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Inventory setup is short but consequential. Locations and units are difficult to change once movements exist against them.

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Step 1 — Create your locations

A location is anywhere you hold stock: a shop, a warehouse, a store room, a delivery vehicle.
1

Open Inventory, then Locations

Choose New location.
2

Name it as your staff refer to it

“Main Store”, “Cairo Road Shop”, “Warehouse”. Names people already use are names people remember.
3

Add the address

Where it physically is.
4

Save

Your first location automatically becomes the default.

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How many locations?

Start with fewer. Splitting later is straightforward; merging is not.

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Step 2 — Units of measure

Bumara includes standard units: each, kilogram, litre, box, and others. Most businesses need nothing more.

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Adding your own

1

Open Inventory, then Settings, then Units

Choose New unit.
2

Give it a code and a name

A short code such as CTN, and a full name such as Carton.
3

Save

Codes must be unique.

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Conversions

If you buy in boxes and sell in singles, define the conversion — one box equals twelve each.
1

Open Units, then Conversions

Choose New conversion.
2

Define the relationship

From unit, to unit, and the factor between them.
3

Save

You can now record operations in either unit.
Choose each item’s unit carefully at the start. Changing an item’s unit once movements exist against it makes historical quantities ambiguous — 50 of something is meaningless if the unit changed halfway through.

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Step 3 — Create your items

See Items for the full detail. At minimum each item needs a name, a code, a unit and, ideally, a reorder level.

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Step 4 — Enter your opening balances

This is how your existing stock gets into Bumara.
1

Count what you actually have

Physically, item by item, location by location. Do not work from a spreadsheet that may itself be wrong.
2

Create an adjustment

Inventory → Adjustments → New adjustment. Select the location.
3

Set the reason to Opening balance

This distinguishes it from later corrections, which matters when you review your history.
4

Add a line per item

Item, quantity, unit. Positive quantities, since you are bringing stock in.
5

Check it against your count sheet

Line by line. This is your starting point — an error here follows you around.
6

Post it

Stock balances are created.
7

Repeat for each location

One opening balance adjustment per location.
Do your opening count on a day when nothing is moving — before opening, or after closing. Counting while stock is being sold or received produces a balance that was never true.

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Step 5 — Set reorder levels

For each item you cannot trade without, set the level at which you want to be warned. A reasonable starting point is enough stock to cover your normal usage over the time it takes your supplier to deliver, plus a margin. Set them on the items that matter. Setting them everywhere produces alerts you will learn to ignore.

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Step 6 — Assign users to locations

If you operate from more than one location, assign staff to the ones they work at. They then see that location’s stock rather than everything. See Team and roles. If you sell stocked items through Invoicing, match the product codes to the inventory item codes. Selling then moves the stock automatically. Do this consistently from the start — retro-matching a catalogue of a few hundred products is tedious.

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Setup checklist

  • Locations created, with the right default
  • Units configured, with any conversions you need
  • Items created with correct units
  • Reorder levels set on critical items
  • Counted physically, not from a spreadsheet
  • Counted when nothing was moving
  • Recorded as an adjustment with reason “opening balance”
  • Checked against the count sheet before posting
  • One per location
  • Staff assigned to locations
  • Product codes matched to item codes
  • Someone trained on adjustments, transfers and counts
  • Low stock notifications configured — see Reminders
Next: Items.
Last modified on August 4, 2026