Inventory

Inventory tracks items at your facilities. Any location can store quantities of items from your items catalog.

Inventory is the second step in the inventory workflow as items move toward becoming production assets:

Understand inventory relationships

A location includes a quantity of each item that is available at that location.

Inventory units can be transferred between locations. For example, you may move 25 units of item LDR-4.1 from your Chicago warehouse to your Milwaukee operations center.

Inventory counts can be adjusted for each location. For example, you may discover 5 units of item LDR-4.1 are missing from your Chicago warehouse and need to adjust down, or discover 5 units are present in your Milwaukee operations center and need to adjust up.

Note: inventory is primarily used to manage bulk item inventory, not for tracking finished goods. To manage ongoing business operations for finished goods in the warehouse or in the field, see tracking assets. To manage logistics for assets already deployed in the field, see moving assets. For a comprehensive overview of your asset inventory, see the asset inventory dashboard.

List all inventory

Inventory can be viewed by item or by location on the inventory page.

View inventory by item

You can drill down for each area to understand the number of units of each item at each location.

View inventory by location with drilldown

Export inventory data

You can export your current inventory view to a CSV file by clicking the "Export data" button in the page header. The export includes SKU, item name, location, and quantity for each item-location combination based on your current view and filters.

This export is useful for:

• External reporting and analysis

• Integration with other systems

• Sharing inventory snapshots with stakeholders

Viewing lot details

For each item-location combination, you can expand further to view lot-level details. This shows the individual inventory lots that make up the total quantity, including batch information and supplier details for each lot.

To view lot details, click on an item-location row to expand it, then click on the lot expansion control to see the breakdown. Each lot displays the batch number, quantity, and associated supplier information. You can also toggle "Show empty lots" to view historical lots that have been fully consumed, which is useful for traceability and audit purposes.

Lot details are only visible for item-location combinations that currently have inventory. If a location previously had inventory of a bulk item but no longer does, that row will not appear in the inventory list, and historical lot information for that combination will not be accessible from this view.

Transferring units

Units can be transferred between inventory locations. For example, you may move 25 units of item LDR-4.1 from your Chicago warehouse to your Milwaukee operations center. Unlike shipments, transfers take effect immediately.

Transferring units from one location to another is a normal day-to-day operation.

Click the "Transfer" button to transfer inventory. Clicking "Transfer" on an item or a location will pre-populate the window with the corresponding item or location information.

Unlike shipments, transfers do not introduce new units at the location. Instead, they decrement units from one location and send them to another. For that reason, you cannot transfer more units from a location than are already present at that location.

Transfer inventory window

Adjusting inventory

Unit counts can be adjusted for each inventory location. For example, you may discover 5 units of item LDR-4.1 are missing from your Chicago warehouse and need to adjust down, or discover 5 units are present in your Milwaukee operations center and need to adjust up.

Adjusting inventory manually is not part of normal day-to-day operations. It should be the exception rather than the rule, and may be reserved for managers or accounting staff.

Click the "Adjust" button to adjust inventory. Clicking "Adjust" on an item or a location will pre-populate the window with the corresponding item or location information.

Adjusting up

Adjusting inventory up will introduce new units at the location. Unlike shipments, the inventory does not come as part of a shipment associated with a PO and a source. Units are simply materialized at the locations.

Upwards adjustments are usually based on a true-up or reconciliation of prior inventory tracking errors. Adjustment upwards automatically creates a new batch to track the adjustment.

Example upwards inventory adjustment

Adjusting down

Adjusting inventory down will remove existing units from the location. Unlike transfers, the inventory does not go to another location. Units simply disappear from the location. For that reason, you cannot transfer more units from a location than are already present at that location.

Downwards adjustments are usually based on discarding inventory, or as part a true-up or reconciliation of prior inventory tracking. Adjustment downwards automatically removes units from batches based on the first-in first-out (FIFO) batch tracking.

Example downwards inventory adjustment

Movement history

Each item in inventory has a movement history that shows all transfers, adjustments, and other changes that have affected that item's quantity at each location. To view the movement history for an item:

1. Navigate to the inventory page

2. Click on a specific part or product to view its details

3. Select the "Movement history" tab

The movement history displays a chronological list of all inventory changes including:

• Transfers - Units moved between locations

• Adjustments - Manual quantity corrections (up or down)

• Receipts - Units received from inbound shipments

• Builds - Units consumed when building assemblies

• Replacements - Units used for asset maintenance or repairs

Each entry shows the date, type of movement, quantity changed, source and destination locations (if applicable), and any associated reference numbers such as shipment or PO numbers. This provides complete traceability for audit, accounting, and regulatory purposes.

Batching and traceability

Behind the scenes, Hardfin tracks the batch that each unit came from. Each group of units from the same batch, at the same location, is tracked as an inventory lot. Hardfin follows the first-in first-out (FIFO) model of batch tracking. As items are used — whether they are transferred, adjusted, built into assemblies, or used for replacements — the oldest units are considered to be used first.

For example, for new item LDR-4.1:

• 100 units are received at the Chicago Warehouse on January 1. They are assigned batch #0001.

• 25 units are transferred to the Milwaukee Operations Center on January 5. These come from batch #0001.

• 200 more units are received at the Chicago Warehouse on January 23. They are assigned batch #0002.

• 120 units are transferred from the Chicago Warehouse to the Milwaukee Operations Center on January 27. Of these, 75 will come from batch #0001 and 45 will come from batch #0002.

Summary table for item LDR-4.1 batch

Time	Event	Chicago Warehouse	Milwaukee Operations Center
Dec 31	End of year	0 units	0 units
Jan 1	1st order	100 units (batch #0001)	0 units
Jan 5	Transfer	-25 units = 75 units (batch #0001)	+25 units = 25 units (batch #0001)
Jan 23	2nd order	+200 units = 275 units (75 from batch #0001, 200 from batch #0002)	25 units (batch #0001)
Jan 27	Transfer	-120 units = 155 units (155 from batch #0002)	+120 units = 145 units (100 from batch #0001, 45 from batch #0002)

Each group of units from the same batch, at the same location, is tracked as an inventory lot. A lot always corresponds to the combination of a location and a batch. If batches of units of the same item are split up across locations, they become multiple inventory lots. If a location has units of the same item from multiple batches, they become multiple inventory lots. This ensures that materials traceability is always maintained for accounting, audit, and regulatory purposes.

So in the above example, the month ends with 155 units in a lot at the Chicago Warehouse (from batch #0002), with 100 units in a lot at the Milwaukee Operations Center (from batch #0001), and with 45 units in another lot at the Milwaukee Operations Center (from batch #0002).

Hardfin tracks all of these details automatically in the background so that operators do not have to worry about batching and traceability. The details are exportable as needed for accounting, audit, and regulatory purposes.