Finding Products Quickly in Your AskBiz Inventory
How to search, filter, and locate any of your 75+ products in the AskBiz Inventory — from the till search bar to the management view with stock, price, and category filters.
Key Takeaways
- Search products by name at the till — type the first few letters and the matching item appears instantly.
- The Inventory management page shows all 75 products with price, cost, and stock levels in one view.
- Filter by Low stock, Out of stock, or Expiring soon to find products that need attention.
- Use the category and sector dropdowns to narrow your view to specific product groups.
Your product catalogue at a glance
Operations > Inventory shows all 75 products in your catalogue with four key columns: PRODUCT (name and branch tag), PRICE (selling price), COST (what you paid), and STOCK (current quantity on hand). Products appear in alphabetical order by default. At the top you have three ways to add new products: Scan to add (for barcoded items), CSV import (for bulk uploads), and + Manual (for typing in a single new product). The search bar and filter pills give you multiple ways to find exactly what you're looking for.
Searching by product name at the till
At the till interface, there's a product search field at the top of the basket screen. Start typing any part of the product name — for example, type 'rice' to find all rice products instantly. AskBiz shows matching results as you type; tap the product to add it to the basket. For products with very similar names (like multiple rice varieties), the results show price and stock level alongside the name so the cashier can pick the right one without opening each product individually.
Using the Inventory search and filters
In the Inventory management page, the search bar at the top searches across all product names simultaneously. The filter pills below — All, Low stock, Out of stock, Expiring soon — let you jump straight to problem categories. Click Low stock to see every product running close to zero; this is more useful than scrolling through all 75 products looking for low numbers. The All categories and All sectors dropdowns let you further narrow to specific groups — for example, viewing only Retail sector products.
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Start for free →Understanding the PRICE vs COST columns
The Inventory table shows both PRICE (what customers pay) and COST (what you pay your supplier). The difference is your gross profit per unit. For example, AJWAD Premium Biryani Rice is priced at KSh 100.00 and costs KSh 86.00 — a gross profit of KSh 14.00 per unit. If a product's cost rises and you haven't updated the price, your margin on that product is silently shrinking. Regular review of the PRICE vs COST column catches this before it affects your overall margin significantly.
Acting on low-stock search results
When the Low stock filter shows products approaching zero, you have three immediate options: reorder from the supplier (use Operations > Purchase Orders if that feature is active), manually adjust the stock level if you've already received goods that haven't been entered yet (use the Edit function and update the STOCK figure), or deactivate the product temporarily to prevent it appearing at the till. The 4 items flagged as 'have no sector tag' in the inventory notice are also worth addressing — tagging them correctly ensures they appear in the right sector reports.
Searching across multiple branches
When the Branch dropdown at the top is set to All Branches, the Inventory search shows products across your entire catalogue. Branch-specific stock levels appear in the STOCK column with the branch name as a tag below the product name — for example, 'town' appears below products stocked at the town branch. To compare stock between town and Bondeni for a specific product, search for the product name and look at the stock figures for each branch row. This helps identify inter-branch transfer opportunities.