STOCK MANAGEMENT - An Introduction


One of the three most common reasons why a business chooses to use an IT System is Stock Management. The other two reasons are Speed (Such as having a barcode will speed up your sales) and the wish to always have a good overview of how your sales and profits are doing (Thanks to reports).

To make one thing clear, if you choose to use iLabPOS, you do not have to use the Stock Management module. You can use the software just for managing sales at the counter. As long you always issue a receipt for every sale, you are fullfilling all your obligations towards the VAT Department. In businesses such as bars and restaurants, vegetable shops and newspaper shops, it is not of great benefit to manage stock on an IT System. However that does not necessarily mean that you do not need an IT System.


In iLabPOS, Stock Management has been simplified as much as possible. Infact, if you are capable of understanding the next paragraph, you will have understood the way iLabPOS Stock works.

When you create an article, the initial stock balance is 0. You can manipulate the stock balance for that article in 3 different ways:

   i. Sell Stock to Reduce Qty. (Cash Sale / Invoice)
   ii. Transfer In Stock to Increase Qty. (Transfer in when stock arrives)
   iii. Transfer Out Stock to Reduce Qty. (Transfer out damages, returns, stolen etc..)


In other words
Article Stock Balance = Total Transferred In - Total Sold - Total Transferred Out

To get a good overview of the balance for 1 particular article, go to the article screen, highlight the article you want to see and click on the Stock History. This screen will you show detail of all the stock movements you had for that particular article.

Negative Stock is possible in iLabPOS. In fact, if you are a bar and you don't bother with transferring in stock, all your stock balances will be in the negative. You can issue a Negative Stock report from the reports section to list all stock where the balance is below zero.