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Using Inventory and Purchasing
FretTrack includes inventory tools for tracking shop parts, vendor information, purchase orders, receiving history, barcodes, and part usage on jobs.
The Inventory module is designed for repair-shop workflow. It helps you answer practical questions like:
- What parts do we have in stock?
- Where did this part come from?
- Which vendor supplied it?
- How many were received?
- What did it cost?
- Was shipping included in the landed cost?
- Which job used the part?
The Inventory area is organized around parts, vendors, purchase orders, receiving, and purchase history.
Depending on your shop permissions, you may be able to:
- Add and edit inventory parts
- Search parts by name, SKU, part number, barcode, or location
- Track quantity on hand
- Assign parts to jobs
- Create vendors
- Create purchase orders
- Receive ordered items
- Print barcode labels
- Review purchase history
View-only users may be able to see inventory information but cannot make inventory changes.
Parts are the individual inventory items your shop tracks.
A part may include:
- Part name
- SKU or part number
- Vendor
- Vendor SKU
- Barcode
- Quantity on hand
- Desired stock level
- Location
- Unit cost
- Notes
Parts can be used directly on jobs, which helps keep job records and inventory movement connected.
Inventory search can find parts by common shop identifiers, including:
- Part name
- SKU
- Vendor SKU
- Part number
- Barcode
- FretTrack barcode format, such as
FT-PART-000123 - Location
This makes it easier to find a part whether you are typing from a label, a vendor invoice, or memory, which is nice because human memory is mostly a junk drawer with electricity.
Vendors store supplier information for inventory purchasing.
Vendor records use:
- Company
- Sales Rep
- Phone
- Website
- Online Only
- Address
- Notes
The Company field is the vendor or supplier business name.
The Sales Rep field is the person or account contact at that vendor, if applicable.
Examples:
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Company: Allparts Sales Rep: Brian
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Company: StewMac Sales Rep: Sarah
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Company: WD Music Sales Rep: Account Manager
If a vendor is marked Online Only, FretTrack can hide or collapse address and phone fields in the vendor form.
This is useful for suppliers where the shop only orders online and does not need a physical vendor address.
Checking Online Only does not automatically erase existing address or phone data. Existing data should remain saved unless a user manually clears it.
Purchase orders track parts ordered from vendors.
A purchase order may include:
- Vendor
- PO number
- Status
- Ordered items
- Quantities
- Estimated cost
- Shipping cost
- Whether shipping should be added to part cost
- Notes
Purchase orders help separate ordering from receiving. A part can be ordered before it is physically in stock.
To create a purchase order:
- Open Inventory.
- Go to Purchase Orders.
- Create a new purchase order.
- Select a vendor.
- Add one or more parts.
- Enter ordered quantities and costs.
- Add shipping cost if needed.
- Save the purchase order.
If an item does not already exist in inventory, choose the option to create it as a new inventory part.
New PO items are added to inventory with quantity 0 until they are received.
Receiving updates inventory after ordered parts arrive.
When you receive PO items, FretTrack can:
- Create a receipt record
- Increase inventory quantity
- Update part cost information
- Write inventory movement history
- Update purchase order status
- Add the receipt to Purchase History
This keeps purchasing and stock movement tied together instead of making you reconstruct everything from a pile of invoices, which is how civilizations decline.
A purchase order does not have to be received all at once.
For example, if you order 10 tuners and only 6 arrive, you can receive 6 now and receive the remaining 4 later.
FretTrack tracks received quantities so the purchase order can reflect what has arrived and what remains outstanding.
Purchase orders support inbound vendor shipping cost.
This is the shipping cost your shop pays to receive parts from a vendor.
It is not customer shipping.
Examples of inbound vendor shipping:
- Shipping paid to receive parts from Allparts
- Freight charged by a vendor
- Shipping listed on a supplier invoice
Examples of customer or outbound shipping, which is planned separately:
- Shipping a repaired guitar back to a customer
- Buying a carrier label
- Sending tracking updates
- Charging a customer for shipping
The Add shipping to cost option controls whether inbound shipping should be included in the received part cost.
When Add shipping to cost is turned off:
- Shipping is tracked on the purchase order.
- Part unit cost remains based on the entered unit cost.
- Shipping is not allocated into inventory cost.
When Add shipping to cost is turned on:
- Shipping is allocated across received items.
- FretTrack calculates landed cost.
- Part cost can reflect the true cost of getting the item into the shop.
Landed cost is the total cost of an item after including inbound shipping.
FretTrack allocates shipping proportionally across received items based on each line’s subtotal.
Basic example:
- Item A subtotal: $80
- Item B subtotal: $20
- Shipping cost: $10
- Total item subtotal: $100
Shipping allocation:
- Item A receives 80% of shipping, or $8
- Item B receives 20% of shipping, or $2
This gives a more accurate inventory cost than pretending shipping was paid by a magical accounting fairy.
Purchase History shows received inventory activity.
It may include:
- Receipt date
- Part
- Vendor
- Purchase order
- Quantity received
- Unit cost
- Shipping allocated
- Landed unit cost
- Total landed cost
- Received by
- Notes
This gives the shop a record of what came in, when it came in, what it cost, and how inventory changed.
FretTrack can generate barcode labels for inventory parts.
Barcode labels use the FretTrack part barcode format:
FT-PART-{barcode_code}
Barcode labels are useful for:
- Parts drawers
- Bins
- Shelves
- Small inventory bags
- Common repair parts
- Receiving workflows
A part can be searched by its barcode code or full barcode label.
Inventory parts can be assigned to jobs.
When a part is used on a job, FretTrack can help connect:
- The job
- The part
- Quantity used
- Inventory movement
- Shop cost
- Customer-facing job record
This is useful for tracking repair materials and understanding what was consumed during a job.
Inventory write actions are permission controlled.
Depending on role and shop access:
- Owners and admins may manage vendors, purchase orders, receiving, and inventory edits.
- Technicians may have limited write access depending on shop settings.
- Viewers can see information but should not be able to change inventory.
If an inventory button or form is unavailable, the current user may not have permission to perform that action.
Use inventory consistently for parts you want to track across jobs.
Good candidates for inventory tracking include:
- Strings
- Pots
- Jacks
- Switches
- Pickups
- Screws
- Nuts
- Saddles
- Tuners
- Fretwire
- Common electronics parts
- Shop materials with meaningful cost or quantity
For one-off items, create a part when it needs purchasing, receiving, job tracking, or cost history.
Check that the item was linked to an inventory part and that the receive action completed successfully.
Your role may not have inventory write permission.
The vendor may be marked Online Only.
Check whether Add shipping to cost was enabled on the purchase order.
Shipping cost can be recorded without being added to inventory cost. Enable Add shipping to cost when landed cost should be calculated.