Who this guide is for
For the business that has no system today: the warehouse notebook, paper order slips, the “check if we still have some” over the phone. It’s the most common situation in a building supply yard that grew fast, and it’s not a problem: you start with no old data to clean up.
What you do need is an opening stock you can trust. Everything Aty calculates afterwards (what’s available, what to order, what gets published on each channel) comes from that first number.
What data to migrate
- Products: start with the ones you sell the most. With 100 or 200 products loaded properly you can already sell with Aty; add the rest as they come through the counter.
- Opening stock by warehouse: counted, not estimated.
- Prices: the counter price is enough to start. You can build price lists by customer type later.
- Customers with a customer account: only the ones who owe you, with every note or document you have and its date.
- Suppliers: the five or ten you buy from the most, with how many days they take to deliver.
How to prepare the file
You don’t need to know Excel. A sheet with these columns is enough, and you can fill it in on a computer or on your phone:
| codigo | nombre | categoria | unidad | precio | deposito | cantidad |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CEM-PC50 | Cemento Portland CP-II 50 kg | Cements | bags | 62500 | Luque | 412 |
VAR-08 | Varilla Ø8 mm × 12 m | Steel bars | bars | 38000 | Luque | 1710 |
CAL-25 | Cal hidratada 25 kg | Cements | bags | 24000 | Luque | 96 |
If you don’t have codes, invent them now with a simple rule and stick to it: three letters for the family and something that tells items apart (CEM-PC50, VAR-08, CAÑ-PVC100). The code identifies the product across the whole business and on every channel, so it should be short and never change.
Another option, if you only have a few products: load them one by one in Aty. The product form asks for the code, name, category, unit, currency, price, cost, minimum and the stock it starts with.
Step by step
- Pick a day to count. A Saturday afternoon or a Sunday, with the warehouse closed. Counting with the counter open means counting something that’s moving.
- Divide the warehouse into zones (cements and limes, steel, plumbing, paints) and assign one person per zone.
- Count and write it down on the sheet: code, quantity and which warehouse it’s in. One person counts, another writes.
- Load the product list into Aty from Import, choosing Products: the sheet above works as is, and since it includes warehouse and quantity, the counted stock goes in the same step. Before confirming, you see which rows have errors and fix them right there. If there are only a few products, you can also load them one at a time.
- Load the counted stock. It enters as each product’s first movement, with its reason: from then on, every inflow, outflow, transfer or adjustment is recorded along with who made it.
- Set the minimum for your best sellers. It’s the number below which Aty alerts you. To start, use what you sell in a week.
- Give your team access with their role: Warehouse for whoever receives and dispatches, Counter for whoever sells, Administration for whoever collects payments.
- After two weeks, do a blind count of the fastest-moving items. Whoever counts doesn’t see what Aty expects, and differences are adjusted with their reason. It’s the best way to know whether the start went well.
A tip for getting started: if you can’t count everything in one day, count what you sell the most first and load only that. A product that isn’t in Aty is a product that isn’t sold through it yet; a product with made-up stock gets sold even when it’s not there.
Common mistakes
- Loading stock “more or less.” If you start with estimated numbers, Aty will show you a system that doesn’t match the warehouse, and the team stops believing it within a week.
- Trying to load all 3,000 products on day one. Start with the ones that sell. The full catalog gets built as you go.
- Different names for the same thing. “Cemento 50,” “Portland 50 kg” and “Cemento gris” are one product: choose one name and always use it.
- Not defining units. Steel: by bar or by kilo? Sand: by m³ or by wheelbarrow? Decide before counting, not after.
- Keeping the notebook “just in case.” Two records end up being two numbers.
Final checklist
- You have a list of the products you sell the most, each with its code.
- Every product has a defined unit.
- Stock was counted with the warehouse closed, by zones.
- The fastest-moving products have their minimum.
- Every team member logs in with their own user and role.
- The first control count is on the calendar.