Materials and Inventory

What Does a Material Record Contain?

A material record is the master definition used by the system. It contains the code, name, material type, unit, tax rate, prices, primary location and permitted locations.

Materials may represent raw materials, packaging, auxiliary materials, other materials, semi-finished products or product links. Creating a material record alone does not create physical inventory. Inventory is created through goods reception, quality approval, production output, transfers or authorized adjustments.

Tip: The primary location comes from the material record. Inventory views consider both that primary location and the actual location recorded by each stock movement.

What Does an Inventory Record Contain?

An inventory record represents the actual on-hand quantity and lot. Lots of the same material remain separate when supplier, price or expiry information differs.

A stock row normally includes material code and name, internal lot, supplier lot, quantity, unit, price, tax, location, status and its goods-reception or production reference.

How Is Inventory Created?

In the standard flow, material inventory is created through goods reception and quality control rather than directly on the inventory screen.

A reception is recorded with quantity, lots, expiry and documents, sent to quality control, and accepted into inventory after approval. Rejected lots remain unavailable for production. This preserves traceability and quality blocking.

Attention: A lot that requires quality control must not enter production before approval. The workflow is designed to prevent that risk.

Inventory Issue and Transfer

Inventory issues are normally created by production and shipments. Production consumes selected material or packaging lots, while shipment issues finished-product lots to a customer.

Use a stock transfer for movement between locations. Source, destination, quantity and lot are retained, while authorized adjustments are recorded in movement history.

Tip: Transfers and adjustments do not change the lot number; only quantity, location or movement type changes.

Internal Lot vs. Supplier Lot

The internal lot number is ManuFox's traceability key. The supplier lot is the number printed by the supplying company on its label or certificate.

They are not interchangeable. The internal lot follows production and shipment; the supplier lot connects an incident back to the supplier's batch.

Expiry and Best-before Dates

The expiry date identifies the final safe-use date. A best-before or recommended-consumption date may be tracked separately for quality, shelf-life or operational decisions.

These fields should remain distinct in goods-reception and inventory screens and should be labeled clearly.