When you receive inventory in NetSuite, you may want to be able to assign different statuses to the inventory. Let’s take a look at what using inventory statuses in NetSuite looks like. 

Setting Up Inventory Statuses in NetSuite

Before you can start selecting inventory statuses while receiving inventory, there are a couple things you need to do. 

Enable Features

First, you might need to turn on this feature in Enable Features. You can find this feature in the Inventory section of the Items & Inventory tab of Enable Features. If the Inventory Status feature is not available in your account, contact your NetSuite account manager. 

The Inventory Status Record

Once you have enabled the Inventory Status feature, you can create inventory status records. NetSuite automatically creates a default inventory status of “Good,” but to create your own inventory statuses, navigate to Lists > Supply Chain > Inventory Status > New. 

On this page, you will name your status based on what you wish this status to communicate about your inventory. For example, you might have an “Available” status and an “Unavailable” status. You may wish to label inventory that you receive in bad condition as “Damaged.” The checkbox “Make Inventory Available for Commitment” is located directly under the name field, and it is checked by default. When this box is checked for an inventory status, any inventory that is assigned that inventory status will be available for commitment on orders. Conversely, inventory statuses that do not check this box will not be available on orders. When creating an inventory status, you can also provide a translation for the languages that you use in your NetSuite account. 

Using Inventory Statuses in NetSuite

After creating all the inventory statuses in NetSuite that you will need, you are ready to start using them. 

Assigning Inventory Statuses

How do you assign inventory statuses to your inventory? On an item receipt record, you would go to the Items section of the Items & Expenses tab. There, select the Inventory Detail field to choose a status. 

NetSuite will open a small window where you can set the inventory status of this item.

Changing Inventory Statuses

At times, you may find that you need to update an item’s inventory status. For example, an item that had been marked as “Available” may be damaged in the warehouse and need to be changed to a status like “Damaged.” To change an item’s status, navigate to Transactions > Inventory > Inventory Status Change.

On this page, you will provide the date of the status change, the location for the status, and both the previous and revised dates of the status. Then, at the bottom of the page you will be able to select the items that this change will apply to. You can make this change to many items all at once, as long as the previous and revised states are the same for each item.

Inventory Status Analytics

Suppose you want to see some statistics on your inventory statuses. To do that, you could run an inventory balance search. Navigate to Lists > Search > Saved Searches > New, and select Inventory Balance from the list. In the Criteria section of the new search, you can filter by things like Item, Inventory Number, Location, On Hand, Bin Number, and, of course, Status. Filtering your search by a specific inventory status will enable you to easily see what inventory is assigned to certain statuses.

Inactivating Inventory Statuses

Once you have used an inventory status, you cannot delete it. So in the event that you no longer need a certain inventory status in your account, you can inactivate that status. To do that, open the inventory status record and select the Inactive checkbox. 

Conclusion

The ability to use inventory statuses in NetSuite is just another way to ensure that you are managing your inventory well. If this blog was helpful, be sure to subscribe to the SuiteRep newsletter below to receive new SuiteRep blog posts directly in your inbox once a week!