Key Concepts

Wasp Inventory is built on a handful of ideas that show up everywhere in the app, and it sticks to the terms your industry already uses wherever it can. Once these click, the rest of the software makes a lot more sense. Here’s a plain-language guide to each one.

Items and item types

An item is a product you track. Every item has a type that tells Wasp Inventory how to treat it:

Inventory — physical stock you count and keep on hand.
Non-Inventory — something you buy or sell but don’t count as stock.
Assembly — an item built from other items following a recipe (a bill of materials). Assemblies are put together using Build Orders.
Kit — a bundle of items grouped together and gathered at the moment it’s sold or picked.
Service — labor or another non-physical offering.

For a fuller explanation of each type and when to choose it, see Understanding item types and Assemblies, kits, and services.

Sites, Locations, and Zones

These describe where your stock lives, from big to small:

Site — a physical building or warehouse.
Zone — an optional grouping of locations, useful for organizing a large site. Many accounts don’t use zones.
Location — a specific spot within a site, such as a shelf or bin.

Stock always lives at a location within a site. You set these up under Lookups: see Sites and Locations and zones.

Tracking by serial, lot, and date code

Some items need more detail than a simple count. Wasp Inventory can track items by:

Serial number — a unique identifier for each individual unit.
Lot or batch — a group of units produced or received together.
Date code — an expiration or best-by date.

Vendors vs. Customers

These are the two sides of your inventory flow:

Vendors are who you buy from, using Purchase Orders.
Customers are who you sell or ship to, using Pick Orders.

Transactions

A transaction is any action that changes your stock. The main ones are:

Add — bring stock in.
Remove — take stock out.
Adjust — correct a quantity up or down.
Move — shift stock from one location to another.
Check Out — issue stock to a customer or vendor, keeping it on your books as out.
Check In — return checked-out stock.

Purchase Orders and Receiving

A Purchase Order (PO) is an order you place with a vendor for stock. When the shipment arrives, you Receive it, which brings the items into your inventory.

Pick Orders and Picking

A Pick Order is a request to fulfill items for a customer. Picking is the act of gathering those items so they’re ready to ship.

Audits

An audit is a check that your physical stock matches what the system says you have. You open an Audit Window, perform the Audit by counting, and then Reconcile any differences so your records match reality.

Editions

Wasp Inventory comes in two editions that unlock progressively more capability:

Basic — core inventory management.
Complete — adds advanced features such as purchase and pick orders, products (build orders), pricing tiers, callouts, and sequence locations.

Common questions

What’s the difference between an audit and an adjustment? An audit is a planned count of many items that you reconcile against the system; an adjust is a quick correction to one item’s quantity. Use an adjustment for a one-off fix, an audit for a periodic count.
When should I use a Kit instead of an Assembly? Choose an Assembly when you build stock ahead of time and keep the finished item on the shelf; choose a Kit when the bundle is put together at the moment it’s sold or picked. See Assemblies, kits, and services.
Do I have to use serial, lot, or date-code tracking? No: it’s optional per item. Turn it on only for items that genuinely need that level of detail, since it adds a step when you move stock.
How do I know which edition I have? Your administrator can confirm. If a feature in this guide isn’t on your screen, your edition or your role may not include it.