Product usage: who buys, sells and consumes each item

Product usage: who buys, sells and consumes each item

The item card says how much; this window says with whom

The item card in Kardex Tauro shows the history of entries and exits of an article and the balance remaining in the warehouse. It is the essential view for stock control, but it has a natural limitation: it treats every movement alike, without distinguishing who originated it. The Product Usage window complements that information with a commercial outlook: it takes one specific item and brings together, in a single list, all the interactions that third parties —customers, suppliers, employees, internal areas and warehouses— have had with it over time.

Think of a concrete product, for example the 500 g whole-bean coffee your company trades. The item card tells you that last month 450 units came in and 380 went out. The usage window tells you something far more valuable: who bought those 380 units, from which supplier the merchandise was purchased, how much coffee the office cafeteria consumed internally and how many units were transferred to the northern branch. That difference is what turns a plain stock count into a business intelligence engine.

What the window does and when it is available

The purpose of the window is twofold: to identify and to quantify. On one side it recognizes every third party that has taken part in the life cycle of the product; on the other, it measures precisely the units moved and the accumulated value of their transactions. In doing so it reveals the key players of each item: the customer who buys it most, the supplier who supplies it best, the area that consumes it most and the warehouse that receives it most through transfers. The window is essential for:

• Identifying the most important customers for each specific product.
• Detecting the main suppliers of raw materials or goods.
• Analyzing internal consumption patterns by area or by employee.
• Building commercial strategies based on real data.
• Performing commercial audits and movement traceability.

Read-only mode. The window is exclusively informative. It does not allow modifying data: it only lets you consult and analyze the history of the product's interactions with third parties. No movements are recorded, edited or deleted from here.

Activation condition. The window is not accessible on its own. It is only available when you reach it from the Inventory window or from the Kardex window, with a previously selected product.

How to open the window

Access is simple in both contexts. From the Inventory window: select the product in the inventory list, right-click on it and choose the "Uses" option from the context menu; the window opens showing the complete history of interactions. From the Kardex window: select the product and use the "Uses" option available in the menu or in the action buttons; the Product Usage window opens with the same informative content.

What the window shows: two clearly separated zones

The interface is organized into two clearly delimited zones. The upper zone identifies the product being analyzed: its code (unique identifier), its type —Normal, Kit, Service or Production Line— and its commercial name or description. The lower zone presents the list of uses by third party, a table that summarizes, for each third party, all the documents and units associated with the product. The columns of the list are the following.

Each row corresponds to a third party and summarizes all of its operations with the product. The units moved column indicates the total quantity of product units involved; the number of documents column reports how many transactions or vouchers were generated, for example several invoices from the same customer; and the total value column accumulates the monetary amount of all transactions. The window also includes the "Print list" button, which generates a physical or digital report with all the information shown, allowing it to be filed, distributed or analyzed externally.

Document types and movements

To interpret the list correctly it helps to know the classification the system applies to operations. Understanding these classifications is essential, because each document type defines which third party appears and what commercial reading the row has.

• Inbound or receipt documents: purchases from suppliers, where the third party is the supplier that sold the product and the data is essential for supplier analysis and negotiation; customer returns, where the third party is the customer that returned the product, important for quality and satisfaction analysis; and positive inventory adjustments, which record non-commercial entries such as donations, findings or production, and may have no associated third party or an internal one.
• Outbound or issue documents: sales to customers, where the third party is the customer that bought the product; internal consumptions, where the third party can be an employee, an area or a cost center; transfers between warehouses, whose third party is the destination warehouse or cost center; returns to suppliers; and negative inventory adjustments, which record non-commercial exits such as shrinkage, theft or obsolescence and may have no associated third party.
• Mixed documents: transfers, movements that are neither purchases nor sales, such as donations, samples or bonuses; and production, which records the consumption of raw materials to manufacture products, where the third party can be the manufactured product or the production area.

ABC analysis by third party: the 20% that moves the 80%

The information in this window allows you to apply the Pareto principle, the 80/20 rule, at product level. Not all third parties weigh the same: a small share of them concentrates most of the volume or value. The following table summarizes the typical classification.

The practical application is straightforward: identify the 20% of customers who buy 80% of a specific product, detect the 20% of suppliers who provide 80% of a raw material, and focus commercial and negotiation efforts on that reduced group.

What decisions it supports

With the usage list in front of you, the business owner moves from managing stock to managing relationships. The window backs concrete decisions:

• Purchasing: knowing the real volume bought from each supplier to negotiate better prices, detecting an excessive dependence on a single supplier and comparing volumes and values between alternatives.
• Sales and commercial strategy: knowing which customers buy more of each product, detecting customers who buy complementary products, offering related items and creating promotions aimed at the largest consumers.
• Internal control: assigning costs accurately by knowing which area or employee consumes more of each product, detecting anomalous internal consumption or waste and building realistic budgets based on history.
• Profitability: calculating the real margin per customer and per supplier at product level, identifying star products and deciding which items to keep, discontinue or promote.

Practical use cases

The window provides 360-degree traceability of the product: backward, answering from whom we buy each item (suppliers); forward, answering to whom we sell it (customers); inward, showing who consumes it inside the company (employees and areas); and between warehouses, revealing how it is distributed internally through transfers. This complete view has very concrete day-to-day applications:

• Supplier negotiation: arriving at the negotiation table with the exact figure of how much was bought from each supplier in the period strengthens your position when asking for better prices or conditions.
• Audit and traceability: tracing every unit from its origin to its final destination, detecting unusual or unauthorized movements, demonstrating the complete cycle of regulated products and providing documentary evidence of all transactions.
• Detecting uncontrolled internal consumption: if an area consumes materials without clear justification, the internal consumption column by employee exposes it immediately, as do shrinkage recorded as negative adjustments.
• Relationship management: rewarding the most frequent customers per product, giving personalized attention to key third parties, proactively contacting customers affected by quality issues and keeping fluid communication with important suppliers.

In short, while the item card answers how much there is, the Product Usage window answers with whom and for whom each article in your inventory works. Opening it from the Inventory or from the Kardex of Kardex Tauro with a selected product is the first step to turn the movement register into a business intelligence tool: knowing whom to buy more from, which customers to take care of and which internal consumptions are escaping the control of the business.