Lots, batches and expiry

Before you start, open these. They are all under Stock in the menu: Stock Items, Batch types and Lot reports.

Can’t find one? It may be turned off for your business, or your account may not be allowed to open it. Ask the person who set up your FeePrime. They can fix both.

For anything that goes off, or that you might have to trace or recall, the quantity on its own is not enough. You need to know which batch.

What a lot is

A lot is a batch identity shared by several units.

Not one identity per unit. That is serial tracking. A lot is a group that arrived together, or was made together, or shares an expiry date.

Turn it on by setting an item’s tracking method to lot tracked. From then on, movements of that item carry the batch they concern.

The fields that make it work

Shelf life days on the item says how long a batch lasts. So an expiry date can be worked out when a batch is created, instead of being typed in every time.

Lot type describes what kind of batch identity it is. You can set it on the item, or let it come from the category.

Lot allocation strategy decides which batch leaves first. There are three options: first expired first out, first in first out, or manual.

For anything with an expiry date, first expired first out is the answer.

That difference is not academic.

A delivery that arrives later can have less life left than one already in your store. First in first out would send out the older batch with the longer life, and leave the short-dated one to go off. First expired first out sends the one that will turn first.

Production creates new batches

When a production run turns inputs into outputs, the output is a new batch.

The movement can record the output’s lot reference, its expiry, and its origin.

Origin is the field that makes tracing real. It links what came out to what went in.

So a recall on one input batch becomes a question you can answer. Which outputs used it, and where did they go? Instead of a guess across the whole warehouse.

Lot reports

Lot reports are how you ask all this. You can filter by item, by batch reference, by expiry before a date, by location, and by origin.

Two of those you will use most.

Expiry before is your weekly habit. Run it for a month ahead and you are looking at what has to be sold, moved or discounted while it is still worth something.

Origin is the recall path. When a supplier tells you a batch was bad, this is what finds every finished item made from it.

The habit

Lot tracking earns you nothing if it is only filled in when goods arrive.

Its value shows up when somebody asks a question months later. Which is exactly when it is too late to start recording properly.

Try it

On staging.feeprime.com, create a lot tracked item with a short shelf life. Receive two batches with different expiry dates, then ship some and see which batch it picked.

Then run a lot report for expiry before next month.