every active vendor has at least one contact email and phone number on file — this is required for ordering: Vori sends purchase orders to that email for vendors that aren’t on EDI, and a phone number gives your team a fast way to follow up if something’s off with an order.
  • Merge any duplicate vendors or vendor products. See Bulk Merge Duplicate Vendor Products.
  • Confirm your vendor products have accurate item codes or barcodes on file — aim for full coverage. Thin catalogs and missing codes are the most common source of slow receiving and cost-change review after launch.
If you’re also launching Ordering alongside Advanced Inventory, review your Vendor Products list and confirm costs and case sizes too — see Preparing Your Store for Ordering Launch for the full vendor-readiness checklist.

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Step 4: 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 5: 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.

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Set par and max stock levels (optional)

Advanced Inventory also supports Min Par and Max Stock levels for each item, which make ordering decisions faster once you’re up and running. Min Par is the lowest quantity you want on hand before reordering; Max Stock is the ceiling you don’t want to order past. Neither is required to launch. Set them the same way you upload a baseline count: via CSV in the Back Office. See Manually Manage and Bulk Upload Inventory for the upload template and steps. Once set, Min Par and Max Stock appear on each product’s Product Details page alongside On Hand and Pending — the quantity already on order but not yet received. Together, these four numbers show whether an item needs to be reordered at a glance.

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Launch readiness checklist

Use this as a final check before you flip the switch:
  • Baseline inventory count taken — Inventory Session, third-party count, or CSV upload
  • Invoice intake set up for every vendor — EDI or forwarding to your invoice inbox
  • Every active vendor has a contact email and phone number on file — required for ordering
  • Duplicate vendors and vendor products merged
  • Vendor products have item codes or barcodes on file
  • Someone assigned to reconcile invoices in Cost Changes
  • Network connection confirmed in your receiving area

Related topics

Preparing Your Store for Ordering LaunchVori Webinar Training HubGet Started with Inventory Essentials