Selling an inventory item out-of-stock can be a great time saver during the day. This process allows you to sell an item that has been delivered by the vendor, but not yet received into the inventory system. If used incorrectly, this causes calculation problems with your individual unit cost and total inventory valuation.
For example, a customer wants 2 wiper blades. There are 4 in stock, but 3 of them are already attached to other customers’ work orders. When you try to add 2 wiper blades to the work order, the system displays a prompt similar to the following:
On Hand:4 Committed:3 Available:1
Less than 2 available. Proceed anyway?
Type Y to sell the item out of stock if you know you have more that have not been received. Or type N to zero out the quantity and stay on that line of the invoice. On Hand refers to the quantity in stock. Committed is the number of items already attached to a work order but not sold. Available is the quantity on hand minus the quantity committed.
When necessary, selling out of stock inventory helps provide the fastest service for a customer. When a bay technician sells an item out-of-stock, he or she should immediately inform the store manager. The manager should make sure that the inventory is received into stock before the End of Day process. (See the Receiving Inventory article for more information.) You may print a Negative Quantity Report at any time to see which items have been sold out of stock and still need to be received. If any items are still out-of-stock at closing, LubeSoft® will not run the nightly close. If LubeSoft® finds inventory items with a negative quantity on hand during closing, they must be received into stock before the store can be closed.
If you find that you have inventory items with incorrect unit costs (average cost) and incorrect valuation figures, it is very important that the average cost be corrected as soon as possible. Several reports are available to help you investigate the causes of incorrect average costs and valuations, for example, the History by Type (1-7-3-2) and History by Item (1-7-3-3) reports. These reports show every receiving, sale and adjustment affecting a given inventory item. Once you find the error it is usually fairly simple to correct. Remember that the calculation of your inventory valuation will affect the figures you see on your reports.
| Note: | Received items will not show up on reports until inventory is updated. See the Updating Inventory article for more information. |
