Making Changes with VMXpert

On stores where data changes are enabled, VMXpert can do more than look things up — it can update items, build purchase orders, and fix data for you. Every change follows the same rule:

Nothing is written to your data until a person reviews it and clicks Confirm.

The review card

When you ask VMXpert to change something, it prepares the change and shows a card headed "Review before applying" — a plain-English list of every change it wants to make, with two buttons:

Confirm & apply — the changes are written.
Cancel — nothing happens at all. VMXpert confirms: "Cancelled — nothing was changed."

The card survives a page reload, and if you walk away without clicking either button, the proposal doesn't disappear — it waits on the Approvals page for you (or another admin) to decide later. See Approvals.

For a long list, the card shows the first dozen changes with a Show all link, and a Download as a spreadsheet link so you can check the whole set in Excel before deciding. Downloading it changes nothing — the proposal is still waiting for your Confirm.

There is no undo

The review step is the safety mechanism. Once you click Confirm, the changes are applied — there's no undo button. Read the list before you click.

Filling in missing data in bulk

VMXpert can fill a field across many items at once — plant attributes that were never entered, website descriptions, short sign blurbs. Ask for it the way you'd ask a person: "Which perennials are missing their light requirement?", then "Fill those in, but show me a few first."

It works in a fixed order, and the order is the point:

It counts first. "482 items in Perennials have no website description" — before anything is written, you know the size of the job.
It shows you a sample. Five to ten items, chosen to include the awkward ones, with the actual text it would write. This is where you judge whether it sounds like your store.
It tells you the price. Bulk writing uses AI credits, so it measures the sample and projects the real total: "the sample cost 0.1 credits, so all 482 comes to about 19."
You approve the wording and the cost before a single item changes.
It works in small batches — around 25 items per review card — and pauses after the first so you can check the result before it carries on.

Two things to know before you start. Ask it to skip anything it can't work out honestly rather than guess: a wrong plant fact reads as authoritative and a customer will act on it. And some fields publish — a website description goes to your website and your Google Shopping listings as soon as it's applied — so VMXpert says which ones do, and you should read that line.

If a job is genuinely large, don't be surprised when it proposes several rounds instead of one. That's deliberate: a list nobody can read isn't a review.

What VMXpert can change

Items — create and update, including automatic PLU assignment for new items
Item attributes — light, height, bloom, and any other attribute your store uses, including in bulk
Collections — add items to, or remove them from, an online-store collection, including in bulk (see below)
Website descriptions — the long description your website and Google Shopping listings show
Item part numbers
Barcodes — add a barcode to an item, or take one off
Sales orders and work orders — build one from a list of items (see below)
Customers — create and update (a customer can't be deleted; mark it Inactive instead)
Vendors — add a new vendor, or change an existing one's details (see below)
Purchase orders — create, update, receive, and close, including individual line items
Vendors and daily journal entries — re-push to QuickBooks
Emails and file attachments

Ask VMXpert to build a sales order

When a customer sends you their order as a spreadsheet or a list, you can hand it straight to VMXpert instead of typing it into the register:

Here's the order from the school board. Match these to our items and build me a sales order for them.

VMXpert matches the items, then shows you a review card with the whole order on it. Nothing is saved until you click Apply. Once you do, the order is on the system like any other held ticket, and a cashier recalls it at the register the usual way.

Three things worth knowing:

It prices the order the way the register prices it. Quantity breaks, deals and tax come out the same as if someone rang the cart through the till. You don't need to work out the total yourself, and you shouldn't be quoted one before the order exists.
Give it a price only where you've agreed one. Leave a line's price blank and the item prices normally, which is what you want almost every time.
It can't change an order afterwards. Adding a line, fixing a quantity or cancelling the order is done at the register, because a held order can be holding stock back for that customer.

If a code on the list doesn't match anything in your inventory, VMXpert tells you which ones before it builds anything, rather than leaving you an order with lines missing.

Ask VMXpert to add a vendor

When an invoice or an order sheet arrives from a supplier you haven't bought from before, ask VMXpert to set the vendor up:

We're starting to buy from Kawartha Dairy. Add them as a vendor — terms are Net 30, and our account number with them is 44810.

VMXpert first checks your vendor list for a name that's close, including inactive vendors. Suppliers often turn up under slightly different names, and a second record splits their order history in two. If it finds a likely match, it asks you before it adds anything.

The new vendor is set up the same way the New Vendor button on the Vendors page does it: active, with the other checkboxes off. You see it on a review card first.

You can also ask it to change an existing vendor's name, code, account number, terms, shipping method, website, order minimum, freight settings or remit-to address, or to mark a vendor inactive.

Some vendor settings are left for you to change on the vendor page. These are the 1099 details and tax ID, the QuickBooks link, the payable vendor, the A/P-only and exclude-from-cost settings, and the vendor's contacts. VMXpert can't delete a vendor or merge two vendors. Use the vendor page for that.

If you want a purchase order from a brand-new vendor, VMXpert adds the vendor first, then builds the PO. That takes two review cards, one after the other.

Ask VMXpert to add a barcode

Scanned codes that don't come up at the register are usually just a barcode that was never recorded against the item. You can ask for one at a time or in bulk:

This case of gloves scans as 063442100194 and it's not finding it. That's our PLU 5600.

Here's the barcode sheet from the vendor. Add these to the matching items.

An item can have as many barcodes as it needs, so adding one never replaces the codes already on it. A barcode that's already on that item is left alone, so re-sending the same sheet twice is safe.

A barcode belongs to one item only. If the one you're adding is already recorded against a different item, VMXpert stops and tells you which item has it rather than moving it quietly — that's usually a sign the sheet and the shelf disagree, and it's worth checking before anything changes.

To move a barcode to the right item, ask for it to be removed from the wrong one and added to the right one. Both show on the same review card.

Ask VMXpert to put items in a collection

Collections group items for your online store, and VMXpert can fill one for you instead of you editing each item or building a spreadsheet. Ask in plain language — name the collection and describe the items:

Put every Agave, Aloe and Echeveria in the Cactus and Succulents collection.

Take the sold-out patio pottery out of the Gift Ideas collection.

VMXpert finds the matching items, then shows a review card summarising the whole job in one line — for example Adding 551 items to the Cactus & Succulents collection — with every item listed underneath. Nothing is written until you click Apply.

Two things worth knowing:

It only touches the collection you name. Items usually belong to several collections at once, and adding one never disturbs the others. Removing works the same way.
The collection has to exist first. VMXpert can't create one. Add it on Inventory → Departments using the Jump to: Collections button, then ask.

If VMXpert can't find the collection you named, it will say so and list your store's actual collection names — usually it's a spelling or wording difference.

You can also do this yourself with a spreadsheet using the Collections column on Inventory → Import/Export; see Adding Many Items to a Collection at Once. The spreadsheet route replaces an item's collections with whatever is in the cell, so asking VMXpert is the safer option when you only want to add.

Discounts and deals

VMXpert can now change these for you, and like any other change it will show you exactly what it is about to do and wait for you to confirm:

An item's quantity deal — buy-one-get-one, or "5 for $10" price breaks.
One customer class's price for an item — for example, what contractors pay for a particular shrub. This one needs an admin login.
Whether an item can be discounted at all — its Yes / Sometimes / Never setting.

Ask in plain language, for example "set our 3-gallon arborvitae to $9.99 each once someone buys six or more," and check the confirmation before you approve it — these are real prices on your shelf. Say "each" or "for the group" so VMXpert knows which you mean — a group price like BOGO and a per-unit price break work differently, and the wrong one is a real, wrong price.

Promotions and coupons are not yet changeable this way. Ask about one and VMXpert will tell you where the page is and talk you through it.

Reconcile a QuickBooks account with VMX

This one is read-only — it doesn't write anything to your books, it just tells you what's different. If a QuickBooks account (sales income, cost of goods sold, inventory variance, accounts receivable) doesn't match what VMX shows, ask VMXpert — for example: "Reconcile my inventory variance account for last month." It compares every day's VMX activity against QuickBooks and lists exactly what differs: entries added directly in QuickBooks, VMX days that never arrived, duplicated or edited entries. Requires QuickBooks to be connected and the QuickBooks permission enabled for your user under VMXpert AI permissions.

For balance-carrying accounts (inventory, gift cards, store credit, receivables, deposits) VMXpert also checks the account's ending balance against VMX's records, so it can tell you whether a difference comes from this period or an earlier one.

Why it's safe

Two guarantees are built in:

Changes go through the same paths as the admin screens. Approving a VMXpert change behaves exactly as if you'd typed it in yourself — the change log, permission checks, and website sync all happen normally.
Your own POS permissions apply. VMXpert acts as you. If your account can't edit inventory, VMXpert can't edit inventory for you either — no matter how you ask.

Browser actions

Separately from data changes, VMXpert can sometimes operate the screen for you — clicking a button, filling a field. Every browser action shows an "Allow browser action?" dialog first, with exactly what it wants to do and Deny/Allow buttons. Nothing touches your screen without that OK.