Inventory
Track the consumables, instruments, and supplies your practice uses with hospital-grade depth: stock split across physical locations, lot and expiry tracking, purchase orders, barcode scanning, and a full movement history. HM Praxis also ties inventory directly to services and appointments so stock decrements automatically as you complete visits.
Each device (or organization, if you sync) has its own inventory. HM Praxis does not connect to supplier catalogs - you maintain the item list yourself.
Setting Up Inventory
Open the Inventory Page
From the sidebar, click Inventory. The page splits into two views: Items and Categories. Start in Categories.
Create Categories First
Categories group items by use ("Consumables", "Sterilization", "Restorative materials"). Click Add Category and give it a name and optional description. You can create as many as you need.
Add an Inventory Item
Switch to the Items tab and click Add Item. Fill in:
- Name (for example, "Nitrile gloves, size M")
- Category from the list you built
- Unit (box, piece, ml, g)
- Quantity in stock (current count)
- Minimum stock alert (triggers a warning on the dashboard)
- Cost per unit for revenue/cost reports
- Supplier for reorder reference (optional)
Save and Verify
Click Save. The item appears in the list with a stock status pill: In Stock, Low Stock (below the minimum alert), or Out of Stock. The dashboard's inventory alerts widget surfaces every item that is low or out.
The minimum should be your reorder threshold, not zero. If you order gloves every two weeks and use one box a day, set the minimum at 14 boxes so the alert fires before you run out.
Browsing by Category
The default Inventory landing is a category grid, not a flat list of every item. This keeps a large catalog navigable: you drill into a category to see its items rather than scrolling thousands of rows. Each category tile shows a live rollup:
- Item count in the category
- Low-stock count - how many items in it are at or below their minimum
- Stock value - the total value of stock in that category (quantity times cost)
The category-first layout is what lets the same Inventory page serve a solo practice with 40 items and a hospital department with thousands. Open only the category you are working in.
Identifying Items at a Glance
Items, categories, and locations can each carry an image so your team recognizes them instantly. Add a photo of the box, the cabinet, or the cart and it appears on the tile.
When there is no image, HM Praxis shows a colored tile with the first letter of the name, so every entry still has a clear, consistent visual identity even before you add pictures.
Adjusting Stock
Stock is adjusted in two ways:
Manual adjustment
Open an item and click Adjust Stock. Enter the change (positive for received stock, negative for waste or correction) and a reason. Every adjustment is written to the item's stock history.
Automatic consumption
When you complete an appointment with used materials, HM Praxis decrements stock by the used quantities. No manual entry needed.
Barcode Scanning
The Inventory page has a Scan a barcode field in the toolbar. Point a USB or Bluetooth barcode scanner at an item's label - a scanner simply types the SKU and presses Enter - and HM Praxis jumps straight to that item's stock adjustment so you can correct the count in seconds.
You do not need special hardware. Typing an item's SKU into the field and pressing Enter does exactly the same thing as a physical scan.
Multi-Location Stock
A single item often lives in several places at once - some in an operatory, some in the main storeroom, some on a mobile cart. HM Praxis lets you place one authoritative total across physical locations and tracks the remainder for you.
Define Your Locations
Open Manage locations from the Inventory toolbar and add the physical places stock actually lives. Each location has a type:
- Department (for example, "Endodontics")
- Room or operatory
- Cart (a mobile supply cart)
- Storage (a stockroom or cabinet)
- Pharmacy
- Other for anything that does not fit
Set the Authoritative Total
The item's quantity in stock stays the single source of truth for how much you own. You do not change that number when you place stock - you simply describe where the existing total sits.
HM Praxis subtracts everything you have placed into locations from the authoritative total and shows the remainder as an Unassigned bucket. You never edit Unassigned directly - it always reflects "owned but not yet placed anywhere".
Place Stock Into Locations
Enter how many units sit in each location. As you place stock, the Unassigned remainder drops. HM Praxis guards against over-placing: it will not let the sum across locations exceed the authoritative total, so your placements can never invent stock you do not have.
Set Per-Location Reorder Points
Each location can carry its own reorder point, independent of the item's overall minimum. A busy operatory might warn at 5 while the main storeroom warns at 50, so the right shelf gets refilled before it runs dry even when the item total still looks healthy.
Lots, Batches, and Expiry
For anything that expires - anesthetics, reagents, medications - track stock as lots (batches). Each lot records:
- Lot number from the manufacturer
- Expiry date
- Quantity in that lot
- Location (optional) - where the lot is stored
Lots are color-coded by expiry: a lot that is expiring soon or already expired is flagged so it never gets used past its date or buried on a shelf.
When a lot is expired or expiring soon, HM Praxis surfaces an expiry alert in the notification bell and on the dashboard, so the whole team sees it - not just whoever happens to open that item.
Stock History
Every item keeps a movement ledger - a complete audit trail of how its quantity changed over time, shown newest first. The history records:
- Manual adjustments, with the reason you entered
- Automatic consumption from completed appointments
- Stock received from a purchase order
When a count looks wrong, open the item's history. The ledger shows each change in order, so you can trace exactly when and why the quantity moved.
Purchase Orders and Receiving
Order stock from your vendors with a proper purchase order (PO) workflow. Drafting and ordering is pure record-keeping; stock only moves when you receive.
Draft the Order
From the Inventory toolbar open Purchase orders and click New purchase order. Choose a vendor, then add item lines - each line is an item, a quantity, and a unit cost. The order starts in Draft status.
Mark it Ordered
Once you have sent the order to your supplier, move it from Draft to Ordered. This is a record-keeping state - it tells your team the stock is on its way.
Drafting or ordering changes nothing in your on-hand counts. Quantities only move when you receive the order, so an open PO never inflates your inventory.
Receive Into Stock
When the delivery arrives, open the order and click Receive. HM Praxis applies every line to stock at once, increasing each item's quantity by what was ordered, and moves the order to Received. The receipt is captured in each item's stock history.
Cancel if Needed
An order you no longer need can be moved to Cancelled. A cancelled order, like a draft, never affects stock. The lifecycle is Draft → Ordered → Received, with Cancelled available as an off-ramp before receiving.
Linking Materials to Services
On the Services page, every service can declare which inventory items it uses and in what quantity. When that service is added to an appointment, the materials are pre-loaded as planned. This is what makes the workflow fast: you do not enter materials per visit, you maintain them per service.
- Service "Dental cleaning" links to: 2x gauze, 1x prophy paste, 4x gloves
- Booking a cleaning auto-plans those materials
- Completing the appointment confirms or adjusts the actual use
- Stock decrements based on what was actually used
Low-Stock Alerts
Any item with quantity in stock at or below its minimum stock alert shows on:
- The main Dashboard's inventory alerts widget
- The Inventory page, with a yellow/red status pill
- The Reports page, with usage history to plan reorders
Alerts are visual only. Use them to drive your reorder workflow with your normal suppliers.
Inventory Reporting
The Reports page includes:
- Top-used materials by month
- Monthly material cost trends
- Reservations for upcoming appointments (planned but not yet used)
- Stock-status snapshot for any date range
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