Stock Lots

The Stock -> Stock lots section contains a list of all stock lots that are either currently in stock or scheduled to arrive, plus the history of all stock lots in the system.

General advice about stock lots:

It is an internal business object in the MRPeasy software, usually created automatically, and used for providing the FIFO method for consuming goods, and also for some other functionality, like, for example, expiry date.

In your daily business, usually, you should not operate with these automatically created stock lots.

Jump to:

1. What is a stock lot?
2. Stock lot statuses.
3. Stock lot reports.
4. Stock lot labels.
5. Move items between storage locations.
6. Transfer items to another warehouse.
7. How does stock lot tracking work in MRPeasy?
8. Booking and consumption of inventory.
9. Import stock lots.

Notes

• Depleted stock lots are not shown by default. For finding them, search by lot number or filter by "0" total quantity.

Stock lot statuses

1. Requested – required items are requested from:
   - The purchasing manager, the purchase order status is New PO.
   - The production manager, the manufacturing order status is New or Not scheduled.
   Requested items cannot be consumed, picked for shipment.
2. Planned – items are expected to arrive in some future. Purchase orders are ordered. Manufacturing orders are scheduled or started.
   The software setting "Use planned goods" controls if planned items can be consumed and picked for shipment.
3. Received – items are received.
4. Canceled – the stock lot is deleted.
5. On hold – items are received but wait for inspection. 5 and 6 available, if Quality Control is enabled.
6. Rejected – items that did not pass inspection.
7. RMA waiting for inspection – the RMA returned item is received and waiting for inspection. 7-10 available, if Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) is enabled.
8. RMA waiting for repair – the returned item is inspected and should be repaired. 
9. RMA ready for shipment – the returned item is repaired and can be shipped back to the customer.
10. RMA returned – item is returned by the customer. It can be added to the inventory by changing the status to Received.

Stock lot label, lot barcode

It is possible to print labels to identify physical items from different stock lots.

There are two types of stock lot labels:

1. Label for the whole lot.
2. Label per location, representing only the part of the lot stored at this location.

The size, information, and layout of the label can be edited with the Label editor.

The standard labels contain the unique stock lot barcode if the Barcode System functionality is enabled.

Read also: What happens when a barcode is scanned?

Stock lot label for the whole lot

The labels for stock lots can be printed by clicking Print label at

• the Stock -> Stock lots page,
• the Stock -> Stock lots -> Stock lot details page (top right),
• the Purchase Order, where the parts were procured.
• the Manufacturing order, where the products were manufactured.

Stock lot label with storage location

Parts of the stock lot can be stored at different storage locations.

To print a label per location, showing only the quantity on that location:

1. Go to the Stock -> Stock lots -> Stock lot details page.
2. Find the Storage locations section.
3. Press the printer button on a storage location's line.

What is a stock lot?

Stock lots keep the detailed history of each item that moves through your inventory.

For example, each time you purchase a material, a new stock lot is created to identify it. All stock can be found at Stock -> Stock lots. 

You may have many stock lots of the same item - purchased at different times, with different costs, possibly from different vendors, with different expiry dates, stored in different locations/shelves, some of which have certificates, files attached, or notes, etc.

General advice about stock lots:

It is an internal business object in the MRPeasy software, usually created automatically, and used for providing the FIFO method for consuming goods, and also for some other functionality, like, for example, expiry date.

In your daily business, usually, you should not operate with these automatically created stock lots.

Stock lots and batch tracking

Stock lot functionality can be used for batch tracking, as technically it provides traceability.

However, a stock lot is not always equivalent to a (manufacturing) batch number. For example, it may be that you receive goods from the same batch of products from your vendor in two deliveries - in this case, there will be two stock lots, created by the system.

When you wish to track some batch number, which is not equivalent to the stock lot number, you can act as follows:

1. it is possible to encode the batch number in the stock lot number, e.g. by adding it as a suffix.
2. it is possible to use a custom field to keep your batch number.

How do stock lots work in MRPeasy?

MRPeasy inventory management is designed for lot/batch and serial number traceability. Lot tracking helps to ensure that the history of every product and material is known. Technically this means the following:

• Each lot of an item is tracked and identified separately. Unique lot numbers are automatically generated.
• Every time a material is purchased, a unique lot number is created for it.
• Each production run produces a new stock lot of products.
• During production planning, MRPeasy automatically proposes which lot to pick materials from (FIFO or FEFO principle). The materials will be booked.
• No product or material can be overbooked, MRPeasy manages bookings.
• During production, workers see which materials they need to pick - the lot numbers, quantities, and location(s) - and can report materials they've used. (Section "My production plan")
• For each sale, specific stock lots from where products are booked and will be given out, are recorded.
• Defects in products can be traced back to specific production operations or material purchases in seconds. For a defective batch of materials, it is easy to identify all products which are affected.
• Expiry dates are recorded in stock lots.
• The actual cost of each lot of products is known (from direct materials cost, manufacturing and labor cost).
• If an item is subject to Quality Control then the stock lot will be quarantined until inspected and approved, or rejected, fully or partly. 
• Service/repair orders can be scheduled for items that failed quality control or were returned by the customer.
• Individual serial numbers can be tracked within stock lots.
• Notes and files, e.g. certificates, can be attached to individual stock lots.
• To keep a lot number the same after transfer to another stock/production site, use a persistent custom field.

Booking and consumption of inventory from stock lots

Before goods can be consumed, they must be booked.

What is a booking?

• A "booking" is a reservation of goods from specific stock lot(s). E.g. materials from a specific lot (which comes from a specific PO) are reserved - booked - for a manufacturing order.
• If something is already booked, it cannot be double-booked. It can be only booked again if the existing booking is removed.
• Note that a booking can also be "not booked". This means that an item is in demand, but it is not yet reserved from a specific stock lot. 

When a user is booking goods, it is generally possible to create these:

1. Automatically. The system uses the FIFO method for booking the goods from available goods at the time. (Or FEFO, if expiry dates are used.)
2. Or manually. The user can choose an available quantity from a list of available stock lots. Stock lots that are already booked are not shown.

The consumption of goods from stock lots is done according to bookings. I.e. the goods are consumed from the stock lot which is booked (for this MO, CO, etc.).