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6. The warehouse

Module

Part of Warehouse (WMS). If your plan does not include it, these screens are not in your menus.

Everything under the Warehouse menu, in the order the work actually happens: goods in, put away, pick, pack, ship. The menu is grouped the same way.

Note

Every item is tracked by batch and expiry date, and the system always allocates the batch that expires soonest — first expiry, first out. That single rule is why the dates matter so much, and why several screens in this chapter exist only to keep them right.

Before the goods arrive

Pre-advice

Warehouse → Pre-advice (ASN). What the supplier says is on the container, recorded before it lands, so that receiving is a matter of confirming lines rather than typing them at the door.

The list shows each pre-advice with its order, supplier, container, expected date and line count. Click Open to see the detail.

If a line could not be matched to one of our items, it is shown in red and counted separately. That is on purpose — the dock needs to see it before the container is opened, not afterwards.

A pre-advice that has not yet been received can be withdrawn with Cancel pre-advice.

Expected arrivals

Warehouse → Expected Arrivals. Every purchase order still to land, sorted by the date it is expected, not the date it was ordered. The summary line at the top counts what is overdue, what is due this week and what has no expected date at all. Overdue rows are red.

To change an expected date, click into the Expected box on that row and type the new one. It saves when you click away — there is no save button. Clearing it removes the date.

Booking goods in

There are two ways in, and they suit different situations.

  • From the order: Transactions → Purchases → Receive Orders, open it, Actions → Receive. Best when a whole order has arrived and you are working from the paperwork.
  • By scanning: Warehouse → Scanner, with the type set to receive. Best on the dock.

Either way the stock is booked in against the batch and expiry on the goods.

Putting stock away

Warehouse → Put Away. Stock that has been booked in but has not been given a pallet position yet. Everything brought over from the old system starts here.

  1. Find the row.
  2. The Qty box is filled with everything on hand. Reduce it if you are only putting part of it in one place.
  3. The To bin box may already hold a suggested position — the word "suggested" appears beside it when it does. Accept it or type another, for example A-7-1.
  4. Click Put away.

A bin is required; the screen refuses without one. Because you can put away part of a line, a pallet can be split across two positions by doing it twice.

Note

Working this list down to zero is what makes the pick path, first-expiry-first-out picking and cycle counting mean anything. Stock with no position cannot be walked to.

Getting orders out

Releasing orders to be picked

Warehouse → Fulfilment Queue. The approved sales orders waiting to go.

  1. Tick the orders you want to release together.
  2. Click Release selected → Pick Wave.

The system creates a pick wave and sequences the tasks along the walking route, so the picker goes round the warehouse once rather than criss-crossing it.

Two shipping buttons also appear on this screen, and which one you see depends on the order:

  • Ship all — on an order that is not on a wave. Ships the whole order without reference to picking.
  • Ship picked — on an order that is on a wave. Ships what was actually picked.

Both issue the stock and post the cost of the sale immediately, and neither asks for confirmation. The carrier is recorded as Own Fleet.

Picking

Warehouse → Pick Waves & Tasks. Choose the wave from the dropdown at the top; the list shows how many of its tasks are picked and how many came up short.

Each task tells the picker where to go. The Go to (FEFO) column is the position holding the batch that expires soonest — that is the one to take.

On a handheld, the picker scans. At a desk, the same two actions are here:

  • Scan pick — records the whole outstanding quantity as picked from the task's own bin and batch.
  • Short — marks the task short. It asks why, and offers "Not found in bin" as the usual answer.

Note

A pick is refused if the item is not in the bin that was scanned. The refusal appears on screen with the reason. This is the check that stops the wrong batch going out.

Packing

Warehouse → Pack Cartons. Packing sits between picking and shipping: pick, then pack, then ship.

  1. Choose the order from Order on a wave. Only orders already released to a wave are listed.
  2. The line table shows, for each item, how much was picked, how much is already in a carton, and how much is left. Every remaining quantity is already filled into Into this carton.
  3. Reduce the quantities if this carton is only taking part of it. Set a line to zero to leave it out.
  4. Type the Carton weight (kg) if you are recording it. It is optional.
  5. Click Build carton.

Repeat until the strip at the top turns green and reads "everything picked is in a carton".

Note

A carton cannot claim more of an item than was picked for that order and not already packed. If it does, the system refuses and shows the numbers. Catching a miscount at the bench costs a minute; catching it at the customer costs a delivery.

Shipping and tracking

Warehouse → Shipments. Every despatch with its tracking number and the chain of statuses it has been through.

The button on each row is labelled with the next step — → picked up, → in transit, → out for delivery, → delivered. Click it as the parcel moves. A delivered shipment has no button. Steps cannot be skipped or reversed here.

Customers see this same chain on the Deliveries tab of the portal.

Customer returns at the warehouse

Warehouse → Returns. Goods a customer has sent back. They are already in the building and on the balance sheet, but they are held: nothing will pick them until somebody decides they are sellable.

  1. Click Disposition on the return.
  2. Look at each line: what came back, in what condition, and the reason given.
  3. Click Sellable to release it back into stock, or Write off to scrap it.

Write off asks why. The reason is required — cancelling the question abandons the write-off — and a stock adjustment is posted with it.

The Who sends them back, and why button opens an analysis by reason and by customer. It is worth reading monthly: a reason concentrated on one customer is a delivery or ordering problem with that customer; the same reason spread across many customers is a product or packaging problem.

Scanning

Warehouse → Scanner is the same thing the handheld terminals use, on a desk. It is there for testing and for working when a gun is not to hand.

Choose the Type — receive, putaway, pick, pack, ship, count or return — then scan or type the barcode and press Enter. The bin, batch, quantity and reference boxes stay as you left them, so a run of scans into one position only needs the bin typing once.

Warehouse → Scan Log keeps every scan, including the refused ones, and opens showing refusals only. This is where a labelling problem shows up: a bin that rejects picks all week has a label that does not match what is in it.

Rack labels

Warehouse → Rack Labels. Choose an area, or type specific position codes, and click Print. The sheet opens in a new window ready to print.

Watch out

Set scaling to 100% or "Actual size" in the print dialog. Anything else changes the width of the barcode and the scanners will struggle with it.

Sheets come out in pick-path order, so labelling runs aisle by aisle. Each position in the list also has its own Reprint button for a single replacement label.