Introduction

Stock management is an essential aspect of any business that deals with products or merchandise. It involves tracking and controlling the goods inventory to ensure they are available when needed but not in excessive quantities. This would tie up unnecessary resources or increase the risk of loss due to damage.

Effective stock management involves a range of strategies and practices to optimize inventory levels and minimize costs associated with carrying stock. These strategies include forecasting, inventory control, stock rotation, and stock counting.

Stock Management in Vtiger CRM

The Stock Management settings in Vtiger CRM use a set of picklists to manage the addition and reduction of inventory stocks and eliminate using the Workflow actions. This gives businesses a centralized platform to manage inventory, sales orders, and warehouse operations. This can help businesses streamline their operations, improve inventory accuracy, and reduce the risk of stockouts or overstocking.

Stock Management Fields in Product Record

Stock Management settings control the following three fields in the product record:

• Available Stock: The total quantity of items in the stock except for the committed stock (Qty in Stock - Committed Stock = Available Stock).
• Committed Stock: The total quantity of items promised for sale, that is, items in an open sales order.
• Incoming Stock: The total quantity of items purchased but not added to the inventory, that is, items in an open purchase order. 

Feature Availability

Benefits of Stock Management

Stock management in Vtiger CRM provides several benefits to businesses that  include the following: 

• Centralized inventory management: Vtiger CRM allows businesses to manage inventory levels and stock information in a centralized location, making it easy to track inventory levels, monitor sales trends, and adjust stock levels as needed.
• Automated stock updates: Vtiger CRM can automatically update stock levels based on sales and purchase orders, ensuring that businesses always have accurate and up-to-date information on their inventory levels.
• Improved order accuracy: With Vtiger CRM's stock management features, businesses can ensure they have the correct stock levels to fulfill customer orders, reducing the risk of stock outs and ensuring that orders are fulfilled accurately and on time.
• Cost savings: By having accurate and up-to-date information on inventory levels, businesses can avoid overstocking and minimize the amount of capital tied up in inventory, reducing storage and holding costs.
• Better decision-making: With real-time inventory data available in Vtiger CRM, businesses can make informed decisions about stock levels, reorder points, and pricing strategies, helping them to optimize their inventory management and increase profitability.
• Integration with other business processes: Vtiger CRM's stock management features can be integrated with other business processes such as sales, procurement, and accounting, allowing businesses to streamline operations and improve overall efficiency.

In this article, you will learn about 

• Configuring the Stock Management settings page
• Recomputing the Stocks

Key Terminologies

Configuring Stock Management

As an Admin user, you can configure the Stock Management settings on the Vtiger CRM settings page.

Follow these steps to configure Stock Management:

1. Log in to your CRM account.
2. Click the User Menu in the top right corner.
3. Click Settings.
4. Look for Inventory.
5. Click Stock Management.
6. Enter or select information for the following:
   1. Qty. in Stock - Increases
      1. Select the required inventory record from the drop-down. The inventory module record may be a Purchase Order or a Receipt Note.
      2. Select all the required statuses of the inventory module record from the drop-down.  
   2. Qty. in Stock - Decreases
      1. Select the required inventory record from the drop-down. Inventory module records may be a Sales Order, an Invoice, or Delivery Note.
      2. Select all the required statuses of the inventory module record from the drop-down.
   3. Committed Stock - Increases
      1. Select the required inventory module record from the drop-down.  The inventory module record here can only be a Sales Order.
      2. Select all the required open statuses of the inventory module record from the drop-down. 
   4. Committed Stock - Decreases
      1. Select the required inventory record from the drop-down. The inventory module record can be a Sales Order or a Delivery Note.
      2. Select all the required closed statuses of the inventory module record from the drop-down.
   5. Incoming Stock - Increases
      1. Select the required inventory record from the drop-down. The inventory module record here can only be a Purchase Order.
      2. Select all the required open statuses of the inventory record from the drop-down.
   6. Incoming Stock - Decreases
      1. Select the required inventory record from the drop-down. The inventory module record can be a Purchase Order or a Receipt Note.
      2. Select all the required closed statuses of the inventory record from the drop-down.

Recomputing the Stock

Committed Stock, Incoming stock, and Available stock of all products are recomputed based on outstanding sales and purchase orders. You can recompute the value using the Schedule Recompute button in the Stock Management settings page or using the Recompute Stock Values option in a product record.

Recomputing Stock Values of a Product

Follow these steps to recompute the stock values of a product:

1. Log in to your CRM account.
2. Click the Main Menu.
3. Click Inventory.
4. Click Products.
5. Select the required product from the List View.
6. Click the More icon in the top right corner.
7. Click Recompute Stock Value.

You have successfully recomputed the stock values of the product. The system re-calculates all the stocks in the inventory, including those that will be added and reduced as mentioned in the purchase and sales orders imported to the CRM. 

Note: The Committed and Incoming stocks will be updated for a product and sub-product on recomputation.

Scheduling Recompute of Stocks

When you schedule the recompute of stocks, based on the recompute Cron, it will be executed at 11 PM in the timezone of the account owner. 

Follow these steps to schedule a stock recompute:

1. Log in to your CRM account.
2. Click the User Menu in the top right corner.
3. Click Settings.
4. Look for Inventory.
5. Click Stock Management.
6. Click the Schedule Recompute button. 

Note: You will see a message about the recomputing Cron, and the system prompts you to recompute stock values from a product record if you want to recompute stock of a specific product.

7. Click Schedule.

You have successfully scheduled the recomputing of stock values of all the products in the inventory.

Stock Management Status Field

• You do not have to consider sales and purchase orders in the Closed state to calculate Committed and Incoming stocks.
• Here are the other options: 
  • Qty in stock increases 
    • When a purchase order is in fully Received or in any other custom closed status.
    • When a receipt note is in Received or in any other custom closed status.
  • Qty in Stock decreases 
    • When a sales order is in the Fully Delivered or any other customer closed status.
    • When the delivery note is in the Delivered or in any other custom closed status.
    • When the invoice is any status except Canceled.
  • Committed Stock increases
    • When a sales order is in New and any other open status.
    • When a sales order is in Fully Delivered and any other closed status.
    • When a delivery note is in Delivered or any other closed status.
  • Incoming Stock increases
    • When a purchase order is in New and any other open status.
    • When a purchase order is in Fully Received and any other closed status.
  • Incoming Stock decreases when a Reived Note is in Received or any other closed status.