To reduce errors and facilitate process of picking the items for shipping or issuing on various purposes, it is common to define and use the warehouse structure: storage areas, sections, shelves, and bins (or cells). When receiving the products, you can assign bin location code which uniquely identifies the location of the bin or cell where the product is stocked.
In FirstBIT ERP, for warehouses with defined structures, you can use the functionality of Bin Locations. This functionality enables you to define a hierarchy of storage cells or bins in warehouses, assign products to storage cells on receiving, and easily find them for shipping or issuing.
Setting up the functionality
In FirstBIT ERP, to turn on the functionality of bin locations, open the Administration > Settings > Purchasing and Warehouses form and select the Enable Bin Locations option.
To actually use this functionality for any new warehouse, when creating a warehouse, on the Warehouses> Master Data > Warehouses form select the Use Bin Locations option for this warehouse. To enable or disable this functionality for an existing warehouse, you will need to delete all the associated transactions if there are any.
Note. Tracking of locations is supported only for warehouses, and not supported for structural (base) units of other types such as departments.
Defining the warehouse structure
Once the functionality is enabled for a particular warehouse, you can define a structure of bin locations (or cells) for this warehouse. For this, click the Bin Locations link on the top of the Warehouse form with this warehouse master record open.
The Warehouse (create) form, the Bin Locations list
You can define a hierarchic (multiple-level) structure of the warehouse with storage areas divided into sections, each with rooms, each room with rows of multi-level racks, shelves, and cells (or bins) or any other structure levels fitting your business.
For example, your warehouse has a simple structure and includes the following areas and elements:
A- Area for high-turnover items
Rack 1
Shelf1
Shelf2
Rack 2
Shelf1
Shelf2
B- Area for medium turnover items
Rack 1
Shelf1
Shelf2
Rack 2
Shelf1
Shelf2
C- Area for other items
Rack 1
Shelf1
Shelf2
Shelf3
You need to uniquely identify each smallest storage location because when you specify the bin location (cell) in document, names of higher levels are not automatically added to the location name. To avoid errors, for cells (or bins) you need to define unique names which would serve as addresses in the warehouse.
Note. To register the item quantities, do not use locations (cells) which serve as parents (denoting nodes in the hierarchy) because the system do not perform summation for locations they enclose - each location name is used as a standard location.
Thus, the names of bin locations (cells) in the warehouse structure (described above can be defined as follows:
A- Area for high-turnover items (folder)
A-Rack 1 (folder)
A-Rack 1, Shelf1
A-Rack 1, Shelf2
A-Rack 2 (folder)
A-Rack 2, Shelf1
A-Rack 2, Shelf2
B- Area for medium turnover items (folder)
B-Rack 1(folder)
B-Rack 1, Shelf1
B-Rack 1, Shelf2
B-Rack 2 (folder)
B-Rack 2, Shelf1
B-Rack 2, Shelf2
C- Area for other items (folder)
C-Rack 1 (folder)
C-Rack 1, Shelf1
C-Rack 1, Shelf2
C-Rack 1, Shelf3
To add a new storage location, click the Create button on the toolbar. This opens the following dialog box.
The Bin Location (create) dialog box
Make sure the correct warehouse is selected in the Warehouse field.
Using the Parent field, specify an existing structure level or create a new one.
In the Description field, type a name for location within the structure level specified in the Parent field.
The list of bin locations is not final at this stage - you can add new bin location as needed.
Using Bin Locations when receiving items
For warehouses with usage of bin locations, you must specify bin locations for inventory items on their receiving (manufacturing) using the following documents:
- Beginning Balances Entering (Inventory): When you enter the items' beginning balances.
- Invoice Received or Goods Receipt Note: When you receive to warehouses the purchased items.
- Transfer Order and Inventory Transfer: When receiving items from another warehouse.
- Production: When receiving the manufactured items from the production process.
If all the items in a document will be stocked in the same location, to specify this location, click in the Cell field on the Main tab.
If different items listed in a document will be stocked in different locations, you can move the Cell field from the Main tab of this document to the Inventory tab as a column by using the Settings button on the toolbar. Then, you will be able to specify different locations for different items (document lines). Notice that you can select only one cell for the line.
Multiple Bin Locations in a document
Using Bin Locations when issuing items
You must specify bin locations when you issue specific quantities of inventory items from warehouse with usage of bin locations in the following documents:
- Invoice: When you issue the items for sales.
- Goods Dispatch Note: When you issue the items for transfer or sales from a warehouse where financial documents are used separately from warehouse documents.
- Transfer Order: When you order the items moving to another warehouse.
- Inventory Transfer: When you move the items from the warehouse.
On document posting, FirstBIT ERP checks the quantity of the item that is registered for the cell, and, if it's less than the quantity specified in the document, displays the warning in the document which is not posted as a result.
The issuing document with warning
The screenshot above demonstrates the above mentioned case.
With each posted inventory transaction, such as inventory transfer, invoice, goods dispatch note, inventory receipt, or write off, the inventory records of the item quantities in the cells are updated.
Viewing details on locations
To view details on available quantities of inventory with batch tracking, you can use the reports in the Warehouse module.
If you need to know which items and in which quantities are stocked in which locations, you can use the Stock Balance (with Locations) report which shows the item quantities in each location on the specified date.
However, no grouping of the data by "parent" (that is, enclosing location) is performed in reports.