Serial numbers are used to uniquely identify products and thus serve the important purpose of traceability and product safety.
In Xentral, serial numbers can be entered during several processes. Typically, serial numbers are relevant either for delivered products that you book into Xentral during goods receipt, or if you produce yourself and therefore enter serial numbers of individual parts in the production process or provide your finished products with serial numbers.
By recording and maintaining serial numbers in Xentral, you can always keep track of which products or components have been delivered to which customers or processed in other work steps within order processing or production.
Tip
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Serial numbers are typically entered by scan or, less frequently, by manual input into Xentral, which is possible with various workflows and in the modules listed below:
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Storage of delivered products with serial numbers
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Assignment of serial numbers to self-produced products (Produktionsabschluss)
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Using components with serial numbers in self-produced products (Die Xentral Produktionskarte)
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As part of the shipping process in the Xentral dispatch center
If serial numbers are required for inventory management, first carry out the appropriate setting in the product master data.
Proceed as follows to activate serial number management for a product.
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Go to Sell > Products.
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Open the desired product by clicking on the pencil icon to the right.
The Details tab of the product master data opens.
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Scroll down until you reach the Other settings section.
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Click on the Serial numbers drop-down menu.
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Select the desired option for managing serial numbers. The following table provides more information about the available settings.
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Click on Save.
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Setting |
Explanation |
|---|---|
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None |
This option disables serial number management for this product. ImportantIf the option None is selected, serial numbers cannot be entered for this product. In this case you cannot enter serial numbers for this product when goods are received or shipped. |
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Generate your own |
WarningThis option is deprecated and should not be selected. |
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Use originals |
If this option is selected, the supplier's serial number is adopted in Xentral. Once an product with a serial number is shipped to an end customer, the serial number must be entered in the delivery note for informational purposes. However, when storing delivered products, you do not enter a serial number. TipThis procedure is suitable for you if you are purchasing products with serial numbers from your supplier and reselling them to your customers. |
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Stock and use originals |
If this option is enabled, Xentral will prompt you to enter the corresponding serial number when storing and relocating the product. Affected serial numbers must also be included when posting the goods via the delivery note. This option is suitable for all users who need to manage serial numbers from suppliers. ImportantIf you are using the Production module, we recommend that you enable the option Stock and use originals. |
If you have selected the option Stock and use originals for a product, you must specify the serial number for each copy of the product when stocking it in, after selecting the desired product quantity and storage location.
For each product that has one of the Use originals or Stock and use originals options enabled for serial number management, the serial number is retrieved at the time of product shipment at the dispatch center, where you can either enter the serial number manually or enter it via a barcode scanner.
To ensure that the serial numbers of the products are also properly listed in the position table of invoices and delivery notes, you must first activate the corresponding option in the system settings.
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Use the Smart Search to open the Basic settings module.
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Open the System tab.
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Scroll down until you reach the Receipts section.
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Enable the option Positions with serial numbers.
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Click on Save.
This way, you always have an overview of which serial numbers belong to which receipt, allowing you to reliably document goods movements and traceability.
If serial number management is enabled for a product, you can perform various actions in the individual tabs of the Serial numbers module, which are briefly described below.
Important
Note that you can only track serial numbers in Xentral if you have selected one of the options Use originals or Stock and use originals in the product master data. For more information about these settings, see the Activating batch management for products chapter.
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Tab Customers: Here you can check which serial numbers have been delivered to which end customers.This feature is particularly useful if there were problems with individual serial numbers or if you need to recall products with specific serial numbers.
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Tab Warehouse: Here you will find a transparent overview of which shipped serial numbers were in which storage location.
Tip
If a wrong serial number has been entered in a delivery note, you can correct the supplied serial number in the Serial numbers module afterwards.
In the Customers tab, simply click on the blue receipt number in the Delivery note/return column. The delivery note is opened. After you have removed the write protection, you can correct the serial number in the Serial number tab.
In your system preferences, you can set Xentral to warn you as soon as an existing serial number is entered in the system so you can react as quickly as possible in case of duplicates.
To activate the warning for duplicate serial numbers in Xentral, follow these steps:
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Use the Smart Search to open the Basic settings module.
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Open the Number ranges tab.
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Activate the option Duplicate serial numbers warning.
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Click on Save.
After activating the option described above in the basic settings, Xentral will notify you and you can access the notification by clicking on the user icon in the upper right corner and then clicking on System status.
Tip
For more information about the system status, see the article System Status.