Inventory explained
You will know what the Inventory menu holds, how stock comes in and goes out, where warehouses and barcodes fit, and when a product should be tracked as a serialised asset instead of a quantity.
Inventory is the spare parts, tyres, consumables and services side of NShine ERP. It is built for a transport company’s own store rather than for retail: a few hundred items that are bought from suppliers, kept in one or more warehouses and used on vehicles.
The menu has two screens, Products and Stock Adjustment. Stock arrives through Invoices › Purchase Invoice, which is where quantity and cost enter the books, and the position is read in the Stock Report under Reports.
Products and services
A product is anything you buy and may hold in stock: a filter, a tyre, a litre of coolant, a bulb. A service is something you buy without stock, such as a wheel alignment or a wash, which still needs a line on a purchase invoice. Both are set up on the same Products screen, where Item settings › Type decides which one it is.
- The list shows Name, Code, Category, Brand, Purchase Rate, Sales Rate, Discounted Sale Rate and Image.
- Classification fields (Item/Barcode, tax classification code, Category, Sub Category, Brand, Sub Brand) are what you filter and report by.
- Enable Stock Posting is the switch that makes a product count in stock at all. A service, or a consumable you do not want to count, leaves it off.
- Enable Batch adds a Batch No to every purchase and adjustment line for items with lot numbers or expiry dates, such as lubricants and brake fluid.
- Qty Alert is the reorder level; the Stock Report flags items at or below it.
Warehouses
A warehouse is a place stock is held: the main store, a branch depot, a workshop shelf or a service van. Every purchase invoice and every stock adjustment names one warehouse, and the Stock Report shows quantity per warehouse. One warehouse is enough for most fleets; add more only when stock physically lives in more than one place and you want to know which.
How stock moves
Movement | Screen | Effect |
|---|---|---|
Stock in | Invoices › Purchase Invoice | Quantity added to the warehouse; cost posted to the supplier ledger and stock |
Opening stock, count correction, write-off | Inventory › Stock Adjustment | Quantity added or removed per line, with a Type for the reason |
Parts used on a vehicle | Vehicles › Vehicle Maintenance, Parts on a task row | Cost on the service record and the vehicle; see Issue parts to a vehicle service for how stock is affected |
Serialised asset fitted or removed | Vehicles › Tyre/Asset Tracking | Asset status moves between In Store and Installed |
Barcodes and QR codes
The Item/Barcode field on a product holds the code printed on the part or on your own label. The Purchase Invoice and Stock Adjustment forms have a barcode/QR scan box: scan a code and the product line is added, so receiving a delivery or counting a shelf is a matter of scanning each item rather than searching by name.
Products versus serialised assets
Some items matter one at a time: tyres, batteries, tarpaulins, GPS units. For those, tick Track as serialized asset on the product. Each unit then gets its own record under Vehicles › Tyre/Asset Tracking, with a serial number, cost, ownership, the vehicle it is on and its position in the tyre layout. Quantity-based stock answers how many filters are on the shelf; serialised assets answer which tyre is on which wheel and how long it has run.
Where inventory shows in the books
- Purchase invoices post to the supplier’s Account Payable ledger and are settled through Supplier Payments.
- Products with Enable Stock Posting carry a stock value that appears on the Balance Sheet.
- Parts and services used on a vehicle land in the Vehicle Maintenance Statement and the vehicle’s Profit and Loss tab.
- The Stock Report gives quantity on hand, by warehouse, with Excel export.
Need Help?
Chat with the NShine ERP support team on WhatsApp at +91 79950 87755, or ask from inside the app. Last checked 9 November 2026 against app.nshineerp.com.