Stock movement types
Every physical change to stock carries a type. Background in the stock movement record.
| Type | Effect | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Receive | Adds | Inbound from a purchase order |
| Pick | Removes | Taken out of a sellable location. Paired with dispatch |
| Dispatch | Adds | The other half of a pick — stock arriving in dispatch staging |
| Ship | Removes | Gone to the customer |
| Adjust | Either | A manual correction, with a reason |
| Move | Either | Bin-to-bin within one site. Two legs, net zero at the site |
| Transfer out | Removes | Leaving one site. Paired with a transfer in elsewhere |
| Transfer in | Adds | Arriving at the other site |
| Count gain | Adds | A count found more than expected |
| Count loss | Removes | A count found shrinkage |
| Write off | Removes | Deliberate disposal — damaged, expired |
The pairs
Three of these always come in twos, and reading either half alone is misleading.
| Pair | What actually happened |
|---|---|
| Pick + dispatch | Stock left a sellable location and arrived in dispatch staging. It has not left the building yet — ship is that |
| Move out + move in | Stock changed location within one site. The site's total did not change |
| Transfer out + transfer in | Stock left one site and arrived at another. The organisation's total did not change; where it sits did |
So a history showing two rows for one action is complete, not duplicated. Counting rows overstates activity.
Picking is not shipping
Worth separating, because both feel like "it went out".
Pick and dispatch move stock into staging — it is still yours and still in the building. Ship is the point it leaves.
An order picked but not shipped has stock that is neither sellable nor gone.
Counts produce their own types
A stocktake does not record an adjustment. Count gain and count loss are distinct types, so a discrepancy found by counting is distinguishable from one somebody keyed in.
That distinction matters when reviewing: a pattern of count losses at one location is a different problem from a pattern of manual adjustments.
Write off is not adjust
Adjust corrects a record that was wrong. Write off records stock that genuinely existed and no longer should — damaged, expired, disposed of.
They post different accounting journals, so the choice has consequences beyond the warehouse. See what Yessort posts.
Movements cannot be edited
A mistake is corrected by recording a further movement, never by changing the original.