How inventory works
This page is for anyone who runs spare parts and consumables for a charter fleet and wants to understand how Floatist keeps track of them. You don’t need to know anything about inventory management to read it. It starts from the basic ideas and builds up to the full picture. For step by step instructions, follow the links to the other pages in this section.
Why track inventory at all?
Section titled “Why track inventory at all?”Every season your bases go through hundreds of impellers, filters, belts, fuses, cleaning supplies and spare winch handles. Without a record of what you have and where it went, three things happen:
- You run out of a part on turnaround day, with a boat due out in four hours.
- You buy parts you already have, because nobody knew they were sitting in the other warehouse.
- You can’t say what a repair really cost, or bill an owner for the parts used on their boat.
Inventory Management answers three questions at any time:
| Question | What answers it in Floatist |
|---|---|
| What do we have, and where? | Warehouses, items and FIDs |
| What happened to it? | Transactions |
| Where did the parts we took out end up? | Usage, linked to tasks |
The big picture
Section titled “The big picture”Read it left to right: a warehouse holds items. Each item carries an FID that says which part it is. Every time the quantity of an item changes, Floatist writes a transaction. When units leave because they were consumed or sold, each unit becomes a usage line, which you then link to the task it was used for. That is how a part on a shelf ends up as a cost on a boat and on the owner’s bill.
Warehouses
Section titled “Warehouses”A warehouse is any place where you store parts: the main store at your base, a container on the pier, the back of a service van. You can have as many as you like.
- Every item lives in exactly one warehouse.
- Warehouses aren’t tied to bases. If a base has a store room and a container, make two warehouses.
- A warehouse you no longer use can be archived. It disappears from pickers but its history stays.
See Warehouses to set them up.
An item is a stock of one part, in one warehouse, at one price. For example: “Impeller Jabsco 1210-0001, Split store, 24.50 EUR each, 12 in stock”.
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Name | What you call the part. Keep it the way your team says it. |
| Quantity | How many units are on the shelf right now. Never below zero. |
| Warehouse | Where the units are. Fixed once the item is created (to change it, move the units). |
| Price | What you paid per unit. Optional, but without it Floatist can’t value your stock or cost your tasks. |
| Value | Quantity times price, worked out for you. |
| External ID | The supplier’s or manufacturer’s part number. |
| Barcodes | One or more barcodes, so you can scan the part instead of searching for it. |
| Notes | Anything useful: which boats it fits, where exactly it sits, supplier contact. |
| Photos | Pictures of the part and its packaging, so nobody grabs the wrong one. |
You don’t edit the quantity directly
Section titled “You don’t edit the quantity directly”You never type a new quantity into the item itself. Every change goes through an action, such as Add stock, Consume, Update quantity or Move, and each action writes a transaction. That is what keeps the history honest: the quantity on screen is always the result of the changes you can see in the history.
See Items and stock to add items and stock.
FID: the part’s ID card
Section titled “FID: the part’s ID card”FID stands for Floatist ID. It is a short code Floatist gives to every new part you add, for
example FKXRMT0042:
| Part | Example | What it means |
|---|---|---|
F |
F | Every FID starts with F |
| 4 letters | KXRM | Unique to your company, so your FIDs never clash with another company |
T |
T | Separator |
| 4 digits | 0042 | Counts up as you add new parts |
Write the FID on the shelf label or the box. Anyone on the team can then type it into Floatist (or scan the barcode) and land on the right part.
One FID, several items
Section titled “One FID, several items”The FID belongs to the part, not to a single item. Several items can share the same FID, and Floatist shows them together as a group. This happens for two reasons:
- Different warehouses. You keep impellers in Split and in Trogir. Same part, two shelves, two items, one FID.
- Different purchase prices (batches). You bought 10 impellers at 24.50 and later 10 more at 27.00. Floatist keeps them as two items under the same FID, so each unit keeps the price you really paid.
The group page for an FID shows the total across all of them: 23 impellers, in two warehouses. A shelf is one FID in one warehouse. In the example, Split has one shelf with two batches on it.
When does a part get a new FID?
Section titled “When does a part get a new FID?”| You do this | FID |
|---|---|
| Add a brand new item | New FID |
| Add stock at a different price | Same FID, new batch |
| Move units to another warehouse | Same FID |
| Clone an item and keep same FID ticked | Same FID |
| Clone an item as a different part (for example the 12V version of a pump) | New FID |
Transactions: the history of every unit
Section titled “Transactions: the history of every unit”A transaction is one line in an item’s history. It records what changed, by how much, when, who did it and why. Transactions are never edited or deleted. If something was entered wrong, you correct it with a new transaction, the same way an accountant would.
Each transaction has a type (what kind of action it was) and, for quantity changes, a reason (why it happened). You can see them all on the Inventory > Transactions page, and per item on its Transactions tab.
Transaction types
Section titled “Transaction types”| Type | When it is written | Quantity change |
|---|---|---|
| Create | You add a new item with some units in it. | + the starting quantity |
| Clone | You clone an item, or add stock at a new price (which makes a new batch). | + the clone’s quantity |
| Update quantity | Any add or remove of units: restocking, consuming, counting. This is the one you use daily. | + or - |
| Move | You move units to another warehouse. Written twice: a minus on the item they leave, a plus on the item they join. | - on one side, + on the other |
| Archive | You archive an item. Its units leave the stock count. | - all units |
| Unarchive | You bring an archived item back. Its units return. | + all units |
An archived item can’t be restocked, consumed, moved or cloned. Unarchive it first.
Reasons for a quantity change
Section titled “Reasons for a quantity change”The reason is what makes your history readable months later, and what the dashboard relies on. Always pick one.
Units coming in:
| Reason | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Restocked | A delivery arrived, or you bought parts. This is what Add stock uses. |
| Returned | Units go back on the shelf unused. If they were consumed in Floatist, use Set returned on their usage instead (see Usage): it writes this same transaction for you and takes them off their task. |
| Stock take | You counted the shelf and there are more than Floatist thought. |
Units going out:
| Reason | Use it when | Creates usage? |
|---|---|---|
| Consumed | The part was fitted on a boat or used up in a job. This is what Consume uses. | Yes |
| Sold | The part was sold, for example to a guest or a private owner. | Yes |
| Damaged | The part broke or went bad on the shelf and is thrown away. | No |
| Lost | The part went missing from the shelf. | No |
| Stock take | You counted the shelf and there are fewer than Floatist thought. | No |
Only Consumed and Sold create usage, because those are the only reasons where a unit went somewhere you can point to: a boat, a task, a customer. Damaged and lost units are simply gone.
Common situations
Section titled “Common situations”| Situation | What to do in Floatist |
|---|---|
| A delivery of 20 filters arrived, same price as before | Add stock on the item, 20 units. Reason: Restocked. |
| Same delivery, but the price went up | Add stock and enter the new price. Floatist keeps the new units as a separate batch under the same FID. |
| You entered the wrong price when creating the item | Edit the item and correct the price. This changes the value of its whole history and every task that used it, so only use it for genuine mistakes. |
| A mechanic takes 2 impellers for a job | Consume 2 units (or scan the barcode). Two usage lines are created. |
| The mechanic only needed 1 of the 2 impellers and brings the other back | On the Inventory > Usage page, Set returned on the spare unit. The shelf goes back up by 1 with a Returned transaction. |
| A mechanic takes parts to the Trogir container | Move the units to the Trogir warehouse. |
| End of season count, 3 fuses short | Update quantity by -3. Reason: Stock take. |
| A case of oil leaked and is ruined | Update quantity. Reason: Damaged. |
| You stop stocking a part | Archive the item. |
Usage: following a part to the boat
Section titled “Usage: following a part to the boat”When you consume or sell units, Floatist creates one usage line per unit. Take out 3 impellers and you get 3 usage lines. Each one is a unit that has left the shelf and is waiting for you to say where it went.
This is the step that turns “we used 40 impellers this month” into “we used 2 impellers on Aurora’s raw water pump service, 1 on Nautilus’s engine check”. It is also how parts end up in a boat’s costs and on an owner’s bill.
You’ll find usage on the Inventory > Usage page, and on each item’s Usage tab.
Usage statuses
Section titled “Usage statuses”| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pending | The unit left the shelf but isn’t linked to a task yet. Every usage starts here. Shown as awaiting a task or unlinked usage across inventory. |
| Used for task | The unit is linked to a task. Its cost counts in that task’s costs. |
| Lost | The unit was taken out but never made it to a job, and nobody knows where it went. |
| Returned | The unit came back to the shelf unused. Final: it can’t be changed again. |
How usage moves between statuses
Section titled “How usage moves between statuses”- Link to task attaches the unit to a task. You can do this one by one or select several and link them in one go. Moving a unit from one task to another updates the costs of both tasks.
- Set pending unlinks the unit from its task, or takes it out of Lost. Use it when the unit was linked to the wrong task and you don’t know the right one yet.
- Set lost says the unit is gone. The stock isn’t touched, because it already left the shelf when it was consumed.
- Set returned puts the unit back on the shelf. Floatist adds 1 to the item’s quantity with a Returned transaction, and removes the unit from its task. Only do this once the part is physically back in the warehouse. Once returned, the usage is locked.
What happens to stock at each step
Section titled “What happens to stock at each step”The shelf only changes twice: when a unit leaves (Consume or Sell) and when it comes back (Set returned). Everything in between is bookkeeping about where the unit went.
An example, with impellers at 24.50 EUR:
| Step | Shelf | Usage | Task “Aurora: raw water pump service” |
|---|---|---|---|
| A mechanic consumes 2 impellers | 10 → 8 | 2 lines, Pending | Nothing yet |
| Both are linked to Aurora’s raw water pump service | 8 | 2 lines, Used for task | Parts cost 49.00 |
| Only one was needed: Set returned on the spare one | 8 → 9 | 1 Used for task, 1 Returned | Parts cost 24.50 |
Two ways to record usage
Section titled “Two ways to record usage”Shelf first, task later. Turnaround day doesn’t leave time for paperwork. A mechanic scans the barcode and consumes the part on the spot. The unit sits as pending usage. Later, someone in the office filters the Inventory > Usage page on Pending and links each unit to its task.
Task first. When the job is already in Floatist, open the task and add an item. You get two tabs:
- Pending: pick a unit that was already consumed and is waiting to be linked.
- In warehouse: pick an item on the shelf, choose how many and why. Floatist takes them out of stock and links them to this task in one step.
Either way, the end result is the same: the unit is Used for task and its cost is on the task. See Using items on a task.
Prices and value
Section titled “Prices and value”- An item’s value is its quantity times its price.
- A unit linked to a task is costed at its item’s price, so the task’s parts cost is always “units used × price paid”.
- Correcting a price (editing the item) changes the whole history of that item, including every task that used it. Floatist warns you and tells you how many tasks will be updated.
- Buying at a new price isn’t a correction. Use Add stock with the new price and Floatist creates a new batch, so old units keep their old price and new units their new one.
See Adding stock and new prices.
Seeing the big picture
Section titled “Seeing the big picture”- Dashboard: stock value, what was used and where, what is running low and what hasn’t moved in a while. Stock take corrections don’t count as stock used, since a recount isn’t real consumption.
- Shopping list: every item that is out of stock or running low, with how many to buy and an estimated cost, ready to copy and send to your supplier.
- Inventory > Transactions: every transaction across all items, with filters by item, warehouse, type and reason. This is where you go when a number looks wrong and you want to know why.
For a list of all the terms on this page, see the Quick Reference Guide.