If you are using inventory management, you can switch on warehouses and locations. Go to Setup > Products/Inventory > Inventory settings.
Warehouses and locations are used to record the exact physical location of your inventory.
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A Warehouse represents a collection of Locations in which physical inventory is stored, like a stock room or a warehouse.
- They are associated with an address, which is generally the postal address for the purpose of shipping goods to and from that warehouse.
- Moving inventory between warehouses requires you to create a Stock Transfer that goes through the standard goods-out process, and is then received into the destination warehouse.
- The use of Stock Transfers allows an audit trail of stock movement between warehouses.
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A Location represents a physical space in a Warehouse that an item of inventory can be held in, like a shelf or a bin.
- Moving items between locations is done using an Internal Stock Movement
- There is no audit trail of items moved internally within a warehouse
By default your Brightpearl account will have only one warehouse and one location in that warehouse.
Levels of Location Control
There are 3 levels of location management in Brightpearl. The more advanced options let you see exactly where your stock is, but will require extra work from your warehouse team.
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No location management
Items are stored in your warehouse (multi warehouse is supported) but no further information is given
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Standard location management
An item is given a location, and this item is always stored in this location.
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Multiple concurrent location management
Each delivery of goods you receive from a supplier may be assigned to a different location, so you may end up having the same item spread across multiple locations at the same time. The packing notes will tell the warehouse operator which location to pick the item from.
Creating Warehouse Locations (Bins)
The Brightpearl Location model is flexible and does not assume any particular physical layout, but is designed to support the common 'Aisle, Bay, Shelf, Bin' configuration of warehouses. They cannot be modified once created and can only be deleted if no inventory has ever been stored in the Location, so you should exercise caution.
Locations can be defined using up to four tiers, typically:
- Aisle
- Bay
- Shelf
- Bin
Each location is described as "AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD" - with the full stop being the separator. Aisle/bay/shelf/bin names can only be numbers and upper-case letters, up to 16 characters long. You can have some locations with just one tier, and others with more.
Each warehouse has its own set of locations, and you are allowed the same location code in multiple warehouses, so both warehouse A and warehouse B may have location 01.01.01.01.
A location can contain any products at any time (there are no limits for volume or quantity, and you can have a mix of items in a location). As you receive inventory into your warehouse, you choose which location it goes into. One month's delivery of Item X may go into location 01.02.03.04, and the next month's may go into 03.4.D.5.
When Goods-out notes are created, they automatically select which location the inventory will be allocated from, selecting the oldest inventory first (First In First Out). Note that this may not feel like the most efficient method in some circumstances, since the packing note may tell the warehouse manager to fetch items from a location at the back of the warehouse when he can see that there are items right next to the packing desk. It ensures that cost of sale is managed accurately. We may in the future define other methods for location allocation, such as "emptiest bin first", or "closest bin first".
If you do not require multiple bin locations the system will use 0.0.0.0 which is hidden and used for everything.
Currently there's no way to load in a spreadsheet of locations using the screens; this is something we can help with as part of the launch process when you start with Brightpearl.
Follow these steps to add a location:
- Go to Setup > Products > Warehouse Locations.
- Click Add Location.
- Select the warehouse this location is within.
- Enter the aisle, bay, shelf and bin number.
- Click Add location.
Your location is added and you can now begin moving and receiving inventory into the location.
Inventory is moved in and out of a Location through the Goods-In Note, Goods-Out Note, Internal Transfer and External Transfer resources.
Where is my inventory stored?
You can see where in the warehouse your inventory has been placed using the Inventory detail report. Brightpearl uses a FIFO mechanism to remove the oldest items first as goods-out notes are shipped.
Deleting Locations
Once a location has had inventory pass through it (even if there's no inventory in it any more), the location can't be deleted since it forms part of the inventory audit trail.
Add Default Locations to Products
Each product can be assigned a default warehouse location. Set the location for the product on the product edit screen, or else using a spreadsheet and the data manager. This location is used in the following ways:
- For Standard location management : items are always placed into this location automatically when receiving goods or making corrections. If this location is altered at a later date all items current in stock will also be moved to the new location.
- For Multiple Concurrent location management : to pre-populate the location menu when receiving goods on the goods-in screen, to save you time. However, each delivery of goods can be placed into a different warehouse location.
