> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.sable.salon/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Products, scanning, and stock

> Track retail and back-bar inventory by scanning barcodes, and let low-stock alerts do the counting.

**Inventory** tracks both sides of your product shelf: retail you sell to
clients, and back-bar you use behind the chair. Color, developer, shampoo,
tools: if you buy it and use it, this is where it stops being a mystery
expense.

## The catalog

Every product has a type: **Retail**, **Back-bar**, or both, and a
category (color, developer, lightener, shampoo, conditioner, treatment,
styling, tools). The stats across the top keep score: what's on hand,
what's running low, and what you've spent this month. When everything's
fine, it says so: **All good**.

Search and filters get you to any product fast, which matters more than it
sounds once the catalog is a few hundred products deep.

## Add products by scanning

The fastest way to build your catalog is the scanner: scan a product's
barcode and Sable looks it up, so most products arrive with their name and
details already filled in. No barcode or no match? Add it manually; it
takes a minute.

Scan as you unbox your next order and the catalog builds itself as a side
effect of restocking.

## Stock, counts, and the low-stock line

Open any product for its full picture: **current stock**, **stock value**,
**last restocked**, purchase history, and recent usage.

Two habits keep the numbers honest:

* **Adjust stock with a reason.** Received a shipment, ran a cycle count,
  found breakage: adjust the count and note why. The adjustment log
  remembers, so January-you can reconstruct what happened in October.
* **Set a low-stock threshold** per product (**Low-stock at**). When stock
  crosses the line, the product shows up in your low-stock count before it
  becomes a mid-color emergency.

## Retail at checkout

Retail products are sellable straight from
[checkout](/guides/payments/checkout-refunds-and-receipts), and the sale
draws down stock automatically. The shelf and the numbers stay in
agreement without a clipboard involved.

## Why back-bar tracking is worth it

Retail tracks itself through sales. Back-bar is where the quiet money
leaks: color over-dispensed, developer that evaporates into "we're out
again." Tracking usage per product shows your real cost per service, and
your [reports](/guides/reports/understand-your-reports) compare product
cost against revenue so you can see whether the back bar is priced into
your services or eating them.

## Related

* [Checkout, refunds, and receipts](/guides/payments/checkout-refunds-and-receipts)
* [Understand your reports](/guides/reports/understand-your-reports)

**Still stuck?** Visit the [Help Center](/help) to submit a support ticket.