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All About the Data Cleaner

Data Cleaner groups catalog problems like negative stock, missing prices, and thin margins by symptom, not buried in a spreadsheet. This guide covers the full feature and Margin issues; see separate articles for Negative inventory and Data issue topics.

Written by Help

All About the Data Cleaner

How Data Cleaner Works

Access requirements. View access to the "Data cleaner" permission for a store to see any tab. What you need to actually fix something varies by tab — see below.

  • It's scoped to one store at a time, with no "show every store" option. Switch stores using the selector at the top. There's also no "show inactive items" toggle here, unlike the main Product list — every tab only ever shows active items.

  • Search, Export to CSV, and the store selector work across every tab. They're not specific to whichever tab you're on.

  • You can sort and filter the item list by column, the same way you can on the main Product list. Click a column header to sort, or open a column's filter to narrow the list — including by last counted, last sold, last received, inventory source, stock, costs, and price. A column filter can hold two conditions joined by "And" or "Or," and the list shows a loading indicator while your sort or filter is being applied.

  • Tab counts update whenever you load the page, switch stores, or fix something yourself — but not from changes someone else makes elsewhere. Resolving an issue right here on this page updates the badge immediately, without a reload; a change made somewhere else in Back Office won't show up until you reload or switch stores.

  • A fourth tab, "Missing costs," exists in the system but isn't currently visible. It would flag items with no recorded average cost — for now, it's not reachable from anywhere in the UI.

The Tabs at a Glance

  • Negative inventory (the default tab) — stock counts that have gone below zero. See "Fixing Negative Stock" for the full walkthrough and its dedicated "Adjust inventory" tool.

  • Data issues — items someone has manually flagged for review by tagging them. See "Fixing Flagged Data Issues in the Data Cleaner" for the full walkthrough.

  • Margin issues — items whose recent cost-to-price ratio looks off, or that have no price at all. Covered in full below.

  • Missing costs — exists in the system but not currently visible (see above).

How Margin Issues Are Detected

  • What flags an item. Within the review window you choose, the tool looks at real stock-received events for that item — purchase orders, counts, manual adjustments, and similar. An item with no price at all is flagged as "No price." An item that does have a price is flagged when the margin implied by that price against its historical cost falls outside an acceptable range.

  • You choose how far back to look. On the "Margin issues" tab, a dropdown above the list sets the review window: "Last 30 days," "Last 60 days," "Last 90 days," "Last 120 days," or "Last 180 days." It starts at "Last 90 days" until you change it. Your choice updates the flagged list and the tab count, and carries into the fix window — including when you use "Back" and "Next" to move through several items.

  • The acceptable range is relative to a target margin, if one is set. With no target margin set anywhere, the range is roughly 10%–80%. If a target margin is set — on the item itself, or on its department if the item doesn't have its own — the range shifts to roughly that target margin plus or minus 10 points, without going narrower than that same 10%–80% outer edge.

  • Target margin can come from the item itself or its department. If the item has its own target margin set, that's used; otherwise it falls back to its department's target margin.

  • The flagged movement isn't necessarily the most recent one. It's the earliest qualifying stock-received event within the review window for that item — a more recent, perfectly fine receiving event doesn't clear the flag if an older one in the same window was the actual problem.

Where to Access Each Feature

To…

Go to

See what's flagged for margin

Stock management → Data cleaner → "Margin issues"

Fix one flagged item

That row → "Fix margins"

Fix several flagged items in one pass

Select rows → "Fix margin issues"

Fixing a Margin Issue

Step 1

Click on "Stock management" in the left-menu bar, then click on "Data cleaner," then click "Margin issues." If you want a shorter or longer review window, set the review-window dropdown (defaults to "Last 90 days") above the list before you start.

Step 2

Click "Fix margins" on the row you want to address — or select several rows and click "Fix margin issues" to work through them one at a time.

Step 3

Review "Retail," "Avg Cost," "Avg Margin," "Target," and "Difference." If the item has no price at all, set one directly where prompted.
​

Step 4

Edit "Retail" or "Target" directly if that's all the fix needs.

Step 5

For a deeper fix, review the stock movement history below. Amber-highlighted rows are the ones actually causing the flag — on a row that has an "Edit" option, click it to correct the purchase order, count, or adjustment that produced the bad cost. If a flagged row is actually correct as it stands, click "Dismiss" on that row instead: you'll see a "Margin flag dismissed" message, and that movement won't be flagged as a margin issue again. The row stays in the history but loses its amber highlight and its buttons, and the "potential issues found" count at the top of the window drops. Dismissing only removes the flag — your costs, stock and price stay exactly as they are.

Step 6

If you're working through several items, click "Next" to move to the next one.

Troubleshooting

  • An item is flagged for margin issues but the number looks wrong: the flagged cost may come from an older receiving event within the last 90 days, not the most recent one — check the movement history in the fix modal rather than assuming it's using today's numbers.

  • You can see a flagged item but can't edit anything in the fix modal: fixing a margin issue needs edit access to "Data cleaner" specifically — edit access to Product list alone isn't enough here, unlike fixing negative stock.

  • An old purchase order or inventory count has no "Edit" option in the movement history: only completed purchase orders and completed counts can be corrected from here — one still in progress can't be edited from this modal.

  • You're looking for a "Missing costs" tab: it exists in the system but isn't currently shown in the UI — items with no recorded cost aren't reachable from Data Cleaner today.

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