How to handle products that are out of stock

In Onsight you can display the stock level for each product. With each product ordered, the stock level can decrease, if you have automatic stock tracking enabled (See: How to configure orders to automatically decrease stock levels) or if your Onsight account is connected to QuickBooks, Xero, MYOB, Zoho, Alegra, NetSuite or any other system that reduces your stock count in Onsight automatically.

When your stock level reaches zero or becomes negative, we can either make the product inactive so that it can no longer be ordered or add the words ‘Out of stock’ to the end of the product name.

The information below explains this feature in more detail.

Option 1 – Hide/remove products that are out of stock

A product that is out of stock can automatically become “Inactive”. Inactive products do not display. When the product has stock, it will become active and display again.

Here is an example of how this works:

  • Log in to the Onsight web console and under Manage Products set the ‘Stock on hand’ for a product to 100.
  • Log in to the app and create an order for 100 items of this product.
  • The order will sync to the admin console.
  • The stock on hand of the product will reduce to ‘zero’ in the admin console and the status of the product is automatically set to ‘Inactive’.
  • In the app, tap on the burger menu (represented by the three horizontal lines) found at the top right-hand side of the screen.
  • Tap on ‘Sync Data’.
  • The product will no longer display in the app due to it being inactive.
  • When the product has stock again, the product is automatically made ‘Active’ again and will display.

Note, if you choose this option, then it is not possible to have inactive products that are in stock. They will automatically become active again due to their “in stock” status.

Option 2 – Label products as ‘Out of stock’

A product with no stock can still display in Onsight but you can choose to add the words ‘Out of stock’ at the end of the product name. The benefit of this is that the product still appears in your catalogue for your reps to see. However, you need to be aware that this means that reps can still order this item even if it is out of stock.

Here is an example of how this works:

  • Log in to the Onsight web console and under Manage Products set the ‘Stock on hand’ for a product to 100.
  • Log in to the app and create an order for 100 items of this product.
  • The order will sync to the admin console.
  • The stock on hand of the product will reduce to ‘zero’ in the admin console.
  • In the app, tap on the burger menu (represented by the three horizontal lines) found at the top right-hand side of the screen.
  • Tap on ‘Sync Data’
  • The product displays the words ‘Out of stock’ at the end of the name.
  • When you add more stock of the item, the words ‘Out of stock’ will be removed from the name of the product again.

Rules and setup

Please note that these options only apply AFTER the stock level reaches zero or becomes negative. If you have 1 item in stock, the sales rep or customer will still be able to order 2 or more items. Only after that will the item become inactive or be flagged as out of stock.

To have one of these options configured on your account you can email us at [email protected] and tell us which option you want to proceed with.

Related articles:
How to configure orders to automatically decrease stock levels

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