Stock Management Overview

Stock Management Overview

Stock management in CrafterBy tracks the quantities of materials and finished goods you have on hand — where they are stored, how quantities change over time, and which stock is committed to production orders. It gives you a live view of what you actually have available versus what is already spoken for.

What Stock Management Covers

• Raw material inventory — quantities of materials used in production (wax, resin, leather, thread, metals, consumables)
• Finished goods inventory — quantities of completed products ready for sale
• Stock locations — tracking which stock is where across multiple physical storage areas
• Stock movements — a complete history of every quantity change and its cause
• Minimum stock levels — alerts when a material falls below your reorder threshold

Key Concepts

Stock Locations

A stock location is any named physical place where you store materials or products: a workshop shelf, a spare room, a market stall van, an external warehouse. CrafterBy lets you track stock at location level — so you know not just how much you have, but where it is.

Stock Movements

A stock movement is any event that changes a quantity: receiving a purchase, consuming materials in production, shipping a sale, recording a waste event, or correcting a count after a stocktake. Every movement is logged with a date, type, quantity change, and a reference to the order or event that caused it.

Reserved Stock

Stock that has been set aside for a planned or active production order. Reserved stock is still physically in your storage but is flagged as committed — it does not appear as available for other purposes.

Available Stock

Available stock is your total on-hand quantity minus any reserved quantities. This is the number that matters when you are deciding whether to start a new production order or whether you need to place a purchase order first.

Why Stock Management Matters

Running out of a key material mid-production is one of the most disruptive things that can happen in a small craft business. It wastes time (you have to stop work, source material, restart), and if you have a customer deadline, it is a business risk.

Accurate stock tracking lets you:

• Know exactly what you have before committing to an order
• Get automatic alerts when materials fall below minimum levels
• See reserved stock so you know what is already committed
• Trace any discrepancy back to a specific movement
• Plan purchase orders before you run short, not after

How Stock Levels Change

Stock quantities change automatically in two ways:

• Increases: when a purchase order is marked as received
• Decreases: when material consumption is logged on a production order

You can also make manual adjustments to correct counts, record waste, or account for stock that was not tracked through the normal purchase/production workflow. See Recording Manual Stock Adjustments.