Home / Features / Inventory & Stock Control / Product Management
Inventory & Stock Control
Keep the product setup in one place.
Set your products up once, with the right stock behaviour, and everything downstream costs correctly.
Overview
Set the product up once and use the same item wherever the business needs it.
A product in WorkGuru is anything on a project that isn’t labour charged at an hourly rate — labour is handled as tasks. Products are most commonly things you buy on a purchase order: materials, components, consumables, subcontract services.
The important decision when setting one up is its type, because that’s what determines how it behaves for the rest of its life:
- FIFO — stock controlled. Shows current stock on hand and won’t let you use or dispatch more than you have. WorkGuru tracks the landed unit cost of each inward transaction and consumes oldest first.
- Serial — a FIFO product tracked at individual level. You enter a serial number for each item received, and select a specific one when using or dispatching.
- Batch — a FIFO product where quantities are grouped under a batch number, assigned on receipt and selected on use.
- NonStock — not stock controlled, no stock on hand, no restriction on use or dispatch. Shows how much you’ve used over a period rather than what you’re holding. This is the right type for subcontractors, consumables and fixed-cost billable lines.
Using a product on a project or production job, or dispatching it on a stock sale, is the moment WorkGuru reduces stock on hand and records the cost of goods sold. Getting the type right at setup is what makes that number correct.
What’s inside
What you get
01
Product records
Keep the core item information together.
02
Codes and descriptions
Give the business a consistent way to identify products.
03
Cost and sell information
Keep known pricing with the item.
04
Stock settings
Use inventory controls where the product is stocked.
05
Supplier connection
Use the product as part of the purchasing workflow.
06
Quote and project use
Reuse product information through the job lifecycle.
The reality
Why you need it
The same item exists three times under three names.
Entered slightly differently by three people over two years. Now your purchase history is split, your stock on hand is wrong for all three, and nobody can tell you what you spend on it annually — which is exactly the number you need when negotiating.
Everything is set up as non-stock because it was quicker.
Understandable at setup and expensive later. Non-stock items don’t show stock on hand and don’t stop you using what you haven’t got, so the first time a job stalls on a missing item you find out the system never claimed to be tracking it.
The cost on the product record is two years old.
Somebody typed it in at setup and it hasn’t moved since. Every quote using that item has been quietly wrong ever since, in the same direction, on a margin nobody has questioned because the number looked authoritative.
Nobody can quote consistently.
Because the item each estimator picks depends on which of the duplicates they find first, and they carry different prices. Consistent products are what make consistent quotes possible.
How it works
How it works
01
Create the product
02
Give it a useful code and description
03
Add pricing and cost information
04
Use it in quotes
05
Use it in purchasing
06
Track it in stock where needed
07
Use it on jobs
Capabilities
What it does
Capability
Product records
Anything on a job that isn’t labour charged at an hourly rate — materials, components, consumables, subcontract services. Labour is handled as tasks; everything else is a product, whether or not you can pick it up.
Capability
Codes and descriptions
Consistent naming is what makes purchase history comparable. When the same item is entered three ways, you can’t see what you actually pay for it, and neither can the person quoting against it next week.
Capability
Cost and sell information
What it costs you and what it goes out at. For stock-controlled items the cost side is driven by what you actually paid, receipt by receipt, rather than a figure someone typed in and never revisited.
Stock settings
The most consequential decision on the record, because it sets behaviour for the item’s whole life. FIFO items are stock controlled, show stock on hand and can’t be used or dispatched beyond what you hold. Serial items are FIFO tracked individually, with a serial number recorded on receipt and selected on use. Batch items group quantities under a batch number the same way. NonStock items aren’t stock controlled at all — no restriction on use, and they report what you consumed over a period rather than what you’re holding. NonStock is the right setting for subcontractors, consumables and fixed-cost billable lines.
Supplier connection
Who you buy it from, and the ability to buy the same product from more than one supplier. That’s what keeps you from being locked to a single source on something you use constantly.
Quote and project use
The same product appears on quotes, projects, production jobs and stock sales. Because it’s described the same way throughout, what you quoted and what the job consumed are directly comparable rather than approximately similar.
What you get out of it
What changes
Use the same item everywhere
Reduce duplicate product records and mismatched descriptions.
Quote with better information
Reuse known products and pricing.
Make purchasing cleaner
Give the buyer a clearer item to order.
Keep stock easier to understand
Use consistent codes and descriptions across locations and movements.
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Discovered their contract work wasn’t profitable.
We didn’t wanna pay 100 grand upfront for a program – but then we found WorkGuru.
Nick Mazzella, Administrator, Frontline Trays & Trailers
Fit
Will it work the way we do things?
“We already have a product list in accounting.”
Accounting holds what you sell and what it’s worth for reporting. It doesn’t hold stock behaviour, landed cost, serial or batch tracking, or which supplier you buy it from. Those are the things that make a job cost correct, and they’re what the product record adds.
“Our product list is messy.”
Most are, and the cleanup is usually smaller than feared because the mess is concentrated in items you no longer buy. Start with what you’ve purchased in the last twelve months — that’s typically a fraction of the list and covers nearly all of the transactions.
“Most of our work is custom.”
Custom output doesn’t mean custom inputs. The finished item may be one-off but the plate, section, fasteners and consumables are the same things you bought last month. Products are for the inputs, and they’re what let you cost the custom job accurately.
“Prices change constantly.”
Which is the argument for tracking landed cost per receipt rather than carrying a fixed price. Because WorkGuru is FIFO and perpetual, each receipt keeps its own cost and jobs are costed at what the stock actually cost — so a rising steel price shows up in your job costs instead of quietly eroding the margin.
By trade
Where this gets used
Works with
Connected features
Quoting & Estimating
Bring known products into the quote.
Purchasing
Order the products the job or stock needs.
Stock Control
Track the products you hold.
Stock on Projects
Put products against the jobs that use them.
Counter Sales
Sell products directly when that is the transaction.
FAQs
Product Management questions
What information should a product record contain?
Enough to buy it and cost it correctly: what it is, who you buy it from, and — most importantly — its type, which sets whether it’s stock controlled and how it’s tracked. The type is the field worth thinking hardest about, because changing behaviour later is more disruptive than getting it right at setup.
Can products be used in both quotes and projects?
Yes. Products appear on quotes, projects, production jobs and stock sales, so what you quoted and what the job consumed are described in the same terms. That’s what makes quoted versus actual a meaningful comparison rather than an approximate one.
Can a product be stocked in WorkGuru?
Yes, if you set it as a stock-controlled type. FIFO products show current stock on hand and won’t let you use or dispatch more than you’re holding. Serial and batch products are FIFO products with individual or grouped tracking on top. NonStock products aren’t tracked for stock on hand at all.
Can products also be bought directly for a job?
Yes. A product can be purchased directly against a project rather than into stock, which is the normal approach for anything job-specific. The same product can be handled either way depending on what suits the job.
How do product records help purchasing?
They give the order something consistent to reference — the same item, described the same way, from a known supplier. That’s what makes purchase history comparable over time and lets you see what you actually paid for something last time rather than what you think you did.
Are products only physical items?
No. NonStock products are commonly used for subcontract services, regular services and fixed-cost billable lines. Anything on a job that isn’t hourly labour is a product, whether or not you can pick it up.
Start with the products you use every week.
Show us a few common parts or materials and we will show you how they can carry through quotes, stock and jobs.