Inventory in STARSol could be setup to be controlled with or without location. When controlling inventory by location, there is an option to further break the control down to the bin level for each individual location. It is up to the management to decide how inventory will be controlled. The software can easily be configured.

When inventory is controlled without location, the system treats the entire company as one location. Your company could have lots of warehouses, stock rooms and selling areas, etc. The system treats all of these physical locations as one. The system can tell you that you have inventory for a certain item, but it will not be able to tell you where it is exactly at. It could be at the different warehouses, in the stock rooms or in the display areas. You have to physically locate the item yourself. Another disadvantage when you don't control inventory by location is that you won't be able to tell where your inventory is being leaked (stolen). This is the easiest to implement operation-wise but it's not the most efficient way of using STARSol.

Inventory control by location requires that when an item is transferred from one location to another, the computer must be informed of the transfer, otherwise the inventory quantity at each location will be inaccurate. Strict operational control must be observed for the integrity of the database. This leads to a slight delay in the physical transferring of merchandise between locations. But this slight delay far outweighs the benefits which results from this type of inventory control. The system will now be able to tell you the exact inventory count per location. Any variance between the physical count and the inventory count given by computer means the merchandise has been lost. Management can now be aware of the problem locations and take preventive countermeasures to avoid leakage of the merchandise.

Inventory control down to the bin level will be extremely helpful on the stock rooms or warehouses. This will primarily aid in the storage and retrieval on an item because the system can indicate to the warehouse clerk the precise bin location of an item. But going into this type of control requires a lot more interaction before an item can be physically transferred between locations, even between bin locations within a location.