Loading your inventory for the first time

To list your inventory on BearingNet, you will need to load your inventory into the main database. The easiest way to do this for the first time is to email your list in an Excel spreadsheet (or similar) to stock@bearingnet.net and we will load it for you. This process is not as fast as the Automatic Inventory Upload which is explained at the end of this page.

Your inventory

The ‘Your Inventory’ is accessed either via sub-menu directly below the header, next to ‘Your Account’ or it can be accessed within the ‘Your Account’ page via the company inventory menu on the left-hand side of the page.

The screen below shows you statistical information about your current inventory and provides access to inventory management facilities.

Your inventory table

The ‘Your Inventory’ table displays information about the inventory you have loaded into BearingNet. If you do not have any inventory loaded, then no information will be displayed.

The inventory table has 1 line per inventory type. Each line shows the following information:

• Lines of Inventory: This shows the total number of lines of inventory you have loaded onto BearingNet. For example, in the image above the company has 14 different bearing records, 675 different sprockets, 2066 different belts and 2 miscellaneous items listed.
• Oldest inventory dates from: This is the date of the oldest line of inventory that you have loaded. For example, if you loaded inventory on 12th March 2015 and added more a month later. The date here would display as the 12th of March 2015 as that is the oldest inventory in your list.
• Total hits this month: A hit is a measure of the number of times your inventory has been found by in a search by other BearingNet members. For example, if you have listed an NU214 and another company searches for this, your hit count will increase by 1. This column only shows the amount of hits you have received in the current month.
• Total hits last month: This column is used to compare to the hits this month to see how your hit count is increasing or decreasing. For example, if the hit count is 2000 this month and 1000 last month then you can see that your inventory has been found more often this month and you might expect that the number of inquiries you have received has also increased.

Add inventory

You can add inventory manually. To do this click the on the ‘your inventory’ table. As shown below you will see the ‘Select Part Type’ box. Ensure the correct part type is displayed for the part you are adding.

In the ‘Add Inventory’ table the information for your part in the displayed fields for each line. You can also include additional information in the ‘Internal Reference’, ‘Location’ and ‘Source’ fields, however this is not required. You can add up to 20 lines of inventory manually at a time. Once you have entered all the parts click the ‘save’ button. This will add these parts to the BearingNet database.

If you wish to add larger amounts of inventory, please see the Automatic Inventory Upload process below.

Edit or delete inventory

Quantities of inventory can be edited or deleted manually. To edit your inventory, click on the icon

This will display the ‘Edit Inventory’ table. Your inventory that has already been loaded is displayed numerically by part number here. To find the inventory that you would like to edit or delete, either browse through the inventory using the page numbers at the bottom of the page or use the search facility at the top.

For example, to find a NU214 bearing, select the part type as bearing, then enter nu214 into the search box and select ‘begins’. You can also select ‘containing’ to view all part numbers with NU214 within the part number.

It is only possible to edit the quantity, description, price, and customer defined fields of the inventory. Once you have made the changes to the parts you wish to edit, click on the ‘Save’ button.

To delete a part number, click the icon and the inventory record of that part will be deleted.

Bearing inventory status

If your inventory is up to date (has been loaded within the last month) then the line will be green. If it is out of date (over six months old) then the line will be red.

The most recently listed inventory items are displayed at the top of the BearingNet search results page, so it is advantageous to regularly update your inventory list. We recommend that your list is updated at least once a month.

The next part of the table refers to any inventory problems. If there are problems with the format of your inventory list, then it will not be shown the search results page and you will not be able to receive inquiries on these parts. These problems can include entering the brand in the same column as the part number, or part number in the brand column, or not including any brand information at all.

This table will notify of you of any problems with your inventory. You can click the ‘Click here to get help’ button to view the problems and how to rectify them.

This table will also alert you if there is a significant reduction in the size of your inventory list compared with the previous month. This might be because you have fewer items to sell or because there were errors in your list that caused items to not be listed. If you do not think your latest list should be significantly smaller, then you should ensure that your list has been sent to us in the correct format. If you have further problems do not hesitate to contact us at stock@bearingnet.net.

Data Insights

The Data Insights Bolt On has been created to help you analyse the performance of your inventory, analyse part inquiry data across BearingNet and keep you up to date on the latest data and trends.

For more information about this click here

Inquiries sent & received

This chart shows you the number of inquiries sent and received by your company via the BearingNet Inquiry System each month.

This allows you to view how successful your inventory list is in generating inquiries and which companies are most interested in your products. Each table lists the top 50 companies.

Inventory health check

This section alerts you to any problems with your inventory list such as a significant reduction in your inventory or any other issues.

Request your inventory list

Click on ‘Download your inventory file’ to send an email of your entire inventory that you currently have listed on BearingNet as a text file attachment to the current user. The file that is send is formatted in the exact format needed to automatically upload inventory. You can use this file to prepare your inventory by editing the date in the file and once completed, reload the inventory into BearingNet using the automatic upload facility.

Automatic inventory upload

You can automatically upload your inventory using the auto upload program. There are two options to make sure your list is ready for this. These are:

Create your auto upload list manually from your normal inventory listing.

Obtain a copy of your inventory list that is currently loaded into BearingNet, which is correctly formatted for user within the auto upload program. To do this see ‘Request your inventory list’ above.

Creating and formatting your inventory

Once you have created your list, you will need to format it correctly. Below you can see a correctly formatted Excel spreadsheet that has all the information required to work with the auto upload program.

To create a spreadsheet, please follow these instructions:

• In cell A1 enter your BearingNet Username (which you use when you login to BearingNet)
• In cell B1 enter your unique BearingNet inventory identifier, this can be found on the right-hand side of the inventory page in the box titled “Automatic inventory upload. Your code will look like this example: 1ABC-ABCD-A1BC-1ABC.
• In cell C1 enter either 1 or 0. 1 means you wish to REPLACE your entire inventory in BearingNet with this new list. 0 means you wish to ADD the items in this list to your existing inventory on BearingNet.
• In cell D1 enter your email address that you want the receipt to be sent to. This email will confirm that your inventory list has been entered successfully.
• Rows 2, 3 and 4 contain information regarding the spreadsheet and a key for each part type.
• Column A is for the PART NUMBER of the item you wish to enter.
• Column B is for the BRAND of the item you wish to enter.
• Column C is for the QUANTITY of the item you wish to enter.
• Column D is for the DESCRIPTION of the item you wish to enter.
• Column E is for the PT TYPE of the item you wish to enter.
• Column F is for the PRICE of the item (optional)
• Using the ! character means this line of information will be ignored by the auto upload program and not entered into BearingNet.

The PT Type is the most important part of your auto upload excel spreadsheet. If you do not enter the correct information, your inventory will not be processed.

The different PT type codes are shown in the image above.

Once you have completed your excel spreadsheet with all the items you wish to enter the BearingNet search system, check that you have entered all the information required for the program to work correctly: Username, Stock ID, 1 or 0, email address and PT Type

The main reason a list is rejected by the auto upload program is missing information. If you save the file in any other format, then it will be rejected.

Loading via FTP (advanced users)

If you would like to load your inventory via FTP, the settings are available from support@bearingnet.net You will not see any files on the remote server, but you can simply transfer your files across. In which case, enter the address ftp://stock.bearingnet.net.

Delete your entire inventory

You can delete inventory manually. However, if you wish to delete your entire inventory listed on BearingNet then please send an email to stock@bearingnet.net. We will verify that you are authorised to make this request and then delete this inventory for you. Only BearingNet can delete your entire inventory.

Manage who sees your inventory

You can set rules to control who can view your inventory and therefore place inquiries to you. For more information about how to set rules. Please see the rules help page.