6. Stock Audit
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6. Stock Audit
Verified against: Medusa admin dashboard 2.18.0 (inventory-detail page composition,
adjust-inventory form — source-read directly, same files verified for
[Section 5]/05-inventory-management/).
WARNING — this entire workflow is Planned / Not yet implemented. There is no dedicated stock-audit, physical-count, or approval feature anywhere in this admin. This section documents what a staff member can realistically do with the tools that exist today, and is explicit about where the real gaps are — it is not describing a built feature.
What the original brief wants vs. what exists
The brief’s workflow (System Stock → Physical Count → Compare → Difference → Investigate → Adjustment → Approval → Audit Record) assumes several things this system doesn’t have:
| Brief step | Real support |
|---|---|
| System Stock | Real — the “In Stock” number on [Inventory → item]/05-inventory-management/ |
| Physical Count | Not a system feature — done entirely outside the admin (by hand/spreadsheet) |
| Compare | Not a system feature — manual comparison of your physical count against the “In Stock” number |
| Difference | Not calculated or stored anywhere — if you want a record of the gap, you have to note it yourself |
| Investigate | Not a system feature |
| Adjustment | Real, but limited — the same single-field “In Stock” edit described in [Section 5]/05-inventory-management/#stock-adjustment. It overwrites the number; it doesn’t record what the old value was, why it changed, or that this was an audit rather than a routine restock |
| Approval | Not a system feature. Anyone with admin access can edit “In Stock” directly — there is no review/approval step before a change takes effect |
| Audit Record | Not a system feature for inventory. See the note below — this exact capability does exist elsewhere in the admin, just not here |
INFO — this capability isn’t foreign to the codebase, just not applied here. Order detail pages in this same admin have a real Activity section: a system-generated timeline of status changes, plus a free-text comment box staff can use to leave notes on an order. Nothing equivalent exists on inventory items or products. If a real audit-trail feature for stock gets built later, this existing order-activity pattern is the precedent to follow — it’s not a net-new concept for this codebase.
A practical stock-count process, given today’s real tools
Until a real audit feature exists, a physical stock count can still be done — just not tracked by the system itself:
- Pull System Stock. Open Inventory, note the “In Stock” figure for each SKU.
- Physically count the same SKUs in the warehouse.
- Compare your count to the System Stock figure, per SKU.
- If they match: nothing to do.
- If they differ:
- REQUIRED (process, not system-enforced): before touching anything in the admin, write down — outside the system — the SKU, the System Stock figure, your physical count, the date, and who counted. This is the only record that will exist; the system will not keep it for you.
- Investigate obvious explanations first: does the gap match a pending [Reservation]/05-inventory-management/#reservations (stock correctly held against an unshipped order, not actually missing)? A recent order not yet fulfilled?
- If the discrepancy is real (not explained by a pending order), update In Stock to the physical count via Adjust Inventory, and add your note about why to whatever external log the business is using (see the Section 5 warning about no audit trail).
- TO BE CONFIRMED: who is authorized to make this kind of correction, and whether a second-person check is required before it’s applied — there’s no business policy documented for this yet, and the system won’t enforce one either way.
Recommended cadence
TO BE CONFIRMED — no business decision has been made on how often a physical stock count should happen. See [Weekly Checklist]/22-weekly-checklist/ and [Monthly Checklist]/23-monthly-checklist/, which will need this input once it exists.
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