Frequently Asked Questions

How to sign up for Skyware Inventory?

All accounts, including paid subscriptions, begin with our free registration process. Click the Sign Up link to begin your registration.

You will be asked to enter some basic information about yourself, including a valid email address. And you may pick a company or account name that suits your needs.

Finally, you'll be asked to create a password that contains at least 11 characters, including 1 lowercase character, 1 uppercase character, and no more than 3 repeated characters.

Once your password is accepted you will be taken to the login screen where you can login and complete the account setup wizard, as well as verify your email. Note, if you don't see your email validation code in your inbox, please check your spam folder!

How to set up inventory items?

When setting up your inventory items it's best to consider all the things you'd like to track about your items. Skyware Inventory offers a variety of item fields, including custom ones you can set up with our ITEM DESIGNER tool.

Common inventory item tracking fields include: unique IDs, images, descriptions, categories, manufacturers, models, barcodes, upc codes, sku codes, default costs, default prices, reorder alert levels, reorder quantity, reorder vendors, and custom fields for dates, numbers, and additional contacts.

With Skyware Inventory you can create the items manually (one by one), or you can import them in bulk using our excel template. You can also enter the opening balances and costs for all your locations.

How to bulk update inventory?

Skyware Inventory makes it easy to bulk update your inventory using an excel spreadsheet. It's the fastest way to make updates to large numbers of items.

Start by exporting all your items using our export wizard. Then make the changes you need within the export file and re-import it. Skyware will automatically detect and apply your changes. It's that simple.

How to manage inventory?

Skyware Inventory is a transaction based inventory management system. Which means to add, subtract, or move inventory you will use one of our convenient transaction types: Receipts, Tickets, Transfer and Adjustments.

Receipts are for incoming inventory. These are items that you've received. When you receive and/or purchase new inventory, use a Receipt.

Tickets are for outgoing inventory. They are for items that you have sent out or sold. Whenever you decrease your inventory during the ordinary course of business, use a Ticket.

Adjustments are for items that have been lost, found, created or destroyed. These can be positive or negative. If an item is lost or destroyed, adjust it down with a negative number. If an item has been found or created, then adjust it up with a positive number.

Transfers are for moving inventory between different locations. If you have setup your account to manage multiple locations (such as stores, warehouses, shelves, or bins) - you'll want Transfers when it comes time to move things around.

How to cost inventory?

Skyware provides 3 unique ways to cost your inventory, and you can switch between them at any time, these include:

AVERAGE Costing keeps ongoing track of the average cost of your inventory without worrying about when it was received or ticketed out. It is a convenient and easy to understand inventory costing method that is accepted in virtually all jurisdictions for the purposes of tax reporting.

FIFO Costing or FIRST IN FIRST OUT removes your oldest items from inventory first on your tickets, transfers and adjustments. It is the most widely used costing method in the world, and supported by virtually all tax jurisdictions.

LIFO Costing or LAST IN FIRST OUT removes your newest (most recently received) items from inventory first on your tickets, transfers and adjustments. It is generally considered good practice when costs are rising (i.e., an inflationary environment) to more realistically report profits. However, it is not allowed in many jurisdictions for tax reporting.

How to create inventory reports?

Skyware Inventory provides several built-in reporting mechanisms for managing and monitoring your inventory.

The ITEMS module allows you to view, filter and sort your inventory and current quantities by category, location, model, and more (including custom fields). And with convenient exports to excel - taking a snapshot of your inventory is quick and easy.

The TRANSACTIONS module allows you to view, filter and sort your recent inventory transaction by type, date, reference, and more (including custom fields). And with convenient exports to excel - taking snapshot of your recent and historical inventory transactions is quick and easy.

Skyware's unique INVENTORY REPORT allows you to view, export, and print a list of your items, including their quantities and their costs. Use it to see which items are more profitable for you. And filter the results based on location, category, dates and more.

Use Skyware's ITEM REPORT to get a detailed breakdown of all of the historical transactions for an item including detailed calculations on the average, lifo or fifo costing.

How to scan inventory Barcodes?

With Skyware Inventory you can scan barcodes using either a webcam or your mobile phone. Just activate our convenient scanning feature when you setup your account. Use it to scan any one of the available scanning fields such as Model, Barcode, UPC, SKU or Unique ID.

To scan with your mobile phone you'll need to login to your Skyware account using your phone's web browser.

How to use Serial Numbers?

Whenever you add items to transactions, you can use Skyware's optional Notes field to keep track of serial numbers for those items.

How to add users to Skyware Inventory?

If you need to add additional users to your account, you will need to purchase one of our paid plans. Visit the Skyware Inventory Pricing page for more information.

About our software development, security and network?

Skyware Inventory is developed, owned and operated by Open Sky Software, Inc. based in Texas. The company has been in business for over 20 years.

The application and database is distributed across two physically separate & secure tier 4 data centers. It features PCI, HIPPA, and GDPR compliance, and all data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Please review our Privacy Policy for further details.

Skyware Inventory has been continuously operational for over a decade. The system uptime is currently 99.95% which translates to less than 35 seconds of downtime per day - typically due to routine maintenance on the site.