Getting right with inventory: how to configure stock management in Magento 2

Magento 2 enhanced its functionality tools used to work with inventory by offering a multi-source inventory (MSI). This makes it easier for businesses to choose the most optimal sources to fulfill orders. Get a profound understanding of the usefulness of this feature for online business. Storekeepers have choices when they need to arrange stock settings for:

• A singular item. Get the appropriate toolset by navigating to the Catalog section of the admin panel. As you continue to navigate to the required tab, open the Products link. The store manager will be taken to a new page, where he will see an option called Advanced Inventory.
• The whole list of salable products. Make this toolset available to you when navigating to the Stores menu, which is in any admin panel, and there is a Settings section. The next step is required to get to the Configuration tab and move to the Catalog page. Find the link to the Inventory section.

Any possible change of these settings impacts source accessibility, items on sale, shipment options. For example, stock can be shown as the available quantity of things per specific item, the allowable quantity to add to an order. The latter can be used to limit the number of high-demand items in a single order.

Configuring inventory

To set up management specifics for the inventory, open the store control panel used to control the store (its dashboard) and follow all of the steps provided below.

General settings for inventory

Go to Stores > Configuration > Catalog > Inventory. The system will provide two options - Stock Options and Product Stock Options.

Stock Options

This menu allows you to set up how the stock is administered. Here you can change the accessibility status of an item. Activate Set Items' Status to be in Stock When Order is Cancelled to allow canceled orders to return in stock. Decrease Stock When Order is Placed updates the available number of items when a customer reserves some items in their order. Display Out of Stock Products shows items unavailable for sale.

Activate Product Alerts to inform shoppers when an item is back in stock. Set Only X left Threshold option to send a notification for a specific item number.

The Display Products Availability In Stock option configures the store's stock status. This parameter is displayed on the frontend.

Product Stock Options

Product Stock sets up the administering logic on a per item premise. Enable it by activating Manage Stock.

Set the backorders: No Backorders, Allow Qty Below 0, Allow Qty Below 0, and Notify Customer. This option allows a customer to order the out of stock items.

Maximum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart and Minimum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart limits the min and max quantity of products per order. Individual values can be set for each customer group by clicking Add button.

Out of Stock Threshold shows the notification when the available item amount drops to a specific value. Notify for Quantity Below specifies the quantitative dimension used to measure the item amount that a store keeps in its salable reserve when the customer can receive a corresponding notification. Automatically Return Credit Memo Item to Stock automates making the stock numbers relevant again after refunding the order.

The inventory configuration can be done globally and per product.

Advanced Inventory Settings

Navigate to Products > Inventory > Catalog. Press Edit on a specific item. Find the Quantity option and press Advanced Inventory. There are two approaches: with and without stock management. The first provides a greater number of options.

With Stock Management

Activate this method by changing the Manage Stock option. Set the current stock in the Qty field. Set Out-of-Stock Threshold, Minimum and Maximum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart.

Set Yes in the Allow Multiple Boxes for Shipping to allow individual shipments. Manage Backorders for the customer to preorder the unavailable thing he wants to buy when he is navigating the store. The option has three parameters, and the store manager can choose any. First, he can specify the option to No Backorders. Alternatively, the store policy may allow such preorders, in which case it is useful to stick to the Allow Qty Below 0. A manager can opt to the Allow Qty Below 0, and Notify Customer if he wants the store to send a corresponding messag to let the customer know that the item is available.

Notify for Quantity Below sets a notification when the stock reaches a certain amount. Use Enable Qty Increments to sell items in individual lots. Specify the amount per lot with Qty Increments.

Specify the Stock Status with one of the options: In Stock or Out of Stock. With Backorders activated, a customer can preorder out of stock items.

Apply the committed changes by clicking Done on the Advanced Inventory page.

Default values for configurations can be used by applying the Config Settings option for each setting.

Without Stock Management Method

Put the No value into the Manage Stock option to activate this method.

Configure the quantity an order can have by setting Minimum and Maximum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart. Adobe Commerce edition also provides Use Deferred Stock Update to make quantity updates asynchronously.

Use the Enable Qty Increments and set Qty Increments number. Alternatively, stick to Use Config Settings for each option.

Qantity reports

Navigate to Catalog > Products to get automatically updated reports on stock for each source. Also, get a quantity that is available for sale. The per source part of the report updates on completed orders. The salable column updates on order creation while it has pending status.

Get the data in csv or xls format by applying a low stock report. Once the statistic is updated, navigate to the reports section and open the low stock report. Choose the items for the report and the reporting period.

Magento provides two options for exporting report data. The short report includes the number of products, and the extended one displays more details on products.

You can use Advanced Reports for Magento 2 to get more detailed stock numbers. See the example of the Low Stock status report, which is available in our demo store.