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Inventory Units — Record Inventory Adjustment vs Transfer Stock
ParcelPilot has two common ways to change what you see on an Inventory Unit:
- Record inventory adjustment = changes the quantity for a unit at its current location.
- Transfer stock = moves stock from one location to another and records a transfer audit trail.
This guide explains the difference, what each option records, and when to use each.
Quick rule of thumb
Use Transfer stock when the stock is physically moving between locations.
Use Record inventory adjustment when the stock at that location needs correcting (count/correction/loss/damage), but it is not being moved somewhere else.
What each action changes
Record inventory adjustment
- Updates the Inventory Unit quantity at its current location.
- Does not change the unit’s location.
- Does not create a paired IN/OUT movement.
Use the Record inventory adjustment action on the Inventory Unit.
Typical reasons:
- Cycle count / annual stocktake corrections
- Damage / expiry write-offs
- Lost / found stock corrections
- Manual corrections after investigation
Transfer stock
- Moves stock from a source location to a destination location.
- Records a TRANSFER_OUT from the source and TRANSFER_IN to the destination.
- For serialised stock (qty 1 with a serial), the same Inventory Unit row is moved to the new location.
- For non-serialised stock, the source unit is decremented and the destination unit is incremented (or created).
Typical reasons:
- Bulk → pickface replenishment
- Relocation / bin changes
- Fixing “received into the wrong location” (move it to the correct location)
What you’ll see in the audit trail
Record inventory adjustment
- Creates a single inventory adjustment entry.
- It is usually marked as a manual adjustment.
- Does not have an automatic “paired” adjustment.
Transfer stock
- Creates two inventory adjustment entries:
- a transfer-out entry on the source location
- a transfer-in entry on the destination location
- Includes the source and destination locations in the transfer record.
Common scenarios (which option to use)
“We moved stock from Location A to Location B”
- Use: Transfer stock
- Why: it keeps the location history correct and creates a clear transfer audit trail.
“We counted the shelf and the system quantity is wrong”
- Use: Record inventory adjustment
- Why: you are correcting the quantity at that location.
“We received it into the wrong bin earlier”
- Use: Transfer stock
- Why: the stock exists, but it needs to live in the correct location.
“This stock was damaged / expired and is being written off”
- Use: Record inventory adjustment (negative quantity change)
- Why: it reduces on-hand and records the reason without pretending it moved somewhere.
Notes about ‘zero stock’ rows on a Location
When you transfer or adjust stock, it is normal for an Inventory Unit record to end up with 0 quantity.
- We hide these empty units by default on the Location page.
- Owners and ops can enable Show empty units for debugging.
This is usually preferable to deleting, because Inventory Units often have movement history that you want to keep for audit/reconciliation.