Negative stock
In Arabic المخزون السالب
Negative stock is an on-hand quantity below zero in a stock system, recorded when more of an item is issued from a location than the books show it holds.
In plain words
You cannot physically hold minus four cartons, so negative stock always means the records are behind reality. Usually a sale or transfer was posted before the receipt that brought the goods in, or an earlier count or issue was recorded wrongly.
Some businesses allow it for speed, so a sale is never blocked at the counter, and fix the timing later. Others refuse any issue that would take a location below zero, which keeps the books honest but needs receipts entered as soon as goods arrive.
The common mistake is allowing negative stock and never chasing it. Cost is worked out on quantities that do not exist, margins on the affected sales are wrong, and by the time the receipt is posted nobody remembers which issue ran ahead of it.
- On hand in the books
- 10 cartons
- Sale posted
- 14 cartons
- Receipt not yet entered
- 20 cartons
- Shown on hand after the sale
- −4 cartons
In Axon Suite
How Axon Suite handles it
In Axon Suite a transfer that would take a bin below zero is refused, unless that warehouse is set to allow negative stock.
Feature
Transfers between warehouses and vans
A transfer names where the goods leave and where they land: another warehouse, another bin in the same warehouse, or a rep’s van. Posting it takes the stock out and puts it in at once, so nothing is lost between two entries.
Open: Transfers between warehouses and vans