Individual and bulk articles explained

What are bulk and individual inventory types and how to use them

Every item in your inventory is distinguishing between "individual" or "bulk" tracking type. By setting the correct type you decide whether you want to track items on an individual level, for example, with a unique identifier or just its quantity.

You can choose the inventory type when you create new SKUs. 

Individual: You can set unique tracking codes (e.g. a serial number or barcode). This enables tracking how many times a specific article has been rented out. This is essential if the article requires more precise service or inspection regularly. Rentle creates unique tracking codes (Article IDs) automatically for you or you can set them yourself.

Bulk: Bulk articles are usually additional articles, which don't require as accurate tracking as the individual articles. When you use bulk inventory type, you stay aware of how many articles are currently available and how many are rented out. However, you can't recognize the movements of an individual article.

Here is an example:

Imagine you are renting out musical instruments and equipment.

Individual: Your three guitars you most likely want to track individually. This way you will always know which customer rented which exact guitar. When a customer rents a guitar, you need to assign which exact guitar you will rent out and assign the respective identifier (here e.g. GUITAR1) to the order.

Bulk: For each guitar rental you will give 5 guitar plectrums. You have a lot of those in stock and it does not matter to you which exact plectrum you hand out to a customer. Tracking those individually would be too much work and you probably don't need a detailed reporting on each plectrum. Here you choose the bulk type and will always see how many Plectrums you have rented out and how many are currently in stock.