Stock and purchase entry

What you are going to do

You are going to walk the whole path once: register a product that tracks stock, record a purchase, watch the balance change, and check the expense that was created alongside it, on the Transactions screen.

Two things to know first

Stock is per property. There is no balance "for the whole guesthouse": there is the balance of each item at each property. Before anything else, pick the property at the top of the screen — without it, Stock shows nothing.

Only items that track stock show up. If the product does not have the "Track stock for this item" box ticked, it does not exist for this screen. That is the most common mistake, and it produces no error message at all.

Step by step

1. Register the product — go to Settings → Products and Services → "New item". Give it a name, tick "Track stock for this item" and, if you want to be warned when it runs low, fill in the Minimum stock. Save.

2. Open Stock — in the menu, click Stock and pick the property. On the Position tab the product appears with a balance of 0. If it does not appear, go back to step 1: the box did not get ticked.

3. Record the purchase — go to the Purchase entry tab. Enter the Purchase date, the Supplier (optional) and the Invoice / receipt number (optional). Add one line per product, with the quantity and the unit cost. The quantity is always positive: the system applies the sign.

4. Check the total — the Sum of lines is calculated for you. The Invoice total field can be left blank, in which case the sum applies. Fill it in only when the invoice closes at a different figure because of apportioned freight or rounding — the two numbers are different facts and the system keeps both.

5. Decide about the expense — the Create a financial transaction box is ticked by default, and it is what turns the purchase into an expense dated on the purchase date. Unticking it is a valid choice: the stock comes in and no transaction is created.

6. Say whether it was already paid — if you tick Already paid, the Payment method field becomes required. Without choosing one, the purchase is refused and nothing is saved. If you leave it unticked, the expense is created as payable, due on the purchase date.

7. Save the purchase — the message confirms the purchase was recorded and the transaction was created.

8. Go back to Position — the product balance is now the quantity you bought.

9. Check the expense — go to Transactions. There is a new expense, on the purchase date, for the total amount, with the supplier filled in if you named one. It is an ordinary transaction: you can edit, categorise and pay it like any other.

10. See the link from both sides — back in Stock, the Purchases tab lists what you recorded and shows, on each row, whether the transaction was Created, whether the purchase was left Without a transaction, or whether the transaction was deleted afterwards.

Practical tip

The message about the category is not an error. When the products in a purchase have different cost accounts from one another, or none of them has a cost account, the system does not pick one for you: it sends the expense to "Other" and tells you why, suggesting you edit the transaction if you want a different category.

That is deliberate. Choosing silently would put the expense in a category you never picked, with nothing explaining it. If you want the expense to land in the right place every time, fill in the Cost account on your products, under Settings → Products and Services — that is where the choice comes from.

A negative balance blocks nothing

If a movement leaves the balance negative, it is recorded anyway, and you get a message saying the balance went negative and that it is worth checking whether an entry is still missing.

This is not laxity: a negative balance is a real state, and it almost always means the outgoing movement was recorded before the incoming one. Blocking would create the worst possible situation — the guest has already taken the water and the system will not let you record that it left. Refusing the movement does not undo what happened, it only erases the record of it.

To fix it, record the purchase that was missing. The balance settles itself.

A movement is never deleted

There is no delete button for a movement. History is history, and a correction is always a new movement: use the Adjustments and losses tab and choose the type — Loss for breakage, expiry or theft, Positive adjustment or Negative adjustment for a correction, Internal use for what the house consumed, Inventory correction to settle against a physical count.

In almost all of them the quantity is positive and the system applies the sign. The exception is Inventory correction, where the sign is yours: negative for a shortfall, positive for a surplus.

Common mistakes

Opening Stock without picking the property and concluding there is nothing there.

Looking for a product on Position without having ticked "Track stock for this item".

Ticking Already paid and not choosing a payment method. The purchase is not saved, and the message says exactly that.

Clicking save twice because the first click seemed not to work. It does not duplicate: the system recognises it is the same purchase and tells you nothing new was created.