In SCA there is a nice lightweight item property that tells us if something is in stock. This property is aptly named “isinstock” and exists on the item model. By looking at this property you can quickly make decisions about what to do with an item based on its immediate availability. Here is the official description of this derived field: “Displays a Boolean value, which indicates whether an item should be considered to be in stock depending on the item type and item availability.”

What is not clear from the description is how NetSuite derives this value. Here is the breakdown of how the decision is made:

1. Item is of a type that does not care about stock at all (not “InvtPart”, “Assembly”, or “Kit”)

2. Item is of a kind that might care about stock (“isdropshipitem” set or “isspecialorderitem” set), and site is configured not to consider inventory on such items

3. Available quantity is 1.0 or more