Do you need to maintain a minimum stock level for certain items in your warehouse? If so, you can do this by setting the minimum stock on the relevant stock cards.

You can also monitor minimum stock using the Make.com platform. You will find more information further down in this article.

Every stock card lets you specify a so-called minimum stock. You can enter it manually directly in the Min. stock (UoM) field, or import it right away when creating stock cards with opening balances.

You will find the Min. stock (UoM) field in the stock card detail, in the Basic information section. To open the detail, click the pencil icon on the selected row in the Stock cards agenda.

The Min. stock (UoM) column is displayed in the stock card list by default. If you don't see it, you can show it using the gear icon in the list header: in the Column settings panel, find the column, show it using the eye icon, and confirm with the Apply button. You can also save it in your own view.

So if you need to track minimum stock for your items, enter it on the stock cards. As a reminder, you can assign the minimum stock manually as well as by import.

The main use of minimum stock is the ability to order up to the minimum, which is available in the Issued orders agenda. Because issued orders are available only from the Business plan, this function is likewise available only from that plan.

It is worth noting that ordering up to the minimum does not happen automatically. However, you can automate it using the Make.com platform, where minimum stock monitoring would be one of the scenarios.

You can get to issued orders using the search or via All agendas. In the footer of the list, click the three-dot icon to open the More functions menu and select Order up to minimum.

For this demonstration, we will use an item for which we set a minimum stock of 50 units on the stock card (see the first image). There are 30 units in stock.

After you select Order up to minimum, a window appears with all items below the minimum, including our item. At the top, you can select the Issued order type and filter the list by supplier or warehouse.

The quantity in the To order column is calculated as follows: Minimum − In stock − Already ordered + Reserved. In our example, nothing is ordered or reserved, so Flexi suggests 50 − 30 = 20 units. You can adjust the quantity in the Order column.

Confirming with the Order button in the bottom right corner then simply creates the corresponding order.

Note 1:

Ordering up to the minimum takes reservations into account: the reserved quantity (the Reserved column) is added to the quantity to order. An item is also displayed in the window when only reservations push it below the minimum stock. For example, an item with 60 units in stock, a minimum of 50 units, and a reservation of 20 units is suggested for ordering in a quantity of 10 units (50 − 60 + 20).

Note 2:

If the quantity to order is 0 or less, the item does not appear in the form at all. This happens when the sum of the already ordered quantity and the stock on hand, after deducting reservations, is equal to or greater than the minimum stock specified on the stock card.

If you need more specific processing of the minimum stock specified on the stock card, you can create a so-called user query. For general information on how to order based on a query result, see our guide.

You can also have a query created custom-made by us. In that case, we need the most precise specification possible of what the output of the query should be.

It can be just a specific view of stock levels that takes the minimum stock into account, or it may not involve minimum stock at all. In that case, the user query can simply be run, and its output will be a table with the required data.

A user query can again be used in connection with minimum stock in issued orders as well. In the More functions menu, right below the order up to minimum option, there is also the Order from user query option.

For example, if some items have specific minimum stock handling and you need to calculate the quantity to order differently than the order up to minimum does, you can achieve this with a user query.

However, an order based on a user query does not have to relate only to minimum stock. It offers the option to process data in any way you like and create a user query based on it.

This option lets you select a user query you have created, process its output, and insert it into the items of an issued order.

The query must have Issued orders set as its primary form, and its first four properties (columns) must be of the following types:

The quantity suggested for the final order is the difference between the third and fourth fields.

As an example, we are including a query for ordering up to the maximum, that is, a query that suggests ordering items whose stock level is lower than the Maximum field on the stock card.