Warehouse Mode

Bitta Consignment holds vendor stock in two ways. At a normal vendor consignment location the stock stays out of your inventory: it lives only in the Consignment Ledger and is sold through drop shipment with the consignment purchasing code. At a location in Warehouse Mode the vendor's stock is native inventory at zero value. Bins, warehouse receipts, put-aways, picks, shipments, physical inventory and scanners then work for it exactly as for your own stock, and you sell it on ordinary sales lines. The Consignment Ledger still records which vendor owns each unit, and the vendor is paid through an item charge on the settlement invoice when the stock is sold or bought out.

When to use it

• Use Warehouse Mode at a location that runs on warehouse documents or directed put-away and pick, or where pickers use scanners.
• Keep the normal vendor consignment location where the warehouse is simple: drop shipment, the Consignment Pick List and the Consignment Bin Count Sheet are enough there.
• Your own stock can stay at a Warehouse Mode location too, for items with FIFO or another costing method that keeps cost per entry. Items with the Standard costing method cannot be vendor stock there, and owned stock of Average-cost items is refused at the location.

Set up a location

1. Make sure the location holds no stock yet. Warehouse Mode cannot be changed while the location holds stock.
2. On the Location Card, choose Set Up Consignment Warehouse Mode. You can also open it from Consignment Setup or the Consignment > Setup menu of the role center.
3. On the first step, choose the Location, the Consignment Item Charge No. that settlement uses to pay the vendors, an optional Consignment Gen. Bus. Posting Group, and keep Create Stockkeeping Units on.
4. Choose Next. The Checks step lists the findings for the values you just entered:
   • Must fix: for example no item charge, an item charge that does not exist, no inventory posting setup for the location, or stock at the location. Finish stays unavailable until they are fixed.
   • Check: for example a Standard-cost item of a consignment vendor, the Average Cost Calc. Type in Inventory Setup, a stockkeeping unit with a reordering policy, or an item without a stockkeeping unit at the location. Each finding names its item or stockkeeping unit (the first ten; then one row with the count of the others). They do not stop Finish, but the items they name cannot be vendor stock there until fixed.
   • Done by Finish: for example the stockkeeping unit that Finish creates for an item (named in the finding), or Vendor Consignment that Finish selects.
5. Select a finding and choose Show to open what it names: the item, the stockkeeping unit, the location, its posting setup, Inventory Setup or the item charges. Fix it there, then choose Next: the guide checks again on the Checks and Finish steps.
6. Choose Finish. If a finding is still marked Must fix, the Finish step says so and Finish is unavailable: choose Back to see the finding on the Checks step. The guide saves the item charge and posting group in Consignment Setup, creates the stockkeeping units and turns on Consignment Warehouse Mode on the location.

Receive vendor stock

1. Create a Consignment Receipt for the vendor at the Warehouse Mode location, with the items, bins and serial or lot numbers.
2. Choose Post. The receipt creates a purchase order to the vendor at zero price. A message tells you what happened and asks Do you want to open purchase order ...?
   • At a location without warehouse receipts or put-aways, the purchase order is received at once, and the message names the posted purchase receipt.
   • At a location that requires a warehouse receipt or put-away, the purchase order is released, and the message names the next step. Choose Yes to open the purchase order, then:
     • where the location has Require Receive (advanced warehousing), choose Create Whse. Receipt and post the warehouse receipt, then register the put-away if the location also requires one;
     • where the location has Require Put-away without Require Receive (basic warehousing), choose Create Inventory Put-away/Pick and post the inventory put-away.

3. The posted consignment document shows the Purchase Order No. and Purch. Receipt No., with actions to open them. When the warehouse receives the order later, Purch. Receipt No. shows its posted purchase receipt from then on.

To receive a delivery in parts, lower Qty. to Receive on the receipt lines before you post. Each posting creates its own zero-price purchase order for the quantity it receives, and the rest stays on the open receipt. See Receive in parts.

Hold, sell and count

• Move the stock with native transfer orders, reclassification journals and warehouse movements.
• Count it with the Phys. Inventory Journal or warehouse physical inventory. Count Consignment Stock opens the right one for the location, with Calculate Inventory already run; see Scan and count. On a line that adds units (a surplus or a positive adjustment), the Consignment Vendor No. column, shown next to Location Code, says whose units they are; leave it empty when they are yours. A line that takes units out follows item application; use Applies-to Item Entry to take a given vendor's units.
• Sell the stock on ordinary sales lines, without the consignment purchasing code. Picks and warehouse shipments work as usual. The app records which vendor's units were sold.
• Buy stock out with a transfer order to a location of your own; the transfer receipt changes the owner.

Own Inventory

Business Central's Inventory on the item card counts every unit at your locations, so it includes the vendor stock at Warehouse Mode locations. Once a location uses Warehouse Mode, the item shows Own Inventory as well: Inventory without the vendor's stock there.

• On the Item Card, Own Inventory is next to Inventory. Choose the value to see the open item ledger entries it counts, with the remaining quantity that is yours.
• On the Item List, add the Own Inventory column with Personalize; it is hidden by default.
• The item's Consignment Stock FactBox starts with an Own Inventory row, followed by each vendor's stock per location.
• Stock at your customer consignment sites is yours, so it is part of Own Inventory.
• Own Inventory follows the same filters as Inventory, for example a location filter set with Filter totals by.

At a Warehouse Mode location only the consignment Receipt is used. Adjustment, transfer, physical count, return to vendor and ownership change documents, the Consignment Journal and the consignment purchasing code are refused there; the native documents above do that work.

Settle

On Consignment Settlement, the Warehouse Mode Units to Charge part lists the units sold or bought out at Warehouse Mode locations that are not charged yet. Create Settlement Documents puts the zero-price receipt lines and one item charge per sold or bought-out line on the vendor's invoice, assigned to the sales shipment or transfer receipt. See Settle with vendors.

Scanners

Warehouse scanner apps work at a Warehouse Mode location without any setup in Bitta Consignment. They drive the same warehouse receipts, put-aways, picks, shipments, movements, journals and counts as the web client, and Business Central posts them with its own routines, so the app records the vendor's units the same way. It was tested next to Tasklet Mobile WMS and Insight Works Warehouse Insight.

• Receive: the consignment receipt creates the zero-price purchase order, with the serial and lot numbers you entered. Receive it with the scanner on the warehouse receipt and put it away as usual.
• Move between bins: a bin-to-bin move within the location is a warehouse movement only. The units stay the vendor's.
• Pick and ship, return to the vendor: scan as usual. The app records the sale or the return for the vendor whose units the shipment takes.
• Count: a count that finds fewer units records the shortage for the vendor whose units were counted. A count that finds more units adds them as your own stock, because a scanner cannot say whose they are. To add them to a vendor's stock, fill in Consignment Vendor No. on the line of the Phys. Inventory Journal before you post it.
• Bins: see a bin's quantity on the native Bin Contents page or in the scanner's bin inquiry. The consignment pages show Warehouse Mode stock without a bin.

At a vendor consignment location without Warehouse Mode, the vendor's units are not inventory yet, so a scanner sees only your own stock there. Count the vendor's stock with Scan Lines on a consignment physical count, in the browser on a phone or with a keyboard scanner; see Scan and count.

Limits

• Existing vendor stock at a location cannot be converted to Warehouse Mode; turn it on for a location without stock.
• Warehouse Mode entries have no bin on the Consignment Ledger: the bin is the native bin content.
• A customer return of a Warehouse Mode sale goes back to the Warehouse Mode location while the sale is not settled, and to a location of your own once it is.

What's next

Sell vendor stock: Sell consigned stock.