When managing a rental company it goes without saying that it is crucial to make sure your stock levels are always up to date. Knowing how many items you have and how many of them will be available in the future is essential during resource planning.

Within Rentman you can easily update and keep track of your stock position for both sales and rental equipment that are available right now or in the future. In this way you can plan ahead, and can be sure that you never have to deal with unexpected empty shelves. 

This article concerns the stock levels of rental item. 

.

How to keep track of your stock: 

In Rentman you can track your stock position in two ways: 

• Enter quantity manually: when making use of this option, you have to insert your current stock quantity manually. The stock quantity is then calculated based on your future manual stock movements in combination with other aspect that have influence on the stock quantity. You can read more about stock movements here. 
• Calculate quantity by counting serial numbers: when making use of this option, your stock quantity is based on the amount of active serial numbers of a specific equipment item in your account. Serialized items become available on the date of purchase of this item.  The stock quantity is based on several aspects that you can learn more on here. 

When adding equipment, you can decide per equipment item which of the above described options you want to use.  

Aspects that have influence on the stock level. 

• Manual stock movements: manual stock movements on both sales and rental items, have an impact of the stock position of equipment items.  Read here on how to enter an equipment delivery manually, or correct your stock position.
• Importing equipment: Changes that are made by updating your equipment stock position via an import will be taken into account, when calculating the total. 
• Inventory counting
  Equipment Tracking
  : the differences (surpluses and shortages) that are a result of your inventory count, are automatically applied to your stock position when finished. You can learn more on how to carry out in inventory count in our article "count your inventory"
• Lost items (through warehouse bookings)
  Equipment Tracking
  : when items are reported as being lost in the warehouse, the stock of this specific item will be adjusted accordingly. Learn here how to report an item as lost.  Items can only be reported as being lost when they carry a serial number. 
• Found items
  Equipment Tracking
  : when items are being reported as being found again, the stock of this specific equipment item will be adjusted accordingly. Learn here on how to mark equipment items as found here. 

How to enter equipment deliveries 

When you purchase new equipment it will probably not become available immediately, but somewhere the near future. Nevertheless, you do want this future stock increase to already show in your overview so that you can take them into account when planning your projects. 

Bulk items: we refer to bulk items when we talk about non-serialized items. For these items you can enter a new delivery date in the future. These equipment items will become available from the delivery date, which can be defined when adding the delivery as follows: 

1. In the category Equipment module, double-click on a row
2. Navigate to the Stock tab
3. Click on Schedule stock movements
4. Fill in the quantity and a date in the future
   - Optional: Change the description if necessary
   - Optional: Add details

Serialized items: Unique equipment items can be added to the stock by simply adding the serialized items to the database. These items will become available as soon as they are active or at time of the purchase date. 

How to decrease your stock. 

Overtime you might want to reduce your stock as some of your equipment items will no longer be part of your inventory. This can happen if you for example decide to sell an item. 

Bulk items: the stock level of non serialized items can be reduced by adding a negative delivery amount. These items will become unavailable from the delivery date onwards. 

1. In the category Equipment module, double-click on a row
2. Navigate to the Stock tab
3. Click on Schedule stock movements
4. Fill in the quantity and a date in the future
   - Optional: Change the description if necessary
   - Optional: Add details

Serialized items: the stock level of serialized items can be reduced in two ways. You can delete the serialized item, or change the item on inactive. 

At the moment it is not yet possible to create future negative stock movements for specific serial numbers.

How to make a correction to your stock 

It can of course happen that your stock is not completely accurate, and that you need to make a correction to your current stock level. This can be done very easily by making a stock correction. 

1. In the category Equipment module, double-click on a row
2. Navigate to the Stock tab
3. Click on
4. Enter the "New stock" position
   - Optional: Change the description if necessary (e.g. "Due to incomplete delivery")
   - Optional: Add details (e.g. "delivery X was not complete")

Insight into the movements of your stock 

For bulk items, you can easily check the movement history of your stock by navigating to the Stock tab within an opened equipment item or case. Stock movements can be based on all aspects that have been discussed in this article.