Stock and Inventory Basics
Almost every flow in Fast2Task touches stock somewhere: sales orders take it, purchase orders bring it in, work orders consume and produce it. This article covers the pieces those flows rely on.
Stock locations
A stock location is anywhere goods live: a warehouse, a shelf, a bin, a van. Every stock movement in Fast2Task names a location. You receipt purchase orders into a location, fulfill sales orders from one, and stocktake by location.
Set up locations to match how you’d physically find something. A handful of broad locations is fine to start; you can get more granular later as picking accuracy starts to matter.
Products in a location
A stock location’s page lists the products assigned to it and the quantity of each held there.
- Assigning products: choose Assign products, then select products or paste in a list of product names, and choose Assign selected. Each product is added at zero quantity, ready for stock to be receipted or moved in. Products already in the location keep their balance. Any product that can’t be assigned stays selected with the reason shown, so you can fix it and try again.
- Removing products: tick the products to remove and choose Remove selected. Only products with a zero balance in this location can be ticked; move or stocktake the stock out first. Each product is checked again just before it’s removed, so one that has received stock in the meantime is left in place and reported. Removal only affects the assignment: the product’s history and stock movements are kept.
To clear out stale zero-balance assignments across every location at once, use the Empty Links tab in Stock Location Bulk Tools.
Quantity on hand
Each product’s stock on hand is tracked per location and in total. You’ll see live quantities wherever they matter: on the product itself, when choosing a stock location to fulfill from, and in the Stock Inventory report.
Stock transactions: the audit trail
Every movement is recorded as a stock transaction: purchase order receipts in, sales order fulfillments out, work order materials consumed, work order outputs produced, and stocktake adjustments. Quantity on hand is always the sum of a product’s transactions, so any balance can be traced movement-by-movement back through the documents that caused it.
What stock is worth
Each transaction carries a cost, built from the supplier invoice price (or purchase order price until invoiced) plus any allocated landed costs; see Supplier Invoices and Landed Costs. From these, Fast2Task calculates each product’s effective cost using your configured costing method, and that cost drives margins on sales documents and work order costing.
Units of measure
Products can be bought, stocked and sold in different units: buy a pallet, stock cartons, sell singles. Each alternative unit has a factor relating it to the base unit, and documents convert automatically. When quantities look ten times too big or small, the unit of measure on the line is the first place to look.
Stock pick lists
A pick list is the warehouse-side checklist for gathering goods, generated from a sales order or work order. Each line shows the item, location, quantity required and quantity picked; the picker works through it (barcode scanning supported), then the list is finalized. Pick lists have an owner, so it’s always clear who’s holding a job.
Keeping it honest
Recorded stock drifts from reality through breakages, miscounts and unrecorded samples. Regular stocktakes find and correct the drift.
Knowing when to reorder
The Reorder Planning report forecasts each product’s demand from its stock transactions and suggests what to buy or make before you run out.