Tracking Items by "Lot" or "Shipment"

We are an electronic recycling company and we purchase our inventory as scrap by weight in different categories, for example, “Scrap Laptops By Weight”, we then resell some of the stuff as individual items via inventory kits, for example “Resale Laptop By Item”. We get the scrap in from all different customers, and we are looking for the ability to track items per “lot” or per “load” that they come in as, so that we have the granularity to say “we profited $X from this load that we got in on X date from X Customer”.

I see that tracking codes are an option, but seeing as they seem to go into the inventory item when you enter it, I am not sure that this is the best way, as that would seem to necessitate that we create a separate inventory item for every lot.

Has anyone else found a good way to tackle this issue?

@lubos

This is not an appropriate use of inventory kits, which are meant to be a way of selling items together that are stocked and accounted for individually. For example, a lamp shop stocks bases, shades, and bulbs and will sell any of those individually. It will also sell a complete lamp kit made of a base, a shade, and a bulb.

You are producing new inventory items (resale laptops) from existing inventory (scrap laptops). The correct approach is to use production orders.

Neither approach, however, is amenable to lot tracking, a feature Manager does not have built in. The basic premise of inventory management is that all units of an inventory item are interchangeable.

Not necessarily. They can be applied to a specific sale of a single item, even when the same inventory item is purchased or sold in different lots. Tracking codes are, in fact, the best option for what you are trying to do. The problem is that Manager will not help you track them. You will need to somehow identify items you are selling as belonging to a specific lot and apply its tracking code when you sell them. So you might need to combine physical tags of some type with Manager’s inventory records.

I would also think carefully about whether to track your materials as inventory items at all, because what you are trying to do is so contrary to the way Manager is structured. A simple custom field with a lot number would let you use the Sales Invoice Totals by Custom Field report as a way of following sales from different lots. You would still need to track incoming lots outside Manager, because there is no corresponding purchasing report.

@Tut

I am having a little bit of confusion here. We have just started using manager.io and all of this will be easy enough for us to change the way that it is being done.

Regarding the Inventory Kits, we just decided to do it this way a few days ago by the suggestion of another forum member on a different thread. By using a production order and then putting the scrap product on the BOM, in my mind this will essentially accomplish the same thing as the Inventory Kit, is that correct?

The component items will be pulled from Inventory and will show up on reports, as well as the “finished product” item. What is the benefit or doing it one way vs the other? I am aware of what the premise of the inventory kit is for, but from reading the forums, most with similar situations were told to use inventory kits.

Regarding the per lot tracking, we plan to have barcodes on our items that contain the lot tracking code, which we will manage via an external barcode system. One barcode will contain a SKU which we will use via a basic keyboard wedge to look up product when pulling from inventory, the second will contain the tracking code.

I am also confused as to whether you are suggesting that I use tracking codes, or that I implement a custom field, which would be the correct way in your mind? I am aware that they need to be tracking coming into manager.io, which is not a problem.

I don’t know what thread you are referring to, so I can’t comment on it. But the entire concept of inventory kits is really to have a shortcut for stocking things individually and sometimes selling them together, perhaps at a different combined price than the sum of individual prices. You’re buying scrap by the pound, which you haven’t mentioned selling at all, and pulling marketable items from that material stream to sell as individual items. You are upside down compared to the way inventory kits were designed. Can it be made to work? Maybe. But you’ll be fighting the program’s design now, and with future changes who knows what could happen? Your workflow will not be considered in program modifications.

No.

One combines existing inventory to sell together. The other consumes inventory to create different inventory. The first is a sales action. The second is more like a procurement action, a way of obtaining the finished good.

Again, I don’t know what you are referring to.

If you are implementing a barcode marking and tracking system, I would not use tracking codes at all. You will have in place the necessary means to populate a custom field with the lot number. That probably gives you the most flexibility. Tracking codes were a cumbersome workaround from the beginning. I would never have mentioned them if you hadn’t.

You’re buying scrap by the pound, which you haven’t mentioned selling at all, and pulling marketable items from that material stream to sell as individual items.

This was my error, we do resell the scrap as well, matching the same SKU that it is purchased as, then we also “create” items out of this same material stream. I think this will still work with production orders, is that correct?

If you are implementing a barcode marking and tracking system, I would not use tracking codes at all. You will have in place the necessary means to populate a custom field with the lot number. That probably gives you the most flexibility. Tracking codes were a cumbersome workaround from the beginning. I would never have mentioned them if you hadn’t.

Got it. So we will implement a barcode tracking system by means of a custom field. When I implement the custom field, what “sections” should it be implemented under in order to track a lot?

Yes.

Every tab that you have enabled that is involved in the process. At a minimum:

  • Purchase Invoices
  • Sales Invoices
  • Receipts & Payments
  • Production Orders
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@Tut

I do not see:

  • Receipts and Payments or
  • Production Orders

In the custom fields menu as available options.

First, is your software up to date? Receipts & Payments tab was created only recently, combining Bank Transactions and Cash Transactions into one tab.

Second, unless the relevant tabs are enabled, the option does not appear under Custom Fields.

We installed the software about 2 weeks ago, it is the self-hosted server version. I cannot seem to find any update / upgrade instructions.

Download and install exactly as you originally did. Do not uninstall first. If you installed 2 weeks ago, you must missed the change, so you should definitely update.

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Thank you sir. Software update took care of it. I will try this all out and see how it works.

Thanks!