Inventory & Warehouse Management

4. Stock Movements and Movement Types

Every change in inventory is recorded as a stock movement, giving a complete audit trail. The StockMovementsPage records transfers, issues, and receipts, and the underlying system distinguishes a defined set of movement types.

The movement types are: receive for stock received from suppliers; issue for stock issued to orders or consumption; transfer in and transfer out for inter-warehouse transfers; adjustment in and adjustment out for manual corrections; count adjustment for changes originating from stock counts; and return in and return out for customer and supplier returns.

Movements are not only historical records; they are created automatically by other processes. Receiving stock against a purchase order creates a receive movement with a reference back to the source receipt. Completing a stock adjustment or a stock count generates the corresponding adjustment or count-adjustment movement. Shipping goods against a sales order deducts inventory and records an issue movement.

Because each movement is typed and carries references to its source, an analyst can reconstruct the full history of a product's quantity in a warehouse, seeing exactly which receipts, issues, transfers, adjustments, counts, and returns produced the current on-hand figure.