Inventory

Inventory counts how many units of each product, and each variant, you have on hand. Every change is recorded: stock that arrives, corrections, counts, and later what customers buy. You can always see why a number is what it is.

Menu	Commerce > Inventory; Commerce > Purchase orders; Settings > Commerce > Inventory
Permission	View inventory to look, Manage inventory to change stock and the settings
Feature	Inventory; Back-in-Stock Alerts to email shoppers when a product is back; Purchase Orders to order stock from suppliers

Can't find it?

What you see depends on your role. If the menu, a button or a setting on this page is missing, ask your administrator to give you the permission listed above or to turn on the feature. Only administrators can turn features on and change site settings.

Start counting a product

Stock is counted for content types that have the Inventory part:

1. Under Content > Content Definition > Content Types, edit your product type and add the Inventory part.
2. Go to Commerce > Inventory and click Find products to count. Every product of that type, and each of its variants, gets a line with nothing on hand.

From then on, saving a product keeps its lines up to date: a new variant gets its own line, and a removed variant's line is archived with its history.

On the product's editor, the Inventory section sets how its stock is kept:

Setting	What it does
Count stock	Untick it to stop counting the product. Its lines are archived.
Allow backorders	Keep selling when none are left.
Low-stock threshold	Stock counts as low at this many or fewer. Leave it empty to use the store's default.
Ships from	Optional, for a product not out yet: the date it ships. With Allow backorders ticked, buyers pre-order it while none are in stock. See Sell before a product is out.

Below the settings, On hand lists each variant with how many are available, and a Change button that opens it under Commerce > Inventory.

Find stock

Commerce > Inventory lists every product and variant counted, with the fewest available first. Search by SKU or product name, and show Low stock, Out of stock or Backordered lines.

Each line shows:

• On hand: the units you hold;
• Reserved: units held for orders being paid for;
• Available: what can still be sold, which is on hand minus reserved.

Change stock

Open a line to change it. Each change needs only a number and, if you like, a reason:

• Received records stock that arrived, such as a delivery. Enter how many came in.
• Adjusted records a correction up or down, such as damaged or found units. Enter a negative number to take stock away.
• Count records how many you counted. The count replaces what's on hand, and the history records the difference.

The history lists every change, newest first, with when it happened, what it was, the change, what was on hand after it, and who made it. Recount from history recomputes what's on hand from that history, for when a number looks wrong.

Two people changing the same line at once can't overwrite each other: the second is asked to try again.

Stock in several locations

Keep stock in more than one place, such as a warehouse and a shop, under Settings > Commerce > Inventory, Locations:

1. Fill in the blank Add a location with its Name, such as Main warehouse, and, if you like, an Address for your staff.
2. Click Save. A new blank location is there for the next one.

The Default location is always there. It holds the stock you counted before there were locations, and stock imported without a location; rename it, but it can't be removed. Tick Remove this location to remove another: units still there stay on their items and can be moved to another location.

With more than one location, each item's page under Commerce > Inventory:

• lists its stock By location, with what's On hand and Available at each, and what's held for orders;
• asks where under Receive or adjust and Count, such as At Main warehouse: a count replaces what's on hand at that location;
• has Move between locations: choose From (with what it has available), To, how many and a note, and click Move. Only available units move, and the total on hand doesn't change. The history shows Moved out and Moved in, each with its location.

The list and the labels shoppers see count every location together.

Which location an order takes from. An order takes its units of each item from one location that has them all, trying the locations from the top of the list. An order picked up at one of your shops takes them from that shop's stock location first; see Store pickup. Returned items go back where they were sold from, or where you choose when you receive them.

Order stock from suppliers

With the Purchase Orders feature on, Commerce > Purchase orders keeps the stock you order from suppliers, and receives it into a location.

1. Click Add purchase order, and enter the Supplier (earlier suppliers are suggested), the Supplier's email, where to Receive at, what currency the costs are in (Costs in), when it's Expected, and a Note.
2. Leave Start with the items that are low on stock where it's received ticked to fill it with what's running low, each ordered up to twice its low-stock threshold, or untick it to start empty. Click Start the order.
3. Under Add items, click Find items to order, search by SKU or name, and click Save. Each comes in with a quantity of 1. Set how many are Ordered and the Unit cost of each, or tick Remove. The total adds up as you save.
4. When you've sent it to the supplier, click Mark as ordered. Its items can no longer change; the costs still can.

When stock arrives, enter what came under Arrived now, and click Receive what arrived, or Receive everything for all that's still to come. The units go on hand at the location, and each item's history shows Received with the purchase order's number. The order shows Partly received until everything is in, then Received.

Cancel order stops what's still to come; what was received stays in stock. A draft can be deleted. The list shows the open orders, newest first; search by number or supplier, and Show picks Drafts, Ordered, Partly received, Received, Canceled or All.

The supplier isn't emailed: send them the order yourself.

Export and import counts

Export CSV downloads every product and variant counted, one per line, with its Sku, Title, ContentItemId, VariantId, OnHand, Reserved, Available and LowStockThreshold. It opens in any spreadsheet program.

To set many counts at once, such as after a stocktake:

1. Export the stock, and change the OnHand column to what you counted.
2. Click Import CSV, choose the file, and click Import.

Each line is found by its ContentItemId and VariantId, or by its Sku when those are missing or come from another site. Only OnHand is read; the other columns can stay or go. A line whose count differs is recorded as a Count with the reason Imported from stock.csv., and a line that already matches is left alone.

If any line has a problem, such as a SKU nothing has, a SKU two variants share, the same item twice, or a count that isn't a whole number, nothing is imported. The first problems are listed by line, so you can fix the file and import it again. A file can have up to 10,000 lines.

Low-stock alerts

When a product or variant drops to its low-stock threshold or sells out, users in the roles chosen under Settings > Commerce > Inventory get a notification, such as Low stock: Mug with Only 4 of Mug left., or Out of stock: Mug. It's sent when the stock drops to the threshold, and again if it sells out, not on every sale in between. Notifications need Orchard Core's Notifications feature.

With Workflows enabled, the Low Stock event starts a workflow at the same moment, for example to email a supplier. Its input has the product as ContentItem, and Sku, Title, Available, LowStockThreshold and SoldOut.

In-stock filter for listings

With Product Listing enabled, a listing can offer an In stock filter that shows only products some of which can be bought now. A product with variants is in stock when any variant is. A product on backorder isn't, and a product you don't count always is. Listings that offer every filter show it on their own; for a listing whose filters you chose, tick In stock under Choose filters. A product that sells out leaves the filtered list right away, and comes back when you receive more.

What shoppers see

On product pages and listing cards, under the Add to cart button, shoppers see one of these:

Label	When
In stock	More than the low-stock threshold is available.
Only 3 left	The threshold or fewer is available, with the number.
Out of stock	Nothing is available. Add to cart is turned off.
Available on backorder	Nothing is available, but the product allows backorders.
Pre-order: ships and the date	Nothing is available, the product allows backorders, and its Ships from date is still to come. The button reads Pre-order.

Exact numbers above the threshold stay private. For a product with variants, the label follows the options the shopper picks, and the list of variants marks each one, such as L / Matte — $29 (Out of stock).

The cart won't take more than is available. It says Only 3 of Mug left. when a shopper adds too many, and stops the checkout when a line has sold out since it was added. Units a shopper's own unpaid checkout holds still count as theirs, so coming back to the cart from checkout doesn't make their items look sold out.

Sell before a product is out

To take orders for a product before it's released:

1. On the product's editor, under Inventory, tick Allow backorders.
2. Set Ships from to the day it ships.

While none are in stock and the date is still to come, the product shows Pre-order: ships with the date, and its button reads Pre-order. The cart, the mini cart, the order's page and your order page show the date on the line, as it was when the order was placed. After the date, the product is sold as an ordinary backorder; once you receive stock, it's sold from stock.

Tell shoppers when it's back

With the Back-in-Stock Alerts feature on, the page of a sold-out product that doesn't allow backorders shows Sold out. Get an email when it's back: under Add to cart, with an email box and Notify me. For a product with variants, it shows while a sold-out variant is picked, and asks about that one. A signed-in shopper's email is filled in.

When the product or variant comes back in stock, such as when you receive more, everyone waiting is emailed ... is back in stock, oldest request first, with a link to the product. Each request gets one email. The item's page under Commerce > Inventory says how many shoppers are waiting.

• The link to the product needs your site's Base URL under Settings > General; without it the email names the product only. Your site's email must be set up.
• One email address can ask about 10 products a day, and one visitor can send 20 requests an hour.
• A restock emails up to 500 shoppers; the rest are emailed when the item next comes back.
• A shopper's requests are part of their data: a customer's Download data includes them, and Erase personal data deletes them. See Privacy requests.

When customers buy

With Orders enabled, stock follows each order:

1. Checkout starts: the units the buyer is getting are held for them, so nobody else can buy them while they pay. The held units show as Reserved, and the item's page lists the orders holding stock and until when.

2. Not enough left: if a counted product doesn't have enough available units, and doesn't allow backorders, the buyer is sent back to the cart with a message such as Only 1 of Mug left. Lower the quantity to check out. or Mug is out of stock. Remove it to check out. Nothing is held for that order.

3. Paid: the held units are sold. They leave On hand, and the history shows Sold with the order.

4. Not paid: when the checkout is canceled, declined or abandoned, or the hold runs out, the units are released and can be bought again. A payment that arrives after the hold ran out still sells the units, even if that takes the count below zero.

5. Refunded or canceled by the store: when you tick Put the items back in stock on the order, what it sold goes back On hand, and the history shows Returned with the order.

6. Returned by the buyer: with the Returns feature, the items you tick when a return arrives go back On hand, at the location you choose or where they were sold from, and the history shows Returned with the return's number. See Returns and exchanges.

Two buyers can't both get the last unit: the second is told to try again.

Settings

Under Settings > Commerce > Inventory:

Setting	What it does	Default
Low-stock threshold	Stock counts as low at this many available units or fewer, for products without their own. Changing it updates every product that uses the default.	5
Hold stock for (minutes)	How long units stay held for a buyer who started checkout and hasn't paid.	60
Notify about low stock	The roles whose users are told when a product runs low or sells out.	Administrator
Locations	The places you keep stock, in the order orders take units from them. See Stock in several locations.	The default location

Recipes and deployments

A recipe can set counts with a Stock step, finding each item by its ids or its SKU; see the Inventory technical manual for its format.

To copy counts to another site, add the Stock step to a deployment plan (Commerce category). It exports every item with its ids and SKU. The products themselves need a content step, before the Stock step.

Try a sample

The Product listing: online store sample recipe (Configuration > Recipes) counts every product it adds: most have 25, a few are running low, and the Adventure Works Everyday Backpack is sold out, so the shop shows each label.

Related pages

• Products and currencies
• Carts and orders
• Returns and exchanges
• Shipping