Aptli

Inventory Management

Aptli's inventory system tracks physical materials, equipment, and consumables across multiple locations — central warehouses, field staging sites, individual worker inventory, and vehicles. Every movement is recorded as an immutable transaction so you have a complete audit trail from receipt through consumption. Workers collect materials by scanning a QR pickup code; deductions happen automatically when a field report is submitted.

Core Concepts

Resources - Definitions of work items and inventory

  • Materials (cable, conduit, mounting hardware)
  • Consumables (meters of wire, gallons of fuel)
  • Equipment (ladders, forklifts, vehicles)
  • Labor types (electricians, installers, surveyors)

Stock Items - Physical inventory balances at specific locations

  • Tracks volume/quantity of each resource
  • Location-specific (warehouse vs. field site vs. vehicle)
  • Real-time balance updates via transactions

Sites - Storage locations for inventory

  • Physical sites (warehouses, storage yards)
  • Logical sites (individual workers, vehicles)
  • GPS coordinates or reference to user/asset

Transactions - Immutable audit trail of all movements

  • Consumption (field work depletes stock)
  • Transfer (movement between sites)
  • Receipt (new inventory arrives)
  • Adjustment (manual corrections)
  • Pickup (job-scoped QR collection — a transfer that deducts the source site and deposits the material at the picker's personal site, tied to a specific job resource line)

Workflow Overview

Inventory Lifecycle:

Receipt → Stock Item Created/Updated → Transfer → Worker's Personal Site → Consumption → Report
   ↓                                        ↓                                     ↓
Warehouse                              QR Pickup                         Payment Calculation

Receiving Inventory

  1. Create transaction type receipt at receiving site
  2. Stock item created or volume increased
  3. Transaction records who received, when, and where

Peer-to-Peer Transfer

  1. Create assignment with pickup code (QR authorization code)
  2. Authorized recipient scans QR at source site
  3. Transaction records scanner, method (self vs. staff), GPS location
  4. Stock reduced at source, created at recipient's personal site

Field Consumption

  1. Worker completes job, submits report
  2. The report lists which stock items were used and how much (consumedFrom). The Pull Picked-Up Materials button pre-fills this from what the worker picked up for the linked job(s), so they confirm and adjust rather than re-key
  3. Material can be consumed from the worker's personal site (what they picked up) or directly from any site they are physically standing in (e.g. a job-site container) — the latter needs no pickup at all
  4. On submit, the system creates consumption transactions and depletes stock, linked to the report for payment calculation
  5. Consumption that the system can't confirm was on-site (no GPS fix, or out of the site's geofence radius) still completes but is flagged for review — it is never silently blocked

Pickup Policy & Protected Inventory

Each resource carries a Pickup Policy (Open / Assigned / Facilitated) that governs who may dispense it across every flow:

  1. Assigned (default) — only the assignee or facilitating staff may pick up; self-checkout to one's own site is allowed
  2. Facilitated — high-value items; only staff with canFacilitatePickups may dispense, and self-checkout is blocked
  3. Open — a transferable voucher anyone may scan
  4. Partial pickups are supported in all cases (take 5 of 10, scan again later for the rest)

Real-Time Execution

Inventory operates in real-time (not versioned):

  • Immediate stock visibility for next pickup scan
  • Transaction audit trail committed instantly
  • No on-device drafts or version history
  • Corrections add new adjustment transactions (never delete)

Key Features

Resource Conversions

  • Unit conversions (feet → meters)
  • Composite breakdowns (1 installation kit → 5m tape + 6 screws)
  • Embedded in resource definition for performance

Transaction Immutability

  • Cannot delete or edit transactions
  • Creates permanent audit trail
  • Corrections recorded as new adjustment transactions
  • Supports compliance and financial reconciliation

Multi-Site Tracking

  • Central warehouse stock
  • Individual worker inventory (personal "sites")
  • Vehicle inventory
  • Field staging areas

Demand vs. Supply at a Glance

The resources page can surface two aggregated columns — Demand (total volume required by all live jobs) and Supply (total volume in stock items) — on demand via a Fetch demand/supply button. Use this before a project kicks off to spot shortfalls before field teams are already on-site. The stock item detail page shows the same numbers automatically for its own resource without a manual fetch.

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