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Warehouse areas, locations and stock

5 min read · #warehouse · #locations · #stock

Warehouse areas

Open your warehouse and go to Locations → Areas in the left navigation. The list shows every area's name, its picking order, how much stock it holds in value, how many locations sit inside it, and how many of those locations are empty.

Press Areas at the top of the list to create a new one. The form asks for:

  • Code — an internal reference, up to 16 characters.
  • Name — what the area is called.
  • Picking position — an optional number that sets where this area falls in the picking order.

Open any area and you land on its Overview tab, with Locations and History tabs alongside it. The page header shows how many locations the area contains, and from here you can create a new location directly inside that area.

Locations

Locations are listed under Locations → Locations in the warehouse's left navigation. The list can be filtered to All, Empty, or Partially empty locations, and each row shows the location's code, its maximum weight, its maximum volume (in cubic metres), how many stock slots it has, and how many of those slots are empty.

Creating a location

Press the create button and fill in:

  • Code — the location's reference.
  • Max weight (kg) — the most this location should hold, by weight.
  • Max volume (m³) — the most it should hold, by volume.

A location can be created directly under the warehouse, or inside a specific area — either way it ends up on the warehouse's location list.

What a location's page shows

Opening a location takes you to its Overview tab, which shows its maximum weight and volume, how many stock slots it has in total, and how many are empty. Depending on how the location is set up, further tabs appear:

  • SKOs — the stock currently held in this location, when the location is allowed to hold stock.
  • Pallets — any pallets sitting in the location, when the location is used for fulfilment.
  • Stock movements — every quantity change recorded against this location, when the location is allowed to hold stock.
  • History — a log of edits made to the location itself.

A location can be switched on or off for holding ordinary stock, for fulfilment pallets, or for dropshipping — the tabs above only appear when the matching setting is on.

Stock (SKOs)

Every product held in the warehouse is tracked as a SKO. The warehouse-wide list sits under Inventory → SKOs, showing each SKO's reference, family, name, how many are in stock, their stock value, potential sales, stock on the way from suppliers, and how many days of cover the current stock gives you.

A SKO's own stock is spread across one or more locations — the same SKO can sit in several bins at once, each with its own quantity.

Moving stock between locations

From a location's SKOs tab you can move stock out of that location in two ways:

  • Move All SKO — moves every SKO currently in the location to another location you choose, all at once.
  • Partialy Move SKO — select specific SKOs from the list first, then move just those to another location; you also choose whether to remove each SKO from the original location once it has been moved.

Both forms ask you to pick the destination location and a transfer reason (for example, a warehouse transfer, a picking-error correction, or a wrong-bin correction), with an optional note. Moving stock this way keeps the SKO's quantity in each location accurate and logs the movement, so it appears on both locations' Stock movements tab.

Stock checks and audits

When a SKO's stock across the whole warehouse falls below the warehouse's low stock threshold, it appears on the Low Stock Audits screen, reached from the Low Stock Audits tile on the warehouse's Inventory dashboard. This list shows the SKO's reference, its family, its name, its current stock, and the locations it is held in — it is the list staff work through to recount and confirm stock.

Auditing a location's stock records the difference between what the system expects and what you actually counted: you enter the counted quantity and a reason (recount, count gain, count shortage, damaged, expired, and others), and aiku logs the adjustment as a stock movement against that location and marks the stock as checked.

Batches and best-before dates

Stock knows which batch sits in which location. Batches come onto the shelves from goods in (the batch code and best-before entered at checking), from finished production and from deliveries of a partner, and leave with the picks. When nobody names the batch, stock leaves earliest best-before first, after any stock with no batch recorded.

  • Inventory → Batch Codes lists the batches on the shelves, earliest best-before first: how many SKOs are left, in how many locations, and how many days are left, amber within 90 days, red once expired. A batch with no best-before is flagged. Switch the Stock filter to see batches with none left.
  • An SKO's Batch Codes page shows the same for that SKO. Count batches opens a location with the batches the stock says are there and the stock with no batch. Count them as printed on the goods, add a batch that is not listed (code and best-before from the label) and save. This is a stock check: what you count replaces what was there, and any difference in the total is recorded as a recount. It is also how stock already on the shelves gets its batches the first time.
  • The SKO export (Inventory → SKOs, export) has the earliest best-before on the shelves, the SKOs already expired, those expiring within 30 and within 90 days, and the SKOs without a batch for each SKO.

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