What is a stock movement?
A stock movement is one recorded change to inventory, such as a receipt or pick, stating what moved, how much, where from, where to and who did it.
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What a movement records
Every time stock changes, the WMS writes a movement. A typical movement holds the item, the quantity, the from and to locations, the LP, the user, the time and the document that caused it, such as a purchase order or sales order.
Read in order, the movements for an item explain how its current quantity came to be.
Worked example
In this example, item B-220 has four movements in one week. A receipt adds 100 units to inbound staging. A putaway moves those 100 units to location 04-A-01-2. Two picks remove 12 units in total.
The balance at 04-A-01-2 is 88, and each step shows who scanned it and when.
How Waresify handles it
Waresify writes an immutable movement row for every stock change. Movement types are receive, putaway, pick, replenish, adjust, transfer, ship, return, kit assemble and kit disassemble.
A movement is never edited after it is written. A correction is a new adjustment movement with its own user and, when approval is on, its own approver. Each company chooses which movement types send a notification to its ERP.
Questions
Is a stock movement the same as a transaction?
Many systems use the words interchangeably. In a WMS, a movement usually means a change in quantity or location, while a transaction can also mean a financial posting.
Why not edit the quantity when it is wrong?
Editing hides what happened. A correcting movement keeps the original record, shows who fixed it and why, and lets you see how often errors occur.