How to Manage Store Items and Stock

The Store tracks the physical goods your business holds outside its rental fleet — spare parts, consumables, tools, fuel, and accessories. Every item carries its own cost, selling price, reorder level, and stock balance, so you always know what you have, what it’s worth, and when to buy more. Open it from Store in the main navigation; the Items page is your home base.

The Store is permission-gated. You need stores.read to view items, balances, and reports. Every action that changes data — adding items, receiving, issuing, adjusting, transferring, importing — requires stores.write. If you don’t see the action buttons, ask an admin to grant write access.

Why Track Items in the Store?

Rental assets and store items are managed separately for good reason — store items are consumed, sold, or fitted to jobs, not rented out and returned. Keeping them here gives you:

  • Accurate costing — parts issued to a maintenance job flow straight into that job’s cost, so repair margins stay honest.
  • Live valuation — a weighted-average cost per item means your total inventory value is always current.
  • Reorder discipline — reorder levels and low-stock alerts stop you running out mid-job.
  • Sell as well as consume — items carry a selling price, margin, HSN/SAC and tax profile, so a store item can be sold to a customer, not just used internally.

Reading the Items Page

The top of the page shows four summary cards:

CardWhat it tells you
Total Inventory ValueCombined stock value across all items and locations
Total ItemsHow many active items you track
Low Stock AlertsItems at or below their reorder level
Issued This MonthValue of stock consumed so far this month

Below the cards, the items table lists each item with its Available Qty, Reorder Lvl, Unit Cost, Selling Price, Margin %, Stock Value, HSN/SAC, Type, and Status. When an item’s available quantity falls to or below its reorder level, the quantity is flagged so it stands out.

Finding an Item — Search and Filter

Use the search bar to find items by name, SKU, or category.

Click the Filter icon to open the filter panel, where you can narrow the list by:

  • Category — a group of supplies you’ve set up
  • Location — what’s held at a specific store location
  • Item Type — Spare Part, Consumable, Tool, Fuel, or Accessory
  • Active Status — Active, Inactive, or All
  • Show low stock items only — just the items that need restocking

Active filters appear as chips below the search bar; remove one by clicking its X, or clear them all at once.

Adding a New Item

Click + Add Item in the header and fill in the form. Only Item Name is required — everything else is optional but worth completing.

FieldPurpose
Item NameWhat the item is called
Category / UOMGroup and unit of measure (Each, Kg, Litre, Box…)
Item TypeSpare Part, Consumable, Tool, Fuel, or Accessory
Store LocationWhere this item is held
CostWhat you pay per unit (the starting unit cost)
Selling Price / Margin % / Min Selling PriceSale pricing — enter any two and the third fills in
Reorder LevelThe threshold that triggers a low-stock flag
Min / Max Stock LevelLower and upper stock targets
Purchase UOM / ConversionIf you buy in a different unit (e.g. 1 box = 12 pieces)
HSN / SAC CodeTax classification code
Taxable Item / Tax ProfileTurn on tax and pick the profile that applies
Item NotesAny free-text reference

Click Save. The item appears in the list, ready for stock movements.

You don’t type a SKU. Rentablez generates a unique SKU for every item automatically (in the form STR-ITEM-…). It’s shown on the item once saved and is what the scanner and labels use.

Selling Price, Margin %, and Cost are linked. Enter a cost and a selling price and Rentablez works out the margin; enter a cost and a margin and it works out the selling price. You don’t have to do the arithmetic.

Stock Just Arrived — Receive Stock

When a supplier delivers, click Receive Stock, choose the item, enter the quantity and unit cost for this delivery, and pick the location. On save, the item’s on-hand quantity goes up.

Unit cost is a weighted average. Each receipt recalculates the item’s unit cost by blending the new delivery’s cost with what you already held. That weighted-average cost (WAC) is what drives your stock valuation and issue costing.

If you receive stock through the procurement flow instead — raising a purchase order and recording a goods receipt — see How to Purchase Stock. Posting a purchase invoice there receives the stock for you.

Using Parts on a Job — Issue to Service

When parts or consumables are needed for a maintenance or service job, click Issue to Service. Select the item and quantity, choose the location to pull from, and link it to the relevant job. The quantity drops from available stock and the cost attaches to that job so the repair’s true cost is captured.

Don’t use a stock adjustment to record consumption — Issue to Service is the correct action. Adjustments are only for correcting counts, not for everyday usage.

Parts Came Back — Return from Maintenance

If unused parts come back from a job, click Return from Maintenance, pick the item and quantity, and the stock returns to the shelf. You can’t return more than was originally issued to that job.

Correcting a Count — Adjust Stock

Found a discrepancy between the system and the shelf? Use the Adjust Stock button on the item’s row to record the correction. Adjustments are for genuine count corrections — damage, breakage, miscounts — and each one is logged.

A stock adjustment can’t be reversed. If you make one in error, record a second adjustment to put it right. For a full recount of a location, run a Physical Stock Audit instead, which posts adjustments for you.

Moving Stock Between Locations — Transfer Stock

If your organisation has more than one store location, a Transfer Stock button appears. Use it to move a store item from one of your store locations to another — the quantity leaves the source location and arrives at the destination.

This is not the Stock Transfer module. Transfer Stock here moves store items (parts, consumables) between your store locations. The separate Stock Transfer module moves rental asset units between hubs, needs approval, and works on different permissions. Don’t confuse the two.

Looking Something Up — Scan Item

Click Scan Item to look up an item by scanning its QR code or barcode with a connected scanner. A QR code opens that item’s detail page directly; a barcode matches on the item’s SKU. You can print these codes from the item’s Labels tab or in bulk — see How to Print Item Labels.

Bringing Items In and Out — Import and Export

  • Import — click Import to bring items in from an Excel file. Rentablez shows a preview so you can check the data before confirming.
  • Export — click Export to download the current (filtered) item list as a CSV. Export is available to anyone with read access.

Full details are in How to Print Item Labels and Bulk Import/Export Items.

The Full Picture — Item Detail

Click any item row to open its detail page. Four KPIs sit at the top — On Hand, Reorder Level, Unit Cost (WAC), and Total Stock Value — followed by tabs:

TabWhat’s inside
Stock & MovementsOn-hand, available, and reserved quantity per location, plus the full movement ledger with running balance
ProcurementLinked purchase requests, orders and invoices, vendor prices, purchase price history, and a smart reorder suggestion
Workshop LinksAsset categories and assets this item is associated with for maintenance
LabelsGenerate and print this item’s QR code and barcode label
ImagesPhotos of the item

Staying Ahead of Reorders

The Low Stock Alerts card and the Show low stock items only filter surface everything at or below its reorder level in one view. On an item’s Procurement tab, Rentablez also suggests a reorder point and quantity based on recent consumption and vendor lead times, which you can turn into a purchase requisition in a click. See How to Read Store Reports for the reorder and consumption reports.

You’re All Set

Add each item once, then keep it honest with receipts, issues, returns, and the occasional adjustment. With accurate reorder levels and a live weighted-average cost, your inventory value and job costs stay trustworthy — and you’re never caught short mid-job.