How Inventory & Stock Works
Stock items, warehouses, stock movements, demand forecasting, and how inventory connects to purchasing, billing, and field service.
What Inventory does
The Inventory module tracks physical stock — parts, equipment, consumables, assets — across one or more warehouses. It records what you have, where it is, and how much it costs. When stock is used on a job, it is deducted. When stock gets low, it triggers a purchase request. AI-powered demand forecasting suggests how much to order and when.
Key concepts
Item — A stocked product (e.g. a specific network switch model, a type of toner cartridge). Items have SKU, cost, sale price, and minimum/reorder quantity.
Asset — A tracked individual item with a serial number (e.g. a specific laptop). Assets belong to a client company and can be monitored in the Monitoring module.
Warehouse — A physical location where stock is held. You can have multiple warehouses (e.g. main office, tech van, offsite storage). Stock quantities are tracked per item per warehouse.
Stock Adjustment — A manual correction to stock levels (e.g. after a physical count reveals a discrepancy).
Stock Transfer — Move stock between warehouses.
How stock is consumed
Stock is consumed in two main ways:
- Field Service work orders — Parts used on a job are logged against the work order. The inventory is automatically decremented.
- Manual allocation — You manually assign items to a job, project, or client.
When stock for an item falls below the minimum quantity threshold, Plenix flags it and can automatically generate a Purchase Request in Purchasing for replenishment.
Demand Forecasting
The Predictions module analyses historical stock consumption and forecasts future demand. For each item, it calculates:
- Predicted consumption over the next 30/60/90 days
- Recommended reorder quantity and timing
This prevents both stockouts (running out of critical parts in the middle of a job) and overstocking (tying up cash in unnecessary stock).
Asset Tracking
The Assets section of Inventory tracks individual serialised items — typically equipment owned by you or your clients. Each asset has:
- Unique asset tag / serial number
- Make, model, purchase date, warranty expiry
- Assigned client company
- Current status (in use, in storage, decommissioned)
- Maintenance history
Assets can be linked to Monitoring devices — so a physical asset record (the laptop as a business asset) is connected to the monitoring record (the same laptop sending health telemetry).
How Inventory connects to the rest of the platform
Purchasing: When stock falls below minimum, a purchase request is generated in Purchasing. Approved POs trigger receiving workflows that update stock levels when goods arrive.
Field Service: Parts used on work orders are drawn from inventory automatically.
Billing: Parts used on jobs can be billed to clients — line items are created in Billing at the configured sale price.
CRM: Client-owned assets are associated with their CRM company record.
Monitoring: Assets can be linked to monitored devices.
Accounting: Inventory value changes (stock received, stock used) create accounting journal entries.
Where to go next
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