Inventory usage

Stock items, movements, low-stock alerts, and adjustments.

Operations guide for day and boarding schools.

Last updated August 29, 2026

Inventory is an asset and consumables register rather than a warehouse system. An item is a named line with a quantity, a unit, a location, and a condition, and every change to that quantity is written as a movement with a reason so the register can be reconciled against a physical count later. There is no bin, batch, or serial tracking, and no concept of issuing stock to a person as a transaction that has to be returned - custody is recorded as a property of the item, not a loan.

Prerequisites

A user with Platform Admin, Support Staff - Purchasing, or Support Staff - Facilities, since nobody else can create or change items.
An agreed naming convention. There is no SKU or item code field, so the item name plus location is the only way to tell two similar lines apart.
For depreciation reporting, the purchase price and useful life in months at the time you create the item.

What an item record holds

Name, category (furniture, electronics, sports, stationery, equipment, or other), and an optional description.
Quantity and unit, which defaults to piece.
Location and supplier, both free text - supplier is a label, not a link to the vendor master.
Purchase date and price, useful life in months, salvage value, and a depreciation method of straight line or none.
Condition from excellent through to damaged, and a custodian.

Usage workflow

Create the item at /inventory with its category, quantity, unit, and location.
Receive stock either from a procurement goods receipt, which creates its own rows, or by recording an adjustment on /inventory/[id].
Record every issue, loss, or correction as a movement with a reason code so the audit trail explains the change.
Reconcile against a physical count with a stocktake, and dispose of anything written off.
Export the list to CSV when someone outside the app needs the register.

Movement types and their rules

Movement	Requires	Effect on the item
ADJUSTMENT	A non-zero change	Adds or removes stock; cannot go below zero
DISPOSAL	Stock above zero	Writes off everything remaining and deactivates the item
STOCKTAKE	A counted quantity	Sets the quantity to the count; the only movement allowed on an inactive item, and it reactivates one that counts above zero
TRANSFER	A destination location	Moves the item; quantity unchanged
CUSTODY	A custodian user	Records who holds it; quantity unchanged
WRITE_OFF	A negative count	Removes part of the stock

Reasons and reporting

Every movement carries a reason code: stock count, damaged, lost, transferred, donated or written off, data entry correction, or other. Choosing other forces you to type an explanation.
The code is stored in front of the note, so the movement history can be filtered by why stock changed and not only by how much.
Where useful life is recorded, the item detail shows straight-line book value, accumulated depreciation, and a fully depreciated flag.
Cancelling an already-received purchase order writes an automatic disposal movement against each line it created, tagged with the order number.

Limits

No reorder points, low-stock notifications, or automatic purchase order drafts.
No barcode scanning and no per-unit serial numbers - laboratory equipment is the only place serials and barcodes are tracked.
The supplier field is free text, so inventory does not roll up spend by vendor. Use vendor bills and expenses in finance for that.

Common questions

Quick answers in plain language.

Can I set a reorder level per item?+

No. The low-stock badge in the list is a fixed threshold of five units for every item, and there is no alert, email, or automatic reorder draft behind it. A minimum-stock field exists in the database but nothing in the app reads or writes it.

Why did an item disappear from the list after I adjusted it down?+

Any movement other than a stocktake that lands on zero deactivates the item. It is still there under the inactive filter and its movement history is intact - a stocktake with a count above zero brings it back.

Goods received created a second row for something we already stock. Is that expected?+

Yes. Receiving a purchase order creates a new inventory row for each order line rather than incrementing an existing item, always in the OTHER category with the vendor name as supplier. Reclassifying or merging those rows is manual housekeeping.

Who can record stock movements?+

Platform Admin, Support Staff - Purchasing, and Support Staff - Facilities. Principal and Vice Principal can open /inventory and read everything but see a read-only notice, because oversight is deliberately separated from stock changes.