Create a retail store
A retail store is created as a Commerce channel record in the All stores page. A retail store requires a one-to-one (1:1) relationship with a warehouse and operating unit. The warehouse must be configured before the store is created. The operating unit is created automatically when the store record is created.
Watch the following video to learn how to create a retail store.
Each store has some important store configurations to consider:
- Legal entity - The legal entity where the store’s transactions will post.
- Time zone – The time zone in which the store operates.
- Language – The language that is used for the store data.
- Currency – The default currency for the store.
- Warehouse - The warehouse that is used for the store inventory. The Store Commerce can only sell out of a single warehouse location.
- Functionality profile - Contains configurations for how the registers should operate.
- Profile configurations – Configurations that are used to define technical architecture details, such as retail server and Store Commerce for web URLs, offline database schema, and more.
- Sales tax configurations – A grouping of configurations that is used to determine sales tax configurations, such as the store’s tax group, and whether the store should use destination or customer-based taxes.
- Default customer ID - Assigned for transactions where no customers are specified. All transactions will be aggregated in a sales order by using this default customer ID.
- Screen layout ID – The default screen layout ID that is used for all registers and users, unless it is overridden.
- Post as business day – Offsets the end-of-day time. For example, a store might close after midnight and wants transactions that happen until 2:00 AM to be posted as the previous day’s sales.
Address books
Two address books are also configured on the store:
- Customer address book
- Employee address book
Customer address book
The Customer address book is used to define the scope of customers who should be synchronized to the store for in-store visibility. This consideration is important when large volumes of customers might not need to be seen within the Store Commerce. The Customer address book reduces the size of the Customer table to improve in-store performance and reduces the number of customers that store workers must sort through when they are trying to find a customer.
If a customer isn’t included in the store's Customer address book, the sales associate can search for the customer's information in the Store Commerce by using a real-time connection, and then they can pull the information into the store for use as needed. Each customer is assigned a Customer address book, which will correlate to the records in the store’s Customer address book(s).
Employee address book
The Employee address book is used to control the security of worker sign-ins to the store’s registers. Its configuration is the same as the Customer address book, but it assigns the records to workers, not customers.
Store workers are assigned to one or more configured Employee address books. One or more of these address books are then assigned to the stores. One way to block an employee from accessing any stores is to remove the Employee address book record(s) on the employee's record.
Set up tab
The Set up tab in the Action Pane provides additional channel parameters:
- Payment methods - The payment methods that are accepted in the store.
- Cash declaration – Declares the currency and denominations for the different cash types (coins versus notes).
- Modes of delivery – The modes of delivery that are valid for customer orders in the store.
- Income/expense account – Specifies the posting accounts for income and expense transactions.
- Fulfillment group assignments – A group of stores and warehouses that allow their inventory to be viewed by the store.
- Safes – The safes that are used to store cash and unused registers.
If these configurations have already been set up for a similar store, they can be copied to the current store through the Copy function on the Retail and Commerce > Channels > Stores > All stores > Stores page.
The statement posting configurations that are not set up on the Commerce parameters are set up at the store level.
Hardware stations
A store has registers and devices associated to it. The stores are associated to the registers through the register records.
Assigned to the stores are hardware stations, which the registers can use. A hardware station is a mechanism to allow multiple registers to use a singular set of shared hardware.
For example, three mobile Store Commerce tablets are being used, but only one printer and credit card device are available, which the mobile Store Commerce tablets share when they need to check out. It is also the only way that Store Commerce for web can use physical hardware in the store.
Stores can have any number of hardware stations configured for them, but they must be installed on a Windows OS device that has a connection to the physical hardware.
The Hardware stations page, shown in the following screenshot, can be found under Retail and Commerce > Channels > Stores > All stores.
