Create products and categories
The product is what everything else refers to. A product created twice is two stock figures for one thing, and no report will tell you which is real.
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Inventory
Inventory is products, warehouses and what is actually on the shelf. It is the module Orders and Point of Sale both reserve against, so its figures are not an internal matter — they are what a customer is promised.
Try it in the demoinventory · 7 tasks
Before you start
- Warehouses defined before products are stocked into them.
- Product categories agreed. Recategorising later is possible and tedious.
- A decision on who may see cost prices, valuation and margin: those sit behind their own permission, apart from seeing stock.
What Inventory does
Products, warehouses and what is actually on the shelf.
View, move, adjust and count stock
Four different acts. A move is stock going between warehouses; an adjustment is admitting the figure was wrong; a count is the exercise that finds out. Adjustments should follow counts, not replace them.
Raise a purchase order and receive goods
Goods received against the purchase order is what makes the stock figure and the supplier invoice describe the same delivery.
Handle sales orders and deliveries
The warehouse side of what Orders committed to. If the two disagree, the order is the promise and the warehouse is the fact.
Build from a bill of materials
Assembly consumes components and produces the finished item. The bill of materials is what makes that a stock movement rather than a manual adjustment at both ends.
Send adjustments, transfers and orders for approval
The movements that change value can be routed for approval. Adjustments especially: an unapproved adjustment is an untraceable write-off.
Keep cost, valuation and margin restricted
These have their own permission because knowing what is in stock and knowing what it cost are different clearances.
What it claims to do
The capability list this guide is written against, unabridged. Nothing above adds to it.
Inventory on the Supply Chain page- Products and categories, created and edited
- Stock viewed, moved between warehouses, adjusted and counted
- Purchase orders raised and goods received
- Sales orders and deliveries
- Bills of materials and assembly
- Adjustments, transfers and orders sent for approval
- Cost prices, valuation and margin behind their own permission
Where it connects
The modules Inventory hands work to, or takes it from. Most problems that look like one module are a handover between two.