Office supply inventory

Inventory

What is in the stationery cupboard, counted from what came in and what went out.

The stationery cupboard: what is in it, and what came in or went out. The count is the sum of the movements and is never typed. It does not raise purchase orders, does not price anything, approves no spend and does not talk to a supplier — a reorder level here puts an item on a list and has no other effect anywhere.

Nothing on the list for this building yet. Add the things you run out of — filters, belts, lamps.

One engine, two cupboards

This is not a second inventory system. It is the same movements, the same arithmetic and the same store the maintenance parts list uses, with one thing declared differently: which cupboard a line belongs to. That is why a box of pens never turns up on the parts list and a drive belt never turns up here, and why neither tool has to own a store of its own. Two systems would drift, and then there would be two answers to “how many reams are left”.

The count adds itself up

You do not type a quantity. You record what moved — a delivery in, a ream taken for the printer, something returned — and the number on hand is the sum of those movements. A stored quantity is a number somebody eventually overwrites, and the moment they do, the record of who took what goes with it. A count that came out wrong is corrected by recording the correction.

It orders nothing

There are no purchase orders here, no prices, no approval chain and no supplier connection. A reorder level puts an item on a low-stock list so somebody can act on it; nothing is ordered, nothing is priced and nothing leaves your device.

Related administration tools: Maintenance parts inventory · Equipment checkout register · IT asset register

A count derived from movements you recorded. CompliMaint orders nothing, prices nothing, approves nothing and communicates with no supplier. Everything runs on your device.

Questions people ask

Is this a separate system from the parts inventory?
No, and deliberately not. It is the same engine and the same store, with the office cupboard kept apart from the maintenance shelf by which area a line belongs to. Two inventory systems would eventually give two answers to the same question.
Will office items show up on the maintenance parts list?
No. Lines written here belong to the office area and lines written there belong to the maintenance area, and neither list shows the other. Anything recorded before areas existed reads as maintenance, which is what it was.
How is the quantity on hand worked out?
It is the sum of the movements you recorded — what arrived, what was taken, what came back, what was written off. It is never typed in directly, which is what lets you correct a bad count without erasing the record of who took what.
Does it order supplies or hold prices?
No. There are no purchase orders, no prices, no approvals and no supplier connection anywhere in it. A reorder level puts an item on a low-stock list and has no other effect; a person decides what to do about it.