using trello boards for stock hire items

[Paul Bunting]

Hi There, 

I currently use trello boards as a CRM system working alongside an accounting software system

Its good for have boards that can be moved for progress on quotations etc but I am after something that controls the stock that we eventually sell. We create a board for each sale/item but thats all I can work out what todo.

I need that board/item to work better, like a stock item where I can see how many stock items I have and produce reports on whats on hire and due to come back in etc.

Is that something someone can help me with ?

Thanks in advance.

Paul Bunting

www.supply-it.co.uk

United Kingdom

[Brittany Joiner]

Hey @Paul Bunting ! Welcome to the community!

I actually think Trello is a great way to keep track of stock items. If you're worried about losing data, check out the Backups for Trello Power-Up, which will back up all your data. 

As far as how to use it, you could use each card for a SKU, and incorporate custom fields to track the quantity on hand. 

Lists could be categories of products, and labels could be descriptions etc. 

You could get fancy and incorporate some Butler rules to add certain labels like "time to order" when a custom field number gets below a certain number.

Let me know if you need more ideas! I think this is a cool use case... i might write a post about it.

[milynnus]

• @Paul Bunting 

Prior to my retirement, I spent most of working life as a system integrator for commercial as well as public sector clients.

Trello is a collaboration platform and should be used as such. It is ok to use Trello to progress sales but I would not recommend using Trello as a database for your inventory. The integrity of your inventory cannot be assured. For example it does not handle concurrent access, automatic fail over and recovery, …etc. If you must,  I would recommend that you engage a software architect to handle the interface to the inventory dbms. 

If your stock items are like small number of vehicles, Trello might work just like a RV Rental client I have. 

[Paul Bunting]

Many thanks for your informative response

Much appreciated

[milynnus]

@Paul Bunting 

I should have visited your website first before responding. It looks like you are into supply vehicles for different purposes. It is a similar business model as the recreational vehicle rental and service business of my us client. He has reservations that takes the vehicle “on the road” and upon return “goes through as turn over phase” including repairs before put “ready for rental”.