Advanced inventory is for a business that keeps stock in more than one place: several stores, a warehouse, a 3PL, a customer holding your goods on consignment. It gives the business the Warehouse section: stock by location as the Inventory module, and Transfer Order, Pick, Consignment, 3PL, Location Group and Location beside it, each a module with its own tab. Underneath it is the same stock as the basic screens: every unit is still a stock tag in a place, every change one line in the stock ledger, and the single on-hand figure on a part is the total of every location's.
Switching it on
- Open Inventory, Setup, Advanced inventory.
- Switch on Use advanced inventory.
Switched off again, the views go away and nothing is lost: transfers, tickets and levels stay as they were, and turning it back on brings them back. While it is off, nothing new can be started (a transfer, a pick ticket, a consignment receipt), and the app says where to turn it on.
Locations
Here a location is a place stock is kept, with what kind of place it is:
- Store: where you sell, a shop, a salon or a counter.
- Warehouse: a building of your own that holds stock.
- Plant: where you make things yourself.
- 3PL: a third-party warehouse that holds and ships your stock. It belongs to one of your vendors.
- Contract manufacturer: a maker holding your materials for production runs, also one of your vendors.
- Customer, on consignment: a customer holding your stock until they sell it.
- In transit: kept by the app, for stock on a transfer between two locations.
- In the Warehouse section, open Location Group and tap New.
- Name it, say what it is, and pick the Facility it is at. For a 3PL or a maker, pick them among your vendors; for a customer, the customer holding it.
- On its Locations tab add the places stock sits in, each with its type and functions; a location set to Holds a vendor's stock on consignment keeps that vendor's goods apart from your own. The Warehouse section article has the whole of it, numbers and labels included.
The business's own buildings (a store, an office, a warehouse, with their address and hours) are set up in Admin, Locations; see Admin. The locations here are where stock sits inside them, and the shelves and bins of each are under Setup.
Stock by location
The Stock view shows stock three ways:
- Every location: each item down the side and each location across, with what is on hand and what is in transit. The totals are the same figures the basic screens show.
- One location: what that location holds, what is available, what is Coming on transfers, and what is Low here. Only what is low narrows it to what needs ordering or restocking.
- By tag: every stock tag, as the basic Stock screen shows it, for moving, adjusting or writing off by hand.
Open an item to see it at every location. Each item can have its own levels at each location: Safety stock (never run under this), Reorder at (low at this or less) and Order up to (what a reorder fills it to). Choose Set one beside an item at a location, or Set a Reorder Point at Another Location, then Save the levels. An item is low at a location when what is there and coming to it is at or under its reorder point. Your webhooks are told once when an item turns low at a location, and not again until it is back up.
Transfers
A transfer moves stock from a place at one location to another location, and keeps it on the books as In transit while it travels.
- In the Transfer Order module, choose New transfer.
- Pick where it is Picked from, where it Goes to, and Why it moves (moving stock, restocking a location, sending to a 3PL, consigning to a customer, materials for production, bringing stock back). Add What it moves, item by item.
- Choose Keep it as a draft, or Ask for it to request it.
- To pick it on paper or a scanner, choose Make a pick ticket; what is picked is then exactly what ships.
- Choose Ship it, say who carried it and the tracking number, and It has shipped. The stock leaves its place and is in transit.
- When it arrives, open it and choose Receive it. Say what came of each item and the place it goes into. Each piece keeps its lot, date and cost.
- If less arrived, say what happened to The rest: it Is still coming (receive it later), it Never arrived, or it Came damaged. The last two are written off as a loss.
A transfer can be changed or canceled until it ships. Still moving lists what is not received yet; All lists every transfer. In the Stock Ledger under each transfer shows every move it made. Nothing is posted to the books by a transfer itself, since the stock is yours wherever it is.
Pick tickets
A pick ticket is the sheet a picker works from, its lines in the order the bins are walked. It is a different thing from a warehouse pick list: a ticket is kept, given to someone and finished.
- In the Pick module, choose New pick ticket.
- Pick the place it is Picked from, then the Orders Still to Send (store and wholesale orders) it covers, or A Transfer From Here.
- Say Who picks it, or leave it to whoever starts it, and choose Make the pick ticket.
- Open the ticket. Type what was taken of each line, or scan into Scan an item or a tag: each scan of a barcode, a part number or a TAG label counts one on the first line not yet picked. Save what was picked as you go.
- Choose Finish picking, or Finish, the rest picked as listed when the rest was taken as written. A line with less than asked is picked short.
Print gives the sheet with a box for each line. Picking moves no stock: an order's stock leaves when it ships, and a transfer's when it ships.
Consignment
The Consignment module has both sides:
- Vendors' stock we hold: goods a vendor leaves with you, yours to sell and theirs until sold. Receive their stock onto a place that holds that vendor's consigned stock, with Their packing slip; it comes in at no cost. It is sold at the register like anything else, and each one sold is Owed to the vendor at its consignment cost, set in the item's Owed each. Send some back returns what did not sell.
- Our stock customers hold: your goods at a customer's location until they sell them. Send them stock and Bring some back are transfers to and from their location. When they say what they sold, Record what they sold from Their report, and Record the sale: it leaves your stock as a sale, at its cost, in the books.
3PLs
The 3PL module shows each third-party warehouse that holds your stock: What It Holds by your books and what that is worth, What You Sent It and what is on its way, and What It Shipped to customers.
- Send it stock makes a transfer to it.
- When the 3PL sends its count, choose Enter their count and type what They Say for each item, with Their report. The Difference from your books shows beside each line.
- Choose Make ours match theirs to post each difference as a count, in the stock ledger and the books, or Keep ours as it is.
Storing and shipping other businesses' goods, as a 3PL yourself, is Fulfillment for other businesses.
Best practices
- Set each location's kind before you move anything: a 3PL's or a customer's stock is then never sold at your register by mistake.
- Set safety stock and a reorder point on what sells at each store, and restock from the warehouse with transfers rather than buying for each store.
- Ship a transfer the day it leaves and receive it the day it arrives, so what is in transit is really on a truck.
- Pick on a ticket and scan: what ships is what was picked, and a short pick is seen before the box is closed.
- Enter a 3PL's count as they sent it and look at the differences before making yours match; a large one is worth a call.
- With stores, add the retail add-on for sell-through and restocking: see Inventory.