User guide

12
Identifying Additional Tracking Needs
Sometimes it is important to be able to associate an exact item or range of items
with an exact customer, serial number, date code or shipment date. This can be
important for s upport and maintenance purposes or for recalls. Often, larger cost
items that have a warranty or support contract are tracked by serial number so
that if the item is sent back for maintenance you can be sure you are not fixing a
product that is out of warranty. Some items need to be tracked by lot or date
code because the batch they are in is important or they are perishable.
InventoryControl allows you to specify up to four required tracking fields and
three optional tracking fields. The three options fields are always available when
Adding and Removing items and can be filled out as needed. You can also
select on the Create New or Edit Item screens to make these options fields
required. Once you select to use one of the optional fields by checking the box
on the Create New or Edit Item screen, the field become required for that item.
When you create each item you can specify if the i tem is tracked by Serial
Number, Lot, Data Code or Pallet. W hat this means is that when you process an
add, remove, move, audit, pick or receive for this item you will be forced to
specify a value for the tracking fields you specified.
Serial number is the most common and is different from the rest of the tracking
fields. Serial numbers must be unique for each piece of inventory. When an item
is tracked by serial number, a unique serial number must be entered for each
individual piece of that item you enter into inventory. When the item is removed
or moved the system will also require the serial number. This allows the location
and movement of the item to be tracked exactly. The other tracking fields are not
required to be unique. If you are tracking by lot you could add 100 items with lot
number 206.
Date Code is used if the item has an expiration date or production date that is
important for recalls or tracking. Do not use the Date Code field to track when an
item is added to InventoryControl. Each Add transaction in InventoryControl is
time-stamped to allow you to track when an item was added. To track when an
item is added, view the Transaction List (Main Window > Lists > Transactions) or
run the
There are also 3 optional tracking fields Ref#, Supplier and Customer. As
mentioned above, these fields are special fields for the Add and Remove
functions that can be filled out but are not required unless you make them
required when the item is created.
The required and optional track by fields can be renamed to reflect the names
you use.
After inventory is added to an item, the selections you made to the four tracking
fields cannot be changed without first removing all inventory from that item.
Make sure you specify what you want to track before adding inventory. Also,