Truck stock is the inventory riding in each service vehicle, and it is the hardest inventory in a service business to keep honest because it moves without paperwork. A truck stock system sets a par level per part per vehicle, draws consumption from completed work orders rather than a count, and raises a replenishment line when a bin hits its minimum. An authorization threshold sits between that line and a purchase order.
Why the truck count never matches the shelf
Parts leave the van without touching a ticket
The tech uses a fitting, a length of PEX, and two push-to-connect couplings. None of it reaches the work order because each piece felt too small to bother with. The count on paper holds and the bin empties anyway.
Every truck carries a different mix and nobody wrote it down
The senior tech’s van is stocked the way he likes it. The new hire’s van was loaded from whatever was in the warehouse his first week. With no par list per vehicle, there is nothing to replenish against.
Restocking is something that happens on the way to a call
The tech realizes he is out of something mid-route. He stops at the supply house, buys at counter price, and the purchase never gets coded to a job. It lands in overhead, and the warehouse still believes he has four.
Special-order parts sit on a shelf with no owner
A blower motor gets ordered for one customer. The job is rescheduled, then cancelled. The part sits past the vendor’s return window and eventually gets counted as stock nobody can use.
Par levels, consumption, and the restock authorization threshold
Replenishment is three mechanisms shops treat as one: what should be on the truck, what came off it, and who may approve putting it back. This is how each gets modeled.
| Mechanism | How it is set | What moves it | What it produces |
|---|---|---|---|
| Par level, per part per vehicle | From the call types that truck runs, corrected after a season of consumption | Changed deliberately. A par is a decision, not a rolling average | The stock list a tech picks from, and the target replenishment aims at |
| Minimum, or reorder point | Par less what that truck goes through in a typical week | Consumption posted from completed work orders | A replenishment line the moment on-hand reaches it |
| Consumption from work orders | Nothing to set. It is the parts picked on the ticket | A tech picks from his van list and closes the ticket | A decrement against that vehicle, and a cost line against the job |
| Counter purchases | Coded to job and vehicle at purchase, from a receipt photo | The tech buys at the supply house mid-call | An increment to the vehicle, a decrement to the job, and a par-item flag |
| Warehouse transfer | A pick list per truck rather than one general pull | Replenishment lines batched by vehicle for a restock day | A signed transfer from warehouse to vehicle on-hand |
| Restock authorization threshold | A dollar limit per line and a separate limit per run | A run exceeding either limit | A hold for the service manager before the purchase order goes out |
| Non-stock and special order | Not par controlled. Tied to a job from the moment it is ordered | A quoted job needing a part no truck carries | A committed line, an aging flag if it stalls, and the return window date |
| Cycle count by class | A rotation: high-value parts monthly, consumables quarterly | The schedule, not an annual event | A variance per bin showing where parts leave unrecorded |
How the replenishment loop gets wired
Each vehicle is a stock location, not a note
The van is a location with its own on-hand quantities, par list, and bin labels. Warehouse, each truck, and the shop shelf are separate locations that transfer between one another. That structure is what makes a count mean anything.
The tech's pick list is his van, not the catalog
When a tech records a part he sees the twenty to forty items actually on his truck, in bin order. Searching a full parts catalog on a phone in a driveway is the biggest reason parts do not get recorded.
Replenishment lines batch by truck and by restock day
Reorder points fire continuously but they do not each become a purchase. Lines collect into a per-vehicle list filled on a scheduled restock day, which makes restocking a routine instead of an interruption mid-route.
Authorization thresholds sit between the list and the purchase order
A run under both the line limit and the total limit goes to the warehouse pull on its own. Over either limit it waits for a named approver. The threshold is a number you set, not something hard-coded.
Cycle counts replace the annual shutdown count
High-value parts get counted monthly and consumables quarterly, on a rotation that never stops the shop. Variances are recorded per bin, which turns the count into information about where stock is going.
Downstream of the parts count
- QuickBooks automation for parts cost — Consumed parts post to job cost and counter purchases post against the right vehicle, not general overhead.
- connecting supply house and vendor systems — Purchase orders, confirmations, and counter receipts move between your record and the vendor's untyped.
- form automation for counts and receipts — Cycle counts and supply house receipts get captured on a phone, in bin order, against one vehicle.
Is this a fit for your business?
A good fit when
- Four or more stocked trucks and you cannot say what is on any of them
- Counter purchases regularly land in overhead instead of on a job
- You carry special-order parts that sit past the vendor’s return window
- Techs return to a call because the part was on another van
Probably not a fit when
- One truck, one tech, and the owner buys every part
- You need warehouse management with serialized lot tracking and barcode picking at scale
- Your parts are low-value consumables you would rather not count
What to have ready
- A list of what each truck is supposed to carry, even a rough one
- Your last physical count, whatever condition it is in
- Which supply houses you buy from and your terms with each
Questions we get asked
Do techs have to scan barcodes?
Not necessarily, and scanning is often the wrong first step. For most shops a pick list of the forty items actually on that van, in bin order, beats scanning. Barcodes earn their place when you carry high-value serialized parts, or enough truck-to-truck transfers that mistakes get expensive. We would rather get recording to happen at all than perfectly.
How do we set par levels if we have never tracked consumption?
You start with a guess and correct it. Take what your best-stocked truck carries, adjust for each tech’s call mix, and run it for a season. The first pars will be wrong in both directions. What matters is that once consumption is recorded, correcting them is a small edit rather than a research project.
What stops a tech from simply not recording the part?
Nothing technical, and it is worth saying plainly. What helps is making the pick a two-tap action on his own van list, and making the ticket uncloseable without a parts answer even when that answer is none used. Past that it is a management question, and cycle count variances by truck are what surface it.
Can this handle refrigerant, sold by weight rather than by unit?
Yes, with the part configured as a weight-tracked item and the cylinder tracked as a returnable container. It is worth setting up properly, because refrigerant carries a use log requirement of its own, and the same entry that decrements the truck can feed it.
Related
- technician time and materials capture on site
- service call scheduling and dispatch
- connecting field systems with Make and Zapier
- workflow automation for construction and field service companies
Tell us what the process looks like now and we will map what a system would need to do. No obligation, and you keep the map either way.