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A lab runs on dated stock. These settings decide when an expiring reagent starts warning you, whether a delivery can be booked in with no expiry date at all, and how strict the system is when something is consumed.

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What this tab controls

The card is headed Inventory — “Expiry alerts, dispensing enforcement and inventory data controls.” The three switches save the moment you flip them. Expiry alert horizons and New-item defaults have their own save buttons.

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Set it up

1

Set your expiry horizons

Type a number of days and select Add. Each becomes a chip like 60 days; remove one with its ✕. Up to four. Select Save horizons — you get “Expiry alert horizons saved”. A lab typically wants a long horizon for reagents on order lead times and a short one for the bench.
2

Require expiry dates on delivery

Turn Require expiry date on new lots on. For a lab this is the single most useful switch on the tab — an undated reagent lot is invisible to every expiry alert.
3

Decide on dispense enforcement

Switched on, an unlinked item or insufficient stock aborts the whole consumption. Switched off, it never blocks and the drift is logged for review.
4

Set the new-item defaults

Enter a Low-stock threshold and a Reorder quantity in whole units, then Save defaults. Leave either empty for no default.

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What changes once you save

Requiring expiry dates does not fix the past. Lots already booked in without one stay undated, and an undated lot is invisible to earliest-expiry picking and to every expiry alert — it will never warn you. Find them and correct them through a stock count. Reagent lots flagged for lot-to-lot validation are a separate rule and are not set here. That flag lives on the item itself, and new lots of a flagged reagent arrive quarantined until someone validates them — they are not available to the bench in the meantime, however healthy their expiry date looks. See Reagents and consumables.

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The Danger Zone

Reset inventory… permanently erases the entire inventory module — catalog, lots, stock levels, ledger, purchase orders, vendors, locations and device history. It cannot be undone. Your patient records and results are kept. It exists for one purpose: a clean re-import after a bad first load.
The card is hidden entirely from anyone who is not the lab owner — a manager or an accountant sees nothing at all, not a greyed-out button, and gets no explanation. That is intended. The owner gets a preview first. The dialog is headed “Reset the whole inventory?”, lists how many records would go from each area, and only then asks you to type RESET to confirm. If the inventory is already empty it says so and offers no confirm button.

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Check it worked

Reload the tab — every switch and chip should be where you left it. Then try to receive a lot with the expiry left blank: it should be refused. Check the Alerts tab lists the items your shortest horizon should now be catching.

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Common issues

Either every lot is dated beyond your longest horizon, or the lots have no expiry date. Undated lots never trigger an alert — which is what Require expiry date on new lots prevents happening again.
You already have four, the maximum. Remove one and the field returns. A fifth gives “Up to 4 horizons.”
That reagent is flagged for lot-to-lot validation, so new lots arrive quarantined until validated. See Reagents and consumables.
It is owner-only, and hidden rather than disabled. Ask the lab owner.
The banner reads “This inventory cannot be reset” — clinical administration records reference these lots and a reset would destroy that traceability. Adjust quantities through a stock count instead.
Defaults apply only to items created after you saved them, and only where the item supplies no value of its own.