NetForge/.planning/phases/04-inventory-expenses-and-financial-reports/04-CONTEXT.md

Phase 4: Inventory, Expenses, and Financial Reports - Context

Gathered: 2026-03-05 Status: Ready for planning

## Phase Boundary

Staff can track all network hardware through its full lifecycle as an immutable movement ledger; expenses are recorded and post to the ledger automatically; and the accounting module can produce a verified Trial Balance, Income Statement, and Balance Sheet from journal entry history alone. File attachments, vendor management, and export formats are in scope. New capabilities like procurement workflows, purchase orders, or budgeting are not.

## Implementation Decisions

Inventory movement workflow

• Track routers, ONTs, cables, connectors, and technician tools — full ISP equipment range, not just CPE
• Dual tracking model: expensive equipment (routers, ONTs) tracked individually by serial number with per-unit movement history; consumables (cables, connectors, tools) tracked by type and quantity (batch)
• Movement types: RECEIVED, ISSUED, RETURNED, DISPOSED, TRANSFERRED (location-to-location: warehouse-to-warehouse or technician-to-technician)
• Every movement posts a journal entry automatically — receiving (DR Inventory, CR AP), issuing, disposal, and transfers all hit the ledger

Expense recording flow

• Expense categories pre-seeded at tenant creation (utilities, fuel, materials, labor, rent, etc.) with admin ability to add/edit custom categories
• Optional approval workflow: admin can enable/disable; when enabled, expenses go DRAFT -> APPROVED -> POSTED; when disabled, expenses post immediately
• Vendors are a managed entity (CRUD) with name and contact info; expenses link to a vendor record for filtering and reporting
• Basic file attachment support: single file upload per expense (receipt image or PDF)

Financial report presentation

• Date range selection: accounting period dropdown as primary selector, with custom date range override for ad-hoc queries
• Drill-down supported: clicking an account balance on any report shows the underlying journal entries for that account in that period
• Export formats: PDF for presentation/printing, CSV for spreadsheet analysis
• Three reports: Trial Balance, Income Statement, Balance Sheet — all derived entirely from journal entry lines

Asset lifecycle tracking

• Assignment records capture: item, subscriber/technician, date, and condition (new, refurbished, used) at both assignment and return
• Disposals require admin approval before the write-off journal entry posts — prevents unauthorized asset write-offs
• Track purchase cost, purchase date, and warranty expiry per item — supports both asset valuation and operational tracking
• Location history presented as chronological timeline/log: received -> issued to tech -> assigned to subscriber -> returned

Claude's Discretion

• Detail level for Balance Sheet and Income Statement (account-level vs category summaries with expand) — choose based on existing ISP COA structure (28+ accounts across 5 categories)
• Pre-seeded expense category list — pick categories common for Philippine ISP operations
• File storage approach for expense attachments (local filesystem vs S3)
• Exact journal entry account mappings for each inventory movement type
• Batch tracking unit of measure handling for consumables

## Specific Ideas

• Inventory modeled as event-ledger with immutable movements — this is a locked roadmap decision (mutable quantity columns explicitly rejected)
• Condition tracking at assignment AND return enables damage accountability
• Approval workflow for expenses mirrors the existing maker-checker pattern from Phase 2 journal entries (MANUAL entries go DRAFT for approval)
• Vendor entity enables per-vendor expense reporting in 04-04

## Deferred Ideas

None — discussion stayed within phase scope

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Phase: 04-inventory-expenses-and-financial-reports Context gathered: 2026-03-05