Source Guide
Managing the materials, supplies, vendors, and purchases that power your business
How to source materials in Ardent Seller
Add Ingredients (consumed in recipes), Packaging, MRO supplies, and Labor as inventory items. Add Vendors with contact details and ordering terms. To acquire stock, record a Purchase against a vendor — once completed, it increments the affected items at landed cost, keeps an audit trail, and can generate a purchase-order PDF. Existing on-hand stock can be set via initial-quantity entries during item creation. Everything in this guide lives under the Source group in the sidebar.
Ingredients
Navigate to Source → Ingredients to manage raw materials you purchase and use in recipes.
Fields
Name
The name of the ingredient. You always set this yourself, even for food ingredients — so you can be more specific than the food type (e.g. name it "Avocado Oil" while linking it to the "Vegetable Oil" food entry).
SKU
A unique identifier for this item. Click the auto-generate button to create one automatically, or enter your own.
Category
Pick a category from the toggle. Use "Raw Material" for non-food materials, or "Food Ingredient" to link the built-in food database for nutrition, density, and allergen data.
Description
Optional notes about this ingredient, up to 2,048 characters.
State
Draft (not yet in use), Active (currently tracked), or Archived (no longer used but preserved for history).
Tracking Unit
The base unit for measuring this ingredient (e.g., kg, lb, liters, pieces). All quantities and costs are tracked in this unit.
Bin Location
Where this item is physically stored (e.g., "Shelf A3", "Freezer 2"). Helps with physical inventory counts.
Photos
Upload up to 20 photos per item. Photos appear as thumbnails in the list view.
Replenish Point
When quantity on hand drops to this level, the item appears in Low Stock alerts.
Replenish Quantity
The standard amount to order when you restock this ingredient.
Food Database Integration
When you select the Food category, you can search the built-in food database to auto-populate nutrition information and allergen data. Allergens are automatically tagged from the following list: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. These are the nine major food allergens recognized by the FDA.
Density Conversions
For items measured in both weight and volume (like flour or liquids), density conversion factors are automatically populated from the food database when you link an item to a food entry. These factors — kg per Liter, Units per kg, and Units per Liter — enable automatic unit conversions when using ingredients in recipes.
Replenish Management
Set a Replenish Point (quantity threshold) and Replenish Quantity (how much to order). When stock falls to or below the replenish point, the item appears in the Low Stock Alert dashboard widget and on the Source → Restock Planning page, which shows what to order, how much, and by when — sorted by urgency, with optional grouping by vendor. Smart Restock can also suggest replenish points from your actual usage — see the Smart Restock guide.
Packaging
Navigate to Source → Packaging to manage boxes, bags, labels, containers, and other packaging materials.
Packaging items share the same core inventory fields as ingredients (Name, SKU, Description, State, Tracking Unit, Photos, Bin Location, Replenish Point, etc.). They are tracked separately to give you clear visibility into packaging costs versus raw material costs.
Packaging items can be assigned to recipes as components, letting you include packaging costs in your per-unit cost calculations.
MRO Supplies
Navigate to Source → MRO to manage maintenance, repair, and operations supplies.
MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) items are consumables that support your production but don't end up in your finished products — items like cleaning supplies, gloves, parchment paper, or printer ink. They use the same inventory fields as other categories.
Tracking MRO separately helps you understand the full cost of operating your business beyond just raw materials.
Labor
Navigate to Source → Labor to define labor cost items that can be assigned to recipe steps.
Labor items represent the cost of human work. You define labor types (e.g., "Baker", "Decorator", "Assembly Worker") with an hourly or per-unit rate. These can then be assigned to individual recipe steps so that labor costs are included in your recipe costing calculations.
Labor items use time-based units (hours, minutes) and track cost per unit of time. They are not physically inventoried but are essential for accurate per-product cost calculations.
Vendors
Navigate to Source → Vendors to manage your supplier relationships.
Fields
Name
The vendor or company name.
State
Draft, Active, or Archived.
First Name / Last Name
Contact person at this vendor.
Vendor email address for communication.
Phone
Vendor phone number.
Website
Vendor website URL.
Street Address
Full mailing address (street, city, state/province, postal code, country). Displayed on generated purchase order PDFs.
Default Lead Time
Typical days from placing an order to receiving it. Used to compute order-by dates in Restock Planning; items can override it individually.
Minimum Order
The vendor's minimum order value. Shown when planning restocks so you can batch orders past the minimum.
Ordering Notes
Free-form notes about how to order from this vendor (portals, rep contacts, cutoffs).
Ordering Terms
Each vendor can carry a Default lead time (days from order to delivery), a Minimum order value, and free-form Ordering notes. Lead times feed the order-by dates on Source → Restock Planning, and individual items can override the vendor default with their own lead time.
Vendors are linked to purchase transactions. The vendor detail sheet includes price history and spend panels, and the Top Vendors and Vendor Concentration dashboard widgets use vendor data to show spend rankings and dependency analysis.
Purchases
Navigate to Source → Purchases to record materials and supplies you buy from vendors.
Transaction Fields
Transaction Number
A reference number for this purchase (e.g., PO number, invoice number). Can be auto-generated or manually entered.
Vendor
Select the vendor you are purchasing from. Links to your vendor records.
Status
Initiated, In Progress, Completed, Canceled, or Returned. Only completed purchases affect inventory.
Initiation Date
The date the purchase was placed or started. Defaults to today.
Completion Date
The date goods were received and the purchase was finalized.
Tax Category
IRS Schedule C category for tax reporting. Assign to categorize this expense for tax time.
Payment Methods
Select one or more payment methods. Method fees (fixed + percentage) are auto-calculated.
Line Items
Each purchase contains one or more line items. For each item you specify the inventory item (or a free-form description), the package unit and quantity, cost per package, and optional batch/lot number, brand name, country of origin, and expiration date. The system calculates total quantity, cost basis, and portion of purchase cost automatically.
Costs & Totals
Beyond item costs, you can record surcharges, discounts, tax, shipping, and miscellaneous fees. Payment method fees are auto-calculated based on your configured transaction methods and their fixed/percentage fee structures. The total is: items + surcharge - discount + tax + shipping + fees + method fees.
Purchase Order Generation
You can generate a PDF purchase order for any purchase transaction. The purchase order includes your company name, vendor name and address, PO number, date, an itemized list of items with quantities and prices, and all totals. Generate a purchase order from the row actions menu in the purchase list, or from the Generate Purchase Order button in the purchase detail view.
Transaction Status
Purchases move through statuses: Initiated (created), In Progress (for multi-day orders), Completed (received and finalized), Canceled, or Returned. Only Completed purchases update your inventory quantities and cost calculations.
Import Invoice (AI Capture)
Instead of keying a purchase in by hand, use the Import invoice button on the Purchases page to upload a vendor invoice (PDF or photo). Ardent Seller extracts the vendor, dates, line items, and costs for you to review before anything is saved. See the Invoice Import guide for the full walkthrough.
Common List Features
All inventory and transaction lists share these features:
- Search — filter by name, SKU, or description
- State filter — show active, draft, or archived items
- Sorting — click any column header to sort ascending or descending
- Bulk actions — select multiple rows to change state or delete in batch
- Pagination — choose 5, 10, 20, 50, or 100 items per page
- Column visibility — toggle which columns are shown (saved to your browser)
- Export — export list data to CSV
- Import — import data from CSV files
- Audit trail — view the full change history for any individual record