Skip to content50% off₹750/user/month ₹1,500
SimpleERP
Start free trialTalk to us
SimpleERP
Sign inStart free trial

IT and agencies

Inventory for an IT company: resold hardware, spares, and what to skip

Most of what a software house sells has no stock. The few boxes it does hold, resold network gear and spares for AMC clients, are worth counting properly.

Start free trialTalk to us

In short

SimpleERP lets an IT company or agency track only the hardware it resells and the spares it keeps for AMC calls, at weighted average cost, while laptops sit in the asset register and pure software firms skip stock altogether.

Illustration of stock on hand by warehouse at average cost, with a low-stock row highlighted and a movement ledger.

An inventory day at Kayal Softworks

The support team at Kayal Softworks in Infopark looks after twenty small businesses on AMC, and half of them want the agency to supply the router or firewall as well as configure it. A steel cupboard near the server rack holds the stock: four routers, two firewall appliances, a box of 8 GB RAM sticks and some SSDs.

In August an engineer drove to a client in Aluva with a replacement SSD that, according to the spreadsheet, was still in the cupboard. It had gone to another client in July and nobody had billed it.

Developers' laptops are a different matter. They cost far more, last three years and move between people, so they belong in the asset register, not on the stock list.

Which items should an IT company track, and which can it ignore?

Track what you bill to clients as goods and what you would be embarrassed to run out of. Expense everything consumed in the office. If you sell only code, design and campaigns, you can leave inventory unopened.

  • Products and services side by side on one invoice.
  • No stock menus for a single-office firm until a product is added.
ItemIn SimpleERPReorder pattern
Routers and firewall appliances resold to clientsProduct with stockBuy against a confirmed order; keep one spare
RAM, SSDs and chargers for AMC call-outsProduct with stockReorder level of three per part
Patch cables, connectors and screwsExpenseBought by the box, never counted
Developer laptops and monitorsFixed asset with a holderBought on joining, returned at exit
Cloud hosting, domains and software licencesService or expenseRenewed yearly, no stock
Track, register or ignore: where each item belongs at a software and support company.

How do spares for AMC visits stay counted?

Each spare is a product with a reorder level. A supplier bill brings a box of SSDs in at its cost; the invoice that bills a replacement to the client takes one out at weighted average cost. A spare used under a free-replacement AMC goes out through a stock adjustment with the client's name in the reason.

  • Low-stock list on the dashboard when a part drops below its level.
  • Movement ledger that answers where the July SSD went.
  • Stock count at quarter end, with the difference posted and explained.

Illustration of stock on hand by warehouse at average cost, with a low-stock row highlighted and a movement ledger.

Spares and resold hardware with quantities and reorder levels.

Do we know what we make on resold hardware?

Yes, at product level. The invoice posts the sale, and the cost of the router at average cost posts to cost of goods sold in the same step, so the P&L shows hardware margin apart from service income.

  • Purchase orders to the distributor, received against the supplier bill.
  • Sales by product to see which hardware you resell most.
  • Supplier ageing for what you owe the Kochi distributor.

One system

What it connects to

Honest limits

What SimpleERP does not do yet

  • No batch, lot, serial or expiry tracking, and no barcode scanning
  • Weighted average cost only; there is no FIFO
  • No automatic reorder suggestions: the reorder level shows what is low, you decide what to buy
  • No serial numbers on resold devices, so warranty claims are traced by invoice, not by device

Getting started

Start with inventory

  1. Sign up with your phone

    Name, phone number and a password. No card for the seven-day trial, and email is optional.

  2. Tell us about the business

    Type your GSTIN and the state fills itself. Accounts, GST rates, units, roles and numbering are seeded for you.

  3. Add products and opening stock

    Add each router model and spare part as a product with its HSN code, and enter what sits in the cupboard today as opening stock.

  4. Post a bill and an invoice

    Stock rises on the purchase bill and falls on the invoice, at weighted average cost, with nothing to count by hand.

FAQ

Questions, answered

We only write software. Do we need any of this?

No. A firm that sells development, design and campaign retainers has nothing to count. Skip products, and SimpleERP shows no warehouses or stock screens; laptops still go in the asset register, which is a separate module.

Can we record the serial number of each router we sell?

Not as tracked stock. Serial numbers are not supported on products, so write the serial in the invoice line description where the client needs it on record. The asset register does hold serial numbers for your own laptops.

A spare went to a client under AMC with no charge. How is that recorded?

Post a stock adjustment that takes the part out with a reason naming the client and the AMC. The cost reaches the ledger, so free replacements show as a real cost of running the support contracts.

Where do the developers' laptops go?

The fixed asset register. Each laptop has its holder, serial number, cost and book value, depreciates every month, and shows on the developer's profile so it is collected when they leave.

Related

See how inventory works in SimpleERP for IT services and agencies

Seven days free. No card. Your first GST invoice in minutes.

Start free trialTalk to us