Serial numbers are widely used in modern life and became a useful part of inventory management. Some goods can have lifetime serial numbers, for instance: vehicles, watches, consumer electronics, and many more.
In FirstBIT ERP, you can use the functionality of serial number tracking. This functionality enables you to assign unique serial numbers to individual units of the item and track them by serial numbers in the product database throughout their lifetime from their "origin" (opening balance, production, purchase) to their "end" (sale, use in manufacturing, write off).
Generally, the need to track individual units of items arises for more expensive or otherwise valuable items which, as a rule, are manufactured and purchased in relatively smaller quantities than cheaper items. The more expensive or valuable the item, the more accurately it is monitored and tracked.
Setting up the functionality
In FirstBIT ERP, you can set up serial number tracking generally for any inventory item.
Note. Tracking of serial numbers for items of the Service type are not supported.
To turn on the functionality of serial number tracking, open the Administration > Settings > Purchasing and Warehouses form and select the Serial Number Tracking option.
Then, when creating or editing a particular item for which tracking of serial numbers is needed, on the Warehouses> Master Data > Items form, select the particular item, and on the Accounting Parameters tab, select the Use Serial Numbers option for the item. Further for brevity, the items with such settings will be referred to as serialized items.
Note. If multiple units are allowed for inventory items, that is, if the Multiple UOMs per Item option is selected on the Administration > Settings > Purchasing and Warehouses form, it is recommended that for each serialized item you will use a single UOM. Serial numbers are assigned on per unit basis and cannot be split between smaller units or assigned to a larger unit defined by another UOM which includes multiple smaller units-UOMs.
After that, you will be able to assign a unique number (code) to each unit of the item and this number will not be changed during the item lifetime in the system.
Note. Serial numbers will be required in each document if you select the Control Stock Balances by Serial Number option on the Administration > Settings > Purchasing and Warehouses form. This will help you to know where in warehouses each unit of the item is located. Otherwise (if this option is not selected), specifying serial numbers for the entered quantities of serialized items is optional and you can skip entering serials numbers where you do not need them.
If you want serial numbers of items to appear in printed documents, select the Include Serial Numbers in Document Print Forms option on the Administration > Settings > Purchasing and Warehouses form.
Assigning serial numbers
You can assign serial numbers to serialized items using the following documents:
- Beginning Balances Entering (Inventory): When you enter the item beginning balances.
- Invoice Received or Goods Receipt Note: When you receive to warehouses the purchased items.
- Production: When receiving the manufactured items from the production process.
To assign serial numbers to each unit of the specified quantity of the product, in any of the listed types of documents, you need to click in the Serial number column on the Inventory tab of a document. This opens the following dialog box (the same for all types of documents).
The Serial Numbers (assignment) dialog box
You can type each serial number using the alphabetic-numeric mask, or click Generate to create the serial numbers automatically as successive integers.
Also, you can generate barcodes for all units by clicking the Generate Barcode button. If a printer is connected to the the system, you can print all the generated barcodes.
Once serial numbers are created for the specified quantity of the item, click Select on the top of the dialog box to register the serial numbers and close the dialog box.
Note. If you are going to use serial numbers attached to your products, consider creating durable and readable labels for each unit of the items with serial numbers or barcodes easily readable by barcode scanners.
Using serial numbers
If the Control Stock Balances by Serial Number option is selected on the Administration > Settings > Purchasing and Warehouses form, you need to enter the particular serial number for each unit of the serialized items for each their movement (sale, inventory transfer).
To specify serial numbers for the specified quantity of the serialized item, you need to click in the Serial Numbers column. This opens the Serial Numbers dialog box.
In this dialog box, you can view the serial numbers of the available units of the specified item and select which ones you want to pick for the document.
The Serial Numbers (usage) dialog box
The left pane shows the list of warehouses with serial numbers for quantities of the item which are available in these warehouses.
The right pane shows the picked serial numbers.
Click the node to the left of the warehouse to open the list of serial numbers for the units available in this warehouse.
You can use the Right ( 
) button to pick particular serial numbers for the document and move them to the right pane.
You can use the Left ( 
) button to return some of the serial numbers to the left pane, back to the list of serial numbers available for selection.
The Quantity in Document and Entered Serial Numbers counters show you if you selected the required quantity of serial numbers for the document. The number of Entered Serial Numbers will be shown in red font if it is not equal to the number of serial numbers required in the document.
Once all the required quantity is selected, click Select to close the dialog box and use the serial numbers in the document.
With each inventory transaction, such as inventory transfer, invoice, goods delivery note, inventory receipt, or write off, the inventory records of the serialized item are updated.
Viewing details on serialized items
You can view all the serial numbers assigned to a particular serialized item; for this, open the master record of the serialized item, click the link on the top of the form: More Actions > Serial Numbers. The list with all the assigned serial numbers will appear.
The list of serial numbers assigned to serialized item
Click any line to view transactions in which this unit was involved.
Transactions associated with the serial number
If you need to know where the units with particular serial numbers are stocked, you can use the Warehouses > Reports of Warehouses > Serial Number Balances (by Warehouse) report that lists available units of the serialized items in each warehouse.
If you need to know which units of serialized items were purchased from which suppliers, use the Warehouses > Reports of Warehouses > Serial Number Balances (by Company) report that lists all the serialized items with assigned serial numbers by supplier company.