Frequently Asked Questions¶

Loupe Factory is an AI-native operations platform for modern manufacturing and wholesale businesses. It connects inventory, production, customer orders, shipments, invoicing, and reporting in one place, so your team spends less time reconciling spreadsheets and more time running the operation.

For a full overview of what the platform can do, see the Platform Guide.

Loupe Copilot is the chat assistant built into the Loupe Factory Home dashboard. Your team can ask plain-language questions such as "Which orders are ready to ship?", "Do we have this item in stock?", or "Which production jobs are running late?" and get an answer from live business data.

Copilot answers from the records each person is already allowed to see, links back to the exact records behind the answer, and stays read-only so it cannot change or delete anything. See Loupe Copilot for examples and setup guidance.

The fastest way to get up and running is to follow the Quick Start Guide. It walks you through account creation, adding your first inventory item, setting up a production process, and placing your first order.

Loupe Factory onboarding is designed as a staged rollout, so your team does not have to move everything at once. New workspaces start with the role-aware Quick Start checklist, which guides admins through the core setup: industry selection, organization details, locations, product and inventory defaults, team members, customers, suppliers, production stages, and first orders.

For data migration, the best approach is to move the records that remove the most daily friction first. Most teams start with products, inventory, locations, customers, suppliers, staff, and active orders, then expand into deeper history once the operating workflow is stable. Admins can use Loupe Factory's AI-powered import tools for structured files, including CSV and Excel inventory imports with a review step before anything is confirmed.

If you are switching from spreadsheets or disconnected tools, start with a small validation import, review the mapped data, correct any field issues, and then import the remaining records in batches. Larger teams can also use integrations such as QuickBooks Online, Shopify, or Tally Prime where they apply. Enterprise plans include migration support, while live training is available as a paid service package on Professional, Business, and Enterprise plans.

Loupe Factory is for organizations that make or distribute physical products, for example factories and workshops, as well as wholesale teams that hold stock and ship to customers. If you run multi-stage production, need dependable inventory control, and fulfill orders against that stock, the platform is designed for you.

Loupe Factory is a strong fit if your business makes, buys, or sells physical products and your team is starting to feel the limits of spreadsheets, disconnected order tools, or manual handoffs. It is especially useful when inventory, production, customer orders, purchase orders, shipments, invoices, customers, suppliers, staff, and reporting need to stay connected in one shared workspace.

It may not be the right fit if your business is purely service-based, software-only, or does not manage physical stock, production activity, fulfillment, or wholesale order workflows. If your only need is accounting, a storefront, or a simple invoice tool, a narrower system may be enough.

A good decision rule is this: consider Loupe Factory when staying in spreadsheets is creating stock errors, slow order follow-up, unclear production status, duplicated entry, or finance and operations working from different records. If those problems are only starting to appear, you can start small and move into the plan that matches your team size, locations, and production volume as the operation grows. See Pricing & Plans for plan guidance.

Sign up at loupefactory.com. You can sign in with your work email and the method your organization uses, such as password, magic link, or single sign-on (SSO). See Account Setup for step-by-step instructions.

On the login screen, click "Forgot password" and follow the instructions sent to your email. If your organization uses SSO, contact your IT administrator to reset credentials through your identity provider.

For more on managing your login and profile, see Profile.

Use Profile to update your own name, email, profile picture, or password. Use Admin Settings > Organization Settings for company-level details such as branding, locations, defaults, and compliance information. Full details are in Profile and Organization Settings.

Go to Inventory and click Add Inventory Item. Then complete the item's type, product, physical attributes, quality, and storage details. Admin users can also use Import using AI for bulk creation. See Inventory Management for the full step-by-step workflow.

Loupe Factory organizes inventory using operational fields such as type, finished type, materials & supplies type, product, shape, size, quality, and location. This gives most manufacturing and wholesale teams more control than a single category label. See Inventory Management for details.

Use the search bar at the top of the Inventory module. You can filter by product, inventory type, shape, size, quality, or storage details. The Inventory Management guide covers advanced filtering options.

Yes, on the Professional, Business, and Enterprise plans. Admins can enable Managers can use inventory from all locations in Organization Settings > Locations, below the Add location button. When enabled, Manager users can view and select inventory items or products from every location in the organization.

On Starter, the option is unavailable and users need to upgrade to use manager cross-location inventory access. Members can only see inventory items and products from their assigned location, even when manager cross-location access is enabled.

Go to Production and create a production job from the real order demand. You will select the associated order, line item, stage, source inventory, requested specs, and responsible staff member. See Production Tracking for the full job-creation flow.

When you receive a production job, Loupe Factory lets you record received output, wasted weight, and optional rejection or scrap separately. That data feeds job progress, yield, and waste metrics automatically. See Production Tracking for details.

Yes. Loupe Factory supports stage-based production workflows, so teams can create and track production work at the correct operational stage while keeping source inventory, received output, and losses visible. The Production Tracking guide explains how to manage that flow.

Go to Orders > Sales Orders and click Add new sales order. Select the customer, assign the order lead, enter clear notes, review the AI-prepared requested products, then complete the order details. See Order Management for the full workflow.

Open the order record to review the requested products, linked production work, invoicing progress, shipment activity, and any commercial follow-up. You can also use the order list to focus on the records that need action. See Order Management for details.

Yes. Once an order is ready to invoice, open the order and click Generate Invoice. Loupe Factory will pre-fill the invoice with the order details. See Invoicing for more on managing and sending invoices.

Yes. Open the sales order or order line and use Create BOM to build a Bill of Materials for the workflow you need, such as an estimate, quote, production BOM, actual-cost BOM, invoice BOM, or internal costing BOM.

Loupe Factory lets you link the BOM to the right order line, add rows from saved cost components, rate profiles, production context, or manual entries, then review the saved BOM in the read-only BOM Summary modal. Customer documents hide sensitive cost, margin, sourcing, exchange rate, and internal note details, while internal BOMs keep the full costing record. See Bill of Materials for the full workflow.

Yes, on the Professional, Business, and Enterprise plans. Admins can go to Settings > Orders > Invoices and turn on Add inventory product photos to invoices. The invoice preview and generated PDF will show the image attached to each billed order line item.

This setting is off by default. If an order line item does not have its own image, that row stays text-only. Loupe Factory does not automatically use the inventory item photo as a substitute on the final invoice.

AI credits are the unit of consumption for Loupe Factory's built-in AI capabilities, such as automated data extraction, smart suggestions, and Loupe Copilot questions. Each AI action consumes a certain number of credits depending on its complexity.

See AI Credits & Billing for a full breakdown of how credits are consumed.

Yes. Loupe Copilot uses AI credits when your team asks a question and Copilot prepares an answer. Normal dashboard work, opening records, and opening reports do not use credits.

Every plan includes an AI credit allowance. Admins can top up credits or manage on-demand usage from Admin Settings > AI Credits Usage. See AI Credits & Billing for details.

Go to Admin Settings > AI Credits Usage and select Buy Credits. You can choose a credit bundle and complete the purchase with your saved payment method. See AI Credits & Billing for details.

Your invoices and payment history are available under Billing > History. See AI Credits & Billing for more information.