Inventory Value History report

The Inventory Value History report charts one stock value per month, helping you see whether the money tied up in stock is growing or shrinking.

The report is included in the Pro plan and above. On another plan, the page shows what the report does and an invitation to upgrade.

Open the report

1. Open Reports in the top navigation bar.
2. Select Inventory Value History from the list of reports. The report loads with the last 12 months already selected.
3. Use the From and To date boxes above the chart to change the period. The report reloads automatically each time you change a date.

Reports only appears in the top navigation bar if your account has the reports permission. If you do not see it, ask whoever administers your organisation to grant it.

There is a Refresh button at the top of the page. You do not need it after changing a date, only to pull the figures again after someone has recorded new stock movements.

Choose a date range

The range is capped at 24 months. The From box will not let you pick a date more than 24 months before the To date. If you move the To date forward, the From date moves up with it rather than the report returning an error. The To date cannot be in the future.

Every month is measured at its last day, including the current month. Entries already dated later in the current month are counted, so the newest point is not strictly today's value.

Understand the values

Each point is the value of the stock you still held on the last day of that month. It is not what you bought or sold that month. A month with heavy buying and heavy selling can end flat.

Units are priced using your organisation's valuation method: FIFO, LIFO or Average Cost. The method in use appears on the right of the chart header, next to Valuation Method, as FIFO, LIFO or Average.

The method is set once for the whole organisation in your organisation settings, in the Main Settings section, under Inventory Method. If it has never been set, the report uses FIFO. Changing it changes every month in the report, not just future ones.

The cost of a received unit is its purchase price converted into your organisation's currency using the conversion rate on that purchase order, plus the landed cost allocated to that line. Opening stock entered when a product was first set up is valued at the unit cost recorded on that entry. Finished goods that were assembled are valued from the assembly that produced them.

Opening stock entered without a unit cost still counts towards the quantity but carries no cost of its own. A product set up that way can make a month look lower than you expect.

What changes a month's value

Goods delivered against a purchase order increase value at the delivery date. Stock going out, transfers out, units consumed by an assembly and units marked defective decrease it. Quantity adjustments can move it either way, while value adjustments recorded against a product change value without changing quantity.

A product only contributes to a month if it was still holding stock at that month-end. If its quantity had fallen to zero, it contributes nothing to that month, including any value adjustment recorded against it.

Free supplier replacements

Replacement units sent free of charge under a supplier claim arrive on a zero-value purchase order, so the supplier is owed nothing. In this report, they carry the cost of the defective units they replace. A free replacement therefore raises your inventory value even though you paid nothing for it.

If you are still holding the defective units, the replacements that stand in for them enter at no cost because the defective units still carry that value. The value stays the same when you later return or scrap the defective units.

Compare with Inventory Valuation

The Inventory Valuation report prices your stock at one date you choose and lists it product by product, with quantity, average unit cost and value. You can filter it by supplier, category or warehouse and include inactive or zero-quantity products.

Inventory Value History has no product lines. It gives one total per month for the whole business, with only a category breakdown underneath it. Use Inventory Valuation to see what stock is worth today and which products make it up; use Inventory Value History to see how you got there.

Break down the chart by category

Use the buttons in the strip above the chart to break down the trend by category. With no category selected, the chart shows a single shaded area for the total. Select one or more categories to switch to stacked bars, with one colour per category and the total drawn over them as a line.

The single button in the middle of the strip selects or clears every category at once. It reads Show all until all categories are selected, then reads Hide all. Use Total to hide or show the total itself.

The category strip only appears if your organisation has categories set up. Products with no category are grouped under Uncategorized. If you clear every category and turn Total off, the chart has nothing left to draw and appears empty.

Read the tiles and monthly data

The four tiles above the chart read as follows.

Current Value is the last month in your selected range. Monthly Change compares that last month with the month before it, in your currency and as a percentage. Value Range shows the lowest and highest month in the range.

The third tile is labelled 12-Month Average, but it averages whichever months you have selected. If you widen the range to 24 months, it is a 24-month average despite the label.

If your range covers only one month, there is no earlier month to compare against, so Monthly Change shows that month's whole value as an increase. The percentage shows 0% in that case and whenever the previous month ended at zero.

The Products column in the Monthly Data table counts products that already existed at that month-end: those entered by then or with a stock movement dated on or before it. It is not a count of products that were holding stock.

Every product counts, whatever its status today. A product you have since made inactive, hidden from inventory or deleted still contributes to the months in which it held stock, so tidying up the product list does not change past months. If your account is restricted to certain departments, you only see products in those departments, so your totals will be lower than a colleague's with full access.

Export monthly data

Click Export at the top right of the Monthly Data table. It is greyed out if the report returned no months. The file downloads as inventory-value-history, with the from and to dates in the filename.

The export contains Month, Value, Products, Change and Change % only. It does not include the chart's per-category breakdown, so take a screenshot if you need it for a board pack.

Permission to view values

The reports permission opens this report but not the money in it. Without the View Inventory Value permission, every amount shows as a dash and the category strip is not shown. An owner always has this permission.