Reports and Analytics

OpenBoxes provides a range of reports to help you analyze inventory performance, track consumption patterns, and make data-driven decisions about your supply chain operations.

Accessing Reports#

Navigate to Reporting from the main menu to see all available reports. Each report can be filtered by date range, location, product category, and other criteria before generating.

Consumption Report#

The consumption report shows how much of each product was distributed over a given period. This is one of the most frequently used reports for:

  • Forecasting demand — Project future needs based on historical usage
  • Setting reorder levels — Use average monthly consumption to calculate min/max thresholds
  • Identifying trends — Spot seasonal patterns or unexpected consumption changes

Filter by product category, specific products, or destination to focus your analysis. The report displays monthly totals and calculates average monthly consumption (AMC).

Tip: Run the consumption report quarterly to update your reorder levels. Static min/max values become inaccurate as consumption patterns change.

Expired Stock Report and Expiring Stock Report#

These are two separate reports under Reporting › Inventory Reports:

  • Expired Stock Report — Items already past their expiry date that need disposition
  • Expiring Stock — Items expiring within a timeframe you choose (30, 90, 180 or 365 days) that should be prioritized for use

Both show lot-level quantity so you can see the financial impact of expired or expiring stock. Use them to drive action: expiring items should be redistributed to high-consumption locations or written off if they cannot be used in time.

Tip: Schedule a weekly review of the Expiring Stock Report at 30 days. This gives you enough lead time to redistribute items before they expire.

Stock Card#

The stock card is not a report — it is the product's inventory page, opened from the Inventory Browser or any product link. It shows every transaction for the product at your location (receipts, issues, adjustments, transfers) with the running balance after each one, and can be exported for audits, regulatory inspections, and sharing stock history with stakeholders who do not have direct access to OpenBoxes.

Inventory Reports#

Reporting › Inventory Reports also includes:

  • Inventory Summary Report — Quantity on hand for every product at your location, with its stock status against min/reorder/max levels
  • Inventory Details Report — The same at bin-location and lot level
  • Inventory By Location Report — Quantity on hand for products across several locations side by side
  • Cycle Count Report — Counts performed and their variances
  • On Order Report — Quantities on open purchase orders not yet received

Inventory Snapshot#

OpenBoxes takes a scheduled snapshot of the quantity on hand for every product and location. Snapshots power the inventory reports above and are valuable for month-end or year-end reporting, baseline comparisons, and financial reporting of inventory value. The Inventory Snapshots list belongs to OpenBoxes' Analytics menu, which is not enabled in the standard navigation; if you need a point-in-time archive, export the Inventory Summary Report on the date you need it.

Transaction Report#

Reporting › Transaction Reports › Transaction Report provides a per-product summary of inventory transactions over a period:

  • Opening and closing balance for the period
  • Quantity by transaction type — Received, issued, adjusted, transferred, consumed
  • Product and lot affected

Filter by date range, location, tag or category to investigate specific activities. For the full lot-by-lot detail behind a number, open the product's stock card. The Transaction Reports section also holds the Consumption Report, the Request Detail Report (every requested line and how it was fulfilled) and the Expiration History Report.

Order Reports#

Reporting › Order Reports covers procurement planning:

  • Forecast Report — Projected demand per product over a date range, based on historical demand
  • Reorder Report — Every product at or below its reorder level, with quantity on hand, the min/reorder/max levels and the months of stock remaining. Review it before creating purchase orders to ensure you are ordering what is actually needed.
  • Amount Outstanding Report — Open purchase-order value not yet invoiced (finance role)

Exporting Data#

Export options vary by report: most offer a CSV download, and a few offer Excel as well, for analysis in spreadsheets or import into other systems. Printable pages use your browser's print or print-to-PDF function.

To export:

  1. Generate the report with your desired filters
  2. Click the Export (or Download) button
  3. Save or open the downloaded file

Reporting › Data Exports also offers ready-made downloads — products, product sources, latest inventory date, inventory levels, bin locations, requisitions and product demand. OpenBoxes' custom data exports, which run stored SQL, are not available on Shared plans or the public demo; use the built-in exports above or the REST API.

Tip: Set up a monthly export routine for key reports (consumption, expiring stock, inventory summary). Maintaining a historical archive outside OpenBoxes gives you long-term trend data and backup documentation.

Custom Reports#

Beyond the built-in reports, you can create ad-hoc analyses:

  • Use the product list export to get a full catalog download
  • Combine exported data from multiple reports in a spreadsheet for cross-analysis
  • Use Inventory Summary Report exports from different dates to calculate stock turnover rates

Best Practices#

  • Run reports on a schedule — Weekly for operational reports (reorder, expiring stock), monthly for strategic reports (consumption, inventory summary)
  • Act on what you find — A report is only valuable if it drives a decision or action
  • Share reports with stakeholders — Procurement teams need consumption data, finance needs value reports, management needs summaries
  • Compare across periods — A single snapshot is informative; trends across months reveal whether your supply chain is improving
  • Verify anomalies — If a report shows unexpected numbers, investigate before making decisions; data entry errors can mislead