Introduction

This is an expansion of the popular inventory management system tutorial, integrated with Laravel 10, Bootstrap 5, as an out-of-box, and also customizable solution, can be used right away with little configuration.

The inventory management system includes features like inventory tracking, stock alerts, barcode scanning, purchase order management, sales order management, and report generation. With this system, you can easily manage your inventory, keep track of your stock levels, and ensure that you have the right amount of inventory on hand at all times.

In terms of the technology used, Laravel 10 provides a robust and secure back-end framework for handling the database and business logic, while Bootstrap allows for the creation of user-friendly front-end interfaces that are optimized for mobile devices.

The system is designed with a user-friendly interface, which makes it easy for users to navigate through the different sections of the application. This is important because it helps users to quickly access the information they need without having to spend too much time searching for it.

System Requirements

Our Inventory System requires the standard commercial phpGrid and phpChart license as it needs a few advanced features from both components.

• PHP 8.1
• MySQL or MariaDB
• phpGrid 7+
• phpChart (used for dashboard)

Inventory Management Components

• Incoming shipments
• Outgoing orders
• Inventory
• Suppliers
• Dashboard
• User Management
• User Profile
• User Register
• Sign In
• Sign Out
• More…

Database Diagram (updated 2023)

The new inventory system has added a category in addition to products, purchases, orders, and suppliers. Current inventory, or products on hand, is updated by tracking incoming shipments and outgoing orders. Order alerts can be set to trigger when inventory levels fall below custom-defined minimum levels.

Set up Database:

The inventory management now has two separate databases, a inventory management database, and a Laravel framework database for user and session management.

Import Inventory Management Database

First of all, you’ll need to create a database for your inventory management system using InventoryManager.sql SQL script in the end of this tutorial. Execute the script using a MySQL tool such as MySQL Workbench. This will create a new database named InventoryManager.

Set up Laravel System Database

You will use Laravel’s built-in database migrations to create the necessary system tables and columns.

1. Copy 

   1	.env.example

    to 

   1

   .env

    and updated the configurations (mainly the database configuration)

2. In your terminal run 

   1	php artisan key:generate

3. Run 

   1	php artisan migrate --seed

    to create the database tables and seed the roles and users tables

Set up phpGrid

We will use a datagrid component by phpGrid to handle all internal database CRUD (Create, Remove, Update, and Delete) operations.

Be sure to download a copy of phpGrid before you proceed.

To install phpGrid, follow these steps:

1. Unzip the phpGrid download file.
2. Upload the phpGrid folder to the phpGrid folder.
3. Complete the installation by configuring the conf.php file.

User Administration

User administration is included as part of the improved inventory management system. The system includes features for creating and deleting user accounts, assigning and revoking user permissions, and managing user roles and groups.

User Login

If you are not logged in you can only access this page or the Sign Up page. The default url takes you to the login page where you use the default credentials admin@admin.com with the password secret. Logging in is possible only with already existing credentials. For this to work you should have run the migrations.

Register

You can register as a user by filling in the name, email, role and password for your account. For your role you can choose between the Admin, Creator and Member. It is important to know that an admin user has access to all the pages and actions, can delete, add and edit another users, other roles, items, tags or categories; a creator user has accces to category, tag and item management, but can not add, edit or delete other users; a member user has access to the item management but can not take any action.

You can do this by accessing the sign up page from the “Sign Up” button in the top navbar or by clicking the “Sign Up” button from the bottom of the log in form. Another simple way is adding /register in the url.

Forgot Password

If a user forgets the account’s password it is possible to reset the password. For this the user should click on the “here” under the login form or add /login/forgot-password in the url.

User Profile

The profile can be accessed by a logged in user by clicking “User Profile” from the sidebar or adding /user-profile in the url. The user can add information like birthday, gender, phone number, location, language or skills.

User Management

This module allows administrators to manage user accounts and access permissions for a particular application or system. In addition to managing user accounts, user management can also be used to manage customer accounts, partners, and other types of users who need access to a particular application or system.

Dashboard

What is an inventory system good for without some of type of report? In this section, you will learn how to use phpChart – which seamlessly integrates with phpGrid – to create visually pleasing and useful reports for your Inventory Manager application.

Here’s what our dashboard:

Quick Stats

Admin

Instead of manually update supplier and category information in database directly in the past, the improved admin page added both Supplier Management and Category Management. More management admin can be added and customized in this section.

Supplier Management

Category Management

Inventory Administration

Products

Purchases

Current Orders

Barcodes

In conclusion, an inventory management system with Laravel and Bootstrap is a powerful tool for businesses that want to streamline their inventory management processes, improve accuracy, and reduce costs associated with inventory management. It can be a customizable solution that can be tailored to meet the specific needs of your business.