# Introduction - Stock Adjustments

An adjustment changes quantity or value on hand with no sale and no purchase behind it.

**Video coming soon:** Correcting a count after a stocktake, and choosing the reason that explains it.

It is the correction of last resort: the right tool for a stocktake difference, breakage or expiry, and the wrong tool for anything that has a proper document behind it.

![The Stock Adjustments screen, subtitled Manage and track all stock adjustments, and its Adjustment action. Columns read Date, Adjustment number, Reason, Description, Type, Warehouse, Status and Total Value. Reasons include Expired Items, Audit Adjustment, Found Items, Damaged goods, Physical Count Discrepancy, Stock Written off and Initial Stock Setup. Type is either Quantity or Value, warehouses name Rotherham Central, Sheffield Depot, Glasgow Depot, Birmingham Trade Counter and Bristol Distribution Centre, and status is Adjusted or Draft.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/inventory/stock-adjustments/adjustments-list.png)

*Twenty adjustments, each with a reason. The Total Value column is what a quantity change was worth.*

## Before you adjust, check nothing else fits

An adjustment has no counterparty, so it explains nothing about where the goods went. That is exactly why it is easy to reach for and worth resisting.

| What happened | What to raise |
| --- | --- |
| A stocktake found fewer units | Stock adjustment, Physical Count Discrepancy |
| Goods broke in the warehouse | Stock adjustment, Damaged goods |
| Stock passed its shelf life | Stock adjustment, Expired Items |
| Goods arrived from a vendor | Purchase receive, not an adjustment |
| Goods went out to a customer | Shipment, not an adjustment |
| Goods moved between depots | Stock transfer, not an adjustment |
| A customer sent goods back | Sales return, not an adjustment |

## Quantity or value

The choice is made per adjustment, not per line, and the list shows it as the Type column.

- **Quantity** (the count changes): You hold more or fewer units than recorded. Value moves with the quantity, at the item's current cost.
- **Value** (the cost changes): The count is right but what it is worth is not. Used for writing down obsolete or damaged stock that still physically exists.

## Draft and adjusted

![A stock adjustment record showing its number, reason, warehouse and status, with the adjusted line items listed beneath and an activity panel at the right recording who created it and when.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/inventory/stock-adjustments/adjustment-detail.png)

*An adjustment that has been through Adjust Inventory has moved stock. A draft has not.*

A draft adjustment has changed nothing: no count has moved and no value has posted. Only **Adjust Inventory** does that, and once it has, the document is a movement rather than an editable form.

> **Warning:**
>
> **There is no editing back**
>
> A wrong adjustment is corrected with a second adjustment, which is honest and leaves both on the record. Deleting is available only while it is still a draft.

## What an adjustment costs you

A write-off is a real cost hitting a real account, and unlike a sale it earns nothing.

- An adjustment down posts the value to the account you choose on the form.
- An adjustment up posts value into your stock asset from that same account.
- Neither touches revenue. There is no sale.
- The reason code is what makes the monthly total explainable rather than embarrassing.

> **Note:**
>
> **A pattern of adjustments is a process problem**
>
> One adjustment is a correction. The same item adjusted every month means something upstream is wrong: goods leaving undocumented, receives entered short, or a unit of measure nobody agrees on.