Inventory items

You’ll need: Inventory items, Inventory categories — if you cannot see these, the module may be switched off for your business or outside your permissions. An administrator can change either.

An inventory item is a thing you hold. Distinct from a product, which is a thing you sell — the Products course covered why, and this is the other half of that pair.

The basics

Inventory item name and SKU identify it. Inventory category files it. Price unit of measurement says what a quantity means — kilograms, litres, boxes. Description and photos describe it. Supplier prices record what different suppliers charge you.

Tracking method is the important decision

This is the field that decides how much detail the system keeps, and it is much easier to choose correctly at the start than to change later.

Quantity based — you care how many, not which ones. Screws, cement, rice. The overwhelming majority of items.

Serial number based — every single unit has its own identity. Vehicles, machines, phones under warranty. Powerful and heavy: every movement must name the units.

Lot tracked — units share a batch identity. Not one identity per unit, but N units per lot. This is the middle tier, and it is what food, pharmaceutical and agricultural businesses need for expiry and recall.

Indefinite — stock is never depleted. For service-like items that behave as inventory in documents but have no finite quantity.

Choose the lightest one that answers the questions you will actually be asked. Serial-tracking screws will make everyone hate the system by Thursday.

Lots and shelf life

For a lot-tracked item, shelf life days sets how long a batch lasts, lot type describes the kind of batch identity it carries, and lot allocation strategy decides which batch goes out first:

FEFO — first expired, first out. What perishables need. FIFO — first in, first out. Oldest stock first, regardless of expiry. Manual — someone chooses each time.

FEFO is the right default for anything with an expiry date, and it is the difference between selling stock before it turns and finding it at the back of the store afterwards.

Categories carry a purchase treatment

An inventory category has an inventory category name, an optional lot type, and a purchase treatment: for_resale, raw_material, consumable or packaging.

That last field is not filing. It says what buying this thing means — goods you will sell on, materials you will transform, things consumed running the business, or packaging. It affects how purchases are treated in your accounts, so it is worth setting deliberately rather than accepting whatever is first in the list.

Try it