Inventory alerts
BuddyStall watches each store's stock for you and raises an alert when an item needs attention — running low, going negative, or coming back from a stocktake with a count that doesn't match. Alerts are not something you create or manage: they appear on their own when the condition is met, and clear on their own once it is resolved.
This page explains the three inventory alerts, what raises each one, where you see it, and what makes it go away.
Where alerts show up
You never have to go looking for alerts — they come to you in two places.
- The Inventory badge in the sidebar. When any store you can see has an open inventory alert, a small dot appears on the Inventory menu item. It is a single at-a-glance signal that somewhere needs a look; open Inventory and pick the flagged store to find what.
- On the store's inventory list. The item itself carries the detail — a coloured dot before its name, or a mark on its history icon.
Every inventory alert resolves automatically the moment the condition that raised it goes away — restock an item, fix a miscount, or recount it cleanly and the flag disappears on its own. There is no “dismiss” button, and nothing to tidy up by hand.
Low stock
The everyday re-order signal. Each ingredient carries a low-stock threshold set on the master inventory . When a store's count drops to or below that threshold, the item raises a low-stock alert — an amber dot beside its name and an amber Expected Stock figure.
Set the threshold high enough that the alert gives you time to re-order before the store actually runs out. It clears as soon as a restock (through Orders or Expenses) lifts the count back above the threshold.
Negative stock
The same stock-level signal, escalated. When a store's count keeps falling past the threshold and drops below zero, the amber low-stock flag turns into a red negative-stock one — a red dot and a red Expected Stock figure. Negative stock is impossible in real life, so the alert is telling you the books and the shelf have drifted apart.
The usual cause is a restock that was never recorded — stock arrived and was sold or used, but the purchase never made it into Orders or Expenses, so BuddyStall only ever saw it leaving. Less often it is a recipe that deducts too much per sale. Either way, fix it by recording the missing restock (or running a stocktake to set the count straight); the alert clears once the count is back to zero or above.
Stock discrepancy
The accuracy signal. When you run a stocktake, BuddyStall compares the count you entered against the count it expected. If the gap is large — 30% or more of the item's low-stock threshold, in either direction, a surplus or a shortfall — it raises a stock-discrepancy alert. It shows as a small red dot on the item's View History (clipboard) icon, so you can open the history and see what happened.
Take Cheese Slice from the shots above. Its low-stock threshold is 20, so the discrepancy bar sits at 30% of that — 6 units. A recount came back at 88 against an expected 100 — a −12 shortfall, twice the 6-unit bar — so it clears the line and raises the alert. (Had the count landed within 6 of expected, say 95, no alert would fire.) Open the item's report history from its clipboard icon to see the count behind the flag:
A discrepancy is worth a second look: a big shortfall can mean unlogged waste or theft, a big surplus can mean an earlier miscount or a restock recorded twice. The alert clears when a later stocktake comes back within range — a clean recount resolves it automatically.
While an item is still being set up
A freshly registered item sits at zero with a Not counted badge until you declare its opening stock. During that window the low-stock and negative-stock alerts are held back — an item that hasn't been counted yet would otherwise flag low or negative purely because its starting count is zero. Once you set the opening balance (or the first restock arrives), the item starts tracking for real and its alerts switch on. See Set up your inventory.
What staff see
Staff get stock-discrepancy alerts only. Low-stock and negative-stock alerts are hidden from them on purpose: staff don't see Expected Stock (they count what's physically there), so a figure-based alert isn't something they can act on. Those two stay with owners and managers.
The discrepancy mark still tells staff their count came back far from what was expected — a sign the shelf and the books have drifted apart. It's a prompt to double-check the count (a miscount is the usual cause) and, if the number is right, to note the reason — breakage, an unrecorded use, expired stock — so the admin knows whether it's a counting slip or a real loss.