Inventory Management

Inventory Management keeps track of the spare parts and consumables you hold at your bases, and of where your stock goes once it leaves the shelf. Because it runs on the same tasks your team already uses, stock taken out of the warehouse ends up on a boat, in that boat’s costs and, if you charge for it, on the owner’s bill.

What inventory management is

Inventory management is keeping an accurate record of the parts and consumables you own: how many you have, where they are, what happened to every unit, and where the units you took out ended up. In Floatist, each of those questions maps to one concept:

Question	Concept in Floatist
Where do we keep stock?	Warehouses: a base storeroom, a container, a service van
What do we have?	Items: one part, in one warehouse, at one price
Which part is it?	FID: the part’s ID, shared by all its items
What happened to it?	Transactions: every change, with a reason
Where did the stock we took out go?	Usage: one line per unit consumed or sold
Which boat was it for, and who pays?	Tasks and bills

New to inventory, or setting it up for your team? Start with How inventory works, which explains each concept with examples.

Why fleet operators use Inventory Management

Knowing what’s on the shelf before turnaround day or an upcoming winter maintenance project. See what each base has in stock, what is running low and what is out, so no boat leaves short of an impeller or a gas bottle, and winter jobs don’t stall waiting on parts.
Ordering on time without guessing. Floatist works out how fast you use each item and turns that into a shopping list you can send straight to your supplier.
Charging owners for what went on their boat. Stock used on a boat’s tasks is valued at the price you actually paid, ready to go on a bill alongside labor and other expenses.
Seeing where stock goes. Find out which boats use the most stock, who is taking it out, and what has been lost or damaged.
Keeping cash off the shelf. Spot stock that hasn’t moved in months and watch your stock value over the season.

How it fits together

Set up one or multiple warehouses, based on where you keep your stock.
Add your items and stock. Scan barcodes with a barcode scanner or add items by hand, and add stock each time a delivery comes in.
Take stock out of warehouses and link the consumption of the stock to tasks. The team consumes stock from the warehouse and links it to the task it was used for. Usage tracks all consumed stock until it is on a task, returned or written off, but the task links the consumption to a boat.
Keep an eye on stock running low and out of stock items with the dashboard and reorder from the shopping list.
Bill boat owners by grouping billables into bills.

Why tasks matter

Tasks are what tie Inventory Management together. When stock leaves the warehouse, you know who took it. Once it’s on a task, you also know which boat it went on, what job it was for and what it cost. That’s what lets you see each boat’s real running costs and charge the boat owner for what went on their boat.

Stock that has been consumed but isn’t on a task yet is awaiting a task. A short wait is normal, for example while a technician finishes the job. But until it’s linked, you can’t charge that stock to a boat or an owner, so it’s flagged on the dashboard and across inventory until your team links it, returns it or marks it lost. See Why tasks matter.

See Reporting use cases for how to answer common questions, like working out the cost of each boat.

Quick Reference Guide

Term	What it means
Warehouse	A place where you keep stock, such as a base storeroom, a container or a workshop. See Warehouses.
Item	A spare part or consumable in a warehouse, with a name, price and optional barcodes. Items of the same kind share an FID, so batches bought at different prices stay together. See Items and stock.
FID	Floatist ID, the code that identifies a part, such as `FKXRMT0042`. All items of the same part share it. See FID.
Batch	Units of the same part bought at a different price, kept as a separate item under the same FID. See One FID, several items.
Shelf	One FID in one warehouse. A shelf can hold several batches.
Stock	The number of units of an item on the shelf. Every change adds or takes out units with a reason, such as Restocked, Consumed or Lost. See Stock reasons.
Transaction	One recorded change to an item’s quantity, with its type and reason. Never edited, never deleted. See Transactions.
Stock take	Counting what is really on the shelf and correcting Floatist to match.
Task	A job on a boat, from a full repair to a simple “Stock used June 1”. Importantly, tasks link stock to boats, so it counts in that boat’s costs and can be billed. See Why tasks matter.
Awaiting a task	Stock that has been consumed but isn’t linked to a task yet. It can’t be charged to a boat until it is. See What “awaiting a task” means.
Usage	What happened to stock after it was consumed: still Pending, Used for task, Returned or Lost. See Usage.
Shopping list	All stock running low or out of stock, with how many to buy for the coming weeks. See Shopping list.
Dashboard	The starting point for inventory: stock value, what’s running low, what’s waiting for a task and what was used over a period. See Dashboard.
Billables	The costs recorded on a task: labor, inventory items used and other expenses. See Bills and billables.
Bills	A group of billables, usually for one owner or one boat, that you can export as a PDF and invoice. See Bills.