Stock management, when "inventory" means two completely different things
Almost every business that says it has an inventory problem has one of two problems, and they need opposite systems. A project store receives material against a purchase order and issues it to work, and the question it answers is what did this project consume. A retail stock ledger receives against an order and sells at a counter, and the question it answers is what is my margin and what is about to run out. Buying one for the other is why so many stock implementations quietly fail.
Which problem do you actually have?
- 01Does stock leave against a job, or against a customer?
- 02Do you need consumption by project, or margin by line?
- 03Is the person receiving goods a storekeeper on a site, or a shopkeeper at a counter?
- 04Do you reorder against a bill of quantities, or against a sales rate?
- 05Does the cost belong to a project P&L or to cost of goods sold?
The project store
Material arrives against a purchase order, is received with the short delivery recorded as a short delivery, and is issued to work with a record of who took it and for what. Reconciliation is against consumption, not against sales. This is part of Ofivio Build, because it belongs on the same thread as the bill and the order — see procurement.
The retail stock ledger
Stock decrements on a sale, margin is visible by line, and reorder levels raise their hand before a shelf is empty. That is Ofivio POS, and it posts the day into Ofivio Books rather than into a cash book.
Why they are separate products
They share vocabulary and almost nothing else. A single generic stock module that tries to serve both ends up expressing neither well — issues become sales with a customer of nobody, and margin becomes meaningless on a project. Two products on one spine is the honest shape.
Who this is not for
If you are on this list, Ofivio is the wrong purchase and we would rather you know now than in month three.
- Manufacturers needing a bill of materials, work orders or production planning
- Distributors needing multi-warehouse allocation and transfer orders at scale
- Firms needing barcode-driven warehouse picking and putaway
- Anyone whose stock is a cupboard of stationery
The products behind this
Questions people actually ask
Can one workspace have both a project store and a shop?
Do you support barcodes?
Is there a bill of materials?
Keep reading
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