How to Control Your Workshop Parts Stock Without Losing Sales

The storeroom of a mechanical workshop is one of the places where most money is lost without anyone noticing directly. Parts ordered twice because nobody knew there was stock, parts that run out exactly when they're most needed, or parts that have been on a shelf for months with nobody remembering what they were bought for — all of that is money tied up or margin that was never billed.

Signs of uncontrolled stock

• Duplicate orders: something gets ordered that was already in the storeroom because nobody knew.
• Stock-outs: a customer brings their car in and you have to tell them they'll have to wait because the part isn't available.
• "Orphan" parts: units bought for a job that was never done, sitting in the storeroom for months with nobody knowing what to do with them.
• No margin visibility: if you don't know what you paid for a part and what you billed for it, you can't know whether the margin is right.
• Manual stock counts: counting parts one by one at year-end is work nobody wants to do and that always gives different results from what's expected.

What information you need on each part

Good workshop stock control requires knowing, for each reference: how many units are available right now, what the current cost price is, what the selling price is (and the resulting margin), when the last movement was (in, out or adjustment), and which jobs have used that part. With that information you can make much more precise purchasing decisions and avoid both over-stocking and stock-outs.

Integrating stock with jobs: the key to real control

A workshop's stock doesn't exist in isolation: every time a part is used in a job, the stock should automatically decrease. And when a delivery arrives, it should go up. If that recording is manual, sooner or later there will be errors. The integration between the jobs module and the stock module is what closes the loop: each part added to a work order automatically deducts from inventory, and the movement is traced.

Minimum stock levels and alerts: never run out of a critical part again

One of the most useful features of a stock system is the ability to define a minimum stock level per reference. When available quantity falls below that minimum, the system sends an alert — you don't have to wait to discover it when the customer's car is already up on the lift.

How TallerOS solves this

In TallerOS (Pro plan or above), the stock module lets you record all storeroom references with their cost price, selling price, available quantity and minimum stock level. Each movement — in, out, adjustment or return — is recorded with date and reason, generating a complete history for each reference.

When you add a part to a job, the stock is automatically deducted. And when the level drops below the defined minimum, a visual alert appears so you can restock in time. Stock movements are also useful at month-end for reconciling the total storeroom value without manual counts.