ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

The new ScanPower Unity program provides many more benefits than its previous version but not all of them are obvious. This Step-byStep will show you where to find the new data report that comes free with ScanPower List and how to use it. I have asked ScanPower to put this report under its own tab at the top of the page and received feedback that this was a good idea. Depending on when you are reading this, you may click on a Reports tab to get to this report. In this Step-by-Step I will also cover how to sort the report in Excel and use it to gather data for your bookkeeping, CPA, etc. To get started, go to: https://unity.scanpower.com and sign in to your account. You will see a mostly blank screen with tabs at the top. Choose Settings and List

If you are interested in knowing more about the other settings on this page, see my previous Step-by-Step on the new Unity HERE. For this Step-by-Step we are focusing on the data report. With the settings open, scroll down to Inventory. The picture is on the next page. First, make sure your inventory has been recently synched with Amazon. Click on Sync Now. Next, click on View My Inventory. See next page for image.

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

All your inventory will show up active and inactive along with all your notes, prices, MSKU, FNSKU and much more. This raw data is unsorted. You will need to download it to sort it. Well cover that next. I have over 11,000 MSKUs right now but less than 4,000 are active.

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

As of the date of this report (Jan 2014), there is no way to sort the data onscreen. That may change in the future. In the meantime, you can download the report and use Excel or some other spreadsheet program to open it. Go to the very bottom of the page of your report. On the far right-hand side you will see a tiny link that says Download. Click on it.

You will now see a pop up screen and be given the option to open the file or save it. Excel is the default for my computer. If you don t have Excel, you may see something different or no Open with option at all. You can choose to save the file and then open it later from inside your chosen spreadsheet program. The file is a .CSV file which means it can be opened by pretty much any spreadsheet program. The data is separated by commas (CSV=comma separated values). See the picture below:

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

Save the file right now in a place that youll be able to find again in the future. Once your file is open in your spreadsheet, you will see a lot of data squished together. The first thing I do is sort the data so it is easier to read.

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

Click on the upper far left corner to select all the data. Your screen will change color to indicate that the data is selected. Next, choose Sort & Filter on the upper right-hand corner of your screen. You want to select Custom Sort.

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

On this pop-up screen, you have many options for how to sort your data. First, select the My data has headers box. Next, choose the column by which you want to search first total-qty. Next, choose largest to smallest:

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

Next, click on Add Level to add an additional search to your first one. It will be performed sequentially. In my case, I chose to also search by MSKU. You can add more levels to your search if you want. For me this is all I need for now. Click OK.

The data will be sorted but still hard to read at this point. I select all the data again (upper left-hand corner) and choose format and then auto-fit column width. This will make it much easier to see the data (see picture on next page). At this point, you may wish to delete columns you dont need right now like your notes, the URL for the page, the FNSKU, the UPC and Updated. It is totally optional, but it makes it easier to view your spreadsheet without needing to scroll from side-to-side to view information. Select the column from the top and then right-click with your mouse. You will get another pop-up screen (see below). After you finish sorting, resizing your columns and (optionally), deleting columns, save your spreadsheet with a different file name (a save as). This will make sure you always have the original data and the modified data in case you need it in the future.

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

: Adjust the width of all your columns Delete unneeded columns and/or adjust individual columns

On the next page, you will see my cleaned up spreadsheet. Before we go further, a short glossary of terms: MSKU Merchant Stock Keeping Unit. This the name you give your individual items of merchandise. ASIN Amazons Stock Indentification Number. Each item on the Amazon catalog has its own unique web page and matching ASIN.

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

Total Quantity The total number of units you sent in to Amazon over time. Cost What you paid for an item. If youve been typing in your cost as youve priced items with ScanPower, you will see a number here. Price - This is the price youve listed for the item on Amazon.com Last Quantity This is the amount you sent in the last time.

If you look at my 100% Natural Microwave product, you will see that Ive sent in 104 of them. The last shipment I sent in had 11 units. The cost and price look weird, right? That is because when the data transferred, it did not include the decimal point. Looking at the same product and adding in the decimal point, you can see that I spent $3.89 and I priced it at $19.98 most recently. Im assuming Im matching someone since Im normally a .99 kind of gal. This decimal point problem is a known issue and it may be fixed by the time you go to pull down your data. If not and if you really want to see those decimal points here is the workaround. If you dont care or the problem is fixed, skip down to where we start using the information to make decisions:

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

Decimal Point Workaround: 1. Insert new columns after cost and price. Select the column to the right of the desired column. Right click and choose insert.

2. Select the top square of the new column after price. 3. Type in equal sign and the word sum and an open parenthesis =SUM(

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

4. Click on the first square under price. Then add the asterisk sign * and .01. Next, close the parenthesis. Your formula will look like this: =SUM(H2*.01) Hit the enter button on your keyboard. H2 = column H, row 2. Depending on the columns you deleted, your formula may start with a different letter. 5. You should see the correct number in the square now. To extend this fix to the rest of your inventory, grab the lower right-hand corner of that correct square and pull your cursor down to the end of your spreadsheet. When you stop scrolling down, the corrected numbers should show up all the way down the column.

6. Repeat this process for the cost column. 7. Now you have two columns each that say cost and two that say price. To hide the ones with the non-fixed numbers, highlight the column, right-click and then choose hide. This will hide the columns you dont want to see, but keep your formulas functioning. See the picture on the next page.

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

I know what you are thinkingthis is a pain! And it is. Im hopeful that ScanPower will fix this problem soon so advanced Excel skills are not necessary to review the data! Reviewing the Data: Now for the fun part using the data. One of the benefits of this report is that it will keep track of your inventory costs for you. You can enter your cost while pricing with ScanPower List and then later use that data for reporting to your CPA or determining how you are doing. For example, since it is real-time data, you can see your current prices vs. your cost. How much did you have to discount? What is your margin? Did you make your money off a particular item? This report will help you determine that. Since I HAD been entering my cost data all year, the first thing I did was create a report for my CPA of all the inventory I had up at the Amazon warehouse on 12/31 and what it was worth. I combined

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

the data from the Amazon reports I recommend you print off at the end of each year with this report and could tell her to the penny what my inventory was worth. Wow! If you only have 1 of each item up at the warehouse, you can simply total up your Cost column. Go to the bottom of your spreadsheet and for the empty box under cost, select it and key in the following formula with modifications for your actual numbers - =SUM(G1:G3603). Your formula will be different as G is my cost column and yours might be a different letter. Also, 3603 is how many active items I have at the warehouse. It is the end of my spreadsheet. Yours will be different, depending on how many active items are at the warehouse.

Now the sum will fill in for you. Obviously I have multiples and more advanced Excel spreadsheet work was required before my accurate total, but Im trying to keep this simple and not write the Step-by-Step guide to Excel. It works the same way as fixing the decimal points, but you are now multiplying the cost by the number of units at the warehouse and then adding up the sum of that. In addition, besides not taking into account my multiples, this report done for example purposes does not include leftover inventory from 2012 and 2011 that has no cost entered yet. Since ScanPower didnt have that feature back then, I didnt record it that way. Im currently adding older inventory costs from last years spreadsheet so I can provide my CPA with a final report by the end of the month. You will notice several other things about this report. For example, many items do not have a title just my newer items. I dont know why that is, but I assume it has something to do with the transition to Unity in 2013.

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ScanPower Unity Data Report Step-by-Step

If you have inactive MSKUs as I do, you will also notice they are all at the end of the spreadsheet. This is why we sorted by total-qty first. Anything without a quantity is stuck at the end. In my case, I simply deleted those nearly 8,000 inactive listings and focused on the active ones. This report also tells me which items require my attention the most. If I have 104 microwave bags to sell, then Im going to spend more of my time watching them than a textbook where I only have one copy. I currently have 185 items with more than one unit at the warehouse. It is easier to spend my time repricing 185 items rather than 3,603. This is not to say I never reprice my books but rather that I spend more time on my multiples. If I had wanted to, I could have sorted by condition, price, MSKUanything. If you dont delete the column with the URL, you can click directly from your spreadsheet to the Amazon page and look at who else is selling that product and for what prices. Because the data opens up into a spreadsheet, it is easy for me to combine with data from Amazon.com. I can also pull data into my Quickbooks (most bookkeeping programs have the ability to pull in data from a spreadsheet) if I want to. Enjoy your new report! Please be sure to send praise, suggestions or questions relating to the software to ScanPower at: support@scanpower.com.

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