Glossary of inventory terms

A method of ranking inventory by importance: A items are the high-value, high-velocity few that deserve tight control and frequent counts, B items are the middle, and C items are the cheap, slow-moving bulk. The point is effort — verification effort follows risk instead of the calendar.

An item tracked as one specific individual rather than a quantity — a tool, a piece of equipment, a single identifiable unit. Assets keep their own identity, location, and full history, so the question is where is unit 3, not how many do we have.

A machine-readable pattern of lines encoding an identifier — most often a supplier's UPC or SKU number. Traditional barcodes hold one number, scan instantly, and work side by side with QR codes: existing supplier barcodes scan as-is in CountGrid.

The most specific location in a hierarchy — a single labeled shelf slot, drawer, or container that stock calls home. Bin labels that match the record exactly are what let a scanner walk a shelf instead of searching it.

A count where the counter sees the item and location but not the expected quantity. Removing the expected number removes the temptation to confirm it — the cheapest honesty upgrade in inventory.

The transfer pattern for tools and equipment: checking out logs the item moving from a store to a person, truck, or site; checking in reverses it. Each move carries who, when, and where — so tools stop being communal property and start having addresses.

A count of a small slice of inventory on a rotating schedule — a zone, a category, a supplier's items — so everything gets verified over weeks or months without stopping operations. It catches errors while they are young and the trail is still warm.

The order size that minimizes the combined cost of ordering too often (admin, shipping) and holding too much (storage, cash, expiry). Full EOQ math is rarely worth it for small operations — the practical version is order what a review cycle plus lead time will use, rounded to pack sizes.

First-expired, first-out: a picking rule that always issues the stock with the earliest expiration date, regardless of when it arrived. FEFO is the right rule for anything with a shelf life, because the date — not arrival order — is the real constraint.

First-in, first-out: issue the oldest stock first. The default rule for non-expiring goods that age (obsolescence, packaging changes), and a good approximation of FEFO — right up until a delivery arrives out of date order, which is exactly the case FIFO cannot see.

A record-keeping model where every quantity change is a permanent transaction — receipt, use, transfer, adjustment — with who, when, and why attached. Nothing is edited in place, so the question of what happened always has an answer with a timestamp.

A holding location for stock that is moving between two real locations — between sites, or anything handled by a courier. Items transfer out of the origin, sit in in-transit, and land at the destination, so nothing is ever nowhere.

Attaching inventory and tool usage to specific jobs or projects so their real cost is known. Even a simple per-day equipment charge gives estimates teeth — and for billable equipment, check-out and check-in dates become the invoice.

The gap between placing an order and having the stock usable on the shelf — including receiving and put-away, not just the truck. Lead time is one of the three numbers behind a reorder point, and underestimating it is the classic way reorder points fail.

Last-in, first-out: issue the newest stock first. Mostly an accounting convention rather than an operational one — on a shelf it ages the oldest inventory toward expiration on purpose, which is usually a mistake.

Any real place stock can sit — a building, room, shelf, bin, refrigerator, truck, or job site — recorded with its own live count. Making locations first-class records is what turns the question where is it from an investigation into a look-up.

The identifier a manufacturer assigns to one production run; every unit in the run shares it, along with its dates and its recall fate. Recording lots at receiving is what makes a recall a search instead of a shelf-by-shelf hunt.

More of an item than usage can justify — cash sitting on a shelf, waiting to expire or become obsolete. Overstock usually comes from purchasing without usage data: the safest-feeling guess is to buy more, and for expiring items that guess converts directly into write-offs.

The target quantity a location should hold — the number you replenish to. Reorder points decide when to buy; par levels decide when to refill a room or truck from central stock.

A full count of everything, everywhere, at one point in time. Complete and authoritative — which is why auditors and lenders like it — but expensive and disruptive, so most operations reserve it for moments that demand total proof and let cycle counting handle the routine.

A list telling a picker exactly what to take and from where — ideally pointing at the right lot for stock with expiration dates. Pick lists move the thinking from the moment of grabbing (busy, rushed) to the moment of planning (calm, informed).

A record of what was ordered, from whom, and when — that receiving lands against. POs close the loop between purchasing and the ledger: the order, the receipt, and the count update are one connected story instead of three unconnected documents.

The step of moving received stock from the dock to its home location. It is where FEFO either happens or dies — putting the earliest-dating lot in the most accessible position is two seconds of thought at put-away versus a scavenger hunt at pick time.

A two-dimensional code that holds more data than a barcode, scans from almost any angle, and survives partial damage. CountGrid generates QR labels from your own items and locations so a scan identifies what is where — while supplier barcodes keep working alongside them.

A status that removes stock from pickable inventory without destroying its record — used for expired lots, recalled stock, damaged units, or anything pending a decision. A good quarantine is logged with why, so the write-off or return shows up in reporting instead of vanishing.

The workflow of checking delivered stock into the system — quantities, lots, expiration dates — as it arrives. Receiving is the highest-value thirty seconds in inventory: every date, lot, and quantity captured here is data every alert, view, and pick relies on.

The stock level that triggers a new purchase: average daily usage times lead time, plus safety stock. Order at that number and resupply lands while you still have margin — replacing the eyeball-the-shelf method with a number you can review and tune.

How much to buy when the reorder point hits. A practical rule: enough for a review cycle plus lead time, rounded to supplier pack sizes — and never more than usage can consume before the earliest expiration date.

The summed total of an item across every location. Purchasing decisions use the rollup; diagnostic questions use the per-location detail — and both come from the same transaction data, so they never disagree.

The cushion above expected usage during resupply, sized to survive the worst plausible case — maximum usage and maximum lead time at once. Bigger cushion for items whose stockout stops work; smaller for commodities you can buy anywhere.

The unexplained gap between recorded and actual inventory — loss from theft, damage, misplacement, or unlogged use. Shrinkage is a symptom, not a verdict: patterns in where it appears point to which process is leaking.

Stock keeping unit — the identifier for one distinct item you track, the item-level unit of your catalog. A clean SKU list (no duplicates, consistent naming, decided units of measure) is the foundation everything else stands on.

The act of verifying quantities on hand against the record — walked with a scanner in CountGrid, with variance flagged as the counter finishes. Counts keep the ledger honest; the rest of the system keeps the counts cheap.

Running out of an item — the failure mode reorder points exist to prevent. A stockout costs more than the item itself: it stops the work that depended on it, and it converts into panic buys and substitutions.

A labeled subdivision of a location — a shelf, rack, drawer, or zone — the middle layer between a site and a bin. Storage areas exist so counting and picking happen in small, ownable slices.

A logged move of stock between two locations, recording who moved it and when. Transfers are the mechanism that makes multi-location tracking work — an unlogged move corrupts both counts in opposite directions.

Consumption — the quantity of an item actually issued, moved, or used over a period. Usage is the number behind reorder points, par levels, and expiry planning; purchasing data is a poor substitute because bulk buys distort it.

Removing stock from inventory as a recorded loss — expired, damaged, or otherwise unusable. A logged write-off is a number you can learn from; a quiet toss in the bin is a number that repeats.