Warehouse Management Overview

The Warehouse Management application centralizes and customizes item receipt and fulfillment functions throughout Traverse into one application, tailoring them for the warehouse environment. In traditional item receipt functions (such as those in Purchase Order, for example), you need to navigate through several steps in a transaction before you can access receiving commands. Likewise, order fulfillments (such as those in Sales Order) also require several steps to pick items, print a packing list, and get the order out the door. While such functions perform well in the office, they are not really practical for the warehouse.

Warehouse Management redesigns Traverse's order and inventory functions to streamline receiving, order fulfillment, and item movement for the warehouse. To receive items, fill orders, or move production items into inventory, simply scan a barcode or enter an item ID, then select the order to which to apply the items and enter the quantity received or shipped. Inventory location transfers become a true, three-step process to fully account for the decrease and increase at each location and to correctly track costs during transit. Warehouse Management also extends the bin and container concept in Inventory by allowing you to place containers in bins and move all items in entire bins or container from one location to another easily.

Application Interaction

Warehouse Management requires the Traverse Inventory application. In addition, you can optionally interface Warehouse Management with other Traverse applications:

• Interface Warehouse Management with Purchase Order to access purchase orders information to identify the orders you should be receiving. When you receive those items in Warehouse Management, receipt information is written back to Purchase Order and order status is updated automatically.
• Use the Sales Order interface to access item information for the orders you need to fulfill. As with Purchase Order, Warehouse Management writes fulfilled item quantities and updates order status in Sales Order when you ship items.
• Interface Warehouse Management with Production to access work order information needed to pull components from inventory, receive assembled items and place them into inventory, and complete work orders.
• Interface Warehouse Management with Service Director to access the estimated part quantities needed for work orders so that you can pull those items from inventory in preparation for dispatches.
• Use the Project Costing interface to access project information so that you can enter material requisitions for specific projects, track this item movement through shipping and receiving, and write these costs to the project for accurate billing.

It’s important to remember that while Warehouse Management works closely with the Traverse Inventory application, it also is a separate application. That is, while it contains transfer and adjustment functions that are related to those in Inventory, these functions are not interchangeable between the two applications. While Warehouse Management does update Inventory history when you post for inquiry and reporting needs, it stores unposted transaction information in different locations. For example, you cannot access Warehouse Management transfer information in Inventory and vice versa.

Keep in mind that when you use Warehouse Management to record picked and received items, you should not also use the functions in the applications Warehouse Management interfaces with to enter shipped or received quantities or production activity. Because Warehouse Management pushes the quantity information you enter to the appropriate transactions in other Traverse applications, entering quantity information in these applications and picking or receiving items in Warehouse Management can lead to duplicate records and incorrect item quantities.

For example, when you pick items for sales orders in Warehouse Management, Warehouse Management automatically enters the quantity shipped and backordered into the appropriate transactions in Sales Order. However, if you enter shipped and backordered quantities into the Sales Order transactions, and record picking activity in Warehouse Management and confirm your selections, the system updates the quantities in the Sales Order transactions a second time, duplicating your previous entries and incorrectly updating inventory item quantities.