Store Manager

What is this?

The Store Manager is where the two halves of your data are matched up. Your point of sale knows which stores you have and what each one sells; the vendor knows the catalog, the costs and the prices - keyed by its store number, RSC and zone. Nothing in Margin Master can be priced until each POS store is linked to the right vendor store, and the Store Manager is the single place that link is made.

Walk through it in the app: guide 3002 — Ace zone pricing (Ace Hardware stores), or guide 4002 — Choosing which stores import from Epicor for the Exclude box. Margin Master can walk you through these steps live: turn on Training / Guide Mode from the Help menu, then type 3002 into the Lessons & Guides box — or ask Margin Master support to run it with you.

Why it matters

Every import and every vendor sync runs through the matchup:

If a store's number is blank or wrong, the Store Manager is where to fix it - not the vendor settings, not the import.

Ace Hardware: RSC and zone pricing

For Ace stores the matchup carries two extra facts that drive pricing:

• RSC - the Retail Support Center that serves the store. Costs and some catalog attributes differ by RSC, so a store on the wrong RSC shows the wrong costs.
• Ace Zone - Ace publishes zone-specific retails on top of the national zone. When you enter the vendor store number, Margin Master looks the store's zone up and fills it in; Options > Refresh Ace Zones re-checks every store. A Zone Override lets you price a store in a different zone deliberately. Zone pricing shows in the grid as the Z column and is described in Ace zone pricing.

Store grouping - pricing several stores as one group with a shared zone - is an advanced topic; see Store Grouping.

How the store matchup works (Epicor)

Epicor (Eagle) identifies each store by a single character in its data — for example the digit 1, or a letter like W. That character is your POS Store. Your Vendor Store # (your Ace or Do it Best store number) is what the vendor's catalog and pricing are keyed to. The Store Manager is where the two are matched up:

• Discovery — when you open the Store Manager or click Refresh Stores, Margin Master reads the live list of store characters straight from your Epicor source (MySQL Compass or the INDecoded file) and lists each one as a row.
• Assignment — you enter the Vendor Store # on the matching row. Margin Master remembers the link and, on every import, pulls only that store's rows for that vendor number.
• Self-healing — if there is exactly one store in Epicor and one store in Margin Master, the matchup is assigned automatically. If a store's character later changes in Epicor, Refresh Stores re-aligns it.

A store imports its inventory as long as it is not excluded and its POS Store character is present in the current Epicor data. A Vendor Store # is not required to import: a store that doesn't have one yet is brought in under its POS store number instead, priced at the national zone, so its data is visible while you finish setting it up. Margin Master lists any such store at the end of the import — see Stores That Need Setup. If a store comes in with 0 SKUs, see Troubleshooting: Epicor Import Brought In 0 SKUs.

Opening the Store Manager

• Data > POS/Vendor Store MatchUp on the main menu (the wording follows your point of sale).
• The Open Store Manager... button on your POS tab in Tools > Options (Epicor, Bistrack, NCR Counterpoint, SpruceWare.Net / RockSolid MAX). Options closes first, then the Store Manager opens.
• Automatically, when an import ends with a Stores Need Setup notice and you answer Yes.

The Store Grid

Each row in the grid represents one store. Edit any editable cell directly in the grid.

Grid Columns

Which stores still need attention

The footer of the window reads "X of Y stores fully configured" - a store counts as configured when it is not deleted, was found in the point-of-sale data, and has both a POS store and a vendor store number. Two conditions call for action:

• Needs setup - the vendor store number is blank and the store is not excluded. The store still imports, keyed by its POS store number and priced at the national zone, but it will not pick up the vendor's store-specific pricing until you enter the number.
• Not found - the store's saved POS identifier no longer appears in your point-of-sale data (it disappeared from Compass after an import, or the Epicor store character changed). Its row cannot be edited. Click the refresh item on the Options menu to re-align it, or use Options > Remove Not Found Stores to clean up stores that are truly gone.

If a store imports 0 SKUs, start here - a store that was not found is the most common cause. See Troubleshooting: Epicor Import Brought In 0 SKUs.

Stores That Need Setup

Margin Master imports a store's data even when its setup is incomplete, rather than quietly leaving the store out. When it has to make an assumption, it uses the safest one available:

At the end of the import, a Stores Need Setup notice lists every store affected, split into two sections: stores that were not imported at all, and stores that imported with assumed settings. Choose Yes to open the Store Manager straight away and finish setting them up.

A store is left out entirely only as a last resort — when nothing identifies it, which in practice means a store that has a vendor store number but no POS store number matched to it. Assign its POS store number in the Store Manager and it imports on the next run.

Assumed settings are a starting point, not a substitute for setup. A store priced against a borrowed RSC or the national zone may not reflect the pricing you actually receive, so finish configuring these stores when the notice appears.

Menu Options

Refreshing Stores

The Refresh button (labeled contextually) scans your POS data source for store identifiers:

• Rescan INDecoded File (Epicor INDecoded users) — Reads your most recently downloaded INDecoded binary file. If a newer file is available from your Epicor server, you're given the option to download a fresh copy first.
• Refresh from MySQL (Epicor MySQL Compass users) — Queries your MySQL Compass connection for the current list of stores.

Stores already in the grid are updated (SKU counts refreshed). New stores are added automatically. Stores that no longer appear in the source are soft-deleted from the list.

Cloud Store Settings

When the Store Manager opens, it checks for cloud-stored defaults for your organization. If Margin Master has on file a vendor store number, RSC code, zone override, or excluded flag for a given POS store, those values are automatically applied to any store where the field is currently blank. This speeds up setup for multi-store organizations.

When you enter a vendor store number, the RSC code and assigned zone are also looked up and filled in automatically. The zone comes from your local Ace zone sync data when the store is already known there, and directly from the cloud when it isn't (for example, a store you just added that hasn't been through a vendor sync yet).

Store Grouping

Groups let several stores share one zone and be priced together. This is an advanced topic - see Store Grouping.

Saving Changes

Changes are saved automatically when you close the window. You can also click Save in the footer at any time to save without closing.

Tip: Changes to vendor store numbers take effect on the next import or sync. A rebuild of the main pricing table is required before price changes appear in the main grid.

Common Questions

Q: My vendor store number is filled in but the store still shows "Needs Setup". A: This shouldn't happen — "Needs Setup" only shows when the vendor store number is blank. If the column appears blank after you typed it in, check that you pressed Enter or clicked away to commit the edit.

Q: A store disappeared from the list after I refreshed. A: Stores that no longer appear in your POS data source are soft-deleted (their row becomes hidden). If a store was accidentally removed, it will reappear the next time it's present in the POS data source when you refresh again.

Q: The "Ace Zone" column shows a different zone than expected. A: The assigned zone is read from your AceStoreDepartmentZoneRecords sync data. Use Options > Refresh Ace Zones to re-check every store against the latest data. If you need to override it, enter the correct zone in the Zone Override column.

Q: I'm using Epicor but the "Rescan" button is grayed out (Demo Mode). A: The discover and edit operations are disabled in Demo Mode. This is expected.