1Introduction

What this feature does, when to use each option, and why getting it right matters to everyone who touches stock.

 1.1What is the Stock Add / Remove / Adjust feature?

WHIMS keeps a running count of how many units of every part you hold, and exactly where each one sits — which warehouse, and which shelf or bin inside that warehouse. That count is what salespeople, buyers and pickers rely on all day.

Most of the time the count looks after itself: receiving a purchase order adds stock, and selling or shipping removes it. But real warehouses are not tidy. Boxes turn up without paperwork, items get damaged, a shelf gets counted and the number on the screen simply does not match the number on the shelf.

The Stock Add / Remove / Adjust feature is the set of tools that lets a person step in and correct the count by hand. There are three things you can do:

• Add stock — increase the number in a location.
• Remove stock — decrease the number in a location.
• Adjust stock — replace the number with the correct figure, whatever it was before.

Every one of these actions is written into a permanent log called Stock History, together with your name, the date and time, and the reason you typed. Nothing you do here is anonymous, and nothing is silently overwritten.

 1.2Why we use it

A stock figure that nobody trusts is worse than no figure at all. Staff stop looking at the screen, start walking to the shelf, and the system quietly becomes decoration. These tools exist so that the moment somebody notices a difference, they can fix it properly — in seconds, with a reason attached — instead of leaving it for "someone else, later".

 1.3The three operations at a glance

 1.4What the buttons are really called

This guide is titled "Add / Remove / Adjust" because that is what people say. The buttons on the screen use slightly different words. Here is the translation — keep this table handy for your first few weeks.

 1.5Benefits of accurate stock records

 1.6How to read this guide

Numbered steps are things you do, in order. Bullet points are lists of possibilities. Names of things you click look like this: Stock Actions. Menu paths look like this: Inventory → Stock Levels. Screenshots appear immediately after the step they illustrate, with numbered markers matching the steps.

Four kinds of coloured box appear throughout:

 2Prerequisites

What you need in place — and what you need to know — before you change a single number.

 2.1Access and permissions

To use any of these tools you need:

• A WHIMS user account (an email address and password issued by your administrator).
• Your account must be active.
• A web browser — Chrome, Edge or Firefox — and a network connection to the WHIMS address your administrator gave you.

WHIMS records three staff roles: Administrator, Warehouse Manager and Operations. Your administrator sets yours when your account is created.

 2.2Information to have ready

Before you open any form, collect the following. Trying to find it halfway through is how mistakes happen.

 2.3Records that must already exist

These tools change quantities. They cannot invent the things being counted. Before you start:

1. The product must exist in WHIMS. If you cannot find it when you search, it has not been set up. Ask whoever maintains the product catalogue to add it — do not attempt to work around it.
2. The warehouse must exist. Set up under Settings → Warehouses.
3. The location must exist inside that warehouse. Set up under Settings → Locations. A location belongs to one warehouse; you will only ever be offered the locations that belong to the warehouse you picked.

 2.4Rules to know before you start

• Stock is counted per location. "How many do we have?" is really "how many on each shelf, added up". Always change the shelf that is actually wrong.
• Quantity can never go below zero. WHIMS blocks any removal that would take a shelf negative, and tells you how many are actually available.
• Reserved units are already spoken for. Available is quantity minus reserved. You cannot edit the reserved figure from these screens — it is managed by orders.
• There is no undo. None of these actions can be reversed with a button. A mistake is corrected by making a second, opposite entry — which also stays in the history.
• Everything is logged. Your name, the date and time, the before and after figures and your reason are written to Stock History and cannot be edited or deleted afterwards.

 3Feature Overview

A guided tour of the screens, so that nothing you see later is a surprise.

 3.1Signing in

1. Open your browser and go to the WHIMS address your administrator gave you, followed by /admin.
2. Type your email address and password.
3. Click Sign in.

 3.2The main menu

After signing in you land on the Dashboard. The menu runs down the left-hand side and is divided into groups. Three of them matter for stock work:

 3.3The Stock Levels screen

Go to Inventory → Stock Levels. This is the home of day-to-day stock work.

Rows are grouped by product. The grey heading row above each group gives you the summary at a glance — Locations, Total Qty, Reserved and Available — and the rows beneath it show each individual shelf. Click the small arrow at the right of a heading to fold that product away.

 3.4The Stock Actions menu

Click the blue Stock Actions button at the top right. Four options drop down.

 3.5The filter panel

Click the funnel icon above the table to open the filters. Set as many as you like, then click Apply filters. Reset clears them all.

 3.6Buttons and actions reference

 3.7Icons, colours and badges

 4Step-by-Step User Guide

Every task, from opening the screen to checking that your change landed. Follow the numbered steps exactly; the screenshot after each set matches the numbers.

 4.1Opening the Stock Management screen

1. Sign in to WHIMS. See section 3.1.
2. Find Inventory in the left-hand menu. If the group is folded up, click the word Inventory to open it.
3. Click Stock Levels. The Stock Levels screen opens (Figure 3 on page 10).

 4.2Adding stock — Stock Take

Use this when units have arrived, or you have found units that the system does not know about, and you want to increase the figure on one shelf.

Step 1 — Open the form

1. Go to Inventory → Stock Levels.
2. Click the blue Stock Actions button at the top right.
3. Click Stock Take. A window opens over the page.

Step 2 — Choose the product

1. Click the Product box. A list appears with a search box at the top.
2. Start typing the Product ID — for example 06-335-1903L. The list narrows as you type.
3. Click the correct product in the list. Its name now appears in the box.

Step 3 — Choose the warehouse and location

1. Check the Warehouse box. WHIMS pre-fills the first warehouse. If you work at another site, click the box and pick the right one.
2. Click the Location box and pick the shelf. Only shelves in the chosen warehouse are listed.

Step 4 — Enter the quantity, price and reason

1. Type the number of units into Quantity to Add. This is how many to add, not the new total. Whole numbers only, minimum 1.
2. Type the Unit Price if you know it. Optional. If you enter one, WHIMS blends it with the existing price to work out a new weighted average for that shelf. Leave it empty and the existing average price is kept.
3. Replace the Notes text with a real reason. It starts off saying "Stock take". Change it to something a colleague could understand months later.

Step 5 — Save

1. Read the whole form once more — product, shelf, quantity.
2. Click Submit.

Step 6 — Read the confirmation

A green message appears at the top right:

• Stock Take Successful — "Added 25 units. New total: 27" when the shelf already held stock; or
• Stock Take Successful — "Created new stock with 25 units" when the shelf was empty and a new record was created.

If a red message appears instead, nothing was saved — see section 9.

What happens if you submit an incomplete form

WHIMS checks the form before saving. Anything missing is marked in red and nothing is written to your stock.

 4.3Adding stock for many products — Bulk Stock Take

When a delivery covers dozens of parts, typing them one at a time is slow. Bulk Stock Take reads a spreadsheet and adds every line in one go.

1. Go to Stock Levels → Stock Actions → Bulk Stock Take.
2. Click Download Template in the grey helper text under the upload box. This gives you a spreadsheet with the correct column headings already in place.
3. Fill in one row per product/shelf. Columns are listed in section 6.5. Do not rename or reorder the headings.
4. Save the file as CSV (in Excel: File → Save As → CSV).
5. Drag the file onto the upload box, or click Browse and choose it.
6. Check Default Notes. This reason is used for any row where you left the notes column empty.
7. Click Submit.

When it finishes you get a message such as "Processed 12 records successfully. 2 errors occurred." followed by the first few problem rows. Rows that succeeded are already saved — only the listed rows failed. Fix those in the spreadsheet, delete the rows that worked, and upload again.

 4.4Adding stock from the product page

If you are already looking at a product and can see its shelves, this is the quickest way to add a few units.

1. Go to Inventory → Products.
2. Search for the part and click its row to open it.
3. Click the Stock Locations & Quantities tab if it is not already showing.
4. Find the row for the shelf you want and click the orange Adjust button at the end of that row.

1. Leave Adjustment Type on Add to Stock.
2. Type how many units to add in Quantity. Minimum 1.
3. Type a Reason / Comment. This one is compulsory — the form will not save without it.
4. Click Submit.

A green Stock Adjusted message confirms the result, for example "12 units added to stock. New quantity: 14".

 4.5Removing stock — Deduct from Stock

Use this when units have physically left the shelf outside the normal sales process: damaged, scrapped, lost, used internally, or given away.

1. Open the product and its Stock Locations & Quantities tab (steps 1–4 of section 4.4).
2. Click Adjust on the correct shelf.
3. Click Deduct from Stock next to Adjustment Type.
4. Type how many units to remove in Quantity. Enter it as a positive number — do not type a minus sign.
5. Type the Reason / Comment. Required. Say what happened to the units.
6. Check the "Current quantity" line at the top of the window. You cannot remove more than that.
7. Click Submit.

You will see Stock Adjusted — "12 units deducted from stock. New quantity: 2".

If you try to remove too many

WHIMS refuses and tells you exactly what is available. Nothing is saved — the shelf keeps the figure it had.

 4.6Removing everything in a location — Empty Location

1. Go to Settings → Locations.
2. Click the location you want to clear. The View Location Stock page opens, listing everything currently on that shelf.
3. Click the green Export Stock button first. This downloads a spreadsheet of the shelf's contents — your only record of what was there.
4. Click the red Empty Location button.

1. Read the red warning box carefully.
2. Tick I Confirm I have downloaded the Stock CSV. The wizard will not let you continue until you do.
3. Click Next.

1. Type a full Reason. Required. It is written against every single product on that shelf, so make it explain the whole clearance.
2. Click Confirm and Execute.

A green Location Emptied Successfully message reports how many products were affected, for example "Set stock to 0 for 8 product(s) in location 1 U." Products that were already at zero are skipped; if the whole shelf was already empty you get "No Stock to Empty" instead and nothing changes.

 4.7Adjusting stock to a corrected count — Stock Change

Use this after a physical count. You type the number you counted, and WHIMS makes the shelf match it — whether that means going up or down.

1. Go to Stock Levels → Stock Actions → Stock Change.

1. Choose the Product. Type to search, then click it.
2. Check the Warehouse.
3. Choose the Location. Here the list shows (Qty: 2, Available: 2) so you can see what the system currently believes.
4. Type the counted figure into New Quantity. This is the final number, not a difference. Zero is allowed; negatives are not.
5. Fill in New Average Price only if the price is also changing. Leaving it empty keeps the current price.
6. Check the Is Selling? switch. On means the stock can be sold. Turn it off to hold the stock back — for quarantined or damaged goods, for instance.
7. Type the Notes. Record who counted, and when.
8. Click Submit.

The confirmation reads Stock Changed Successfully — "Stock updated from 2 to 18", or "New stock created with quantity 18" if there was no record on that shelf before.

 4.8Adjusting many records at once — Bulk Stock Change

The spreadsheet version of Stock Change — the right tool after a full warehouse count.

1. Go to Stock Levels → Stock Actions → Bulk Stock Change.
2. Download the template from the grey text under the upload box.
3. Fill in one row per shelf using the columns in section 6.5. The new_quantity column is the counted figure, not a difference.
4. Save as CSV, upload the file, and click Submit.

 4.9Viewing and verifying updated stock

Never assume. Check every change.

1. Go to Inventory → Stock Levels.
2. Type the Product ID into the Search box above the table. The list filters as you type.
3. Read the group heading — it gives Total Qty, Reserved and Available across every shelf for that part.
4. Read the row for the shelf you changed and confirm the Quantity column matches what you expected.
5. If the figure looks unchanged, refresh the page with F5 before concluding anything is wrong.

 4.10Reviewing stock history

Every movement WHIMS has ever recorded is kept. There are two ways in.

All movements, across every product

1. Go to Reports → Stock History.
2. The newest entries are at the top.
3. Use the funnel icon to filter by Action Type, Warehouse or Product, or type into the Search box.

Movements for one product

1. Open the product from Inventory → Products.
2. Click the Stock History tab.

 5Screenshot Index and Capture Guide

Every figure in this guide, where it came from, and what to re-capture if the screens change in a future release.

All screenshots were taken from a live WHIMS system. If a screen is redesigned, use the table below to reproduce the figure: open the screen listed, put it in the state described, and highlight the elements named.

 6Field Descriptions

Every box you can type in or choose from, what it does, and what WHIMS will accept.

In the tables below, Yes means the form will not save without it. A red asterisk beside a field name on screen means the same thing.

 6.1Stock Take form (Stock Levels → Stock Actions → Stock Take)

 6.2Adjust window (product page → Stock Locations & Quantities → Adjust)

The window heading names the shelf (for example "Adjust Stock — 4.2 F") and the line beneath shows the quantity held right now. Neither can be typed into — they are there to confirm you picked the right row.

 6.3Stock Change form (Stock Levels → Stock Actions → Stock Change)

 6.4Empty Location wizard (Locations → open a location → Empty Location)

 6.5Spreadsheet (CSV) columns for bulk work

Download the blank template from the upload window rather than building the file yourself — the column headings must match exactly.

Bulk Stock Take — adds to what is there

Bulk Stock Change — replaces the figure

 6.6Columns on the Stock Levels screen

 6.7Columns on the Stock History screen

 6.8Fields the system fills in for you

Some things people expect to type are recorded automatically. You will not find a box for these, and that is deliberate — it stops them being back-dated or mis-attributed.

 7Business Rules

The rules WHIMS enforces, and the rules your team is expected to follow.

7.1Rules the system enforces

7.2Rules your team should follow

These are not enforced by the software. They are what separates a stock system people trust from one they work around.

• Always give a reason, even when the box is optional. Stock Take and Stock Change will save without one. A movement with no explanation is nearly useless six months later.
• Count before you adjust. Stock Change should record a physical count, not a guess.
• Correct the right shelf. If a part sits on three shelves and one is wrong, fix that one. Dumping the difference on whichever shelf is convenient hides the real problem.
• Report, do not silently fix, large differences. Agree a threshold with your supervisor — for example anything above 10 units or a set value — and escalate rather than quietly adjusting.
• Never use Delete to remove stock. Deleting a stock record removes the row entirely and writes no history entry. Removing units is what the Adjust window is for.
• Do not adjust stock that is reserved for an order without telling whoever owns the order.
• One person, one shelf, at a time. Two people adjusting the same shelf within minutes of each other will produce a figure neither of them expects.

7.3Duplicate transactions

Note that duplicate Stock Change submissions are harmless: setting a shelf to 18 twice still leaves 18. It is Stock Take, Bulk Stock Take and the Adjust window that accumulate.

7.4Audit logging

Every action described in this guide writes a permanent Stock History entry containing:

• the product, warehouse and location;
• the quantity before, the change, and the quantity after;
• the unit price applied;
• the type of movement and its reference;
• the user account that performed it;
• the date and time, from the server clock;
• the reason or note you typed.

Empty Location writes twice — once to Stock History and once to the product's Activity History, which additionally records the network address the request came from.

 8Validation Rules

What WHIMS checks before it saves, the exact message you will see, and how to clear it.

Validation happens before anything is written. If you see a red message, your stock has not changed — you have lost nothing but a moment.

8.1Required fields

8.2Invalid quantities

8.3Not enough stock

The single most common refusal. It appears as a red message in the top-right corner:

The number after "Only" is what is actually on that shelf. Either reduce your quantity to that figure or below, or — if you are certain more units left the shelf than WHIMS ever knew about — the shelf figure itself was wrong. Count it and use Stock Change to set the true figure, with a reason explaining the discrepancy.

8.4Problems in a bulk spreadsheet

Each row is checked on its own. Good rows are saved; bad rows are reported. The summary message lists up to five problems.

8.5Other refusals

 9Common Errors and Troubleshooting

What you see, why it happens, and what to do about it.

 10Frequently Asked Questions

The questions people actually ask in their first month.

 11Best Practices

Habits that keep stock figures trustworthy.

11.1Before you type

• Count first, type second. Adjusting from memory is guessing with extra steps.
• Confirm the product. Part numbers differ by one character far more often than you would like. Read the whole ID back before moving on.
• Confirm the shelf. The Adjust window shows the location and the current quantity in its heading — use it. A correction applied to the wrong shelf creates two errors instead of fixing one.
• Know which tool you need. Adding? Stock Take. Removing? Adjust → Deduct. Counted it? Stock Change.

11.2While you type

• Double-check every quantity before submitting. Especially in Stock Change, where the number you type replaces everything that was there.
• Write reasons a stranger could understand. "Damaged in transit, 3 units, claim CLM-2231" is worth something. "adj" is not.
• Work top to bottom. Product, warehouse, location, quantity, reason. Going back and changing something near the top clears the fields below it.
• Never leave a default reason in place. "Stock take" tells nobody anything.

11.3After you save

• Read the confirmation message. It states the new total — check it is what you expected.
• Confirm on the Stock Levels screen for anything significant.
• Do not resubmit if you are unsure. Check Stock History instead. Duplicates are not detected, and unpicking one takes far longer than a ten-second check.
• Report discrepancies immediately. Large or unexplained differences are information your supervisor needs today, not at month-end.

11.4Working in bulk

• Always start from the downloaded template. Do not build the spreadsheet yourself.
• Export before you import. Use Export Stock to keep a snapshot of how things looked beforehand.
• Try a small file first. Two or three rows will expose a naming problem before it affects two hundred.
• Delete rows that already succeeded before re-uploading a corrected file.
• Watch out for Excel. It loves turning part numbers into dates and dropping leading zeros. Check the file after saving as CSV.

11.5Housekeeping

• Never share your login. Every movement is stamped with the signed-in user.
• Lock or sign out when you leave a shared terminal.
• Never delete a stock record to remove units — deleting writes no history at all.
• Adjust as you go. Small corrections made the same day are easy; a year of accumulated drift is a project.

 12Quick Reference Guide

One page. Print it and keep it by the terminal.

 13Summary and Final Checklist

Where everything fits together, and the checks to run before every save.

13.1The process end to end

Three tools cover almost everything you will meet:

• Stock Take — units have arrived; add them to the shelf.
• Adjust → Deduct from Stock — units have gone; take them off the shelf.
• Stock Change — you have counted; make the shelf match your count.

Two more handle volume and clear-outs: Bulk Stock Take and Bulk Stock Change apply a spreadsheet in one go, and Empty Location zeroes an entire shelf after you have exported it.

Behind all of them sits the same principle: every change is attributed, dated, explained, and permanent. Nothing in WHIMS quietly rewrites the past — which is what makes the numbers worth trusting in the first place.

13.2Final checklist — run through this before every Submit

 AGlossary

Words used in WHIMS and in this guide.