A kind, not a copy
"B1 coursebook, 12 units" is one row you hand out unit by unit, and a one-off item simply has a quantity of one. There are no per-copy numbers here.
All modules
Materials
Rentals
A school owns textbooks, dictionaries, speakers and a projector, and where they are lives in somebody's head. Rentals answers two questions: how many units are free, and who has the rest.
Free pcs 9
On loan 11
Overdue 1
ItemFreeOn loanState
Podręcznik B1 12 pcs · Filia Wschód 57 In stock
Słownik PL-EN 6 pcs · Sekretariat 42 In stock
Głośnik JBL 2 pcs · Sala 3 02 Overdue
auto school stock · free pieces are computed, never stored
Rentals
What this module does
4
registers a borrower can be picked from
3
return states: back, lost, damaged
12
weeks of movement in the stats bar
600
stock entries on the School plan
Availability computes itself
Free units are the quantity minus whatever went out and has not come back. A column kept by hand drifts after the first mistake and still looks like a number.
Four kinds of borrower
A student, a staff member, a guardian or a company takes the item, picked in one field from four registers. A name snapshot sits beside it, so history still says who had it.
A return, not a deletion
Returned, lost or damaged: the row is never deleted. A lost item stops blocking a unit but stays in the history together with its reason.
A human sends the reminder
The due date shows as a marker on the row, and the reminder leaves as one email at the push of a button. No amounts live here: money belongs to Finance.
Who sees what
A module is a permission, and which records may be touched is settled on write, not in the menu.
| Role | Sees | Changes |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | The whole stock and every loan, including those from a year ago. | Everything, plus the catalogue of places in Settings, shared with Orders. |
| Methodologist | The same as the owner: the stock and the loans of the whole school. | Stock, hand-outs and returns, and the catalogue of places on equal terms. |
| Teacher | Everything too, and on purpose: before handing a thing out you need the WHOLE stock. | Adds things, hands them out, takes them back. The places catalogue stays with management. |
| Student | No access to this screen. | Nothing. What they are holding is told to them by a teacher or the front desk. |
The details nobody asks about during a demo
The things that only surface in the third week of working with the module.
What this module does not do
- copy numbers - a row is a kind of thing with a quantity, not one piece with a record
- reservations or a queue for a thing - it is either free or it is not
- a borrower's signature - a hand-out is entered by the team, not confirmed by the taker
- stock of consumables - it only knows things that COME BACK, and chalk does not
It subtracts. Free is the quantity of an entry minus the pieces in loans that have not come back, computed by a view on every read - there is no “free” column kept up to date by writes. Such a column drifts on the first mistake and nobody notices, because the number still looks like a number.
A student, a team member, a guardian or a company - four registers, but ONE field in the hand-out dialog. The value is a record key rather than a name, so two people called Kowalski are two entries. A name snapshot is stored next to the key, and the server sets it from the candidate list, not the request.
The second one is refused. The row of the thing is locked inside the same transaction as the write, so availability is counted at the moment of saving, not at the moment the screen was loaded. It is the same caution as with cash document numbers: a number seen before the click is a number from a moment ago.
Close the loan with the state “lost”. The row is not deleted: a return is a moment plus a state, so a lost item stops blocking a piece but stays in the history with its reason. Taking the piece off the stock is a separate edit of the quantity, because that is a school decision, not a side effect of one click.
No, the reminder goes out on a button, from a row or from the selection. It is ONE message per borrower with all of their items and dates, not one message per item. The “reminded” mark is set only where the mail really went, and the screen names the people it failed to reach.
Yes, from two sides. The Loans tab keeps its range in the address (out, returned, all), so “who has what” is a single list to read and to print from the browser. A student is also visible in their own Details: the “Rentals” tab reads the same data, with no writing and no amounts.
The ceiling counts ROWS, not pieces: two hundred entries on the Pro plan, six hundred on the School plan, and each entry may hold any quantity. A school with a limit of 50 therefore keeps 600 coursebooks in twelve entries comfortably. A second ceiling counts OPEN loans - returned ones are history and take no room.
No, and that edge is drawn deliberately. An amount kept on the side would be a second till the Finance module knows nothing about, so money stays where it has a plan, a charge and a payment. Orders stand on the other side: a purchased thing crosses over with one “Add to stock”, with no lasting link.
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