Stock locations (warehouses and bins)

A location is a record of where you store your stock items.

In Sage 200 you can have two levels of location for your stock:

Warehouse: A single whole location, such as a building.
Bin: An area within a particular warehouse, such as a bay, shelf or an aisle.

Note: The terms Warehouse and Bin can be customised, so they might have different names in your Sage 200 company. You can customise these by setting Configurable names in Stock Control Settings.

A Home warehouse is created for you by default. If you don't need to record separate locations for your stock items, just use this for all stock items.

Planning your warehouses and bins

Before you set up your warehouses and bins, consider how your warehouse staff collect stock to despatch.

Picking lists are used to assemble customer orders ready for despatch. The picking list shows the location (warehouse and bin) that a stock item is stored and can be used by your staff to collect stock for despatch. If you want to make sure that the picking lists produced by Sage 200 represent the way your staff collect stock for despatch, then you need to make sure that the warehouses and bins you create will reflect this.

You can also use multiple locations to control those items that you want to sell to your customers and those items you do not want to sell. Both can be stored in the same physical location. You can use two warehouses and you can set one to stop the sale of items. This is particularly useful if you are dealing with bonded goods or items used to assemble products.

There are some default locations provided:

The Home warehouse is used if you do not use multiple locations.
The Returns warehouse is only displayed when viewing stock item balances, provided items have been returned to the supplier.

Some example scenarios

Scenario	Solution
You have one physical warehouse building and stock stored in various aisles and shelves.	Create the aisles as warehouses and the shelves as bins. This will give you a separate picking list for each aisle.
Stock is stored in different areas of a single building and collected by different staff. For example, you have an ambient area and a cold store area.	Create each area as a separate warehouse. This will give a you a separate picking list for each one.
You have several buildings, all with the same postal address. Stock is stored in separate buildings but not in further aisles, shelves or bins within the building.	Create a single warehouse and a bin for each building.
Your stock is usually despatched from the nearest bin. You want to make sure that this is reflected on the picking list.	When you create your bins, set a higher priority on the bins you want to pick from first. Make sure Bin priority is set as the fulfilment methods for these stock items.

Bins

Every warehouse has a single bin created by default called Unspecified. If you don't want to use bins with your warehouses, all items are stored in the Unspecified bin.

If your stock items are stored in more than one place in a warehouse, then you add the required bins on the stock record. You can rename the Unspecified bin to something more meaningful for your company.

If your stock is stored in more than one bin in a warehouse, you can set which bin stock is allocated to your sales orders from first. This helps you manage the flow of stock out of your warehouse. For example, if you always want to sell stock stored in a specific bin first, then choose to allocate by bin priority. If you want make sure that stock is sold from the bin with largest quantity first, the choose this option.

You can choose to allocate in the following ways:

Bin with the smallest quantity of free stock first.
Bin with the largest quantity of free stock first.
By bin priority. Stock is allocated according to the bin priority (1-9), where 1 is the highest priority. By default, bins are set to the lowest priority 9.
For traceable items, you can choose to allocate by:
- Sell by date
- Use by date
- FIFO - stock with oldest received date is allocated first.

How warehouses and bins are used in Sage 200

Function	Description
Invoicing	You can filter the stock item list by specifying a default warehouse on an invoice. Only stock stored at the warehouse is shown. Any stock added to an invoice is only removed from the warehouse when the invoice is posted.
Sales orders and picking lists	When you add a stock item to a sales order, you can choose the warehouse the stock is allocated from (when it's stored in more than warehouse). If there is free stock at the warehouse it's allocated to the sales order automatically. If you choose to print picking lists, these show the warehouse and bin for each item on a sales order. The picking list shows each warehouse on a separate page. When stock is stored in more than one bin in the same warehouse, you can set the bin stock is allocated from first. Although you can't choose the bin on the sales order. Service and free text items are also included on a picking list.
Stocktake sheets	Stocktake sheets are produced per warehouse. You can count your items per bin or by counting individual items.
Purchase orders	When you add a stock item to a purchase order, you can choose the warehouse the stock is received into (when it's stored in more than warehouse). When receiving goods: The stock is automatically assigned to the warehouse on the purchase order. You can change this as long as the purchase order is not linked to a sales order. You can also choose the bin the stock is received into. This will default to the first bin listed on the stock record. If stock is being received into a new bin, you can also create this from here. You can filter the list of purchase orders by warehouse. This is useful when you're only recording the goods received for a particular warehouse. If you print you purchase orders, the warehouse address is printed for each stock item or free text item on the order.
Stocking levels	When you link a stock item to a warehouse, you can set stocking levels for the item in that warehouse. If you set a re-order level of more than 1 and a preferred supplier, you can use the Generate orders screen to automatically create a purchase order when the number in stock is less than the re-order level. This will suggest a quantity to purchase which will make up the stock level up to the reorder level set here. When a purchase order or stock adjustment will mean that your stock levels will go above or below the minimum or maximum set, you 'll see a warning message but you can still process it.

What do you want to do?

Use multiple locations

If you want to use more than one location, enable Use multiple locations.

Open: Stock Control > Utilities > Stock Control Settings

Move to the Options tab and enable Use multiple locations.

See Options (stock settings).

Use meaningful names for warehouse and bins

You can use configurable names for each location level. The default labels are Warehouse and Bin, but you can change these to suit your organisation, such as depot, bay or shelf.

To set configurable names:

Open: Stock Control > Utilities > Stock Control Settings

Move to the Configurable Names tab and enter your Location Labels.

See Configurable names (stock settings).

Set up your warehouses

Create warehouses for your stock items.

Open: Stock Control > Stock Maintenance > Locations

If required, you can enter address details for the warehouse. This address is printed on your purchase order as the delivery address.

The VAT Country Code is used for Intrastat declarations, if you are shipping from a warehouse in a different country to a third country.

See Create and amend warehouses (locations).

Link stock items to warehouses and set stocking levels

Open: Stock Control > Stock Records > Amend Stock Item Details | Locations

Open: Stock Control > Stock Records > Stock Locations

Note: If you are not using multiple locations, you do not need to link stock items to a warehouse. The stock item is stored in a Home warehouse and Unspecified bin by default.

When you enter a stock item, you must specify a warehouse for the item on the Location tab, otherwise the item is saved as Inactive.

You must have created your warehouses first. If you don't need to record the location of a stock item, or it is stored in a single location, you can use the default Home warehouse that has been created for you.

Every stock item must have a location, even if it is a Service / Labour item.
You can enter stocking levels for the number of items you want to have in stock at a particular warehouse.

Once the location has been added for the stock item, you can set the minimum, maximum, and re-order levels.

See Add a location to a stock item.

Add a warehouse to multiple stock items

If you need to add a location to a large group of stock items, you can do this by using an import file, rather than having to amend each individual stock item.

Use Add Locations to Stock Records to quickly add the same warehouse locations to a group of stock items. This is useful when you have created a new location and want to add that location to a large group of stock items.

See Add locations (warehouses) to stock items.
Use Import Stock Record Locations to add or update warehouse locations for stock items, and set stocking levels. This is useful when you want to add locations to stock items on a more individual basis.

See Import stock item locations (warehouses).

Set up bins for your stock items

Set up bins to manage where stock items are stored in your warehouse.

Open: Stock Control > Stock Records > Enter New Stock Item | Locations

Open: Stock Control > Stock Records > Amend Stock Item Details | Locations

Open: Stock Control > Stock Records > Stock Locations

You can change the name of a bin at any time as long as the name is unique.

You can only remove a bin if the stock level is 0 and there are no allocations or outstanding orders. Every warehouse must have at least one bin, so you can't remove the last one.

See Add bins for a stock item.

Choose how stock is allocated from your bins

Choose how stock is allocated from the bins in your warehouses, either by bin priority or the quantity in the bin.

Open: Stock Control > Stock Records > Stock Order Fulfilment

Use Change sequence to choose how stock is allocated from bins. By default this is set to bin Priority.

See Stock order fulfilment methods.
Set your bin priority numbers.

Open: Stock Control > Stock Records > Enter New Stock Item | Locations

Open: Stock Control > Stock Records > Amend Stock Item Details | Locations

Open: Stock Control > Stock Records > Stock Locations

Once the bin has been added to the stock item, you can set the bin Priority.

See Add bins for a stock item.