In Merchanter stock can be managed in two ways by the locations that the stock is held:

• Stock controlled by Location
• Stock controlled by Depot, with non-controlled locations

Stock controlled by location

Stock controlling a product by location is beneficial to the operations as it is quicker to find products for picking.  There is more operational work required as stock need to be put away to specific locations, moved between locations and a location selected with every sale.

Where you want to control the stock held of a product at specific locations within a depot/quay, edit the product and for the relevant depot set the stock control level to ‘Location’.

This will setup a stock holding for each location that you say that product is held in.

If you have existing depot stock the ‘Stock Adjustment’ button on the Stock tab can be used to quickly move the stock from the depot to the child locations.

Once a depot/quay is set to Location stock control the display in the Locations tab of a product shows the quantity in each location and the total held at the depot

Receiving Stock

Receiving Stock – when receiving a purchase order or forward contract the location that the stock is being received to needs to be selectedGraphical user interface, text, email, website

You can choose from the existing locations that the product is stocked, or adda new location

Stock can only be received to one location.  If it is being put away in multiple locations receive into one location and use a stock adjustment to move the balance to any other locations

Lots within locations

Lots within locations – you can hold stock in Lots(batches/sub stocks) within locations

Moving stock

Moving stock – if stock is moved from one location to another either

• Select the Stock Adjustments from the Stock menu
• From within a product select ‘Stock Adjust’ from the Stock tab
• From within a product select ‘Adjust’ from the Locations tab

From within the stock adjustment screen select either the quantity to change or the new quantity for each location that is affected by the move.
You can add new Locations/Lots as needed as well
Apply Adjustments will instantly transfer the stock between locationsGraphical user interface, text, application

Dispatching stock

Dispatching stock – when supplying stock the location that the stock was taken from needs to be selected.  If stock is being picked from multiple locations, move to a single location and then dispatch

Stock counting location controlled products

When stock counting products there are two ways to select what you want to count

Count Location

Count Location – this will add all the products that are in a location.  If a product is location controlled then only the stock record for that location will be added to the count.  When the count is entered the quantity will be compared to the expected stock for that product for that location.  Any differences actioned will apply an adjustment to the location’s stock only

Count Product

Count Product – if you select a product to be counted it will add all the locations that it is stocked to be counted.  This can be allocated to a single count for one person to check the product in multiple locations, or create a count for each location

Depot Stock Controlled with NON-CONTROLLED locations

If you want to note where products are held at each depot/quay, but don’t want the operational steps of recording the stock at each location you can use non-controlled locations.

Against a product leave the stock level for the depot as ‘Depot’ or ‘Lot’ stock controlled.

On the Locations tab you can add locations that the product is held.  Unlike the stock controlled locations this only shows the depot stock and the location(s)where the product is held.

For the example in the screenshot (right) there are 20 in stock, which is held in Shop and Warehouse 1/Aisle A, but we don’t know how many are in each location.

Stock counting location Non-controlled products

When stock counting products there are two ways to select what you want to count

Count Location

Count Location – this will add all the products that are in a location, plus any other locations that this product is held.  The system is looking to have counts for all the locations before a stock adjustment is made.  With the example above if you wanted to count Warehouse 1/Aisle A the system would set the product for counting for there and for the Shop.  Once both locations are counted for that product any stock count actions can betaken.

Count Product

Count Product – if you select a product to be counted it will add all the locations that it is stocked to be counted.  This can be allocated to a single count for one person to check the product in multiple locations, or create a count for each location

How to manage stock locations

Managing Stock Locations

To manage the locations for a business/depot/quay, including adding products to locations, click on ‘Stock’, ‘Stock Locations & Codes’

When you first use the Stock Locations manager there will be a default location setup for each Depot and Quay setup on Merchanter.

 

Locations Hierarchy

The Locations within Merchanter are a multi-level hierarchy.  You can choose how many levels you want to go down to, depending on the layout of your sites and the areas that are known to the people in the business.

Adding Locations

To build your hierarchy click on the ‘+ Location’ button next to any location to add a child location within it.  You will need a location name and a 2-character code.

Using location codes multiple times

The two-character code can be repeated in multiple locations but must be unique within one location.  For example, you can have location A1 within 3 aisles of a shop, but you can’t have A1 several times within Aisle 1.

 

Editing Locations

Click on the pencil icon in the location banner to edit the name/code or add sub locations to any location

Deleting Locations

If a location has no products in itself or any of its sub-locations it can be deleted using the red cross button.

Managing Products in Locations

Adding products to Locations – manual

As well as adding a product individually as described earlier in this document, you can add multiple products to a location from the Stock Locations Manager.

In the banner of a location click on the eye icon.  This opens the product manager for that location.

To add products to this location click the ‘+ products’ button top right.  This opens a product listing with filters.  Use the filters and search criteria to get to a get to the products you with to add to the location.

You can either click ‘Select all’ to highlight all the products in your search, or click on products individually to highlight them. Once you have highlighted the ones to add click ‘place selected’

 

Good practice suggestion

In Merchanter you can add products to any level in the hierarchy, so for example you could have some products in Warehouse 1 and other products in Warehouse 1/Aisle A.  We would recommend only putting products into the end nodes (lowest level) of the hierarchy, so they are all at the same level across the depot.

 

 

Adding products to locations – import from spreadsheet

If you want to bulk upload products across multiple locations click ‘Import from Excel’ top right.

Select the template to use and download a copy.  This simple spreadsheet has 3 columns:

• Product Code – this is the main product code from Merchanter
• Location path – this is the code string for the location you wish this product to be added to.  In the screenshot above the location path is GU/W1, which describes Warehouse 1 in the Guildford Depot
• Sequence Number – you can optionally add a sequence number.  This is used to sort the sequence products are held within a location

Multiple products on the spreadsheet

A product can be held in multiple locations, so can appear several times on the spreadsheet.  The same product cannot be added multiple times to the same location.

 

Only add items to lowest location in hierarchy

You only need to add a product to the lowest level of location it is held.  It will be shown within the parent locations automatically.  For example, if you add a product to Aisle A in Warehouse 1, it will show in Aisle A and in the larger list of Warehouse 1 products.

 

 

Sequencing Products in a Location

Products held in a location can optionally have a sequence number.  This number provides a sort order to help when checking stock to either show the products in a logical sequence based on product code or description, or to be in a sequence as they are physically stocked in the location to speed counting/checking.

Once you have products in a location you can either automatically set the sequence by product code or description using the green buttons above the list of products.

Once sequenced you can use the grey navigation buttons to move the products in the sequence.

Clicking on the eye icon will take you to the quick product summary
Clicking on the red cross button will remove that product from that location (does not delete the product)
Clicking the eye icon either in the blue banner at the top of the product list or in the blue location banner in the Location hierarchy will bring up the location overview.

In the location overview you can perform a number of operations

• Export to Excel –this exports the products in this location to an Excel spreadsheet
• Select All/Deselect All – use these buttons to highlight all or none of the products in the list.  Once selected you can deselect individual products with a single click
• Auto sequence by code – adds a sequence number based on the alphabetic sequence of the product codes
• Auto sequence by description – adds a sequence number based on the alphabetic description of the products
• Close gaps – If you have a manual set of sequence numbers this will renumber them in that sequence with a 1,2,3… sequence
• Remove – remove highlighted product(s) from this location
• Reset sequence – blank the sequence

Highlighting a single product you can change the location with the navigation buttons (top right) and manually enter your own sequence number.

Once products are sequenced adding products for stock counting, they will appear in location/sequence order.