How counting works
Three distinctions explain nearly every number in the app. They are worth ten minutes once, because they are what makes two screens that look like they disagree actually agree.
Products and items
A product is the thing, described once: Stackable red plastic Chair, its category, its dimensions, its photo. An item is one actual unit of it, in one actual room.
Creating a product adds nothing to the building’s count. Adding inventory does.
Tracked items and balances
Within a room, a product’s units are counted in two ways:
- Tracked with a QR code — units that carry a Relieve label and have their own record, history and comments.
- Counted as a balance — units that are simply a quantity. Four of these, in here.
Both are equally real inventory and both count towards every total. Tagging a unit moves it from one column to the other without changing the total — see Tag an item with a QR code.
Active, Missing and removed
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Here now | Active, with a confirmed room. |
| Missing | Active, but no confirmed room — a count came up short. |
| Removed | Gone from the building, with a reason: donated, sold, recycled, scrapped. |
Missing items are still owned, so they stay in the building’s total. Removed items leave it. This is why the Distribution screen shows Here now and Missing separately but adds them together.
Nothing becomes Missing by itself. It only happens when somebody completes a room in a stocktake and the count was short — which is why counting matters more than it looks.
Undo
Most changes leave a toast with Undo for as long as reversing them is still safe. After that, a change is corrected by making the opposite change, which keeps the history honest rather than quietly rewriting it.