Inventory

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Everything that made it through fulfilment ends up here. Hardware, software, services, anything with a lifecycle, in one list with a system wide identifier.

The status tells you where a thing is in that lifecycle. Ordered, in progress, shipping, active. Only when it becomes active does it start counting, which is when a contract term or service duration begins.

Two kinds of detail sit on an object and people mix them up. Characteristics that come from the product, such as sixteen gigabytes of memory, are the same for every unit. Values that come from the actual instance, such as the serial number, arrive when the device does.

Worth knowing for finance: the provider and the party that invoices you do not have to be the same. A phone can be provided by one company and billed by another, and inventory keeps those apart.

If you always need a particular attribute in the table, serial number being the usual candidate, you can promote a custom field to a column instead of opening each object.

The three chapters below cover what happens to an object after delivery.

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Understanding the inventory

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Start with the step most people skip: Confirmation of receipt.