Advanced stock management
Beyond the item record, the Inventory module offers tools to track your goods in detail.
Stock movements
The Inventory → Stock Movements page records every change in stock: sales, purchases, transfers, returns, adjustments and write-offs. It's the reference for understanding an item's history and diagnosing a discrepancy.
Batches and expiry
For the relevant items (perishables, dated goods), you can track batches with their expiry date:
- the batch is entered at the goods receipt of a purchase;
- batches are consumed following the item's costing method: oldest first in most cases, newest first under LIFO (see below);
- expiry alerts warn you as the deadlines approach.
A dedicated view is available under Reports → Batch Expiry.
Costing methods
The costing method decides what cost a stock issue is valued at, and so both the margin shown on your sales and the value of your stock.
| Method | Cost applied on issue |
|---|---|
| FIFO (first in, first out) | the cost of the oldest batches |
| LIFO (last in, first out) | the cost of the newest batches |
| Weighted average cost | the average of incoming costs, weighted by quantity |
| Standard cost | a reference cost set on the item record |
| None | the item's current buying price (default behaviour) |
Where it is set
It is defined at three levels, from the most specific to the most general:
- Item: the "Costing method" field on the item record.
- Category: applies to every item in the category.
- Organization: the company's default method.
An item takes the first method explicitly defined as it walks up that chain. As long as no level defines one, costing stays on None. The application shows where the applied method came from: "Item level", "From the category" or "From the organization".
The two are related but distinct. Under LIFO, the newest batches are consumed first. Under every other method, including Standard cost and None, batches are consumed oldest first, so that expiry tracking stays reliable even when the cost itself does not come from the batches.
Soft stock reservations
Soft reservations stop two people selling the same unit at the same time. As soon as an item enters a cart or a draft order, the quantity is reserved for that user: everyone else sees reduced availability, without the stock having actually left yet.
They cover three situations:
- the point-of-sale cart open on a till;
- a back-office order being drafted;
- the cart of a connected online storefront, where there is one.
Expiry
A reservation does not last forever. It expires after a period of inactivity, releasing stock held by an abandoned cart. Any activity on the cart or the draft resets that countdown.
Settings
Under System settings → Global settings:
| Setting | Default | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Soft stock reservations (POS and back office) | off | Turns the feature on. While it is off, no quantity is reserved. |
| Soft reservation expiry (minutes) | 10 | Inactivity delay before release, from 1 to 1440 minutes. |
If an e-commerce storefront is connected, these reservations are no longer optional. When they are disabled the storefront cannot hold stock, and its reservation request is refused rather than accepted with no effect. That refusal is deliberate: a silently ignored reservation would leave the storefront believing it holds stock, and lead to selling the same item twice.
Available from the Pro plan.
Write-offs (losses)
Write-offs record losses: breakage, theft, expired items, etc.
- Open Inventory → Write-Offs, then New Write-Off.
- Choose the warehouse and the item: a write-off covers a single item.
- Enter the quantity, the condition (Damaged, Unusable, Lost or Expired) and, if needed, the source type and the reason.
- Click Create Write-Off.
See Correcting stock for an illustrated example.
As soon as a write-off is created, the quantities are reserved (removed from available stock) to avoid selling goods that are already lost. If the write-off is rejected or cancelled, stock is restored; if it is approved, the loss is finalized.
Approval
By default a write-off must be approved by an administrator before it is finalized. Two settings, under System settings → Global settings, section Stock, inventory & write-offs, change that behaviour:
| Setting | Default | Effect when enabled |
|---|---|---|
| Auto-approve write-offs | off | Write-offs are approved as soon as they are created, with no administrator step. |
| Auto write-off of expired batches | on | Batches that reach expiry are written off automatically; turned off, they must be written off by hand. |
Item families
Item families (Inventory → Item families) group similar items to ease catalog organization and certain shared rules.
Pricing and line options
The Advanced group of the inventory offers finer price tools:
- Pricing: price rules (discounts, tiered prices, special cases).
- Line Options and Line Price Rules: options that adjust an item's price at sale time (surcharges, deductions, variants).
These tools are optional. Start with simple prices on the item record, then enable advanced pricing only if your business needs it.
Stock adjustments
When the theoretical stock and the real stock differ (physical count), open the item's page and click Adjust Stock: enter a positive change to increase the quantity, a negative one to decrease it, with the reason. Every adjustment is traced in stock movements. See Correcting stock.