Incoming goods & storage

Summary

The inbound process and stow job are required to map the ordering, receipt, and storage of goods. The ordering of goods for facilities is mapped via a purchase order. The receipt of these goods is communicated to the fulfillmenttools systems via a receipt. Purchase order and receipt both belong to an inbound process. Stow jobs are used for both storage of incoming goods as well as resolving of dispute cases or excess stock.

More information can be found under Products – Stow Jobs and Products – Inbound Process.

Use case examples

Announcement and arrival of incoming goods

An admin wants to inform the fulfillmenttools systems that new goods will arrive and update inventory once the goods have arrived.

1. An admin orders goods for a facility.

   1. Create an inbound process using POST/api/inboundprocesses and remember theinboundProcessId.

   2. Add a purchase order to the inbound process that was created in step 1 using PUT/api/inboundprocesses/{inboundProcessId}/purchaseorder.

Alternatively, a purchase order can be directly created via POST/api/purchaseorders. In that case, an inbound process will be created automatically.

1. The ordered goods physically arrive in the facility and are put in a goods receiving area.

   1. Add a receipt to the inbound process using POST/api/inboundprocesses/{inboundProcessId}/receipts.

   2. Items that were received during goods receipt in good condition should be listed under receivedItems.acceptedQuantity. Stock will be created automatically for these items.

   3. Rejected items can be marked separately during goods receipt. The stock created from rejected items receives the condition "defective" and is not marked as "pickable" and "accessible". Thus, it will not be available for sale.

   4. Stock will be created on the storage location indicated in the storageLocationRef of the receipt.

Storage of goods from goods receipt

An admin wants to instruct employees to store goods that have arrived as part of a goods delivery.

• Stow jobs can be used to map the instruction to move items from the goods receiving area to their respective storage locations.

• Create one stow job for each user that should work on the task.

• Create one stow line item for each stock that should be stored.

• Use the storage location recommendations endpoint to receive recommendations for the target location of each stock.

See Use cases – Stow Jobs for a detailed instruction on creating stow jobs for relocating items between locations.

Resolving of dispute cases and/or excess stock

An admin wants wants to instruct employees to handle dispute cases from goods receipt such as broken or damaged items. In addition, stock that was mistakenly created during the rough goods receipt should be deleted.

• Stow jobs can be used to map the instruction to book stock out of the systems.

• Create one stow job for each user that should work on the task.

• Create one stow line item for each stock that should be examined.

See Use cases – Stow Jobs for a detailed instruction on creating stow jobs for discarding stock from a goods receipt.

Document reasons for stock changes during storage

Stock accepted during goods receipt is adapted during the storage process. Therefore, users want to document reasons for these changes.

• External stock change reasons can be used to document reasons for stock changes on the stow line item.

• External stock change reasons can be used in two ways:

  • Managed within the platform: Reasons are pre-configured so that workers can choose from a fixed list of reasons during the storage process.

  • Managed externally: There are no pre-configured reasons so that workers can document any reason (e.g., in a free-text field) during the storage process.

See Products – External stock change reasons for a detailed instruction on creating and using reasons.

Unhappy case – More items tracked in receipt than actually received

Stock was accepted during (goods) receipt. However, during storage, the user notices that less than the documented quantity has actually arrived. In the below example, 100 items were tracked during goods receipt but only 90 items arrived.

1. Create a stowJob for stowing the items from the goods receipt

2. Finish the stow line item with the 90 items that have arrived

3. Add a new stowLineItem with type DISCARD to the stow job

4. Remove the 10 wrongly booked items from the inbound location

5. Close the stowJob

See Use cases – Stow Jobs for a detailed instruction on creating stow jobs for discarding stock from a goods receipt.

Unhappy case – Less items tracked in receipt than actually received

Stock was accepted during (goods) receipt. However, during storage, the user notices that more than the documented quantity has actually arrived. In the below example, 100 items were tracked during goods receipt but 110 items arrived.

1. Create a stowJob for stowing the items from the goods receipt

2. Finish the stow line item with the 100 items that have arrived

3. Add a new stowLineItem with type UNREGISTERED to the stow job

4. Relocate the additional 10 items from the inbound location to the target location

5. Close the stowJob

See Use cases – Stow Jobs for a detailed instruction on creating stow jobs for adding additional stock.