In Retail POS, items may have negative inventory due to items with insufficient stock being sold in-store or online or items sent with insufficient stock on transfers or vendor returns. If you've integrated with one of our partners through the API, items may also have negative inventory if the integration sells or transfers items.

Some common causes of negative inventory are:

• The wrong quantity was accidentally entered on a purchase order, transfer, or vendor return.
• The in-transit quantity wasn't received on an incoming purchase order or transfer.
• Items were physically received from a shipment but no purchase order or transfer was created.
• An item was accidentally sold instead of another similar item.
• An item was sold instead of being put on special order.
• A service or labor item was sold as Single item type instead of Non-inventory.

If stock on your items go negative, you can identify the cause and correct the quantity on hand (QOH) through the Negative inventory report.

Selling items with insufficient stock

If you add more quantity of an item to a sale than you currently have in stock, you'll see an alert on the Sales screen (desktop only). If you then sell more quantity than you currently have in stock, the item will have a negative QOH and appear in the Negative inventory report.

If you're an omnichannel merchant and have the Allow backorders setting enabled or the Track the inventory setting disabled for items in eCom (C-Series), the stock availability and delivery time display will change in your online store.

If a customer then purchases more quantity of the product than you have in stock, the item will have a negative QOH in Retail POS and your eCom back office and will appear in the Negative inventory report.

Sending items with insufficient stock

If an item on a transfer has a QOH of zero or less, the Available column will be highlighted in red on the Transfer page.

If an item on a vendor return has more quantity in its Return qty. field than Stock field, the item row will be highlighted in red and an Over return alert icon will appear.

If you then send more quantity of an item on a transfer or to a vendor than you currently have in stock, the item will have a negative QOH and appear in the Negative inventory report.

Investigating causes of negative inventory

You can investigate the cause of negative stock in the Negative inventory report:

1. Navigate to Reports > Inventory Reports > Negative Inventory.
2. If applicable, check the Show eCom orders box to include online items with backorders in the report. You can also use the dropdowns to filter by shop, vendor, or reason.

   

3. Review the Inventory Adjustment Reason column:
   • Sale (the eCom Order column will indicate No for in-store sales or Yes for online sales)
   • Removed for transfer
   • Returned to vendor

   

4. Review the Incoming on PO and Incoming on Transfer columns.

   If there is an incoming purchase order or transfer, the in-transit quantities may not have been received before the item was sold. If so, receive the in-transit quantities on any outstanding purchase orders or transfers to correct the negative QOH.

   If there are no incoming purchase orders or transfers listed, you can create a purchase order or transfer what you need to correct the negative quantity on hand, or adjust the QOH manually (see section below).

5. Review the other columns for more information on why the item had insufficient stock at the time of the negative inventory adjustment.

   If you believe an item was sold accidentally, click the name of the item in the Item column. Click the Sales tab > ID of the accidental sale > Refund to process an exchange with the item it was mistaken for. For your records, you may want to adjust its price to match the negative inventory item.

Correcting negative QOH

Once you've identified the root cause of the negative inventory adjustment, you can correct the negative quantity on hand in the Negative inventory report.

1. In the Negative inventory report, click the item's QOH.
2. Click the Inventory tab in the sidebar.
3. Under Add Inventory, enter the correct quantity.

   

4. Review the cost and vendor.
5. Click + Add Inventory.

If you need to correct the negative quantity on hand (QOH) of several items, you can do an inventory count with negative inventory instead of manually correcting the QOH of each item individually.

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