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

Storage Boxx is an open-source PHP Inventory Management System. With a built-in webcam QR scanner, NFC scanner, passwordless login, and an optional experimental AI assistant.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION

First, here are the download links and a quick “setup guide” for the impatient folks who don’t want to read through everything.

 

LICENSE & DOWNLOAD

GitHub | GitHub – AI Assistant | SourceForge

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.

 

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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

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

 

 

INSTALLATION

Just copy/unzip into your HTTP folder. Access http://your-site.com in the browser and walk through the installer.

 

FAQ

AJAX Error? Bad Server Response? Change the domain? Change the timezone? Check out the FAQ here.

 

HOW TO USE

So far so good? Let us now go through a quick crash course on how to use Storage Boxx.

 

EQUIPMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

  • Webcam – If you are using a desktop without a webcam, a simple one only costs about $20~30.
  • USB QR Code scanner – Alternatively, a “dedicated barcode scanner” will cost about $30~40 bucks.
  • NFC tags – 10 pieces of Ntag213 only cost 2-3 bucks. Buy them in bulk, and one piece will only cost a few cents.
  • Fingerprint sensors – These are kind of expensive… But I got lucky with a $25 “Made in China” that works just fine.
  • Label printer – Print your QR codes. There are Bluetooth ones that can pair with smartphones.

 

PART 1) REGISTER ITEMS

First step, register all your items. You can do it one by one, or the smarter way is to upload a CSV file if you have a lot of products.

 

PART 2) REGISTER BATCHES

Now that the items are in place, create the batches for every item.

  • Batches are particularly good for managing items with expiry dates, or if you want to track how slow/fast a batch moves.
  • For the people who don’t care about “batches” – Just create a dummy batch and use it for a lifetime.
  • Print the QR code for the batches, and/or create the NFC tags.

 

 

PART 3) ITEM MOVEMENT

Record the item/batch movement accordingly over time. Pretty self-explanatory.

  • Set the direction (in, out, discard, stock take).
  • Set the quantity.
  • Add notes, if any.
  • Enter the SKU and batch – Or just scan.

 

PART 4) CHECK

You can access the “check” section at any time, check the stock movement history.

 

EXTRA) PASSWORDLESS SIGN IN

The days of stinky passwords are over.

  • You can create NFC login tags (staff card) for users. So long as they have a compatible device/browser, they can use it to login without entering the user/password.
  • Alternatively, open the user menu after you have signed in (top-right corner) – Passwordless Login. Register to sign in with your fingerprint, face recognition, or pin number.

 

 

FOR THE DEVELOPERS

This section is for the developers, with a couple of development notes for customization.

 

BUILT ON CORE BOXX

 

 

EXPIRING ITEMS NOTIFICATION

Tricky.

  • Create a expire-notify.php script, set it to run every 24 hours in Windows Task Scheduler or CRON.
  • Add a EXPIRE_WARN_DAYS setting.
  • Modify $_CORE->Report->getExpiry() to get expiring items with EXPIRE DAYS > 0 && EXPIRE DAYS <= EXPIRE_WARN_DAYS.
  • If there are expiring items, send the notification.
  • It will be wise to add another EXPIRE_NOTIFIED table to keep the item_id and batch_name… Or the system will nag every 24 hours until the item expires.

 

AI ASSISTANT

So, you may have noticed that the AI Assistant is “missing” or “not working” out of the box. It’s a long story.

 

 

REQUIREMENTS

  • Python – Yes, Python. Not PHP. Version 3.9 to 3.10 seems to work fine at the time of writing.
  • Microsoft C++ Build Tools
  • CMake
  • Nvidia CUDA Toolkit – If you have an Nvidia graphics card.
  • An Nvidia graphics card with at least 8GB VRAM is highly recommended. You can TRY to run on CPU, but it is painfully slow and practically useless.

 

 

INSTALLATION

  • Copy/unzip this module into your existing Storage Boxx folder.
  • I have tried multiple AI models, codellama-7b-instruct.Q5_K_M.gguf is the only one that produced decent(ish) results – Download that into chatbot/models or choose a better/larger/smarter model on your own.
  • Edit chatbot/a_settings.py, change the model_name to your own.
  • BE WARNED, GIGABYTES WORTH OF DOWNLOAD! – 0-setup.bat (Windows) 0-setup.sh (Linux).

 

LAUNCH

  • Run 1-bot.bat (Windows) 1-bot.sh (Linux/Mac), this will deploy the bot at http://your-site.com:8008.
  • Just access http://your-site.com/ai (must be signed in).

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