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 Sell 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 > Negative inventory.

2. If applicable, click Advanced and check the Show eCom orders box to include online items with backorders in the report.

   

3. Optionally, use the dropdowns to filter by Location, Vendor, and/or Reason and click Search.

4. Review the Inventory Adjustment Reason column. Reasons include:

   • Sale (the eCom Order column will indicate No for in-store sales or Yes for online sales)
   • Removed for transfer
   • Returned to vendor

   

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

If you need more information regarding when the item went into negative inventory, click the item's name and navigate to the History tab.

Correcting negative inventory

Depending on the cause of your negative inventory, you can resolve the negative QOH using different methods.

• Sale error: Refund or void the sale, then repeat the sale with the correct information. Note that this may reverse payments from the sale. If completing an exchange as part of the return, you may want to adjust the item's price to match the negative inventory item.
• Transfer error: Return the transferred item.
• Vendor Return error: Navigate to the vendor return. Select More Actions > Reopen. Then edit and resend the vendor return.  
• Purchase Orders and Transfer errors: 
  • 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 QOH, or adjust the QOH manually.

If none of these methods are possible, receiving additional units will cause the negative inventory to automatically resolve. You can manually correct the negative QOH 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 QOH of several items, you can do an inventory count with negative inventory instead of manually correcting the QOH of each item individually.

Doing inventory counts with negative inventory

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

Before starting an inventory count, identify what caused the items to have negative inventory. For example, if items were sold but not received on an incoming purchase order, receiving them on the incoming purchase order will correct their negative QOH.

1. From the main menu, click Inventory > Inventory Counts > New Inventory Count.
2. Name the inventory count. We recommend naming it based on the situation and time of year for reference (e.g. Negative Inventory - May 22, 2019).
3. Click Save Changes.

4. Click Missed. Because you haven't counted any items yet, your entire inventory is listed. Once you start counting items, the items will move from the Missed section to the Count and Totals sections.

   Inventory isn’t considered in-stock when it's reserved for special orders, layaways and work orders. It isn’t included in inventory counts, and shouldn’t be counted.

5. Click the Should have column header to sort the column. This moves items with negative QOH to the top of the list so you can know which items have negative inventory.

   

6. Under Count items, you can enter items into the count either by scanning the items or by manually entering them with the keyboard. Whichever method you choose, follow Workflow 1 or Workflow 2 below. Either workflow will move the counted items from the Missed section to the Count and Totals sections.

   Workflow 1

   1. In the Search OR Quantity field, scan each item you physically have in stock individually. This adds them to the list of counted items and updates their Counted quantity as you scan them.
   2. In the Search OR Quantity field, enter one of the searchable details of an item you physically have in stock. If the searchable detail is unique, the item is added to the list of counted items and you can skip to step 3.
      • Description
      • System ID
      • UPC
      • EAN
      • Custom SKU
      • Manufacturer SKU
      • Tags
      • Vendor ID
   3. If the search detail is not unique, use the available filters to find the item and click Select. This adds it to the list of counted items.
   4. In the Search OR Quantity field, enter the quantity you physically have in stock.
   5. Click + Count Item. This updates the Counted quantity of the item. If you enter the wrong quantity,  edit the item's Counted quantity.
   6. Repeat the above steps for all other items you physically have in stock.

   Workflow 2

   1. In the Search OR Quantity field, scan an item you physically have in stock. This adds it to the list of counted items.
   2. In the Search OR Quantity field, enter the quantity you physically have in stock.
   3. Click + Count Item. This updates the Counted quantity of the item. If you entered the wrong quantity, simply edit the item's Counted quantity.
   4. Repeat the above steps for all other items you physically have in stock.
   5. To start an inventory search, click the + Counted button.
   6. Use the available filters to find the item and click Select to the left of its description. This adds it to the list of counted items.
   7. In the Search OR Quantity field, enter the quantity you physically have in stock.
   8. Click + Count Item. This updates the Counted quantity of the item. If you entered the wrong quantity, simply edit the item's Counted quantity.
   9. Repeat the above steps for all other items you physically have in stock.
7. For the items with negative inventory that you don't physically have in stock, click Missed.

8. Enter 0 in their respective Count fields. You can also click their Zero button or select their checkboxes and click Zero Selected Items at the bottom of the list. Any of these actions will move the items from the Missed section to the Count and Totals sections.

   

9. For items with positive inventory, leave their respective Count fields empty. This keeps them listed in the Missed section and prevents them from being affected by the inventory count.

10. From the Totals section, review the Should have and Counted quantity of each item and the resulting Change quantity. The Change quantity is the difference between how much stock will be added to correct the negative QOH of your items once you reconcile the inventory count. For example, if an item’s Should have quantity is -5 and its Counted quantity is 1, then the Change quantity will be 6.

    

11. Once you've reviewed the inventory count and are sure of the inventory adjustments it will cause, click Reconcile, then click Reconcile Inventory. 

    This action cannot be undone.

    

If necessary, click Shrinkage to view how much inventory was lost due to shrinkage. Changes made to your inventory by the count can also be found in the Inventory Change Logs report.

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