Manage Fleet - Archiving old inventory in your spreadsheet

Archiving old inventory in your spreadsheet

As the seasons roll by you're going to want to keep your fleet (inventory) neat and tidy.  You don't want it cluttered up with old items that you no longer own.  But your spreadsheet is the way you get new items into your system, and so it should be kept in sync with your database.

So how do you avoid clutter in the spreadsheet?

we recommend that once a year (or more if you like) you take a copy of your spreadsheet, and just let google hang on to it for reference.  They are very good at that.

Here's how you do that:

Rename the copy something like "myFleetJanuary2015" or similar.  That way you can always refer back to it if you need to look up an old item (for example if you store serial numbers in your spreadsheet).

Next you're going to want to delete the old bikes.  To do this, you remove the ENTIRE ROW from the spreadsheet of any bikes you need to remove.  Like this: (right click on LEFT HAND COLUMN of your spreadsheet; to the left of the ID column)

Here is the same thing done as a giphy - note how the whole ROW is removed:

Remember the ID lives and dies with the physical ITEM.  That is to say, when I sell an item its ID must never be re-used. However you can re-use the ID2 if you want to (your name for the item).  

Then you validate and import(upload) your spreadsheet.

When BRM detects a missing item in the spreadsheet it marks that item as 'archived' (or suspended) in the database.  This means that to all intents and purposes it has been deleted.  However BRM is clever enough to still let you view old reservations containing archived bikes.  

Please Note - it is also no good to simply delete the 'contents' of your rows, leaving the ID.  If you try to do this the validate will complain of missing data:

Don't do this:

That's it.  Happy spring cleaning!