Inventory and stock

Use stock when you buy and sell things you count, such as goods for resale. Open Stock in the side rail. The tabs are Items, On hand, Movements, Count sheets, Transfers, Reports, Locations and Settings.

Items and locations

Choose New item. Give a name and a SKU (it must be unique), and optionally a barcode, the price you sell for and the price you pay. A tracked item has stock. A service does not. You can set the income, cost of goods sold and inventory accounts. Missing accounts are made the first time they are needed.

Items are switched off, never deleted. Once an item has stock history it cannot change between tracked and service.

A location is a place that holds stock, such as a warehouse, store or van. One location, MAIN, exists from the start. A location that holds stock cannot be switched off.

How stock is valued

Pop Books uses moving average cost. A purchase adds stock at the bill line amount. A sale takes stock out at the current average cost. The value of all stock always equals the inventory accounts in your books. The Valuation report shows both side by side.

Buying and selling

1. Create the bill or invoice with Stock invoice or bill, which fills lines from your items. You can also link lines of an existing draft.
2. A bill line for a tracked item goes to the inventory account when the bill is issued, not to expense, and adds stock.
3. An invoice line for a tracked item posts as usual. A second entry, on the same date, moves the cost from inventory to cost of goods sold.
4. Voiding a document puts the stock back and reverses the cost entry.

Counting, adjusting and moving

• Adjust: add or take out stock. You must choose a reason, such as found, damaged, lost or expired.
• Count sheets: Start a count sheet for a location, type what you counted, then Post the differences. Items you did not count are left alone.
• Transfers: move stock between locations at the source's average cost. No entry is posted.

Reports

Stock on hand as at a date, valuation, movement history, the reorder list, best sellers by quantity or income, and anywhere stock is below zero. Each can be downloaded as CSV.

Important

• By default a sale that takes stock below zero still goes through and is flagged. In Settings you can tick the option to refuse it.
• Items can be brought in from a file (CSV or Excel) with a dry run first, and exported again. A SKU already in your books is skipped, not overwritten.
• Returned goods are handled by voiding the sale. Credit notes for stock are not built yet.
• Lots, serial numbers, expiry dates, bundles and units of measure are not built yet.
• A sale dated earlier than a later sale uses the average at the time you enter it, not at its date.
• The screens have not yet been tried by hand against a real company file. Count a small test item first.