A business can store and ship other businesses' goods, as a third-party logistics warehouse (3PL) does, or a maker that keeps its brands' finished goods. Their goods sit in your places and bins, and are counted, put away, picked and shipped the same way as your own, but they are never yours: they carry no cost and stay out of your own products, purchasing and reports. Switch it on as Fulfillment for other businesses in Settings, Menu; it lives in Shipping, under Clients.
Adding a client
- Open Shipping, Clients, and add a client: its company name, a short code of 2 to 8 letters or digits, and the person and email to reach.
- The code comes before each of its item numbers, so its SKUs never meet another's: SH-8 is kept as KAL-SH-8.
- It is also made one of your own clients under its company name, which is who its invoices go to.
Its items and what it sends in
- Under Items, add each item it stores with you, by its SKU, with lot numbers and expiration dates where it tracks them.
- Under Shipments In, enter what it says it is sending: its reference, the day expected, the carrier and tracking, cartons and pallets, and each item and how many.
- When it arrives, receive it as it came: each quantity onto a tag at the place, or straight into a bin, with its lot and date. A line can come in more or less than was said; the notice shows how it differed.
Its orders
Under Orders, enter what the client wants sent to one of its customers, with its own order number. Its orders wait under To Ship beside your own, named for the client, and go on the same pick lists. Each goes whole, on one label or one freight booking, and only from a place that has all of it ready. An order sent another way (on the client's own carrier account, by courier, or picked up) is marked so, with any tracking.
Billing
- Under Billing, set the client's rates: receiving (each shipment, pallet, carton or unit), storage (each bin a month, with its own rate for a zone, and each unit kept), its orders (each order, each unit after the first, each box), and postage at cost or with a markup.
- What it owes is kept as it is earned, at the rate then: receiving when a shipment is received, its orders when they go, storage once a day. A day the app missed (while it was being updated, say) is counted the next day at the day before's count, up to a week back, and its charge says so. Add a charge by hand for anything else, such as kitting or labor.
- Write an invoice for its charges up to a day. It goes into the books on account, by its terms, with one line for each kind of work. Writing one takes the books switch as well as shipping.
Its own keys and portal
- Under API keys, make a key for one client so its own store sends you its orders. It reaches only that client's records.
- Its people sign in to your store's Fulfillment page with a code emailed to them: they see their stock, orders, shipments coming and invoices, send an order, tell you of a shipment on its way, and pay an open invoice by card. The email on the client is the one that signs in.
Best practices
- Pick short, clear client codes. They are printed on every pick list and label.
- Insist on a notice for every shipment sent in. Receiving against it is where differences are caught.
- Set every rate before the first shipment arrives, so nothing earned goes unbilled.
- Invoice on the same day every month, up to the last day of the month.
- Give each client its own key, never yours: it can only reach its own records.