Set up low stock alerts in QuickBooks Online

Learn how to set up alerts for products that are running low or out of stock in QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced.

Set up reorder points to keep tabs on your inventory. A reorder point is the threshold when you should reorder more of an inventory item. QuickBooks uses reorder points to let you know what’s running low and what’s out of stock. We’ll help you set them up, so you’ll always have what your customers want. When your stock is low, we’ll also help you reorder inventory from suppliers.

In this article, you'll learn how to:

• Set up your products’ reorder points
• Check what's running low or out of stock
• Create and send a purchase order
• Track what you receive from your supplier

Set up your products’ reorder points

There are two ways to set up your products’ reorder points.

• If you have new products, you can enter reorder points when you add what you sell in QuickBooks.
• If you have saved products that don’t have reorder points, you can edit these products to add them. Here's how.

Edit a product to add a reorder point

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Products & services (Take me there).
2. Find the product you want to have a reorder point.
3. Select Edit ✎ in the Action column.
4. In the Reorder point field, add the threshold when you should reorder more stock.
5. Select Save and close.

Check what’s running low or out of stock

You can prioritize ordering the products you need the most. Once you've set up your reorder points, here’s how to check if you have inventory items that are running low or out of stock.

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Products & services (Take me there).
2. At the top, you’ll quickly see if you have any stock items that are running low or out of stock. Select Low stock or Out of stock to see those items.

If you have low stock or out of stock alerts, continue to the next section to create and send a purchase order.

Create and send a purchase order

A purchase order is a document you send to suppliers to let them know what items you need.

To quickly create a purchase order:

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Products & services (Take me there).
2. Select Low Stock or Out of stock. If you need to reorder both low stock and out of stock products from the same supplier, don’t use any of the filters at the top.
3. Select the products as needed. Above the list of products you'll see a dropdown menu.
4. Select checkboxes of the Inventory products as needed. 
5. In Batch actions, select Reorder. This creates a purchase order for a single supplier.
6. Complete all the details of the purchase order, or add other items you need to reorder from the supplier.
7. Select Save and send.

Check what’s still on order

Stay on top of items on order. Go to Reports (Take me there), then find and run the Open Purchase Order Detail report.

Here you can see how many items are still on order and how many you’ve received so far.

Track what you receive from your supplier

There are two ways you can track what you receive from a supplier:

• Create a bill from the purchase order if you’ll pay your supplier later.
• Create a cheque or an expense from the purchase order if you paid your supplier on the spot.

This lets QuickBooks know that you restocked. Then, QuickBooks increases the quantity on hand by the number of items you received.

Pay your supplier

If you recorded a bill, record the payment in QuickBooks once you’ve paid your supplier.