# Inventory Management > Know exactly what stock you have, where it is, and what it is committed to — without a manual stock count or a spreadsheet that's already out of date. **URL:** https://www.gosmarter.ai/solutions/inventory/ **Last updated:** 2026-05-05 --- Gain full visibility of your materials for higher margins ## Key Capabilities - **Real-Time Stock Visibility**: Know exactly what material you have on hand, including location and status — without walking the yard to count it. - **Material Tracking**: Follow material from goods-in to despatch with no gaps in the trail. Every movement logged, every location recorded. - **Commitment Management**: See what stock is allocated to live orders so you know what is genuinely available for new work. - **Reorder Alerts**: Get notified when stock falls below defined thresholds before it becomes a production stoppage. ## The Opportunity *Make inventory management your competitive edge* If you don't know what metal you have, you're losing money. It's that simple. - **Inventory Manager**: Know exactly what's on the rack right now, by grade, size, and quantity available versus committed. - **Scrap Logger**: Track what you bin so you can stop binning it. - **Offcut Manager**: Stop buying new steel when you have perfectly good offcuts sitting in the corner. GoSmarter tracks remnants from previous cuts as live stock, so your planners use them before reaching for new material. - **Cert-linked stock**: If you use [MillCert Reader](https://www.gosmarter.ai/products/mill-certificate-reader/), every stock item carries its full certificate history: grade, heat number, and mechanical properties. GoSmarter links each cert automatically when you receive the material. No manual entry. No missing paperwork. ## Why GoSmarter *Female worker doing inventory management* Stop running around the yard looking for steel. - **Real-Time Visibility**: Know what you have without walking out to count it. Whether you hold coil, plate, bar, or tube, GoSmarter tracks every item by form, size, grade, and quantity available across multiple grades and dimensions. - **No more stockouts**: Customers who track live inventory commitments typically cut emergency procurement by 30–40%. Stop paying premium prices for material you thought you had. It was committed to a job that shipped last week. - **Save Time**: Focus on getting orders out, not chasing stock. Accurate stock visibility means accurate delivery promises. When sales quotes are based on what is genuinely available and not what the system said last Tuesday, on-time delivery stops being a lottery. - **Connects to your existing systems**: Export stock data to your ERP or accounting software via CSV or API. Many customers run GoSmarter as their live production-floor view while the ERP handles invoicing. GoSmarter's inventory data is more current and more granular than what the ERP typically tracks. - **Certificate-linked from day one**: Every stock item is linked to its mill certificate from the moment material is received. Grade, heat number, and test results are visible alongside the stock record. No manual cross-referencing. When a customer asks for the cert for a specific delivery, your team retrieves it in seconds. ## How GoSmarter Inventory Works in Practice Here is what the process looks like for stock controllers and inventory managers in the first week. **Step 1: Import your existing stock.** Upload a spreadsheet or add stock manually as material arrives. Either way, setup takes less than an hour. Your starting position is live before the end of day one. No consultant. No IT project. **Step 2: Log material as it arrives.** When a delivery lands, your goods-in team records grade, form, length, weight, and quantity. If you use [MillCert Reader](https://www.gosmarter.ai/products/mill-certificate-reader/), the certificate links automatically at this point. The stock item carries full traceability from the moment it enters your facility. Heat numbers, mechanical properties, and grade data sit alongside the stock record. Nobody types a single value from a PDF. **Step 3: Allocate stock to live orders.** When a new order comes in, GoSmarter shows what is genuinely available: not just what is physically on the rack, but what is uncommitted. Sales can quote accurately. Production knows what to pull. Nobody allocates the same bar twice or promises material that shipped on a job last week. **Step 4: Track movements across locations.** GoSmarter logs every material movement: rack to saw, main store to satellite site, goods-in to external processor. You always know where material is. No more "I thought that was in the other building" or a 20-minute yard walkabout before anyone can answer a simple question. **Step 5: Act on alerts before it becomes a crisis.** GoSmarter notifies you when stock of a specific grade or dimension falls below your defined threshold. You raise a purchase order while you still have buffer stock. Not after production has stopped because the last bar went out on a job that shipped yesterday. ### What Changes for Each Role **Stock controllers** typically open GoSmarter first thing to check overnight activity. New deliveries logged by the night shift. Allocations made against late orders. The dashboard shows total stock value, uncommitted quantities by grade, and any items flagged as low. It replaces the morning walkabout that used to take 30 minutes before anyone knew what they actually had. **Yard managers** use the location view. GoSmarter shows material by bay and rack. When a saw operator needs a specific length or grade, they look it up instead of walking the yard or calling the stock controller. That one change saves dozens of small interruptions every day and keeps the floor moving without constant back-and-forth between teams. **Production planners** see committed versus available stock in the same view as their open order list. They know before they start planning whether the material exists. Jobs that used to get blocked at the saw, because allocated stock had already moved or was committed to another order, stop being a daily headache. ## Common Questions ### How long does it take to get inventory tracking up and running? Most teams are live within a day. You can import existing stock from a spreadsheet or add items manually. There's no lengthy implementation, no consultant required, and no waiting for an IT project to complete. If you can log into a website, you can use GoSmarter Inventory. ### Can GoSmarter track materials across multiple locations? Yes. GoSmarter tracks stock by location, so you can see what is at your main site, a satellite store, or an off-site facility — all from the same view. Transfers between locations are logged, giving you a complete audit trail without anyone having to fill in a paper movement sheet. ### Does GoSmarter integrate with our ERP or accounting system? GoSmarter works standalone or alongside your existing systems. Stock data can be exported via CSV or pushed to other systems via API. Many customers run GoSmarter as their production-floor source of truth while their ERP handles billing and procurement — because GoSmarter's inventory data is more current and more granular than what the ERP typically holds. See the [integration strategy](https://www.gosmarter.ai/docs/integration-strategy/) for the full picture, or browse the [API documentation](https://api-docs.gosmarter.ai/) directly. ### How does inventory link to mill certificates? If you use [MillCert Reader](https://www.gosmarter.ai/products/mill-certificate-reader/), certificate data links automatically to stock items when material is received. This means every item in your inventory carries its full certificate history — grade, heat number, mechanical properties — without anyone manually entering it. ## Start Tracking Stock in Under an Hour GoSmarter Inventory is part of the GoSmarter platform. It is free to trial for 14 days — no credit card required. Most teams have their existing stock imported and their first deliveries logged within the first hour. You do not need an IT team, a consultant, or a migration plan. If you have a spreadsheet with your current stock, you have everything you need to get started. Implementation is not a project. You log in, upload your stock list, and you are live. Once inventory is running, you can connect [Cutting Plans](https://www.gosmarter.ai/products/cutting-optimiser/) to plan jobs against real stock, and [MillCert Reader](https://www.gosmarter.ai/products/mill-certificate-reader/) to link every cert automatically at goods-in. Each tool works standalone and together. You add what you need, when you need it, without changing how the rest of your business works. ## Go deeper - [GoSmarter for Metals Operations](https://www.gosmarter.ai/hubs/gosmarter-for-metals-operations/) — how inventory management fits into the full GoSmarter production toolkit - [Scrap, Waste & Yield Optimisation](https://www.gosmarter.ai/hubs/scrap-waste-yield-optimisation/) — how smarter inventory control directly reduces material waste and improves yield - [Midland Steel Manufacturing Case Study](https://www.gosmarter.ai/casestudies/midland-steel/) — how a market-leading rebar supplier gained real-time inventory visibility linked to mill certificates - [Manual vs digital inventory tracking: which saves more time?](https://www.gosmarter.ai/blog/manual-vs-digital-inventory-tracking-which-saves-more-time/) — a direct comparison with worked numbers