🏭 Inventory Management
Learn how to manage your warehouses, organise stock locations, track inventory movements, handle inter-warehouse transfers, respond to stock alerts, and generate inventory reports on Africa Conglomerate.
- Your company account must be approved (see Account Setup)
- At least one product must exist in your catalog (see Catalog Management)
- You must be an active member of a B2B (organisation) account — the Inventory section is not shown to B2C accounts
- Inventory reports require a Growth or Enterprise plan (on Starter the Reports link is hidden and the report pages redirect to Billing)
Part 1 — Set Up a Warehouse
A warehouse is the physical location where your inventory is stored. You can have multiple warehouses (e.g. Kampala Main, Nairobi Branch) and track stock independently across each one.
Navigate to Inventory → Warehouses
From your dashboard, click Inventory in the left navigation,
then select Warehouses (/inventory/warehouses/). You will see a
table of all existing warehouses with Name, Code, Items, Locations and Status
columns, plus Edit and Locations buttons on each row.
Create a New Warehouse
Click + Create Warehouse. Fill in the warehouse details:
- Name * — e.g. "Kampala Main Warehouse"
- Code * — short unique identifier, e.g. "KLA-MAIN" (saved in upper case; an existing code is rejected)
- Address — full physical address of the facility
- Active — new warehouses are always created active; untick this on the Edit form later to retire a warehouse
Click Save when done. You are returned to the Warehouses list with the message "Warehouse '…' created."
Set Up Stock Locations Inside the Warehouse
Locations let you pinpoint exactly where within a warehouse a product is stored. Click Locations on the warehouse row, then click Add Location.
- Name * — e.g. "Aisle A", "Zone 1", "Shelf B2"
- Code * — short label used on stock labels, e.g. "A", "Z1", "B2" (must be unique among locations that share the same parent)
- Parent Location — leave as "— Top level (no parent)" for a top-level area; select an existing location to nest this one inside it (e.g. "Row 3" inside "Aisle A")
- Active — new locations are always created active; untick this on the location's Edit form to retire it
Click Save. The location appears in the Storage Locations tree.
Use the Layout Wizard for large warehouses
Creating dozens of locations one-by-one is slow. The Layout Wizard generates your entire location hierarchy in one go by answering a few questions about your physical layout.
Click the green Layout Wizard button on the Locations page. You will be asked for:
| Field | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Floor / Zone Name (optional) + Code | Optional top-level wrapper for everything the wizard creates; the code is generated from the initials if left blank | Ground Floor / GF |
| Sections | Either a custom comma-separated list of section names, or auto-generated from a Prefix, a Count (1–52) and a Labelling style (Letters A, B, C… or Numbers 1, 2, 3…) | A514, B514, C514 or "Section" × 4 → Section A … Section D |
| Columns — Label Prefix, Count, Labelling | Racking columns created inside every section. Count 0 = none (stop at section level). Labelling is Letters or Numbers | Count 4, Letters → A, B, C, D |
| Rows — Label Prefix, Count, Labelling | Shelving rows created inside every column. Count 0 = none (stop at column level) | Count 4, Numbers → 1, 2, 3, 4 |
The Live Preview panel on the right shows the resulting tree before you commit. Click Create Layout and the wizard creates every location in seconds. It is idempotent — running it twice on the same warehouse skips locations that already exist (the confirmation message tells you how many were added and how many were skipped).
Section A514, 5 columns (Letters), 14 rows (Numbers) creates 5 × 14 = 70 bin locations with paths such as A514 / A / 1 through A514 / E / 14. Add four sections A514, B514, C514, D514 and you get 280 bin locations in one click.
Part 2 — View and Adjust Stock
The Stock screen gives you a live overview of all inventory items, their on-hand quantities, reserved stock, and reorder status. You can manually adjust quantities and review movement history from here.
Browse Your Inventory
Go to Inventory → Stock (/inventory/). If any of your
products are set to track inventory but have no stock record yet, they are listed in
a panel at the top of the page with an Add Stock button (see the next
step). Use the filter controls to narrow the Stock Items table by:
- Warehouse — show stock for a specific warehouse only
- Search — find by product name
Each row shows the product name, SKU, warehouse, location, On Hand, Reserved, Available (on hand minus reserved) and Reorder Point, followed by a Status badge: green In Stock, amber Low Stock (available is at or below the reorder point) or red Out of Stock (nothing available). The Actions column offers View, plus Adjust while there is stock on hand or Add Stock when on hand is zero.
Add Initial Stock to a Product
Stock records are created per product per warehouse. Click Add Stock next to a product on the Stock page (or the stock icon next to the product on Catalog → Products) to open the guided Add Stock form. If your organisation has no active warehouse yet, or no storage location, the page first asks you to create one.
- Warehouse * and Location — where the units are stored
- Quantity to add * — units received now
- Unit Cost — used by the Valuation report
- Reorder Point and Reorder Quantity — the Low Stock threshold and your usual replenishment size
- Notes — e.g. supplier invoice number
Click Add Stock. The record is created (or topped up if one already exists for that warehouse), a Purchase Receipt movement is written, and you land on the item's detail page.
View an Item's Details and Movement History
Click View on an item row to open its detail page. The Stock Levels card shows On Hand, Reserved, Available and Reorder Point; the Location card shows warehouse, location and unit cost. Click Edit Stock Entry to change the location, unit cost, reorder point or reorder quantity (quantities themselves can only be changed through an adjustment, so every change stays auditable).
The Recent Movements panel lists the last 50 stock movements with Date, Type (Purchase Receipt, Adjustment, Transfer, Sale / Order…), Direction (In / Out), Quantity, the quantity Before and After, the user who recorded it (By) and Notes.
Make a Manual Stock Adjustment
To record a stock receipt, damage write-off, or count correction, click Adjust Stock on the item detail page (or Adjust on the Stock list).
- Direction — Add Stock (IN) to increase stock; Remove Stock (OUT) to decrease it
- Quantity * — number of units to add or remove (must be greater than zero)
- Notes — e.g. "Goods received", "Damaged — write off", "Stocktake correction"
Click Submit. The movement is recorded as an Adjustment with your name and a timestamp in the history trail. You cannot remove more than is on hand — the page shows "Cannot remove X – only Y on hand" and nothing changes.
- Shop page badge — more than 10 available shows In Stock; 1–10 shows Low Stock (N left); 0 shows Out of Stock and disables the Add to Cart button. A product with no stock record shows no badge at all.
- Add to cart / checkout — buyers cannot add or order more than is available; a tracked product with no stock record at all cannot be checked out ("No inventory record found…") until you add stock.
- Reservations — a B2C order reserves units at checkout; a B2B order reserves them when the buyer's approval is finalised (an approval fails with "Cannot approve: …" if stock is short or unrecorded). Reserved units raise the Reserved figure and lower Available without changing On Hand; a declined or cancelled order releases them.
Part 3 — Transfer Stock Between Warehouses
Use stock transfers to move inventory from one warehouse to another. The platform deducts the quantity from the source warehouse and adds it to the destination in a single atomic operation.
Create a Transfer
Go to Inventory → Transfers and click + Create Transfer (also reachable via Transfer Stock on an item's detail page). Fill in:
- Source Item * — the product and the warehouse you are moving it out of (shown as "product @ warehouse")
- Destination Warehouse * — the receiving warehouse (must be different)
- Destination Location — optional location inside the receiving warehouse
- Quantity * — must not exceed the available stock at the source
- Notes — optional reason for the transfer
Click Execute Transfer.
Review the Transfer Log
The Transfers list shows the 100 most recent transfer movements with Date, Product, From, To, Qty, By (the user who initiated it) and Ref. Each transfer produces two movements — an Out at the source and an In at the destination — sharing the same reference (XFER-<sku>-<destination code>), and both are also visible in each item's Recent Movements.
Part 4 — Manage Stock Alerts
The platform checks every item after each stock change: when the available quantity (on hand minus reserved) drops to or below the item's reorder point a Low Stock alert is raised, and when nothing is available an Out of Stock alert replaces it. Alerts close automatically once stock recovers above the reorder point. Acknowledging an alert marks it as reviewed and removes it from your active alert queue. Set the reorder point via Edit Stock Entry on the item — with a reorder point of 0 only Out of Stock alerts can fire.
Review Active Alerts
Go to Inventory → Alerts (/inventory/alerts/). By default only
active (unacknowledged) alerts are shown. Click Show All to include
previously acknowledged ones and Active Only to go back. Each alert shows:
- Product
- Warehouse — where the shortage is occurring
- Type — Low Stock or Out of Stock
- Triggered — when the alert fired
Acknowledge an Alert
Once you have taken action (e.g. ordered more stock or initiated a transfer), click Acknowledge on the alert row. The alert is marked as reviewed and moves out of the active queue. A new alert will fire automatically if the stock level drops again in the future.
Part 5 — Inventory Reports
Inventory reports are available on Growth and Enterprise plans. They give you financial and operational insight into your stock — from total value to turnover speed and aging items.
Open the Reports Hub
Go to Inventory → Reports (/inventory/reports/). The overview
page shows four summary KPIs — Total Items, Total Units, Total Value and Low Stock —
and a View Report link for each of the three reports.
Valuation Report
Click View Report under Valuation Report. It lists
every inventory item with Product, SKU, Warehouse, Qty, Unit Cost and Value
(quantity on hand × unit cost), with a TOTAL row, so you can see the
monetary value tied up in each SKU. To limit it to one warehouse, add
?warehouse=<warehouse id> to the page address.
Click Export CSV to download the full report.
Turnover Report
Click View Report under Turnover Report. It covers the last 30 days and shows, per product, the Inbound and Outbound units, the Net change and a Turnover Ratio, sorted with the most active products first. Use it to identify your fast-moving and slow-moving items that may be tying up capital.
Aging Report
Click View Report under Aging Report. It lists
items with stock on hand that have had no outbound movement
within a window (default: 60 days), showing Product, Warehouse, Qty and Value,
highest value first. To change the window add ?days=90 (for
example) to the page address. These items have been sitting unsold longest and
may require action (promotion, clearance, or return to supplier).
