Automate Stock Lookups Without Phone Calls
"How much do we have left of this?" is one of the most repeated questions in a warehouse, and every time someone answers it, they stop doing something else. This article compares two ways to automate stock lookups: your own team asking Fold instead of opening a spreadsheet, or your clients checking a portal that reads that same spreadsheet. When each one makes sense.
27 September 2026 · David Burnao
Every "how much is left?" is time pulled from the warehouse
In any business that moves stock, the same question comes up many times a day, in different words but always the same shape: how much is left of a product, whether an order has arrived yet, which warehouse holds a given item. Every time someone answers it by hand (checking a spreadsheet, calling whoever manages it, walking over to count it physically), they stop doing something else, even if just for a minute. None of these lookups is hard to answer on its own; what costs real time, day after day, is that they never stop repeating.
Two ways to automate stock lookups
There are two paths, and they aren't mutually exclusive. The first is having your own team ask an assistant instead of opening a spreadsheet or calling the warehouse — that's what Fold does. The second is letting your clients check their own stock directly, without calling you at all — that's a client portal. Which one fits depends on who's asking the question.
Fold: your team asks, without calling the warehouse
If the questions come from inside your own company (sales, admin, customer service), Fold answers them directly: it connects to the warehouse spreadsheet with read-only access and answers with the exact row the data comes from. Nobody has to call whoever manages the spreadsheet, wait for them to be free, or interrupt whatever they were doing at that moment.
The portal: your clients ask for themselves
If instead it's your own clients asking about their stock ("how much do I actually have left in stock right now?", "where's my order?"), a portal is the better fit: each client logs in with their own account and sees only their own data, with nobody on your team having to take the call. A real case of this is already running, with real clients of a logistics company.
How Fold handles stock, step by step
- It connects to the warehouse spreadsheet. The one you already use, with read-only access: Fold never changes it, only reads it.
- It learns what each column means. Product, quantity, warehouse, date: it's proposed once and confirmed before use.
- It answers with the exact row. "How much stock is left of this item?" — the answer arrives with the file and the row it came from, not a rough estimate.
What it doesn't make up
If an item doesn't appear in the spreadsheet, Fold says it isn't there, instead of assuming there are zero units (which would be a false answer, not the absence of one). And if two rows could both be the answer (two warehouses, two different arrival dates), it shows you both: it doesn't choose the right one for you. That same rule applies to any stock question, no matter how simple it looks, because a wrong guess costs more than a moment's extra reading.
A real case
The same mechanism (read, check, answer with the source) is already running in a real logistics company's portal: its clients check their stock and movements from their phone, read straight from the warehouse's own spreadsheet, without calling anyone. The full, anonymous case is on the case studies page.
What happens when the warehouse spreadsheet changes every day
It's normal for a stock spreadsheet to get updated several times a day: goods arrive, orders go out, a quantity gets corrected. Fold reads the file again whenever it changes, so today's answer comes from today's version, not a cached copy. If the file is slow to update because someone has it open at that moment, Fold waits until it's free instead of reading a half-saved version.
What kind of stock questions Fold answers
In plain language, with no commands to learn: "how much is left of this item?", "which warehouse is it in?", "has this supplier's order arrived yet?", "how many units of this product have we moved this month?". Fold searches the warehouse spreadsheet it knows about, and if the question needs several rows added together (say, the total moved in a month), it shows the rows it used to reach that number, not just the final result.
Which one to choose for your case
If the calls you want to remove are your own team asking each other for figures, start with Fold: it's immediate, nothing new needs to be built, you just connect the file. If the calls are your clients asking about their own stock, a portal fixes that at the root. And if you need both, they can be built together: a portal is requested as a custom automation, with a price and timeline before it starts.
Plans and pricing
Fold starts on a free plan, no card required: 2 questions a day, up to 10 a week. Paid plans run from €49.99 a month (500 questions) to €249.99 a month (10,000 questions), plus tax depending on your company's country. A client portal is quoted separately, as a custom automation: from €59.99 for a small tweak, from €399.99 for a new feature, and quote on request for something large, after a free 30-minute call.
How to get started
Sign-up and payment inside the Fold app are opening very soon. In the meantime, you can leave your email to be notified, and try it with your own stock spreadsheet right away, on the free plan.
Frequently asked questions
Can my clients use Fold to check their own stock?
Fold is built for your internal team. If you want your clients to check things directly, a client portal is the better fit, requested as a custom automation.
How long does it take Fold to learn my stock spreadsheet?
The first time it sees the file, it proposes what each column means and you confirm it. From then on, it answers from that sheet every time someone asks.
What happens if an item isn't in the spreadsheet?
Fold says it isn't there, instead of assuming there are zero units. That difference matters: zero is a piece of data, "not found" is the absence of one.
Can I have Fold for my team and a portal for my clients at the same time?
Yes. They're two separate automations that can coexist: Fold for internal lookups, and a client portal quoted separately as a custom automation.
Keep reading
Want to see it with your own business?
Try Fold with your warehouse spreadsheet: the free plan needs no card.
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