What does a stock error / negative consumption value mean?

If you miscount an item during an inventory, or miss entering an invoice, you may see a stock error in your account

Nick Neale avatar
Written by Nick Neale
Updated over a week ago

A negative consumption value (also known as a stock error) occurs when your stock levels have increased between two inventory counts despite taking all invoices into consideration.

There are two possible causes for this:

  1. Invoice not added at the correct date/time

  2. Miscounted items

In either case, there should never be any negative consumption values.

To learn more about identifying and fixing stock errors, see:

Calculation

Your consumption between two inventory sessions is calculated as follows:

Consumption = Total Items (Beginning) + Items Received - Total Items (End)

Example

Let's say for a given week, you start off with 7 units of an item, receive 6 units from an invoice, then end up with 9 units the next time you take inventory. Let's compare the consumption to see what happens if we add the invoice, and if we don't:

Invoice Added: 7 (beginning) + 6 (received) - 9 (ending) = 4 units consumed

Missing Invoice: 7 (beginning) + 0 (received) - 9 (ending) = -2 units consumed

If the invoice isn't added, WISK thinks that your overall stock has actually increased, but this is not the case.

The same problem can arise with miscounts. Let's say you have an item that has not been used at all, with 5 in stock. We can compare the outcomes if we forget to count 2 units during the first inventory:

Correct: 5 (beginning) + 0 (received) - 5 (ending) = 0 units consumed

Miscount: 3 (beginning) + 0 (received) - 5 (ending) = -2 units consumed

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