Data Validation FAQs

Frequently asked questions and troubleshooting tips for Data Validation

Updated over a week ago

All historical data in Toolio is imported from your sales, inventory, and purchase order feeds. The categorical hierarchy in which this data is aggregated and displayed is then established by your product feed. Below are a list of frequently asked questions and troubleshooting tips to help guide your Data Validation process. Please also find linked a step by step guide through the Post Import Data Validation for Merchandise Planning and Item Planning.

As a general rule of thumb, a great starting point for investigating data discrepancies is to use the "Show Raw Data" function within Toolio.

Please see below for a breakdown of all raw metrics by the Data Model/Data Feed they are sourced from, followed with FAQs by model:

Data Model (Source of data)

Metric

Sales

  • Gross Sales Retail

  • Gross Sales Units

  • Gross Sales Cost

  • Markdown

  • Discount

  • Returns Ticket

  • Returns Units

  • Returns Cost

Inventory

  • BOP Ticket

  • BOP Retail

  • BOP Units

  • BOP Cost

Purchase Order

  • On Order Retail

  • On Order Cost

Receipts

  • Receipts Retail

  • Receipts Cost

  • Receipts Units

Please Note: If your account is not utilizing the Receipts model then the Receipts Metrics would be validated through the Purchase Order model

Product

For Unit Cost, should I use Landed Cost, FOB Cost or Ex-Factory Cost

Let's first align on the terminology:

  • Ex-Factory Cost: This is the fully loaded production cost, not accounting for transportation and duties.

  • FOB Cost: This is the Ex-Factory Cost + Transportation cost, but typically excluding other costs such as duties.

  • Landed Cost: This is the fully loaded cost for an item

Unit Cost should be coming from the Landed Cost, i.e. the fully loaded cost of an item.

Landed Cost, is the fully Loaded Cost for an item, accordingly that is what should be sent as Unit Cost into Toolio to have the most accurate margin information on plans and forecasts. If needed, other costs, can also be sent to Toolio as additional attributes in Product / Variant feeds and also be set up in Assortment Plan.

Sales

Gross Sales Cost in Toolio is lower than expected

If your sales data was imported through Shopify integration, please make sure that all products in your Shopify account are attributed with accurate costs at the variant level.

Gross Sales Retail in Toolio is lower than expected

Gross Sales Retail in Toolio is defined as topline sales after discounts and markdown but before returns. Please make sure that your discounts and markdowns have been deducted from your topline sales when comparing against the Gross Sales Retail values in Toolio. You can read more about the metrics in Toolio and how they are defined here.

Discounts in Toolio are higher than expected

If you are using a returns solution (i.e. Loop Returns) through Shopify, please make sure that you have discussed the reconciliation process with your Customer Success Manager.

Markdowns are showing as 0

Markdowns are not captured natively through the Shopify Order API. Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager to discuss solutions.

Inventory

Some EOP/BOP metrics are 0

If you see EOP (BOP) cost, EOP ticket, or EOP retail values showing as 0, this is usually because these fields are not being captured on the inventory feed.

I don't see Inventory for all of my Locations

Please discuss with your Customer Success Manager which locations are being captured through your inventory feed.

Purchase Orders

On order and receipt values are lower than expected

Please make sure that there are unique identifiers (PO Number, Delivery Id, Variant Id, and Location) being passed through your purchase order feed for all lines. If you have split deliveries, please pay particular attention to the Delivery Id. Additionally, please make sure that the status for all lines you would wish to see in Toolio are marked as 'active'.

On order and receipt values are higher than expected

This discrepancy may be due to PO cancellations not being captured properly. Please make sure that all cancelled PO's are set to status "inactive". Please also note that on order values are aggregated with respect to the PO Due Date whereas receipt quantities are aggregated according to the PO Delivery Date.

Alternatively, you can work with your Customer Success Manager to enable full data syncs for the Purchase Order feed. This will make sure that all POs after the first order data in your data feed will be deleted before importing a new feed, hence removing all stale Purchase Orders automatically.

Receipts (for customers using the Receipt data feed)

How do I compare what I've Received vs. what I've ordered?

If your account is configured to utilize the Receipt feed, you can find Receipt Total values on any view within the Purchase Order Master Data Table. This includes Receipt Units, Receipt Cost, Receipt Retail, and Receipt Ticket totals which are aggregated across all receipts and tagged to the PO Line of the original order.

For example, if you have 3 separate receipts of an item for a single PO Line, you will see the total of all 3 receipts summed in reference to the PO Line so that you can easily compare what you ordered against your total receipts.


Related Articles
Merchandise Plan Data Validation

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