Inventory, Products, and Stock in Business

The Inventory module combines products, stock quantities, and the movements between warehouses.

What you will find here

This page gives you a practical overview of the inventory module and helps you quickly distinguish:

Product is the item you track in the system. It has a product card with a name, measure, prices, categories, suppliers, and SKU/barcodes.
Stock quantity is the quantity of a product in a specific warehouse. The same product can have a different quantity in different warehouses.
Warehouse is the place where the system tracks stock. Each warehouse has its own employee access and its own cost calculation method.
Delivery is the document you use to receive new quantities into a warehouse.
Transfer is the document you use to move existing quantities from one warehouse to another.
Stocktake is the process of counting physical stock and aligning the system with the counted quantity.
Supplier is the company or contact you buy stock from.

Creating or editing a product does not increase stock by itself.
Low stock level and Reorder quantity are planning values for monitoring and replenishment, not the current stock.
New order adds new quantities to the target warehouse when the document is completed.
Stock transfer decreases quantity in the source warehouse and increases it in the target warehouse when the document is completed.
Complete stocktake sets the final quantity to the counted value in the selected warehouse.
Sales of goods reduce the stock of the sold items.
If a service uses inventory consumables, those quantities are also deducted automatically when the service is sold.

If you are building the inventory structure from scratch, the easiest order is:

create Warehouses;
add the reference data you will use in products: Categories, Brands, and Suppliers;
create or import Products;
use Orders and transfers and Stocktakes when you need to move or verify stock.

When you are building the inventory structure from scratch, a useful order is:

Create the warehouses where you will actually store or track products.
Prepare categories, brands, and suppliers so you do not enter the same reference data manually on every delivery.
Create or import the products.
If you already have physical stock and are only starting to use the system now, create a stocktake to align the real quantities.
If you are receiving new stock from a supplier, work through a delivery.
If you are moving stock between two warehouses, work through a transfer.

Products is the main catalog of items.
Warehouses defines where stock is stored and who has access to it.
Categories, Brands, and Suppliers are reference data for better organization, filtering, and ordering. They do not change stock by themselves.
Orders and transfers is used when stock enters a warehouse or moves between warehouses.
Stocktakes is used when you need to count physical stock and reconcile the differences.

open Products when you add a new item, edit product data, or check stock by warehouse;
open Orders and transfers when stock comes in or moves between warehouses;
open Stocktakes when you need to count physical stock and adjust differences;
open Inventory reports when you need analysis for stock, movements, or sales.

For stock and movement analysis, use Inventory reports.