How Inventory Works

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MainBoss uses a number of terms to describe inventory actions. This section discusses those terms and explains the details of how MainBoss handles inventory.

Note: To avoid surprises, we strongly recommend that you familiarize yourself with the following material.

On Hand: When MainBoss tells you the quantity of an item that is currently on hand, that is the quantity that is expected to be present in all your storerooms. The related quantity, Storeroom On Hand, is the amount expected to be in a specific storeroom. The total on hand amount is the sum of all Storeroom On Hand values.

On Order: When you create purchase order, the quantity of items on the purchase order are said to be on order. More precisely, the items are put on order at the point that you Save the purchase order. Note that those items are on order, even if you haven't actually issued the purchase order yet.

When you record the receipt of a shipment, quantities on order are reduced appropriately. For example, suppose that you currently have 30 light bulbs on order and you receive a shipment containing 10 light bulbs. When you record the receipt, the quantity on order goes down to 20.

If you receive more of an item than you ordered, the on order quantity can go negative. For example, if you currently have 30 light bulbs on order, but you receive a shipment with 40 light bulbs, the on order quantity will become -10. This indicates that you now have more items than you ordered.

When you close a purchase order, MainBoss adjusts on order quantities to account for items ordered but not received. For example, suppose a purchase order called for 30 light bulbs but you only receive 10. This leaves 20 light bulbs still on order. If you close the purchase order at this point, MainBoss assumes that you have cancelled the outstanding quantity on order. Therefore, MainBoss adjusts its records to show that you no longer have the 20 light bulbs still on order.

The total quantity of an item on order is the sum of all on order quantities from open purchase orders. For example, if one purchase order calls for 10 light bulbs and another calls for 20, you have a total of 30 light bulbs on order.

On Reserve: When you create a work order, you can reserve inventory materials for use in the work order. These materials are said to be on reserve. You put materials on reserve when you use Add Estimate to add them to the Material section of an open work order. More precisely, the materials are put on reserve when you Save the work order where the estimates appear. If you have not yet saved the work order, the materials are not yet on reserve.

Materials can be removed from reserve in several ways:

You can Void the work order. In this case, all materials that were on reserve become available for use again.
You can use Delete in the Material section of the work order to delete material estimates from the materials list. Deleting an estimate makes reserved materials available once more. More precisely, the materials become available when you Save the changes you've made in the work order.
You can use Quick Actuals or Add Actual to state that reserved materials have actually been used (issued). For example, suppose you use Add Estimate to reserve 10 quarts of oil for a job, then use Add Actual to say that the job actually used 8 quarts. MainBoss will update its records to say that you now have only 2 quarts on reserve, since you used 8 of the original 10 quarts. (MainBoss will also update its records to say that you have 8 quarts less on hand.)
Note that if you originally reserved 10 quarts of oil, but actually used 12, you have the unusual case of having -2 quarts of oil on reserve. This indicates that you used more than you reserved.
When you close a work order, MainBoss removes all outstanding reservations for materials on that work order. For example, suppose you reserved 10 quarts of oil but only used 8 quarts. This leaves 2 quarts still on reserve. However, when you close the work order, MainBoss removes those 2 quarts from the reserve. Since the work order has been closed, the job is finished and the extra 2 quarts obviously weren't needed.
Similarly, if you originally used 10 quarts of oil but actually used 12, you would end up with -2 quarts on reserve. When you close the work order, MainBoss adjusts this to say that you no longer have any oil on reserve.

The total quantity of an item on reserve is the sum of all on reserve quantities from open work orders. For example, if one work order calls for 10 quarts of oil and another calls for 20, you have a total of 30 quarts on reserve.

Stock Available: When MainBoss tells you the total quantity of an item available, the quantity is calculated as

    Stock Available = OnHand + OnOrder - OnReserve

Notice that items on order are considered available, even though they haven't been received yet. This means that receiving items in response to a purchase order doesn't change the amount available. For example, if you receive 10 light bulbs that you previously ordered, the amount on hand goes up by 10 but the amount on order goes down by 10. Therefore there's no net change in the stock available.

Similarly, the stock available doesn't change if you use materials in connection with a work order. For example, if you use 8 quarts of oil in a work order, the amount on hand goes down by 8 quarts, but the amount on reserve also goes down by 8 quarts, since you've used some of the oil you reserved. Therefore there's no net change in the stock available.

When MainBoss needs to determine whether stock should be reordered, it looks at the available quantity, not at the quantity on hand. This applies to the Reorder report and to the item selection facilities for a purchase order.

Closed and Voided Work Orders/Purchase Orders: After a work order has been closed or voided, the use of Add Estimate does not put materials on reserve. Since the job is already finished or cancelled, there is no point in putting materials on reserve. (The only reason you would use Add Estimate would be to correct your records after the fact.)

Similarly, after a purchase order has been closed or voided, adding items to the purchase order does not put those items on order.

Excluding the Current Record: Whenever MainBoss displays inventory numbers (on order, on hand, on reserve, or available), the quantities always exclude information in the current window.

For example, suppose you are using Add Estimate in the Material section of a work order to reserve materials for the work order. This window displays how much of the item is on hand, on order, on reserve, and available, excluding any materials reserved in the current window. If you change the amount in the "Reserve Quantity" field, the numbers shown in "On Reserve", "Stock Available", etc. will not change.

Furthermore, if you reserve some materials, save the record, close the window, then open the record again (using Edit in the Material section), the "On Reserve" quantity shown will not take into account the materials that you previously reserved in this record.

General Principle: When MainBoss shows you inventory quantities in a window, the numbers are always given as if the record you are looking at does not exist.

To illustrate this, here is a concrete example. The example uses dates in order to make some things clearer.

June 1: The inventory count for light bulbs is zero on hand, zero on order, zero on reserve, zero available.
June 2: You take a physical count of one storeroom and find you actually have 10 light bulbs on hand. Using Inventory —> Adjustments —> Physical Count, you set the on hand number to 10.
June 3: You take a physical count of another storeroom and find another 15 light bulbs there. Once again, you use Inventory —> Adjustments —> Physical Count. When you first open the window, you will see 10 lights bulbs on hand (from the record you made the day before). You record another 15 light bulbs, bringing the total to 25.
June 4: You reserve one light bulb for use in a work order, using Add Estimate in the Material section of the work order. This opens a window where you can record how many light bulbs you want to reserve. Even though you reserve one bulb, the "On Reserve" count in the window does not change—the count ignores any materials issued via the current window (even after you save the record). The same goes for other inventory numbers shown in the window.
June 5: You decide to change the preceding work order to reserve two light bulbs instead of one. You use the Edit button in the Material section of the work order to open the record again. You'll see that the "On Reserve" count is still zero, since MainBoss ignores the current record. However, if you set the time on the current record record to June 5 without saving the record, MainBoss will change the "On Reserve" count from zero to 1. This is because the reserve count is 1 as of today, ignoring any changes you might make to the current record...because of the materials you reserved yesterday. If you now Save the current record, the reserve count goes back to zero because MainBoss once again ignores the influence of the current record.

Remember that MainBoss ignores the effect of the current record while it's on the screen. However, if you go to the inventory item browser, you will see that MainBoss has reserved the quantity of the item that you specified.

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