Inventory overview
Inventory starts with a product, the catalog-level description customers and staff recognize. Products are either rental items or consumables.
Rental products define one or more cadence prices, an optional deposit, variants, and individually tracked physical items. Every physical item has its own SKU and operational status. Consumables define a unit sale price, variant-level SKUs, and quantity on hand per location; they are fulfilled at checkout and are not returned.
Variants describe choices such as color, size, power, or kit configuration. A rental variant groups physical units. A consumable variant identifies a bulk stock level. Categories group products for staff and storefront browsing without owning or deleting the products.
Availability combines status, location, date overlap, variant, and reserved consumable quantity. Archiving uses reversible trash: records disappear from active workflows but remain attached to prior orders and history.