If an in-store sale caused the item to have a negative inventory, this could have happened because of a number of reasons:

To narrow down the list of potential reasons, we first recommend looking under the PURCHASE ORDER and TRANSFER column to see if you have in-transit quantity for the item. If there is sufficient quantity incoming via purchase order or transfer to offset the negative quantity, it is very likely the negative inventory was caused by Reason 1.

Reason 1

If you do have an incoming purchase order or transfer, then perhaps the in-transit quantities of the item weren't received before the item was sold. If this is the case, receive the in-transit quantities on any outstanding purchase orders or transfers to correct the item's negative quantity on hand.

Reason 2

If you don't have in-transit quantities for the item under the PURCHASE ORDER and TRANSFER columns, then perhaps you physically received some quantity of the item from a shipment but no purchase order or transfer was created. If this is the case, you can correct the item's negative quantity on hand in a few different ways.

Create a purchase order or transfer

If you or your employees ordered and received more of an item but forgot to create a purchase order or a transfer:

1. Create a purchase order or a transfer to order the quantity you need to correct the item's negative quantity on hand.
2. Receive the in-transit quantity.

Adjust the item's QOH manually

If you or your employees ordered and received more of an item but don't use the purchase order or transfer features, adjust the item's QOH manually. To do so:

1. From the Negative inventory report, click the item's QOH.
2. Under Add Inventory, enter the quantity that was received.
3. Review the cost and vendor.
4. Click + Add Inventory.

Do an inventory count

If you need to correct the negative quantity on hand (QOH) of several items, do an inventory count instead of manually correcting the QOH of each item individually. Because your Retail account handles inventory counts of items with negative inventory slightly differently than inventory counts of in-stock items, we recommend following the specific instructions in the Doing inventory counts with negative inventory article.

Reason 3

If the item with a negative quantity on hand is very similar to another item in your inventory (e.g. variants from the same matrix), it's possible that the item with insufficient stock was accidentally sold instead of the item with stock.

To confirm this possibility, check if the similar in-stock item is physically missing quantities compared to its current QOH. If it is, start by looking for the sale that the item with negative inventory was accidentally sold on. Then, process an exchange for the correct in-stock item.

1. From the Negative inventory report, click the description of the item under the ITEM column.
2. From the submenu, click Sales.
3. Click the ID of the sale the item was accidentally sold on.
4. At the top of the page, click Refund.
5. Click Refund to add the item with negative inventory to the Refund tab of the register.
6. Under the Sale tab, add the similar in-stock item.
7. Depending on if the items are the same price or not, process the exchange:
   • If the items are the same price, click Payment > Finish Sale.
   • If the items are not the same price, refund the difference of the exchange to your customer or contact your customer to request payment for the difference. Then, to complete the exchange, click Payment > process the payment or refund > click Finish Sale.
   • If the items are not the same price and there isn't a customer attached to the sale, adjust the price of the similar in-stock item to match the price of the item with negative inventory. This is to make sure that you accurately record how much you sold the item for originally. Then, to complete the exchange, click Payment > Finish Sale.

If you're not sure on which sale the item with negative inventory was accidentally sold on:

1. From the main menu, click Sales > Refund.
2. Under the Refund tab, add the item with negative inventory.
3. Under the Sale tab, add the similar in-stock item.
4. If the in-stock item isn't the same as the negative inventory item, adjust its price to match it. This is to make sure that you accurately record how much you sold the item originally.
5. Click Payment > Finish Sale.

Reason 4

If an out-of-stock item was sold on a sale instead of being put on special order for a customer:

1. From the Negative inventory report, click the sale under the SOURCE column.
2. At the top of the page, click Refund.
3. Click Refund to add the item with negative inventory to the Refund tab of the register.
4. Click Payments.
5. Next to the Account payment type, click Max.
6. Finish Sale.

This refunds the customer's payment to their credit account (creates a deposit) and corrects the item's negative quantity on hand. Then create a special order for the item:

1. From the main menu, click Sales > New Sale.
2. Attach the customer to the sale.
3. Add the item in question to the sale.
4. Click Special Order All.
5. When asked to confirm, click OK.
6. Click Payment > Finish Sale. 

Now that you've created a special order for the item in question, simply create a purchase order or a transfer to receive the quantity you need to fulfill the special order.

Reason 5

If a service or labor was sold and now has negative inventory, it's likely due to the fact that it's currently set to the item type single instead of non-inventory. To correct its negative QOH:

1. From the Negative inventory report, click the item's QOH.
2. Under Add Inventory, enter the quantity that will bring its QOH back to 0 (e.g. enter 1 if its QOH is -1).
3. Review the cost and vendor.
4. Click + Add Inventory. The item's QOH should now be 0.

To prevent your service or labor item from having negative inventory again in the future, you need to create a copy of it that is set to the non-inventory item type. To do so:

1. Open the service/labor item.
2. At the top-right of the page, click Archive. This archives the item with the single item type.
3. At the top-right of the page, click Duplicate. This creates a copy of the item.
4. From the Description field, delete "Copy of".
5. From the Type drop-down, select Non-Inventory.
6. Click Save Changes.