Stock control (also referred to as inventory management) in Commusoft is a collection of settings and functions that work together to enhance the management of your parts. With this advanced feature, your team can:

The stock feature is integrated into both the web app (for office staff) and mobile apps (for engineers and warehouse managers), supporting smooth operations between warehouses and field teams.

Stock control is an in-depth feature that requires mandatory training and is not enabled by default. This article is intended for use after the feature has been activated and you are ready to begin learning.

To enable the Stock control feature on your account, contact the Support team. They will connect you with the Client Success team to discuss your specific needs and mandatory training.

Before you begin managing stock in Commusoft, you must first configure your suppliers (also known as vendors). These suppliers will be used when sourcing parts, raising purchase orders, and handling returns. Properly setting up suppliers ensures your stock workflows are smooth, especially when automating purchase orders and returns.

Suppliers (or vendors) are the foundation of your stock control workflow. They are the source from which parts are ordered, received, and returned. Adding suppliers to Commusoft allows you to:

Whether you're managing hundreds of parts or just a few high-value items, setting up your supplier list ensures every part has a traceable source and your business stays stocked efficiently.

When unused or faulty parts need to be sent back to a supplier, clear communication is essential. The Supplier Returns Email Template allows your team to:

By setting up this template in advance, you ensure that any stock being returned is properly documented and suppliers receive consistent, accurate notifications. This helps speed up return processing, maintain professional communication, and support easier credit or replacement handling.

The Supplier parts reminder email template is designed to automatically notify your suppliers a day before a part order is due for delivery. This reminder helps ensure that:

By configuring this email, Commusoft will send out reminders on your behalf—keeping suppliers on track and helping you maintain efficient job scheduling and inventory planning.

The Supplier Parts Undelivered Notification is a powerful internal tool that helps your team stay informed when ordered parts haven’t arrived as expected.

By configuring this notification:

This notification acts as a safety net, ensuring no part order is forgotten and jobs can continue smoothly.

Now that the supplier-related configurations have been completed, the next step is to proceed with the stock control settings. These configurations serve as the foundation of your inventory management workflow and must be set up with precision to ensure operational accuracy and efficiency.

Improper configuration may result in stock discrepancies, processing delays, and the need for ongoing manual intervention, each of which can hinder productivity and increase administrative overhead. By carefully configuring these settings, you establish a streamlined, dependable, and scalable stock control process across your organisation.

Setting up stock locations is a critical step in establishing accurate inventory tracking within Commusoft. Stock locations represent the physical places where your parts are stored, such as a warehouse, stockroom, or an engineer’s van.

We strongly recommend the following setup:

Accurately defining your stock locations is essential for enabling stock movements, fulfilling part requests, running audits, and generating precise inventory reports.

Adding Stock Wastage Reasons is essential for maintaining accurate inventory records and understanding why parts are removed from stock without being used.

When a part is not installed, whether due to damage, loss, theft, or being no longer required, documenting the reason helps:

By selecting a clear wastage reason each time stock is adjusted, your team can track stock losses effectively and make informed decisions about future purchasing, handling, and security measures.

The Industries setting provides the highest level of classification in your parts hierarchy. It plays a critical role in structuring and organizing your inventory by grouping related parts under defined business sectors, such as HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, or Renewables.

This top-level structure ensures that every part is logically nested within an Industry → Category → Subcategory framework, creating a scalable and searchable system. It eliminates the clutter of an unstructured parts list and makes it easier to apply industry-specific forms, reports, and workflows.

By defining industries, you enhance operational clarity, streamline inventory management, and lay the groundwork for more accurate job costing, quoting, and reporting.

The Categories setting forms the second level of your parts organization structure, sitting directly beneath Industries. It allows you to group related parts within a specific trade or business area, providing a logical and systematic way to manage your inventory.

By defining categories, you ensure your parts database remains structured, searchable, and easy to maintain. This organization supports clearer reporting, faster part identification, and more efficient inventory workflows. It also improves consistency when adding, managing, or pricing parts across different departments or teams.

Properly configured categories create the backbone for scalable stock control, helping your business grow without clutter or confusion.

The Sub-categories setting provides the most detailed level of classification within your parts structure, sitting beneath Categories and Industries. It enables precise grouping of similar parts, allowing for enhanced organization, better reporting, and faster part selection.

Using sub-categories ensures your parts list remains structured, especially as your inventory grows. This level of granularity helps maintain accuracy, supports consistent data entry, and facilitates efficient filtering, searching, and tracking of part usage and stock levels.

With sub-categories in place, your parts database becomes more scalable, manageable, and aligned with operational needs across departments.

The Part Kit Template setting allows you to group frequently used parts into predefined bundles for specific tasks. By consolidating these parts into a single template, you reduce manual entry, improve consistency, and ensure all necessary items are included in jobs or estimates.

Using part kits increases efficiency by simplifying the quoting and planning process, standardizing materials across jobs, and minimizing the risk of omissions. This contributes to smoother operations, improved accuracy, and reduced time spent on administrative tasks, making it an essential part of scalable inventory and job management.

Adding parts to your system is a foundational step for accurate and efficient inventory control, purchasing, and job costing. Without a properly built parts database, it becomes difficult to manage procurement, track stock levels, or generate reliable financial insights.

In short, building a structured, complete, and up-to-date parts list ensures your business operates smoothly across procurement, warehouse, and field operations.

Configuring a Part Reorder List is a key step in automating your stock management process. It ensures that essential parts are restocked promptly and efficiently, without requiring manual tracking or intervention.

By setting minimum stock levels for each part and location, you enable the system to monitor inventory in real time. When stock falls below the defined threshold, Commusoft will automatically generate a purchase order to your selected supplier. This process reduces the risk of stockouts, avoids delays to jobs, and ensures engineers have the parts they need when they need them.

Reorders are triggered automatically at 2 PM daily, and you’ll receive a system notification once a PO has been created. To function properly, the reorder quantity must be equal to or greater than the minimum stock level. This guarantees the purchase order is generated correctly.

Setting up the Part Collection Workflow is essential for defining how engineers collect parts from a warehouse or stockroom. This configuration ensures that your stock movement process is aligned with your operational needs and level of control.

Without a clearly defined workflow, stock handovers can become inconsistent, leading to inventory discrepancies, missed collections, or untracked stock usage. By choosing whether engineers collect parts freely or follow a controlled picking list process, you determine how structured your collection process will be.

This setting directly impacts mobile app behaviour for engineers, making it a key part of ensuring clarity, accountability, and smooth coordination between office teams, warehouse staff, and field engineers.