The phone app, in depth

Say you sell a blender called Kitchen Blend. Its ASIN is B0EXAMPLE1, and you bought 6 of them. The phone app is SourceDock opened from your home screen, with no app store download. Your login, stores, and numbers match the website. The phone layout shows only when three things are true. You opened SourceDock from the home screen, not a browser tab. The screen is a touch screen. Its short side is under 600 px. A tablet, a computer, and a phone’s browser tab keep the website.

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Put it on your home screen

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iPhone

Safari never offers to install SourceDock, so the Desk tells you how. The small x on that line hides it in that browser, though a private window can show it again. On an iPad it says iPad. It never shows in an app’s own browser, such as Facebook’s.

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Android

Android’s browser offers its own install, so SourceDock prints no line there. Once installed, sharing an Amazon page to SourceDock opens the Profit calculator with it. An iPhone’s share sheet never lists SourceDock, and on an iPhone only the home-screen app can get phone alerts.

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The top bar

The SourceDock mark opens the Desk. The eye icon (privacy mode) hides your money figures until tapped again. With more than one store, the store’s code sits in the bar, such as “US”. A tap opens Pick a store. On Sales the sheet is Show sales for, starting with All stores, and the bar then reads “ALL”. On Capital Recovery the bar also shows Default and Adv. On the phone, Capital Recovery looks the same either way; the switch sets your login’s view on the website. During a trial, a line says Your trial is running., Your trial ends today., You have 1 day left in your trial., or “You have 5 days left in your trial.”, with Update your billing information beside it.

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The bottom bar

The bar shows three icons with no words: a calculator for the Profit calculator, a round button, and a camera for Photos. A screen reader calls them “Calculator”, “Menu”, and “Photos”. The calculator needs the Vault page, and Photos needs the Purchases page. If your login cannot open a side’s page, that side is empty.

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The round button

A tap fans up to 6 shortcuts over a dimmed page, with the page you are on circled, and More last. Until you choose, they follow the website bar’s order, with pages you took off the bar last. With the starting page order, they are Desk, Purchases, Alerts, Vault, Scanner, and Scout. More opens a sheet with, from the top:

• Your name, plan, and Amazon line, plus Switch account with more than one account.
• Jump or search (pages, products, orders, and storefronts), then Choose shortcuts.
• Every other page you can open, except the two on the bar. Alerts and Scout carry a count; over 99 reads “99+”.
• Account, Billing & pricing, and Connections (a teammate sees only Account).
• Theme with dark and light, then Docs, Discord community, and Log out.

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Choose shortcuts

On the Shortcuts sheet, under Bottom bar, Left and Right each pick any page you can open. The picker calls the starting two Calculator and Photos, and an empty side reads None. Picking the other side’s page swaps them. Next it says Pick up to 6 pages to show when you tap the round button. Every page is still under More. Your shortcuts come first, with up and down arrows, then other pages with switches. With 6 on, You have 6. Turn one off to add another. sits over the rest. Each change saves at once on your login, so every phone matches. A page you cannot open right now keeps its saved place, and a bar side then shows its starting page.

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The phone Desk

It is afternoon and your name is Sam, so the Desk opens with “Good afternoon, Sam.” Before noon it says morning, and from 6 pm evening. With no first name, the name is left off. The phone Desk never asks you to install the Chrome extension.

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Found for you

Say Needs a look is $12.00 on 2 priced units, and Ready to claim is $40.00 on 3 units. The Desk’s only sum adds them: $12.00 + $40.00 = $52.00. The line above the tiles reads “You could claim back up to $52.00”.

1. Needs a look: “$12.00”, “2 units”, Now, and the foot Check them.
2. Ready to claim: “$40.00”, “3 units”, Now, and the foot File claims.
3. Paid back by Amazon: what Amazon paid back for lost or damaged units, minus what it took back. It is not in the $52.00. If Amazon took back $3.00 more than it paid, it shows “-$3.00", never $0.00. Its foot says Recovery.

Now keeps the claim tiles on today, whatever the card’s date menu says; Paid back follows the dates. A US store prints "$", and a Canada store "CA$".

• A pile with units but no money shows its units, never $0.00. Needs a look’s small line then says No amount yet.
• If only some Needs a look units are priced, its small line says so, such as “for 2 of 4 units”.
• The claim line hides while either tile says Updating, or when the two add up to $0 or less.
• A failed load says Could not load Capital Recovery. An uncovered store shows US and Canada only. With Capital Recovery paused or off your plan, the card is gone.

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Needs you

Needs you lists up to 3 alerts, then See more in Alerts when there are more. Claims Found for you already counts are left out. A quiet day says Nothing needs you. Good time to go find the next deal. and Check Scout, or Open Vault if your login cannot open Scout. If only left-out alerts remain, it says Nothing else needs you right now. With Account health turned on for the Desk, its card takes this place.

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The wheel

Next comes a card with Came back to you, then the wheel: word-free icons for Scout, Gate Scanner, Vault, Purchases, Sales, and Recovery, each opening its page. A copper count is that stage’s alerts, and a green count is Scout’s new finds or Sales’ units sold. The title SourceDock Flywheel sits under it, without the website’s steps line.

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Look up a blender

Tap the calculator icon. Under the heading Profit calculator is the Chrome extension’s own profit panel, same words and math. See Chrome extension.

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Find the product

Paste https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0EXAMPLE1 or B0EXAMPLE1 in the box (Paste a link, ASIN or UPC) and tap Look up. A short link from the Amazon app’s Share button works too. On an installed Android phone, the line under the box says Share an Amazon page to SourceDock, or paste its link here. An iPhone shows no line. Or tap Scan a barcode. It says Your phone may ask to use the camera. The picture stays on your phone., then Hold the barcode inside the box. Only the numbers are looked up. On phones that allow it, Light turns on the phone’s light, and Type it instead goes back to the box.

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Find it with a photo

Say you hold a toy in a store, and its barcode is torn. Tap Photo, beside Scan a barcode. Take a picture of the box, with its words showing.

• The sheet is called Find it with a photo. It says We send the photo to an AI service to read the words on the box. SourceDock doesn’t keep it.
• While it works, it says Reading the photo….
• Then it shows what it searched for, like “We looked for: toy rescue truck”, and up to 5 Amazon matches with a picture, a title, and a size.
• Tap the one you have. It opens just like a typed ASIN. A match tagged Barcode match was found by a barcode in your photo.

None of them right? Tap Try another photo. If it can’t help, it says We couldn’t find it. Try the barcode. or We couldn’t read the box. Try another photo, or scan the barcode. Photo is on the phone app you installed to your home screen. It needs your Amazon store connected: without it, you see Connect your Amazon store to find products by photo. You get 100 photos a day. After that, it says “You’ve used today’s 100 photos. Scan the barcode or type it.” Recent lookups keeps your last 10 products in this browser, for this login, sending nothing away. Before your first lookup it is a bare heading.

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The settings

The panel reads your account’s profit settings, set in Account > Features. They start as: Prep per item $0.00, Sales tax on cost (%) 0, Months in storage 1, Use peak storage fees off, Inbound placement Minimal shipment splits, Inbound shipping per lb not set (your store’s rate from recent boxes can apply), Lowest ROI you want (%) 30, Lowest profit you want $5.00, and Sale price used for profit Buy Box, FBA sellers only. For Kitchen Blend you set a clean case:

• Your cost is $18.00 (1800 cents), and the blender is not in your Vault.
• Sale price is the Buy Box, $40.00 (4000 cents), and an FBA seller holds it. Max cost uses the same price.
• Fulfillment is FBA, and Months in storage is 0, so storage is left out.
• Inbound placement is Amazon-optimized shipment splits ($0), and your store has no recent boxes to Amazon, so placement is $0.
• Inbound shipping per lb is $0.00, so your store’s rate is not used. Prep and tax stay at 0.
• Amazon quotes a Referral fee of $6.00 and an FBA fulfillment fee of $5.50. The category takes 15% of the whole price, never under $0.30, and 15% of $40.00 is $6.00. There is no closing, other, or low-stock fee.

Changing FBA or FBM, or Months in storage, in the panel saves it to your account. Prices you type for a product are kept in this browser and come back next time. A missing money figure shows ”-”.

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Quick info

The panel’s sections are Product, Quick info, Profit calculator, Alerts, Offers, and Variations (closed until tapped). In Product, the Vault badge saves the blender with this cost (Saved to your Vault. or We couldn’t save it to your Vault. Try again.). Once it is saved, the badge opens the Vault on it. The + icon opens the form to record a purchase. Quick info starts with Approval. With your store connected, SourceDock checks by itself: Approved, Needs approval, Blocked, or Not checked. If it could not, Check now shows, then Checking… With no store, it says Connect your store to check. Next, one row holds Sales rank, Sold a month (on the phone, an estimate from the rank, marked “(est)”), and Max cost. Max cost is the most you can pay for one item and meet both goals, so it ignores your $18.00. Amazon keeps $6.00 + $5.50 = $11.50, leaving $40.00 − $11.50 = $28.50, or 2850 cents. The $5.00 goal allows 2850 − 500 = 2350 cents. The 30% goal, on the price you pay, allows 2850 ÷ 1.30 = 2192.3 cents, cut to 2192. The lower wins, then whole cents are checked: at $21.93, profit is $6.57, about 29.96%, under 30%. At $21.92, profit is $6.58, about 30.02%. Max cost shows “$21.92” in green. A cost above it turns the cell yellow. Your cost shows $18.00, and a blank box reads 0.00. For a product in your Vault, the Vault’s cost fills it until you type over it. Sale price shows the Buy Box, else the lowest FBA price, else the lowest FBM price. Type another price, and a button such as “Buy Box $40.00” puts it back. An emptied box fills again when you leave it. Then four figures:

• Profit: 4000 − 600 − 550 − 1800 = 1050 cents, so “$10.50". With a $0.00 cost it would be “$28.50”.
• Margin: profit over the sale price. 1050 ÷ 4000 × 100 = 26.25, shown as “26.3%”.
• ROI: profit over the price you pay. 1050 ÷ 1800 × 100 = 58.33, shown as “58.3%”. A $0.00 cost shows —, and only the profit goal colors the numbers.
• Break-even: the lowest sale price with $0 profit at your cost. At $27.65 the referral is $4.15, and $27.65 − $4.15 − $5.50 = $18.00. At $27.64 the referral is still $4.15, 1 cent short. So it shows "$27.65”.

A product in your Vault also uses its row’s own placement choice, Prep Cost, and Shipping Cost. It reads ROI the way its Vault row says: Total Cost divides by cost plus prep, placement, inbound shipping, and tax, and Sell Price divides by the sale price, like Margin.

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The Profit calculator section

This section repeats Quick info’s numbers as rows, adding Fulfillment, Months in storage, Total fees, Break-even price, and You get. Profit, ROI, and Margin are green: profit is over $0, at least $5.00, and ROI is at least 30%. Under a goal they turn yellow, and a loss turns red. A $0 profit stays plain unless it is under a goal. Open Total fees: You get is $40.00 − $6.00 − $5.50 = $28.50. It takes off Amazon’s fees, storage and low-stock included, but not your cost, prep, placement, inbound shipping, or tax. Profit is You get minus those: $28.50 − $18.00 = $10.50.

• Storage fee: cubic feet times Amazon’s monthly rate, month by month. October to December use the peak rate, and Use peak storage fees uses it every month. The months box takes 0 through 36; a bad entry snaps back.
• Inbound placement fee: with recent boxes (US stores), what Amazon charged per unit on them, whatever option you picked. Without, Amazon-optimized is $0 and the others use Amazon’s highest listed rate, marked estimated.
• Low-stock fee: only while Amazon’s test says stock is under 28 days of supply. It is part of Amazon’s fulfillment charge, so it lowers Profit and You get.
• Closing fee and Other sale fees: only when Amazon’s quote splits them out and they are over $0. Otherwise the referral line can hold a closing fee.
• Sales tax: your cost times your percent, rounded to the cent.

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When the numbers wait

Profit stays ”-” until the price, fees, and every cost turned on are known, and a line under Quick info says why:

• No sale price: such as Nobody is selling this new on Amazon right now. Type a sale price. Max cost says Needs a price.
• Your own per-pound rate and no weight: a Weight (lb) box and Type the weight (lb) to add inbound shipping. Max cost says Needs weight.
• No size for storage: No size for this product, so storage can’t be added. Set Months in storage to 0 to leave it out.
• No size for placement: No size for this product, so the placement fee can’t be added. Pick Amazon-optimized to leave it out.

A line with no amount makes Total ”-”. If no cost meets both goals, Max cost says Below your goals. With no store connected, there is no Amazon price, so the line reads “Connect your store to see Amazon’s price, or type a sale price.” After you type a price, the panel says Estimated fees and offers Connect your store for exact fees.

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FBM and Offers

Tapping FBM adds a Your shipping box. Blank, it uses the FBM shipping saved in SourceDock. With none saved, it says Not counted, and profit uses $0 shipping. The sale price is the lowest offer from a seller who ships it. You get is the sale minus the referral and closing fees and your shipping. On a Canada or Mexico store, FBM profit is in that store’s own money, like CA$. Offers lists live sellers, cheapest first, under Seller, Price, Profit, and ROI, with your cost and goals: red for a loss, yellow under a goal, green otherwise. Tap a seller’s FBA or FBM badge to read about them. Another seller’s tip ends with Open this store on Amazon. Offers can also say Connect your store to see live offers, SourceDock couldn’t load the live offers., or Amazon shows no live offers. Tap Show stock to see how many units each seller has. Nothing loads until you tap.

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Photos and receipts

Tap the camera icon. Purchase Orders lists your 20 newest orders that are not cancelled, under a search box that says Product, ASIN or order number. The blender row shows the picture, the name, and “Oct 22 · 6 units”. A product with no name yet shows its ASIN and a copy icon. A tap opens a sheet titled Receipts and photos: Receipt and Box & prep, each with a count once the order has files, such as “1 receipt”. Receipt opens Add receipt, with a back arrow. Take photo opens the back camera, and Choose photo or file takes a photo or a PDF. Each file saves once picked. A photo over 25 MB is first redrawn as a smaller JPEG, from a 4096 px long edge down, until it fits; a PDF is not. Done goes back. Box & prep opens Box photos. Tap Take photos. A tile says Saving…, then Saved, and a line such as “1 photo saved to this order” counts them. An order holds 20 files in all, receipts and photos together, each at most 25 MB and not empty. At 20 the page says This order has 20 files. Delete one on Purchases to add more. A skipped file brings a toast titled Some files were skipped (receipts) or Some photos were not saved (box photos). An oversize or empty file adds Each file must be under 25 MB and not empty. A saved tile’s small x asks Remove this receipt? or Remove this photo? Remove deletes it, and Cancel keeps it. If the delete fails, the tile stays and the toast says We could not remove that receipt or We could not remove that photo, then Please try again. A teammate who can only view Purchases gets no x, and sees You can view Purchases but not change them, so you can’t add photos. On Purchases, the round + also has Add receipt, right after Record Purchase.

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Lists and detail sheets

On the phone, each table becomes a list, driven by the website’s filters, sort, and pages, with the website’s own figures.

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Purchases

Purchases groups rows by week, starting Sunday: This week, Last week, then “Week of Oct 5”. It shows this list in a phone’s browser tab too. A row shows the picture, the name, the ASIN with a copy icon (a tap copies and opens nothing), “Oct 22 · 6 units”, and the status words. On the right are the cost total, the cost per unit, and the profit, tagged now, or exp. with no current one. A missing cost says Cost unknown, and no known profit shows ”-”. An order not received 14 days after its purchase date has a red corner, and its sheet says how many days ago you bought it. A tap slides a sheet up with every column of the Purchases table as a line, in its order and with its names. An (i) explains a name with a tap. At the foot are Add receipt, Edit, and the row’s own menu, when you can change the order. The X or the phone’s Back closes it. Grouped by ASIN, a product row shows orders, such as “2 orders”, and opens on each order, newest first.

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Other pages

• Sales: a product opens a sheet with every figure column, each with a ”?” you tap.
• Vault: a card per product, with Import and Export behind ”…”. A tap shows every column, the alert, Edit Prospect, Price History, Record Purchase, and Delete.
• Capital Recovery: a card per product with ROI, margin, profit on what sold, and P&L. A tap opens every other figure.

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Alerts on your phone

Alerts shows a line such as “2 things to look at.” under its heading. SHOW ME is one menu, starting at Everything, where you can tick several choices. Each area, such as Purchases, is one row with its count, closed until you tap it. An alert’s x hides it, and a toast offers Undo for 8 seconds.

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The phone icon

Tap the bell. Each row is an area: Purchases, Recovery, and Vault always, and Scout and Health once they have an alert. The phone icon comes last, after the sound icon. Lit means this area would buzz and a phone is set up; with none set up, all are dim. The first tap on a dim icon asks to allow notifications and saves this device. Later taps turn the area on or off, saved on your login. Purchases, Recovery, Vault, and Health start on, and Scout starts off. Turning Scout’s icon on also turns Scout alerts on; turning it off leaves them. Health also needs Health on your Desk, and stays dim until then.

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What a buzz says

Today these alerts can buzz: a Purchases auto-cancel notice, a Recovery restock reminder, a Vault alert you set, and new Scout finds. Other rows stay on the Alerts page. The lock screen title is SourceDock. The words are counts only, never a product or a dollar amount, one line per area: Lines follow the Alerts order: Purchases, Recovery, Vault, Scout. At most three lines show, so four areas show the first two and “And 2 more.” A tap opens the Alerts page.

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How often it can buzz

• A burst becomes one buzz: nothing goes until the oldest waiting alert is 5 minutes old.
• A buzz carries every waiting alert. Held alerts never expire; they ride the next buzz. An alert the phone service never picked up within 24 hours of firing is dropped.
• Your login gets at most 5 buzzes a day, in the time zone of the first phone that turned alerts on. A failed buzz does not count.
• Only alerts that fire after your first phone was set up can buzz. A login with no active plan gets none. Scout finds from before Scout alerts were on never buzz.
• Vault and Scout share a quiet clock. A buzz with only Vault or Scout alerts waits until 3 hours after the last buzz that carried either. A Purchases or Recovery buzz does not wait, and carries them along.
• A held buzz is looked at again in 1 hour, or when the quiet clock opens.

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If the phone said no

On an iPhone browser tab, a tap on the icon says To get phone alerts on iPhone, put SourceDock on your Home Screen: tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. Open SourceDock from there and tap this icon again. After you block notifications, it says Phone alerts are blocked for SourceDock on this device. Allow notifications for SourceDock in this device’s settings, then tap this icon again. Where phone alerts are not set up or cannot work, the icon is hidden.

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What the phone app does not have

• The Chrome extension.
• Letter keys that jump to a page. Use Jump or search.
• The account picker or a recovered-cash total in the top bar.
• Tips that need a mouse resting on a word, such as the panel’s break-even tip. Tap tips are the (i) and ”?” marks in list sheets and the Offers seller badges.
• The panel’s settings. Its sections keep their starting order, and the Buy Box pie never shows.
• The extension’s Seller Central check for a product that needs approval.

A teammate sees only the pages the owner shared.

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When a screen is empty or something fails

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The calculator

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Photos

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Shortcuts, Desk, and Alerts