Support — Inventory Tracker by ARS

Inventory Tracker by ARS is a desktop app for Windows. This page explains how to reach us, what to send with a support request, and how to protect and restore your data before you try a fix.

Contact us

Email: help@arstdh.com

We aim to answer within one working day, Monday to Friday. Support is provided by ARS Tech & Digital Hub, the app’s publisher.

Use the same address for bug reports, feature requests and questions about how the app works. Please write in English.

Before you write

• Make a backup first. Open Settings → Data & Backup and press Back up now. It takes a second and gives you something to fall back on.
• Restart the app. Close it completely and open it again, then repeat the step that failed. Note whether the problem happens every time or only once.
• Note the version and licence state shown in Settings → About. Both save a round of questions.

What to include in a support request

• App version — Settings → About → Version.
• Windows version — press Windows key + R, type winver, and copy the version and build number.
• What you did — the steps that led to the problem, in order.
• What you expected, and what happened instead.
• Any error message, exactly as it appears. A screenshot is ideal.
• How often it happens — every time, only after a restart, only with one product or invoice, and so on.
• The log file, if you are comfortable sharing it (see below).

Please do not send your whole database unless we ask for it. A backup is the right thing to keep, but it contains your full business records.

The log file

The app keeps a local diagnostic log. To open it, go to Settings → About and press Open log file. The file is also at:

%APPDATA%\InventoryTrackerbyARS\logs\app.log

It records the app’s own events — startup, backups, imports, licence checks, database migrations and errors — with file names, counts and the paths the app uses. It does not contain your records themselves: no product lists, customer details, invoice lines or amounts, though the name of a file you imported may appear. Paths include your Windows username, so read the file before you send it and remove anything you would rather not share.

The log is never uploaded automatically. You can attach the file to your email, or paste only the lines around the time of the problem. Each log file is capped at 2 MiB and four generations are kept, so the log cannot grow without limit.

Restore a backup

Backups are full copies of the database and can be restored in one step.

• Open Settings → Data & Backup.
• The backups in your backup folder are listed under Backups, newest first.
• Press Restore next to the one you want and confirm.

The app saves your current data as a Before restore copy first, so a restore is itself reversible for a while. After restoring, check the Dashboard and one recent invoice.

By default, backups are written to:

Documents\Inventory Tracker Backups by ARS

You can change that folder in the same screen. Keep a copy somewhere else as well — another drive, OneDrive, or a USB stick — because a backup on the same disk does not survive a disk failure.

If the app will not start, reinstall it from the Microsoft Store, then restore the most recent backup. On current Windows versions the data folder usually survives an uninstall, but Windows does not promise that, so the backup is the copy to rely on.

Reset the app

Settings → Demo & Reset → Reset to empty deletes every record and starts a new, empty database. It cannot be undone except from a backup, so back up first.

Load demo data also replaces the current database with a sample business. Do not use it on a machine that holds real books unless you have a backup.

Purchases, trials and refunds

Purchases, the 14-day trial and refunds are handled by the Microsoft Store, not by us. We never see or store your payment details, and we cannot charge, cancel or refund a Store order ourselves.

• To check a purchase or request a refund, open the Microsoft Store app → Account → Payment & billing → Order history, or visit account.microsoft.com/billing/orders and select the order. Refunds are granted under Microsoft’s refund policy.
• If the app shows the wrong licence state, open Settings → About and note what Licence says, then include that in your email. The app keeps working either way: the licence never blocks a feature.

Privacy

The app runs entirely on your computer and sends us nothing. What it stores, and where, is described in the privacy policy.