Inventory & Purchasing

Stay on top of what you have, what you need, and who you buy from. Service Buddy ties your parts catalog, vendors, and purchase orders together so you always know your stock position.

Inventory

• Add an item to your catalog
• Track inventory levels
• Auto-deduct stock on jobs and invoices
• Import items in bulk

Purchase orders

• Create a purchase order
• Approve or reject a purchase order
• Receive stock from a purchase order

Vendors

• Add a vendor
• Manage vendor details

Common questions

Should I track every roll, box, and remnant in inventory?

Most flooring retailers track high-volume materials (carpet padding, underlayment, tack strip, transition strips, quarter-round, seam tape, thinset, grout) and special-order items (specific carpet rolls, hardwood lots, LVP cartons, or tile boxes for quoted jobs) closely. One-off items like carpet remnants or partial cartons are sometimes tracked individually, sometimes treated as adjustments to the main rolls or stock they came from. Pick a system and stick to it.

What’s the difference between Received Qty, On Hold Qty, and Available Qty?

• Received Qty — total stock that’s been received into your warehouse.
• On Hold Qty — stock reserved for jobs/invoices in progress.
• Available Qty — what’s free to use right now (Received minus On Hold).

See Track inventory levels for the full picture.

How do flooring retailers structure their PO workflow?

Common: salesperson sells the install, creates the quote with material specs, gets client approval and deposit. Office or operations creates the PO from the quote, sends to the mill or distributor, marks Approved. When goods arrive, marks Received to update inventory. The PO is linked to the originating job for traceability. This same flow works for any product type — carpet rolls, hardwood lots, LVP cartons, or tile boxes.

Should I add the mill, manufacturer, or distributor as a vendor?

Whoever you actually place the PO with. If you order direct from the mill or manufacturer (Stanton, Shaw, Mohawk, Karastan, Tuftex for carpet; Bruce, Mannington, Coretec, Mohawk for hardwood/LVP; Daltile, Marazzi, MSI for tile), add them as the vendor. If you go through a distributor (Galleher, BPI, NRF, etc.), add the distributor. See Add a vendor.

What about freight and drop-ship?

Add freight as its own vendor record. For drop-ship orders, set the Ship To on the PO to the client’s install address — useful when the mill ships directly to the job site instead of your warehouse.

How do I handle special-order materials?

Most retailers require the full material cost as a deposit on the quote (so they’re covered if the client cancels after the order’s been placed), then create the PO immediately upon quote approval. The PO line item references the originating quote/job for traceability.