Track serialized pieces and tools

Track stock as individually identified objects, each with its own size and its own shelf.

Most stock is a pooled quantity: 40 M8 bolts on Shelf B, and any one of them will do. Some stock is not.

A piece is one physical object of an item, told apart from every other one: this 6 m bar, that 250 kg roll, this numbered container. An item whose stock is held that way is serialized, which the interface calls stocked as pieces.

Adding, adjusting and deleting pieces takes an Owner or Administrator role. Every other member can read the pieces and their amounts. You also need an item that was created with the pieces box ticked: see Create and edit items.

When to serialize

Serialize when the answer to "where is that one" matters, or when each unit holds a different amount. A shop that buys steel in bars needs to know that bar SB-3 is the one with 1.2 m left on it, not that it owns 14 m of steel spread across four bars nobody can tell apart.

Do not serialize consumables. A thousand pieces of the same bolt is a thousand records nobody will maintain, and the pooled count already answers every question you have about them. You do not need pieces if the units are interchangeable, however expensive they are.

The choice is permanent. This item is stocked as pieces is posted only when the item is created, and neither the Edit Item modal nor the item detail renders a control for it.

Can this be changed later? No. An item created as pooled stock can never be re-stocked as pieces, and an item created as pieces can never be pooled. The only way out is to delete the item and create it again, which costs you its stock history. Decide before you create it.

Item versus piece

	Item	Piece
What it is	A catalog line: `Steel Bar, 1045, 50 mm`	One physical object of it: bar `SB-3`
Identified by	Its name	Its Piece ID, stored as the piece's SKU. Every piece carries the parent item's name, so the id is the only thing telling two apart
Unit	What one piece is: `Bars`, `Rolls`	What is on this piece: `meters`, `kg`, `ft`
Holds stock	No. A piece-stocked item never moves stock itself	Yes, at exactly one location
On hand reads	Pieces on hand: how many pieces exist, in the item's unit	The amount on this piece, in the piece's unit
Reorder point	Counts pieces, so "keep 2 bars spare" is the threshold that means something	Not used
Transaction history	Every piece's ledger merged, with the Item column on to say which piece each row belongs to	Its own rows only

The catalog list marks a serialized item with a blue Pieces badge, and its On hand, Reserved and Available columns all count pieces rather than material. Pieces are never listed there on their own; they belong to their item. Low Stock judges a serialized item on how many of its pieces no work order is holding, against the item's reorder point.

Add a piece with a receipt

Open the item from the Items tab of Inventory, at /inventory?select=items.
In the Pieces card, select Add a piece.
Enter a Piece ID. IoTFlows suggests the next free SKU-n, for example SB-3, and skips any suffix already taken. Overwrite it with whatever actually identifies the piece on the floor: a bin tag, a lot number, a heat number.
Enter the Unit the amount is measured in, for example meters. This is the piece's own unit, not the item's.
Pick the Location where the piece physically sits. A piece is one object, so it gets exactly one.
Enter the Amount on the piece, using the + and − tiles or the number field.
Select Add piece.

Add piece stays disabled until the id, the unit, the location and an amount above zero are all set.

IoTFlows then does two things. It creates the piece as a part in its own right, pointing back at its parent item, and it posts an opening receipt, the transaction that records stock arriving, for that amount at that location, noted Piece added. A Piece added toast confirms both.

The item's picture is copied onto the piece so it looks like the material it came from. The piece keeps its own copy, so you can change it later.

The Add a piece modal for a serialized item, showing the Piece ID, Unit, Location and Amount fields

The Add a piece modal, with the piece ID, the unit the amount is measured in, the one location the piece sits at, and the opening amount posted as a receipt.

Those are two requests, and the second can fail on its own. When it does, the piece exists with no stock and no location, and IoTFlows says so by name: Piece SB-3 was created but its stock was not recorded. Set it with Adjust stock.

The piece then appears in the list reading Not placed. Fix it with that row's Adjust button rather than deleting it and starting again.

A failed create raises the reason IoTFlows gave, or Could not add the piece. when the response carries none, and nothing is created. The commonest cause is a Piece ID already in use.

Read per-piece stock

On a serialized item, the Pieces card sits where Stock by location would be, because the pieces are the stock. Each row carries the Piece Id, the Location it sits at, and the Amount on it in the piece's own unit.

The Pieces card on an item's detail, listing four pieces with their ids, locations and amounts, each with an Adjust button

The Pieces card on an item's detail, listing each piece with its id, its location and the amount left on it. On a serialized item this card replaces Stock by location.

Three things you can do from it:

Select a row to open that piece as an item of its own, with a blue Piece badge and a back button carrying the item's name. Its SKU is editable there; its name is not, since the name belongs to the item.
Select Adjust on a row to open the Adjust stock modal against that piece, with its location already selected. This is how you record material consumed off a bar or a roll.
Select the trash icon to delete the piece.

There is no Adjust button on the item itself, and no way to post a transaction against it. Stock lands on a piece or it lands nowhere.

The item's Reserved by open work orders and Incoming cards group by piece too, so you see which specific bar a job is holding rather than a quantity.

On mobile. Pieces ship on iOS and Android with the same model: the item detail lists its pieces, each piece carries its own amount and location, and adjusting is per piece. Reading a piece id off a tag while standing at the rack is the common case, so the phone matters here.

An item's pieces on the iOS app, each row showing the piece id and the amount on it

Per-piece tracking in the mobile app. Each piece carries its own stock and its parent item name.

Pieces on the scheduler

Serializing has a consequence outside the storeroom. A piece is one object, so it cannot be in two places at once, and IoTFlows treats every piece as a resource of capacity 1 without anyone authoring a rule.

When two work orders hold the same piece over overlapping times, the Schedule issues panel raises a violation naming it: Piece SB-3 of Steel Bar is held by 2 work orders at the same time. A piece can only be in one place at a time. Work orders that are not on the board count as holders too, so a maintenance job that took the bar still conflicts with a production job planning to use it.

A piece held by one work order, or by none, raises nothing. Pooled stock raises nothing either, whatever the quantity: two jobs each pulling 5 m from a pooled 8 m is a shortage question, not a conflict. Serialize the materials your jobs fight over, and this warning arrives for free.

Delete a piece

Select the trash icon on a piece's row and confirm. The dialog is titled Delete Item rather than Delete Piece, and names the piece by its id.

The delete confirmation dialog for a piece, titled Delete Item and naming the piece by its id

The delete confirmation for a piece. It is titled Delete Item, names the piece by its id, and states that the stock history is retained while the record leaves the catalog.

IoTFlows confirms with Item deleted. The piece leaves the item's Pieces card and its rows leave the item's merged Transaction history, because that history is the union of the pieces that still exist. The piece's own transaction history is retained on the server, but it is no longer reachable from the item.

Delete a piece when the physical object is gone: the bar was used up, the container was returned to the supplier. Do not delete one to correct its amount. Use Adjust for that, so the correction is a transaction somebody can read later.

A failed delete raises the reason IoTFlows gave and changes nothing. If the piece is still listed after the dialog closes, the delete did not happen.

Pieces and reusable tools

A reusable tool is equipment a job takes and gives back: a rack, a tube, a basket, a fixture. A tool cannot be stocked as pieces. In the Add Item modal, ticking This is a reusable tool disables the pieces box and clears it, with the reason stated in place: a tool is already one object that comes back whole, while pieces divide a quantity of material into separately tracked objects.

So the two answer different questions, and you pick one:

To track an individual tool, create it as its own item and mark it a reusable tool. One item per physical fixture, each with its own name and SKU. A work order that requires it reserves it, and a work order that creates it hands it back. See Create and edit items.
To track material held in separate physical lots, stock the item as pieces. One item for the material, one piece per bar, roll or container.

Pieces are created as Purchased whatever their item's type, and never as tools. That is why a piece's delete dialog says Item, and why pieces never appear under the Tools segment of the catalog.