The Inventory module is the home of every stocked item your practice handles — medications, vaccines, consumables, food, retail. From a single page, you can see what's in stock, raise wholesale orders, process deliveries, and run stock takes or transfers between locations. It's used daily by your dispensary team and touched regularly by vets, nurses, and reception whenever they dispense a product. This page is your map of the module — the five tabs, the layout of the Stock list, and where to go for each common task. For step-by-step guides on adding products, ordering, transfers, stock takes, and so on, follow the links to the dedicated articles.
💡 In short: Open the Apps menu in the top navigation and choose Inventory. The page opens on the Stock tab — your full product catalogue. Switch tabs at the top of the page to move between the catalogue, supplier ordering, and stock sessions.
📍 Permission required: Your role must include the Inventory permission. If you don't see Inventory in the Apps menu, ask your Practice Manager to update your access under Settings → Roles & Permissions.
What You'll See
When you open Apps → Inventory, the page lands on the Stock tab — your full product catalogue, one row per product, with stock health bars, pricing, supplier, batches, and tags. A row of buttons at the top opens the main actions for the page: search and filter, suggested orders, barcode scanning, stock history, adding a new product, and CSV export.
The Five Tabs
The Inventory module is split into five tabs across the top of the page. Each one owns a clear part of the daily workflow.
Tab | What it's for | When to open it |
Stock | Your product catalogue — every product you stock or sell, with its pricing, stock level, supplier, batches, and tags. The starting point for searching, editing, and bulk-updating products. | Day to day — checking levels, finding a product, editing pricing, dispensing context. |
Supplier Catalogue | Browse the catalogues of your connected wholesalers (e.g. NVS, MWI, Covetrus) and add items to your basket. | When you need to order something new from a wholesaler that you have not ordered previously or is not in your product list. |
Basket | Items queued for ordering, grouped by supplier. Each supplier has its own sub-tab with a count badge in the Basket label. | Before submitting wholesale orders — review and adjust quantities. |
Orders | Purchase order history. By default, Completed and Cancelled orders are hidden so active work stays front and centre — use the filter menu to bring them back when you need them. Process incoming deliveries from here. | When a delivery arrives, or to check the status of an order you've placed. |
Sessions | Stock takes and stock transfers between locations. Create a new session, resume one in progress, or open a completed session. | Counting physical stock, or moving stock between rooms or fridges. |
Reading the Stock Tab
Each row in the Stock tab is one product. You can:
Sort and search the catalogue using the toolbar
Expand a row if the product has multiple stock locations or tracked batches — sub-rows show the breakdown per location and per batch
Tick the checkbox on the left to bulk-edit several products at once
Click a product name to open it for editing The columns shown by default cover everything you'd want at a glance:
Column | What it shows |
Name | Product name. A chevron appears next to the name for products with multiple locations or batches — click it to expand. |
Category | The product category — Anti-Parasitic, Consumables, General Medication, Grooming & Care, Injectables, Nutrition, Other, Pet Accessories, or Vaccination. |
Stock | A coloured bar showing stock health relative to the product's minimum and optimal levels. Detail on how to read this is in . |
Procurement Cost, Mark Up, Net Price, VAT/GST, Price | The full pricing chain for the product — from what you pay the supplier through to the final price the client sees. |
Item Code, Barcode, Supplier | Identifiers and the primary supplier the product is linked to. |
Linked Services, Tags, Archived | Services that auto-attach when the product is dispensed, tags for filtering, and whether the product is archived from active use. |
💡 You can hide or reorder columns to suit your workflow — open the Filters menu at the top-left of the table and choose View to toggle columns.
Per-Row Actions
On the right of every row you'll see a small basket icon and a three-dot menu.
Action | What it does |
Add to Basket / Update Basket (basket icon) | Adds this product to your wholesale ordering basket. Only appears for products linked to an integrated wholesaler. The icon turns purple once the product is in the basket. |
Update Quantity (three-dot menu) | Quick stock adjustment without opening the full product form. Only appears for products with stock control enabled and a single location with no tracked batches — for everything else, expand the row and use the per-location actions. |
Edit Product (three-dot menu) | Opens the full product form. See . |
Bulk-Editing Several Products
Tick the checkbox on multiple rows to reveal a bulk action bar at the bottom of the page. Use this for jobs that touch many products at once — annual price reviews, category clean-ups, retiring a range, or queuing a big restock.
The icons in the bar cover, in order:
Category — change the product category
Pricing — open a sub-menu to bulk-update Mark Up, VAT/GST, or Price
Tags — add or remove tags
Linked Services — attach or detach services
Archive / Unarchive — hide products from the active catalogue or restore them
Add to Basket — queue every selected product into the wholesale basket
🔒 Products that come from a shared Reference List (managed centrally for groups of clinics) are locked against certain edits. The bulk action bar will quietly skip them and show which items were skipped and why.
For exact dialog behaviour and how each bulk update is calculated, see .
I Want To… (where to go)
"I want to…" | Go to |
Add a new product to my catalogue | Stock tab → Add → see |
See what's running low and reorder | Stock tab → look for red/yellow stock bars, or click Suggested Orders → see |
Place a wholesale order | Supplier Catalogue tab → add items → Basket tab → submit → Lupa shows a confirmation and takes you to the Orders tab → see |
Process a delivery that has just arrived | Orders tab → find the order → Process → see |
Reconcile what's on the shelf with what Lupa says | Sessions tab → New Session → Stock Take → see |
Move stock between locations (e.g. main store → dispensary) | Sessions tab → New Session → Stock Transfer → see |
Update prices across many products at once | Stock tab → tick checkboxes → Pricing in the bulk bar → see |
See where a product's stock is stored, and the audit trail of every change | Click the product name → Stock section, or open Stock History in the toolbar → see |
Connect a new wholesaler or add a custom supplier | Settings → Suppliers → see |
Export the catalogue as a spreadsheet | Stock tab toolbar → CSV download icon (top-right of the search row) |
Tips
✅ Best practices from practices that run Lupa:
Make the Stock tab your daily dashboard — a quick scan of the stock bars catches problems before they become stockouts
Set minimum and optimal stock levels on every product — without them, the stock bars and Suggested Orders feature don't work
Use barcode scanning for day-to-day actions where you can — it's faster and less error-prone than typing
Use bulk edit for annual price reviews instead of opening each product
Tag controlled drugs and retail items so reports and filters are meaningful
Process deliveries the same day they arrive — stock levels stay out of sync until the order is marked Completed
Frequently Asked Questions
Why don't I see the Inventory option in the Apps menu?
Why don't I see the Inventory option in the Apps menu?
Your role doesn't include the Inventory permission. Ask your Practice Manager to enable it under Settings → Roles & Permissions for your role.
What's the difference between a "product" and "stock"?
What's the difference between a "product" and "stock"?
A product is the catalogue entry — name, price, category, supplier. Stock is the current quantity of that product in a specific location (and optionally a specific batch). One product can have stock in several locations at once.
Why does the Sessions tab show types I don't recognise?
Why does the Sessions tab show types I don't recognise?
Sessions can be a Stock Take (a physical count to reconcile what's on the shelf with what Lupa expects) or a Stock Transfer (moving stock from one location to another). Each opens a different workflow — the dedicated articles linked above explain both end to end.
Why is the basket icon greyed out on some rows?
Why is the basket icon greyed out on some rows?
The product isn't linked to a connected wholesaler, or the supplier doesn't support electronic ordering. To enable wholesale ordering, edit the product and link it to one of your connected suppliers — see .
Why doesn't a product have a stock bar?
Why doesn't a product have a stock bar?
Either the product has Stock Control disabled, or it doesn't have minimum and optimal stock levels set. Set both and the bar appears — see .
Can I customise the columns I see in the Stock tab?
Can I customise the columns I see in the Stock tab?
Yes. Open the Filters menu at the top-left of the table and use the View option to toggle columns on or off. Your choices are remembered the next time you open the page.