Stock Management

Last updated: June 20, 2026

A stock item is the master record for a physical thing you hold and value, the SKU. Where a sales product is what a customer buys, the stock item is what actually sits on your shelf. The two are kept deliberately separate, so the way you sell something can change without disturbing the thing itself, and one stock item can stand behind many products.

What you will learn
  • How a stock item differs from a sales product
  • What each tab of the stock record configures
  • How costing method and unit conversion work
  • How an item can be sellable, purchasable or producible
One SKUWidget AMain / Availableqty 60Main / On holdqty 5Branch / Availableqty 30Branch / Batch L-22qty 12A SKU’s quantity is the sum across location, group and attribute
Stock is never one number: it is counted across location, group and attribute simplified mockup

A stock item is not a product

This is the idea to hold onto. A product is a line a customer can buy, carrying its own price and tax; a stock item is the physical unit you count and cost. They are decoupled, so a single stock item can back several products (a retail pack and a wholesale carton of the same widget), and pricing lives on the product while physical identity lives here. The full picture is on the Product Catalogue page.

Anatomy of the screen

The stock record is organised into tabs:

  • Stock Item – code, name, description, unit of measure, photo, physical dimensions and weight, class, category and notes.
  • Sell & Purchase – whether the item may be sold and bought, its default sale and purchase prices, and the supplier items behind it.
  • Properties – master settings such as whether serials apply and the costing method.
  • Attributes – the tracked characteristics: batch code, expiry, custom fields and current cost.
  • Unit conversion – the conversions between compatible units, so you can hold in one unit and sell in another.
  • Production – whether the item can be produced, and its link to a bill of materials.

How it behaves

Costing method

Each item carries a costing method, the rule by which its stock is valued (weighted average, FIFO, average, or none for items you do not value). Cost is captured per receipt on the stock ledger, so the value of what you hold flows from what you actually paid for it.

Sellable, purchasable, producible

An item is not locked to one role. Flags decide whether it can be sold, bought, or manufactured, in any combination, so a raw material you only purchase, a finished good you only sell, and an item you both make and sell are all the same kind of record with different switches set.

Low-stock alerts

Set an alert level (per location and group) and the system flags the item when its available quantity falls below that line, and can turn the shortfall straight into a purchase requisition, request for quote or order.

Worked example

You hold Widget A as singles but sell it by the carton of twelve. You set the stock unit to “each”, add a unit conversion to a twelve-pack, and create two products against the one stock item: a single and a carton. Selling either draws the right number of singles from stock automatically.

Edge cases and good practice

  • One stock item, many products. Reach for a new product, not a new stock item, when only the packaging or price changes.
  • Pick the costing method up front; it sets how value is reported for the item.
  • Use unit conversion rather than separate items when you hold and sell in different units.

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