Getting started with traceability

You can trace stock items in your system from purchase or build through sale, or use in your own company, and you can monitor stock movements associated with the items. Before we look at setting up and processing traceable items, there are a few things to consider.

Why traceability?

Traceability is usually required when processing to quality and safety standards within industry. If you need to provide evidence of where your components or items come from and where they have gone, then you will need to use traceability.

Sage 200 traceability works best when you are keeping track of a low number of high value items, such as aircraft components, rather than a high number of low value items like loaves of bread. This is by design. There are occasions in Sage 200, where you must select the required traceable items from a list of all the traceable items in the system. If you have a high number of low value items in stock, this will be a lengthy list. It will not be cost effective for you in terms of the time it takes if you regularly select a small number of non-consecutive items from the list.

The Stock Control module is key

If you need to use traceability and Sage 200 traceability is right for your needs, you use the Stock Control module to set up traceability and to monitor traceable items in your system. However, depending on how your business works, you will need to use other modules alongside it.

If you are buying and selling items, use Purchase Order Processing and Sales Order Processing alongside Stock Control.
If you are manufacturing items, use either Works Orders or Bill of Materials alongside Stock Control.

Whether you use Works Orders or Bill of Materials depends on how much control you want over the production process. With Works Orders, you will be able to track the progress of the items you are making in detail, whereas in Bill of Materials you will only know that you want to make a number of items or that you have made them because you do not have access to manage the progress of the assembly process.

Occasionally a company will use Bill of Materials to make some products and Works Orders to make other products. This may be because the company makes a variety of products, some of which are more complex and therefore require a greater level of control.

Note: The Stock Control, Sales Order Processing, Works Orders and Bill of Materials modules, use similar processes of allocation. Whichever module you use to allocate, you also use to print (and amend) the picking lists for the allocation. The module you use depends on whether you are purchasing or manufacturing items. So, for example, if you are using Bill of Materials to allocate, you also print the picking list for the allocation in Bill of Materials.

Deciding how to trace items

You can trace items using serial numbers or batch numbers. Serial numbers use one traceable number per individual item. Batch numbers use one traceable number per group of items.

You can also specify whether items can only fulfil sales orders from a single batch. You might want to use this to trace items such as wallpaper rolls to make sure a customer has items from the same batch and with the same batch number.

Set up traceability

Set up Stock Control

Create and set up a product group with default settings for traceable items.

Some default settings can be changed for individual stock items in the product group. You cannot amend Batch attributes on the stock item, although you can when you receive and despatch the items.

Open: Stock Control > Stock Maintenance > Product Groups.

Click Add.
On the Details tab, select Items use batch or serial numbers.

On the Batch/Serial Numbers tab, enter default information relating to how you want to use traceability.

Choose how to trace items in the product group by default, whether by Batch numbers or Serial numbers.

If by Batch numbers, then select A sale may only be from a single batch if you want to all items in one sale to come from one batch.

There are processing implications for whichever way you choose to trace an item. For example:

	Specify Trade UOM?	Use for direct delivery	Use in automatic purchase order process generation
Serial	No	Yes	Yes
Batch	Yes	Yes	Yes
Single batch only	Yes	No	No

Select Allow duplicate numbers if you receive stock with the same serial numbers from several suppliers.
Select Alternative references, Sell by dates and Use by dates, if required.
Enter default values for batch attributes and whether they are Compulsory or In Use.

Attributes provide an extra level of uniqueness within a batch. For example, an inspector code identifies who carried out quality checks.

Specify when to record and select traceable numbers.
Open: Stock Control > Utilities > System Set Up > Stock Control Settings | Options.
- Choose default settings for when to assign traceable numbers.
  - When you receive goods.
    
    You can assign the numbers when you receive goods, or at a later time, depending on whether you select Numbers must be recorded when goods are received or not.
    
    If you don't assign numbers when you receive goods, they are marked as unassigned. You can allocate unassigned goods but not despatch or issue them. This means that you will need to assign numbers before you can fully process the items.
    
    You can change this setting on individual stock items.
  - When you issue goods.
    
    You can assign numbers when allocating stock, or later, when despatching stock.
    
    Assigning numbers during allocation is useful to ensure the oldest stock is picked first, for example. However, if the warehouse employee does not find the numbered items on the list, then the picking list must be amended to record the traceable item numbers that were selected.
Enter traceable details for each traceable stock item.
Open: Stock Control > Stock Records > Enter New Stock Item | Batch/Serial Nos.
1. Amend the default settings from the product group, if required.
  
  For example, you can choose whether the item uses a serial or batch number. You can only select A sale may only be from a single batch for a stock item, if this has been selected on the product group first.
2. For each traceable item, you can select Batch/Serial number automatic generation options which apply if you use your own numbers, and not those of the supplier.
3. If you selected Use by dates for an item, you can add a Shelf life in days, weeks, months or years.
4. Confirm the Processing options for the stock item.
  - When you record traceable numbers for items (either when items are received or later), defaults from the Stock Control Settings. Until numbers are assigned you cannot issue or despatch the items.
  - You can choose to display the batch and serial numbers for the item on stocktake sheets.

Set up Bill of Materials

If you want to identify individual traceable component items used to make traceable built items, set up Bill of Materials.

Open: Bill of Materials > Records > Amend Bill of Materials | Details.

Select the Stock Item.
Select Component association required.

Use traceability

There are three movements of stock that you want to trace:

Goods in

There are four main methods of receiving stock into Sage 200:

Purchase Order Processing Purchase order
There are two ways of receiving goods in Sage 200 using purchase orders:
- Confirm goods received.
  - If traceable numbers are recorded when goods are received, you enter the batch or serial number and additional information, if applicable, for each item.
  - If traceable numbers are recorded later.
    
    Items are marked as unassigned. These items cannot be issued or despatched but can be allocated from Stock Control or Sales Order Processing or recorded as being returned to the supplier.
    
    You must assign numbers later, manually, using the Traceable Stock Items option in Stock Control.
- Confirm direct delivery goods received.
  
  POP orders are not automatically marked as received if they use For delivery direct from supplier. This option lets you mark purchase orders that use a direct delivery address as received.
  
  You can use direct delivery with traceable numbers. However, you may not always know the batch or serial number. In this case, Sage 200 creates numbers in a temporary traceable format. You cannot use this option if you are buying to sell from a single batch only.
Sales Order Processing Sales return
- Confirm goods received.
  
  When traceable items are returned, you must record the batch or serial number of the returned item.
  
  You can choose from the batch/serial numbers that have been despatched to the relevant customer or add an unknown batch/serial number if it does not appear in the list.
Bill of Materials Built items
Goods in occurs when you confirm an allocation or build a BOM without allocating first.
- Confirm Build or Record Built Item.
  
  Note: When recording built items, although you can add multiple BOMs to build at once, to ensure end to end traceability searching, we recommend only adding one individual BOM.
Works Orders Completion
Completing works orders increases the stock levels of the finished items.

Note: You cannot complete multiple batch works orders at once if you are using traceable components and traceable built item numbers.

Completing single batch and one-off Works Orders works in the following way for traceability:
- Confirm the traceable item numbers to be given to the completed stock and specify the location into which each item is placed.
  
  Note: If Stock Control is set to generate traceable numbers automatically, you can change the location from that entered, if required.
- If there is a quantity of serial numbered components in the works order, this number is compared to the required works order quantity.
  - If it is not divisible, you cannot part complete the works order.
  - If it is divisible, and you are fully completing the works order, match the traceable components to the finished items.

You also have the following ways of recording goods in within the Stock Control module:

Internal Return.
Return from Supplier.
Project Return.
Add Stock.

Movement of stock between locations

If you use multiple locations to store stock, you can move stock between those locations, using the Transfer Stock option within Stock Control. You can move stock between warehouses and between bins in the warehouses.

If traceable items have been allocated, or are in use by other Sage 200 processes whilst you are carrying out a transfer, you cannot move those items from one place to another.

Goods out

Note: Before items are issued or despatched, they will usually be allocated and traceable numbers assigned. Traceable items cannot be issued or despatched if there is insufficient stock available, regardless of whether Allow negative stock has been selected for the item's product group.

There are four main methods of recording the despatch of stock in Sage 200:

Sales Order Processing Despatch

Batch and serial numbers are printed on picking lists if the numbers are assigned to the order when the stock is allocated. This occurs when Numbers selected when allocating stock is selected in the Stock Settings Options tab.

If batch/serial numbers have been allocated to the order and you want to despatch different batch/serial numbers, you can amend the order line allocation and, then confirm the despatch of the stock items.
Purchase Order Processing Return.
Works Orders Issue Stock
Goods out occurs when you use Works Orders to manage production.
- You can fully or partially issue stock for single works orders.
- If you have chosen to allocate batch and serial numbers at despatch in Stock Control, you can select traceable numbers for issue.
- You can reverse orders that have been fully issued, unless the traceable items issued contain fully completed traceable components.
- You can reverse orders that have been partially issued, unless issued traceable components are linked to finished item traceable numbers.
Bill of Materials Record Built Item, or Bill of Materials Confirm Build.

You also have the following ways of recording goods out:

Internal issue.
Return to Supplier.
Customer FOC issue.
Project Issue.
Write off stock.

Monitor traceability

You can monitor traceability in Sage 200 within Stock Control:

View Batch/Serial No Details.

This enables you to see where stock came from and where it went. However, but you cannot see what happened to it once it got there or if it was used to make something when it got there.

Note: You can also view archived batch and serial numbers, using the View archived batch/serial number details option in Stock Control.
Traceability Enquiry.

This enables you to see the full component association and the relationship of built and finished items. This means that you can guarantee quality standards. For any finished item, you can identify where the materials came from.