Inventory management in Bitrix24 in Kazakhstan: what it can do and where the limit is

Inventory management in a CRM starts with a simple question from a sales rep — 'is this item in stock?' — and ends with that rep hunting for the answer in three places at once: in the warehouse keeper's head, in a week-old stock spreadsheet, and by calling the warehouse. While sales are low, this is tolerable. As soon as you get more than a dozen orders a day, the familiar troubles begin: you sell what you don't have, reserve the same item twice, and get hit with a cancellation penalty on Kaspi.

Bitrix24 has built-in inventory management — right inside the CRM, with no separate program. It covers most of the tasks of a small or medium business, but it has a clear limit where expectations tend to shatter. Below is the honest picture: what the built-in warehouse can really do, what it will never do, how it coexists with Kazakhstan's tax accounting and 1C, and at what point you should start looking toward a real WMS. First things first: inventory in Bitrix24 is managerial stock accounting, not government document flow. It issues neither an SNT (accompanying waybill) nor an ESF (electronic invoice).

Why manage inventory right in the CRM instead of a separate program

The main value of inventory management inside Bitrix24 isn't the documents themselves, but the fact that stock is visible in the very place where the sale happens. A sales rep opens a deal, adds an item — and immediately sees how much is in the warehouse, how much is already reserved for other deals, and how much is actually available. No need to switch to 1C, call the warehouse keeper, or keep a parallel spreadsheet. When the item is sold and the deal is closed, it's written off from the warehouse automatically — without a separate manual step.

That's also the limitation: Bitrix24's inventory 'thinks' in terms of sales and the CRM, not logistics. It answers the question 'what to sell and what to write off' perfectly, but it doesn't manage the physical movement of goods around the warehouse — where they sit, who picks them, and in what order. We'll cover both below.

What the built-in inventory management can do: a short, honest list

The whole system rests on documents. The key principle to accept right away: stock changes only through a posted document. If you edit the number in an item's card by hand, the movement won't reconcile — the system always derives stock from the sum of posted documents, not from what you typed in.

• Receipt — goods arriving from a supplier: with the purchase price and supplier, increases stock.
• Stock-in (posting to inventory) — entering opening stock and recording surpluses (including as a result of stocktaking).
• Transfer — moving goods between the company's warehouses.
• Write-off — losses, shortages, and damage not related to a sale.
• Sales issue — a write-off upon sale to a customer; created from a deal, including automatically when it closes.
• Stocktaking — reconciling the physical count against the recorded stock; based on the result, the system itself generates a stock-in for surpluses and a write-off for shortages.

In addition, the warehouse calculates cost price using one of two methods — average cost or order of receipt (FIFO) — keeps stock separately for each warehouse, shows reports on stock and movement, and can warn about minimum stock levels. You can create as many warehouses as you need. Barcodes are supported, and you can scan them with a smartphone camera through the mobile app — no special equipment required.

Which plan and version include inventory management

The first disappointment usually comes here: there is no inventory management on the free plan. It's available on the paid cloud plans and in the self-hosted (on-premise) version. The built-in mode (where accounting is kept inside Bitrix24 itself) starts from the lower paid plans, while the mode that pulls stock from 1C starts from the higher ones. Bitrix periodically changes the specific plan names and limits, so don't rely on the numbers from someone else's articles — check the current plan lineup or ask us to pick a plan for your needs.

The choice between cloud and on-premise doesn't directly affect inventory management — it's available in both — but it does affect integration with 1C and where your data lives. To estimate the budget of the whole implementation, not just the plan, use the cost calculator and our breakdown of how much an implementation really costs in 2026.

How to enable and configure it: two decisions you make only once

Inventory management is enabled in the 'CRM → Products and Warehouses' section. When you turn it on, Bitrix24 asks two questions whose answers are costly to change later, so they should be decided deliberately.

• Accounting mode. 'Inventory management in Bitrix24' — documents are kept inside the portal. 'Inventory management in 1C' — stock comes from 1C, and Bitrix24 becomes a storefront. This is the fork in the road about who owns the stock (see the 1C section).
• Cost method. Average cost or FIFO. You can't switch it without fully disabling and re-enabling inventory management, and disabling wipes documents and stock — so choose the right one from the start.
• Warehouses and permissions. Set up real warehouses rather than a single 'general' one, and assign permissions: the warehouse keeper posts receipts and transfers, the sales rep only reserves and sells, and editing the catalog and prices is locked down.
• Opening stock. Entered via a stock-in document after a stocktaking, not by typing numbers into item cards.

Kazakhstan specifics: inventory in Bitrix24 is not SNT, ESF, or the 'Virtual Warehouse'

The costliest misconception Kazakhstan businesses have about a warehouse in a CRM: 'we'll turn on inventory in Bitrix24 and it'll cover our SNT and ESF.' It won't. These are two separate circuits, and one does not replace the other.

• Bitrix24 is the managerial circuit. It shows stock, reserves goods, processes the deal, and writes goods off on sale. This is your internal accounting of 'what we have and what we've sold.'
• IS ESF and 1C are the fiscal circuit. The accompanying waybill for goods (SNT), the electronic invoice (ESF), and the 'Virtual Warehouse' are kept in the state IS ESF and in 1C 'Accounting for Kazakhstan.' Bitrix24 neither generates nor submits them.
• Shipment source documents — the waybill for the release of inventory to a third party (Z-2 form) — also belong to the accounting circuit, not the CRM one.

An honest phrasing worth remembering: Bitrix24 will show stock and process the deal, but the inventory-release waybill, the SNT and the ESF will be issued by 1C or the IS ESF. Definitions of the terms are in our glossary. And one more thing that's important to keep in mind when planning: from 1 January 2026, the base VAT rate in Kazakhstan rose from 12% to 16%, and the mandatory VAT registration threshold was halved — down to 10,000 MCI (monthly calculation index). More trading companies now fall under VAT, which means keeping stock and cost price in order stops being optional.

Bitrix24 and 1C: who is the 'stock owner'

If you already have 1C, the question isn't 'Bitrix24 or 1C' but which of them keeps the stock. Holding it in two places at once is a direct path to discrepancies: the two systems change the numbers independently, and a month later they don't match. The rule is simple: one source of truth for stock.

• Scenario A — inventory in Bitrix24. Works if 1C is used mainly for accounting and operational tracking is more convenient in the CRM. Stock lives in Bitrix24, and the accounting entries go to 1C.
• Scenario B — stock from 1C. In 1C mode, Bitrix24 receives products, stock, prices and barcodes from 1C and works as a sales storefront. In this case you can't edit the catalog or warehouse documents in Bitrix24 itself — 1C is the source of truth. That's exactly what protects you from desync.

For most Kazakhstan trading companies with a live 1C, the right scenario is the second one: 1C remains the master of stock and cost price, while Bitrix24 takes over sales and customers. Setting up a two-way exchange is a separate job; we explain how it works in our article on Bitrix24 and 1C integration, and we set up the exchange itself turnkey.

Inventory and sales: reservation, auto write-off, online store, and Kaspi

It's in sales that the Bitrix24 warehouse shines most. An item in a deal can be put on reserve — for 3 days by default, with the period adjustable manually; the reservation is lifted automatically when the period expires or when the deal is moved to a final stage. When a deal is won, Bitrix24 checks warehouse availability and creates the sales-issue document itself, writing off the goods; if there isn't enough stock, it warns you and offers to change the warehouse or reduce the quantity.

With a Bitrix online store, stock syncs natively. With Kaspi Store — via third-party connectors, and in this setup the stock master is usually still 1C or an inventory-accounting system. How to connect Kaspi to your pipeline is covered in a separate walkthrough, 'how to connect Kaspi', and we set up the integration ourselves. If you need inventory primarily for online sales, see our walkthrough 'Bitrix24 for an online store'.

Where the limit is: when the built-in warehouse isn't enough and it's time to look at a WMS

Bitrix24's built-in warehouse honestly covers stock and sales accounting, but it's not a WMS and doesn't claim to be. Here are the features it doesn't have and never will — if you need them, it's a signal that you've outgrown the CRM warehouse and it's time to move to 1C or a dedicated warehouse system.

A separate warning about the illusion of serials and expiry dates: don't count on built-in batch accounting with serial traceability — if you trade in something where this is critical (medical devices, food, chemicals), plan for 1C from the start. Industry scenarios and our case studies by industry are on a separate solutions page.

Receiving and stocktaking without errors

The two operations where accounting most often falls apart are receiving and stocktaking. Receiving is convenient to do in the mobile app: you create a receipt document and scan barcodes with the camera; if an item is found by its barcode, it's added to the document, and if not, the system offers to create a new item and remember its barcode. The main mistake here is duplicating a receipt: the same delivery document is posted twice, and stock balloons.

Stocktaking in Bitrix24 reconciles the physical recount against the recorded stock and, based on the results, generates a stock-in for surpluses and a write-off for shortages itself — you don't need to create them manually. For the numbers to be reliable, receiving and shipping are halted during the recount, otherwise a stock mismatch is inevitable.

What to do BEFORE enabling inventory: a preparation checklist

Inventory management doesn't create order by itself — it digitizes the order you already have. If you switch it on over a mess in your catalog, you'll get a digitized mess. So before you start:

• Catalog review. Clean out duplicates, test items and outdated positions, and bring names and article numbers to a single standard — in Kazakhstan practice, article numbers are often dirty.
• Units of measure. Fix the base unit for each SKU; inconsistent units break stock figures.
• Barcodes. Assign and verify barcodes, and decide what to do with items that have none (generate internal ones).
• Opening stock. Run a full stocktaking and enter the base values via a stock-in document — not by typing numbers into item cards.
• Responsibilities and permissions. Assign who posts receipts, sales issues, transfers and write-offs, and agree: stock changes only through a document.
• Stock owner. Decide in advance — Bitrix24 or 1C — and in which mode the exchange runs, so you don't end up with two sources of truth.

Essentially it's the same approach as any CRM implementation by checklist: data and agreements first, buttons later. And if your catalog currently lives in spreadsheets, start with a proper data migration from Excel.

How to implement inventory management without the pain

Inventory management in Bitrix24 is a powerful tool for a trading company if you understand its limits: it handles stock and sales, but it replaces neither 1C with its accounting and batches, nor Kazakhstan's government document flow, nor a full WMS with bins and TSDs. The right order of implementation isn't 'turn it on and figure it out,' but first determining who owns the stock, cleaning up the catalog, and only then launching documents.