Van and depot stock control
A field service business runs on whether the van has the part. A second visit costs more than the part did, and the customer remembers the second visit, not the first fix.
No card, no sales call. Set up as fleet & field service and the whole system uses these words — parts, tools, job.
Why van stock is the hardest stock there is
A van is a store that drives away. Nobody counts it, the technician restocks it from the depot when they remember, and the depot finds out what was used when the paperwork arrives — if it arrives.
So technicians over-carry, because the alternative is a wasted journey. Capital sits in twenty vans, invisible, and the depot orders against a figure that ignores it entirely.
The tools have the same problem with a bigger price tag. Diagnostic kit and specialist tools circulate between technicians and depots, and the only record of where something is tends to be whoever last needed it.
What Nilstock does in a fleet van stock
Issue parts against a job
A technician scans their badge and the part at the depot terminal, with the job number as the reference. The movement is attributed and the balance updates immediately.
Treat each van as a location
A van can be a site with its own balances, so "what is on van 12" is a real question with a real answer, and depot stock is not credited with things that left last week.
Reorder before the shift, not during it
Minimum levels per part per location, and a digest that lands before the early start, so restocking happens at the depot rather than at a supplier counter at 11am.
Specialist tools tracked to a technician
Diagnostic equipment is checked out to a person with a due date and a calibration date, and anything overdue chases itself.
Consumption per job, exportable
Every movement carries a job reference, so parts usage per job is a filter and a CSV rather than a reconciliation project at the end of the month.
Find the capital sitting in the vans
Once each van is a location with its own balance, the total stock the business is carrying stops being a depot figure and becomes the real one. Most fleets find they are carrying considerably more than they thought, in places nobody was counting.
All of it is the same engine everyone else gets — see the full feature list.
Questions people in this sector ask
- Can technicians use it from the van?
- From any browser, on a phone or tablet, with a connection. There is no offline mode today — if a job needs recording in a basement with no signal, that is a gap and we would rather name it.
- Is a van really a "site"?
- Yes, and it works well. Sites are just locations with their own balances and their own access. Twenty vans and a depot is twenty-one locations in one account.
- Does per-site pricing mean each van costs?
- It would, and that is usually the wrong shape for a fleet. Talk to us — fleet accounts are priced on the depot count, not the van count.
- Does it integrate with our job management system?
- Not directly yet. Movements carry a job reference and everything exports to CSV. A public API is on the roadmap and is not built.
- Can we see what a technician is carrying?
- If the van is a location, yes — its balance is the answer. If you issue to the person instead, everything they hold is on one screen.
- How do we handle parts returned unused from a job?
- Return them the same way they went out, and the balance moves back with a ledger entry saying so. Nothing is edited — the original issue and the return both stay in the history, which is what makes a usage figure trustworthy.
Guides worth reading first
Stock control
How to set reorder points that actually prevent stockouts
A reorder point is lead-time usage plus a buffer sized by consequence. The formula, how to get the two inputs honestly, and two worked examples.
Equipment
How to stop losing tools on site without treating people like suspects
Most tools are not stolen — they are in a van or a toolbox and nobody wrote it down. What works for tool accountability, and what makes it worse.
Stock control
Cycle counting: how to stop shutting the store for stocktake
The annual stocktake is disruptive and tells you nothing you can act on. Counting a few lines weekly finds the same errors while they are explainable.
Same engine, other sectors
Stop guessing what is in the van stock
Fourteen days free. Import your list, pair a tablet, and find out where things actually go. It takes about half an hour to reach a real movement.
Parts counted, tools tracked to a technician, every movement logged.