Stock Availability Applet

Purpose and Overview

The Stock Availability Applet is the central nervous system for your inventory. It sits on top of all other supply chain modules (Purchasing, Sales, Manufacturing, Warehouse) to provide a single, unified view of exactly what you have, where it is, and what its status is.

It is a read-only applet. You do not make changes here (you make changes in Goods Receipt or Delivery applets). You look here to make critical business decisions.

Who Benefits from This Applet?

What Problems Does This Solve?

Without Stock Availability Tracking:

• Sales reps sell items that are already promised to other customers, causing fulfillment failures.
• Warehouse staff spend hours searching for items because they don’t know the specific bin location.
• Expired medical supplies or food items cannot be easily traced.
• Recalling a specific defective batch takes days of manual paperwork auditing.

With Stock Availability Applet:

• ✓ Real-time Formulas - Instantly calculate Physical - Reserved = Available
• ✓ Bin-Level Precision - Know exactly which shelf an item is sitting on.
• ✓ End-to-End Traceability - Trace a Serial Number from the Supplier PO all the way to the Customer Invoice.
• ✓ Aging Analytics - Spot dead stock before it loses complete value.

The Master Inventory Formula

To use this applet effectively, you must understand the four pillars of inventory calculation:

1. Physical Quantity (P): The actual, physical number of items sitting in your warehouse right now.
2. Reserved Quantity (R): Items that are physically in the warehouse, but have been booked by confirmed Sales Orders. You cannot sell these.
3. Incoming Quantity (I): Items that are not in the warehouse yet, but have been ordered from suppliers via confirmed Purchase Orders.
4. Available Quantity (A): The true amount you can currently sell to a new customer.

The Formula: Available (A) = Physical (P) - Reserved (R)

Note: Some businesses configure their setup to include Incoming stock in their Availability calculation (A = P - R + I), allowing sales reps to sell stock that is currently in transit.

Role-Based Quick Start Guides

For Sales Reps: The Pre-Sale Check

Your goal is to ensure you don’t sell stock you don’t have, and to manage customer expectations. Since you often need to know why stock is unavailable or when it will arrive, you should primarily use the Stock Availability Details listing.

1. Go to Stock Availability Details listing.
2. Search for the Item Code (e.g., LAPTOP-PRO).
3. If the Available column is 0, check the breakdown rows for that item.
4. You will see specific Sales Orders holding the stock, or Purchase Orders that show when the next shipment from the supplier is arriving.

For Warehouse Pickers: Finding an Item

Your goal is to find where 5 specific mice are located in a massive warehouse.

1. Go to Bin Availability Listing.
2. Search for the Item Code.
3. The system will show you the exact breakdown:
   • Aisle 2, Bin A: 3 units
   • Aisle 4, Bin C: 2 units
4. Use this precise location map to pick the items efficiently.

For Compliance Officers: Tracing a Defect

A customer reported a defect with Serial Number SN-998877. Your goal is to find out which supplier gave it to you.

1. Go to Serial / Batch Trace Listing.
2. Type in the Serial Number SN-998877.
3. The system maps the entire lifecycle:
   • Received from Supplier X on Jan 5th (Goods Receipt #102)
   • Moved from Bin A to Bin B on Jan 10th (Stock Transfer #44)
   • Sold to Customer Y on Jan 15th (Delivery Order #88)

Deep-Dive: The UI Workspaces

1. Stock Availability Listing (The Global View)

This is the highest-level view. It aggregates stock across all your locations.

• Multi-Branch View: If you have warehouses in KL, Penang, and Johor, you can see the total company-wide stock, or filter down to a specific branch to see local availability.
• Color Indicators: Configurable warning colors (e.g., Red) highlight items that have fallen below their required Minimum Stock levels.

2. Stock Availability Details (The primary operational view)

While the main listing gives you a simple physical snapshot, the Details Listing is the most frequently used workspace because it answers the “Why?”. It provides a granular view of exactly which operational documents are affecting your inventory levels.

Primary Use Cases:

• Troubleshooting “Missing” Availability: When a sales rep complains, “It says we physically have 50 items, but 0 available. Why?” The details listing shows the exact Sales Orders (SO) that have reserved those 50 items.
• Managing Incoming Stock: If an item is out of stock, this view shows the specific Purchase Orders (PO) or Goods Receive Notes (GRN) incoming, allowing sales reps to tell customers exactly when stock will arrive.
• Advanced Search & Filtering (“Optional” Field): The advanced search includes an Optional multi-select dropdown designed to declutter your view. By default, it hides zero balances and pending document balances (HIDE_ZERO_BALANCE, HIDE_GOODS_RECEIVE_NOTE_BALANCE, HIDE_PURCHASE_ORDER_BALANCE, HIDE_SALES_ORDER_BALANCE). You can uncheck these to explicitly isolate and view pending documents and balances.

3. Stock Aging Report

Identifies “Dead Stock.”

• Groups inventory by how long it has been sitting in your warehouse (e.g., 0-30 days, 31-60 days, 90+ days).

• Allows Procurement and Sales to run targeted discounts to clear out 90+ day old stock before it becomes obsolete.

4. Stock Availability with SO and PO

A dedicated consolidated workspace focused purely on stock movement tied explicitly to ongoing Sales and Purchase Orders, providing a streamlined view for fulfillment teams.

5. Trace Serial No

Crucial for electronics, machinery, and high-value items tracked individually.

• Dedicated Search: Search by exact Serial Number, Keyword, or Date Range to find specific item histories.

• Forward Tracing: Trace a serial number from the moment it was received from a Supplier PO all the way to the Customer Invoice.

• Backward Tracing: “Customer brought back a broken TV. Which container did this specific TV arrive in, so we can claim warranty from the manufacturer?”

6. Serial Number Balance

• View the exact current physical balance of items tracked by a specific Serial Number within your warehouses.

• Utilizes an Advanced Search grid with column toggling, allowing for highly specific filtering and reporting of serialized inventory.

7. Trace Batch No

Crucial for food, pharmaceuticals, and items with expiry dates.

• Dedicated Search: Search by exact Batch Number, Keyword, or Date Range to trace all related transactions.

• Recall Management: “We just realized Batch #XYZ of flour is contaminated. Which customers did we sell bread to using this flour?” Instantly identify all affected parties for a recall.

8. Bin Availability Listing (The Micro View)

While the main listing tells you if you have stock, this listing tells you exactly where it is.

Configuration & Settings

The Stock Availability applet is highly configurable. Administrators can tailor the workspace to hide unnecessary complexity from warehouse staff while enabling deep financial tracking for controllers.

1. Application Settings (System-Wide)

Accessed via Settings > Application Settings, these toggles change how the applet looks and functions for all users.

A. Tailoring the Sidebar (Menu Visibility) To prevent mistakes or clutter, administrators can hide sidebar menus that their layout doesn’t use.

B. Tailoring the Listing (Field Visibility) You can hide sensitive financial information from standard warehouse staff, or declutter the main stock availability listing.

C. Tailoring Item Categories Administrators can enable up to 20 custom Item Category Groups and toggle their visibility across the application.

2. Permissions Governance

Access to inventory data is managed through a layered permission system in the Settings menu:

• Permission Wizard: A guided tool to set up basic access levels.
• Role Permission: Grant access by job title (e.g., “Sales Reps can View Availability, but only Finance can View Cost”).
• User/Team Permission: Grant granular exceptions to specific individuals or squads.

Personalization

Individual users can override certain system defaults to speed up their daily workflow via the Personalization sidebar menu.

Personal Default Settings

To save clicks on every single lookup, users should set their defaults:

Common Real-World Scenarios

Scenario 1: The Urgent Sales Order Committment

The Situation: A major client wants 50 “Enterprise Servers” delivered tomorrow. The Workflow:

1. Sales Rep opens Stock Availability Listing and searches for the server.
2. The UI shows: Physical: 60, Reserved: 20, Available: 40.
3. The Rep cannot fulfill the order of 50.
4. The Rep opens the Stock Availability Details menu.
5. They see an Incoming PO for 30 servers expected today at 3:00 PM.
6. The Rep confidently tells the client, “Yes, we can deliver tomorrow,” knowing the stock will arrive today.

Scenario 2: The Expiring Medicine (Batch Tracing)

The Situation: A pharmacy warehouse realizes a specific batch of insulin (BATCH-NOV24) expires next month. The Workflow:

1. Warehouse Manager opens Trace Batch No.
2. Filters by the specific Batch Number.
3. Identifies that 500 units of BATCH-NOV24 are currently sitting in Bin COLD-STORAGE-A.
4. Manager immediately issues a priority transfer to move them to the front-of-store shelves with a 50% discount to clear them before expiry.

Scenario 3: Investigating Missing Stock in Bins

The Situation: The system says there are 5 laptops in Bin A-1, but the picker says the shelf is empty. The Workflow:

1. Operations opens the Bin Availability Listing and clicks on the laptop item in Bin A-1.
2. They view the transaction history for that specific interaction.
3. The log shows that earlier that morning, a different picker did a Stock Transfer from A-1 to the QA/Testing Bin, but the original picker didn’t know.
4. The original picker goes to the QA bin and finds the laptops.

FAQs

Q: Can I manually change the Available quantity here? A: No. The Stock Availability Applet is uniquely a read-only module. To change physical stock, you must use operational applets (Goods Receipt, Delivery Order, Stock Adjustment). This strict rule prevents inventory manipulation.

Q: Why does my Available stock show a negative number? A: This happens if your organization allows “Negative Inventory” in the backend settings. It usually means a Sales Order was fulfilled (deducting stock) before the warehouse processed the incoming Goods Receipt for that item.

Q: I just created a Sales Order. Why didn’t the Physical stock decrease? A: Creating a standard Sales Order only decreases the Available stock (by increasing Reserved items). The Physical stock is only deducted when the product leaves the building via a Delivery Order / Goods Issue.

Q: How frequently does the data update? A: In absolute real-time. The moment a warehouse worker clicks “Confirm” on a Goods Receipt on their scanner, the availability numbers update globally for all users.