Mobile Repair Shop Inventory Management
A drawer of spare screens isn't inventory until someone can say how many are left without opening it. Here's what actually needs tracking, and the one habit that keeps the count honest.
The Drawer Problem
Most small repair shops start with parts in a drawer and a rough mental count. That works until a technician grabs a screen mid-repair, doesn't log it anywhere, and three weeks later a purchase order gets raised for stock that was already there — or worse, a repair gets delayed because everyone thought there was one more IC left.
What to Track
Six things worth tracking, not just a count
- Which parts, by name and quantity — screens, batteries, ICs, connectors
- Batch or serial number, so a faulty batch can be traced back to its supplier
- Which warehouse or shelf a part sits in, if you separate counter and bench stock
- Reorder point — the quantity that should trigger a new purchase order
- New vs second-hand/salvaged parts, tracked as separate stock lines
- Which supplier a part came from, and at what cost
The One Habit: Link the Part to the Job Card
Everything else is secondary to this: the moment a part is used on a repair, it needs to leave stock in the same step the job card records it. Separate the two — log the repair now, update stock "later" — and later never quite happens. That drift is what makes shop owners stop trusting their own inventory numbers.
The Mistake: One Undifferentiated Stock Pile
Mixing new parts, second-hand/salvaged parts, and parts under warranty claim into one count hides the real margin on every repair that uses them. A salvaged screen and a new one might sell at the same customer price but have very different costs behind them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why track spare parts by batch or serial number instead of just a count?
A count tells you '12 screens left.' A batch or serial tells you which supplier they came from, when they arrived, and lets you trace a faulty batch back to its source if several fail. For ICs and boards especially, that traceability matters when a part fails again.
What's the most common way repair shop inventory goes wrong?
A technician takes a part for a repair, but it's never deducted from stock — so the shelf count and the system count drift apart. Weeks later, nobody trusts the inventory numbers at all, and everyone goes back to physically checking the drawer.
Should second-hand or salvaged parts be tracked separately from new stock?
Yes. A screen pulled from a traded-in phone has a different cost basis and quality expectation than one bought new from a supplier — mixing them in the same stock line makes margin calculations meaningless.
Do I need multiple warehouses if I only have one shop?
No — a single location is one warehouse. Multiple warehouses matter once you have more than one branch, or you separate 'counter stock' from 'bench stock' physically and want the system to reflect that.
Read next
See parts inventory alongside the rest of the shop on Kiwikit Mobile Repair Software, or go back to the full shop management overview.
Try Kiwikit Free for 3 Days
A part issued to a repair leaves stock in the same step the job card records it — batches, serial numbers and multiple warehouses included.