Negative inventory has launched for Lightspeed Retail

Negative inventory is finally here!
For all Lightspeed Retail customers that have an account that was created before June 25th, 2019, negative inventory can be enabled at your convenience from your account settings.
Head over to Settings > Optional Modules and you will see an option to enable negative inventory. We recommend that you log out and back in again for the change to apply immediately.
Enabling negative inventory means no more auto-adding or auto-receiving stock. When items are oversold or oversent on a transfer or vendor return, inventory will go negative. Then receiving/adding inventory add from the negative value.
To find your items that are negative, we’ve introduced a new Negative Inventory report. Here, you can quickly find your items that are currently negative, the reason why it went negative, and if any stock is incoming on a PO or Transfer. We recommend checking this report first: Our beta testers loved this new report to help them decide how to resolve their negative inventory.
You can also go to any item listing and sort ascending on the Quantity on Hand column to show items with negative quantities at the top of the listing.
We decided to allow existing Lightspeed Retail customers the option to enable negative inventory so that it can be turned on at their convenience and when it makes sense for their business; perhaps at the start of a new month, or after an inventory count, at the end of their fiscal year, etc. Eventually all accounts will be migrated to negative inventory, but this will be in about a year with several notices beforehand.
To learn more about the negative inventory feature, please head over to our Help Center: https://retail-support.lightspeedhq.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020565353?flash_digest=e402bce3c9eda7ff0364930f99c8925976531858
Thanks to everyone for their feedback and their commitment to making this a reality!
Sincerely,
The Lightspeed Retail Product Team
Product Manager II - Retail Inventory
Lightspeed HQ
10 comments
We first activated Lightspeed Retail over a year ago. I just checked this area and don't see this option flag. Please see below. Any idea where it's located?
Please disregard. I found it. Settings --> Optional Modules. Thanks for this!
@gregarican Thanks for catching my mistake! I've updated my original post to reflect the correct location.
Product Manager II - Retail Inventory
Lightspeed HQ
Can anyone explain to me the way auto-add is supposed to work? I have just been trying to reconcile my total inventory figures in LS to our accounting package, Xero. Several items have been auto-added - this means my LS inventory is higher than my Xero figure. What happens with auo-add - does it get reversed automatically as well? How do I sort out my double-entry bookkeeping?! Negative inventory sounds more intuitive as it is presumably ring fenced and prompts employees to reorder to rectify the discrepancy. Auto-add goes unnoticed and just means my reconciliations are even harder. Can you sell something that has been auto-added? Where did this items come from - magic?
All answers gratefully received!
Nick
Hey @NickS ,
Before Lightspeed starts to support the negative inventory, the auto-add feature was the way the system could sell items that the inventory had no quantities on the system. The system auto adds the item to complete the sale and them the inventory back to zero.
You can generate a report to see all the items that were auto-added:
Selling out of stock items and the Auto-Add & Auto Check-In feature
Regards
Roberto
Hi @roberto_pansera
With Negative Inventory now well and truly a feature I have a few follow up questions:
This probably isn't the place to raise all these queries, but I am hoping it will draw attention to some important aspects of ensuring accurate reporting and consistency with accounting records.
Thanks,
Nick
I'll throw another negative inventory wish out there - allow Assemblies to create negative inventory.
I know this isn't the best practice, but its the reality of our business - we often need to create Assemblies quickly to get products sold before all the items are fully checked in. However, you cannot create an Assembly if there is not enough inventory in the system. It would be helpful if Assemblies would just create negative inventory for the items and allow you to create the assembly.
This comes up a lot because Assemblies themselves can go negative, but we can't build new ones until the items are positive.
Hey @VintageWineGuy ,
I'll note it in our internal tool!
Thank you very much for the suggestion!
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If you have any further questions Please do not hesitate to contact LightSpeed support or check out our Support Page.
Cheers!
Vanessa D.
Lightspeed Retail Support
866-932-1801 ext. 2 (Toll-Free)
514-907-1801 ext. 2 (Montreal)
Maybe not the right place, but could i ask that the negative inventory report multiplies out each item by the cost used and the whole report then has a total?
Thanks,
Nick
Hey @NickS ,
Thanks for the feedback! I'll note it down, as well.
Enjoy your day!
———
If you have any further questions Please do not hesitate to contact LightSpeed support or check out our Support Page.
Cheers!
Vanessa D.
Lightspeed Retail Support
866-932-1801 ext. 2 (Toll-Free)
514-907-1801 ext. 2 (Montreal)