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Material Catalog & Stock

The Inventory module (/inventory) enables your procurement team, site engineers, and storekeepers to track raw construction materials, tools, plant equipment, and safety supplies across your central warehouse and project sites.

Inventory Catalog Table

Understanding Item Types: Consumable vs. Returnable

In construction, materials behave in two very different ways. Planmaster explicitly tracks both:

Item Type Definition Real-Life Construction Examples Tracking Behavior in Planmaster
Consumable Raw materials that are permanently incorporated into the building works and cannot be reused. Cement bags, TMT rebar, fine sand, coarse aggregate, paint, plumbing PVC pipes. When approved for transfer to a project, stock decreases from the central warehouse and is marked as consumed on the site.
Returnable Equipment, machinery, and tools that are loaned to a job site during construction and returned to the warehouse once that phase ends. Scaffolding sets, total station instruments, concrete vibrators, dewatering pumps, power drills. When transferred, items are tracked as Checked Out to that site. Alerts appear on the dashboard under Checked Out until safely checked back into the store.

How to Add an Item to the Catalog (Step-by-Step)

  1. Click Inventory in the left sidebar menu.
  2. Click the blue New button at the top-right.
  3. Complete the item fields:
  4. Item Name: The standard description (e.g., TMT Steel 16mm Fe 550D or OPC 53 Grade Cement).
  5. Category: Work discipline (e.g., Steel & Metals, Civil Materials, Safety Equipment, Electrical).
  6. Unit: Measurement unit (e.g., MT for metric tons, bags, kg, nos, meters).
  7. Type: Choose Consumable or Returnable.
  8. Total Quantity: Starting physical stock count in the central yard (e.g., 50).
  9. Minimum Stock (Reorder Buffer): The minimum safe quantity below which a purchase order must be raised (e.g., 10).
  10. Description: Quality grade, IS code specifications, or preferred supplier information.
  11. Click Create.

Stock Counters & Automatic Low-Stock Alerts

In the inventory directory: - Total Stock: Total physical quantity owned by the company across all stores and yards. - Available Stock: Quantity currently sitting unallocated in the central warehouse, ready for site dispatch. - Low Stock Dashboard Warning: If available stock drops to or below your configured Minimum Stock threshold, Planmaster immediately displays a warning on your home dashboard under Low Stock, ensuring procurement raises purchase orders before sites run out!