Managing (Customer) Firearm Storage in Retailer

Managing (Customer) Firearm Storage in Retailer

Retailer doesn't have a single dedicated "Firearm Storage" module. Instead, storage is set up by combining four existing Retailer features so that the whole thing runs together once it's configured:
  1. Recurring Invoices — automatically invoices the customer a storage fee on a schedule you set.
  2. Serial Numbers — tracks the individual firearm against the customer who owns it.
  3. Quote and Invoice Management (Proforma + Reserve Stock) — holds the firearm against the customer's account while it's in storage.
  4. An Agency Department — safe excludes the storage items from your normal sales & stock reports.
Why this approach: These firearms are the customer's property, not your stock. Reserving the item against a Proforma is the native Retailer mechanism for "this is spoken for, not available, but not gone" — it removes the reserved quantity from Quantity on Hand automatically.

Overview: What you need to create

Two stock items, sitting in one purpose-built Department:
  1. Firearm In Storage — a $0 item you use to log each individual firearm. It carries the Serial Number, gets Reserved against a Proforma for the owning customer while it's in the safe, and gets Invoiced (still at $0) when the customer collects it — which is what assigns the final serial number and timestamps the pickup.
  2. Firearm Storage Fee — the item that actually gets billed. This is what you attach to the customer's Recurring Invoice, e.g. $10/week or $40/month.
Both items live in a new "Firearm Storage" Department. You will also need a "Customer Firearm" Supplier, so that you can arrive the Firearm In Storage item.

Step 1 — Turn on Recurring Invoices & Serial Numbers

  1. On the top menu bar, click Help → Register.
  2. Check that the Recurring Invoices & Serial Numbers tick-boxes are ticked.
  3. If they are not, contact Tower Support to have them enabled.

Step 2 — Create the 'Firearm Storage' Department & 'Customer Firearm' Supplier

  1. From the main screen of Retailer, click Stock → Suppliers & Departments.
  2. Click Add and create a new Department called Firearm Storage.
  3. Tick this Department as an Agency Department.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Click the Suppliers tab, then click Add and create a new Supplier called Customer Firearm
  6. Click Save.
Why: Agency Departments can be ticked to be excluded from most sales & stock reports, including General Stock Listing (your stock-on-hand value) and the Detailed Takings Report.

Step 3 — Create the 'Firearm In Storage' and 'Firearm Storage Fee' items

This item is how you record which firearm you're holding, its serial number, and who it belongs to. It is never sold for a real price — it exists purely as a record.
  1. Go to Stock → Stock Screen and create a new item, description "Firearm In Storage".
  2. Set the Department to Firearm Storage (created above in Step 2).
  3. Set the Supplier to Customer Firearm
  4. Set the Cost & Retail Prices to $0.00. Save the item.
  5. Click the Serial tab, and tick both 'This item requires a Serial Number when arrived' and 'This item requires a Serial Number when sold', then Save.
  6. Create another stock item, this one named 'Firearm Storage Fee'. Set the same department; you can leave the supplier blank
  7. Set the Retail Price to be whatever you wish to charge per Week/Month. Save the item.
  8. Click the Other tab, then tick 'Static Qty(Non Inventory Item)', then Save.
Alternative Method: Create a new item per firearm. Instead of a single shared item distinguished by Serial Number, every firearm can instead be entered as its own individual stock item (e.g. one code/description per gun, matching its make/model). Preferable if you wold rather not rely on picking the right serial number out of a shared item's list. The trade-off is more individual items to create and maintain in the Stock Screen. Both approaches sit in the same Firearm Storage Department and follow the same Reserve/Invoice process below — pick whichever suits how many firearms you expect to be holding at once.

Step 4 — Bring a firearm into storage

When a customer drops off a firearm, you record it in two parts: getting it into the system with a serial number, then reserving it against that customer.

4a. Arrive the item with its serial number

  1. Go to Stock → Invoice Arrivals.
  2. Arrive 1 unit of Firearm In Storage against the Customer Firearm supplier.
  3. When prompted, enter the firearm's Serial Number. Use the notes field to record make, model, calibre and exact storage location if that varies per item.
  4. Finish the arrival as normal.
Why arrive it first: Reserving stock against a Proforma requires the item's Quantity on Hand to already be greater than zero — you can't reserve what isn't in stock. Arriving it is what makes the specific serial-numbered unit exist for reservation.

Using Serial Numbers in Retailer

4b. Reserve it against the customer

  1. Go to Stock Maintenance → Quote and Invoice Management, then New Quote.
  2. Select the customer who owns the firearm. You will need to add them as a new customer if not already in your system.
  3. Add 1 unit of Firearm In Storage to the quote, with a Set Price of $0.00.
  4. (Optional) Click the Note icon (paper icon in the Notes column) against this line to add any other details you want on record — calibre, licence number, condition on drop-off, anything not already captured on the item or the serial number. These notes will appear on the printed/emailed Proforma and travel with the line item through to the final Invoice.
  5. Click the Proforma/Invoice button at the bottom, and set the toggle to Proforma.
    Retailer will automatically try to reserve stock for the item — since you arrived 1 unit in Step 4a, it should show fully reserved (highlighted green). Leave "Order Stock?" unticked, since you already own the unit.
  6. Click Process.
What this does: The item now shows as Reserved on this customer's Proforma. Reserved stock is automatically removed from Quantity on Hand. You (and the customer, if you print or email the Proforma) now have a live, dated record of what's being held and for whom.

Create a Quote in Quote and Invoice Management (line item notes)
Reserving and Ordering Stock From Quote and Invoice Management

Step 5 — Set up the recurring storage fee

This is what actually invoices the customer, using Retailer's Recurring Invoices feature.
  1. From the main screen, click Customers → Recurring Invoices, then New Recurring Invoice.
  2. Select the customer who owns the firearm.
  3. Set the Frequency (Weekly/Monthly/etc.) and Start Date. Tick Ongoing unless you know the storage end date.
  4. In the item grid, add Firearm Storage Fee with a quantity of 1, and choose either standard Retail pricing or a Set Price for this customer.
  5. Click Save. The invoice will now charge automatically each period and appear on the customer's account, no different to a normal POS sale.
Setting to check: In the Recurring Invoices settings, Ignore Quantity on Hand should be ticked for the Firearm Storage Fee item — it's a service, not physical stock, so there's nothing to run out of.
Alternative Method: If you wish to charge a flat storage fee rather than an ongoing Weekly/Monthly charge, you can skip the use of Recurring Invoices and just invoice the customer manually through the POS screen.

Recurring Invoices — Schedule Regular Invoices to Automatically Charge Customers

Step 6 — Firearm collection (pickup)

When the customer comes to collect their firearm, invoicing the Proforma is both the handover record and the trigger that finalises the serial number against the customer.
  1. Open Stock Maintenance → Quote and Invoice Management and find the customer's Proforma.
  2. Click Invoice.
  3. Tick any invoice print or email options you want and click Process.
  4. Retailer will prompt you to assign the Serial Number being invoiced — confirm the matching one for this firearm.
  5. Stop the customer's Recurring Invoice: Customers → Recurring Invoices, select it, click Stop. Once stopped, it cannot be restarted — create a new one if storage resumes later.
  6. Take an account payment to pay off the Storage Fee invoices that have been invoicing to the customer's account.
What this does: Because the item is priced at $0, no payment is taken for the proforma/invoice — it  exists purely as the pickup record. Assigning the serial number at this step is what creates the permanent, searchable record of that serial number against that customer in Previous Sales, dated to the day it left the safe,

Reporting and finding stored firearms

  1. To see everything currently in storage: Viewing the Reserved Stock List for a Stock Item — from the General Stock Listing or Supplier Stock Listing report, or the Alt+T Stock Enquiry screen — shows reserved quantities and which Proforma (and therefore which customer) they're reserved against.
  2. To find who owned a firearm after it's been collected: search Previous Sales by Serial Number (see Searching For A Sale By Serial Number).
  3. Reserved stock is excluded from Quantity on Hand everywhere by default.
  4. If a customer changes their mind before dropping the firearm off, or a Proforma needs to be cancelled, see Cancelling/Refunding a Proforma Invoice or Special Customer Order — this releases the reservation back to Quantity on Hand.