Inventory

Inventory is the largest area of Vinstra Flow. It holds what you buy, what you have, what you have asked for, what has arrived and what has left.

Screen	Route	What it is for
Current stock	inventory/current	What you have now
Products	inventory/product	The catalogue
Product prices	inventory/product/products_prices	Cost and sale price
Product sets	inventory/product_set	Products grouped together
Vendors	inventory/vendor	Suppliers
Sale agents	inventory/sale_agent	Agents paid commission
Manufacturers	inventory/manufacturer	Who makes a product
Lots	inventory/lot	What arrived
Purchase requests	inventory/purchase_request	What you want to buy
Purchase orders	inventory/purchase_order	What you have ordered
Clients	inventory/client	Who you sell to
Gate passes	inventory/gate_pass	What left the premises

Add a product

Product form, at inventory/product/add. Placeholder image.

1. Go to Inventory, Products.
2. Select Add.
3. Fill in the product:
   • Name, Code and Product id.
   • Category, Class name and Sub class.
   • Series and Colour.
   • Manufacturer and Country of origin.
   • Company.
   • Unit, Stock unit, and the From unit, To unit and Factor that convert between them.
   • Cost and Sale price.
   • Quantity, Storage quantity and Storage space.
   • Product set, if this product is a set rather than a single item.
4. Select Save.

The unit fields are the ones to take care over. Unit is how you handle the product, Stock unit is how you count it, and the factor converts between them. Getting this wrong makes stock figures and cost sheets disagree with reality in a way that is hard to trace back.

Set Archived rather than deleting a product you no longer buy. Deleting one that appears on old jobs loses the link.

See what you have

Current stock, at inventory/current. Placeholder image.

Inventory, Current stock is the live picture. The dashboard also carries Available stock, Low stock and Not available stock widgets, which is the quicker way to spot a problem before it stops a job.

Buy something

Purchasing runs in two steps.

1. Raise a purchase request

Purchase request, at inventory/purchase_request/add. Placeholder image.

1. Go to Inventory, Purchase requests.
2. Select Add, enter what you need, and save.

A request is a statement of need. It does not commit you to anything and it does not tell a supplier anything.

2. Raise a purchase order

Purchase order, at inventory/purchase_order/add. Placeholder image.

1. Go to Inventory, Purchase orders.
2. Select Add, choose the vendor, add the lines, and save.

The dashboard has Pending purchase requests and Pending purchase orders widgets. Check them weekly, because a request nobody turned into an order is the usual reason material does not arrive.

Receive a delivery

Lot form, at inventory/lot/add. Placeholder image.

Goods in are recorded as a lot.

1. Go to Inventory, Lots.
2. Select Add.
3. Record what arrived and save.

There is a lot received PDF template, so a lot can be printed as a received document for your own records.

Record the lot when the material lands, not when the invoice arrives. Current stock is only as good as the last lot entered.

Send something out

Gate pass, at inventory/gate_pass/add. Placeholder image.

A gate pass records goods leaving.

1. Go to Inventory, Gate passes.
2. Select Add.
3. Fill in:
   • Company.
   • Issue date.
   • Parent and Parent id, which tie the pass to the job it belongs to.
   • Item and Quantity.
   • Unit type.
   • Weight in kg.
4. Select Save.
5. Print the gate pass for the driver. There is a gate passes PDF template.

The gate pass is the nearest thing the application has to a delivery record, so it is worth raising one properly for every load that leaves.

Product sets

A product set groups products that are bought or issued together. Create them under Inventory, Product sets, and mark a product as a set on the product record with the Is product set field.