A stockroom
that has taken
a sale.
ATUM is a serious, self-hosted WooCommerce inventory plugin — the mirror image of the POS-first products we usually get compared with. It comes at the shop from the stockroom rather than the counter, which is the right end to start from.
The difference is what happens when you also need a till. In ATUM's world the point of sale is a separate paid add-on bolted onto the inventory plugin; here the till and the stockroom were built as one thing, so the cost learned at receiving is already sitting behind the margin at the counter.
The parts that
do not change
with a release.
One install or two products
Suppliers, purchase orders, receiving, costing, stock takes, transfers and the till are one plugin here. Assembling an inventory plugin and a POS add-on gives you two upgrade cycles, two support queues and two things to keep compatible.
One ledger
Because the counter and the stockroom are the same software, a sale and a delivery are the same kind of movement in the same ledger — who, when, why. When stock is written by one product and sold by another, that history is only as good as the seam between them.
Blind counting as a default
Our stock takes hide the system figure until your count is committed, because seeing it first turns a count into a rubber stamp. Check how any inventory plugin handles this — it is a policy decision, not a feature toggle.
Where we agree, and it matters
ATUM is self-hosted and takes the supply side seriously. On both of those we are on the same side of the argument, and on the same side against most hosted tills.
Row by row.
Our column is what the suite does today. The other column describes ATUM as we understand it — check it against their own documentation before you decide, because it is their product to describe.
| Feature | CodeBold Commerce | ATUM |
|---|---|---|
| Runs entirely on your server | Yes | Yes |
| Suppliers | With lead times, free | Yes |
| Purchase orders | Free | Yes |
| Receiving against an order | Yes, short deliveries included | verify |
| Costing | Weighted average, learned at receiving | verify method |
| Stock takes | Blind by design; variance after commit | verify |
| Transfers between outlets | Multi-outlet tier | verify |
| Barcode label printing | Yes, with a test sheet first | verify |
| Point of sale | In the same plugin, free core | Separate paid add-on |
| Shifts with X and Z reports | Free | verify in their POS add-on |
| Offline selling | Yes, receipt numbers reserved in advance | verify in their POS add-on |
| Restaurant recipes | Restaurant module, multi-outlet tier | verify |
| Roles and capabilities | 26 capabilities, checked twice | verify |
| Licence | GPL, every plugin | verify |
TODO: verify every claim in the ATUM column against their current documentation, and date this page
When to pick
ATUM.
A comparison page that cannot name a single reason to choose the other product is an advertisement wearing a table for a hat. Here are the honest ones.
- ATUM has been doing WooCommerce inventory for years and has depth in places we do not — reporting, forecasting and a catalogue of add-ons built around it.
- If you do not need a till at all — a warehouse, a wholesaler, a shop that only sells online — an inventory-only plugin is the better-shaped tool and we would say so.
- Their free plugin covers a lot of ground before anybody asks you for money.
- A larger community means more people who have already hit the problem you are about to hit.
Switching.
We use ATUM already. Do we have to throw it away?
Can I keep our purchase order history?
Why not just add a POS add-on to the inventory plugin we have?
Is your inventory side as deep as theirs?
Do not take our word.
Run both on staging.
Our core is free and not time-limited. An afternoon with your own catalogue beats any comparison table, including this one.