The Inventory add-on

From Adminium 0.3.18, add-ons 1.0.8.

Inventory keeps count of what you hold: how many of each item, in which place, in which batch, and what it cost. It works with no app installed. With an app, a row of the app’s own table (an order line, a treatment, a room night) takes stock in the same save that makes the row.

Install it from Add-ons. It makes thirty tables under the name inventory_… in the database you choose, a Stock and a Stock setup section in the sidebar, and three roles. Whoever installs it is given the manager role.

Places, stock and batches

• A place is where stock is kept: a shop floor, a back room, a van. A place that does not count as available (“At the laundry”, “Damaged”) holds stock that nobody can sell or use from.
• Stock by place has one row for an item in a place: on hand, held, on order, available, its reorder level and the quantity to reorder. The state beside it reads In stock, Low, On order or Out.
• An item kept in batches has a level for each batch in each place, with the batch’s code and the day it expires. Stock is taken from the batch that expires first. A batch past its date is passed over: when nothing else is left, the save is told the stock has expired.
• Every change is a movement: received, sold, used, moved, written off, a count difference. Movements are never edited. A mistake is undone by a second movement that says so.

Costs are a moving average for each item: a receipt at a new cost moves the average, a use takes stock out at the average of that moment.

Receiving

Receive takes a delivery, with a purchase order or without one. Find an item by name or code, or scan its barcode (a scanner that types like a keyboard; the camera is not used). Type the packs or the units, the batch and its date where the item is kept in batches, and post. A delivery against an order shows what is still to come; receiving part of it leaves the order “Part received”.

A posted receipt can be undone line by line while its order is still open, or sent back to the supplier. Both write movements; nothing is deleted.

Opening stock is for the day you start: type the quantities you hold, or load them from a CSV file (one row for each item, or for each batch of an item). It posts one receipt for a place. A file of more than 1,000 lines is posted as several receipts, one after another.

A receipt’s place, a transfer’s two places and a count’s place are fixed once the document is saved. To use another place, start another document.

Counting

Counts starts a count of a place: everything in it, one category, what has not been counted for a while, or what is marked to be counted. Each line shows what the books expect. When you type what you found, the line remembers what the books said at that moment, so stock sold while you were counting is not counted as lost. Posting writes one “count difference” movement for each line that differs. A manager can undo a posted count.

Transfers

Transfer moves stock from one place to another: two movements for each line, one out and one in, under one number. Linen sent to a laundry and brought back is two transfers.

Purchase orders

A purchase order is for one supplier and one place, with up to 50 lines in packs. From its page:

• Send to supplier emails the order to the address on it, in the language you set for suppliers, and puts its quantities on order. With the Invoices & Receipts add-on 1.0.8 or later installed, a PDF of the order is attached.
• Mark as sent, no email does the same and emails nobody.
• Receive opens the Receive screen for it.
• Close: the rest will not come takes what is still on order off. Reopen puts it back.
• Cancel order keeps the order on record as cancelled.

Whether the email and the PDF show costs is a setting, and can be changed on each order.

Supplier addresses in the sample data end in .example, a name no mail server answers for. Adminium never sends to such an address.

The four automations

Inventory ships four automations. You find them under Automations and can switch each on or off, or change what it does.

Automation	Starts as
Low stock: draft an order and tell the stock manager	on
Expiring within 30 days: tell the stock manager	on
Send draft orders at 17:00	off
Send an order 15 minutes after its last line	off

“Low stock” runs when an item falls to its reorder level; after a save in the dashboard it runs about a minute later. It puts the item on a draft order for its first-choice supplier. If another place holds enough, or no supplier is set, it drafts nothing and tells the manager why. The two daily automations run on the time zone the server had when Inventory was installed.

Stock rules

Stock rules lists the rules that take stock when a row of a table changes: “when an order line is created, take what it uses”, “when a booking is cancelled, put it back”. An app that builds on Inventory brings its own rules; you can add rules for your own tables there too. Switching a rule off stops it taking stock from that moment on. Rows saved while it was off are not caught up later. Changing a rule changes what a table means, so it needs the right to change the schema (system:schema:remap); the manager role alone reads the rules and cannot change them.

The Stock tab

On a record of a table that a rule reads, a Stock tab lists what one of that record uses: an item or a kit, how many, for each unit, night or guest, and from which place. A dish’s tab holds its ingredients, a treatment’s its supplies. A kit is a list of items used together.

Roles

Role	May
Inventory manager	everything: settings, items, costs, orders, undo, rules
Inventory clerk	receive, transfer, type a count (a manager posts it), record a use; reads no cost and no supplier contact
Inventory viewer	read everything but the settings, costs included; changes nothing and opens no screen that receives, moves or sets up stock

A limit on a role holds only while it is a person’s only way in. Somebody who also has a role that reads the same table without that limit sees the costs. Give a clerk one role, not two.

When Inventory cannot answer

A save that takes stock asks Inventory’s own code what to write. While it cannot be asked (the add-on is being updated, or was switched off), an item set to “Stop when out” stops the save, for staff too: nothing may be sold that cannot be counted. Every other save goes through and is marked as waiting. Record them now, on the Stock rules page, posts the waiting rows once Inventory answers again.

Sample data

Add sample data on the add-on’s page adds a month of stock for a small business: forty items in six places, three suppliers, three purchase orders, a count, two transfers. It is history, with nothing posted while it loads, and every document in it can be undone like one of your own. Remove sample data takes out the rows you have not changed. The units, the reasons and your settings are never part of the sample.

For app builders

An app’s table takes stock through a posting into Inventory’s ledger stock (see Rows that post into a ledger). Five actions are for a host’s rows:

Action	For	What it writes
use	a row whose record has a Stock tab (a line of a dish, a treatment)	takes what the linked items and kits say, for the row’s quantity
hold	the same, before the sale is final	holds the stock; a later use takes what was held
use-item	a row that names an item itself	takes that item
return	a row that gives stock back	puts it on the shelf again, or into another place
adopt	a row that should be a stock item itself (a product, a dish)	makes an item with the row’s name and links the row to it; nothing when the row already has one

Two ids answer “is there enough?” before a save, for a public page or a till (see Building on an add-on): stock, for a row with a Stock tab, and item, for an item. Each answers yes or no and, when you set “Show customers what is left below” in the settings, how many are left under that number.

An app’s own sample data may add rows to Inventory’s catalogue (items, kits, places) and name the rows of Inventory’s sample by their labels: item:<SKU>, kit:<name>, place:<name>, batch:<code>, and the seeded unit:<code> and reason:<name>.