The only rule of inventory
The number in the app should match the number on the shelf. Everything in this guide, counts, adjustments, alerts, exists to keep those two numbers from drifting apart, because every mismatch eventually costs a sale ("the app said we had one") or a customer ("the app said you had one…").
Turn tracking on
Tracking is per item, and it's optional, an item can stay Untracked (services, made-to-order goods, anything uncountable). For the countable stuff:
Open the item and set its starting count, that's the Initial Count, the anchor everything moves from.
Give it a Reorder Point: the count where you'd want a nudge to restock.
From then on the math runs itself: every Sale counts down, every Receive counts up, every Return comes back.
The barcode workflow
If your products carry barcodes, use them everywhere: scan when ringing up (Scan products to ring them up.), scan into the item form when building the catalog (Scan or enter barcode), and find anything with Search by name, SKU, or barcode. A $0 phone camera does the whole job, Point camera at product barcode and it's rung up.
When reality disagrees: Adjust Stock
Shrinkage is normal life, not failure. When the shelf and the app disagree, adjust, and tell the truth about why: Damaged, Expired, Lost/Stolen, Found, Sample/Tester, or plain Correction. The reasons aren't bureaucracy, six months of honest reasons is how you learn whether you have a breakage problem, an expiry problem, or a walking-out-the-door problem.
Selling is never blocked
Here's the merciful design decision, straight from the register: "Some items exceed available stock. You can still sell them, stock will go below zero until you restock or recount." The customer holding the item at your counter is always right about it existing, the app takes the sale and lets the count go negative as a flag to recount, instead of arguing with reality. A negative count isn't an error; it's the app telling you the shelf knows something the ledger doesn't.
The low-stock radar
Low Stock Alerts, Get notified when items run low. Items that cross their Reorder Point gather under Low Stock Items, so restocking is a list you check, not a shelf you stare at. When the list feeds a real order to a supplier, that's the purchase-orders guide, the natural next read.
If something's off
- Counts drift constantly on one item. It's probably sold in ways that skip the register (samples, staff use), capture those as adjustments with Sample/Tester or Promotional, and the drift stops.
- An item shows negative. Recount it and set the real number with a Physical Count. The negative did its job: it got you to look.
- Nothing shows in Low Stock Items ever. Your reorder points are probably zero, an item with no threshold never raises its hand.