Stock walks out of shops. The audit log is the record that lets you tell the difference between a sale, a mistake and something else — every movement, with the name of whoever caused it and the exact quantity before and after.
It is the most carefully built thing in the stock area, and it is worth understanding well.
Where to find it
Managers and above. On the Inventory page, press Audit Log at the top right. The stock table is replaced by the log.
For one product's history, open the product from Products and look at History at the bottom of its Inventory tab — the same log, already narrowed to that product.
Cashiers do not see the button, and the log refuses them if they reach for it another way.
Reading a row
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| When | Date and time. |
| Who | The name of the signed-in person. |
| What | The kind of movement, colour-coded. |
| Product | Which product (not shown on a single-product history). |
| Before → After | The quantity before, the quantity after, and the change in brackets — green up, red down. |
| Source | The reference and the reason, e.g. received: pallet short two cases. |
Newest first — 25 rows a page in the full view, 10 in a product's History panel.
The kinds of movement
| Written when | |
|---|---|
| Sale | An item was sold. One row per line, attributed to the cashier. |
| Refund | Stock came back on a refund. |
| Set | Someone set an exact number. |
| Adjust | Someone applied a signed change. |
| Count | Someone recorded a physical count. |
| Transfer out / Transfer in | The two sides of a move between stores, made with the Transfer panel on the Inventory page. They share a reference, so they read as one transfer. |
quick_transfer |
Both sides of a Quick transfer from the Transfers page. It arrives as that raw word on a grey badge, not as Transfer out / Transfer in, and the All types filter does not list it. |
| PO receipt | Stock credited by receiving a purchase order. |
Filtering
Three dropdowns above the log: All products, All users, All types. Combine them freely. The refresh button re-reads the log.
The All types list does not cover every kind of movement the system
records. A badge showing a plain lower-case word — quick_transfer is the
one you are most likely to meet — is a real row that no setting of that filter
will bring up. Scroll for it, or narrow by product instead.
The product dropdown lists the products the Inventory page has loaded, so on a catalog larger than 200 items it will not list everything — open the product and use its own History panel instead.
There is no location filter on this screen, even though every row belongs to a location.
Using it
Before / After is the column that matters. A row that says 40 → 12 (-28)
with reason Correction and no note is worth a conversation. A run of Sale rows
between two counts tells you what the register thinks it sold; the gap between
that and your Count row is the shrink.
Two habits make it work:
- Insist on the real reason. The reason is required, so people will pick something — usually the first item in the list. A log full of Other tells you nothing. Ask staff to use Damaged / Expired, Shrinkage / Loss and Customer Return honestly, and to type a note.
- Ban the Quick Edit pencil. A stock change made through the pencil on the products list writes no row here at all. It is the one way to move stock invisibly, which is exactly why nobody should be using it. See Add a product.
What it will not do
It is a screen, not a report. There is no export, no shrink total and no period summary. Reading it is a manual review — worth doing weekly on the Adjust, Count and Refund types, which is where a problem shows up first.