Warehouse work

Overview

A managed warehouse keeps its goods on positions (shelves, bins, carts). The work in it is done as tasks: picking, receiving, packing, putting away, moving and counting. Several fulfillment orders picked or received together form a wave.

How the work goes is decided by the warehouse rules: which orders go into the next wave, which positions the goods are taken from, in which order the picker walks, where received goods are put away, what happens with missing goods and who gets a new task. Each decision is a rule you can switch off, set or replace with your own.

1. Before you start

In Settings > Warehouse, set the warehouse’s stock mode to managed and create its positions.
Create a staging position for picking: a cart. Its child positions are the slots of the cart, one order per slot.
Optionally create a staging position without slots for receiving (a receiving area).

Sales orders reach the warehouse by the Orders to ship rules: select open sales orders and run Send to the Warehouse by the Rules. Each order gets Ready to ship, or Held by with the reasons (not paid, goods missing, …). By default an order waits until it is paid, unless it is cash on delivery or for a company; the older orders get the stock first, among all open orders, not only the selected ones. While the rules only suggest, you make the fulfillment orders of the ready ones yourself; set the rules to act alone and the button makes them. Every hour all open orders are decided again by themselves, the same way.

A delivery type can have a Cut-off Time (for example 15:00): an order that comes later, or on a day off, leaves the next working day. A ready-made rule, off by default, holds such an order with that reason; your own rules can use After the cut-off and Before the cut-off.

2. Start the next wave

On the phone, open the warehouse work:

[navigate:/p/warehouse-tasks|Warehouse work|warehouse]

1. Choose the **Warehouse**.
2. Choose the **Cart** (the first one is preselected).
3. Tap **Next wave**.
4. The rules choose the orders, the wave starts and its pick task opens.

The next wave takes the orders with the nearest Fulfill until date first, then those with a higher Priority set on the order. An order whose Fulfill since date has not come yet waits. The wave holds at most as many orders as the cart has free slots (and at most 10 by default). When no order waits, or the cart is full, the phone says so.

You can still choose orders by hand: select them in the list of fulfillment orders and run Start a Wave.

3. Do a task

1. Tap a task in the list (**Mine and free** shows your tasks and the free ones).
2. Tap **Take it** and **Start**.
3. Scan the position, then the product or the lot; each scan records one piece, **All** records the rest of the line.
4. Tap **Finish** when the lines are done.

Without a connection the work is kept on the phone and saved when the connection is back. If the task was finished or cancelled meanwhile, the work still counts (the goods did move), the task stays as it is, and each position the late work touched gets a Count task. Finishing a pick makes the warehouse documents and the next tasks (packing, putting away). A line picked short gets a Count task for its position.

A lot that has expired is not offered for picking. If you take one all the same, the work is recorded, but the phone shows a warning in red. A serial number is refused when it is received while it is already in stock, or issued while it is not.

To Postpone or Cancel a task, write the Reason first when your rules require it. A postponed task goes back to the free tasks by default, so anyone can take it.

4. Where a product is kept

A product can have its own position (a picking position) with a Minimum and a Maximum: open the position in Settings > Warehouse and add the product under Products on the Position. The Capacity of a position limits all products on it together.

Received goods go to the product’s position while there is room; when it would be over the maximum or the capacity, they go elsewhere and the put-away task says which positions were full. Nothing is ever refused.
When a pick takes the product under its minimum, a Move task brings goods from the reserve (the other positions) up to the maximum. Run Replenish Positions on the warehouse to check all positions at once.

5. Pallets and boxes

A handling unit is a pallet, a box, a crate or a cart with its own code. It holds goods and other units (boxes on a pallet), and it is moved, put away and counted as a whole.

Enter the GS1 company prefix in the organisation settings (Warehouse group). Units then get SSCC codes: 18 digits that are unique worldwide and are read by your customers’ and carriers’ scanners. Without a prefix, units get their own codes (HU-000001, …).
Run New Handling Units on the warehouse to create empty pallets or boxes on a position, and Print Labels on the units to get A6 labels with the GS1-128 barcode and the content.
Move the Unit moves a pallet with everything on it, including the boxes inside it. Put Into a Unit puts a box onto a pallet. Unpack takes the goods out: they stay loose on the position.
To put goods into a unit, use Move on the stock of the position and choose To Unit.

On the phone, scan the label of a unit:

On a task with lines from that unit (a received pallet being put away), one scan records all its lines. The pallet goes to the scanned position as a whole.
Otherwise the goods you scan next go into the unit (receiving onto a pallet, packing into a box). The button Into … shows the unit; tap it to stop.
When you receive goods, scanning the SSCC on a supplier’s pallet makes it a new unit on the scanned position, and the goods go into it.

Picking takes loose goods first and opens a unit only when they run out. A count that finds less goods than expected takes them out of the units on the position too.

6. Shipping

In Settings > Warehouse, create the Carriers and set the Carrier (and its Service) on each delivery type. A carrier with the connection manual needs nothing else: its parcels are numbered by their SSCC labels.

When packing of an order finishes, the order gets a shipment:

Its parcels are the boxes or pallets you packed into (scan a box before the goods). Without any, the number of Parcels written on the pack task (at least one) is made as boxes.
The carrier and service come from the delivery type of the order. A shipment without a carrier waits; it is Held by that reason.
The parcels get their labels at once: Print Labels on the shipment. When the shipping rules put documents into the parcel (ready-made rules, off by default: the invoice for the partners you list, the delivery note for every shipment), their PDFs are printed after the labels; Invoice in the Parcel and Delivery Note in the Parcel on the shipment can be changed by hand.

A shipment goes from Label assigned to Packed and to Picked up: the carrier took it, and the order is Shipped.

1. Select the day's shipments of a carrier and run **Hand Over to the Carrier**: the pickup is ordered (with the manual connection they are picked up at once).
2. The carrier is asked every 30 minutes for 30 days after the handover: a shipment the carrier has is picked up. **Track** asks at once, **Picked Up** marks it by hand.

Cancel the Shipment cancels the parcels at the carrier before the pickup; the parcels stay packed for a new shipment (Assign Labels). Your own shipping rules can choose another carrier, insure the parcels or hold a shipment.

A carrier other than manual is connected by an addon (Balíkobot): the addon checks the address before the labels, and a shipment whose address the carrier refuses is held with the carrier’s words. The Balíkobot connection is not ready yet.

For a customer who wants a despatch advice (DESADV), run Despatch Advice on the issue document. You get the XML with the goods, their batches, serial numbers and expirations, and the SSCC of the parcels. Send Despatch Advice sends it through an addon that sends them, such as Peppoš over Peppol; sending through Peppoš is not ready yet.

7. Warehouse rules

Open the rules of the warehouse work:

[navigate:/settings/warehouse/rules|Warehouse rules|warehouse]

There is a tab for each kind of decision:

Tab	What it decides	Ready-made rules
Orders to ship	which sales orders may go to the warehouse	paid, cash on delivery or a company; all goods in stock; off: an order with a label (SPECHA) takes goods before older orders, a company gets a part of a smaller order, a partner with overdue invoices waits, an order after the cut-off waits for the next working day
Waves	which orders go into the next wave	the nearest due date first, a person’s priority, not before Fulfill since; off: single-line orders together, one delivery type per wave
Taking goods	which positions and lots goods are taken from	the earliest expiration first (FEFO); off: never expired goods, a minimum shelf life
Route	the order of the lines of a task	the route order of the positions; off: heavy goods first
Putting away	where received goods go	to the position the product is kept on, else a position that already holds it, else the warehouse’s default position; a full position is skipped and named on the task
Replenishment	when goods move from the reserve onto the position a product is kept on	under the minimum, fill up to the maximum (after each pick and with Replenish Positions)
Missing goods	what follows a short pick, and late work of a phone that was offline	count the position again
Count differences	what happens with the difference of a finished count	it is booked at once (a stock taking with a receipt or an issue); off: a difference over a value waits for the manager, who books it in Stock Takes with Book the Differences
Tasks	who gets a task, which steps are allowed	a postponed task back to the free tasks; off: packing by the picker, putting away by the receiver, a reason to postpone or cancel, cancelling only by managers

1. Switch a ready-made rule on or off with its switch.
2. Change a setting below a rule with the pencil (for example the most orders in a wave).
3. Write your own rules in the rulebook of the tab; they are added to the ready-made ones.

Examples of your own rules:

Waves: a key customer first — when: partner.code = 'ALZA' then priority + 1000.
Taking goods: never from the reserve — check position.code not in ('RESERVE') else block "Not from the reserve".
Putting away: always to one position — set position = 'A-01'.

Switching a tab to Off returns the plain behaviour: the route order only, nothing put away, counted or refused by the rules.