My On-Hand Quantity Does Not Match the Inventory Ledger

When a part's on-hand quantity disagrees with the sum of its ledger entries, the ledger wins: it is the authoritative append-only record, and the on-hand number is a cached total derived from it. Drift means a write path changed one without refreshing the other. EDGEBIC by User Solutions has a built-in check that confirms the drift and shows the exact gap, and the fix is a posted adjustment, never an edit to the on-hand field.

This post is part of the EDGEBIC troubleshooting guide. It explains why the ledger is the source of truth, how to confirm the drift, and how to reconcile it without breaking the audit trail.

The Ledger Is the Truth, On-Hand Is a Cache

Every inventory movement is a line in the inventory ledger: receipts, issues, adjustments, and reversals. The ledger is append-only, which means nothing is ever edited or deleted in place. To correct a mistake you post a reversal or an adjustment, and the history stays intact. That property is what makes the ledger trustworthy for an audit.

The on-hand quantity is not a separate fact. It is a running total that should always equal the sum of the part's ledger lines. It exists so screens and netting calculations do not have to re-sum the whole ledger on every read. When it matches the ledger, it is a convenience. When it does not, it is a stale copy, and the ledger is still correct.

Confirming the Drift Is Real

Do not judge drift by eye. EDGEBIC's inventory anomaly checks include an on-hand cache-drift check that compares the cached on-hand against the ledger sum for every part, and reports any gap larger than a tiny rounding tolerance.

Two things to know about running it:

• The cache-drift check is plant-wide. It runs on a full anomaly scan, not on a report filtered to a single job. Filtering hides it.
• The detail line shows three numbers: the cached on-hand, the ledger sum, and the difference. That difference is the exact adjustment you will post.

If the check reports the part, the drift is stored, not a screen waiting to refresh. To see the underlying lines, audit the inventory ledger for the part and confirm the entries really do total the ledger sum the check reported.

Reconciling Without Breaking the Trail

Once the drift is confirmed, decide which number is correct.

Either path uses a posted inventory adjustment. The rule that never bends: do not delete ledger entries to force the numbers together. The ledger's value is its completeness. A deleted line destroys the very history you would need to explain the discrepancy later. Post a corrective line instead, then re-run the anomaly scan to confirm the cache-drift check clears.

Do Not Confuse Drift With a Negative Balance

Cache drift and a negative on-hand are different problems. A negative ledger balance on a stocked part is often temporary and correct: a job consumed stock and posted its issue before the build that replenishes it posted its receipt. That is a timing check, not a cache check, and it clears itself when the build completes. A permanent negative means more was issued than was ever received, which needs an opening balance or an adjustment receipt rather than reconciliation, and an on-hand balance that went negative covers telling the temporary timing gap from the missing receipt. The inventory ledger overview covers the full set of ledger states.

When Drift Follows a Reschedule

If drift appears right after a large reschedule, the usual cause is a consume-issue posting or reversal that did not refresh the cached total. The ledger lines are typically correct; the derived on-hand lagged. Reconcile each reported part with an adjustment, then watch the next reschedule. Drift that reappears on every run points to a write path not recomputing the cache, and that is worth a support ticket. For the broader picture of how scheduling and inventory stay in step, see how a scheduler nets demand against inventory and the related symptom inventory on-hand looks wrong after a reschedule. The troubleshooting guide links the neighboring inventory checks.