Number of products

[robertnj63]

ron,

Currently we have approx 60,000 inventory items. I guess the last few items we entered caused EZPOWER to stop working and we had to roll back to a previous backup to get it working. Is there any way we can increase the number of inventory items? Is there a way we can have you make this change?

Bob

LAIRD Stationery
Fair Haven, NJ
version 13.711

[ronaldrwl]

The limit is about 65,000.  That can not be increased.  Reaching the limit should not cause the program to stop working?  Were you importing products?

[robertnj63]

Ron,

You are right...that 65,000 limit is just about where we were. Yes, it did stop the program from working. I was entering product from a cash register computer and the program just froze and than closed. I went to the other registers and they closed too! I went to the server and that program was closed too. When we tried to open ezpower it would freeze right at the point when it was loading products and than the program would close. It became catastrophic as we couldnt even get into ezpower! There was no warning as to impending inventory limit. We were able to get the program open by using some back up folders and copy and pasting. Once open, we began removing non essential inventory items to get us farther away from the limit. If in the future we can have you reprogram that, please let us know. Otherwise, things are humming along with minimal glitches. Thank you!

[ronaldrwl]

Were you using the Product Edit window to add one product at a time?  The exact window you were in would help.

[robertnj63]

I was in the product edit window adding one inventory file at a time. I was entering about a list of 80 items as i normally do......than the last of couple of items were taking awhile to save.....and than the very last item the computer stopped responding and said the program encountered a problem and closed.....as well as the server and all other cash registers.

[ronaldrwl]

OK, we see where there was no limit testing in the that process.  You may have been the first to reach the limit.  We sent you an update that does limit testing in the edit window.

[robertnj63]

Thanks Ron! I downloaded the version you sent me. Is there a place where i would see this "limit test" or is it something in the software that will warn me when im close to my inventory limit?

Bob

[ronaldrwl]

It's built into the software.   It will warn you when you reach 65,000 and won't let you add any more.  Please continue to make backups regularly.  Thanks

[rjsmeyer]

Wow, Robert - that's one heck of a lot of items!!! 

I can't say I have anywhere near that many, but have found that using some of the other functions - like add-ons and modifiers - saves me from having many, many more items than I do.  I decided early on that I didn't need to separate every last detail of product to get the information that's important to me.  For example, I make blown glass items, e.g., "floats" (glass spheres).  If I wanted unique items for each possible size (I can blow them to any fraction of an inch I want), color combination (there are a couple hundred colors to combine in a near-infinite number of ways), and color patterns (done in any conceivable way you can move the glass around), I'm sure I'd be butting up against the file size limit, too.  But to be able to look at that data in any meaningful way later on would be extremely difficult. 

So,  I keep my descriptions in more general terms, and use add-ons and modifiers if I want more detail documented.  The data I export into Quickbooks is only to the Category level, and that's about 95% of any of the data I look at for making business decisions.  The other 5% - also important, certainly - is at the product level that I use EZP to go back and look at for more detailed trends.  But I found that it didn't pay in the long run to get too bogged down in detail, so I kept the product information (by Item) a little more general than I could have - and it's served me well. 

Believe me, I went through a number of approaches of organizing my inventory in EZP before I settled on something that both satisfied me and was not too cumbersome.  This might be the biggest challenge in starting with a system as affordable and flexible as EZP.  Other POS companies actually offered to send teams to get me set up, but the expense was astronomical in comparison.  And EZP provided me with an amazing number of ways of organizing an inventory, so it certainly was a challenge!

Good luck, Robert!