Inventory & Vendors

TheGarageOS treats inventory as a financially-tracked subsystem, not just a parts list. Every receipt, every adjustment, every return flows through the weighted-average cost engine, so job P&L and margins are always accurate.

Vendors

Inventory → Vendors is your supplier list.

Each vendor record carries:

• Name + contact info (phone, email, address).
• Payment terms (Net 30, COD, etc.).
• Vendor ledger — every charge and payment, with running balance.
• Purchase order history.
• Warranty claims raised against them.

From a vendor's detail page you can:

• Add a ledger entry (charge or payment).
• See all open POs for this vendor.
• Track average delivery time and claim rate.

Products

Inventory → Products is your parts catalogue.

Each product has:

• SKU + name + category.
• Unit (piece, liter, kg, etc.).
• Sale price + tax rate.
• Cost price — automatically tracked as weighted-average cost (WAC) from purchase receipts. You can also override per-product.
• Stock level + low-stock threshold.
• Multi-tier pricing (optional) — e.g. retail vs. wholesale.
• Warranty terms — primary and supplier-side.

From a product's detail page you can:

• See the price ledger — every price change with timestamp and user.
• See the stock ledger — every movement with reference (PO, sale, adjustment, return).
• Make a manual stock adjustment with reason.

Categories

Inventory → Categories — flat list or simple hierarchy. Used for product organization, low-stock reports, and reporting.

Purchase orders

Inventory → Purchase Orders is the procurement workflow.

Lifecycle

draft → sent → partially_received → received → invoiced → paid
                                                              → cancelled

Status	What it means
draft	Being built — not sent to vendor yet.
sent	Sent to vendor — awaiting acknowledgment.
partially_received	Some line items received.
received	All line items received.
invoiced	Vendor invoice recorded against this PO.
paid	Payment posted against the PO.
cancelled	Cancelled before receipt.

PO actions

• Create — pick a vendor, add line items (product + quantity + expected cost).
• Send — emails the PO to the vendor.
• Receive — record partial or full receipt. Receipts post to the stock ledger and update weighted-average cost in real time.
• Invoice — generate a vendor invoice from the PO.
• Pay — record payment against the invoice. Posts to the GL.
• Cancel — void an unreceived PO.

Each PO line carries the per-line expected cost, received quantity, and per-line pricing.

Warranty management

Inventory → Warranty handles end-to-end warranty claims.

Lifecycle

customer_claimed → sent_to_vendor → received_from_vendor
                                       → return_to_customer → resolved
                                       → rejected

1. Customer claims — record what failed, with photos and the original job / sale reference.
2. Send to vendor — submits the claim to the vendor.
3. Receive from vendor — records vendor resolution (replaced, repaired, rejected).
4. Return to customer — closes the loop with the customer.
5. Reject — claim denied.

Warranty claims can be linked to product returns (Sales → Returns → Link to Warranty) for unified tracking.

Stock adjustments

Sometimes you need to correct stock without a PO — breakage, found stock, theft, cycle count.

Inventory → Products → Stock Adjust lets you make a manual adjustment with a reason. Every adjustment is logged with user, timestamp, and reason in the stock ledger.

Low-stock alerts

The dashboard surfaces a low-stock count — products at or below their low-stock threshold. Combine with a purchase order workflow to keep your shelves full.

Tips

• Weighted-average cost means your job P&L is always true — no manual cost overrides needed.
• Price ledger + stock ledger are append-only — you get a complete audit trail.
• Vendor ledger mirrors the customer ledger — same accounting rigor for what you owe.

Next: Sales & POS, or the user journey.