Consumables Tracking Software

Not everything you manage is a single, serialized asset. Cables, batteries, gloves, printer toner, lab reagents, PPE — these come in bulk, get used up, and need restocking. Shelf lets you track supplies and consumables by quantity alongside your individually-tracked assets, in one system, so your stock of disposables and your fleet of equipment live side by side.

Two ways to track every item in Shelf: individually tracked items each get their own record and QR code, while quantity-tracked items use one record and one shared QR for a pool of identical units, with a count and a low-stock threshold.

Two ways to track every item

When you create an item in Shelf, you choose how it's tracked:

Individually tracked (the default): one record is one physical thing, with its own QR label, custody, and history. This is how you track laptops, cameras, power tools — anything serialized and unique.
Tracked by quantity: one record is a pool of identical, interchangeable units sharing a single QR label. This is how you track consumables by quantity — the printer paper, the AA batteries, the box of nitrile gloves.

The tracking method is chosen at creation and is permanent — it locks once the item exists, so decide up front whether an item is a unique asset or a pool of stock. Quantity tracking complements individual tracking; it doesn't replace it.

Track assets by quantity

A quantity-tracked item holds a total quantity in a unit of measure you define yourself — pieces, boxes, liters, kilograms, whatever fits. The whole pool shares one QR label, so a single scan finds the stock rather than hunting for one unit among hundreds.

Your available quantity is computed live as you go — Total minus what's in custody minus what's reserved — so you always see what's actually free to hand out or book, without maintaining a separate "available" number by hand.

Consumable or returnable

Every quantity-tracked item has a consumption type that matches how it's actually used:

Used up: a one-way consumable. Once it's issued, it's gone — paper, reagents, disposable gloves.
Returnable: a two-way pool. Units go out and come back, and a consumption report is recorded at check-in so you capture how much was actually used versus returned.

Used up versus returnable consumption: used-up stock is consumed and not expected back, while returnable stock is checked out and reconciled at check-in into what returned versus what was used.

For day-to-day stock changes, quick adjustments keep counts honest: restock to add stock (+), record a loss (−), or correct a miscount — each with an optional note. Every adjustment is logged with full attribution and shows up in the asset's activity notes, so there's a running audit trail of who changed what and why.

Quantity-aware custody

Custody works at the unit level. Assign any portion of a pool to a person, release any portion back, and let multiple people each hold a share of the same item at once — each custodian's quantity is tracked separately. Hand 5 of 20 radios to one crew lead and 10 to another, and Shelf knows exactly who's holding what.

Low-stock alerts

Set a minimum quantity threshold on any quantity-tracked item and Shelf watches it for you. When available stock drops to or below that minimum, the workspace owner gets an email alert and an in-app notification goes to whoever made the change. The alert clears automatically once stock rises back above the threshold.

Low-stock alert flow: when available stock drops to or below the minimum, Shelf emails the workspace owner and posts an in-app notification to whoever made the change.

Alerts only fire when a minimum is set — no threshold, no noise. (There's no low-stock dashboard widget or list filter; the alert is the email plus the in-app notification.)

Quantity in bookings & kits

Quantity-tracked stock plugs into the rest of Shelf:

Bookings: reserve N units from available stock for a date range, and adjust the booked quantity as plans change. Reserving drops the available count immediately, so two bookings can't lay claim to the same stock.
Kits: include quantity-tracked stock in a kit, and the kit handles custody by quantity — so a kit that ships with 3 cables and 1 charger keeps its stock counts straight.

Bookings — and quantity in bookings — are available on Team plans.

Import, export & asset models

CSV import/export supports quantity tracking directly, with columns for quantity, unit of measure, min-quantity, and consumption type — so you can bring an existing supply list in (or pull it out) in bulk. Import/export is a premium capability.
Asset models are a separate feature for your individual assets: reusable templates that pre-fill category and valuation defaults so you can bulk-create identical serialized assets from one model. Managed under Settings → Asset models, they're a distinct tool from quantity tracking — asset models template individual assets, not pools of stock.

Available on every plan

Quantity tracking and asset models aren't plan-gated — they're available on every Shelf plan, including the free tier. The features that build on top keep their usual tiers: bookings (and reserving quantity in bookings) are on Team plans, and CSV import/export is premium. Shelf is open source and free to start, with the free tier supporting a single user.

Common use cases

IT supply closet: track cables, adapters, batteries, and toner by count. Set a min-quantity on the essentials so the workspace owner gets an email before you run out.
Lab and medical supplies: manage reagents, gloves, and consumables in their real units (liters, boxes, pieces), with returnable items reporting actual usage at check-in.
Job-site consumables and PPE: hand portions of bulk PPE to different crews, track who's holding what, and restock from the field.
Event materials: reserve N of a printed program or giveaway for a booking, scan-to-assign at checkout, and reconcile what came back.

Custody
Bookings
Kits
Asset Pages
Learn the full workflow: Quantity-tracked assets & consumables

Consumables Tracking