A stock movement records any change in inventory — items entering a warehouse, leaving it, or moving within it. Every time physical goods change location or status, a stock movement transaction captures the details.
Movement Types
Each movement transaction has a reference type that describes why inventory is moving:
| Reference type | What it represents |
|---|---|
| Purchase order | Goods received from a supplier against a purchase order. |
| Sales order | Goods shipped out to fulfill a customer order. |
| Transfer order | Goods moving between warehouses (see Transfer Orders). |
| Adjustment | Inventory corrections from cycle counts or other adjustments (see Inventory Adjustments). |
| Count | Quantity changes discovered during physical counting. |
| Return | Goods returned by a customer or returned to a supplier. |
| Production | Finished goods produced from raw materials. |
| Consumption | Raw materials consumed in a production process. |
Transaction Lifecycle
Every movement transaction follows a status progression:
DRAFT --> PENDING --> IN PROGRESS --> COMPLETED
\-> CANCELLED| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | The transaction has been created but not yet submitted. You can still edit all details. |
| Pending | The transaction has been submitted and is awaiting processing. |
| In progress | Physical movement of goods has started (e.g., items are being picked or loaded). |
| Completed | All items have been moved and the transaction is finalized. Stock levels are updated. |
| Cancelled | The transaction was cancelled before completion. No stock changes are applied. |
A movement is moved on by the buttons at the top of its page — Submit, Start, Complete and Drop movement — and each asks you to confirm before it acts, because completing a movement writes stock and dropping one cannot be taken back. Only the button for the step the movement is actually at is offered.
Finding Movements
The movements list shows transactions in reverse chronological order. Use the search bar to find rows by the number of the document behind them — a till ticket, a delivery note, a purchase order or its goods receipt — by source or destination warehouse code/name, or by the notes somebody typed on a movement. The filter button beside it narrows by Type (every kind of document that moves stock, the till and maintenance included), Status, the Source or Destination warehouse, or a Date range (Working with lists).
The Paper Behind the Move
The reference type says what kind of paper caused the move. The Reference beside it says which one — the purchase order, the transfer, the customer return — by the number printed on it.
Pick it from the list when you write the movement. The list only offers documents of the type you chose, so changing the type clears the reference and offers a fresh list; that is deliberate, and it is what stops a movement claiming a transfer order is a customer return.
Once saved, the reference is a link. Click it and the document opens, which is the quickest way to answer “why did this stock move?” without leaving the movement. The same link appears on every stock journal entry the movement wrote.
Two cases show no reference, and both are normal:
- A movement made by hand, with no paper behind it. Leave the reference blank.
- A document you are not allowed to open. A movement caused by a sale still says it came from a sales order; the order’s number is only shown to someone who may see sales orders. Typing that number in the search bar still finds the movement, but its page keeps the number to itself.
A movement the software writes for a document — a till sale, a delivery, a goods receipt, a transfer — carries no note: the reference already says which document it was, in your language, and the Notes are left for what a person types. Two more lines appear on its page when the reference alone cannot tell you what happened:
- Kind — Reversal when the move undoes an earlier one on the same document: a cancelled delivery note puts its goods back, a transfer cancelled on the road returns them to the warehouse they left, a cancelled goods receipt or credit note takes its goods back out. For a serial number it says whether the item was a Defective item or an Item sold.
- Goods receipt — on a move against a purchase order, the receipt that brought the goods in (or took them back out). One order can arrive on several receipts, so the order alone does not say which.
Creating a Movement
- Go to Inventory → Movements — it opens on the Movements tab — and click New.
- Select the reference type to categorize this movement.
- Pick the reference — the document this move came from — or leave it blank for a move made by hand.
- Choose the source warehouse (where goods are leaving) and/or destination warehouse (where goods are arriving). A reference that only moves goods one way asks for that side alone: a purchase order or a production output only brings goods in, and a sale, a delivery, a consumption, a scrap or a till sale only takes them out. At least one warehouse must be named. Each line’s shelves follow: a side with no warehouse has no shelf to name.
- Set the movement date.
- Add any notes for context.
- Click Add above the Lines, which sit beside the details on the right. The transaction is saved in Draft status and its first line opens (Adding lines before you save); add a line for each item, then move the transaction on as the goods actually move. To add the lines later, click Save instead.
Note: For inter-warehouse transfers, consider using Transfer Orders instead, which provide additional logistics tracking (shipping method, tracking number, estimated arrival).
Movement Lines
The lines sit beside the movement’s details, and can be written while it is still a draft. Each one is a specific product or variant being moved:
- The product or variant being moved.
- Source and destination locations (within the warehouses).
- The quantity being moved and the unit of measure.
- Optional lot and serial number references for traceability. A line’s lot is always a lot of that line’s product: changing the product of a line that carries a lot to another product is refused. A serial-numbered item shows its Serial number on the line, picked from the serial numbers of the line’s variant, and typing that number in the lines’ search bar finds the line. In the movements list, a serial number finds the movement that marked the item defective, put it back on the shelf or sold it with no order; an item sold on a customer order is found there by the order’s number.
- Unit cost for financial tracking.
How Movements Affect Stock
When a movement transaction reaches Completed status:
- Stock quantities at the source location decrease, lot by lot. A line that names no lot takes the stock that expires soonest, then the oldest, and never stock another document has set aside.
- Stock quantities at the destination location increase, under the same lots that left the source.
- A permanent record is written to the Stock Journal for audit purposes: one entry for each lot that moved, on each side. These entries leave Previous Quantity and New Quantity empty — the entry’s quantity and direction say the change.
Everything the movement writes is valued at the unit cost you typed on its line — the journal entries, and the stock that arrives at the destination. A line with no unit cost moves the goods without a value.
If the source cannot cover a line, completing is refused and nothing moves: the movement stays In progress, and the message says how much the source has against what the line needs. Lower that line’s quantity, or wait for the goods to reach the source.
Movements in Draft, Pending, or Cancelled status do not affect stock levels.