Ease into Excellence: Onboarding with Finale Inventory

Change can be daunting. The thought of integrating a new system or tool into your current process can often feel like preparing to climb a mountain – strenuous and time-consuming. But what if we told you that with Finale, it’s more like a stroll in the park?…because that’s our goal, and we’ve been told it’s the reality for our new users!

At Finale, we’ve meticulously crafted our onboarding experience to be as painless and efficient as possible, recognizing the unique challenges faced during those hectic times.

Here’s the game-changer: You don’t have to jump ship immediately. We understand that transitioning should be a phase, not an overnight switch. That’s why the Finale onboarding process is designed in steps to transition both your tools and your team. Let’s review that approach.

It all starts with getting clean data into the system

1. Read-Only Data Import: We begin by pulling in data from your existing sources: spreadsheets and/or integration(s). This allows us to clearly understand your products and stock levels, title, description, price, image, UPC (varies by integration) orders, and other crucial data within Finale. The read-only approach guarantees no changes to your existing systems during this phase.

2. Data Accuracy Check: With the data securely imported into Finale, we can thoroughly review and verify its accuracy. This crucial step ensures you can rely on your Finale Inventory to accurately reflect your business operations.

3. Seamless Transition: Once we are confident that your data is accurate and ready for action, we can proceed with onboarding. We are meticulous about this phase to minimize any potential disruptions to your business.

Onboarding is where we make sure your integrations and workflows are all set up:

• Webstore, marketplace, and other sales channel configurations
• Product and product lookup importing
• Warehouse facility setup
• Other inventory setups: vendors, purchase orders, kits and bundles, accounting, reporting

All this time, we are training your team to ensure they’re prepared to use and manage Finale’s powerful platform:

Learning Finale

At Finale Inventory, we are deeply committed to your success in implementing a new inventory management system. Our onboarding process begins with a simple yet crucial question: “What are your challenges and pain points?” This question serves as the cornerstone for the personalized training we provide. We believe that understanding your unique pain points is essential to delivering effective training, which is why we put this question at the forefront.

Through a series of hands-on, interactive training sessions tailored to your specific needs, we help your team to feel empowered with the knowledge and skills needed to make the most of Finale Inventory. We understand that each business is unique, and our flexible training adapts to your requirements. Whether you need guidance on the product detail screen, want to explore advanced features, or have specific challenges unique to your business, our training process is designed to address your needs comprehensively. This level of hands-on support is what sets Finale Inventory apart and empowers you to master the art of inventory management.

Finale also offers a wide range of on-demand training resources to guide your team’s usage of the platform. From help articles to a comprehensive gallery of step-by-step instructional videos to a user-friendly onboarding guide, our goal is to ensure your team is set up for success and is comfortable handling all aspects of inventory and warehouse workflows in Finale. 

When you’re ready to go live and make your transition to Finale Inventory, we’ve got you covered

For new users of Finale Inventory, “go live” signifies a significant milestone. It’s when you’re fully prepared to start utilizing Finale Inventory as your primary inventory management system, and this means that your business is ready to push real-time stock updates to your respective selling channels. Additionally, achieving a successful go-live status includes: 

• Setting up integrations: by having completed the configuration of your integrations with Finale Inventory, you ensure that all external systems and applications work seamlessly with your inventory management.
• Disconnecting existing solutions: If you have been operating with other inventory management solutions, this critical step is to ensure that Finale Inventory becomes your central hub for all inventory-related tasks.
• Push Stock Levels from Finale: this is the true “go live” step that initiates the near real-time bi-directional sync of inventory between Finale and your various sales channels.

This is the moment when you can confidently rely on Finale Inventory to streamline your operations, minimize errors, and optimize your supply chain. It’s a significant step toward improving the efficiency and accuracy of your inventory management processes, which directly impacts your bottom line.

You’re live, so now what

With Finale, once you’ve completed your onboarding process, we don’t just wave goodbye and disappear into the sunset, never to be heard from again (like other IMS companies). We continue to be available to help with training on features new and old, to answer any questions you or your team have (even if it’s not exactly about the software), and we are there for any troubleshooting issues all throughout your Finale journey. Why? Because we are devoted to your business’s success and growth. If you win, we win, too.

Are you interested in joining the Finale family?