Track inventory levels

Inventory tracking in Service Buddy shows you exactly what’s on hand so you don’t run out in the middle of a job or over-order expensive parts.

View current stock levels

1. Click Settings in the left sidebar, then click Products & Services (under Company Management).
2. On the Products tab, the list shows three stock columns for each item:
   • Received Quantity — total quantity received into stock.
   • On Hold Quantity — quantity reserved for open quotes, jobs, or invoices.
   • Available Quantity — what’s actually free to use (Received minus On Hold, plus or minus any stock adjustments).
3. If a product is stocked at more than one location, it appears once per location, with that location’s figures in the Location column and the stock columns.
4. An Available Quantity shown in red with a warning icon means more is on hold than you have in stock. Click the icon to jump straight to the holds.

Search, filter, and sort the list

• Search — type in Search Product and press Enter. Each search becomes a chip, so you can stack several terms (for example, a vendor name and a color). Search matches item names, custom field values, and vendor names. Click the × on a chip to remove it.
• Filter — use the filter on a column header to narrow the list, for example by Location, Vendor Name, Inventory Type, Inactive Status, Measurement Unit, or Created Date.
• Sort — click a sortable column header, such as Available Quantity, Received Quantity, Name, or Unit Price, to sort by it. Click again to reverse the order. When you sort by Available Quantity or On Hold Quantity, inactive items sort last.
• Choose columns — use the edit-columns button next to the search bar to show or hide columns.
• Reset — the reset-filters button clears all searches and filters in one click.

Check one item’s stock

Click any item on the list to open it. The panel on the left shows the item’s photos and a stock summary — Available, On hold, and Received — with an Adjust Stock button underneath. Products stocked at several locations also show a Stock by Location table with the received, on-hold, and available quantity at each location.

If you opened the item from a location’s row, the On Hold History and Purchase History tabs start out showing that location only.

Adjust stock (with a reason)

When your real-world stock changes — a delivery arrives, a sample gets pulled, a box is damaged — use Adjust Stock. It records why the number changed, so you get an audit trail instead of a silently edited count.

1. Go to Settings → Products & Services and click the item to open it.
2. Click Adjust Stock.
3. If the product is stocked at more than one location, choose the Location you’re adjusting.
4. Review the item’s current Received, On Hold, and Available quantities at the top.
5. Set the New Quantity Adjustment — use the + button (or type a positive number) to add stock, or the − button (or a negative number) to remove it. The Available card previews the new figure as you type.
6. Choose a Reason:
   • Shipment received
   • Physical count / cycle count
   • Damaged
   • Sample pulled
   • Showroom display
   • Returned from job
   • Customer return
   • Transferred to location (only for products stocked at locations — see below)
   • Data correction
   • Other
7. Click Save.

The adjustment applies immediately and is logged against the item.

Move stock between locations

For a product stocked at more than one location, you can move stock from one location to another without changing the product’s overall total.

1. Open the item and click Adjust Stock.
2. Under Reason, choose Transferred to location. The dialog switches to a transfer.
3. Pick the From location.
4. Enter the Quantity to Move. You can’t move more than the source location holds.
5. Pick the To location. It doesn’t need to stock the product already — Service Buddy adds it.
6. Check the From → To preview, then click Transfer.

The quantity leaves one location and arrives at the other in one step, and the move is recorded in the item’s History. Holds already tied to the source location stay where they are.

See an item’s history

Open the item (or use the item’s row menu, the ⋯ action, on the Products list) and pick a tab:

Tab	What it shows
History	Every change to the item — stock adjustments (Added or Removed, with quantity and reason), transfers, and edits to fields such as price, description, or photos — with who made it and when.
On Hold History	Open quotes, jobs, and invoices currently holding stock, with the customer, quantity, date, and location.
Purchase History	Invoices where customers bought the item, with who purchased it, the invoice number, quantity, and location.

On a product stocked at locations, the On Hold History and Purchase History tabs can show one location or all of them — use Show all locations to widen the view, or Only location name to narrow it again.

Update a stock count manually

You can also edit the count directly — quickest when you just need to set a number after a physical count:

1. Go to Settings → Products & Services, click the item to open it, and click Edit.
2. Update the Received Quantity field. For a product stocked at locations, change the quantity next to each location under Stock by Location instead — the received quantity is their total.
3. Click Save Changes.

The new quantity takes effect immediately and is used for future auto-deduction. For anything where the reason matters (damage, samples, transfers), prefer Adjust Stock above so the change is explained in the item’s history.

Identify low-stock items

1. On the Products list, sort by Available Quantity (ascending) to see the lowest stock first.
2. Items with zero or negative available quantity appear at the top. To check a single store or warehouse, filter the Location column first.
3. Create a purchase order for these items — see Create a purchase order.

Tip

Use the Low Stocks report under Reports to see all items below their reorder threshold in one view.

Mark sold-out items automatically

Rather than watching for items to run out, you can have Service Buddy flag them for you.

1. Click Settings in the left sidebar, then click Product.
2. Under Inventory Management, turn on Automatically Mark Inventory as Sold.

Once it’s on, any stocked product whose available quantity reaches zero is marked Sold, and goes back to active by itself when stock comes back in — after you receive a purchase order, say.

Note

Service Buddy only touches items it marked itself. If you set an item’s status by hand — Sold, Discontinued by Vendor, Damaged / Unsellable, or any other reason — that stays exactly as you set it until you change it.

An item’s status lives in the Inactive Status field on the item, and you can always set it yourself:

Status	Use it for
Sold	Stock is gone
Discontinued by Vendor	The mill or supplier no longer makes it
On Consignment	On your floor but not yours to sell outright
Temporarily Unavailable	Backordered or paused
Damaged / Unsellable	Written off
Returned To Vendor	Sent back

What happens next

• When stock reaches zero, the item is still usable on quotes and invoices but quantity will go negative so you know you have oversold.
• Use the Inventory Summary report (under Reports) to export current stock levels as a CSV for planning or audits.

Tip

Do a physical stock count at least once a quarter. Real-world shrinkage (breakage, loss, miscounts) always creeps in over time — regular counts keep your numbers trustworthy.

Caution

If quantity goes negative, it usually means an invoice deducted stock that hadn’t been received yet. Check your recent purchase orders to see if receipts are missing.

FAQ

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

• Received Quantity — total stock that’s been received into your warehouse (it’s the cumulative count, not the latest delivery alone).
• On Hold Quantity — stock reserved for quotes, jobs, and invoices that are currently in progress.
• Available Quantity — what’s actually free to use right now: Received minus On Hold, plus or minus any stock adjustments you’ve recorded.

When you quote an install, the material goes On Hold; when the install completes and the invoice closes, it comes off Hold and is deducted from Received.

Why is my Available Quantity negative or red?

Most often: an invoice deducted stock for items that hadn’t been received yet (someone billed for material before the PO landed). Check your open POs and confirm receipts are up to date. The negative will resolve as soon as the missing PO is received.

A red figure with a warning icon means more stock is on hold than you have. Click the icon (or View holds in the item’s stock summary) to see which quotes, jobs, and invoices are holding it, then either release a hold or receive more inventory.

How often should I do a physical count?

Most retailers count quarterly at minimum, monthly for fast-moving items (padding, underlayment, tack strip, transition strips, thinset, grout). Big-ticket items like specific carpet rolls, hardwood lots, LVP cartons, or tile boxes deserve a count anytime there’s reason to suspect drift (a roll seemed to “disappear”, an installer pulled padding without logging it, a carton of LVP is missing).

How do I track partial rolls, cartons, and remnants?

Common patterns by product type:

• Carpet by square yardage: track each roll as Roll #12 — Stainmaster Sand Dune with Received Quantity = the remaining sq yd in that roll. Decrement as it’s used.
• Hardwood, LVP, laminate, tile by carton or box: track each SKU at the carton/box level (Received Quantity = 40 cartons), and use partial cartons as adjustments.
• By piece: list each remnant or partial carton as a one-off product. More work, but precise for a remnant-heavy showroom.

There’s no built-in “roll tracking” feature — most retailers use one of the patterns above with a clear naming convention.

What if I drop a roll, break a box of tile, or find shrinkage during a count?

Use Adjust Stock on the affected item: remove the lost quantity (the − button) and pick the matching reason — Damaged for the dropped box, Physical count / cycle count for shrinkage found during a count. This keeps an audit trail in the item’s History (who, how much, and why), which a direct edit to Received Quantity doesn’t. Reach for the manual Received Quantity edit only when you simply need to set the number and the reason doesn’t matter.

How do I track stock at more than one store or warehouse?

Open the product, click Edit, and use + Add location under Stock by Location to list each location that holds it, with the quantity at each. The product’s received quantity becomes the total of all locations. From then on the Products list shows one row per location, adjustments ask which location they apply to, and purchase orders can be received into a specific location. Set up your locations first under Settings → Locations — see Manage locations.

How do I move stock from one location to another?

Open the product, click Adjust Stock, and choose Transferred to location as the reason. Pick the From location, the Quantity to Move, and the To location, then click Transfer. The product’s overall total doesn’t change — the stock just moves. You can’t move more than the source location holds.

Which products show stock counts?

Only products whose Inventory Type is Inventory. Non-Inventory products — special orders, drop-shipped goods, freight — sell normally on quotes and invoices but carry no count, so they never appear as low or out of stock. See Add an item to your catalog.

Will automatic Sold status overwrite a status I set myself?

No. Service Buddy only clears a Sold status it applied itself. Anything you set by hand — including Sold — is left alone, and an item marked Discontinued by Vendor or Damaged / Unsellable stays that way even if stock arrives.

Where does the Low Stocks report live?

Under Reports → Low Stocks. It lists every item with Available Quantity under the reorder threshold you’ve set per item. Most retailers run this weekly to drive the reorder list.

Can Service Buddy reorder automatically when stock is low?

Not directly — there’s no auto-PO feature. But the Automate Weekly Low Stock Report on the vendor record will email the vendor a snapshot of low items linked to them, which is most retailers’ replenishment trigger.

Related tasks

• Add an item to your catalog
• Auto-deduct stock on jobs and invoices
• Create a purchase order
• Receive stock from a purchase order
• Manage locations