Practical guide
Purchase, receipt, stock and shipment: controlling the data
Supply control requires purchases, receipts, available stock and shipments to be linked by documents and statuses, with an owner for every change. Product availability should follow confirmed movement rather than a separate report.
- Warehouse Operations and Inventory Management
- Rozmetov: stock, collections and reconciliation
- For operations directors
In detail
Purchasing, warehouse and sales teams need to know what was ordered, received, promised and is available to ship. Compare the same product, warehouse, unit and point in time; include batch and stock owner where relevant. A SKU appearing in an overall stock report does not establish that it can fulfil a particular order. Check the product variant, packaging, quality status and customer requirements for the batch and remaining shelf life. Agree substitutions under the order terms.
A purchase order and delivery notice record an expectation. Arrival, counting, receipt and put-away are separate events; the received portion remains linked to the order and outstanding quantity. Investigate shortages, excess and disputed quality separately. For a warehouse transfer, link dispatch from the source to receipt at the destination. In-transit quantity must not count as free stock at both warehouses simultaneously. Keep the unreceived portion in an agreed status pending investigation; physical presence alone does not authorise sale.
In a simplified model, free stock now equals confirmed on-hand quantity minus reserved and blocked quantities. This works only if the starting quantity includes both deductions and the deducted groups do not overlap. If blocking is already excluded, or a batch is both reserved and blocked, subtracting it again gives the wrong result. Promising supply for a future date separately considers expected receipts, demand and agreed available-to-promise (ATP) rules.
Illustrative example for one product and warehouse, in units: 100 on hand, including 10 blocked, and no reservations leaves 90 free. Reserving 30 keeps on-hand quantity at 100 but reduces free stock to 60. Shipping 20 from that reservation leaves 80 on hand, 10 reserved and 10 blocked: free stock is still 60. These are teaching figures, not customer data or a promise of Smartup results.
Shipping reserved stock changes both on-hand quantity and the fulfilled reservation; do not deduct the same quantity again from free stock. Displayed availability is a snapshot, not a confirmed reservation. With concurrent orders, check which order received which quantity in the agreed system and what happens when stock is insufficient. Keep the unshipped portion in its status until fulfilment or cancellation. Releasing a reservation does not move goods; a return needs receipt and condition confirmation. Shipment does not prove customer receipt.
Prepare an anonymised chain of purchasing, partial receipt, reservation and shipment with the requirements of a specific order. If a transfer is involved, include dispatch and receipt at both warehouses and the quantity in transit. The pilot needs stock definitions, units, snapshot and update times, discrepancy owners and expected states. Test batch eligibility, orders competing for stock and partial receipt. Reconcile lines and statuses; check an unknown exchange outcome by the original ID before retrying to avoid creating another movement.
How it is applied
- Choose a product and order; specify the fulfilment warehouse, acceptable batch, packaging and shelf-life requirements. Consider future supply separately.
- Collect linked documents, units and the snapshot time. For a transfer, include both warehouses and in-transit quantity; assign confirmation owners.
- Prepare partial receipt, disputed quality, partial shipment, reservation cancellation and a return. Also test orders competing for the same stock.
- Check retries, delayed statuses and lost responses: one original event must not create another movement.
- Reconcile pilot results with the accounting system; assign discrepancy owners and conditions for starting the live exchange.
Practical checklist
- Every stock state has an unambiguous definition.
- Receipt retains its supplier-order link and discrepancies.
- Reservation and shipment do not change one fact twice.
- An integration error cannot hide an unfinished document.
Scope and limits
This guide covers distribution data control, not replacement of specialist complex warehouse or transport planning. The operational boundary is agreed per project.