Goal

The core of every logistics process is your warehouse. The warehouse contains all stock numbers and storage locations for each product. This guide shows you how to set up your warehouse structure and manually increase or decrease your stock numbers.

Prerequisites

You should import your products first to set up your warehouse. Don’t forget to activate the Stock Item check box in your product details to book stock on a product.

Workflow

The following procedures describe best practices for setting up your warehouse.

Structuring your warehouse
Creating a new warehouse
Creating a storage location (shelf)

Structuring your warehouse in Xentral

Xentral provides a two-level structure for your warehousing:

Warehouse - This is the top level, and you can view it as an entire warehouse or just a floor in your warehouse.
Shelves - These are the locations where you can book stock numbers.

Each warehouse contains at least one shelf. The shelf represents a specific location in your warehouse and may contain as many products as you wish.

Hint: Xentral already contains one default warehouse with one default shelf when you first log in. You can rename those and use them to get started or create additional ones. For a straightforward warehouse structure, one shelf might already be enough.

Creating a new warehouse

Log into Xentral and go to Fulfillment > Warehouse management.
Click +New.
Enter the name of the new warehouse.
You need the Project field only if you plan to use this warehouse for a specific logistics oricess (for example, if you have separate B2B and B2C processes.
The contact field is optional. Use the Contact field if your warehouse has an address you want to specify.
Click Save.
After saving, more tabs will appear at the top. Use the Shelves tab to create new storage locations.

Creating a storage location (shelf)

Log into Xentral and go to Fulfillment > Warehouse management.
Click the pencil icon to open the warehouse where you want to create a new shelf.
Go to the Shelves tab.
Click the Create a new shelf tab to add a new location.
Enter the name of the shelf in the Designation tab. Use a unique name for the shelf. Xentral requests this name whenever you want to book stock numbers. Avoid using blank spaces in the shelves name. Use the underscore character instead.
The contact field is optional and only used for particular use cases.
The following check boxes in the Storage type section are optional:
- Supply warehouse: Xentral will not suggest this shelf for outgoing shipments. Xentral treats it as a buffer, but the stock is still accessible manually.
- Consumption warehouse: This shelf registers incoming stock numbers but will not count the total stock number. You can use it for products you purchase but don’t want to measure, like glue, screws, or solvent.
- No auto shipping warehouse: Xentral will not cover any logistics process and interpret the stock number inaccessible. Use it for quality reasons or when you expect a bigger order from a customer.
- Production allowed to access: This shelf contains raw materials for your production setup (only used if you use the production module).
The fields in the Storage properties section are purely for your information, except the Sorting field. The sorting represents the prioritization of this shelf on your picking list. Xentral will sort shelves with a low number to the top of your subsequent picking runs.

Hint: You don’t have to create all the shelves manually. If you want to add a larger number of shelves, use the Import shelves tab.

Booking stock numbers

You can book stock numbers via different processes. Please be aware of the following details:

Manual booking - Go to Fulfillment > Inbound / Outbound to increase or decrease stock numbers. You can also change the storage locations of your products.
Mobile view - Use this view to book stock via mobile devices. You can access it in Fulfillment > Mobile warehouse. If you have a specific user for your mobile device, you can add this page as the starting page.
Booking on product level - You can change the stock number of each product by editing the Product > Warehouse tab. The Warehouse tab offers you a complete overview of all stock numbers and the corresponding locations for this product. Use the buttons for Inbound and Outbound to change the stock levels.
Importing stock numbers - You can use a CSV import if you don’t want to change all stock numbers manually. The corresponding CSV file needs the product number, the shelf name, and the quantity. Refer to this article to learn more.
Fulfilment data - If the warehouse is not yours, but you still want to know what stock number your fulfiller or drop shipper currently has, you can import those numbers to Xentral using the transfer module.

Processes that change your stock number

Your stock numbers will change over time, depending on what processes you implement in Xentral. Processes that can affect your stock numbers are the following:

Deliveries: The stock number can decrease whenever you ship something to your customer. You need to activate this option in the project settings. Refer to this guide to learn more.
Purchases: If you buy something using the Xentral Purchase order, this purchase can increase your stock number. This manual shows you how.
Production: If you use Xentral’s production module, this app will reduce the stocks of your raw material and increase the stocks of your final products.

Note: Whenever you deliver something to your customer, Xentral automatically selects the shelf with the lowest stock number to pick the products from.

Keeping track of your stock numbers

If you want to see what is in stock for which product, go to Fulfilment > Warehouse management. The following tabs provide the information:

Stock: Shows you the quantity of each product with the corresponding location and calculates what quantity is available to be sold.
Inventory calculation: Xentral generates a snapshot of your warehouse each day. This tab allows you to see the stock number for each day in the past. Use the Calculated purchase price in your product details to view how much capital was bound in your warehouse on specific days.
Movements: This tab shows each activity that happened in your warehouse. The data contains a timestamp, the associated document (like delivery notes or purchase orders), and the affected warehouse locations.

Useful features

Reservations

Xentral allows blocking specific stock numbers for certain orders. To do it manually, open the order you want to block stock numbers for. Open the action dropdown menu and select Reserve all products.

To automate this, go to the project to which the orders are associated. Open Settings > Logistics / Shipping and activate Auto reservation in warehouse in the Options section.

Preferred warehouse location

Each product can have one preferred warehouse location. Open the product and go to Details > Stock / Dimensions > Default warehouse. Selecting the location here will make booking stock numbers quicker. This field will not affect which shelf when an order passes through the delivery process.

Project warehouses

You can use specific warehouses for projects and logistics processes. You can activate this feature in each project using the Preferred warehouse and Project warehouse fields. Click here to learn more about it.