Stock locations (warehouses)

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 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.

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.

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 choose which bin stock is allocated from first. You can set this to allocate by:

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.

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. There is a sheet per warehouse. When stock is stored in more than one bin in the same warehouse, you can set a priority on a bin to specify which one is allocated from first. 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 your 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 or a bin, 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

When you first configured Sage 200, you had the opportunity to create your warehouses. We recommend that you review these before you start linking them to stock items.