I have farmOS running on my computer in development mode and have been poking about. Under the Assets menu I see submenus for “All Assets”, Plantings, Animals, Equipment and Groups. First, is that all I should see in a default configuration? Next, I want to be able to be able to track hay and straw bale usage. In the fall I wrap hay bales and manually inventory them by row (row 1 - 42 4x4 silage, row 2 - 48 4x5 hay, row 3 - 47 4x5 hay, etc.). Straw bales are all located inside the barn. Currently, at the end of each month I go out and physically count how many bales are in each row, or in the barn, so I know where I’m at. As I feed bales, I try to keep track of how many bales from which rows were fed on any given day. Same for straw. I think I can see how I could set bales up as assets and group them by row or the such, but before I go through this I want to confirm that there isn’t a module already in existance that I can simply turn on, or maybe download and enable, which would handle hay and straw bale inventory management. Does such exist?
Hi @armitagep - welcome to the farmOS forum!
Great questions…
Under the Assets menu I see submenus for “All Assets”, Plantings, Animals, Equipment and Groups. First, is that all I should see in a default configuration?
Yes, the “Crop”, “Livestock” and “Equipment” modules are installed by default on a new farmOS instance. However, these can be unselected during installation if you don’t want them.
Next, I want to be able to be able to track hay and straw bale usage.
Ok! So there’s a short answer and a long answer here… 
Short answer: it is possible to record much of what you want in the current version of farmOS (1.x), but you may need to wait for farmOS 2.x to be able to do some of the more advanced things you have in mind.
Longer answer:
farmOS 2.x will have a more robust “inventory management” system, with the goal of being able to track material assets (alongside the other asset types that 1.x has). This will allow you to create separate assets for each of your collections of bales, with unique names and locations, and make “inventory adjustments” to them (adding bales when they are created, subtracting bales when they are sold or fed to animals). This will allow you to see the “current inventory” of your bales.
That isn’t possible in farmOS 1.x currently. But, you can still get the same info - albeit with some extra steps. One way to do this would be to create “Harvest” logs when you create the bales, which record how many were created (these logs can also reference a specific Area they were created in). Then, when they are fed to animals, you can create an “Input” log (which references the Animal(s) being fed if you want), and records how many bales were fed. In order to calculate the “current inventory”, however, you would then need to filter and export your harvest and input logs as CSVs, import them into a spreadsheet program (outside of farmOS), and run a SUM() equation on them to get your total inventory. It wouldn’t be too hard to create a standard spreadsheet template that you can import rows into and have it do the math automatically.
Another alternative (getting a bit more advanced) would be to write a Python script that connects to the farmOS API and pulls the information you want, processes it, and spits out the current inventory.
But rest assured this is on the roadmap for farmOS 2.x… which is coming along quickly.
Hope that helps get you started, and gives you a sense where things are headed.
@armitagep great question & thanks for sharing this use case! This will be good to refer to as we work on the inventory features.
Hi
How did you end up using this feature?
I find that if I add logs that set the quantity of my bales (using N/A) i get multiple log entries under Records->Quantities. So instead of just looking at what the latest “quantity” is, i have to sift through logs to see the latest log, to know what my inventory count is.
I don’t really know how to use quantity management, and I hope to learn from you. Same use case.
The plain farmOS way to do this is to navigate to the asset under which the inventory is being tracked. e.g. You might have a “Hay barn” asset (which is a structure) and add/subtract hay bales from its inventory as hay is acquired/created then used. When used this way, the current inventory for the hay barn will be displayed on the asset page and there is a tab at the top to see the history of the inventory logs.
See Inventory tracking | farmOS
You might also find this thread interesting: In cab Inventory display / adjustment & alternate Field Tool It explores alternate interfaces for tracking/recording data that way.
I find that if I add logs that set the quantity of my bales (using N/A) i get multiple log entries under Records->Quantities.
@marlonv Each Log in farmOS can have multiple Quantities. If you go to Records → Logs you will only see the first quantity, so if you need to see all quantities listed out separately (and CSV exportable) you can use Records → Quantities to get that information, but yes it will show the same log twice, because each row represents a quantity, not a log, if that makes sense.
have to sift through logs to see the latest log, to know what my inventory count is.
Do you have the inventory module installed? If so, each quantity can be made into an “inventory adjustment” quantity, which references an asset and either increments/decrements/resets that asset’s inventory.
The link that @Symbioquine posted above explains the how inventory calculation works in farmOS. We don’t really have a good tutorial for using it yet, unfortunately. But if you have the inventory module installed, you should see the extra options when you are editing quantities on a log. Hopefully that helps and you can get it to work as expected. If not, feel free to keep bugging us for explanations, maybe we’ll finally get around to writing a blog post or recording a video of how to use inventory features. 
Two and a half years later and I’m back. Installed FarmOS 2.2.2 the other day and it’s working. So, time to try getting Hay Bale inventory tracking working.
I have an area where I do my bale wrapping. Created a structure called “Wrapped Hay Area”. Within Google Keep I have a notes for beginning of the month inventory which breaks down by rows of wrapped bales. When I feed said bales I record in another Google Keep note something like “1 from Row 2 placed in lg yd feeder, 1 from Row 6 unrolled in SW quad of front field”
Beginning of every month I walk up and down the rows, counting bales, as part of my inventory control.
So, within FarmOS would you recommend that I create several structures; the aforementioned Wrapped Hay Area, as well as nine structure assets to represent the rows. Then I would add quantities to each “row” asset to get my start of month inventory. As hay is fed I record against the particular Row asset the removal of 1 or more bales.
If I do the above, will I be able to, at-a-glance so to speak, see how many bales are in each row on any given day, as well as the total bales in the wrapped hay area?
Or should I be using Group assets to specify rows and the wrapped hay area?
Hi @armitagep - Yes! I think what you described would work. Maybe give it a try with some “dummy data” to see if it works as expected. You can always delete the logs+assets you create afterwards.
I probably wouldn’t recommend using Group assets for this. You could, but there’s no benefit over another asset type. You won’t be using the “group membership” features at all.
I did some work last year around recording bales made and used, discussed in this thread In cab Inventory display / adjustment & alternate Field Tool