The Inter-Store Look Up feature allows dealerships with multiple Blackpurl stores to check stock availability across their locations. It is available for both parts and units, helping your team avoid unnecessary vendor orders when another store in your group already has the item in stock.
What Is the Inter-Store Look Up Feature?
The Inter-Store Look Up feature connects two or more Blackpurl stores into a Group / Collective, so each store can see what the others have available. There are two versions of the feature:
Inter-Store Parts Look Up — lets Store 1 check whether Store 2 has a particular part available, so you can sell to your customer without ordering from a vendor.
Inter-Store Unit Look Up — lets Store 1 check whether Store 2 has a particular unit available for sale.
Availability shown is always the available quantity at the time of the lookup — not total stock on hand. For example, if Store 2 has 10 of a part in stock but 8 are committed to existing jobs, the lookup will show an available quantity of 2.
Important Notes
Stock levels change in real time as other stores continue to sell. Confirm availability with the other store before making an official transfer request.
Any unit committed to a Customer Order Unit Deal will not appear in the Inter-Store Unit Look Up — only units available for sale are listed.
Any part committed to a Customer Order will also not appear unless there are additional available quantities above what is committed.
You cannot restrict what information is shared within your Group / Collective. There is no way to limit other members to seeing only certain vendor parts or specific makes and models of units.
At no time will any member of the Group / Collective be able to see another store's costs or prices.
Set Up Inter-Store Look Up
Inter-Store Look Up is not self-service — it requires Blackpurl Support to enable it on your account. To request setup, email [email protected] and include the following:
A list of the stores you want included in your Group / Collective (these stores become Members of the group)
The name you want to give your Group / Collective
Blackpurl Support will escalate your request to the development team, who will create the Group / Collective and enable the Inter-Store Look Up feature at each relevant store. Support will notify you when setup is complete and the feature is ready to use.
Applicable User Permission
Once setup is complete, you need to enable the Quick Transfer user permission for each user who needs access to the Inter-Store Look Up feature. Scroll to the bottom of the General Access section in the user permissions screen — Quick Transfer is the last item in that section. Enable it using the toggle for each relevant user.
Inter-Store Parts Look Up — Where to Find It in Blackpurl
Once setup is complete, the Inter-Store Parts Look Up is available in two places: on individual Part Records, and on line items within a Customer Order.
To check availability at other stores, click the Check other stores button. Once clicked, the button updates to show the total available quantity held by Members of the Group — for example, Members have 104.
Part Record
On a Part Record, the Check other stores button appears alongside the stock information for that part. After the availability check runs and the button shows the member total, click it again to expand the results. The expanded view lists each Member of the Group along with their individual available quantity.
Customer Order — Line Item
After adding a part as a line item in any section of a Customer Order, the same member availability button appears on that line. It shows the total available quantity held by the other Members of the Group. Click it to expand the list and see which Member stores hold the stock and how much each has available.
For example, if you add a part to a Cash Sale > Parts & Accessories Customer Order and other members collectively have 4 units available, the button displays Members have 4. Clicking it reveals the breakdown by member store.
Tip: The Inter-Store Parts Look Up shows availability only — it does not transfer stock between stores. If you need to move parts from one store to another, sell the part on a Customer Order to the receiving store and then process a Vendor Order / Vendor Return (VO/VR) or Vendor Invoice (VI) at the store receiving the part.
Inter-Store Unit Look Up — Where to Find It in Blackpurl
Once setup is complete, the Inter-Store Unit Look Up is available from the Tools menu in the Blackpurl header.
After clicking Inter-Store Units Look Up, a blank search screen opens, ready for you to begin your search.
A. Search field | Type a keyword to identify the unit you are looking for — for example, a make, model, or year. |
B. Group / Collective | Displays the name of the Group / Collective you are searching. If you belong to multiple Groups / Collectives, the default one appears first. Change it here if needed. |
C. Filter | Once search results appear, use this option to narrow down the list by store, make, colour, year, or other criteria. |
Enter a keyword in the search field (A) and select the correct Group / Collective (B) if needed. Blackpurl will return a list of units matching your search, including which store each unit is at and relevant details such as make and model.
To narrow the results further, click the Filter button. The filter panel expands to show categories such as Store, Make, Colour, and Year. The number next to each category indicates how many distinct values exist in the current results — for example, Store (3) means the results include units from 3 different stores. Click into a category to filter down to specific values, such as viewing only units available at a particular store.
Tip: The Inter-Store Unit Look Up shows availability only — it does not transfer units between stores. If you need to move a unit from one store to another, sell the unit on a Customer Order to the receiving store and then process a Unit Ordering (UNT) entry at the store receiving the unit.