Storage Boxx PHP Inventory System (With QR & NFC Scanner)

Storage Boxx is an open-source PHP Inventory Management System. It is not a “super professional crazy bloated with features” kind of system. But it covers the basics, has a built-in webcam QR code scanner, built-in NFC scanner, and low stock warning push notifications. This will help small businesses get started with inventory stock keeping.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

LICENSE & DOWNLOAD

Storage Boxx is released under the MIT License. You are free to use it for personal and commercial projects, and modify it as you see fit. On the condition that the software is provided “as-is”. There are no warranties provided and “no strings attached”. Code Boxx and the authors are not liable for any claims, damages, or liabilities.

Download Storage Boxx | GitHub | SourceForge

 

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

• LAMP/WAMP/MAMP/XAMPP
• Apache Mod Rewrite
• PHP MYSQL PDO Extension
• At least PHP 8.0

 

INSTALLATION

Just access http://your-site.com in your browser and walk through the installer.

 

EQUIPMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

• A simple USB QR Code scanner only costs like 30~40 bucks these days – Get yourself one if you don’t already have one.
• NFC tags ain’t that bad either – 10 pieces of Ntag213 only cost 2-3 bucks. Buy them in bulk, and one piece will only cost a few cents.

 

 

 

STEP 1) REGISTER ITEMS

• Inventory > Items > Click on “+”.
• Either register your items one-by-one, or mass import them from a CSV file.
• Print out the QR code or create NFC tags if you want – It does speed things up and makes things easier to manage.

 

STEP 2) UPDATE STOCK MOVEMENT

• Inventory > Movement.
• This should be self-explanatory. Fill in and update the stock levels whenever required.

 

STEP 3) CHECK STOCK LEVELS

To check an item:

• Manually type in the SKU.
• Or use a USB barcode scanner.
• Or scan the NFC tag.
• Or scan the QR code.

 

 

 

I DELETED ALL ADMIN ACCOUNTS

require "lib/CORE-Go.php";
$_CORE->load("Users");
$_CORE->Users->save("NAME", "EMAIL", "PASSWORD");

Just create an “account recovery” script to create a new account. Run and delete this afterward.

 

CHANGED DOMAIN OR PATH

• Update HOST_BASE in lib/CORE-Config.php. Make sure to include the path (with a trailing slash) if not deployed at the base URL. E.G. http://site.com/storageboxx/
• Delete the existing .htaccess file.
• Create init.php.
  • require "lib/CORE-Go.php";
  • $_CORE->Route->init();
• Access http://site.com/init.php, this will automatically regenerate the .htaccess file.
• Delete init.php.
• Clear the service worker and browser cache if you want to be “totally safe”.

 

PAGES ARE NOT RESOLVING OR SHOWING PROPERLY

• Make sure that MOD_REWRITE is enabled in Apache.
• Make sure that AllowOverride is set properly in Apache.
• If using https://, make sure that your SSL cert and virtual host are properly set.
• In Mac/Linux, make sure that Apache/PHP has permission to read the files and folders.

Here is a quick “working example” of a test site on my WAMP server:

<VirtualHost site.com:443>
  DocumentRoot "D:\http"
  ServerName site.com:443
  SSLEngine On
  SSLCertificateFile "C:/xampp/apache/conf/ssl.crt/server.crt"
  SSLCertificateKeyFile "C:/xampp/apache/conf/ssl.key/server.key"
  <Directory "D:\http">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

 

MANUAL INSTALLATION

• Create a database and import all lib/SQL-*.sql in ascending order.
• Open lib/CORE-Config.php, update the settings to your own.
  • The host settings.
  • Database settings.
  • If you want to develop mobile apps, consider enabling CORS.
  • Set your own JWT secret key, and the issuer to your domain or company name.
• Run $_CORE->Route->init() to create .htaccess.
• Create your own admin user. See “deleted all admin accounts” above.
• Update index.php.
  • require __DIR__ . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "lib" . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . "CORE-Go.php";
  • $_CORE->load("Route");
  • $_CORE->Route->run();

 

I WANT TO CHANGE THE DATE FORMAT

Login > under system settings section > there are 4 “MYSQL date/time format” settings, change them accordingly. These are simply formats for the MYSQL DATE_FORMAT() function.

 

NOT WORKING. DON’T KNOW WHY.

Open the developer’s console, reload the page and see the error message.

• How To Debug Javascript – Very Simple Guide
• How To Debug PHP – Very Simple Guide

 

 

NFC FEATURES ARE “NOT WORKING”!

At the time of writing, Web NFC only works on Android Chrome and Baidu Browser – CanIUse

 

 

FOLDER STRUCTURE

• assets/ Public images, Javascript, CSS, etc…
• lib/ Core engine and library files.
  • API-AAA.php The API endpoints. Will be deployed at http://site.com/api/AAA/.
  • CORE-CCC.php Core engine files. Try not to mess with these.
  • LIB-LLL.php Library files.
  • SQL-SSS.php SQL database files. Can actually delete these after installation.
• pages/ HTML pages and template.
  • PAGE-PPP.php “Normal” pages. Will be deployed at http://site.com/PPP/.
  • REPORT-Loader.php A “special page” to generate reports.
  • TEMPLATE-TTT.php HTML page template.
  • MAIL-MMM.php Email templates.

 

THE FRAMEWORKS

Storage Boxx is built with:

• Bootstrap and Google Material Icons.
• HTML5 QR Code Scanner
• QR Code Generator
• PHP Web Push
• PHP JSON Web Token
• Core Boxx modular PHP framework.
  • Core Boxx Users Module

 

DATABASE TABLES

USERS

Field	Description
user_id	The user ID, primary key.
user_name	The user name.
user_email	The user’s email address.
user_password	The password. Encrypted.
user_token	NFC login token.

Field	Description
user_id	User ID, primary and foreign key.
reset_hash	Password reset security hash.
reset_time	Timestamp when the reset request is made. Spam prevention.

 

SYSTEM

Field	Description
setting_name	Primary key.
setting_description	Description of the setting.
setting_value	The value of the setting.
setting_group	Setting group. 0 – “Hidden” system settings and definitions. 1 – User changeable settings.

Field	Description
endpoint	Primary key, web push endpoint.
data	JSON-encoded subscription object.

 

ITEMS

Field	Description
stock_sku	The SKU of the item, primary key.
stock_name	Name of the item.
stock_desc	Description of the item.
stock_unit	Unit of measurement.
stock_low	For low stock monitoring. Set to 0 for “no monitoring”.
stock_qty	Current quantity in stock.

Field	Description
stock_sku	The SKU of the item. Primary key.
mvt_date	Date of movement entry. Primary key.
mvt_direction	The direction of the movement. I – Stock In (receive) O – Stock Out (release) T – Stock Take (audit) D – Discard (dispose)
user_id	The user who made this movement entry.
mvt_qty	Quantity moved.
mvt_notes	Notes, if any.

 

 

 

CORE BOXX LIBRARY REFERENCE

For most of the core modules, you can refer to the Core Boxx reference library.

 

STEP 1) CREATE/MODIFY DATABASE TABLES

Add your new tables or views, modify the existing ones.

 

STEP 2) ADD/UPDATE SYSTEM MODULES

class Report extends Core {
  function getMoveByUser ($id) {
    return $this->DB->fetchAll(
      "SELECT * FROM `stock_mvt` WHERE `user_id`=? ORDER BY `mvt_date` DESC", [$id]
    );
  }
}

To add a new module:

• Create lib/LIB-Module.php.
• Define class Module extends Core.
• Add functions inside.

In this example, we add a new report module – lib/LIB-Report.php and class Report extends Core. That’s all. This new module can now be loaded via $_CORE->load("Report") and the function can be accessed via $_CORE->Report->getMoveByUser().

 

 

STEP 3) ADD/UPDATE API ENDPOINT (OPTIONAL)

// (A) REGISTERED USERS ONLY
if (!isset($_SESS["user"])) {
  $_CORE->respond(0, "Please sign in first", null, null, 403);
}
 
switch ($_REQ) {
  // (B) INVALID REQUEST
  default:
    $_CORE->respond(0, "Invalid request", null, null, 400);
    break;
 
  // (C) MOVE BY USER REPORT
  case "getMoveByUser":
    $_CORE->autoGETAPI("Report", "getMoveByUser");
    break;
}

To add an API endpoint:

• Core Boxx has an API structure of http://site.com/api/MODULE/REQUEST.
• lib/API-report.php will create an API endpoint at http://site.com/api/report.
• $_REQ is the requested service REQUEST segment of the URL.

So for this example, we can send $_POST["id"] = 123 to http://site.com/report/getMoveByUser/ to get the movement report. The API will reply with a JSON encoded string.

 

STEP 4) ADD/UPDATE HTML CSS JAVASCRIPT

• Add your new pages in pages/.
  • For example, pages/PAGE-report.php can be accessed from http://site.com/report.
  • Take note – PAGE-report.php can only be accessed by users who are signed in.

That’s about it. Just reverse engineer and copy from the existing libraries, API, and pages… You will see the development pattern here.