Inventory Overview

Albert Inventory serves as a digital manifestation of your physical inventory, enabling you to sort, filter, trace, and manage all types of inventory. Albvert Inventory ensures harmonization within a single location or throughout hundreds of global sites.

Types of Inventory

• Formulas are Inventory items that represent entire formulas composed of various raw materials. When you create a batch through a Batch Task, the resulting inventory is stored as a Formula in the inventory module. You cannot manually add items to this category.
• Raw Materials are Inventory items used in formulations
• Consumables can be used to track all types of laboratory consumables (substrates, filters, etc.) that are not used as raw materials
• Equipment category can be used to track all types of equipment, devices, machines, or other assets. These items can be linked to the tasks and you can attach all associated documentation (calibration, manuals, etc.).

Searching and filtering the Inventory

Opening up the Inventory module will open a list of all Inventory. From there, you can easily search, filter on, and sort by a variety of criteria.

For more information on searching and filtering the Inventory, navigate to this help article.

Creating Inventory items

It is best practice to filter and search for Inventory items to see if they exist before creating new Inventory items in order to reduce the number of duplicates in the platform and allow for better tracking of Inventory items.

To create a new Inventory item, click the Create button at the top of your screen and select "Inventory".

From there, the Create New Inventory Item modal will pop up and you will be prompted to fill out details about your Inventory item.

Selecting "Create" after you've filled out all relevant information about your Inventory item will create the new item within Albert.

Editing Existing Inventory Items

Once you've created a new Inventory item, you can edit its details. To edit the item's details, navigate to the Inventory item and open it. On the left side of the screen, you can edit the Inventory item's details as desired. 

If you attempt to change the name of the Inventory item, Albert will ask you to confirm, as changing the name of the item may cause inconsistencies with any labels that have already been printed and reference the Inventory item. Click "Yes" to confirm.

Tip: If you would like to add an alternative name to an Inventory item, it is best practice to add the alternative name in the description. 

Inventory Tags

Tags are an easy way to quickly track, search, and filter your Inventory items. By using tags, you can group Inventory items according to specific features such as color, applications, etc. Inventory Tags can be found on the left side of your screen after opening the Inventory item. 

Adjust quantities and transfer Inventory items

If you would like to adjust the inventory quantity (outside of using a Task), you can perform an Inventory Adjustment to add, subtract, or zero the inventory for a specific lot number. An inventory adjustment is typically done to subtract inventory for a spill, zero inventory when a bottle is empty, etc.

When you perform an Inventory Adjustment, you must already have Inventory Lots from which you can subtract or add a quantity. All historical adjustments can be found in the Inventory Lot History.

You may scan the barcode of the inventory item to skip some of the below steps. To learn more about scanning barcodes, visit this help article.