iVend Retail - Location Overview and Business Transactions

iVend Retail allows the users to define multiple Locations for effective back office inventory management. For example; users will be able to define Locations for returned items, defective items, etc.

Note: Inter-location inventory transactions within the same warehouse are possible.

Examples of Location Types that could be defined:

· Default

· Sales

· Refund

· Fulfilment

· Goods receipt

· Goods issue

· Stock Transfer

· Goods Return

· Freeze

· Quarantine

· Defective

· Clearance

· Seconds

Benefits for using Locations:

· Retailers can view the quantity of the products in each Location.

· Having a control over what products can be sold and from which Location.

· Receive refunded items to a separate Location where it can be checked before being transferred to a sales Location again.

· Having a separate Location for products, which need to be fulfilled to the end-customer. This will help in adding more control on the products that need to be fulfilled.

· Receipt products into a Receiving Location before they are transferred to a Sales Location, where labels could be printed and attached to the products, quality checked and made ready for sales.

· Transferring defected goods to a Goods Issue (Stock Adjustment Out) Location, where they can be deducted from the Sales Location.

· Having a Stock Transfer Location will help to control the right products, which need to be transferred to other warehouses (Stores).

· Having a Goods Return Location, which will help to proactively transfer any defective, expired or other non-saleable products from the Sales Location, ready for return to the Vendor. This will separate out the stock from the Sales Location stock, which will help to avoid mistakes and allow more control on the products that available for sale.

· Also, retailers can place products into a Freeze Location, where all products under this location will not be allowed to be used in any transaction until they have been transferred back to an appropriate Location that is used for Sales and/or Business transactions. This type of Location is useful for quarantine or stock counting purposes.

Related Processes:

In iVend Retail versions 6.5 and above, the following operations will be impacted if Locations are enabled in the system:

· Goods Receipt

· Goods Issue

· Goods Return

· Goods Receipt Purchase Order

· Stock Transfer Request

· Stock Transfer Shipment

· Stock Transfer Receipt

· Kit Build/Break

· Inventory Count

· Location Transfer

· Mobile POS Delivery

· Replenishment Scenario

In iVend Retail versions 6.5 and above, various transactions will require Locations at the POS if Locations are enabled in the system:

· Sale Transaction

· Refund Transaction

· Exchange Transaction

· Sale with Sale fulfillment

· Sale with Delivery fulfillment

· Special Order

· Layaway

Business Case

A retailer who is using iVend Retail wants to divide their Store into multiple Locations, where inventory receiving, issuing, return and transfer will be from one Location, Sales and fulfillment will be from one Location and Refunds will be into another Location. They also want to have a Freeze Location to save some products into this Location until they have been deemed ready for sale.

Setup and Configuration

The setup and configuration steps required to enable Locations are:

· Enable Locations functionality at the Enterprise level

· Enable Location functionality at the Warehouse level

· Create Locations and link them with the Warehouse

1. Enterprise setup: At the iVend Enterprise, we need to enable the Locations option

Path: Administration > System Initialization > Enterprise

Figure 1 – Enterprise Settings

· Check the option, Enable Location and click on the [Ok] button to save the settings.

· Restart the system so that the required changes will be applied.

2. Warehouse and Store Setup: Enable the Locations at the Warehouse level

Path: Administration > System Initialization > Retail Configuration > Warehouse

Figure 2 – Warehouse

· Check the option, Enable Location to enable Locations for this Warehouse.

· Use Warehouse Default Locations is an optional check, and this will allow the default Locations to be applied automatically within the transactions.

3. Create Locations and link them with the Warehouse

Path: Administration > System Initialization > Retail Configuration > Location

Figure 3 – Location Search

· To Create locations, click on the [F3 New] button.

Figure 4 – Location Settings

· Create a Location and give it a code and description as needed.

· Select the Warehouse that will be mapped to this Location.

· The Location should be Active and marked as the Default Location option, all other check boxes will be marked automatically except the Freeze option as it cannot be marked with the default Locations.

· Click [Ok] to save this Location and then repeat the same steps for all other Locations needed.

In our example, we will create the following Locations:

a. Sales and Fulfillment Location

Figure 5 – Location Settings

b. Refund Location

Figure 6 – Location Settings

c. Receive, Issue, Return, and Transfer Location

Figure 7 – Location Settings

d. Freeze Location 

Figure 8 – Location Settings

Warehouse Mapping to Locations

Path: Administration > System Initialization > Retail Configuration > Warehouse

Figure 9 – Warehouse Settings

· Link all default Locations to the right Location that will become as the default in the transaction.

· Click [Ok] to save.

Business Transactions

1. Goods receipt PO

We have a Purchase Order created to a supplier, and the supplier has shipped the required product(s) to our Warehouse where the warehouse team can start receiving the product(s) to the Receiving Location by choosing the Location in the Goods Receipt PO form.

Figure 10 – Goods Receipt PO

2. Goods Receipt

In a Goods Receipt, the user can select to which Locations the product(s) will be received.

Figure 11 – Goods Receipt

3. Goods Issue

In the Goods Issue, the user can also select from which Location the product(s) will be issued from and the transaction document will be printed with the Location name.

Figure 12 – Goods Issue

4. Stock Transfer Shipment and Receipt

The user can select from which Location the product(s) will be shipped and to which Location they will be received.

Figure 13 – Stock Transfer Shipment

5. Goods Return

The user can select from which Locations the Goods Return will issue the product(s) back to the Vendor.

Figure 14 – Goods Return

6. Kit Build and Break

The user can select from which Location the build components will be issued and to which Location the Kit will be received.

Figure 15 – Kit Build and Break

7. Location Transfer

To transfer products from one Location to another, use the Location Transfer form.

For example, transferring products to the Freeze Location from the Receiving Location as we see in the following screen image.

Figure 16 – Location Transfer

Sales Transactions

1. Sales

At the POS, the system by will use the default Sales Location, then the user can choose to sell from any other Sales Location at any point of time by choosing the [F5 Item Edit] button and by then selecting a different Location from the Item Information screen.

The same will apply to all other sales transactions at the POS.

Figure 17 – Transaction Screen

Figure 18 – Sale Item Information Screen

2. Refund

In the Refund transaction, the system will use the default Refund Location to receive the returned items from the customer however, the Location can be changed from the Item Information screen by clicking on [F5 Item Edit] button.

Figure 19 – Transaction Screen

Figure 20 – Sale Item Information

Inventory view

Using iVend Retail versions 6.5 and above will allow the users to view the inventory by Location. The user can access the Inventory View from the Product master at the Management Console and from the POS.

Figure 21 – Inventory View

Reports

1. Location List

The Location List report displays all the Locations, the total quantity and count of distinct items.

You can narrow the report's output results by passing a filter value on the following parameters:

· Location

· Warehouse

· Product Group

· Product

· Subsidiary (Note: This parameter filter will only be available if the Subsidiaries functionality has been enabled in the system).

Figure 22 – Location Summary

2. Stock by Location

The Stock by Location report displays the Location wise product stock. The report can be viewed in the following ways:

· List - Displays the Stock per Location per item

· Hierarchical - Displays the stock details in a hierarchical structure:

· Product Before Store - Product data is displayed before the store data

· Product After Store - Product data is displayed after the store data

You can narrow the report's output results by passing a filter value on the following parameters:

· Location

· Store

· Product Group

· Product

· Show Details : Displays the serial/batch information

· Subsidiary (Note: This parameter filter will only be available if the Subsidiaries functionality has been enabled in the system).

Figure 23 – Location Summary

Conclusion

In conclusion, this article has demonstrated how inventory Locations can help retailers to better manage their inventory with significantly improved controls.