Inventory utilizes the package Baum for managing Locations and Categories.
By default, the migration included with inventory includes scope support.
Scope support means you can separate your inventory into master categories (such as Products) and then manage your inventory from there. For example:
Let's create the Product category, note the belongs_to attribute:
$productCategory = new Category;
$productCategory->name = 'Products';
$productCategory->belongs_to = 'products';
$productCategory->save();
Now let's create an inventory item under the product category:
$product = new Inventory;
$product->name = 'LCD TV';
$product->category_id = $productCategory->id;
$product->metric_id = $metric->id;
$product->save();
Now for example purposes, let's create a Part category:
$partCategory = new Category;
$partCategory->name = 'Parts';
$partCategory->belongs_to = 'parts';
$partCategory->save();
Now we'll create a Part:
$part = new Inventory;
$part->name = 'Battery';
$part->category_id = $partCategory->id;
$part->metric_id = $metric->id;
$part->save();
And now we can ask each category for their inventories:
echo $productCategory->inventories()->first()->name; // Returns 'LCD TV'
echo $partCategory->inventories()->first()->name; // Returns 'Battery'
Using this method, we can retrieve the master category, and retrieve only their associated inventory.