Venstock is a propriatary database that provides book title information as well as stock availability details from wholesalers.

It allows your store to look up information about titles that you do not have in your inventory and then to add them to your inventory if desired.

After adding them to your inventory, you can, of course, order them.

Venstock is particularly useful when trying to satisfy Customer Orders.

The database is updated weekly for new titles and stock availability.

Venstock is an optional feature in iMerchant.

If you are interested, please call us at (603) 298-5721 or send an e-mail to Mark Warner ([email protected])

If you have Venstock activated in your iMerchant system, access it as follows:

• Click the Venstock button on the NavBar
• The Find Venstock screen appears.

At the Find Venstock screen, you will run a search to find titles you are interested in viewing or adding to your inventory.

The top half of the Find Venstock screen is a search form.

The Title and Author fields both work the same way.

• Both have a field directly to the right of them that determines how you want the search to be defined.
• This field has an arrow at the right of it.
• Click on the arrow
• Select the search criterion you want from the menu.
  • Among the choices are: All of the words entered, Any of the words entered, The exact phrase entered, Is like the phrase entered, and Starts with the exact phrase entered.
  • Select the criterion that makes the most sense.
  • For example, if you know a specific author, you would choose All of the words entered, then key in the author's full name in the Author field.
• You can key in either a Title or Author or Both. You can also key in a portion of a title or author

You can also search by keying in a title's ISBN in the ISBN field, if you know it

Or you can enter a From/To Publication Date range, and perform a search on this criterion.

You can also enter a From/To Publication Date range in addition to keying in a title and/or an author.

The way you define the Venstock search is up to you.

Play around with the searches at first and find out what works best for you.

To clear any of your search criteria

• Click on the Clear button on the right side of the screen.

When you are through defining your search criteria:

• Click on the Start Search button, or simply press Enter on your keyboard.
• The system will search for all appropriate records, and, after a short pause, the grid at the bottom of the screen will fill with all of the matching title records.
• Records that are available via a vendor will have a yellow face to the left of them.
• Records that are currently unavailable via Venstock will have a red frown face.
• If a record has a green smiley face to the left of it, that indicates it currently exists as a record in your Inventory file.

Pay attention to the data at the very bottom of the grid.

The Page field will let you know what page you are on, and how many pages in the grid exist.

It may say, for example, Page 1 of 40. This is also a quick way to navigate among pages.

• If, for example, you want to go directly to page 30, key in a 30 in the Page field and press Enter.
• You will be taken directly to page 30.

To the right of the Page field, you will see the Record fields.

• This field tells you which records are being displayed and how many total records are in the grid.
• If you are on page 1, and there are 12 records displayed on page 1, the Record data at the bottom of the grid will read as follows: Record(s) 1 through 12 of 480.
• The "of 480" refers to the total number of records in the grid.

Navigating from page to page within the grid is easy.

• To proceed to the last page, click on the >| button on bottom right of the grid.
• To proceed to the first page, click on the |< button on bottom left of the grid.
• To move forward one page, click on the > button to the left of the >| button
• To move back one page, click on the < button to the right |< button
• To proceed to any specific page, key in the desired page number in the Page field at the bottom of the grid and press Enter.
• On any given page of the grid, highlight the record you want.

The columns at the top of the grid provide you with information for each of the selected records.

Pertinent data such as Onhand Amount, Vendor Locations, Unit Price, and Publication Date, are included, along with essentials such as Title, ISBN, Publisher, and Author.

Once you highlight a record, you can view the Venstock Inventory screen for it, or you can add it to your inventory, if it is not already in your inventory.

To view the Venstock Inventory screen:

• Double-click on the desired record.
• The Venstock Inventory screen displays.
  • This is an information screen that breaks down the product availability and unit price by vendor.
  • This is a good way for you to see how many copies of the title the vendors have, and what the Unit Price is per vendor.
  • If a cover image is available, it will display here.
  • Once you are finished viewing the information, simply Close out of the window.

To add a record to your store's inventory:

• Highlight the record you want to add.
• Click on the New Task Bar button at the top left of the Venstock screen.
• The New Product window displays, and the Product Number field will automatically be filled in with the title's ISBN.
  • You can change this if you want, but there is probably no need.
• The Industry field will default to Books, since that is what the Venstock database deals with.
  • You can change this but probably will not need to.
• To proceed to the Product Properties screen, click on the Next button.

iMerchant Tip: If you already have this record onhand, the system will stop you at this point. Obviously, you cannot add a new record to your inventory if the record already exists in your inventory.

• Once at the Product Properties screen, fill out the pertinent fields.
• The record is now included in your inventory, and you can order it if you want.