Stock Control

Introduction

The quantity of goods in stock can be manually adjusted by editing the product inventory. However, this figure should rarely need changing once set, unless there are known discrepancies, or goods have been received and you are not using the purchase orders module. The Quantity in Stock figure is automatically adjusted in the following scenarios:

  • Incremented if a customer returns the goods and you have said you wish for it to be restocked.
  • Incremented for goods received on a purchase order (using the purchase orders module).
  • Decremented once the goods are dispatched/fulfilled.

We also store a Quantity Allocated figure, so we know what goods have been assigned to an order. This figure is automatically adjusted as follows:

  • Incremented once an order is placed.
  • Decremented for any cancelled goods.
  • Decremented once the goods are dispatched/fulfilled.

Therefore, to calculate the quantity available to order we use the following formula:

Quantity Available = Quantity in Stock - Quantity Allocated

Please note that the Quantity in Stock is often referred to as simply Quantity within the admin panel.

You may have noticed that both the Quantity in Stock and Quantity Allocated are decremented as goods are dispatched/fulfilled; this means the Quantity Available does not change for the customer, since we wish the available quantity to adjust as soon as the order is placed.

Back Orders

Once an order is placed, then by default it will not allow customers to order above the Quantity Available. However, if you enable back orders against the product, then the goods unavailable are placed on Back Order.

If you wish to fulfill the entire order then you cannot dispatch it if it contains goods on Back Order. To fulfill an order on Back Order you will need to increase the Available Stock for the goods on Back Order. Once stock is increased (either manually, or when another order is cancelled, or when stock is returned or from a purchase order received), we automatically assign goods to the oldest orders first. This means that you can dispatch orders for customers who have waited the longest at the earliest opportunity.

There are times you may wish to dispatch an entire order which has goods on Back Order before another order which is ready to be dispatched. To acheive this you need to view the order you wish to dispatch, and click to remove the back orders from the order lines which are holding the order up. This action will only be available if there is enough stock to fulfill the goods placed on Back Order, and will automatically assign the goods on Back Order to another order (the newest one not including this one). Your order will now be visible on the dispatch screen.

It is aso possible to dispatch only the available goods (not including any on Back Order) against an order. To do this you will need to change the filter on the dispatch screen to include back orders. This will create a partial fulfillment and the order will remain with a status of Processing until it is fully dispatched.

Purchase Orders Module

The Purchase Orders module allows you to raise purchase orders for any goods you wish to purchase to fulfill your orders. They can be added manually, or the module is clever enough to automatically raise purchase orders to maintain a minimum stock figure.

Automatic Purchase Orders

If you wish to have purchase orders raised automatically, firstly you will need to do the following:

  1. Add your suppliers to the Suppliers Data List.
  2. Set the Purchase Price for each supplier against the products you wish to automatically raise a purchase order for. Please note that the purchase order is raised against the cheapest supplier unless you specify an alternative preferred supplier.
  3. Set the Minimum/Maximum Quantity for the product when editing its inventory. This last part is optional; if you leave it to automatically calculate these figures, then it uses the following formula to calculate them:

Maximum Quantity = Quantity sold since Max Duration Previous Sales Stock Calculation setting (ignore orders above the Max Quantity To Adjust Target Stock Levels setting) / Max Duration Previous Sales Stock Calculation setting * Duration Stock Held setting
Minimum Quantity = Maximum Quantity * Min Quantity Percentage setting

Now, if the Quantity Available falls below the Minimum Quantity figure, it will raise a purchase order for the preferred supplier up to the Maximum Quantity. If there is an existing Pending or Sent purchase order for the product at the time of the order, then it will increment the quantity to order by the quantity the customer has already ordered to maintain the Maximum Quantity.

Stock Value Module

This module allows you to calculate the total value of your stock. It also keeps track of any product inventory/stock adjustments, which will allow you to see what triggered a product's Quantity in Stock figure to change.

Purchase Prices

We maintain a Purchase Price against the product, which is the average Purchase Price for the goods in stock. Therefore, to calculate the total value of goods we simply have to create a total of the Quantity in Stock multiplied by the Purchase Price for every product.

Also, at the time an order is dispatched/fulfilled we log the product's Purchase Price figure against the fulfilled goods, so we can work out the value of any returned goods. This is because when goods go out, the Quantity in Stock and Total Stock value goes down, but the average value of each item will stay the same. Therefore, we need to make sure that when goods are returned, the total value is increased by the same amount it was originally decreased by when it was dispatched/fulfilled.

For example, say we dispatch two items with a Stock Value of £10, then the Total Stock Value will drop by £20; we later dispatch two more of the same item, but this time the Average Stock Value has increased to £18, then the Total Stock Value will drop by £36. Now we know Total Stock Value for the dispatched items will be £56 (£20 + £36) and the Average Stock Value will be £14 (Total Stock Value / Number of items dispatched). Therefore if the 4 items are returned the Total Stock Value will increase by £56 which is the same amount it originally decreased by.