# Track a serialized item

Give a physical tool its own identity in the system and follow it through every location, service, and use.

Source: https://support.toolingmetrics.com/en/inventory/guides/track-serialized-items/
Updated: 2026-10-29

**Prerequisites:** The Item is marked **Serialized Item** (Inventory → Items — User or above to change this on an item you created, or Admin on any item; only possible while the item's status is Draft or Released).

**Required permission:** Purchase → Purchase Receipts or Inventory → Adjustments — User or above to register a piece; Inventory → Items — User or above to set service thresholds; Inventory → Serialized Items — User or above to follow a piece. Managers and Users change only the records they created, and a User sees only the pieces of items they created.

There is no standalone "new serialized item" screen. A Serialized Item record is created only as the side effect of a move line that brings stock of a serialized item into the organization — a Purchase Receipt, or an Inventory Adjustment that counts a serial number not yet registered.

## Register a piece on receipt

1. Process the incoming move (Purchase Receipt or Inventory Adjustment) as usual. On its **Move Lines** tab, click the list icon next to the serialized item's reserved quantity. **Edit Move Line** opens, with a table of **Serial Number**, **Cost**, and **Condition** below the quantity.
1. On a purchase receipt, click **+** under the table to add a row for each unit. Each new row is pre-filled with a system-generated UUID (in UUIDv7 format). On an inventory adjustment, enter the serial numbers you counted in **Counted Serial Numbers** and click **Serial Numbers Reconcile**: each serial number not yet registered gets its own row.
1. To keep a generated UUID, leave it as is — you can print it as a tag and stick it on the physical piece. To use the manufacturer's or a previous owner's serial number instead, overwrite the **Serial Number** field; a barcode scanner types the code straight into it.
1. Click **Update**, then complete the move as normal. Each row becomes its own Serialized Item record the moment the line is validated.

![The Edit Move Line overlay on a purchase receipt for three units of a serialized item, with one row per unit showing its generated serial number, cost and condition](https://support.toolingmetrics.com/guides/serialized-receipt-uuids-eng.webp)

*Fig. 1: Registering a serialized item on receipt — the UUID is generated automatically but can be overwritten with a real serial number.*

## Select a piece on an outgoing move

For an outgoing or return move against stock that is already serialized (a pick, a transfer out, or a decrease), the line's row is labeled **Select Serialized Item** instead — a dropdown of the specific pieces currently available at that move's source, defaulting to the oldest piece by creation date. Choose a different piece if the job calls for a specific one (e.g., to keep a near-end-of-life piece in rotation).

## Configure service thresholds

Service thresholds are configured once on the parent **Item**, not per piece — every Serialized Item under that Item is evaluated against the same thresholds. They are only available when the item is both a **Serialized Item** and **Can be Serviced**.

1. Open the **Item** (not the individual serialized piece) and click **Edit**.
1. Open the **Service** tab.
1. Add one or more thresholds:
   - **Time Interval** — trigger a fixed number of days after the last service.
   - **Usage Cycles** — trigger after N pick-and-return cycles.
   - **Usage Time** — trigger after N hours of runtime.
   - **Usage Cost** — trigger when accumulated usage cost exceeds a value.
   - **Remain Cost** — trigger when the piece's remaining cost value drops below a threshold.
1. Save.

When any threshold is crossed for a specific piece, that Serialized Item's condition moves to **Need service**.

## Follow a piece

1. In the sidebar, click **Inventory → Serialized Items**.
1. Open the piece. The detail page shows its **Serial Number** and data-matrix code, its current **Location** (computed live from move history, not a stored field), its **Condition**, cost, and accumulated usage cycles/time/cost.
1. If the parent item can be serviced, the page also shows **Last Service Performed at**, **Next Service Scheduled at**, and **Need Service?** — all computed from the parent item's thresholds.
1. Open the **Moves History** tab for a complete log of every location change, and the **Usage History** tab for cost lines posted against this specific piece.

## Notes

- A Serialized Item's UUID must be unique across the entire application (not just your organization) and between 3 and 36 characters — this is what lets a short, real-world serial number be used in place of the generated UUID.
- Thresholds and their triggers are evaluated per piece against the item's shared configuration; two pieces of the same item can be at different points in their service cycle at the same time.