Stores
A store is where stock actually sits: the cupboard in the treatment room, the locked cabinet with the implants in it, the shelf behind reception. Every quantity the system holds is held in a store, which is what lets you answer "where is it?" and not only "how much is there?".
A store is to stock what a branch is to everything else. It belongs to exactly one branch, and it never moves once stock has passed through it.
TIP
Keep everything in one place? You can skip this page. Switching Inventory on gave each of your branches a store called Main Store, and the system uses it silently. You are never asked which store until you open a second one.
Find it under Money → Products and services → Inventory settings → Stores — stores, units and categories share one settings board, because a clinic names them once and then works in the screens above them every day.
Where to Find It
Click an address to open that screen on your own clinic. The first click asks which clinic you are, then remembers it. Addresses holding a {id} need a specific record, so they are shown but not linked.
| Screen | Address |
|---|---|
| Stores | /stores |
| New store | /stores/create |
| Store details | /stores/{id} |
| Edit store | /stores/{id}/edit |
The Store Every Branch Already Has
The moment Inventory is switched on, every branch gets one store, marked as that branch's main store. Open a new branch later and it gets one too.
The main store is what the system falls back on whenever nothing else says otherwise. Because one always exists, a clinic that keeps everything in one place is never asked a question with only one answer.
Opening a Second Store
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Store * | What staff see, e.g. Cold room |
| Store (ar) | The Arabic name, shown to staff working in Arabic |
| Branch * | Which branch this store is in. Fixed once stock has moved through it |
| Code | Filled in for you with the next code in the sequence |
| Where it is | A note for whoever goes to fetch something — "second floor, behind reception" |
| Responsible person | Who looks after it. A note on the record, not a permission |
| Notes | Anything else |
* required
The moment a second store exists, a store box appears on every stock screen, and a store list appears in your own menu, beside the branch list. Nothing that was already recorded moves: everything you had is still in the store it was in.
Working in a Store
Your name menu, top corner, shows the stores you can reach in the branch you are working in. Picking one changes where the work you do next is recorded.
Two things worth knowing:
- The choice is remembered per branch. Work in the cold room at the main branch, then switch branches, and you land in that branch's store — never in a store from the branch you left. Come back, and the cold room is waiting.
- It is remembered for next time, on any computer, not only this one.
If a store you were working in is closed or taken away from you, the system moves you to another one and tells you it did. Nothing you were doing is lost.
Limiting Somebody to Certain Stores
By default, anyone working in a branch reaches every open store in it. To pin somebody — a storekeeper who should only touch the main store — open their record in Setting → Employees, edit them, and tick stores under Stores.
TIP
Leave a branch's row untouched and they reach every store in it. Ticking is how you limit somebody, not how you grant them access. So a storekeeper can be pinned to one cupboard at the main branch and stay unrestricted at the other.
Closing a Store
Closing hides a store from every picker without deleting anything: its history stays readable and its balances stay counted.
Two things refuse to close:
- A store that still holds stock. Move what is in it to another store first — the message says how much is left.
- A branch's main store. Make another store the main one first, which frees this one.
Deleting a Store
A store that nothing has ever used can be deleted outright. One that has been used cannot — its movements are the record of what happened, and deleting it would leave history pointing at nothing. Close it instead; the message tells you what is holding it.
A branch's main store is never deletable while it is the main one.
Deleting a Branch That Has Stores
A branch whose stores were never used takes them with it when it goes. A branch holding a store with history cannot be deleted at all — the same rule as everything else a branch holds.