1. Business Use Cases

After a company produces or purchases Products, it must immediately update the corresponding Warehouse Inventory. When submitting a Sales Order, you can require sufficient Inventory before allowing submission; after a Sales Order is submitted successfully, the system increases the corresponding Warehouse’s reserved Inventory to ensure order accuracy and validity. When creating a Shipping Order, you can select the Warehouse to ship from and deduct the actual Inventory of that Warehouse. When creating a return order, you can return goods to a specified Warehouse and increase that Warehouse’s Inventory.

Insufficient or excessive Inventory is one of the biggest challenges companies face during production and operations. Proper Inventory control helps managers efficiently monitor stock levels, keep Inventory within reasonable ranges, ensure smooth production and operations, and avoid costs from overstocking or lost orders due to stockouts.

2. Detailed Description of Inventory

2.1 Inventory Inbound and Outbound

• New Inventory records can only be created by creating an Inbound Order; you cannot create Inventory entries directly.
• Inventory quantity changes occur through business document confirmations. The system automatically creates Inbound Orders (for example, after returns) or Outbound Orders (for example, after Shipping Orders) to update Inventory. You cannot edit Inventory quantity directly.

2.2 Safety Stock

• After enabling Inventory, you can set a product’s Safety Stock value on the Products object.
• In ordering settings you can choose how stock is displayed. If you select a fuzzy display, and Safety Stock is set, the fuzzy stock status shows three states: Out of Stock, Low, and Sufficient.
  • Out of Stock: Available Inventory <= 0
  • Low: 0 < Available Inventory < Safety Stock
  • Sufficient: Available Inventory >= Safety Stock
• If Safety Stock is not set, the fuzzy stock status shows two states: Out of Stock and Sufficient.
  • Out of Stock: Available Inventory <= 0
  • Sufficient: Available Inventory > 0
• Out of Stock: Available Inventory <= 0
• Low: 0 < Available Inventory < Safety Stock

• Sufficient: Available Inventory >= Safety Stock

• When Safety Stock is empty, fuzzy stock states:
  • Out of Stock: Available Inventory <= 0
  • Sufficient: Available Inventory > 0
• Out of Stock: Available Inventory <= 0
• Sufficient: Available Inventory > 0