Inventory and purchasing
Inventory is what is on the shelf: chemicals, anodes, salts, masking, packaging and supplies, each at a weighted-average cost. Purchasing is the POs that bring stock in, the receipts against them and the vendor bills that follow.
Items
The Inventory page lists every item with its on-hand quantity, reorder point, unit cost and location. Open one for the fields below and its transaction history.
- SKU and name
- The SKU prints on PO lines and tank addition records.
- Category
- Chemical, anode, masking, rack/fixture, packaging, supply or precious metal.
- Unit of measure
- gal, lb, kg, ea, tr oz. Every quantity on the item is in this unit.
- Qty on hand
- Entered once as an opening balance. After that it changes only through transactions.
- Reorder point and reorder qty
- Drive the reorder report and the quantity on an automatic PO.
- Unit cost
- The weighted average, recomputed on every receipt.
- Preferred vendor, location, SDS link
- The vendor is who the reorder report buys from. Chemicals and precious metals without an SDS link are flagged on the Compliance page.
Receiving, issuing and adjusting
The item page shows On hand, Average cost and Value, then the transactions: date, type, quantity, cost, the job or PO referenced, notes and who posted it. Three buttons post transactions.
- Receive takes a quantity and a unit cost and recomputes the average: (on hand × old cost + received × new cost) ÷ new total. Office roles and QC can receive.
- Issue takes a quantity and an optional open job. Issued to a job, the value lands in that job's materials cost; left as "Shop use / tank add", it is expensed without one. Any staff login can issue. Each issue posts a journal entry: debit chemicals and supplies expense, credit inventory.
- Adjust takes a signed quantity for a count correction and posts the matching entry.
Tank additions issue stock without a visit to this page: post an addition on a tank, pick the stock item, and the quantity is issued with a note naming the tank and the reason. See Tank chemistry.
Reorder report
The Reorder report lists every active item at or below its reorder point with on hand, reorder point, reorder quantity, quantity already on open POs and the preferred vendor; the Dashboard shows the same low-stock list. Create POs for items not on order writes one open PO per preferred vendor, one line per item, at the reorder quantity (or twice the reorder point minus on hand when none is set) and the current cost, noted "Auto-generated reorder". Items with no preferred vendor, or already on an open PO, are skipped.
Purchase orders
POs live under Payables with tabs for Open, Received, Closed, Cancelled and All. New PO asks for the vendor, an expected date, an optional open job when the PO is for outside processing, and lines. A line is a stock item, which fills in the description, cost and reorder quantity, or a non-stock description with its own quantity, cost and GL account. Sending a routing step to a vendor from the job creates its PO automatically; see Outside processing.
The PO prints as form PO-PUR-01 with the PO number as a barcode, order and required-by dates, vendor and ship-to addresses, the lines with quantities received so far, a total and an Authorized by signature line. It can be edited only while open with nothing received. The buttons on it:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Receive | A line-by-line form with the outstanding quantity filled in. Stock lines go into inventory at the PO cost. The PO becomes Partial or Received. |
| Enter bill | Shown when something is received and not yet billed. Takes the vendor's invoice number and date and bills the received, unbilled amount. A fully received PO closes when billed. |
| Close | Ends an open or partial PO you will not receive more against. |
| Cancel PO | Only while nothing has been received. A PO with receipts is closed instead. |
Vendor bills and payments
Bills, Vendor payments and A/P aging are for administrators, managers and office staff. A bill from a PO puts stock lines on the inventory account and non-stock lines on the line's GL account, or the vendor's default expense account. Enter bill by hand for anything without a PO: vendor, vendor invoice number, bill date, a due date (blank uses the vendor's terms), and lines with a description, GL account, an optional job for outside processing charges and the amount. The same invoice number cannot be entered twice for one vendor. A bill debits the line accounts and credits accounts payable.
Pay bills takes the vendor, date, method (check, ACH, wire or credit card), a reference number and the amount to apply to each open bill. The payment debits A/P and credits cash. Voiding a payment reopens its bills and posts a reversing entry; voiding an unpaid bill does the same. A/P aging buckets open bills by vendor into Current, 1 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90 and over 90 days past due.
Vendors and reports
Vendors are set up under Shop setup with a code, name, address, phone, email, terms in days and a default expense account. Vendors and inventory items import from CSV under Settings > Data. Two reports cover this area: Inventory valuation (on hand, average cost, value and quantity used in the period) and Chemical usage by tank (quantity and cost per chemical and tank, by reason). Both print and download as CSV.