Points & Inventory Overview

Points & Inventory is where your team manages the shop catalog, on-hand stock, and client checkouts that use points (or vouchers). Open it from the main sidebar.

Common pages

• Inventory Items — the catalog of goods clients can receive
• Stock — quantities on hand, lots, and receipts
• Checkouts — claim history after items leave stock
• Register — a fast, front-counter checkout screen with a searchable catalog, cart, and payment. See Register: Fast Checkout with Catalog Search and SKU Quick-Add.

Inventory items vs. stock

These two terms mean different things. Look for the short info tooltips next to each label in the app:

• Inventory item is the shop listing (for example “Diapers”), including its name, point cost, and rules. Clients pick inventory items in the shop. Creating an inventory item does not track how many you have until you receive stock for it.
• Stock is the quantity you actually received and still have on hand for an inventory item. Receiving a donation or delivery adds stock; a client claim (checkout) uses it up. Clients can only claim what you have in stock at their center.

An inventory item can also carry a photo and extra barcode aliases (beyond its canonical SKU) so staff can recognize and scan it faster at checkout. See Inventory Tracking for how to add these. Renaming an item or changing its price only affects checkouts from that point forward; past claims keep the name and price that applied when the client received the item.

Use Inventory Items and Stock for all catalog and quantity work — shop goods, medical supplies, and other resources your center hands out.

Client points balance and activity

A client’s overall points balance and activity feed live on their Points tab. That balance can include shop activity, BrightCourse points, and classes & benefits. See:

• Points on Client Records
• Points Activity: Unified Points Across Sources

Receiving stock

You can add donated stock directly from a donor’s in-kind gift in Giving. Open the in-kind gift, find Linked Boutique Stock from this gift, and select Receive into Boutique. Choose an existing catalog item or create a new one, enter the quantity received, and optionally add a lot number.

You will only see this action when Points & Inventory is enabled for your organization and your account has permission to add boutique stock. Full setup steps: Inventory Tracking.

Keeping an item’s name off receipts

Some items carry sensitivity that a checkout receipt shouldn’t broadcast — a text receipt can land on a phone screen other people see. On an inventory item’s settings, turn on Private (hide name on receipts) so that item’s name is left off any client-facing receipt while still counting in the item and point totals. New items default to not private.

Stock transfers between centers

A center can ship a specific stock lot to another center. The transferred quantity leaves the source center’s on-hand total as soon as it ships, but it does not become available at the destination until someone there physically receives it. In between, it shows only as an in-transit quantity on the transfer, so no center can accidentally promise a client goods that are still on a van.

Receiving supports partial shipments and can record exception quantities (damaged, lost, or missing) with a reason, so a shipment that never fully arrives can still be closed out. A transfer can only be cancelled before it ships. See Stock Transfers: Moving Inventory Between Centers for the full workflow.

The points wallet and balance

The Balance card on the Points & Inventory workspace shows the client’s points wallet. The wallet is global across your organization, not tied to a single center. A client’s available points are the sum of:

• Shop points — earned or spent when claiming inventory items
• BrightCourse points — point adjustments imported from BrightCourse
• Classes & Benefits points — points from classes, material assistance, and other benefit-type records

The Balance card shows a source breakdown so staff can see where points came from.

Checking out and overdraws

When you build a checkout, the quote shows the total points required and the client’s current wallet balance. BrightCourse and Classes & Benefits points count toward what a client can spend in the boutique, the same as shop points.

Some catalog items also carry a redemption limit on top of points, such as one per client per year. A limit like this blocks a checkout on its own terms, regardless of how many points the client has or how much stock is on hand. Only a supervisor’s approval at the counter can create a one-time exception. See Claiming Items With Points for how a limit block and a supervisor override look in the checkout dialog.

If the total points required exceed the client’s available balance, the checkout is not blocked outright. The quote flags the shortfall as a warning, and staff must confirm the overdraw before the checkout can complete. Once confirmed, the checkout completes normally and the client’s wallet balance can go negative. Acknowledging an overdraw only waives a points shortfall; it never waives an item’s redemption limit.

A negative balance stays visible on the Points tab and in the wallet balance until the client earns enough points to cover it. Staff can still give points or process a new checkout for a client who is already over their balance; each new overdraw requires its own confirmation.

Voiding a checkout

Voiding a checkout reverses its points and restores its stock together, as a single all-or-nothing action. If the system cannot restore the stock for any line on the checkout (for example, the stock lot involved was deleted or reassigned), the entire void is cancelled: the checkout stays completed, points are not refunded, and stock is left untouched. You will see an error rather than a success message. This keeps points and stock from drifting out of sync. If a void keeps failing, check that the stock lot on the checkout still exists before contacting support. Voiding a checkout also frees up any redemption limit the checkout had counted against.

Low-stock alerts are center-scoped

Each item’s low-stock threshold is evaluated per center, not across your whole organization. If Center A runs out of diapers while Center B is well stocked, Center A still gets its own low-stock alert. An alert fires only when a center’s on-hand quantity crosses the threshold, so repeated checkouts that stay below the threshold do not create repeat alerts. Receiving stock or voiding a checkout that pushes a center back above the threshold clears it as restocked. A later drop back below the threshold raises the alert again. Stock adjustments and cycle counts tied to a specific lot are attributed to that lot’s own center automatically.

Register for fast, front-counter checkout

Register is a dedicated checkout screen, separate from the client Points tab dialog, with a searchable and filterable catalog, a cart with SKU quick-add for barcode scanners, and payment in one three-column layout. See Register: Fast Checkout with Catalog Search and SKU Quick-Add.

Boutique devices for mobile checkout

A center can pair iPads or phones for checkout-only boutique work, without signing those devices into full CoolFocus accounts. An administrator generates a short-lived pairing code from the center’s settings page, and staff scan or enter that code on the device to pair it. Paired devices are limited to catalog browsing, client lookup, and checkout at the one center they paired into. Any device can be renamed or revoked from the same settings page. See Boutique Devices: Pairing Phones for Checkout.

Boutique operators

Running a shop counter with volunteers or part-time staff who should not have a full CoolFocus login? Set each of them up as a named Boutique Operator who signs in on the shop device with a short PIN instead. See Boutique Operators: PINs and Supervisor Approval for setup, PIN lockouts, and how supervisor approval works for overdraws and eligibility overrides.

Permissions

Points & Inventory touches both client-facing views and shop operations. Every action below is gated by a permission on User Groups; a user without the required permission is blocked from that action.

• View a client’s Points workspace or wallet balance: Clients (CPC) – View. This is the same permission used to open a client’s details in Care, so any staffer with client access can see a balance even if their group has no shop permissions.
• Give or remove points with a manual award: Checkouts – Create.
• Get a checkout quote or commit a checkout: Checkouts – Create. Quoting is grouped with committing because it previews the same wallet and pricing data a committed checkout would.
• Void a checkout: Checkouts – Update.
• Record class attendance that awards points: Attendances – Create. This is separate from checkout permissions, so a group can record attendance without redeeming or voiding points, or the reverse.
• Receive stock: Stock – Create.
• Ship or receive a stock transfer between centers: Stock – Update.

Administrators set these on the group’s Permissions tab under Settings → Security → User Groups.

Notes

• The Points tab on a client shows the current balance and recent activity. Anyone who can view clients in Care can see this balance; shop permissions are not required just to view it.
• On the Points tab, staff without a given permission see that action’s button disabled with a short note about the missing permission, rather than the button being hidden.
• Boutique actions such as awarding points, redeeming items, voiding a checkout, recording attendance, receiving stock, and shipping or receiving a transfer require the specific permissions listed above.
• Keep item and stock information current so staff can trust what they see before promising or providing support.

Related

• Inventory Tracking
• Points on Client Records
• Points Activity: Unified Points Across Sources
• Claiming Items With Points
• Register: Fast Checkout with Catalog Search and SKU Quick-Add
• Stock Transfers: Moving Inventory Between Centers
• Boutique Devices: Pairing Phones for Checkout
• Boutique Operators: PINs and Supervisor Approval